Sam Rockwell only gave brief comments to confirm he briefly researched sex addicts to play one in Choke. He just went to a few meetings to observe. He also read Chuck Palahniuk's book, but the majority of his inspiration came from other films.
Rockwell Chokes on Sex Addiction
"[Director] Clark [Gregg] and I talked about Harold and Maude as a tone and The Fisher King was talked about. I think of other things. I go to my acting coach and we work on the material. You reference things like the mother and son, like The Glass Menagerie or Hamlet even. Then I'm always constantly referring to my 1970s cinematic encyclopedia which is movies like Five Easy Pieces or Harold and Maude where you have antiheroes, or Tom Jones with Albert Finney, Alfie. So you have these antiheroes, a Casanova or somebody. Five Easy Pieces is a real template for this guy I think."
Rockwell plays Victor Mancini, a sex addict who fakes choking attacks so that people will rescue him. He has a mother suffering from dementia in an institution and she no longer recognizes him. While attending to her, he falls for a doctor. Playing the romance with her was actually harder than the sex addict scenes. "
Choke
"Well, the sex scenes are fake. You aren't really having sex. When you're kissing, you're really kissing. So I think that kind of says it all. Sex scenes are just kind of silly. You've got these women coming in for a day. You just want to make them feel comfortable. It's a weird job so you try to tell a joke and keep it relaxed."
As for fake choking, Rockwell was never in any mortal danger. "It's like you hold your breath for a little bit and make your face red. It was just pretend. It's probably not the healthiest thing to stop yourself from breathing for a couple of seconds."
Some theaters are refusing to show Choke because of its subject matter, but that only makes it cooler to Rockwell. "That’s cool. I like that. That means we did something right. It's a romantic comedy. It's just a couple of breasteses. We showed the ass. I show my ass. That movie's so tame compared to the book."
Choke opens to theaters on September 26th.
For the poster, trailer and more movie info, go to the Choke Movie Page.
Choke
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