Actor John C. Reilly has touched on ensemble pieces (Boogie Nights), received Oscar nominations (Chicago) and co-starred in big comedies (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby). In his new film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Reilly will take a stab at a starring role in the story of the fictional singer Dewey Cox, in a parody of music biography films, set to hit theaters Dec. 21.
Reilly held a conference call with college journalists to discuss his upcoming film as well as other aspects of his career.
Q: How did you prepare for a character that changes so much over the course of a film, and was there any preparation as an actor approaching the role?
A:I prepare different ways for different parts, because everything is different. What I usually try to do is fill in the gaps in my mind in areas where I don't have experience, so whatever I have to do with that character I feel qualified to do it, whether it's learning to be a sword fisherman or learning to be a porn star or whatever. This movie, the real preparation for this movie was in the recording studio before we started doing it. We were in the studio for six months. We recorded about 40 tracks, I think, 30 were original tracks, a few covers. Each time we recorded a song, we had to think about the character.
Q: Was there anything else you did more specifically for Dewey?
A:I did every drug I could get my hands on, and I slept with as many women as possible. [laughs] ... No, there was so much to prepare for this movie that it was really overwhelming. What I really did for the recording process was really overwhelming. ... I had my movie band, but then I had a rehearsal band at this rehearsal space, and we would jam and just get used to playing the songs. Getting used to being a frontman in the band was one of the more useful things I did to prepare.
Q: I know you were involved with some of the songwriting for the movie, and I was wondering if you could talk about the songwriting process as well as your musical background, in addition to your acting background.
A:I grew up in Chicago doing rock community theater and musicals because that's just what everyone did, all through grade school and high school, and studied acting at a conservatory program. So music's always been a pretty important part of myself, it's just recently become more of a part of my career for this.
The songwriting process for this was really cool. We just took it period by period, starting in the '50s and wrote the "Walk Hard" song and got our feet wet, and developed the character with the music from his life.
All along the way, we had this kind of amazing stable of songwriters that would be working on their own, and if they got stuck, they'd come to us. In the '60s stuff, we'd pitch them like an idea. I'd be driving along and get an idea like, "What if Dewey was really into women's rights, but just because he wanted to get women to take their bras off!" And I'd called the songwriters and go "The song would be called 'Ladies First,' and he'd just get it all wrong!" The two main songwriters would go off to a hotel room for a couple of hours to write a song, and it'd be really funny and exactly what we wanted.
Q: How is this role different from others that you've done, and was it the fact that it was a spoof make it something different to portray?
A:It's almost like I've been trying to prepare my entire life for this role, in a way. ... It was a lot of different things all mixed together, both dramatic and comedic aspects together. I'd ask "How honest do we wanna be here, how much are we doing just for the joke?" In most scenes, we'd flip back and forth. I'd try to play it as honestly as I could, but then I'd take PCP and run out in the street in my underwear. There's a scene where one of my children comes in that I haven't seen in ages, and I'm crying because he asks me if I want to play catch. It's this wonderful father-son moment, and at the end of the scene I go "I'm sorry, what is your name again?" Yeah, that was a challenge, but it was a lot of fun.
Q: Since a lot of music biopics are somewhat sensitive to families and people, did you ever worry about offending people?
A:Like offending the relatives and heirs of Dewey Cox? [laughs] No, comedy, and especially parody kind of stuff, if you start worrying about "well, we can't say that," then you're kind of dead in the water. You have to really go as crazy as you can for whatever you think is funny, and if you cross the line, the audience will tell you when you start showing the movie. ... It's all done with a lot of love is the thing. As corny as that sounds, everyone involved in this movie and the creative team is huge music lovers. You won't find bigger fans of Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Buddy Holly and Elvis than the people that made this movie. Most of us had musical families, Judd [Apatow] and Jake [Kasdan] included. I would hope that these guys' families would not be offended. I think if you had showed Johnny Cash this movie, he would laugh about it, having gone through a lot of the crazy stuff he had gone through.
It seems like a lot of hardcore musicians have pretty dark senses of humor about some of the craziness they've been through.
Q: A lot of your biggest roles have been supporting roles or ensemble cast, how is it different playing the lead role?
A:Well, I don't know. ... I always say, any character I play is the main character in my story, I'm just trying to play it as honestly as possible. I guess the biggest difference is you spend a lot more time on the set and you have a lot more responsibility and more to do, but that's what I'm after. I love acting and I've been doing it all my life. ... As far as the pressure of having the movie opening and having your face on the poster, I'm kind of in denial about all that.
Q: What was it like to work alongside musicians Eddie Vedder and Jack White?
A:Didn't get to do much with Eddie in the movie; he just introduces me on stage. But we got to hang out backstage, and he's a cool guy. We met once before, when I was doing a show with Tenacious D. ... Jack White was just incredible, he came in with very little notice to play Elvis, he had a day, half a day to do it, and he improvised with us. We hit it off, and I was just completely in awe of the guy. He's the greatest rock star in the world right now, in my opinion. Like Elvis was, I suppose.
Q: Seeing how the Judd Apatow system, I guess you'd call it, is becoming prominent, the improvisation and a collective effort for comedy, do you think that this sort of system is taking over comedy, and do you think it's a good thing?
A:Yeah, I don't think there's any system. A lot of people work this way. Paul Anderson loves to improvise and let people go crazy. ... A lot of people in the film world work the same way Judd does; he's just the prominent one out there because of these movies. I do think it's a good thing. I don't think he's going to take over the world of comedy, as you say, because there's lots of different ways to make comedy, and no one writer or director or actor is going to close the market.
Q: What was your favorite thing about playing Dewey?
A:My favorite thing about playing Dewey was getting to be a rock star. Even though he made decisions as he went along, he would make mistakes and he was a flawed character, but he always had this goofy optimism. He wouldn't let himself get too down and kind of move on to the next phase. It was kind of fun playing someone who was so oblivious to his own, I don't know ... his own narcissistic side, or, you know, the parts of him that were just clueless about the real world. It's always fun to play someone who's delusional.
