A bit jetlagged from his trip across the fly-overs, Nick Stahl joins us a little tired, but ever ready to heap praise on the creative team behind his latest film, Sleepwalking.
At the top of his list of the praiseworthy is his gorgeous co-star and producer, Charlize Theron. In fact, it was her involvement that initially persuaded the young actor to join the cast on this lowest of low budget films shot entirely on location in the coldest of cold Regina, Canada where temperatures dipped as low as minus 57 degrees on some days.
“Initially she [Charlize Theron] was the reason," he says. "I mean, she called and wanted me to do it, so I met with her and read the script and thought it was a good story and a good character and then on top of it they got such a great cast, so it seemed like a real no brainer for me.”
As amazing creative opportunities go, this had to be up there for Nick, but it wasn’t all fun and games. He was definitely in for a grueling shoot in less than ideal conditions. “I have never been in cold like that,” he explains. “It was amazing. It was like 50 below. There were days when you weren’t as layered as you wanted to be, you know? It was tough conditions, but it seemed to fall in line with the independent film world; a really packed in, big ambitious schedule, so we filmed it in 30 days. It was really challenging.”
For those of us who have seen Nick in some of his tougher, more kick ass roles like John Connor in Terminator 3 or Bobby Kent the tormented, aggressive Floridian in Larry Clark’s Bully, it’s somewhat surprising for us to see him as this meek doormat type of guy, but ironically, the guy not looking for a fight might be closer to who he actually is as a person.
“Well, I’m kind of a passive guy in some ways,” he admits. “I think the character was really there on the page in a lot of ways too. I spent a lot of time with Charlize talking about what their life was like on the farm with their dad and what they went through when they left and ya know, what brought them to that point. And to me it just really made sense why James was the way he was. I liked the idea of them dealing with the abuse from their past in such different ways as adults. She became a really impulsive, aggressive person much more extroverted and James really kind of retreated from people and was willing to settle for somewhat lesser of a life in a way. I liked the idea of creating complexity for the character; I never saw him as simple minded, I just saw him as beaten down.”
Aside from the sibling
