The Daily Helmsman
By: Johanna Edwards
Arts and Entertainment Editor
Issue date: 11/28/01 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Actor Nick Stahl likes to do things differently.

While many stars his age — Freddie Prinze, Jr., for instance — go for teen comedies and big budget fare, actor Stahl has chosen to avoid popcorn flicks, sticking with smaller, more critically praised films.

“I guess I have a different idea of success,” Stahl said in a phone interview. “I mean, I just haven’t really been that into a lot of these commercial scripts that come along because they seem to be really repetitive. It’s just nothing new or interesting. It’s a story that doesn’t really need to be told.”

Luckily for him, that hasn’t been a problem.

“I’ve been really fortunate in the past couple of years to get some good quality film work. I’ve been pretty lucky in the roles that I’ve been getting I just hope to continue that. I don’t really have a set pattern for myself,” Stahl said. “I really like variety and just doing something completely different than the last thing I’ve done. That’s really one of the biggest things that I look for.”

A native Texan, Stahl jump-started his film career at the age of 12 with a starring role in the Mel Gibson film The Man Without a Face. He followed that up with roles in The Thin Red Line and Disturbing Behavior. Though both films were ill-received, they gave Stahl some much needed publicity, and helped him land future gigs like his lead part in the dark drama Bully.

Stahl can be seen next romancing Marisa Tomei in the acclaimed drama, In the Bedroom, which opens Friday.

“It was a lot of good people coming together for a good script,” Stahl said of In the Bedroom, which is already drawing Oscar buzz. “I guess it might have given me some kind of hope that really good films can be made. “

Sometimes they have trouble getting made, if the studio doesn’t think it’s going to make a ton of money — that stuff. The relationships with the cast and crew were really great. I keep up with all of them.”

In the Bedroom gave Stahl the chance to work with some of Hollywood’s most celebrated actors, including Academy Award-winners Sissy Spacek and Tomei.

The film centers around a doomed love story between Stahl’s character, Frank, and an older woman, Natalie (Tomei). In the beginning, Stahl found his love scenes with Tomei to be a bit daunting.

“It was a little intimidating at first,” he admitted. “She’s not only older but she’s an extremely beautiful woman and quite talented. My voice might have dropped a couple of octaves.”

But in the end, Tomei — as well as the rest of the cast — put him at ease.

“It was intimidating until you actually meet these people, like Sissy who’s the coolest, most normal person you’ll ever meet,” he said. “They were all really great people. It was a great working atmosphere. With that type of cast it really puts you at ease.”

Stahl said the strength of the script attracted him to the project.

“I felt like there was a real transformation to the character, which I really liked. It seemed like it could be somewhat challenging for me, something different,” he said. “I’ve never done a role like that before. It was more of an adult role than I’ve done before. I think really the biggest thing for me was just that the script was so good, the story as a whole. I think it kind of took precedence over the character itself.”

Stahl took full advantage of working with such skilled actors, and tried to soak up as much advice from them as possible.

“I really just spent as much time with them as I could,” he said. “I just listened to these people’s stories. I don’t think you could go in and not learn from people who have been doing this for so long. They’re just real professionals.”

A native of Texas, Stahl said he really hasn’t been influenced by his origins.

“I grew up in the suburbs of Dallas. You’ll find in Texas this real pride for the state, which I for some reason seem to lack a little bit,” he said. “Perhaps because the suburbs I grew up in were just generic really. I didn’t grow up out on the plains or anything. I love the State and I love stories that take place in the state, but I don’t think it really dominates my pursuits.”

While Stahl didn’t have a laundry list of whom he’d like to work with, he summed it up: “I’d like to work with people who are serious about film and want to do something interesting.”

What he isn’t as keen on doing is television.

“I definitely like film more than television. I haven’t done that much TV, just a couple of guest-spot things when I was younger,” he said. “Acting in film is a great job; you’re able to travel. It’s a real sort of creative outlet for me. I love theater as well. Sometimes it’s kind of tough to pay the bills when you do theater. Film pays quite a bit more,” he said with a laugh. “I guess that would be another plus as well.”

“I’m not a big fan of the ocean,” says Nick Stahl. “I’m sort of a land creature.” And yet, the soft-spoken young actor has been swimming in Los Angeles’ coastal capital – Hollywood – since roughly age 10. First there was a pair of TV movies, and then came his breakout role in The Man Without a Face alongside Mel Gibson at the mere age of 13. The fact that he stills lives in L.A. but longs for his land-locked home of Dallas suggests Stahl’s current conflicted state as a sought-after rising thespian: industry vet at only 21, but ready to try something different.

Indeed, Stahl is taking on new challenges: this summer, he plays the sick title character of Larry Clark’s killer Kids redux flick Bully, and in the fall, two stunning family dramas – Todd Field’s In the Bedroom and Christopher Münch’s Sleepy Time Gal – will solidify Stahl’s unique up-and-comer status. Before 2001, Stahl’s most memorable screen time came in his cutesy roles of pre-adolescence, an “evil brain-sucking preppy kid” in the teen flick Disturbing Behavior, and as a dying soldier in Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line. “In the past few years, it seems that there is more content that I can relate to in the smaller films,”Stahl says of his recent journey into indie-land.

Bully may be the biggest stretch, however. Based on actual events, the film tells the story of Bobby Kent (played by Stahl, with menace and charm), a seemingly mild-mannered college-bound Floridian teen who beats and pimps his best friend and rapes his friends girlfriends, and is then murdered for it. “I was a bit intimidated by the character,”Stahl recalls. “All I could do was just let go. I was never an angry kid growing up, but I definitely witnessed kids like that. All I could do was just try to give in to that anger and let it out.”

In Sleepy Time Gal, Stahl is son to a single mother dying of cancer (Jacqueline Bisset). “I grew up with just my mom, so I could connect in that way,” he says. And for In the Bedroom, Stahl plays another collegiate-type with a bright future “who is blindsided by love,” he explains. “Before Nathalie [Marisa Tomei] comes along,” Stahl continues, “he was just a kid who had things figured out, then he becomes confused, a bit baffled, by his next step.”

Stahl’s own next steps are uncertain as well. He’d like to work with British director Ken Loach because, he says, “his movies don’t follow any particular formula,” just as Stahl himself rejects a formula life. “There’s definitely pressures in this town to do things a certain way,” he says. “I’m glad I went through that stuff. I had a publicist when I was younger and I don’t have one now and I don’t want one. I’m glad I went through that, saw what it was, and now I can say I’m doing things in my own way.”

By Bruce C. Steele
The Advocate July 2001

Based on the book by Jim Schutze, the film Bully casts actor Nick Stahl as Bobby Kent, a real-life suburban Florida bully with a fascination for gay bars and gay pornographyand possibly an unrequited attraction to his best friend, Marty, who bore the brunt of his violence. Bobby is the latest in 21-year-old Stahls impressive, ever-growing résumé of “confused youth” roles, which also includes parts in the teen thriller Disturbing Behavior (1998), the much-buzzed-about upcoming indie drama In the Bedroom, and the latest from iconoclastic gay director Christopher Münch, The Sleepy Time Gal.

Himself a son of suburbia (outside Dallas), Stahl sat down with The Advocate to talk about playing Bobby”more challenging than any role Ive done,” he saysand about the harsh realities of growing up in a place where conformity is the one rule kids dare not break.

How much research did you do into the actual incident?
Stahl: As much as I could. I read the book, and right when I got into Florida, my driverthe guy who was picking me uphe took me around this area that it happened. He went to high school with the actual guy [that I play in the movie, Bobby Kent]. So he was able to take me down to the neighborhood that he grew up in, which is remarkably generic suburban. It reminded me of where I grew up, in that they all seem to be similar, you know? It’s just outside of the cityits just a lot of strip malls and things like that. So I was able to get a visual of what the character was seeing day to day. Otherwise, I pretty much just went on my own [instincts]. It was a true account, but, of course, the dialogue was fictionalized. And so I just sort of took it upon myself to try to give some depth to the character.

Youre physically different from the real Bobby, who was first-generation Persian-American, and he was this big guy doing steroids.
Yeah, the guy was massive. He looked like Stallone or somethingjust this big blockhead, and he looked a lot older than high school. I was small for my age growing up. But I recognize that pushing other kids around and bullying is not really about physicality. Where I grew up there were kids who were much smaller who would push around big guys. Its really psychological. I mean, the character to me was really about fronts, you knowthats why it was such a challenge for me. There was just this really broad front to him.

By that you mean how he presented himself, how he wanted other people to perceive him?
Oh, yeah. Everythingthe way he moved and the way he talked to kids and to peers and to girls, and everything. And then hes got this side of him when he was with his family, with his fatherwho was a pretty strict disciplinarian had him taking piano lessons, you know? So there were two pretty polar opposite sides to him.

What was the casting process? How did director Larry Clark and you get together and decide that you could reinterpret this character in the way that you do?
I expressed my interest [in playing the role], and then I guess I read for it after that, like, maybe a week later. I just say “hats off” to [Clark] for giving me the opportunity, because I think it took a lot of imagination on his part. It was pretty bold of him not to go the stereotypical route. I guess he recognized that it was more psychological bullying. That gave me some security going into the movie that I would have some freedom to do what I wanted to do.

The very first shot of the movie is Brad Renfrowho plays Martydoing gay phone sex for money, which is something that Bobby has set up. Whats going on there?
There were a lot of different things going on with these two kids: Theyre best friends, they grew up together, and in the actual account in the book, kids who knew them talked about this strange sort of sexual tensiona kind of ambiguous sexualityto their relationship. And one thing in this part of the country that really separated it from where I grew upor at least what I saw growing upwas, theres a real hustling aspect to the kids in these suburbs. Like, Marty and Bobby had this kind of hustle set up in gay clubs, where they would go and Bobby would make Marty get onstage and dance, and guys would pay to see him dance. And the phone sex. And also the girls in the movie, Bijou Phillips’s character, you know, was busted in real life for this teen prostitution ringthere was this sort of white-collar pimp who had these young girls and palmed them off for money.

Bobby mentions that in the movie, but you dont really know whether hes just making it up or if its true.
Right. Apparently it was true. But I think [his saying] that also goes hand in hand with his [need to maintain his] superiority over Marty and him trying to secure his place socially in making Marty do these things.

Theres a lot of watching going onBobby likes to watch. In that first scene when they pick up the girls and Marty’s having sex in the back seat and Bobby’s getting a blow job, Bobby really looks like hes more interested in whats going on with Marty in the back seat than he is in whats going on in his own lap.
That was actually shot [to show that Bobby was] looking at Marty. The way they have it edited, it looks like Im looking at [Martys girl Lisa] in the eyes, at [actress] Rachel [Miner].

Oh, its pretty clear that hes watching what Martys doing.
Hes a real voyeur, I guess, in that way.

It’s also interesting later that that scene is repeated in flashback when Lisa has decided that she needs to kill Bobby. Shes thinking to herself, and in the movie they show that shot from her point of her viewBobby watching her and Marty have sex. That really underlined for me the point that Lisa feels like she needs to get rid of Bobby not just because Bobbys a bully but because hes competition with Marty, and Marty will not give her his full attention as long as Bobbys around.
Right.

Bobby and Marty aren’t having sex, but its like a love triangle. Like Bobby is the competition.
There is that, yeah. I mean, she was a girl who was just really unhappy just growing up there. And it is sort of a competition. She also sort of projects a lot of her problems onto [Bobby]. He was a mean guy to Marty, but I think her own problemsthe competition [for Martys affections] and her own sort of family problems and all that stuffwere just as much of a factor for her wanting him killed as it was caring for Martyif not more so.

Bobby plays into that triangle thing too. In a scene where Marty’s sitting outside the shop that Bobby has opened, where Marty gets a job, theres a skater girl who comes by, and Marty tries to pick her up. And Bobby comes out and screws it up for him by telling the skater girl about Martys relationship with Lisa.
Right.

And its certainly not out of Bobbys loathing for Lisaor his trying to protect Lisa and Martys relationship. Its about Bobbys trying to control Marty.
Exactly.

Bobby doesnt like to see Marty with someone elseunless he can watch or join in. Hes jealous.
Oh, yeah, for sure. I think when youre that age and you have all these problems, you look at other kids and for some reason, other kids seem to have it figured out and you dont. I think that every kids got problems and, you know, no one has it figured out. Thats kind of the illusionthat someone else might have a step up on you. But, yeah, he wanted to control, really, every aspect of Martys life.

I think hes got some real sexual questions, and hes really insecure about it, and it makes him react stronger and angrier. He does have some real issues with Marty and maybe with other guys. I think theres a part of him that enjoys going to the gay clubs, and thats what hes really trying to push down and cover up.

So why does Bobby wash his hands all the time?
Well, hes got some real obsessive qualities, you know? That was just one more aspect to his real obsession with facade and image. All of suppression kind of just comes out in that way.

What do you think is going on with his father? That hes trying to please his father and thats one of his issues?
Definitely. His dad has a real influence over him. Bobbys dad was actually Middle Eastern, so there was some of that cultural influencea real family bond and pressures to succeed and live up to [expectations].

Something thats not even in the movie that kids have to deal with are religious pressures. And that would probably be something that was true to real-life Bobby, since his family was Muslim…
Right.

…living in Hollywood, Fla. Gotta be hard to follow religious tenets in that situation.
Yeah. His father almost had Bobbys life mapped out for him. And that was also interesting to me, was that Bobby on the outside was a very together kid: he had straight As in school; he was pretty much at the top of his class. That was definitely a lot of added pressure.

Of all the kids in the movie, Bobby is really the one who has it together, despite his behavior toward his friends. He does his homework, starts a business, and all the other kids just have sex and do drugsand plot to kill Bobby.
Yeah, its a real strange paradox. Thats what I was hoping would come across, because by the end Bobby seems almost like the better kid, you know?

Larry Clark thrives on that kind of moral ambiguity. Not so Mel Gibson, who goes more for the black-and-white. At what point did you find out that Gibson had removed the gay content from the book on which your first movie, The Man Without a Face, was based? You were only 12 when you shot that film.
I dont knowmaybe a few years after I did the movie. Id heard stories, and then I started to sort of piece certain things together about [Mel], you know? I was completely ignorant to it at the timewhich I think was good, I guess. Not that it wouldve have made a huge difference at the age of 12. But it was strange to find out.

While most people in their early-”20s face a very difficult time in their lives, usually involving college and deciding their future profession, 22-year-old Nick Stahl, who is co-starring in the film “In the Bedroom” with Marissa Tomei, also leads a challenging life that of an up-and-coming new actor.

Stahl began acting as a young child, doing theater in his home state of Texas before moving onto commercials and then films.

“For me, (my childhood) was sort of a dual life. I was, like, a normal kid in Texas, and then I would fly off and do a movie and come back,” Stahl said. “It was different wasn”t what the rest of my friends were doing.”

Stahl earned the breakthrough he needed when he was hand-selected to star opposite Mel Gibson in “The Man Without a Face.” Stahl was 12 during its filming, and has since endured the obstacles of overcoming childhood success in the film industry.

“It was difficult at times. You have, like, a certain set of roles that you”re up for as a kid, and as you age it really changes. When I was (around the age of) 14, I didn”t work for almost two years, just because that”s a really awkward age to begin with.”

With a recent surge of roles, including the films “Disturbing Behavior” and “Bully,” he feels like he is finally playing more mature characters, especially in Todd Field”s upcoming “In The Bedroom.”

“It”s definitely tricky for me still, but this movie, I feel, is one of my first more adult roles.”

Stahl acknowledges that there were many factors in his wanting to be a part of Todd Field”s directorial debut. “I think there was a real transformation in the character that was interesting. And really, I just loved the script and the writing.”

Stahl portrays Frank Fowler, the only son of a seemingly perfect couple, who spends his summer before college on a lobster boat, while also engaged in a relationship with a much older woman (Marisa Tomei). Stahl actually prepared for the movie by being a real lobster fisherman for a few days.

“It was really great. I wish I had had more time to do it actually. We got to go out a couple days, but it was a real discovery for me, because it”s a real different world. And it helped me physically to sort of acclimate to the role, and I came away with a real respect for the profession as well. I mean, these guys that do this for a living it”s a real tough job and sort of a lonely job as well.”

Stahl admits being “really excited” at the early Oscar buzz for the film, as he also responds to the claim that “In the Bedroom” is not for the emotionally squeamish.

“If people don”t want to go to a film to experience emotion then I guess they should just go see the newest teen flick. The film attempts to make a statement that is more than a lot of films that I have seen attempt to do.”

Stahl is currently in Germany shooting a movie called “Bookies,” about three friends attending college together, which is due out sometime next year.

As for Stahl”s own personal education plans, he is just enjoying his acting career right now.

“Its kinda hard to say what I”ll be doing down the road. I really like what I do now. I don”t know if I will go to school or anything like that, because that”s really not my goal right now it”s to keep working.”

Despite all the attention being given to “In the Bedroom,” its lead actor Nick Stahl is in danger of being forgotten. The film, which opens in Boston on Tuesday, already has won the L.A. Film Critics prize as Best Picture, the N.Y. Film Critics’ Best First Film award and, for leading lady Sissy Spacek, Best Actress honors from both groups.

Somehow, even with an actor’s healthy ego, the 21-year-old Stahl doesn’t mind. “It’s exciting to me to challenge myself with different kinds of roles and Sissy is just amazing to work with. You meet her and she’s incredibly grounded and unaffected. “She lives on a farm in Virginia with her family and there’s an innocence to her that’s amazing, and a workmanship. Just very inspiring I’d say, so normal and fun.

“I was really just trying to hold my own with these great actors, it was such an accomplished group. It wasn’t competition, I was just trying to survive.”

Stahl plays Frank, a promising collegiate destined to be an architect who finds a summer romance in his Maine fishing village with the slightly older Natalie (Marisa Tomei).

Ultimately “In the Bedroom” is not a warm romance but a wrenching study of a family – Spacek and British actor Tom Wilkinson as upright small town Maine parents – coming undone when a beloved son is murdered by his girlfriend’s out-of-control ex.

For Stahl, “In the Bedroom” is his second buzzed-about flick of the year, following Larry Clark’s “Bully,” in which he played a murdered sexual predator. “`Bedroom’ was pretty simple,” Stahl said. “Once I read it, that was it. Every movie is different in one way or another, but this was one of the better experiences I’ve had, I would say.

“Frank’s a great role for me, I was just fortunate. I saw him as old for his age, I don’t think he’s more than 21. He’s mature for his age and kind of wise.”

When it comes to acting, Stahl, too, has been mature for his age. “I’d been doing children’s plays since I was about 4,” he said. “At 10, I got a role in `Medea’ with a professional theater group as her son, so I started off with death at a young age.”

That was when he was growing up in Dallas, where he soon had an agent and did TV movies. At age 12, Mel Gibson changed Stahl’s life.

That’s when Stahl was cast to star in “The Man Without a Face,” directed by and co-starring Gibson. “He’s a good guy to be around,” Stahl said of Gibson. “He had his hands full with directing. He had a great sense of humor and fun, so it made it easy for me.

“I was just in awe, my first movie and such a big thing to start on. It kind of blew me away.”

Stahl continued to work, appearing in “The Thin Red Line” and “Eye of God,” but only now are his roles finally changing. “I look pretty young for my age, I have this baby face,” he said. “`In the Bedroom’ is the first role really where I’ve played an adult.”