Sunday, March 9, 2008

The Ides of March have yet to arrive, and already it’s been a tough year for former child stars. Before Heath Ledger’s accidental drug death, Brad Renfro was found dead. Substance abuse is the suspected cause.

Nick Stahl, who already was a stage veteran when he made his first movie at age 10, worked with Renfro on “Bully.”

“There was a lot of recreational drinking and things like that going on during the shoot,” Stahl said. “For someone like me, who has been through drugs and drinking, it was pretty easy to spot that Brad had problems.”

He says he didn’t try to help Renfro “because we didn’t have that kind of a relationship. We weren’t that close.”

At 28 and with leads in “Sleepwalking” this month and “Quid Pro Quo” in April, Stahl appears to have escaped the demons of other child actors. He arrives right on time for an interview at the St. Regis, his hair freshly washed and sticking up in the fashion of the day and wearing a crisply ironed checkered shirt.

Stahl has given a great deal of thought to what pushes young people over the edge when Hollywood beckons and decided part of it comes from living in two worlds and not belonging in either.

“It warps your ability to find a certain identity. You are in a strange limbo. You are working in an adult world but being very young, you are not a part of it. You can’t be included in it really. Then you go home and because you’re with your friends not all that often, you’re not fully a part of that, either.”

He was impressed by AnnaSophia Robb, 14, the actress who plays his niece in “Sleepwalking.”

“She is much more well adjusted then I was at that age. She has more of a solid foundation and is more together,” he says of the young star of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Because of Winn-Dixie.”

Charlize Theron handpicked Stahl to play her brother in “Sleepwalking,” which she also produced. She told him she had seen some of his work.

“It was very nice not to have to audition,” Stahl said.

The brother is a little strange – one of the other characters tells him, “You creep me out.” Stahl said he didn’t see him that way.

“He’s a pretty complex character who has suffered trauma at the hands of his dad,” played by Dennis Hopper. Although Theron disappears through the whole middle section of the film, her face is still prominent on the poster.

“Of course she’s prominent. I mean, it’s a business, and given that much space, she will sell some tickets. She’s a movie star.”

Stahl’s movie career began playing opposite another movie star, Mel Gibson, in his directing debut. He had seen an audition tape Stahl did for another movie and asked him to do one for “The Man Without a Face.”

“I was kind of overwhelmed being in every scene,” said Stahl, who considers himself fortunate to be directed by Gibson so early in his career – he was just 13. “Mel was not demanding in the least bit. He has the energy of a kid, so he was really suited to directing. He made it fun.”

A few years later, Stahl, his mother and two older sisters moved from Dallas to Los Angeles. His mother gave up her jobs as a brokerage assistant and part-time seamstress – she did the costumes for the children’s theater where her son got his first taste of acting – to help him with his career. Stahl, who grew up without a father, suddenly found himself the breadwinner of the family.

The move to Los Angeles can be rough on fledgling actors.

“When you are young and you move to Los Angeles, you have time on your hands and you might have some money,” Stahl said. “But you still have the same problems in your life you had from before you moved there.”

This was the period when Stahl started experimenting with drugs and alcohol.

“It is very easy to happen,” he said. “Like I said, everybody has a share of family problems. Just because you have some success and you make some money and people start to know who you are, your problems are still there.”

Sometimes the fame makes it worse.

“There are certain superficial elements of the business – kind of putting on a good face even though you might be in pain,” he said. “That’s suppression to me.”

The requirement of three hours of school work on every movie set “was just getting really hard to keep doing. It kind of became a nuisance,” said Stahl, who satisfied the requirement by earning his general equivalency diploma.

The move to be closer to casting agents didn’t immediately pan out for him. As a teenager, he did “a whole handful of awful TV movies just to make money.”

He thought his luck had changed when maverick director Terrence Malick tapped him to be in “The Thin Red Line.” His role started out bigger than it wound up after Malick’s editing.

“Everyone seemed to get cut. Next to Adrien I can’t complain,” Stahl said, referring to Adrien Brody, whose starring role ended up almost completely cut.

Stahl’s character in the prestige art film “In the Bedroom” gets killed fairly early on. He landed a continuing role on HBO’s “CarnivÀle,” only to have the plug pulled on the series after two years.

He caught a break when Edward Furlough, the actor who originated the role of John Connor in “Terminator,” had to be replaced. But in the easy-come-easy-go trajectory of Hollywood, Stahl found out that he is to be replaced in “Terminator 4″ by Christian Bale.

“I would have loved to have done the next one,” said Stahl, who would have made big bucks compared to the salaries he gets for the indies he often does. “But they changed the franchise. My character is older in this one. I think it is more of a futuristic thing.”

He can look forward to “Sleepwalking” and, almost immediately afterward, “Quid Pro Quo,” in which he plays a paraplegic NPR reporter who investigates a strange subculture of people.

His most recent films were completed a while ago, and Stahl has had a lot of free time since. With no significant other at the moment, he lives alone in Southern California.

“It’s pretty nice. I’m just selfish and enjoying my own time,” he said. “I’ve never been a worrier. I’ve always found work when I really needed to, so I have faith.”

SLEEPWALKING (R) opens Friday at Bay Area theaters.

E-mail Ruthe Stein at rstein@sfchron icle.com.

Nick Stahl won’t be back for more Terminators, and at age 28 suspects he’s already yesterday’s model.

“I’m not a studio poster kid, you know. Studios want the popular actor of the moment. That’s all there is to it, regardless of what you’ve done in the past,” says the Texas-born Stahl, who starred in 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines a decade after his breakthrough role in Mel Gibson’s Man Without A Face.

“Maybe in the long run the fact I’ve done it so long is good, but in the day to day, I’d say it’s a hindrance I’ve been around so long. I’m not the newest thing. I’m not the new guy on the block.”

So with the role of futuristic messiah John Connor in next summer’s fourth Terminator out of the question — Christian Bale will star instead — Stahl is focusing on Sleepwalking, an indie drama with a budget that probably couldn’t pay T4’s catering tab.

Shot in Saskatchewan, which convincingly doubles for Utah and California, it stars Stahl as the dysfunctional uncle of a recently abandoned 11-year-old girl played by AnnaSophia Robb. Dennis Hopper turns up as a monstrous figure from Stahl’s past while Charlize Theron portrays Robb’s deadbeat mother.

The Oscar-winning actress, who is one of Sleepwalking’s producers, was the driving force behind the no-frills project and, from all accounts, the talent magnet.

“I just got a call from Charlize and she said, ‘I have a part for you’ and I said, ‘Great, I’ll do it,’ ” Hopper tells Sun Media. “She said, ‘You have to read the script first.’ And I said, ‘No, if you’re doing it, I’ll do it.’ It didn’t matter. She has integrity. Especially after seeing her performance in Monster I knew she was willing to go the distance.”

And going the distance for the cast and crew meant traveling to Regina and surrounding outskirts in the dead of winter for the story’s harrowing farm-based scenes.

“Charlize always made sure we had on extra, extra long underwear,” Hopper says.

“She was a great producer. She was there every day for us. It was extreme conditions. We did our scenes in 25 degrees below zero.”

Adds Stahl, “I don’t think a lot of producers are qualified to put creative input forward. The best kind of producer can deal with schedules and money and time, but also is creatively invested and has something creative to say … Charlize being an actress herself, she had to balance a lot.”

As for filming on a farm, Hopper enjoyed the return to his rural roots.

“I was raised on a wheat farm in Kansas — so it was like going home for me.”

Less so for Stahl.

“I had to learn to ride the tractors. That was hard. I’m not very good, so luckily they only show it for five seconds. But I’ve been around horses on sets before. You know, any extracurricular skill I know is because of a movie.”

Which brings us, full circle, back to Stahl’s already-lengthy career and its placement in the Hollywood food chain.

“I’ve been lucky to get to do good films. That’s all I’ve ever asked for. Acting is the only thing I’ve ever done. A studio film would be great to do. I’m not opposed to any genre or budget. A lot of times the smaller films happen to be the better ones — that’s just the way it is. But I’m not opposed to doing bigger films, as long as they’re not god-awful.”

Then again, he can always look to the enduring example set by his legendary co-star.

Notes the 71-year-old Hopper, “Most of my life I haven’t been bankable.”

No one in Hollywood plays a tortured soul better than Nick Stahl. But, thankfully, despite whatever places he needs to go to bring to life the likes of the Yellow Bastard in Sin City, Bobby Kent in Bully, Ben Hawkins in Carnivale, and even John Connor in Terminator 3, Stahl seems to be able to leave them behind at the stage door. Although he’s been in Hollywood since he was a child (starring as an adolescent opposite Mel Gibson in 1993’s The Man Without a Face), the now-28 Stahl has rarely been seen in the tabloids as part of the ever-burgeoning celebrity industrial complex, but he could certainly have been milking that publicity gravy train for all it was worth next to the Lohans and the like, if he chose. He’s been on the verge of major studio film stardom seemingly forever, but appears just as happy playing interesting characters in lower-budget indies. It’s a bit of a cliché to state, but the quality of the work is obviously very important to him. This writer didn’t know what to expect from Stahl in person, when we met for lunch on Abbot Kinney at the end of February. Actors are sometimes very close to the types they specialize in and, just as frequently, couldn’t be more different. To answer my own question here, Stahl comes across as an affable guy, with a lot going on underneath the surface. Speculating on more than that regarding his personality would be useless and presumptuous after just an hour talking together. But what was obvious is the determination that drives his career and that he’s here for the long haul as an actor. When all the current flavors-of-the-month have burned up and disappeared from the covers of gossip magazines, Stahl will likely still be pushing himself to the limits of his considerable talent.

This spring brings us two new Stahl features, Sleepwalking and Quid Pro Quo, which really allow a nice showcase of his range, so far apart are the two stories from each other in terms of plot, although they share some thematic similarities. Sleepwalking was directed by William Maher and produced by Charlize Theron, who also co-stars, but it’s really Stahl’s film to carry as an actor. He plays a very average guy named James Reedy, a fellow who works construction, not very well, and stumbles through a painfully average life. That’s until his much-wilder sister Joleen (Theron) shows up and asks to move in temporarily with her 11-year old daughter Tara (AnnaSophia Robb). Temporarily for Joleen, but more permanently for Tara, as Joleen takes off one night and leaves Tara with her uncle James. While James can barely take care of himself, he slowly rises to the occasion of becoming the father that Tara never had. This is no lighthearted Big Daddy-style surrogate father-kid buddy story though, as James and Tara have to brave a harrowing time with James’ own father, played by Dennis Hopper, before James is able to come to a number of painful realizations which enable him to move his life forward. In Quid Pro Quo, written and directed by Carlos Brooks, Stahl inhabits a character who is ostensibly much more together than James, a successful Public Radio journalist named Isaac Knott, but who is not without his own challenges to overcome, as he is confined to a wheelchair. While James in Sleepwalking has to discover who he is, Isaac seems to know at first, but his sense of self is challenged by the arrival of a mysterious young woman named Fiona (Vera Farmiga), who is part of a bizarre subculture of “Wannabes,” able-bodied people who desperately wish to be paralyzed themselves in order to feel whole. While investigating the Wannabes for a story, Isaac becomes involved with Vera, who will shine light on parts of his past that he has buried deep in his subconscious. There’s a nice, albeit unintended, symmetry to the fact that both of Stahl’s characters, Isaac and James, are sleepwalking through life, and have to essentially wake up and confront demons they’ve long avoided.

Obviously, some of the backstory of James in Sleepwalking is revealed as the story progresses. He’s a complicated guy though, while simple at first glance. Did you create any additional backstory to use in the role?

Nick Stahl: I actually didn’t have to do a lot of that, because I do think it was all on the page. It was a really cool character. If there was any danger, maybe, in how the character read…it was that he might’ve been misunderstood as being kind of slow, or something, which I didn’t want to play. I thought it was more interesting that he was someone who has just been wounded, by life, and as a result of that, kind of retreated from the world a little bit. And settled for a simpler life. Then his niece comes into his life, and that’s when his kind of transformation starts, you know? I think he finally has like some sort of a purpose or something to work towards, something to take responsibility for. He starts to come into his own at that point.

AnnaSophia Robb as your niece has one of the more confident onscreen presences I’ve seen in a child actor. Is this your first time starring opposite a child, other than when you were a child actor yourself?

Yeah, I’ve never really worked with younger kids or anything before, but it was interesting because I myself was acting, you know, when I was around her age also. I was doing movies as well – so it’s funny…it kind of, it mirrored the film’s story in some ways because I just sort of instinctively had this kind of like protectiveness with her, you know? And then when I was young and I was doing films, there are producers and people who, you know, they’re exploitive – they will try to get as much out of you as they can, and they’ll tell you and your parents that working a fifteen-hour day is normal. And if you want the movie to be finished, you need to stay for fifteen hours, or whatever. And just really….I mean, luckily, you know, there was none of that on this movie, and she had a really solid family, and really – and she’s a lot more, I would say, balanced kid than I was, I would say, at that age. And I think she’s more secure and level-headed and confident as well.

You also got [SPOILER ALERT]…

…to kill Dennis Hopper in this film. He’s usually the one who’s doing the killing onscreen in most films.

I know, and I hated to have to do that. I mean, I was so nervous about it. This was, you know, the legend, Dennis Hopper. And I had to beat him up, and then, you know, do more than that – and I just didn’t want to do it! Plus, I like him so much personally – he’s such an amazing person, but I think he understood that I didn’t have a choice [laughs]. He’s somebody that really cares a lot about what he’s doing, his work — and that was really cool to see, because I’m sure, you know, once you get to a certain age and you’ve seen so much, and you’ve done so many things—

You could sleepwalk through it if you wanted to.

Right [laughs] – you could. You might not care as much, I would think there’s the potential for just phoning things in. This guy would never do that. I mean, because he just is a real artist and he cares a lot about his performance, and he works….he just constantly is working very hard at it.
Charlize Theron and Stahl in SLEEPWALKING.

How did you get involved in the project?

I was approached by Charlize and Bill Maher, the director. I like to call him William Maher, so people don’t confuse him with the Bill Maher on television. There were actual reports when we started filming that the “Politically Incorrect” Bill Maher was directing this for us. It was literally on CNN or something, that he was directing Charlize Theron in a movie [laughs]. But they approached me about a year before it got its full financing. I was the first one cast. They just saw me in the role, and wanted me to do it, and it was pretty exciting because I’m used to having to fight for things a lot, and this I didn’t have to. I was the guy they wanted from the beginning.

You do still have to fight for things a lot? That’s somewhat surprising.

Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, depending on the movie. Right now, I’ll get offered independent things occasionally – but most of them, I’d say 95% of them, are horrible.But with something that’s of any kind of quality, I definitely audition – and I like auditioning, I’ve always felt comfortable with doing it. I mean, I’ve always felt more comfortable in an audition than a meeting. I think it’s the same reason why I have such nervousness about public speaking and things like that. But as soon as I’m filming or onstage or something like that, I just never have. I’m kind of in that world, maybe, in character, and so I can do that, no problem. But having to meet some strangers and talk about myself for an hour, it’s a lot more difficult for me. So, I’ve never had a problem with auditioning, and especially if it’s for something that I really like. You know, all that I have ever been frustrated about, or wanted, was just the opportunity to do it, to audition, and actually have a fair competition. Because…it’s taken me a long time to come to terms with the politics of this, of the town, you know, and sometimes, it sucks to have to abandon a movie that you’re really proud of and then go on and have to do something that you don’t really believe in, because you need money. But I’ve also been really fortunate that I’ve never had to have…a job, a real job, in my life. You know, I’m twenty-eight years old, and that’s pretty amazing. And that feels good. What gets really hard to deal with sometimes, when it comes to the politics of the town – and by that, I mean if someone has a lot of popularity in the moment, they’ll just get offered something for that reason. But you know, if that [level of popularity] happens with me [laughs]….I’m obviously gonna have a different take on it [laughs]. But if I’m not able to even read, to even go in on something…that’s hard to deal with. Because if I’m up against someone who’s genuinely better for the role, that’s great, I can totally deal with that, that’s fine. It’s the lack of opportunity that’s really hard to deal with sometimes. It’s just part of the business end of things, which has never been my strength.

Let’s talk a bit about Quid Pro Quo. This must have been an interesting film to do your prep work for.

It was more unusual than Sleepwalking, I would say, sure [laughs].We filmed in New York – which I loved. I’ve worked there a few times, and I just love the city, and I love working there. But I had never worked there in a wheelchair, so that was obviously different. And essentially, as far as that goes, in terms of prep work, I just used a wheelchair for a few weeks and just kind of went everywhere in it and rolled around the city. I just wanted to experience what it was like: people’s reactions, the difficulty of doing it. First of all, physically…I mean, it’s hard, it’s really hard. And you can see I’m not, you know, the biggest – I don’t have the biggest upper body [laughs]. It takes a lot of strength. That was my first discovery. How physically demanding it is. But yeah, it was really interesting just to see people’s reactions to you, and how you’re treated. For the most part, people kind of avoid your gaze.

Just like your character describes in the film.

Yeah, it’s funny. People….I think that wheelchairs scare people. That was my assessment. People don’t want to look at injuries. Most people didn’t recognize me because they didn’t take the time to look into my eyes, or my face, you know? I didn’t really even have to worry about that most of the time, because I just kind of blended in. But then, you know, one day, someone said, “Hey man, aren’t you on that…weren’t you on ‘Carnivale’?” and I was like, “Fuck!” [laughs] So I wheeled away really quickly. I think he was horrified to think that, you know, this actor’s been in an accident. And so I had to watch out for that a little bit.

This the type of material that could be a disaster if the directing was off in any significant way.

Right, and by the way, even after we filmed it and it was done, it took many passes editorially to get it to where it was [quality-wise] in the script. We actually ended up re-shooting some stuff, and adding a couple of scenes. I think it was the kind of thing that, it was so clear on the page…the story, and the tone of it was so clear, but, for whatever reason, it’s such a different process once you actually film it and then you actually go to start editing it. It’s such a different process that it doesn’t always translate well from the script. I saw some early cuts, that actually weren’t all that great. Those cuts didn’t capture what was in the script, and a lot of people had problems with the film. A lot of people didn’t get it, and that was the reason why we had to go back and retool some stuff. [Director] Carlos Brooks worked endlessly for so long. He kept cutting it and working at it. But finally, I think what he got – what we ended up with was pretty close to the script, and I’m actually really proud of it, and I was really happy that it came together like it did.

Carlos mentioned in the press notes that he wanted the tone of the film to exist “somewhere between deep sleep and wakefulness.”

That’s exactly something he would say. Yeah. It does have sort of a dreamlike quality to some of it, and I think that it deals a lot with the subconscious, and the bearing of painful memories. Those are elements which are really intriguing to me. It’s amazing how your subconscious protects you against pain.

Let’s talk about a few of your previous films. How did you find the character of Yellow Bastard in Sin City?

Well, first of all, just to give you kind of the back story on getting that role, it was not a role I was supposed to do. I was just supposed to be in the beginning of the film, when it’s me without the make-up, before he later turned into [the Yellow Bastard]. And they had another actor who was set to do the Yellow Bastard role – and he fell out of the movie, he had a conflict or something, so Robert Rodriguez called me to and he just said, “Hey man, maybe you could do both, and maybe we can see that it’s you, kind of, through the makeup, and maybe it’ll be even better.” And I thought it was cool because, it’s a bigger role obviously [laughs], and I got to do more on the film. But I was intimidated by doing this theatrical cartoonish thing. It’s obviously drawn a certain way, and you can get kind of a voice of this crazy character through Frank Miller’s writing, but I was really intimidated because I still didn’t know completely what Frank had in mind. This character…when he actually speaks, and he moves around, and his physicality, and I was like, “I don’t know what to do. I have to – obviously this is really broad, and I have to make this into something big, and something scary.” But really I was kind of in the dark about it. I was just hoping that what I did synched up with what they wanted. They didn’t fire me, so I guess it was okay [laughs]. But I don’t ever want to wear that many prosthetics again in my life!

It must have been insane. It barely looked like you.

It was miserable. Not only grueling time-wise to put it on – but, you know, just sitting there in it. It’s stiflingly hot, you can’t move. You feel like you’re stuck together. Luckily we only did that character….I only had makeup on for, I think, five days. It was shot so fast on video, rapid-fire.

The first film I remember seeing you in as an adult was Bully, where you played the very disturbed teenager Bobby, based on a real-life individual. You weren’t far removed from high school age yourself.

Yeah, and I knew kids like some of the ones in that film. I had friends like that who were just, you know, young and had no sense of consequence and lived dangerously. And I kinda did the same for a while at that age. I mean, I had sort of a dual life in a way – I was going away and doing films, and then coming back, and hanging out with friends, and getting into trouble, and experimenting with drugs, and doing all that stuff, and so my teenage years had some darker times to them, that aren’t the fondest memories for me. So to go back to that world [for Bully], and to – and this obviously was a real extreme, this particular story – but it still really brought back a lot of memories for me, of that time, and that character was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in a movie . You know, Sin City is one thing, when you’re playing someone who’s a ridiculous, over-the-top cartoon character. But if you’re playing, you know, a real guy who’s essentially looked at as kind of a monster…I mean, it was just so far from who I am and I was amazed I was even cast in that role, actually. So I guess I was just so worried all the time that it would not be convincing. That it was beyond my range of who I was and what I could pull off. And Larry Clark, too, the way he works….he’s very visual, and he doesn’t give a lot of direction, acting-wise. That’s kind of his style. He kind of lets people do their own things, and if something’s not working, he’ll tell you, but for the most part, you’re kind of out there on your own. So if he didn’t tell me not to do something, I just had to assume that it was okay. It was one of the most challenging films I’ve done.

Let’s go way back. Your bio says that you started acting when you were four. Was that in the typical manner, via school plays and such?

Yeah, but it wasn’t really school plays, but a children’s theatre group in Dallas. My mom was a seamstress as a side-job for the children’s theatre group, and so I just started auditioning for plays, and I really liked it a lot, and I thought that this was it. I’m talking like four or five years old, really young. I mean, I’m one of those weirdos that knew very early on what I wanted to do. I just always had a certain confidence about it. For whatever reason. I was decent in athletics, but I was not in the elite, and I wanted to do something where I could be. I grew up next to this athlete who was my best friend, and we would constantly compete at whatever sport – basketball or football or whatever. I was always competitive with him, but he would always edge me out at the end of the day. So I think he single-handedly probably turned me away from athletics and is partly responsible for getting me into acting [laughs].

Did a lot of opportunities follow The Man Without a Face?

I did a couple things, and then my next big feature film, when I was fourteen, it was a Disney movie called Tall Tale. It was a big movie, but it actually kind of tanked. I had a real tough period there, in the teenage years, of not working for a long time. It was really hard for me, because at that point I was supporting my family, and I was really dependent on work. And so I went through some really low periods of just not working for a year or two. It was probably two years max that I didn’t work, but that seemed like one of the longest periods of my life.

Okay, last question. Let’s say you’re that four-year old and you’re imagining your acting future, does the career you’ve had look anything like you expected?

I think I’ve been overconfident since a young age, and so I’m actually probably not as far along as I thought I would be [laughs], because I think I had a real inflated ego, as to my abilities [laughs]. I think I still do, sometimes.

Sleepwalking will be released this month by Overture Films. Quid Pro Quo will be released by Magnolia Pictures.

By Ken Eisner
Source: Straight.com

Some of the most impressive actors have qualities seasoned over the years in quiet, low-profile movies, although that’s not always by choice. After Nick Stahl got raves for 2001’s Oscar-winning In the Bedroom, it seemed likely that the young actor would move up to big roles in A-list movies. That hasn’t really happened. Instead, he has continued to take larger parts in offbeat, little-seen movies, such as How to Rob a Bank and The Night of the White Pants.

The 28-year-old Texan, first noticed as the boy playing opposite Mel Gibson in The Man Without a Face, did get supporting work this decade in big-ticket items like Terminator 3, as Sarah Connor’s grown son, and Sin City, in which he was the biliously memorable Yellow Bastard.

More often, he has helped anchor grittier indie items like Sleepwalking, opening here on Friday (March 14), in which he plays a rural drifter forced to grow up when his ditzy sister dumps her precocious daughter on him and then takes off. The sibling is played by Charlize Theron, who also produced and helped assemble a cast that includes Dennis Hopper, Woody Harrelson, and AnnaSophia Robb as the daughter.

“We worked Nick pretty hard,” says Rob Merilees, a Vancouver-based producer also aboard the film, which is having its Los Angeles premiere when he calls. For the Canadian veteran of flicks like The Snow Walker, Air Bud 2, and Just Friends, it was a chance to work with Theron, who easily attached whomever she wanted to play the major roles in the tale, directed by film newbie Bill Maher (not the comic). Merilees helped secure the Saskatchewan locations, doubling for unstated U.S. locations, to provide Sleepwalking with its bleakly beautiful backgrounds.

“There’s an excellent tax rebate there. The only catch is that you have to shoot in Saskatchewan. It was cold out there! I think it hit minus 40 or less. We absolutely killed Nick, man. It’s 7 o’clock in the morning and, ‘Here, put your hands in this freezing water.’ He really brought it, too, I can tell you that.”

For his effort, the rangy actor is still shaking off the subzero experience.

“It was more chill than I’ve ever experienced in my life,” a shuddering Stahl recalls from L.A. “The temperatures were absurd. It was also a very tight shooting schedule. We did it in 30 days, and each day’s workload was pretty daunting. But that’s what you do when you’re making these smaller stories.”

On top of everything else, he spent almost the entire month in a light army coat.

“Oh, there were many layers under that thing,” he says, not necessarily implying anything metaphorical. And yet, any critic would, at some point, need to use onionlike images to describe the subtlety of his work.

When pressed, Merilees (who moves from the depths of Prairie winter to sets in Borneo and Colombia for his next projects) wonders if Stahl’s strength has also somehow limited his career.

“The thing about Nick is that even when he’s surrounded by people on the level of Charlize and Dennis Hopper, he’s so into it you almost don’t notice he’s acting. He sort of flies under the radar, and you need to pay really close attention to notice just how good he is. He really does pick off-the-wall pictures to do and just gravitates towards these meatier, more difficult roles. This part is particularly understated, too. There’s a lot going on, but it’s all internalized.”

The actor agrees that he’s inclined toward recessive parts, and that this one—an emotionally paralyzed abuse victim learning to nurture himself while caring for a thorny child—is exceptionally introspective. For many viewers, Zac Stanford’s script raises more character questions than it answers. For Stahl, this kind of sketchiness is an invitation to be even more creative.

“I’ve always been a less-is-more kind of guy. If something is kind of apparent to the audience and doesn’t need to be spelled out, I prefer that. I’m wary of scripts that are more about a writer showing off his skills as opposed to letting a character live and breathe.”

Which is not to say that Stahl would balk at romantic comedies or wisecracking action flicks.

“It’s not that I’m at all opposed to doing bigger, more mainstream movies—if they’re good,” the actor declares. “People see you in a certain type of films, and those are the parts that come to you. I think if there’s one thread that connects my work is that they tend towards the darker side. I’m often cast in heavier material, and that doesn’t tend to translate to bigger budgets.”

Next up, he’s already completed The Speed of Thought, a thriller shot in Uruguay. It’s a drama, but at least the shoot was warm.

“From now on,” he concludes with a laugh, “I’m picking films based solely on location.

Source: LA Times

At first glance, Nick Stahl’s James Reedy – an aimless 30-year-old who serves as the central character of William Maher’s “Sleepwalking,” out in limited release Friday – doesn’t seem to do much of anything. He lives in a bleak industrial Northern California town, toils at a menial job and keeps his words to a minimum.

But Stahl says there’s more to James than meets the eye. “Some people read the character as being kind of slow or mentally deficient, but to me, he was someone who was really damaged, a victim of abuse,” says Stahl. “James ended up retreating from the world and was just kind of beaten down, learned to settle for things and accept a very simple role in life.”

That role changes after his tempestuous sister Joleen (Charlize Theron) blows into town and holes up in his apartment, 11-year-old daughter Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) in tow. Before long, Joleen takes off, abandoning Tara, and James has no choice but to care for his niece and come to terms with his own haunted past in the process.

Stahl says it was the realism in Zac Stanford’s screenplay that attracted him to the part. “I liked the idea of the family dynamic, that things weren’t black and white,” he says. “There was an opportunity to really comb through the layers of the character and expand what was on the page.”

A former child actor who appeared in his first film at 10 and moved from the Dallas area to L.A. at 16, Stahl credits a supportive mother and an intense acting focus for getting him through his more impressionable years. But he speaks with the wariness of someone who’s grown up in a sometimes harsh limelight.

“It was just very weird for me,” he recalls. “I never really had a stable group of friends, and then [in Hollywood], you’re around all these adults, and you can’t really be a part of that, either. It makes perfect sense to me why a lot of people who start out as kids in this business tend to have problems in their life. I mean, it’s a really unusual way to grow up.”

He admits that his own experience made him very protective toward his young “Sleepwalking” costar, Robb, during last winter’s shoot in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan: “I felt I could relate to Anna in a lot of ways.”

Now 28, Stahl has made the transition into adult roles, specializing in brooding, conflicted types, but he does have a lighter side.

“I’ve always done heavier roles; that tends to be what I’m cast in,” he says, adding that he’d jump at the chance to work with Paul Thomas Anderson. That said, “I’m not nearly as serious as a lot of the roles I play … . I would love to do comedy, just continue to do a variety of movies, to kind of switch things up.

By Rebecca Murray
Source: About.com

Nick Stahl stars as a guy just struggling to make it to work each day and keep his head above water in Sleepwalking, directed by William Maher. Charlize Theron co-stars as his sister, Joleen, a single mother who does a lousy job of raising her only child, Tara (played by AnnaSophia Robb). When Joleen’s kicked out of the house she shares with her boyfriend, she drags Tara to her brother’s place and dumps her there.

Most actors claim characters with an edge, a troubled background, or serious demons to battle are the most interesting to play, and while Stahl’s character, James, is a real decent guy, he definitely had a traumatic family life that’s affected his ability to function as an adult.

Stahl claims his character’s troubled home life was something he found intriguing.

“You read the script, and it can read a certain way, and he can come off even as kind of slow or something like that,” explained Stahl. “I never saw him as mentally deficient in any way. He was emotionally deficient. When I first went up to Canada, I even had the costume designer tell me that it reminded her of Lenny from Mice and Men, and I was like, ‘Don’t tell me that,’ because that’s not at all what it was. He was a damaged [man] who was the victim of abuse and had learned to settle for a simple role in his life, not ask for anything, to just settle for something. And that’s the way he’s lived for a long time, and I think until Tara comes into his life does that start to change a little bit for him.”

Screenwriter Zac Stanford and director Maher don’t fill in all the blanks and allow the audience to figure out what motivates each character. The basics are there, but it’s left to the imagination of the audience to determine much of what keeps the adults moving forward on their chosen paths. Even though the script doesn’t spell things out, Stahl didn’t find it necessary to create his own detailed backstory on James. “I didn’t need to do much, and I’ve never been one to have a notebook of day one as my life as James Reedy. It’s just I’ve never really worked that way. I don’t think it helps me that much. I don’t think it makes it that much better for me. And least effort possible for me – that’s my philosophy.”

“I think a lot of it was in the script, definitely. There’s James’ and Joleen’s story,” said Stahl. “We spent some time talking about what their relationship was like and growing up. And I think I heard Charlize mention the other day that – I love the fact in the script that these two characters, these siblings, dealt with trauma in very different ways. They’re just completely different personalities. And part of the contentious relationship that they have is that sibling thing of she sees James get walked on, and to her it’s frustrating and it’s a reminder of the abuse that they’ve gone through. And she doesn’t want to look at that. She’s like an extrovert, aggressive. She’s always moving ahead and not looking back. And James isn’t necessarily looking back, but he’s got this apathy and he doesn’t stand up for himself as much. I think to her that’s a reminder of the damage that [Dennis Hopper as their father’s] done to us.”

Although the circumstances in the film – a mom dumping her kid at her brother’s so she can get a man, which is the only way she thinks she’ll be able to get her life in order – may not be a common story amongst the film’s audience, Stahl did think the characters were all very relatable. “I think everyone can relate somewhat to an unhappy childhood and to adversity growing up and kind of becoming an adult and moving past that and becoming your own person,” said Stahl. “I’ve been so lucky to always have acting, honestly. I knew what I wanted to do at a very young age, and that’s always been inspirational for me, honestly. I mean, when I was young, I sort of had a bad crowd that I ran with, and a couple of them are in jail now and they’re just doing whatever. I always had this. I always had something to pull me out of that, because I don’t know what I would do without it, honestly.”

Stahl’s career is a mix of larger budget movies and independent films, and he says preparing for a film of this size is really not that much different than getting ready to do a Terminator movie or Sin City. “I try to do the same thing that I have always done but just the context is so different,” offered Stahl. “On a bigger movie, you have so much more time and you can get kind of lazy. There’s just so much more luxury around you, and that’s kind of deceptive. It seems like it’s great and then you tend to get off track because you’re filming one scene over three days. We were filming six scenes in a day on this. And sometimes I think some real magic can happen when you have constraints, when you have time constraints or budget. Or, I think sometimes it creates a certain immediacy. Sometimes you get some great things out of the struggle or just even the elements where you’re filming. It’s 50 below, which just works so perfectly for the story. When I read it, it read like a cold story and the town, the industrial feel of where James is from, and it just lent itself so well.

By Liza Atamy
Source: Spartan Daily

I, along with three other journalists, had the opportunity to interview actors Charlize Theron and Nick Stahl, who star in the upcoming overture film “Sleepwalking,” which Theron produced as well.

The interview took place at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco on March 3, 2008.

Academy Award winner Theron, who won in 2004 for Best Actress for her role as female serial killer Aileen Wuornos in “Monster,” has portrayed her talent in a wide variety of performances ranging from comedy to action to epic-drama.

Her movie credits also include: “The Devil’s Advocate,” “The Cider House Rules,” “Sweet November” and “The Italian Job.”

Her co-star Nick Stahl can be remembered from the HBO series “Carnivale” and his roles in “Sin City” and “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.”

Theron had a dual responsibility in “Sleepwalking”: producing the film and playing troubled mother Joleen Reedy.

“Screenwriter Zac Stanford submitted the script to my company,” Theron said. “We read it, and it stuck with me. I woke up the next morning and kept thinking about it.”

Theron said there was something about the script that captured her.

“It’s very hard to explain that creative choice when you read material,” she said. “At the end of the day for me, it is an emotional feeling that grabs me.”

Theron said she was very fortunate to have her “dream cast” sign on to the project.

For co-star Nick Stahl, it was the story that captured him.

“When I read it, it was a very simple story and very character-driven,” Stahl said. “Actors look for movies like that where we have the chance to drive the story.”

Stahl said his character, James Reedy, was very “introspective and was a creature of habit with his simple job.”

Stahl’s character has many demons to fight, but the underlying source of his problems and insecurities is his abusive father, who James finally comprehends and must learn to overcome.

“He’s a haunted guy,” Stahl said. “He is haunted by his past and goes back to see his father thinking things might be different.

“He sees for the first time the viciousness of his father by watching his niece go through the same thing his sister went through years ago.”

Stahl said the foundation of James’ and Joleen’s circumstances was the “pre-contentious family they were raised in” and they were “products of an abusive household.”

The viewer comes to understand that the persisting habits of Joleen and the self-conscious nature of James are embedded within them because of the physical and emotional abuse they had endured from their father for years.

“It affects both of their lives as adults and their actions are kind of born out of that,” Stahl said. “I think visiting his father was James’ transformation – breaking that cycle in a way.”

Stahl said his character is viewed as a savior to his niece, Tara, but ultimately ends up being the one who (unintentionally) puts her in harm’s way by taking her to see his father.

“I think (Tara) changed him, and I think he went back to see his dad because she provided him with certain inspiration,” he said. “She has given him an almost certain courage to face his fears and to face his past, and I think in a sense he is seeking redemption.”

Theron’s character, Joleen, had her own demons to face as well. Throwing herself into one unpromising and failing relationship after another, she, too, must come to terms with all of her fears and take responsibility for her daughter.

It was, at times, very hard to believe the careless choices Joleen made for herself and her daughter. One would inevitably think: “Would Theron make the same choices had she been in the same situation?”

“I don’t think she was irresponsible, and I’m not trying to give an excuse for the decisions she’s made,” Theron said. “As an actor, one very important thing to be aware of is the circumstances characters are coming from.

“When you start making choices for your character based on decisions you would make, it becomes unrealistic. I don’t have Joleen’s background and the issues she’s been dealing with. I don’t live in those shoes, so I try to walk away and not judge whether what she does is right or wrong,” she said.

Theron said that in order to stick to the road of truth with the characters she portrays, she avoids reaching for sympathy and instead sets out for empathy.

The film portrays a dark and desolate setting and similar emotions throughout, and it leaves the ending open and somewhat optimistic for viewers to interpret and conclude.

“This is the only reason why I wanted to make the film, because of the human condition it portrays,” Theron said. “I really do believe the one thing we always have is hope, even when we don’t have a penny in our pocket and when things get worse.”

Besides introducing herself to a character and morphing into the character’s mindset she would live with for months, Theron said detaching herself from her character has somewhat of a “mourning” period after filming wraps and there is no work the next day.

“The mourning is somewhat inclusive of leaving not just the character but a little family that you have with your crew,” she said. “Especially when you’re on location and no one gets to go home.”

Theron said her life is her priority, and it would be unfair to bring her work home and “drag everybody into whatever I’m working on at the time.

“I’m a very happy, joyous person,” she said. “I love my life, and I love the people in it.”

While filming “Sleepwalking,” Theron also found the time to appear in Stuart Townsend’s directorial debut “The Battle in Seattle.”

She is currently filming “Hancock” with actor Will Smith and will start filming “The Brazilian Job,” a follow-up to the movie “The Italian Job,” in which she also starred.

Stahl is promoting his second film release for the year, “Quid Pro Quo,” and is in post-production with upcoming “The Speed of Thought.”

“Sleepwalking” will be released nationwide Friday.

Nick Stahl got his big break at 14, when he was handpicked by Mel Gibson to co-star in Man Without a Face. Even with all the attention he got, Stahl’s career didn’t exactly take off despite films like Larry Clark’s Bully and The Thin Red Line. It seemed Stahl was getting a second chance at stardom when he scored the coveted role of John Connor in Terminator 3.

Now, after co-starring in HBO’s Carnivale, Stahl is being seen in a pair of strong performances in low-budget indies: Sleepwalking, produced by Charlize Theron and now Quid Pro Quo, in which he plays a radio reporter confined to a wheelchair who discovers a bizarre group of fetishists afflicted with a desire to become disabled.

It may not be his shot at the big time, but Stahl proves once again he’s honing his talent with every big screen appearance he makes.

Did you actually get in a wheel chair off the set?

“I went around New York in one just to try to get used to it physically and also gauge people’s reactions. I felt like there were two main types—people that really avoided eye contact with you or ones that were overly helpful almost to the point of sometimes being annoying. I was going up uphill and some stranger started pushing me without asking me if I wanted help or even saying hello. It was really bizarre.”

Did people recognize you?

“It only happened a couple times mainly I think because people just didn’t want to look at me in a wheelchair. I think it scared them and made them really uncomfortable. But it wasn’t as bad as someone looking at you with pity. In just the brief time I was in the wheelchair I got feelings of isolation. I can’t imagine what it would be like to confined there for a lifetime.”

How do you feel about getting great reviews and still being somewhat on the fringe?

“I’ve been lucky to be able to do some intriguing movies like this. I’ve had to do a lot of movies for money as well because I was broke, and some of them weren’t my favorites. I certainly thought that after Terminator 3 that I would be doing more commercial movies. And that wasn’t the case. There weren’t a bunch of big movies that came knocking on my door.”

You’ve delivered some very intense performances in dark roles. Does that affect you?

“I’ve learned to make a real conscious effort to separate it from my personal life, which is hard to do sometimes. I obsess. I’m a perfectionist. If I don’t do a scene right, it keeps me up at night. But in a way, I’m glad that I have that because it makes me want to be better.”

Any memories of working with Arnold Schwarzenegger on Terminator 3?

“He’s a big chess player and he loved to play chess on set. He kept trying to get me into a game because I play a bit as well. But I was kind of scared to play him. He had in his trailer a board that had his name on one side and whoever his competition was on the other side. And it was all these slashes for wins. His side was filled completely and there was like two marks on the other side. So I held off on that.”