"Bigger than the Sky" follows the story of Peter Rooker (played by Marcus Thomas), an inexperienced actor who lands the lead role in the stage production of "Cyrano." Once cast, Peter gets caught up in the behind-the-scenes intrigues of the theater world.
INTERVIEW WITH JOHN CORBETT ('Michael'):
Have you ever done community theater?
I did. Yeah, when I first started out in La Mirada Civic Theater. What was my first play, I think I did “Witness for the Prosecution.” And I guess I did it when I first started out. That’s how I got into acting. I took an acting class at Cerritos Junior College and I did a handful of plays, maybe five or six plays. Plays like “Hair” and Under Milk Wood,” a Dylan Thomas play and “Marathon 33.” It was a lot of fun, man.
Are the characters in the theater community like those in this film?
That was the thing about this flick, man… All these characters are sort of universal. In theater, I mean. When I read this thing, I guess it’s about 20 pages in where my character shows up and wakes Marcus [Thomas] and says, “Let’s go. Let me take you on a little journey.” And we go to the theater and Patty Duke is working on costumes and the place is alive. That’s what it was like for me when I was doing theater. It was really 24 hours a day and the theater was just alive 24 hours a day. People were building sets and making props and making costumes and rehearsing and I just fell in love with that lifestyle because most people go home and shut off at the end of the day, five or six o’clock, have their T-bone and watch TV. Theater is wild. It’s alive.
But you know what? I’m afraid to do theater now. Now that people know who I am, I get offered plays here and there. It was so much easier to do it when nobody knew who I was. I can’t even imagine that somebody would come and pay money just to come and see me now. And I have this fear of not being worth the 15 bucks. So I can’t do it. Hey, I’m not worth 15 bucks on stage for two hours. It was totally - it was much easier when I was starting out.
Have you ever had an audition like Marcus’ character?
Yeah. Yeah, I did. When I was starting out, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing and my person who was helping me out, I didn’t even have an agent, got me five or six big auditions for leads in movies in 1986 that I had no business auditioning for. I think I ran out of three of them before I’d even finished. I remember running out of one. I’m not going to tell you the movies, but I remember getting halfway through the thing and everything sort of tunnel-visioned on me and I couldn’t read the script anymore. I looked at the people and I just turned and ran out in a cold sweat. It took me about a year to study it and feel comfortable going in and reading for people. I definitely had a couple Marcus moments.
Did you base this character on anyone you knew in the theater?
Jesus, you know what? When you do these movies, they’re independent, small movies. I try not to fly anywhere so I drove up to Portland. I got there on my birthday last year, on May 9th. I remember driving. I thought more about driving up there - it’s funny you ask these questions because I thought more about little stupid things like driving up there and not getting a flat tire, or not getting hit by a truck more than I thought about basing the character on anyone. It’s only when I come here half a year after the movie was done that I start to analyze it. I don't know.
I kind of play the best actor in this small town, I guess. That’s what the script says I am. But I don't know if that comes across now in the movie because when I came into the first audition, there were guys in there saying things like, “Well, I guess we can go home now. Here he is.” I think they might have taken that out, so maybe it doesn’t come across that I’m the best actor in the small theater. But there was a really good looking young leading man in 1985 or 6 when I started at the La Mirada Civic Theater who pretty much when he showed up, guys like me, I think in “Witness for the Prosecution,” I might have had five lines. When you saw this guy come in, it was that feeling. “I can go home now. I’m not going to get any big part.”
Are you afraid to fly?
I’m claustrophobic. As soon as they shut that door, I want to kill people. Open that door back up. That guy that runs down and tries to kick in the cockpit at 30,000 feet that you read about once in a while, I can totally relate to that guy. I think he’s doing the same thing I’m doing which is let me off this thing, open a window. I want to hang my head out like a dog on the freeway.
