“2012 has been such a huge year for you between Argo and Killing Them Softly. Tell me about it.”
“I guess I’ve been at this industry as a professional career for about 11 years now. Doing commercials and independent films, you’re constantly pining for these bigger jobs. But they felt so far out of my reach. At the beginning of 2011, I read for Andrew Dominik and got the part in Killing Them Softly. Even at that point, I was like: The studio will never let this pass. This is way too big of a job for me. Andrew said, ‘Well, the only person who has to give approval is Brad Pitt.’ I was like, Talk to him first before you offer the part to me–because I’ve been in this situation before. And he approved me. I was over the moon to have an opportunity to work with these people. I mean, Andrew Dominik! The Assassination of Jesse James [by the Coward Robert Ford] is one of my top five favorite films. After 10 years, I was so ready for this [opportunity] that it didn’t seem like, Oh, wow. It was just like: OK, you’ve got a big part in a big job coming up here. Stay focused–and get right into the work. So it’s been great. And Argo followed up with that film. I feel incredibly lucky and blessed to be a part of these projects, but I was so concerned with the preparation that once the films were finished, it was like, OK, what’s next? I’m never going to work again. Most actors feel [that way]. It’s been almost a year and a half and I still haven’t really sat down and celebrated. That is the celebration for me: Getting in there and doing the work. Preparation is what I love the most. Rehearsals and getting underneath a character and trying to figure out what his quirks are, what bothers him, what makes him happy. Does he even get happy? All these little things. That’s the most fun part of the job for me: Dissecting human behavior. Absolutely.”
“What would be your dream role?”
“I can’t say. I’m such a whore for storytelling and stories that I don’t really look at [scripts] as: ‘the role.’ I look at them more as: ‘the story.’ I think, I want to be a part of that story. The second thing I think is: Who would I want to be in that story? Oddly enough, I have a fascination with the outdoors and wilderness. And Ted Kaczynski. I’m very fascinated to dive into what was going through his head all those years he spent isolated in a cabin in Montana. But it’s not necessarily what character do I want to play but what story do I want to be a part of–and within that story, who would I want to play? A JFK story came to me and they had me reading as this doctor. And my first thought was: If I’m going to be a part of a JFK story, I want to play Oswald! What was going through his mind? What he was dealing with fascinates me so much more than what this doctor was going through.”
“What actors inspire you?”
“I always keep going back to Gary Oldman because his characters are so rich. And so different. He has a chameleon sensibility about himself that is inspiring to me because it’s total transformation.”
“As a child, what films influenced you?”
“As a kid growing up–we had a farm up in Paris, Texas, and we spent a lot of time up there. My dad and older brother loved watching westerns. There was this one film called Silverado that Kevin Costner was in. I don’t know what it was about Kevin Costner’s character–he was a wild, loose canon–and it made the filmmaking and the acting aspect of it fun to me. I am highly dyslexic. I had to go to dyslexia school for four years. And in school, they taught me: You either learn with your ears, you learn with your hands or you learn with your eyes. We’re going to figure out what it is that you learn with, and we’re going to focus on that. What I learned at a very young age–12 years old–is that I learn everything by watching, through my eyes, visually. So watching films was educational because it was mindless learning. I could take in so much just by watching. You couldn’t show me a book on how to take apart an engine. Just give me an engine and a screwdriver and a wrench — and let me take it apart to see exactly how it works. I never had an interest in knowing what was done. I only had an interest in how it was done, the actual mechanics of it. I was never as interested in the final product of, say, an automobile. But I wanted to know: How is that car running? How was it built? Why does it work? And I don’t need you to tell me; I want to see the mechanics. I’ve never owned a television in my life — just watched films. And I feel like that’s [the foundation for] so much of what I’ve learned. Probably the [words] that come out of my mouth are things that I’ve picked up in films.”
