Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2008 > September > 23 > Entry
Ben McKenzie, Rowan Joseph at Jo’s, Part 1
Benjamin McKenzie, like his primary medium, is cool.
Rowan Joseph, like his, is warm. Very warm.
Seated side by side at Jo’s Hot Coffee promoting their movie, “Johnny Got His Gun,” the television actor and the theater director present a study in extreme contrasts.
His forehead tilts forward, not as a weapon in a charm offensive, but almost to hood his responses. McKenzie keeps something in reserve, an essential on the screen. (A budding Robert Redford then?)
He speaks in short, declarative sentences, factual without elaboration, while avoiding the impression of obfuscation. (“I live a quiet life in the hills above L.A. Way up. Above the perpetual chaos of Hollywood and West Hollywood. A little yard. A dog. I hang out at my house.”)
Pennsylvania-born Joseph is a rumpled eruption of emotions. Always in movement, always in thought, he’s making intellectual connections — theater, books, movies, actors, lighting — faster than anyone could absorb them.
If McKenzie recedes into reflection, Joseph can’t wait to rhapsodize about his first movie project, how he envisioned McKenzie as Dalton Trumbo’s injured World War I soldier after seeing his “Junebug” and a picture on the Internet; how the movie was made on an $83,000 budget with just a bench and a chair, how he relied on his theatrical background to simulate water with $53 worth of dry ice.
Most miraculous of all: How the 77-minute movie with a single actor was picked up for distribution on the first inquiry to Mark Cuban’s Truly Indie company.
More to come …
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: All-Stars, Arts, Media, Movies
Comments
Click here to report comment abuse.