Under Ground Online (Nov. 2006)

Matthew Fox Interview

Many fans may remember Matthew Fox from his role as Charlie Salinger on the popular series Party of Five, which lasted four years on the Fox network. After a two year absence from TV, Matthew Fox turned up as Frank Taylor in the short lived UPN series Haunted before landing the role of Dr. Jack Shepherd on ABC’s gargantuan hit Lost. Now, after finding even bigger success on the small-screen, Matthew Fox is getting set to make his mark on the big screen in the upcoming film We Are Marshall.

On November 14, 1970, the entire Marshall Academy football team was lost in a plane crash, along with eight members of the coaching staff. At the time, it was one of the biggest tragedies in college football history. In the football season after the catastrophe, Marshall Academy was still able to field a team, coached by Jack Lengyel (Matthew McConaughey) and Red Dawson (Fox), one of the only members of 1970 coaching staff to not onboard the plane.

UGO: What initially drew you to the project?

MATTHEW FOX: That was the script. I didn’t know anything about what happened in 1970, and so, I read the script and then that was McG. Those are the two beginning factors that just had me excited about it. And then obviously, I met Red and that was the thing that really was huge, too. I love him and we’ve gotten to be really good friends and it felt important to me. It was one of those things where I just really had to do it.

UGO: Did you do a lot of research on the back-story of Marshall Academy and Red Dawson?

MATTHEW: I kind of went at that from two places, because I didn’t know much about the story. The first thing was to ask McG for all of his research materials that he had put together and he sent me gobs and stuff, and so I spent enough time with that to get a really good concept of what had happened.

And then, the most important element to me was to spend as much time with Red as I possibly could as early in my preparation process as I could. And I was shooting on Lost and couldn’t leave Hawaii, and that was about six weeks from the starting of shooting We Are Marshall, and so I called him and asked him if he would consider flying to Hawaii. I fully anticipated him, you know, being very reticent to do that. He hasn’t done much flying since 1970, but he surprised me by saying he would like to do that. He actually flew all the way to Hawaii, spent four or five days with me. He’d come to the set with me on Lost when I was working, and if I wasn’t, we just spent a lot of time together, spent time with my family, and we got to know each other. That was the first step.

And then, the next step was a more difficult process and that was me asking him questions about, recollections, memories, things that he hadn’t done a lot of talking about. I mean, Red has had a really… it’s just who he is as a man. He’s a very internal, strong man, and he is not the kind of guy that’s going to do a lot of talking about his own stuff, but he was incredibly open with me and generous and that was the process that was really important to me.

UGO: With the story based on true events and the tragedy of the Marshall plane crash, how much added pressure was there on you for this role?

MATTHEW: I’ve never felt as much pressure, and in a good way. When you do a fictional story and you’re creating everything from a fictional script and creating a character that is yours and the director’s only to create, you always want to set out to make a really great movie. But when it’s based on a true event, and you’re playing a man that you care deeply about, getting it right and doing him justice and honoring his life, there’s an enormous amount of pressure if you’re coming out it from a place of responsibility, and I felt that.

Red hasn’t seen the movie yet because he’s waiting for the right time to see it. He’s got to see it on his own. Obviously the one person in the world that I care the most about feeling good about this movie and feeling good about my portrayal in this movie is Red Dawson.

UGO: You played college football. How did that experience help you on this movie?

MATTHEW: It helped. Obviously, I love the game and I know the game well and this was the first time I ever approached it from the coaching perspective. But I had a lot of coaches in my life and I drew from a conglomerate of those, but also got to know Red long enough that felt like I had a pretty specific idea of what kind of coach Red was, and that stuff was really fun. I had to carry a weight through this movie, and so it was hard, but the football stuff, it was really fun to get back on the field and have all these kids out there in pads. I’ll tell you, the football stuff and how well that was choreographed, that was amazing.