Ryan Kwanten, best known to American audiences as Jason Stackhouse in HBO's sexy supernatural series True Blood, stars in the quirky romantic comedy Griff the Invisible set to hit theaters in limited release on August 19, 2011 before expanding into more cities over the following weeks. Kwanten plays an introverted office worker by day, costumed superhero by night in first-time feature film writer/director Leon Ford's superhero film with a twist (and a lot of heart).
With Griff the Invisible, True Blood fans will be seeing a different side of Kwanten. Griff's a challenging role that the 34 year old Australian actor relished taking on. And in our exclusive interview, Kwanten talked about why he wanted to play Griff, Ford's script and direction, putting on the superhero costume, and his attraction to characters he feels are tortured souls.
Ryan Kwanten Griff the Invisible Interview
Did you feel a real connection with Griff?
Ryan Kwanten: "Yeah, without sort of sounding narcissistic, I definitely got Griff. It is my hope that other people also who have once thought or perhaps still feel like that, like an outsider, like they don’t count in the world or someone who just wants to use his imagination a little bit more than the person next to them."
Was that what you picked up on from the very first reading of the script?
Ryan Kwanten: "Absolutely. This was actually sort of amongst - I remember this very, very vividly - amongst a huge pile of scripts. I had read two already that evening and this was sort of third one, and it really stuck out amongst all of those. Much in the same way if you watch 100 films in a year, really only two or three of them resonate with you. This is sort of the one that resonated with me, in terms of the ones I was going to play. He’s a character that, as much as he’s trying to live the superhero life, he's playing a character within a character so it was really intriguing for me as an actor to play that, too."
You physically changed the way you walk and the way you hold yourself. Did that physical transformation come fairly quickly after deciding to take on the role?
Ryan Kwanten: "Yeah. There is definitely that point of wanting to, as Griff, during the day, he wanted to sort of camouflage himself into society as best as he could. And the best way to do that was to wear very dull clothes, nothing too bright or eye-attracting. Even at work he would just sort of go about his business and try not to really be seen by anyone. He didn’t realize the more that he tried to be invisible, as his boss said, the more visible he became and the more of a target he became. The fact that he became a target forced him to go further and further into his imagination and into his alter -ego, I guess."
Did you come up with more of a backstory as to what made Griff behave the way he does in the first place?
Ryan Kwanten: "In one of my first discussions with Leon [Ford], the writer and director, he said that the original idea for him came when he saw a little kid playing in a sand pit. This kid was sort of throwing sand in the air and shouting, as if he was playing a real life superhero - this kid was. Leon sort of said to himself, 'If I was to jump in the sand pit and do the same thing they'd have me arrested and they’d throw away the key.' That, to me, is a real great question of the film is why as adults do we get told to suppress our imagination and who’s to say that the reality that Griff chooses to live in is any better or worse than how we want to live?"
Do you think there was a moment in his life when he made this choice consciously or do you think this was a slow process that occurred over time?
Ryan Kwanten: "I think that it was an evolution. Maybe it started out as just playing toy soldiers in the backyard. The next year maybe he thought he was one of those soldiers. The next year it was just creating a world around that, and then finally to a point where he needed that world, in much the same way that people go to watch films, or to have some sort of outlet in their lives. I think it’s important for anyone in life to have an outlet and for Griff that was his."
When you put on the original superhero costume that he wears at the beginning of the film, did you automatically feel like a superhero? Could you easily slip into the character at that point?
Ryan Kwanten: "You laugh when you ask the question but, yes, I very much did. Even that in itself was a real evolution because it was so important to get that suit right because it was coming from his imagination. It was a really good creative decision by the wardrobe designer, Leon, myself and the producers. We all put on our creative hats and came up with that design, which I think really plays well. There’s a nice luster that the suit has and it’s like nothing you’ve seen before in superhero films because it’s based on someone’s imagination and not a comic book."
How much input did you have?
Ryan Kwanten: "Everyone had their little two cents to put in, which eventually added up to that whole dollar and that whole suit. It took a good three hours to put on and probably cost half the budget to be honest, but it was worth it because it was the biggest part of what made Griff a superhero - it was this really distinguishable suit. But then when you see the real version of the suit...even sort of coming up with that version was interesting too. Originally the wardrobe designer, being a designer, wanted something slightly more flashy. Leon and I said I said, 'No, it almost has to be like a wetsuit that he's just sort of drawn on,' which makes the other suits stand out even more."
Leon Ford's a first time writer/director. Did he seem like a first timer on the set or was this a guy who knew what he was doing from day one?
Ryan Kwanten: "Not at all. He had a very established short film that had done very well. Even beyond that, he’s got a great reputation in the acting world. In terms for us as actors, he was unbelievably collaborative and trustworthy. When I was playing, at times, a very subdued character and doing very subtle things, knowing that he was capturing the performance and that he was happy with what I was giving, and knowing full well where the character was going and what flavors other characters were going to bring to it. I know I’m going to look back in 10 years time and say that I was part of Leon Ford’s first feature film and be proud in saying that."
This character is so much different than Jason in True Blood and that’s how most American audiences know you. Which is a more difficult character for you to crawl under the skin of?
Ryan Kwanten: "They both have their different levels and they are both tortured souls. Those are the sort of characters that I enjoy to play. In terms of which one I found harder to get into the skin of, it’s a really hard ask because each is like to each his own. I don’t know. There are different elements that were harder in one and elements that were harder in the other. Ultimately, you inhabit that body for the time that you shoot and then you sort of try to let it go and find a new one again."
Is it tough when your doing an indie film with a short shooting schedule to get into the character or is it easier because you don’t have to worry about take after take after take?
Ryan Kwanten: "That’s the ultimate conundrum, I guess. Even on a $100 million film, people will complain that they haven’t got enough money and enough time, so that’s always going to be an element in filmmaking. But the beautiful thing about this kind of filmmaking, particularly with Griff, is if the story is so resonant, if it really captures not just the heart of the ultimate audience but the heart of the crew, which it very much did. All the crew made a point of reading the script before we started shooting, which is very rare. They were all very much behind Griff’s plight and were prepared to do hours of overtime without even questioning it. It’s that kind of commitment that gets a film like this to travel abroad and to reach different audiences, which I think it deserves to."
Was that Leon’s idea that they read the script or did they come up with that on their own?
Ryan Kwanten: "Honestly, I don’t know. Whether it was something that was of interest to them, whether they'd heard about the script and took it under their wing, took it on their own to read it. I remember the first week of set going around to a bunch of them and they are all said, 'This is the scene where this…’ or ‘I love when this happens in the script.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, you've read the script?’ and they said, ‘Yes, we’ve all read it.'"
I think that it’s interesting that you chose a project where the guy imagines he’s a superhero and that’s his life and his fantasy. In True Blood, Jason is becoming more of a heroic character. Do you see a common theme between the two characters?
Ryan Kwanten: "The common theme is the one I eluded to earlier in the fact that they are tortured souls. I don’t necessarily find superheroes in general, for me, that appealing. I'd much prefer to play, if I was to be cast in a superhero film, I’d prefer to play the villain because there’s a reason, there's a motive behind their madness. I feel that’s why Griff sort of creates this world and why Jason sort of does the same thing, too. He very much has to go about life in a different way."
Is that the appeal of doing a character like Charles Manson then?
Ryan Kwanten: "That’s somewhat on the back burner now. It won’t be done on this hiatus, probably the next one. But yeah, in terms of any character in general you have to find something that is a challenge in there. If every character I played was like Jason Stackhouse it would get, not just boring for the audience, but it would be unbelievably boring and uninspiring for me."
And you have to find something that challenges you.
Ryan Kwanten: "Yeah. And beyond that it's breaking people’s perceptions of what they think I can and can’t do, and breaking my own perceptions is nice."
Playing Griff, so much of what's going on with him must be conveyed purely through your expressions. There’s not a lot of dialogue to explain what he's going through or thinking. Was that a challenge?
Ryan Kwanten: "I like that kind of stuff. One of my favorite actors is Paul Newman. He could tell so much with a single look, whereas some actors would need an entire five page monologue to give off the feeling of what he could say with just a single look. To be given those kinds of opportunities with a character like Griff, it’s a rarity because in this day and age where people feel the need to spoon-feed an audience and to give them so many pages of exposition, this was a real film where people are going to have to think for themselves for a change."
And one True Blood question: did you anticipate the direction they are taking Jason when you signed on to the show?
Ryan Kwanten: "No. But, in order to clarify that I couldn’t have predicted even if I would have tried, you know? They do such a great job in writing for the character and even though I’ve got a vivid imagination, anything I could have come up with pales in comparison to what they have actually done."
