March 12, 2008 - Nick Stahl stars as a guy just struggling to make it to work each day and keep his head above water in Sleepwalking, directed by William Maher. Charlize Theron co-stars as his sister, Joleen, a single mother who does a lousy job of raising her only child, Tara (played by AnnaSophia Robb). When Joleen's kicked out of the house she shares with her boyfriend, she drags Tara to her brother's place and dumps her there.
Most actors claim characters with an edge, a troubled background, or serious demons to battle are the most interesting to play, and while Stahl’s character, James, is a real decent guy, he definitely had a traumatic family life that’s affected his ability to function as an adult. Stahl claims his character’s troubled home life was something he found intriguing.
“You read the script, and it can read a certain way, and he can come off even as kind of slow or something like that,” explained Stahl. “I never saw him as mentally deficient in any way. He was emotionally deficient. When I first went up to Canada, I even had the costume designer tell me that it reminded her of Lenny from Mice and Men, and I was like, ‘Don’t tell me that,’ because that’s not at all what it was. He was a damaged [man] who was the victim of abuse and had learned to settle for a simple role in his life, not ask for anything, to just settle for something. And that’s the way he’s lived for a long time, and I think until Tara comes into his life does that start to change a little bit for him.”
Screenwriter Zac Stanford and director Maher don’t fill in all the blanks and allow the audience to figure out what motivates each character. The basics are there, but it’s left to the imagination of the audience to determine much of what keeps the adults moving forward on their chosen paths. Even though the script doesn’t spell things out, Stahl didn’t find it necessary to create his own detailed backstory on James. “I didn’t need to do much, and I’ve never been one to have a notebook of day one as my life as James Reedy. It’s just I’ve never really worked that way. I don’t think it helps me that much. I don’t think it makes it that much better for me. And least effort possible for me - that’s my philosophy.”
“I think a lot of it was in the script, definitely. There’s James’ and Joleen’s story,” said Stahl. “We spent some time talking about what their relationship was like and growing up. And I think I heard Charlize mention the other day that - I love the fact in the script that these two characters, these siblings, dealt with trauma in very different ways. They’re just completely different personalities. And part of the contentious relationship that they have is that sibling thing of she sees James get walked on, and to her it’s frustrating and it’s a reminder of the abuse that they’ve gone through. And she doesn’t want to look at that. She’s like an extrovert, aggressive. She’s always moving ahead and not looking back. And James isn’t necessarily looking back, but he’s got this apathy and he doesn’t stand up for himself as much. I think to her that’s a reminder of the damage that [Dennis Hopper as their father’s] done to us.”
Although the circumstances in the film - a mom dumping her kid at her brother’s so she can get a man, which is the only way she thinks she’ll be able to get her life in order – may not be a common story amongst the film’s audience, Stahl did think the characters were all very relatable. “I think everyone can relate somewhat to an unhappy childhood and to adversity growing up and kind of becoming an adult and moving past that and becoming your own person,” said Stahl. “I’ve been so lucky to always have acting, honestly. I knew what I wanted to do at a very young age, and that’s always been inspirational for me, honestly. I mean, when I was young, I sort of had a bad crowd that I ran with, and a couple of them are in jail now and they’re just doing whatever. I always had this. I always had something to pull me out of that, because I don’t know what I would do without it, honestly.”
Stahl’s career is a mix of larger budget movies and independent films, and he says preparing for a film of this size is really not that much different than getting ready to do a Terminator movie or Sin City. “I try to do the same thing that I have always done but just the context is so different,” offered Stahl. “On a bigger movie, you have so much more time and you can get kind of lazy. There’s just so much more luxury around you, and that’s kind of deceptive. It seems like it’s great and then you tend to get off track because you’re filming one scene over three days. We were filming six scenes in a day on this. And sometimes I think some real magic can happen when you have constraints, when you have time constraints or budget. Or, I think sometimes it creates a certain immediacy. Sometimes you get some great things out of the struggle or just even the elements where you’re filming. It’s 50 below, which just works so perfectly for the story. When I read it, it read like a cold story and the town, the industrial feel of where James is from, and it just lent itself so well.”
