At first glance, Justin Theroux looks like he was born and bred to play Adam Kesher, the movie director in David Lynch's latest whacked-out film, Mulholland Drive. Black-clad, chain-smoking, good-looking and cynical, you might be able to recognize the guy who was also in independent films like American Psycho and I Shot Andy Warhol. But looks, as usual, are deceiving. Theroux is actually charming, smart and funny. But he's still cynical.
Theroux told Street what it is like to work in Hollywood, and more specifically, with the notorious Lynch.
At what point in the filming did you realize [Mulholland Drive] was going to be a movie instead of a TV show?
Justin Theroux: ... I was completely pessimistic.... I was saying, "This is getting really good, so this is clearly not going to go anywhere." And then [the network], um, didn't pick it up.... They went younger, gave us something like Wasteland, and all those other, you know, "young 20-somethings, chardonnay-drinking, interracial... people living in apartment complexes...." I was also correct in thinking that [Lynch] couldn't shoot two hours of something that would just rot on the shelves for all eternity.
Were any portions of the script problematic for you, in terms of logic?
JT: The whole thing was problematic.
Because [a lot of people were] perplexed...
JT: ... The script itself, when I read it, I was just as confused as anybody, and [Lynch] was not forthcoming. I was like, "David, so, who's the cowboy?" And he'd be like, "I don't know, really... just this guy that appears." I was basically the audience member, but having to play the part... which is, at the end of the day, a real service to the actor, because if he had explained everything away, I probably would have lost some of the interest in the playing.
How much of what you did was scripted, and how much did you improvise?
JT: [Lynch is] all for accidents, but not improvisation. So if something accidentally happened, he'd jump for joy.... For example, when Billy Ray Cyrus kicked my ass, it's barely noticeable in the film, but [it] sent David over the moon.... When... I'm trying to get up... and he kicks me down again, and Billy Ray is not an actor--or he wasn't at the time, though now he's got his own TV show--he kicked me really fucking hard, and my head just fucking clocked the ground.... It made this great noise, like a melon hitting the ground. I got up, and I caught David out of the corner of my eye... he's like out of his mind.... As soon as he yelled cut, he said, "That was the best sound I've ever heard! That was the sound of a real head hitting the real ground. No Foley studio in the world could give you that sound." He loves that shit.
Lynch likes everybody to walk out of the theater with a different interpretation of what happened. What's your take [on the movie]?
JT: ... My take on [Mulholland Drive is that]... it begins in a weak-minded girl's fantasy of what Hollywood is: "I will move to Hollywood. I will have this great apartment. I will have this unbelievable audition ... I will meet this woman who I can sort of play dress-up doll with, and who will not know who she is, and I will be able to fashion her in my image." And then when the film... goes back into, what I guess is, reality--which is the reality of [Betty's] life: She is this pathetic and weak-minded person, who is very close to celebrity and dreams and power, but miles away from it.... L.A. is littered with that shit.... And that kind of desperation is sad and beautiful and loathsome.... And then there's the straight love story.
