If you tuned into the 2008 MTV Movie Awards you saw a lot more of Rainn Wilson (‘Dwight’ on The Office) than you probably ever expected to see. Wilson appeared onstage ‘naked’ except for a bunch of flowers and a teddy bear strategically covering his private parts. The actor wasn’t doing this because he’s an exhibitionist. Wilson was actually appearing sans clothing to support the August 20th release of the comedy movie, The Rocker.
Directed by Peter Cattaneo, a man who knows a little bit about showing off his actors naked bodies (he helmed The Full Monty), The Rocker finds Wilson playing Robert ‘Fish’ Fishman, a drummer who gets booted out of his 80s hair band, stops playing music for two decades, and then picks up the beat again by joining his nephew’s high school band. Fish’s new band, A.D.D., becomes an internet sensation when video from their practice session – with Fish practicing totally naked – hits YouTube. That’s a lengthy way of explaining why Wilson was showing off a lot of skin at the MTV Movie Awards…
Interview with The Rocker Star Rainn Wilson
What was your rock star fantasy?
“One thing I love about metal is like it’s just the sheer showmanship. I grew up, when I was a kid, I discovered Queen when I was like 12 years old and I just loved Freddie Mercury, just that kind of balls-out kind of like show, performance of rock and roll. Every decade rock and roll starts to get very serious and naval-gazing and kind of self-serious, and every once in a while it kind of needs a kick in the pants. Then it goes too far and it needs to kind of get serious again. Like, seriously, the hair metal thing is a little bit much.”
Were you into any of those bands at all?
“I wasn’t. You know, I skipped that. I love classic metal and I grew up listening to a lot of classic rock and I loved AC/DC and Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. But as soon as it started to get girly, as soon as they were wearing women’s blouses and eyeliner and mascara – ‘guy liner’ I call it - as soon as it went there, it kind of lost me. And I was kind of more going for like The Clash and Elvis Costello and you know some other more punk stuff.”
Is your performance more inspired drumming in the nude?
“ Well, any time I can show my body to comedic effect… My body has been making women laugh for the last20 years and I’m happy to continue to oblige.”
How tough was it to learn drumming?
“I took drum lessons from this guy named Stuart Johnson who has been in a lot of bands, and we got to work for a couple of weeks before I went up to Toronto. And really he was playing me like Zeppelin and White Stripes and kind of a lot of the real basic drum beats. We worked on a lot of basic drumming, but then he also like really coached me on the specifics of heavy metal drummers. There’s a whole art form to itself.”
Did you also watch any videos?
“ Watched a lot of YouTube videos, yeah. We had the computer out there in the garage where the drum set was and we would check out Poison or Ratt or Cinderella or any of the bands, and kind of looked at what the drummers were doing. So it’s a lot of stick tricks, you know? The metal drummers are all about like getting the audience involved and like kicking ass with the audience, and getting them involved and getting into the music and pumping them up and stuff like that.”
Did you go to any concerts for inspiration?
“Yeah, we went to see Rush. There weren’t really any metal bands playing at the time when we were shooting in Toronto, and we certainly didn’t have time - we were shooting six days a week. But we went to Rush and got to hang out with Neil Peart and got to actually play his drum set. So that was a pretty rare privilege.”
Did you base it on any rock star or story?
“ No, you know, it’s just his own character because it’s not so much about the rock star. I mean the movie is really a coming-of-age story, the way I thought of it as a coming-of-age story for this guy who is forty years old and finally gets to grow up. So it’s really about the character of Fish. But, you know, all that drumming really informed the character, because there’s something about a drummer that they just like pound on something first and ask questions later. There’s a kind of an idiocy to the rock drummer. There kind of has to be. You’re just like a big baboon in the corner pounding on things, you know? So that and the wig just like really informs who this guy was.”
Did you have any input as to how you looked?
“Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We talked about it a lot. I mean for a while I was fighting to have like a moustache and you know we talked about when he should have short hair and how long he should wear the ponytail. And we really wanted that one thing which is when he starts to rock out, like he takes the ponytail and lets the hair kind of come down literally. And like that’s kind of when the movie starts. Like when he gets to play prom and he literally lets his hair down, you know, and shakes it out in the hallway. That’s when the movie kind of kicks into gear and that’s kind of the metaphor.”
How many of the stunts did you do?
“I did most all of them.”
You got hit in the head a lot.
“I did. Yeah, a lot.”
Any injuries?
“ I think the one…the tumbling into the drum set backwards, I think that was a stunt guy. I think that was about it.”
What about clinging to the top of the van?
“ Oh yeah, that was me. I was strapped to the top of a van driving around, swerving around downtown Toronto at four in the morning for hours. It was cold and you know sticking those drumsticks in and climbing up, swerving, but I was strapped on. But it was pretty crazy.”
Did the director give you a lot of latitude for the character?
“Yeah, yeah absolutely. Peter was very collaborative and you know Peter always wants to make…he’s very much like, he’s a really on story director. He’s very much like, ‘We have to make sure that we’re telling the story here and making it clear about who Fish is and what he wants here and where he’s going.’ But within that he gave me a lot of latitude that I could always improvise and you know and go off script and have fun with it.”
Page 2: On Teddy Geiger, Playing Fish, and The Office
