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“Lost” fans finally got new glimpses of their fearless (and, apparently, utterly bonkers at some future date) leader, Jack Shephard, when the brain-teasing hit show began its fourth season at the end of January. And in his new movie, “Vantage Point,” Fox’s Secret Service agent Kent Taylor can be seen trying to save an American president from a Spanish assassination plot again and again and again. The movie depicts the same shooting from eight different perspectives, revealing more information each time it rewinds. Fox was raised on an isolated Wyoming ranch and loves living in Hawaii with his wife of 17 years and their two children, out of focal length from most paparazzi lenses. And though the 41-year-old actor isn’t one to seek attention, he doesn’t mind if his current ubiquity pleases many adoring fans. Now, if we could only figure out what his characters are up to. Let’s talk about your character in “Vantage Point.” Oh wait, we can’t. It’s kinda tricky; I’m not used to that. We really wanted to find ways of foreshadowing stuff that audiences wouldn’t necessarily see the first time around, but after the realization they would go, “Oh. Yeah.” So we were playing with levels of it and trying to make something that was nuanced.
Shooting the same scenes over and over again must have been mind-numbing. Filmmaking is a tedious process anyway. When you do it from eight different points of view, it’s almost eight times as tedious! But y’know, it’s interesting. When you do it that many times, you really start finding ways of making it fresh for you. But in a film like this, it’s like a mosaic of all these pieces that you have to keep straight in your head. You’re trying to orchestrate how they all connect, and of course they’re all shot out of order. So keeping that string intact is very challenging. Does the film really have something to say about current events or is it just a big, complicated chase? That’s what’s so intense about it. Anybody in America who doesn’t know that our country is not really well-received around the globe right now is wearing some serious blinders. That’s the truth. Our foreign policy and the way we’ve handled ourselves in some situations, we’re perceived as a bit of a bully. But, for me, the political aspect of the movie is just a backdrop for an action thriller that’s talking about perspective, which I really think is the bigger element of the movie. The world still loves some of our TV shows, “Lost” being an example. I always believed in the show, from the moment I read the first script that J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof wrote. I really believed in the show being excellent, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into finding an audience. So what it’s done domestically - and more importantly, what it’s done globally - is incredible. I think the show deserves it, because it’s really very good and innovative. But its success is really rewarding. The fourth season just started airing, and I’m more confused than I was for the last three years. Last year ended with the juxtaposition of two images of Jack Shephard: Contacting the boat and feeling like he just got rescued, that he’s accomplished the one overriding thing that he had to do, which was shepherd these people off of this island; and a future, and we don’t know how far in the future it is, when he’s a suicidal drug addict yelling, “I have to go back!” Season four will be about closing those two points in time. We hear with the strike there will only be 13 episodes. Is that enough? Well, Damon was planning to close those two lines of time in 16 episodes. What’s your position on the upcoming Screen Actors Guild negotiations? I support the guilds’ position. People are getting their content in very new ways, and I think the people who originate that content have to be compensated. It’s that simple. I mean, the original model of three networks that ran television shows and they just paid residuals when shows were rerun is long gone. Now, a lot of people are going to iTunes and buying the episode and they digitally own it. So whoever wrote that episode should get something, it shouldn’t be pure money that goes to the studios. And for the actors as well; we’re the ones up there. We’ve talked about the show’s success. What’s “Lost” done for you? It’s been amazing for my career; the opportunities I’ve been getting from it have been incredible. And in my personal life, it’s been a very welcome change for myself and my wife and my kids, moving out of the South Bay to Oahu. Were you worried that you wouldn’t get past your “Party of Five” image? It was a successful show and people loved it. But I really felt it was important for me to get the Charlie Salinger thing away because, A) it tonally was not my cup of tea, I’m not really into that kind of melodrama; and B) I’d been in living rooms playing this role for five years, and if people thought Matthew Fox was Charlie Salinger, then I had to drop out, shave my head and go do theater for a year and a half. Not that I keep track of these things, but haven’t you made a lot of sexiest something-or-other magazine lists? There’s some of that, yeah. I don’t pay attention to it either. Some people think “Speed Racer” might be the summer’s sexiest movie. What’s your role? I’m playing Racer X, who is the masked vigilante. The audience is not sure whether he falls down on the side of good or the side of bad. It’s directed by the Wachowski brothers (”The Matrix”). How cool will it look? It’s going to be beautiful, man, I’m telling you. Like nothing you’ve ever seen; very, very new. The way it moves, the way it transitions, the things the Wachowski brothers are doing, the intimate focus - it’s going to be mind-blowing. |
I loved the bit about Italians, being one myself. LOL...
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