Steven Strait

Interview By: Dan Deevy
DanDeevy@TheCinemaSource.com

'You haven't lived until you've lived in loin cloth man, it's very liberating. Incredibly freeing!'

A greater endorsement for the virtues of the loin cloth, I do not need. He's a good man and I trust him, so thanks to a lesser known corner of amazon.com mine is now on order.

I first met Steven Strait over three years ago and I knew then that he was going to be a huge star. The combination of his good looks, undeniable charm and affability mixed with an incredibly solid work ethic and true acting talent make him a force to be reckoned with in the world of young Hollywood. And to top it all off, none of this has gone to his head which is truly the most unique thing about him.

At the amazingly young age of only 21, Steven has already acted in many different genres of film beginning in the family superhero film, Sky High with Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston, followed by his musical turn in Undiscovered with Ashlee Simpson and Kip Pardue where he not only played the romantic lead, but also did the soundtrack for the film and then finally the ab-tastic supernatural thriller The Covenant where he played the leader of a fraternity like group of gorgeous guys with mystical powers.

It was only a matter of time before he'd be starring in a big budget action adventure film, and that opportunity came with Roland Emmerich's 10,000 BC. Far from a cake walk though, the film demanded a lot of the young star beginning first with transforming him from the muscled Covenant star into the fast, lean warrior hunter, D'Leh. For most, this would have been near impossible, but Strait's background afforded him a little bit of an advantage.

'I grew up doing martial arts,' he begins, 'and I boxed for many years too so dropping weight and gaining weight was something I was pretty familiar with. I lost about 30 ' 40 pounds in about a month and a half before boot camp. I had just done a film [The Covenant] where I had to put on a bunch of weight to do the wire work and I had to lose all of it. So basically they had me on this dietary program that was limited enough that it would get the maximum amount off, but also not be completely and utterly detrimental to my health,' he jokes. 'I was eating rice and celery and just running; run and run and run. Then we did the boot camp to bring everyone together. But to be perfectly honest with you, some of the shooting in the film was way harder than any prep we had done.'

In addition to getting his body in shape for the role, Strait also had to go through hours of prep time each day before filming even began. 'It was pretty extensive,' he explains, 'it was about two to three hours of hair and make up every morning. It was the wig, four layers of different types of make up and dirt and mud and then putting on the cloths took about an hour too, so yeah it was pretty extensive.'

'I never really appreciated how much I love bathing so much until after this movie,' he laughs.

So what was it that compelled Steven to go through this arduous physical challenge that spanned the globe' 'Roland first and foremost,' he admits. 'I'm of the generation that grew up with his films. I saw Stargate when I was nine years old and have been a huge fan since. And also the fact that I read the script and I thought it was incredibly original. I think stuff of this size these days is based on a comic book or it's a sequel or a prequel; not that that's bad I love those films too, but the originality of this I really liked a lot. And essentially, it's a love story with all this action and adventure around it and I just found that incredibly unique.'

Becoming a prehistoric war hero sounds like an incredible machismo enducing ego boost, but the CGI'd nature of the creatures he came up against left Strait feeling a little exposed at first. 'Initially you feel a little silly,' he admits, 'I'm not going to lie. You're out there in the middle of the desert and you're poking and proding at the air in front of like 300 people, but obviously Roland has done films like this before, and you just let your imagination go because there's no constraints on what you're acting with; it's all your imagination so once you get into the motion of it it's actually kind of fun.'

Although Roland has worked with CGI'd creatures and environments before, 10,000 BC charted some new territory even for him. 'I think for the first time in this film, we shot most of it on locations, so there wasn't all that much blue screen; they just plugged them in in post which was incredible,' he says. 'When we were shooting the mammoth sequence, for example, there was nothing there. No blue screens, nothing to react off of. They basically said, 'you react off of what you're imagining and we'll just work around you,' and that was liberating in a very strange way,' he chuckles.

So after the experience of playing mountain warrior who slays pretend prehistoric beasts is there anything left in the world that can embarrass this guy' 'No,' he guffaws, 'Nothing. You have to get over that initial phase because you're in very little cloths, it's freezing outside and you're poking at nothing while screaming and yelling, but you have to have a sense of humor about it just to have fun with it. You also have to take it in perspective. It's like, how many times in your life are you going to be at the top of a mountain in southern new Zealand doing a shot like this' You have to take the moment for what it is and just enjoy it I think.'

After all the work that went into creating this film it's hard to imagine the feeling the cast and crew had when they finally saw it all put together and ready for the public. 'It was wild,' he says. 'We only saw it a few weeks ago and it's really strange seeing it come to fruition because we started so long ago. It was '05 when we started prepping this film,' he explains, 'and we shot for 6 months. Then there was a year and a half of post and some where along the line it becomes this other thing; like this nebulous cloud of experiences that you had that never really solidified until a few months ago. Seeing the mammoths and the tiger was amazing. Down to the smallest details like the water droplets coming off the tigers fur, ya know' It was unbelievable. It was really fantastic, I was so excited.'

Each new country that they filmed in was so incredible that Strait is hard pressed to declare an absolute favorite, but New Zealand is the only one that he has already ventured back to!

'They were all amazing,' he credits, 'Being up in the mountains in New Zealand was absolutely beautiful. We would joke with Roland because you would look at some of the shots they were getting and its like, no one is gonna believe that this is real. They're gonna think it's computer generated. It was just unbelievable. And you know a lot of the locations that we were shooting in, I can't imagine were all that different in 10,000 BC. There were no roads to the places we were, there was no civilization for hundreds of miles. It was amazing.'

Now in the film, Strait's character D'Leh literally goes to the ends of the Earth for the woman that he loves; would Steven do the same'

'I hope so,' he says, 'For example, I had just met my wife before I started making this movie. We had been living together for two months and I had to go. It was like, 'bye honey see ya in 7 months,' he jests. 'She and I were taking 26 hour flights each way to see each other you know' You do what you can and what you have to. For me as a person that's what's good about everything human. I think it's what drives everything good. People have asked me before, 'Do you really believe the love story in this film could possibly happen'' Yes, I do. I'm certainly a believer in it cause I've experienced it myself so I know it to be true. It was incredibly helpful for me because it allowed me to really believe what we were doing.'

So by now you're probably wondering what the secret is that this guy is so carefully guarding' We all want to know what the trick is to becoming a successful working actor that gets to perform in tons of different genres with all sorts of amazing and interesting people. Sadly, there is no secret. It looks like it's been all hard work and a little bit of good fortune for Mr. Strait.

'I've just been really lucky, to be perfectly honest with you. It just kind of panned out that way. I really love all types of films in all types of genres. I've been fortunate that way. I've been fortunate in many ways, but that's certainly an aspect of it, being able to do a comedy and a musical and a supernatural and an epic and recently a war drama kind of going across the board. The only thing if I could hope for anything in the future for my own career, I just hope it remains that way. It keeps it really interesting for me.'

So there's definitely no grand master plan behind his choices with one carefully chosen project leading to another, 'Absolutely not,' he laughs, 'My brain is way too small for something that large. You just kind of go where it takes you. You have to look at it in perspective. This is a dream so I just take it day by day and be gracious for what I have at the moment.'

So let's recap exactly what he does have at the moment. His wife, the beautiful Lynn Collins is currently in New Zealand shooting Wolverine so he's going back and forth to visit her, his action epic 10,000 BC is hitting theaters now and he's got the war drama Stop-Loss starring Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum and Joesph-Gordon Levitt coming out later this month. I'd say that's a pretty full plate for now. Makes you wonder if he takes any time off at all!

'I took a significant amount of time off actually after filming this,' he admits, 'I got back to LA and just left my phone behind and got in my car and just drove up north for like a month. I started Stop-Loss I think about 5 or 6 months after that. I was a little shell shocked.

After all of this the man has definitely earned a little bit of a break, but I'm sure it won't be long before he's once again back at work and hopefully back here chatting with us!