Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Hes a true street rat, almost feral with a live-wire charisma.
Since the film started screening, viewers and critics alike have been asking: Who is this guy?
The praise is a long time coming for Faist, who shotWest Side Storyback in the summer of 2019.
I was working in Austin when everything shut down.
They were going to send us back to New York.
I have all this space, the sunshine.
Im not going to go back to New York and just hang out in my apartment during a pandemic.
So I had my dog, and we drove around the country a bunch.
I would purposefully stay away from people.
I would find people that had farmland.
They were nice enough to let me set up a tent.
I actually sold my apartment in New York this summer.
Got rid of it.
I think its important to really get quiet.
I lived in New York for 13 years.
And when youre here, its just like constant adrenaline.
But I think when youre here, you dont realize the toll that it takes until you leave it.
In that interview, you also said you werent sure if you hated acting or loved it.
I dont know, man.
And then I had to leave.
Jumping into the next project wasnt a negative experience.
But one was such a fulfilling thing, and the other one, I was going to work.
Do I really need attention that bad?
What are the things that I really want to do?
But it was more just asking myself all these questions about what my goal was.
And ultimately, I came to the conclusion recently that I love it.
I love it too much, maybe to a fault.
Im a little precious about the craft of it all.
Im learning not to take myself too seriously.
Enjoy it, let things come when they come.
You shotWest Side Storytwo and a half years ago.
Whats it like watching it after all this time?Its so weird.
All that time was passing, and there was this thing floating there in the ether.
And eventually, maybe the world was going to see it.
How so?In that initial screening, I wasnt able to relive the experience of making it.
You cant help but watch yourself, and you cant help but critique.
While I was making the film, I felt like I was giving it everything that I had.
Weve all talked about it as a cast.
We drove home back to the hotel, and we were all like, Its a good movie.
But man, Im bad.
And everyone else was like, No, you are great,Imbad.
So they invited us back for another screening.
But still, it was an entire theater with four people.
And thats the same thing for when youre performing onstage in front of an audience.
Were all co-creators in this thing thats happening right now.
I know theBruce Davidson portraits of 1950s Brooklyn gang members were a key bit of inspiration for you.
These are the Jets, visually, for me.
I think that pops off the page with Bruces photos.
You see these guys, and theyre emaciated, theyre nihilistic, they just dont care.
you’re able to tell that they cannot see whats beyond tomorrow.
And then as you do more research, you find out theyre all orphans.
None of these people have families; the only family that they have is each other.
And then on top of that, too, theyre heroin addicts.
They just feel so lost.
Tony Kushner also does a good job of making the Jets the embodiment of 1950s white resentment.
Im curious how you approach that element of the character.Can you elaborate on that a little bit more?
They act out in ways that are, to modern eyes, quite racist.
Everybodys getting kicked out.
Its like the only thing constant is change.
And thats why this storys going to be able to be told over and over again.
Humans inability to deal with change, thats what makes this story super fascinating to me.
Its an interesting thing.
There are racist acts that happen in this movie.
Are the Jets racist?
Because youd be putting a judgement on it?Yeah.
I cant do that as the actor.
My job is to be like, No,thisguys the victim.
Now, I accept that this guy does a lot of racist stuff.
But where its coming from is the xenophobia of it all.
Its the fear of the unknown.
And from Riffs point of view specifically, his homes getting taken away.
His best friend doesnt want to be his best friend anymore.
It comes down to this weird codependent relationship between Tony and Riff.
I keep joking that its like Thanksgiving.
But Riff doesnt have the emotional intelligence to understand that.
Some productions ofRomeo and Julietadd a romantic subtext to the relationship between Romeo and Mercutio.
Was that something you guys were playing around with as well?Romantic?
I mean, Riff is sleeping with Tonys ex.
Im not sure if it is romantic.
If an audience member wants to interpret it that way, go ahead.
But for me, I keep going back to the familial kind of love.
Tony and Riff raised each other because there was no one else.
They were their only line of defense.
It spread out among other guys, but it all started within these two.
Which is what we see in gangs, right?
You dont have a family, well, we got you.
We will do this for you, but you have to dothisforus.
You dont have power in that situation, but you feel accepted.
The new movie shuffles around the musical numbers in terms of who gets to sing what.
Those dancers are incredible, man.
I would love to be in that number.
I think all the Jet boys got a little FOMO from that one.
People have come up to me and been like, You ever get that you look like John Mulaney?
It would be fun to see John Mulaney as Riff inWest Side Story, though.
Hes got the limbs for it.For sure.
Hes definitely got the nothing-but-arms-and-legs thing going on, like myself.
You said youre trying to be a little more intentional about where you go from here.
Whatre the ideal next few years for you?Tony used the word stewardship.
And thats very accurate.
We had a deep respect for this story and the legends that have told it in the past.
I feel like I have a great responsibility here to do this right.
I felt that way too.
It wasnt ever explicitly said.
Im in charge of 15 other guys.
I guess what I had learned was that Im able to do that.
I demanded of them.
When it was time to have fun, it was time to have fun.
And they ran with that.
We did this thing together.
They elevated me, and I elevated them.
