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JESSE BRADFORD (Zak Gibbs)
How did you end up in this film? Was it the usual audition process?
No, actually it was a little different than that. I mean I still had to go meet with people and stuff but it wasn't like the average sort of audition. They kind of knew right from the start that they wanted one of a handful of people - and I was one of them. I had to meet with Jonathan Frakes [director] and Gale Anne Hurd [producer] and a couple of other people, and then I had to screen test. It all went well. I guess, from my perspective, I don't know how it came about. They gave me the script - they always give you the script and your agent says to check it out. For me it seemed - I had my concerns in terms of well, it's kind of young and it's kind of everything else but it seemed like a pretty solid business move. It seemed like a movie with some good people behind it, some big studios behind it, and a lot of money behind it and they wanted me to be "the guy."
You're older than the character you play. Was it tough for you to play a teenager?
It's pretty easy because I don't feel that I've changed that much since then. Is it what I want to keep doing forever? No, but is it also what people seem to want to hire me for? Yes.
Is there a point where you'll say that starting now, I won't play anyone younger?
You know what my new rule is? I'm not slamming any lockers. No more locker slamming in my movies, dammit - unless it's at the gym or something. Seriously, I would really like to not play high school anymore or at least do a movie where the fact that you're in high school doesn't really play into it, it just happens that you're supposed to be 18. The fact of the matter is that I'm still getting hired to play 18. People don't want to see me older than that.
Can you talk about the special effects and being a very reactive character in this film? How challenging was that?
It's not easy or fun working with special effects for me, personally, because you are working in a void. There is very little stimuli. It's not so much based on other actors and props - a semblance of reality - it's like let's wipe away all traces of reality and then add them in digitally later. So it doesn't give you much to work with. It's not as easy as having a form of reality around you but you get used to it. You learn how to do it and hopefully I took that away from this experience.
You have to rely on your imagination?
I think I have a really, really, almost to a fault, good imagination. You have to rely on your imagination in scenes like that but not so much more than you have to in any scene because in any scene, you've got to get prepared for what is supposed to be happening. It's not what you are really feeling that day. If you are having a great day and then you've got to cry, you've got to get to that place somehow. Whether it's a big green fishbowl that you're working in or an actual stage or set or whatever - you still have to get to that point. That's where I think your imagination comes in.
With Jonathan coming from a "Star Trek" background, would you say he's a little more sensitive to you as an actor in an effects film?
He's definitely got the chops to be a sci-fi director. I think he's got the chops to be a director of anything he wants to be, because he's a great director. Being an actor, he knows how to get what he wants out of an actor. I don't remember any conversations we specifically had about the special effects, and how to work with the special effect.
Did you talk "Star Trek" with him?
A little, and we would goof around about it. There's a phrase that gets tossed around on movie sets where they'll get on the bullhorn and yell for the extras to go back to their first positions and they'll call first position #1. So it will be like, "Okay, people #1." And Frakes would say, "What, okay, I'm here. I'm right here."
Do you ever dream of getting another phone call from Soderbergh?
Absolutely. He's been a great director since "sex, lies and videotapes" - since before that I'm sure. I had the privilege of working with him ten years ago now, basically, and actually my callback for that movie was on my 13th birthday so that's coming up. But of course, absolutely. I like to think that if he needs somebody in my sort of category he'll at least give me a shot.
You starred in his "King of the Hill" movie. It's one of the real neglected movies of the 90s.
Yeah, absolutely, it made 9 out of 10 Top Ten lists but yet nobody saw it. It's a tough movie though, a movie about a 12 or 13-year old marketed not for 12-year olds. And here we are full circle, I'm 23 and I'm doing a movie for 8-year olds. My career is just ripping right along.
Did you always know you wanted to act?
Acting is something that found me. I did not go out and seek acting. If my parents weren't both actors and got me involved when I was 8-months old - literally that's when my first job was - I can pretty much guarantee that I wouldn't be an actor. I don't think I would have felt in my bones that I needed to be an actor. I like it so much; I enjoy it so much as a job. In a world where you have to have a job and bring money home somehow, I would love to be able to keep doing this. At 13 I felt that way and I still feel that way now.
But you've been attending film school with an eye on directing?
That's different. That's not acting, that's directing.
Do you want to direct?
I do, absolutely. That is something that I'm trying to seek out. More so than that, the thing I'm really trying to seek out is music. I really just want to be a rock star. I just want to get up in front of a big coliseum full of people.
Did you do your own playing in the film?
Yes, that was me. Hopefully that will take me somewhere too. But I don't want to stop acting at all because it feels so familiar to me, it's fun, it's artistic, it allows you to get out these crazy emotions that you wouldn't necessarily even ever feel in your real life. I have a lot of respect for it but there's other things I'm looking to do with my life.
Are you still attending Columbia University?
Yeah, I blasted through my first three years with no pauses. Then "Bring It On" came out and all of a sudden the phone was ringing off the hook and it was like, "Alright, this is stupid. I should really be in LA getting my next job and riding this wave while I have it." And so, that's what I did, I took my senior year off which I have absolutely no regrets about. Since then, I went back that next summer - the summer literally a couple of months after I would have graduated. I re-enrolled and got a couple of summer classes out of the way. Then I went back for a full semester this last semester. That semester ended right when the new year rolled around and now I'm taking this semester off and going back again in the summer and then I'll be done. I have just a little left, that's why I'm going to finish it over the summer.
Did your parents encourage you to act and to take a break from college?
It's fine. I really felt in my heart the whole time that I was going to get the degree. I just knew that even if it took me a couple more years than everybody else, I knew that I wasn't going to spend all that money, and all that time, and all that work - to not end up with that piece of paper. That's still how I feel about it. If it takes me two more years, then it takes me two more years. If I get it done right over the summer, then I'm done and I don't have to worry about it anymore. The finish line is literally - I'm like right in front of it at this point.
So if acting doesn't work out, you're not so locked on to any one thing. If this doesn't work, you'll be a rock star?
Hey, wouldn't that be nice if it's just that simple? Yeah, that would be great. I have other things that interest me; I have back-up plans you could say but I really don't think of any of them as a back-up plan. I think of them as the stuff I want to do with my life. Those are the three things, that and being a professional baseball player but I think I'm kind of past that point.
What kind of music do you want to play?
The thing I like to play the most is blues. That's just sort of what I started with and what I like the most, and where all my favorite guitar players come from.
Do you write your own material?
Yeah, I do. I'm not prolific really but I have a bunch of songs that I'm pretty happy with. I'm really, really hard on myself with the songs. If they don't sound to me like nothing I've ever heard before, then I'm not going to keep them around. I can name seven songs that all rely on the exact same notes but are different songs, and successful songs, but if I wrote a song that used those same notes that was different than those but used those same notes, I would [trash] it.
What's your next project?
"Swimfan." "Swimfan" is directed by John Polson and is with Erika Christensen - and it might be rated R. It's at least going to be rated PG-13. I'm happy that movie is coming out because it's going to counteract a little of this 8-12-year old sort of demographic that we are aiming at with this movie.
What is it about?
It's "Fatal Attraction" for kids.
Are you a swimmer and she's your fan?
Yes, I'm a swimmer, I have a girlfriend already and then this new girl comes to town - that's Erika - and Erika becomes the liaison from Hell. She doesn't become my girlfriend - I still have the other girlfriend - but then we kind of have a little tryst.
Do you have an affair like "Fatal Attraction?"
Yes, that's exactly what happens. Then she goes psycho and it turns into a movie.
Would it be rated R for the violence, the sexuality or the language?
The first two can pass in PG-13, probably. It's the language that really puts you over the top. If they keep the language too, and matched with the other two things, then it will be an R.
Interview with Paula Garces - >Page 2
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