COLLIDER: Robert Carlyle and Writer/Director Marshall Lewy Talk CALIFORNIA SOLO, ONCE UPON A TIME, and Lewy’s Next Project EXODUS
by Christina Radish
December 9th, 2012
The indie drama California Solo, from writer/director Marshall Lewy, tells the story of Lachlan MacAldonich (Robert Carlyle), a former Britpop rocker who has moved to farm country just outside Los Angeles to establish a comfortably quiet existence for himself. His routine consists of working on an organic farm and selling produce at the city’s farmers’ markets by day, and then recording his podcast recounting the tragic deaths of great musicians at night, until he gets pulled over for a DUI that brings up a past offense and threatens him with deportation.
At the film’s press day, filmmaker Marshall Lewy and actor Robert Carlyle spoke to Collider for this exclusive interview about how this character came about, the appeal of a role that’s so layered, how they decided to do no rehearsals prior to shooting, and showing locations around California that are not immediately recognizable. Lewy also talked about his next film, a heist thriller called Exodus, that he’s hoping to shoot in the Spring, while Carlyle talked about how much he enjoys playing the dual roles of Mr. Gold and Rumplestiltskin on the ABC series Once Upon A Time and that what’s to come on the show is just mind-blowing...
... Collider: On Once Upon A Time, both Mr. Gold and Rumplestiltskin walk on the edge of likeability. Do you ever worry about how the characters you play will be received by the audience, or do you not worry about whether or not they’ll actually like them?
Robert Carlyle: "I genuinely try not to. It’s never the actor’s place to worry about that. If they like him, great. If they don’t like him, great. It doesn’t matter to me. What’s important is being honest. So far, that’s what’s come across, particularly with Mr. Gold. You wouldn’t really want to hang out with him, at all, but somehow people have taken to his charm, or whatever it is. He would do you wrong, there’s no doubt about that. It’s interesting how it’s become that way. With Rumplestiltskin, the showrunners and chief writers, Adam Horowitz and Eddie Katsis, have been fantastic with me because they’ve said, “Just do what you want to do.” I didn’t know what I was going to do with this crazy fairy tale character that not many people know that much about. He’s got a strange name and he spins straw into gold. That’s it. I thought, “Fantastic! This is a blank canvas here. If I’m going to play on this blank canvas, it’s not going to be a pretty watercolor. I’m going to throw oils at it and just smash it like Jackson Pollock.” And that’s what I’ve done with Rumplestiltskin. I’ve just thrown everything, including the kitchen sink, into that character, and it’s worked. It could have went badly wrong, but the audience is just nuts for him. I’m enjoying playing him, and that probably comes across..."
Once Upon A Time season two returns with new episodes on Sunday, January 6, 2013 at 8/7C on ABC.
California Solo is playing now in select theaters.
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