Monday, February 5, 2007
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Saturday, January 6, 2007
schwab's now
The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on Sunset near Fairfax is a sad Schwab's, where actress types come to meet with potential managers, the kind who live in uninspired apartments and who shuffle headshots around like limp arrangements. An infamous celebrity scandal-monger sits in the corner by the bathroom, sponging up several hundred thousand unique visitors to his site everyday, making more than enough money from his google ads to live in his sweatpants and slippery sweet flipflops. I told him we were in the new Schwab's and that he was inthe updated version of LA Confidential, his muckracking website standing in for those sensational tabloid newspapers and newspaper men who crouched in aloe plants outside of stuffy bungalows hoping for a glimpse of some B List actor smoking reefer with a C List actress. He had never heard of Schwab's and so my ideas died in the hot white sun that careens off of the golden Director's Guild building next to the uninspired signage for a greezy spoon called The Griddle where a friend once had chocolate chip pancakes, then had to shit so much that a long nap was all he could think to do next. At The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, there are bored and pimpled Eastern European teenage escorts in their designer jeans and hopeless European sneakers that give away their homesickness. The internet yellow journalist will have his own reality tv show after he pulls it loose from the dogfight between competing empty networks but he's never heard of Schwab's and doesn't know that it used to be where the Virgin Megastore now is, where sometime later a Baskin Robbins was, where my brother and mother and I went with new GI Joe figures before my father was photographed and interviewed to be on the cover of people magazine, the cover blurb of which suggested that he was unnaturally attached to his mother, just like the fictional momma's boy he played for the rest of his life in and out of the movies. And now I can walk into a dispensary for medical marijuana, just south a click or two on Fairfax to Santa Monica opposite the Whole Foods where the exits are clogged with petitioners running in a dream in which a signature makes the vice president sorry for something, anything. And I don't have to fear the yellow journalists snapping MY picture when I cross Santa Monica to the new old bookstore where the big and tall men's shop used to be in search of either a book for my son or else an important and esoteric volume for my brother who turned 30 two weeks ago with no parents to note it, no nice books to give or get. At the counter at the dispensary I heard a dude telling the good folks who worked there about how he ate an eigth of mushrooms and how the Disney cartoons they got on at 4am are trippyier than possibly some others, with trombones turning into snakes. And I wish I was still green, and had just come to LA like my half-brother in law.
Friday, December 29, 2006
holy smokes it's
AN INTERVIEW WITH ACTOR
OZ PERKINS
BD: Hello Oz and thank you very much for taking time to speak to Bloody-Disgusting.com. I would ask you to tell us The Oz Perkins Story but I think a lot of people already know it. Son of actor Anthony Perkins and actor/photographer Berry Berenson, nephew of actor/model Marisa Berenson, great-grandson of famed art historian Bernard Berenson and fashion designer Elsa “Gogo” Schiaparelli. Did I leave anything out? And when you think about your family, does such an amazing lineage ever stop you in your tracks?
I think there is a certain “push-pull” thing going on there in that on the one hand I do feel some weightiness when it comes to getting it together as an artistic and creative person, mostly due to a self-imposed high expectations, and on the other hand there is an equally strong feeling of confidence, a knowing that it’s in my blood, and this confidence ultimately goes a long way. The thought “I must be a successful artist” is sometimes quickly replaced with “well, at least I was potentially born with it”. I think that when anyone, whether coming from a family of creative heavy-hitters or not, is able to replace the limits imposed by negative self-talk with a more productive sense of the power of creativity that ultimately springs from a source far beyond our conceptual understanding, then good things are likely to happen. I wonder if anyone ever sat down and said “I’m going to write something great, or else I’m shit” and then actually did.
BD: You have a younger brother, Elvis, who is a musician. What sort of relationship do the two of you have and what style of music does Elvis play?
I certainly like to think that my brother and I are close but for an older brother to say that about his younger brother is one thing; it’s not that I think he would disagree, rather that being the oldest allows me a certain blissful ignorance. I think I was the kind of older brother who, when we were growing up, made sure he always knew where I was and what I thought and that possibly I didn’t grant him the same power. We’ve been through a lot together, the death of both of our parents for starters, and that ultimately greases the wheels of healthy communication if you seize the opportunity like I think we have. Elvis is a very very gifted singer songwriter who is now beginning to enjoy some extremely positive and well-deserved feedback for an album he cut last year. You can check him out (and with his new band Elvis Perkins in Dearland) at his myspace page. I’m a huge fan of his music and the poetry that winds its way through his lyrics is, without coming close to exaggeration, as good as anything I’ve heard. I was lucky to get to play drums for him on his album on a few tracks and music is something that I have always felt we can connect over. He’s a beautiful guy and whatever complicated dynamics we might have had in the past are, by now, understood as being part of the bigger, and better, picture. He’s a great artist. I predict big things for him.
BD: Did you know from an early age that you wanted to be an actor? You did play the young Norman Bates in “Psycho II”. What was that like, working with your father and playing such an iconic character, albeit at a young age?
I still don’t know if I want to be an actor. It’s a tough racket, at best, and those of us who are on the fence about it have an even harder time feeling like we’ve accomplished anything. Acting was always something I could do relatively easily, I guess, which in and of itself was not always the best thing. I think I got into it as a “profession” (never having earned enough bread at it to live off of, I have a hard time calling it that) because it was as good a way as any to get into the business. And for a while it worked pretty well. Life changes, though, and in my case it’s changed pretty drastically a couple of times, and when it does, certain pre-conceived ideas you have about what the hell you’re doing here are bound to get shaken off. “Psycho 2” was a silly thing and I remember mostly being shit scared of the soundstage and of the stairs that lead up to Mother’s room where we shot my little moment. I think the fact that I somehow knew that there was nothing behind those doors up there, that they just fell off into the darkness where there should have been actual rooms that the set-builders hadn’t yet built probably didn’t help me feel any less scared. Obviously, I had no idea at that age that anything was “iconic” (other than possibly the Bat Signal) and being with my dad on a movie set was nothing new to me. I spent the first years of my life, waddling around like toddlers do, in the wings of Broadway theaters watching my dad work from behind the scenes. When one is raised like that, all bets are off when it comes to one’s interpretation of real life versus make believe.
BD: You graduated for LA’s prestigious Harvard-Westlake School and went on to earn a degree at NYU in English. Did you ever actually study acting and if so, with whom did you study?
You know, I did a few acting classes here in LA, did a few scenes from Glengarry Glen Ross or whatever and in high school I acted in all of the productions. They seemed to go well and people seemed pleased. In truth, I know nearly nothing about the craft and I’m often vaguely horrified at how much that shows.
BD: After playing the young Norman Bates and completing your education, you went on to appear in a number of either critically praised or popular films such as “Six Degrees of Separation” with Donald Sutherland, Stockard Channing and Will Smith. You also had a small role in “Wolf” with Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer and you were Dorky David Kidney in “Legally Blonde” with Reese Witherspoon. You also appeared in “Secretary” with James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal and now you have a completely different audience with Matt Leutwyler’s “Dead & Breakfast”. What attracted you to the part of Johnny in “D&B”?
I always love this essentially fictitious idea that people have that actors are attracted to parts, or that we choose this part over that part or that we somehow have something like control over how our careers pan out. Unless you’re someone like Brad Pitt or Will Ferrell, you aren’t choosing anything. There are far fewer opportunities out there than people might like to think and, for the most part (and of course I’m generalizing a tad), actors take whatever they can get. In exchange for being the absolute second-to-none easiest job on the planet, acting in movies and television is an essentially powerless position. Most actors live lives of quiet desperation and when someone finally does offer us a job, it’s like the rain finally came and all of the withered crops of self-regard get drenched and slightly less withered. When an actor gets offered a job it’s like someone is suddenly administering CPR on them and the funny thing is that they’ve been holding their breath for so long, and grown so used to it, that they totally forgot that they were in such dire need of that air. Actors that you see around who are pricks and assholes are that way because they can’t breathe from all the fear. And it doesn’t get any better the more successful you become. That said, when they called to offer me the part in “Dead and Breakfast”, I probably cried, then I probably made my agent double check that they meant this Oz Perkins, and then quickly regained my sense of entitlement and reluctantly took the job. Because no one wants to know how bad people in this business want the things they get. So, the next time someone wonders out loud to you what Jennifer Aniston is doing making all of these unspeakably shit movies, waste no time in telling them that she has no choice. These are the very few movies that have been set up around town that have trickled their way to her inbox and as much as she hopes and wishes and dreams that they would offer her “Walk the Line” or something, it ain’t gonna happen. Her movies, and her current career cycle, are failures because everyone in town consciously knows (and everyone everywhere else in America UNconsciously knows) that she is desperate to have these shitty jobs, and breathlessly afraid that there will never be a “next time”. And nobody wants to pay 12 dollars to see a desperate, shit-scared actress do anything when her face is projected thirty feet high.
BD: How did approach playing Johnny? Was there much direction from Leutwyler or were you and the rest of the cast given pretty free rein? I remember some comments on the commentary about things you did that were ad-libbed, such as how you pulled the wheeled luggage out of the living room. And some of the things Zombie Johnny did and said (you did have that memorable line to Erik Palladino’s character about his relationship to the bride whose wedding everyone was attending). And keeping tabs on all of the road kill Johnny saw – was that your idea or Matt Leutwyler’s?
Especially on low-budget shoe-string movies, there is relatively little time scheduled for rehearsals or discussion of character. There just isn’t any time and definitely no money for that kind of thing. Ultimately, when a director casts an actor it’s because he or she knows what the actor does and trusts that he’s going to do his job like he’s done it in the past. I’ve found that the person to ask about character is always the costume designer. She (it’s always a she) knows what the director is thinking about a character because such a conversation has been worked into the already too tight schedule. The costume designer needs to know what the director thinks of the character so that she can weave it into their wardrobe so she doesn’t get fired. So, almost by default, the costume gal is the expert on the characters. In the case of “D and B”, the utterly lovely Molly Grundman (that’s not spelled even close to correctly) let me in on an essential fact about how Matt saw Johnny. He’s the awkward geek who gets picked on for his whole life, and when he becomes a zombie it’s like all of a sudden he’s head of the cool-guy gang. I thought that was a truly great take, conceptualized by Matt the director, leaked by Molly the wardrobe artist, and personified by yours truly. Once I knew that, I knew what to do in any situation. Anything like the bit with the luggage on wheels comes from the actor’s awareness of who the character is. The luggage bit came to me only because the prop master put out a pile of assorted pieces of luggage and told the cast to pick the bag they wanted to use for the scene. Looking at the pile through Johnnie’s eyes, I could immediately discount anything that looked cool or grown-up or trendy. The suitcase on wheels, sad and overly practical and just plain nerdy and awful, was the obvious choice. It’s really just a case where a prop is so well suited to the character that you’d have to be asleep on the set not to know how to use it.
BD: What did you think of the “Psycho” reference as you stood looking at the creepy bed and breakfast? Executive Producer Miranda Bailey told me she was afraid that might offend you, although it was a great sight gag.
It is a good sight gag and so of course we have to shoot it and use it. I have no ownership over Psycho. I didn’t do anything to make it what it is. And anyway it’s not so precious that it can’t be tickled a little. It never occurred to me to be offended or to try to sabotage the gag. Ultimately, you’re being paid to help make the best movie. That gag works and is a comic moment that needed to be in there to service the movie as a whole.
BD: I have heard about all the disasters that happened during the shoot – how did you and the rest of the cast keep yourselves entertained while generators were being repaired and new crew members were being rounded up?
Disasters like those rarely impact the principal actors. The local Starbucks burning down impacts the principal actors because it’s something we positively need. The shoot was really a great great time and I will always think of it fondly. The cast and crew were all put up at a Courtyard by Marriott near the highway; the kind of place reserved for luckless business travelers where the USA Today is the most colorful thing in the lobby. Add a group of something like fifty twenty/thirty-something pothead alcoholics who are making a zombie blood bath flick, shooting mostly all night long, and you can imagine the hilarity that ensues. Not to mention that many of us were already great friends before the whole thing even started, just to make matters worse for everyone else. It was the kind of thing where we would come back from shooting all night, spattered with fake blood, get loaded and go have “breakfast” (but it was eggs and oatmeal for dinner for us fools) with all of the stiffs. The hotel staff loved us, of course; the pleasant local fat guy working the front desk for the graveyard shift always called me Mr. Stargell because I, thinking I was so goddamn funny, and at least as important as Jennifer Anniston, had insisted on registering my room under the name of the then recently deceased Pittsburg Pirates’ slugger Willie Stargell. You get the picture. It was mostly unregulated madness and we were all happy to have it that way. I spent most of my time with co-stars Luigi Dibiasi (the deaf gardener, whose deadpan conversation with the associate producers about how he had no intention of paying for all of the porn he had charged to his room still ranks in the five funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life) and Mark Kelly (the sheriff’s deputy, whose impassioned pantomime interpretive dance routine set to Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick” still ranks in the five funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life). It was a great time. Jeffrey Dean Morgan (who plays the Sheriff) is one of the dearest guys on the earth.
BD: This might be an obvious question but was that you climbing that VERY high ladder to get into the B&B and then falling into the room, causing the Kuman Thong to break open?
I do all my own stunts. Especially when they aren’t paying me anything.
BD: At the end, when Zach Selwyn (a truly hilarious person) was singing “Quiet Little Town” and you were lip-synching along at one point, whose idea was it for you to “get friendly” with Erik Palladino’s severed head (or was it Jeremy Sisto’s head)? That was unexpected and very funny.
That’s just the kind of thing where, at the end of the day, you become suddenly aware of the fact that nothing is too much for this movie and so your brain just kind of reacts without thinking. And it was Jeremy Sisto’s severed head. I would never kiss Erik Paladino’s severed head. I mean, come on. That’s just gross.
BD: Overall, was doing a movie as over-the-top as “D&B” a fun experience for you? Would you do another horror movie? And congratulations on “D&B” receiving a Saturn nomination for Best DVD Release!
‘Yes’. ‘Yes’. And, ‘why thank you’.
BD: What sort of response have you received from fans of “D&B”? Is the popularity of the film a surprise to you or did everyone on the film feel they might have a cult classic on their hands?
It always catches me off guard when someone thinks some movie I’ve been in is great, whether it’s a sprawler like “Legally Blonde” or a little engine that could like “Dead and Breakfast”. For me, it’s impossible to see the finished product with anything approaching objectivity. People liking what I do is always a surprise to me, but that’s my problem. I think with “Dead and Breakfast”, we knew exactly what kind of animal we had shot out there and was tying to our hood to drive back to LA with, and so the relatively impassioned response to it came as no surprise. When you make a genre film that truly embraces the conventions and really runs with them, there will always be a committed audience waiting to love it.
BD: I noticed on your resume that you’ve done some television too – a recurring role on “Alias” as well as one appearance each on “She Spies” and “Close to Home”. How does television differ from film from an actor’s viewpoint? And have you ever done any theater?
My resume says I did a bunch of theater at NYU and that’s all bullshit. Television is different only because there is, unfortunately, still a sense that everything is somehow less important, less needing to be tended to with perfect devotion. TV is definitely where the future of the industry lies (no duh) but, for me at least, it still has a quality of being disposable, or at least recyclable. It’s strange, given that there is much more money to be made in TV, they shoot plenty of it on film, and people worship it the same, but for me TV is still the disposable razor next to the straight razor of movies. And I’m more and more alone on that one, by the way. And if I was ever offered a part on a TV show as a regular I would cry and have my agent double check that they meant this Oz Perkins and then grudgingly accept the role. In all seriousness, being a regular on a TV show is secretly the holy grail of being a young actor. Too much money, regular work, everyone on the set adores you because that’s where you live. I can hardly think of a better job imagined by humans than the job of regular on a TV show.
BD: Your current film, “Erosion”, is so completely different from the comedic roles you have done. Would you tell us a little about the film and your role as Steve?
“Erosion” was made a month or two after “D and B” wrapped and only feels current because it’s had a hard time finding someone to distribute it and so it maintains its Cinderella vibe. That film was totally different in that everything was approached with a real seriousness which I also really liked and appreciated.
BD: Do you prefer playing comedic roles, which you are very good at doing, or more dramatic characters?
Ultimately, there is more pressure in playing comedic roles, and somewhat less room for error, I think. In comedy, it had better be funny because there is no way you can escape into “well, at least it was interesting”. I’ve been lucky in that the takes I’ve tried have been generally met with laughs. Everything I did in “Legally Blonde” I stole from my wife who I think is dryly hilarious. Lucky for me, the producers and director’s took to it and ended up using me in much more of the movie than the script called for.
BD: What projects do you have coming up?
I’m supposed to do a movie this summer called “The Utah Murder Project” with Amy Smart in which I play a dirty LAPD detective who gets into some pretty tricky business with his soap-star girlfriend who goes missing and is presumed murdered. Other than that, I am focusing all of my efforts on developing a coming of age slasher film that I hope to be shooting sometime next year (and when I say “developing”, I mean bleeding out of my eyeballs writing the thing in complete solitude, alternately celebrating my own hilarious ingenuity and being crushed under the wheel of doubt and anxiety. It’s loads of fun).
BD: What are some of your favorite horror movies?
I’m a huge fan of the genre and don’t especially care for the current vogue of remaking every rough around the edges classic as Michael Bay oversaturated nonsense. I think that the horror genre is always going to be an especially potent one because it best reflects the human collective unconscious even as times change. Especially now, when people are as afraid of the world ending and of random, meaningless violence as they ever have been, the horror genre will continue to be an essential way for people to process their unspoken and sometimes unmanageable fears. The fact that we all know how essentially powerless and unprotectable we are as a country and as individuals is potentially scarier than anything and it’s not something that most of us want to think about. So we go to the movies and “borrow” the sensation of being afraid just to get it out of our system so that we can go back to living our lives as if nothing bad is going to happen. I tell you what I hated. I hated “Red Eye”. When she goes into the bathroom, utterly panicked, and erratically scrawls “seat 14B has a bomb”, or whatever it was, in soap on the mirror… and then the great Cilian Murphy comes in and sees what’s she’s written… only it doesn’t look erratically scrawled at all, but neat and straight as if just applied by a set-dresser… I gave up on the movie right then and there. The “Saw” movies are fine, I guess. At least they’re fresh-ish and directly addresses the current collective fear of being held against your will, that is to say held hostage, as in a terrorist situation. I think I disliked “Red Eye” so much because, having lost someone close to me on September 11th, I had to make myself willing to see how they addressed our fear of the cabin of a commercial airliner. I was interested, despite any emotional reluctance, to see how they made that specific space scary for an hour and a half. But when halfway through the movie they’re landing and then it becomes all about missile launchers and hotel rooms and Colby from ‘Survivor’ playing the secret service agent, I just had to say “fuck off” to the movie. My favorites are probably “Rosemary’s Baby”, “Repulsion”, “Psycho” (even if it wasn’t part of my ancestry, it’s hard to not be bowled over by that one). I really liked “The Ring” too. And there is some shit in the Japanese original of “The Grudge” that is pretty messed up.
BD: Do you read any horror fiction and if so, which authors do you enjoy?
“American Psycho” (the book by Brett Easton Ellis, not the movie) is a great thing, I think.
BD: Is there anything you would like to add that I haven’t asked?
Oh, no. Please, no.
BD: What is one thing no one knows about Oz Perkins but you think they should know?
That he’s real real grateful for everything nice that is ever said or thought about him. If I’ve entertained anyone at anytime, I’m real satisfied by that. And what a truly civilized way to conduct an interview.
Thanks.
Interview by Elaine Lamkin
February 2006
OZ PERKINS
BD: Hello Oz and thank you very much for taking time to speak to Bloody-Disgusting.com. I would ask you to tell us The Oz Perkins Story but I think a lot of people already know it. Son of actor Anthony Perkins and actor/photographer Berry Berenson, nephew of actor/model Marisa Berenson, great-grandson of famed art historian Bernard Berenson and fashion designer Elsa “Gogo” Schiaparelli. Did I leave anything out? And when you think about your family, does such an amazing lineage ever stop you in your tracks?
I think there is a certain “push-pull” thing going on there in that on the one hand I do feel some weightiness when it comes to getting it together as an artistic and creative person, mostly due to a self-imposed high expectations, and on the other hand there is an equally strong feeling of confidence, a knowing that it’s in my blood, and this confidence ultimately goes a long way. The thought “I must be a successful artist” is sometimes quickly replaced with “well, at least I was potentially born with it”. I think that when anyone, whether coming from a family of creative heavy-hitters or not, is able to replace the limits imposed by negative self-talk with a more productive sense of the power of creativity that ultimately springs from a source far beyond our conceptual understanding, then good things are likely to happen. I wonder if anyone ever sat down and said “I’m going to write something great, or else I’m shit” and then actually did.
BD: You have a younger brother, Elvis, who is a musician. What sort of relationship do the two of you have and what style of music does Elvis play?
I certainly like to think that my brother and I are close but for an older brother to say that about his younger brother is one thing; it’s not that I think he would disagree, rather that being the oldest allows me a certain blissful ignorance. I think I was the kind of older brother who, when we were growing up, made sure he always knew where I was and what I thought and that possibly I didn’t grant him the same power. We’ve been through a lot together, the death of both of our parents for starters, and that ultimately greases the wheels of healthy communication if you seize the opportunity like I think we have. Elvis is a very very gifted singer songwriter who is now beginning to enjoy some extremely positive and well-deserved feedback for an album he cut last year. You can check him out (and with his new band Elvis Perkins in Dearland) at his myspace page. I’m a huge fan of his music and the poetry that winds its way through his lyrics is, without coming close to exaggeration, as good as anything I’ve heard. I was lucky to get to play drums for him on his album on a few tracks and music is something that I have always felt we can connect over. He’s a beautiful guy and whatever complicated dynamics we might have had in the past are, by now, understood as being part of the bigger, and better, picture. He’s a great artist. I predict big things for him.
BD: Did you know from an early age that you wanted to be an actor? You did play the young Norman Bates in “Psycho II”. What was that like, working with your father and playing such an iconic character, albeit at a young age?
I still don’t know if I want to be an actor. It’s a tough racket, at best, and those of us who are on the fence about it have an even harder time feeling like we’ve accomplished anything. Acting was always something I could do relatively easily, I guess, which in and of itself was not always the best thing. I think I got into it as a “profession” (never having earned enough bread at it to live off of, I have a hard time calling it that) because it was as good a way as any to get into the business. And for a while it worked pretty well. Life changes, though, and in my case it’s changed pretty drastically a couple of times, and when it does, certain pre-conceived ideas you have about what the hell you’re doing here are bound to get shaken off. “Psycho 2” was a silly thing and I remember mostly being shit scared of the soundstage and of the stairs that lead up to Mother’s room where we shot my little moment. I think the fact that I somehow knew that there was nothing behind those doors up there, that they just fell off into the darkness where there should have been actual rooms that the set-builders hadn’t yet built probably didn’t help me feel any less scared. Obviously, I had no idea at that age that anything was “iconic” (other than possibly the Bat Signal) and being with my dad on a movie set was nothing new to me. I spent the first years of my life, waddling around like toddlers do, in the wings of Broadway theaters watching my dad work from behind the scenes. When one is raised like that, all bets are off when it comes to one’s interpretation of real life versus make believe.
BD: You graduated for LA’s prestigious Harvard-Westlake School and went on to earn a degree at NYU in English. Did you ever actually study acting and if so, with whom did you study?
You know, I did a few acting classes here in LA, did a few scenes from Glengarry Glen Ross or whatever and in high school I acted in all of the productions. They seemed to go well and people seemed pleased. In truth, I know nearly nothing about the craft and I’m often vaguely horrified at how much that shows.
BD: After playing the young Norman Bates and completing your education, you went on to appear in a number of either critically praised or popular films such as “Six Degrees of Separation” with Donald Sutherland, Stockard Channing and Will Smith. You also had a small role in “Wolf” with Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer and you were Dorky David Kidney in “Legally Blonde” with Reese Witherspoon. You also appeared in “Secretary” with James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal and now you have a completely different audience with Matt Leutwyler’s “Dead & Breakfast”. What attracted you to the part of Johnny in “D&B”?
I always love this essentially fictitious idea that people have that actors are attracted to parts, or that we choose this part over that part or that we somehow have something like control over how our careers pan out. Unless you’re someone like Brad Pitt or Will Ferrell, you aren’t choosing anything. There are far fewer opportunities out there than people might like to think and, for the most part (and of course I’m generalizing a tad), actors take whatever they can get. In exchange for being the absolute second-to-none easiest job on the planet, acting in movies and television is an essentially powerless position. Most actors live lives of quiet desperation and when someone finally does offer us a job, it’s like the rain finally came and all of the withered crops of self-regard get drenched and slightly less withered. When an actor gets offered a job it’s like someone is suddenly administering CPR on them and the funny thing is that they’ve been holding their breath for so long, and grown so used to it, that they totally forgot that they were in such dire need of that air. Actors that you see around who are pricks and assholes are that way because they can’t breathe from all the fear. And it doesn’t get any better the more successful you become. That said, when they called to offer me the part in “Dead and Breakfast”, I probably cried, then I probably made my agent double check that they meant this Oz Perkins, and then quickly regained my sense of entitlement and reluctantly took the job. Because no one wants to know how bad people in this business want the things they get. So, the next time someone wonders out loud to you what Jennifer Aniston is doing making all of these unspeakably shit movies, waste no time in telling them that she has no choice. These are the very few movies that have been set up around town that have trickled their way to her inbox and as much as she hopes and wishes and dreams that they would offer her “Walk the Line” or something, it ain’t gonna happen. Her movies, and her current career cycle, are failures because everyone in town consciously knows (and everyone everywhere else in America UNconsciously knows) that she is desperate to have these shitty jobs, and breathlessly afraid that there will never be a “next time”. And nobody wants to pay 12 dollars to see a desperate, shit-scared actress do anything when her face is projected thirty feet high.
BD: How did approach playing Johnny? Was there much direction from Leutwyler or were you and the rest of the cast given pretty free rein? I remember some comments on the commentary about things you did that were ad-libbed, such as how you pulled the wheeled luggage out of the living room. And some of the things Zombie Johnny did and said (you did have that memorable line to Erik Palladino’s character about his relationship to the bride whose wedding everyone was attending). And keeping tabs on all of the road kill Johnny saw – was that your idea or Matt Leutwyler’s?
Especially on low-budget shoe-string movies, there is relatively little time scheduled for rehearsals or discussion of character. There just isn’t any time and definitely no money for that kind of thing. Ultimately, when a director casts an actor it’s because he or she knows what the actor does and trusts that he’s going to do his job like he’s done it in the past. I’ve found that the person to ask about character is always the costume designer. She (it’s always a she) knows what the director is thinking about a character because such a conversation has been worked into the already too tight schedule. The costume designer needs to know what the director thinks of the character so that she can weave it into their wardrobe so she doesn’t get fired. So, almost by default, the costume gal is the expert on the characters. In the case of “D and B”, the utterly lovely Molly Grundman (that’s not spelled even close to correctly) let me in on an essential fact about how Matt saw Johnny. He’s the awkward geek who gets picked on for his whole life, and when he becomes a zombie it’s like all of a sudden he’s head of the cool-guy gang. I thought that was a truly great take, conceptualized by Matt the director, leaked by Molly the wardrobe artist, and personified by yours truly. Once I knew that, I knew what to do in any situation. Anything like the bit with the luggage on wheels comes from the actor’s awareness of who the character is. The luggage bit came to me only because the prop master put out a pile of assorted pieces of luggage and told the cast to pick the bag they wanted to use for the scene. Looking at the pile through Johnnie’s eyes, I could immediately discount anything that looked cool or grown-up or trendy. The suitcase on wheels, sad and overly practical and just plain nerdy and awful, was the obvious choice. It’s really just a case where a prop is so well suited to the character that you’d have to be asleep on the set not to know how to use it.
BD: What did you think of the “Psycho” reference as you stood looking at the creepy bed and breakfast? Executive Producer Miranda Bailey told me she was afraid that might offend you, although it was a great sight gag.
It is a good sight gag and so of course we have to shoot it and use it. I have no ownership over Psycho. I didn’t do anything to make it what it is. And anyway it’s not so precious that it can’t be tickled a little. It never occurred to me to be offended or to try to sabotage the gag. Ultimately, you’re being paid to help make the best movie. That gag works and is a comic moment that needed to be in there to service the movie as a whole.
BD: I have heard about all the disasters that happened during the shoot – how did you and the rest of the cast keep yourselves entertained while generators were being repaired and new crew members were being rounded up?
Disasters like those rarely impact the principal actors. The local Starbucks burning down impacts the principal actors because it’s something we positively need. The shoot was really a great great time and I will always think of it fondly. The cast and crew were all put up at a Courtyard by Marriott near the highway; the kind of place reserved for luckless business travelers where the USA Today is the most colorful thing in the lobby. Add a group of something like fifty twenty/thirty-something pothead alcoholics who are making a zombie blood bath flick, shooting mostly all night long, and you can imagine the hilarity that ensues. Not to mention that many of us were already great friends before the whole thing even started, just to make matters worse for everyone else. It was the kind of thing where we would come back from shooting all night, spattered with fake blood, get loaded and go have “breakfast” (but it was eggs and oatmeal for dinner for us fools) with all of the stiffs. The hotel staff loved us, of course; the pleasant local fat guy working the front desk for the graveyard shift always called me Mr. Stargell because I, thinking I was so goddamn funny, and at least as important as Jennifer Anniston, had insisted on registering my room under the name of the then recently deceased Pittsburg Pirates’ slugger Willie Stargell. You get the picture. It was mostly unregulated madness and we were all happy to have it that way. I spent most of my time with co-stars Luigi Dibiasi (the deaf gardener, whose deadpan conversation with the associate producers about how he had no intention of paying for all of the porn he had charged to his room still ranks in the five funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life) and Mark Kelly (the sheriff’s deputy, whose impassioned pantomime interpretive dance routine set to Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick” still ranks in the five funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life). It was a great time. Jeffrey Dean Morgan (who plays the Sheriff) is one of the dearest guys on the earth.
BD: This might be an obvious question but was that you climbing that VERY high ladder to get into the B&B and then falling into the room, causing the Kuman Thong to break open?
I do all my own stunts. Especially when they aren’t paying me anything.
BD: At the end, when Zach Selwyn (a truly hilarious person) was singing “Quiet Little Town” and you were lip-synching along at one point, whose idea was it for you to “get friendly” with Erik Palladino’s severed head (or was it Jeremy Sisto’s head)? That was unexpected and very funny.
That’s just the kind of thing where, at the end of the day, you become suddenly aware of the fact that nothing is too much for this movie and so your brain just kind of reacts without thinking. And it was Jeremy Sisto’s severed head. I would never kiss Erik Paladino’s severed head. I mean, come on. That’s just gross.
BD: Overall, was doing a movie as over-the-top as “D&B” a fun experience for you? Would you do another horror movie? And congratulations on “D&B” receiving a Saturn nomination for Best DVD Release!
‘Yes’. ‘Yes’. And, ‘why thank you’.
BD: What sort of response have you received from fans of “D&B”? Is the popularity of the film a surprise to you or did everyone on the film feel they might have a cult classic on their hands?
It always catches me off guard when someone thinks some movie I’ve been in is great, whether it’s a sprawler like “Legally Blonde” or a little engine that could like “Dead and Breakfast”. For me, it’s impossible to see the finished product with anything approaching objectivity. People liking what I do is always a surprise to me, but that’s my problem. I think with “Dead and Breakfast”, we knew exactly what kind of animal we had shot out there and was tying to our hood to drive back to LA with, and so the relatively impassioned response to it came as no surprise. When you make a genre film that truly embraces the conventions and really runs with them, there will always be a committed audience waiting to love it.
BD: I noticed on your resume that you’ve done some television too – a recurring role on “Alias” as well as one appearance each on “She Spies” and “Close to Home”. How does television differ from film from an actor’s viewpoint? And have you ever done any theater?
My resume says I did a bunch of theater at NYU and that’s all bullshit. Television is different only because there is, unfortunately, still a sense that everything is somehow less important, less needing to be tended to with perfect devotion. TV is definitely where the future of the industry lies (no duh) but, for me at least, it still has a quality of being disposable, or at least recyclable. It’s strange, given that there is much more money to be made in TV, they shoot plenty of it on film, and people worship it the same, but for me TV is still the disposable razor next to the straight razor of movies. And I’m more and more alone on that one, by the way. And if I was ever offered a part on a TV show as a regular I would cry and have my agent double check that they meant this Oz Perkins and then grudgingly accept the role. In all seriousness, being a regular on a TV show is secretly the holy grail of being a young actor. Too much money, regular work, everyone on the set adores you because that’s where you live. I can hardly think of a better job imagined by humans than the job of regular on a TV show.
BD: Your current film, “Erosion”, is so completely different from the comedic roles you have done. Would you tell us a little about the film and your role as Steve?
“Erosion” was made a month or two after “D and B” wrapped and only feels current because it’s had a hard time finding someone to distribute it and so it maintains its Cinderella vibe. That film was totally different in that everything was approached with a real seriousness which I also really liked and appreciated.
BD: Do you prefer playing comedic roles, which you are very good at doing, or more dramatic characters?
Ultimately, there is more pressure in playing comedic roles, and somewhat less room for error, I think. In comedy, it had better be funny because there is no way you can escape into “well, at least it was interesting”. I’ve been lucky in that the takes I’ve tried have been generally met with laughs. Everything I did in “Legally Blonde” I stole from my wife who I think is dryly hilarious. Lucky for me, the producers and director’s took to it and ended up using me in much more of the movie than the script called for.
BD: What projects do you have coming up?
I’m supposed to do a movie this summer called “The Utah Murder Project” with Amy Smart in which I play a dirty LAPD detective who gets into some pretty tricky business with his soap-star girlfriend who goes missing and is presumed murdered. Other than that, I am focusing all of my efforts on developing a coming of age slasher film that I hope to be shooting sometime next year (and when I say “developing”, I mean bleeding out of my eyeballs writing the thing in complete solitude, alternately celebrating my own hilarious ingenuity and being crushed under the wheel of doubt and anxiety. It’s loads of fun).
BD: What are some of your favorite horror movies?
I’m a huge fan of the genre and don’t especially care for the current vogue of remaking every rough around the edges classic as Michael Bay oversaturated nonsense. I think that the horror genre is always going to be an especially potent one because it best reflects the human collective unconscious even as times change. Especially now, when people are as afraid of the world ending and of random, meaningless violence as they ever have been, the horror genre will continue to be an essential way for people to process their unspoken and sometimes unmanageable fears. The fact that we all know how essentially powerless and unprotectable we are as a country and as individuals is potentially scarier than anything and it’s not something that most of us want to think about. So we go to the movies and “borrow” the sensation of being afraid just to get it out of our system so that we can go back to living our lives as if nothing bad is going to happen. I tell you what I hated. I hated “Red Eye”. When she goes into the bathroom, utterly panicked, and erratically scrawls “seat 14B has a bomb”, or whatever it was, in soap on the mirror… and then the great Cilian Murphy comes in and sees what’s she’s written… only it doesn’t look erratically scrawled at all, but neat and straight as if just applied by a set-dresser… I gave up on the movie right then and there. The “Saw” movies are fine, I guess. At least they’re fresh-ish and directly addresses the current collective fear of being held against your will, that is to say held hostage, as in a terrorist situation. I think I disliked “Red Eye” so much because, having lost someone close to me on September 11th, I had to make myself willing to see how they addressed our fear of the cabin of a commercial airliner. I was interested, despite any emotional reluctance, to see how they made that specific space scary for an hour and a half. But when halfway through the movie they’re landing and then it becomes all about missile launchers and hotel rooms and Colby from ‘Survivor’ playing the secret service agent, I just had to say “fuck off” to the movie. My favorites are probably “Rosemary’s Baby”, “Repulsion”, “Psycho” (even if it wasn’t part of my ancestry, it’s hard to not be bowled over by that one). I really liked “The Ring” too. And there is some shit in the Japanese original of “The Grudge” that is pretty messed up.
BD: Do you read any horror fiction and if so, which authors do you enjoy?
“American Psycho” (the book by Brett Easton Ellis, not the movie) is a great thing, I think.
BD: Is there anything you would like to add that I haven’t asked?
Oh, no. Please, no.
BD: What is one thing no one knows about Oz Perkins but you think they should know?
That he’s real real grateful for everything nice that is ever said or thought about him. If I’ve entertained anyone at anytime, I’m real satisfied by that. And what a truly civilized way to conduct an interview.
Thanks.
Interview by Elaine Lamkin
February 2006
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