The actor thinks audiences just want to be surprised.
Hed do (almost) anything to oblige.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
And my audience has let me do all kinds of different things.
You were offered thepart of Jerry BussinWinning Timejust a week before you shot the pilot.Thats right.
Buss seems like a difficult role to step into.
In some ways, I felt similar to Jerry.
So I was intuiting my dads energy.
I think its interesting you made that call.
Its a personal thing.
Also, I had nothing to do with the casting decisions of this show before I was involved.
Thats just the way I move through life, not the way I move through Hollywood.
I give a shot to do right by my friends.
I attempt to do right by Adam, and I attempt to do right by Will.
Jerry was someone like me who was able to become a beta male when necessary.
He could be like, All right, youre the boss.
Youre the one who knows more about this.
So you tell me, Jerry West, how do we put together a winning team?
But that doesnt mean this story shouldnt be told.
The truth is these were crazy times.
There was anger and betrayal, and the shit was hitting the fan.
And my answer to that is, How could you tell itwiththem?
But I wanted to tell you something personal: My dad knew who you were.
Thats someone that can make you laugh and make you cry.
Thats the mark of a great actor.
Theres less precedent for actors who have succeeded in drama before embracing comedy as fully as you have.
It wasnt like I was going to be disappointing so many people by being funny.
And if I pulled it off, Id be bringing them joy.
You cant say, No, Im a serious actor.
I wont take that opportunity.
When people ask me if I prefer comedy or drama, I say, I prefer being employed.
Youve said that beforeWinning Time,you felt like your career was dead in the water.
When Im done, Im done.
You either like it or you dont.
Every movie is praying for a miracle.
Youve been in movies across every possible genre.
Now theres a legion of John C. Reilly fans who have been conditioned to expect almost anything from you.
Are there parts you think they dont want to see you play?Is there a legion?
That said, I do have things that guide whether or not I do a movie.
A lot of times, its the worldview of the character.
But it depends where youre at in your life.
I dont know that in the real world there are any real villains.
Thats kind of a creative construct.
When you actually meet people who have done bad things, youll see something human there.
Everyone is born a baby, and I havent met an evil baby yet.
If it gets broken, he takes it to the luthier and they fix it.
But actors are their own instruments, and we have to perform maintenance on ourselves.
You have to come back after these jobs that take a lot out of you emotionally.
The physical wear and tear is another thing people dont realize.
Its like,Just slam your hand on the table one time.
I like to be self-reliant because you could get spoiled really quickly.
Once, I was running lines in my trailer.
I think it was one of the early scenes where I rip Jerry West a new one.
And I realized nobody had come to tell me when it was time to go to set.
I went to the ADs like, Hey, why didnt you guys let me know it was time?
They were afraid to knock on the door because they thought I was screaming at my assistant.
I was like, We were running lines!
Come on, you guys.
You know Im not like that.
You said there are elements of your real father in your performance as Jerry Buss.
She certainly cant give me the okay to talk about her private life.
But she did pass away very suddenly.
I had no warning at all.
My dad, I had a little more warning.
He was ill, so I had four months to get ready.
But my mom, it just happened.
Youre supposed to talk to someone when you go through a traumatic experience.
But I didnt really.
I muscled through it.
And I spent a number of years after that pretty depressed.
I couldnt have found a better partner to go back into that stuff with than Sally Field.
I could really open myself up to her.
Shes gone through these difficult conversations with her own children.
Even though you were pretending and it wasnt technically your mother, it felt like it.
So be nice to yourself tonight.
Take a bath and then give a shot to let it go.
And that was also me telling myself,You cant fall apart.
Jerry didnt fall apart yet.
Youre trying to learn how to open up Pandoras box at will.
I learned how to do that by doing musicals.
I dont know where this kid came from, but hes perfect.
As an actor whos been directed by lots of filmmakers, what do the good ones do for you?
Hes someone whos so excited to see what youre going to do next.
That sounds like an obvious thing, but having one persons complete attention while youre acting is important.
I saw that time you got a little more pissed off when you said that thing.
Lets keep going that way.
Yes, yes, yes.
Martin Scorsese is the same way: He hires great people, and he lets them surprise him.
When youre on set with Daniel, he is not there.
When we were makingGangs of New York,he and I hung out a little on the weekends.
Then he said, in the dialect of his character, Fuck off, Jack.
He called me by my characters name.
I was like,Whoa, okay, message received.
Youre not here right now.
I get it.So at the SAG Awards, I think he just wanted to say something nice.
Ive never won an award, but that night I felt like I won the Daniel Day-Lewis Award.
If thats the only one I ever win, thats enough.
What he said seems to imply theres an understatement to your acting style.
Do you think that makes it harder for the people who vote for awards to appreciate your work?
They tend to go for flashy performances.No, I dont worry about that.
I actually disagree with your premise.
In my experience, people like it when they can relate to you.
Thats what makes acting compelling.
I hope so, because that was a personal role and I really felt connected to it.
And actually, what I said to him was, Hey, youve got to write me mySunrise.
What I meant was a movie calledSunrisefrom the 1920s.
He thought I literally was like, Write me a sunrise.
He and I have actually never talked about that.
It gotmixed reviewsand did fine at the box office.
But since then, its reputation has grown, and these days its considered an all-time classic.
When did you realize it was a big deal?I could tell even at the premiere.
I was like, You did?
I was worried it would be too crude for them.
They said, Oh, we just want to grow you two up.
I realized our characters were sweet enough that people could have maternal feelings toward them.
And then 11- or 12-year-olds can also relate because our characters are pretty much kids.
Step Brothersanticipated some broader cultural trends.
A lot of millennials probably saw their futures in Dale and Brennan.Youre right.
Whereas my dad looked at that and was like,I dont want to dress like a teenager.
Im a grown-ass man.
Im going to wear mens clothes.
But lately people are yelling Dr. Buss left and right becauseWinning Timeis popular.
My whole career has been like that.
All of a sudden, people start mentioning a certain movie a lot.
And then it turns out this cable station has been showing that movie for the past month.
Which movies are you proudest of?Im proud of everything I did.
I have high quality control.
Boogie Nightsis another movie of yours thats had a long afterlife.
Its not really about porn; its about choosing your family.
If your blood family doesnt love you, you’re able to choose another family.
Winning Timeuses a similar trick to evoke its time period.
It uses different film stocks and old broadcast cameras.Yeah, we shot every scene with a 35-mm.
camera and this Ikegami broadcast camera from the 80s, which makes it all seem of that period.
And then the DPs would run around grabbing close-ups with Super 8 cameras.
I was unsure about it while we were doing the pilot.
I thought,I dont know, man.
There arent many TV shows shot on film anymore.
Do you prefer it to digital?Yeah.
So no matter what happens in a take, when that film runs out, you have to stop.
The moment between Action and Cut is sacred.
Everyone has to shut the fuck up for a second and give focus to what the actors are doing.
Otherwise, what have we been preparing eight months for?
So it needs to be this heightened moment where we have a go at tap into something bigger.
If it just seems like 30 minutes while were riffing, it loses some of its power.
That took getting used to because the way I work is I get involved with the director.
Im a loyal soldier kind of actor.
I have one authority on the set.
So I went up to each director and said, Listen, youre in charge.
Ill do whatever you say.
If you have a vision for the way this should go, Ill stand with you.
And Id say, Yeah, but if you want to be, Ill advocate for you.
That was a bummer.
Men can get pretty crude, and it ends up feeling like the Army.
WithWinning Time,the story of the Lakers and of basketball in general is one of racial politics.
The NBA at different points would have liked to have ignored that, and you cant.
Its more interesting than the same old white-guy stories.
The show was recently renewed for a second season, and in theory it could run for a while.
I was in London and a friend of mine was like, Hey, man.
Im at a recording studio two blocks from you with A$AP Rocky.
You want to meet him?
I texted one of my sons, Who is A$AP Rocky?
And he was like, Oh my God, hes a hero of mine.
So I met him, and he was just so lovely.
First of all, hes so handsome.
While I was preparing to talk to you, I watchedBoogie NightsandStan & Ollieon the same day.
But then I sawEscape at Dannemoraand realized I was wrong.
And then when corona kept everyone out of movie theaters, that was a nail in the coffin.
It was a shock to the system when theArcLightwent under.
Its not the film business.
Its not the TV business.
Its computer vision or something.
Do you have anxiety about the shift?I dont feel anxious about it.
One of my favorite sayings is, Worry is negative prayer.
In other words, it is like praying for the thing you dont want to happen.
Novels didnt destroy the short story, and streaming TV shows will not kill the movie.
Theres something great about seeing a story play out in 90 or 120 minutes.
Thats about as long as we want to sit still.
Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
