‘Red Rocket’ Star Simon Rex Acknowledges “People Love a Comeback Story” – The Hollywood Reporter
“I by no means thought-about myself an actor,” Simon Rex advised The Hollywood Reporter throughout a dialog in entrance of an viewers of Savannah Movie Pageant attendees this week following a packed Lucas Theatre screening of Sean Baker‘s Crimson Rocket. Rex performs a has-been porn star who returns to his hometown, and has been garnering finest actor Oscar buzz. “I suppose I used to be at all times insecure about it till this film, which I’m so happy with.”
By way of performing, the 47-year-old, who has additionally labored as a male mannequin, an MTV VJ and a rapper, was heretofore finest identified for his work in three installments of the Scary Film franchise. Neither these elements nor any others would have advised that he had inside him the kind of nuanced efficiency that he provides in Crimson Rocket. “I don’t suppose anybody noticed this coming, myself included,” he acknowledged. “However Sean Baker noticed it, and that’s all that issues.”
Final summer season, throughout a few of the darkest days of the worldwide pandemic, Rex was “staring on the ceiling fan” in a small house he had lately purchased in Joshua Tree Nationwide Park, a two-hour drive from Los Angeles. “It was me kind of taking a step out of Hollywood somewhat bit,” he mirrored, “not fairly quitting,” however starting to entertain the chance. Certainly, “It had been years since I actually had individuals calling for auditions.”
Then, out of the blue, Baker rang. The Tangerine and Florida Challenge helmer requested Rex to place himself on tape, not loop in his agent or supervisor and drive on to Texas inside three days. There, in August and September 2020, with a 10-person crew, a $1 million price range, no rehearsal time and largely non-actors capturing on 16mm, they advised the story of a transactional “sociopathic narcissist” with “massive dick power,” as Rex describes Mikey Saber, who you’ll be able to’t assist however like. “I simply tried to make him boyish and charming and perhaps he doesn’t know what he’s doing,” the actor says.
It was unclear if the movie would ever even see the sunshine of days. “I had no expectations,” Rex admits. “As quickly because it was executed, it was sort of like, ‘All proper, again to the pandemic and sitting within the desert, and I’ll imagine it once I see it when this film comes out.’ Like, ‘Did that basically simply even occur?’ The entire thing was loopy, and I’ve had my coronary heart damaged on this enterprise so many occasions.” However positive sufficient, because the pandemic considerably subsided, Crimson Rocket was invited to premiere on the Cannes Movie Pageant, the place it started amassing rave opinions, particularly for its main man.
“Folks love a ‘comeback story,’ if you wish to name it that,” says Rex, rapidly including with attribute humility and humor, “I don’t know if I’d ever made it sufficient to even make it a ‘comeback’!”
