The night I visited the set director Neil LaBute was shooting a scene in which Chris (Wilson) and Lisa (Washington) were having a frantic conversation outside by their pool, shaken up by their neighbor's obvious hatred and by a nearby fire which was threatening their new home. Prior to tackling that emotionally heavy scene, Wilson sat down with us to discuss Lakeview Terrace.
Patrick Wilson Interview
Tell us about your character in the movie.
"I play Chris Mattson. I just moved down here from the San Francisco area with my wife who Kerry [Washington] plays and I am sort of an environmentalist. I work for this company closest to probably Whole Foods, and we move into this neighborhood and we've been together for a while and this is our first house. You sort of imagine we probably lived in an apartment or something before that and then we come to find out that sort of the racism that we have experienced, I guess, pales in comparison to our lovely neighbor Mr. Abel Turner who Sam [L. Jackson] plays. He really just makes… It's very clear that he doesn't like us together or the idea of us together. It becomes a real battle of old versus new, and then he just proceeds to not mince words with what he feels about us and how we shouldn't be in his neighborhood and basically how we should just leave."
It sort of becomes not just a battle of the race issue, because that's sort of been done over and over, but what was interesting to me is just the idea of people's values and people's morals in their own sort of no matter how much your neighborhood acts like a neighborhood, everybody's home is still their own community, I guess, with their own set of morals and values and traditions and ours are sort of challenged."
Is your neighbor's attitude targeted more toward just you or your character and Kerry's?
"That's interesting. Probably more towards me, just from the male perspective I would imagine. I mean that might be a question more for Sam. But, yeah, we sort of go into that a little. I think we do. There's a few lines in there that Kerry says and I sort of just address [it], just so we can sort of get it out on the table. We've experienced this before - looks from black men. Whether it's looks, whether it's comments, a white man and a black woman is much different than a black man and a white woman so I think it's very easy to target me."
Are there any gray areas in the conflict?
"No. I mean, well, what's interesting is it starts out by he sees us together for lack of a more detailed explanation. I mean we just moved in, we're very much in love and have a great relationship. It's not like we're just starting out. You know we've been together for a few years, so we sort of know the protocol. We are not children. But it's actually his kids who see us in the pool getting very comfortable in our new environment. And, again, it's probably more of a question for him, but that's what sort of pushes it over the edge. So you don't know in the next day when he and I have a confrontation that's what he [it's about]. He never says, 'I don't like you because of who you are.' It's, 'I saw what you guys did and that's going to leave a scar on my children,' so that's sort of the route through it. It's not so black and white like, you know, 'I don't like you because…' So I think that's sort of the avenue it goes down when it becomes very clear, at least to me - maybe not to the audience - and that's totally fine."
Is there a point toward the end where you cross over and abandon your principles and go at it?
"Yeah, I think we certainly take a more physical and maybe brutal, maybe base, maybe childish [approach to the problem]. Yes, there's much more sort of a guttural reaction to it than, say, you know other films. It's much more of like a very sinister behind the lines. I think that's what it is. It's just much more sort of aggressive. Again, it really sort of balances that line between being very brutal…and I don't mean just violent, but I just mean very physical and then very childish and very sort of stupid, looking at these sort of two men. She sort of points that out to us."
So Sam kicks your ass?
"You could say that."
How was it working with Samuel L. Jackson?
"It's great. You know I try and remember what my perceptions were, I guess. Of course we've all seen him in quite a few films but the biggest thing that stuck out to me were the first couple of days of shooting, you know? I'd never seen him with a pair of sides - like whatever preparation and whatever he does is so much in his world. I think that's the fascination, at least I have with other actors, is how each person sort of prepares and I sort of love that. You know, he comes in and it's never, 'Uhhh, what is the scene?' That's just a different kind of preparation, but I sort of love that. Like he walks in and he does it. He's just a consonant pro, and it's sort of obvious. But, you know, for someone that will do it one take or two and if you ask for three and four there's no sense of, 'Argh okay,' you know? It's never that. He's great. After our first few scenes of getting at it and going toe-to-toe it was really fun. We sort of slapped hands afterwards and it was great. It was fun."
