Joseph Cross in Running with Scissors
Joseph Cross Talks Running with Scissors
“At first the idea was really daunting because
I wanted to do Augusten justice and I wanted to do the book justice,”
said Cross. “The people that liked the book loved the book. I mean
loved the book and can recite passages and so I knew people would
be very critical of who they got to play the memoirs. And so it was a little
scary for me at first and I didn’t know what Augusten was going to
think of me or whether he was going to think I even looked the part or could
do it because I haven’t really done anything before this that would
have shown that I could do it except for the auditions I did for Ryan. But
when I met Augusten, he was so kind and so encouraging and gracious and
sweet that I think that that was the moment where I was like, ‘OK,
I can do this.’ It was really scary up until then and then to have
his blessing was sort of like setting me free to go and do it.”
Getting to know Augusten helped Cross nail the tone of Running with
Scissors. “When I was reading for Ryan [Murphy] and for Dede
[Gardner], they [said], ‘He’s not getting the humor of it. He’s
making it so dark.’ And I couldn’t bring myself to give humor
to it because I thought that they wanted to make it cheesier, they want
to make it cheap because it didn’t seem right to be funny because
it wasn’t funny to me. It was so dark, so sad. But when I met with
Augusten, the way that Augusten tells stories from the time it’s with
such a wonderful sense of humor and wit that I understood that that was
the defense mechanism, that was his saving grace. It was to be able to step
back and laugh at the absurdity of it so that was really. Meeting with Augusten
was where I understood that I needed that little hook, that comic edge for
the character.”
Jumping from this character piece to Clint Eastwood’s war movie gave
Cross the full gamut of Hollywood experiences in one year. “Running
with Scissors was a lot about me internalizing and me reacting
and processing things. That was a character that was very thoughtful, very
introspective, and very bright in a movie that was very character driven
and smaller. The budget was smaller and the days were very different and
to go from that to Flags, it feels epic to me when I see
it and when we were doing it. There were days when we would have with 800
extras and 20 tanks on a beach in Iceland and I was with these eight other
lead guys all dressed in military garb with these real guns that we were
handed that we had to learn how to shoot and everything. That character
was about putting everything out there at every moment. He’s very,
very outspoken and he’s never afraid to share what he thinks which
is what makes people laugh at him all the time because a lot of what he
says is silly and just not very well thought out. There’s no filter
on him. So they’re two tremendously different movies and tremendously
different characters. It was perfect for me to follow Scissors
with that because I was able to really just get rid of all this, completely
out of me and pull something else in.”
With such a high profile year, the offers for 2007 will surely pour in,
but Cross’s life remains normal. “The people that I keep close
to me are the people that I’ll always keep close to me and they’re
good friends from high school, and even middle school and elementary school,
and family. I don’t live here [in L.A.] so I’m not that tempted
to be like going out and making the cool celebrity friends and getting your
picture taken with whoever is important at the moment. For me, it’s
just about going and doing good work with people that I want to work with
in films that I would enjoy watching, then going home. I don’t know
what I’m doing next. I want to find something that’s different
but it has to be on par with these two movies. I can’t do anything
that’s not.”
Running with Scissors is out in theatres now.
Stay tuned for updates.
|
Add to Heffee!
