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Man of Action
In his latest edge-of-the-seat thriller ‘Man on a Ledge’, Sam Worthington plays a man who goes for broke, a feeling that the actor is not completely unfamiliar with himself...
When Sam Worthington got the call asking him to audition for Avatar, it came at a decisive moment in the Australian actor's career. While he'd left a mark on screen with a string of impressive local performances (including roles in the features Gettin' Square, Somersault for which he won an AFI, Macbeth and also the television series Love My Way), Worthington felt as though he was coasting and resented who he'd become. It's no exaggeration to say that Avatar changed everything, and saw his career explode internationally with the actor having worked on a steady procession of films since, including roles in Terminator Salvation, Clash of the Titans and more recently The Debt and Last Night. While many of those flicks have registered as huge box office hits, Worthington doesn't view their success purely through a commercial perspective and calls himself up on his performances. And that gives a pretty good indication of the type of guy he is when we meet him in person. Dressed for a day of press in shorts and thongs, Worthington seems a grounded and affable guy determined to sharpen his craft.
His latest film, Man On A Ledge, sees the actor play escaped convict Nick Cassidy, who was imprisoned for supposedly stealing a $40 million diamond from a rich tycoon (Ed Burns). Never knowing his exact motives, Cassidy gets onto the ledge on the 25th floor of a New York City skyscraper to protest his innocence with Elizabeth Banks and Jamie Bell starring as seeming allies. When we congratulate Worthington on the film, he's the first to point out that it's "just a popcorn flick", but it's a pretty entertaining one at that...
It's essentially a film about a man stuck on a ledge, but it has all these elements and layers and touches all these different genres. When you first read the script, did you see how dynamic it was going to be?
I talked to Lorenzo [di Bonaventura, producer] about a year before we did it. I was just looking for a film that was pure entertainment to be honest. I know that sounds like a weird choice but we talked about The Negotiator with Samuel L. Jackson and Phone Booth with Colin Farrell. I liked the fact that this was an action movie where the guy was rooted to the spot. We added in a few more action scenes obviously, but I just liked that simple concept. It's a simple action movie with a time frame. There was nothing too complex about it, but then you add in the other characters and their own complexities spin in.
You were on board this project right from the early days...
I've known Lorenzo for years and liked his movies. The guy's done Matrix, Transformers, Red, and lots of stuff with Mark Wahlberg. I liked the fact that he's always said me that he wants to make movies for an audience in the sense that he wants to give them their money's worth. I have the same way of thinking. I always ask, ‘Would I pay $18 to see this?' and so when we were putting it together, we would just talk about what we find exciting: things like adding a car chase and trying to recruit Ed Harris because we both liked him. That's the kind of collaboration we had.
We never really know whether your character is innocent or not. Was it difficult to find a balance in how much to reveal and when, throughout the film?
Well originally my character was desperate and nervous at the start and then he got cooler as the movie went on, and I said, ‘I don't buy that, that's what an actual jumper would do but this is part of Cassidy's plan.' I saw it rather that at the start he should be nice and cool and then as the movie unravels and the plan is pulling away, that's when he gets more desperate and irrational in his actions. Holding on to that structure was what excited me.
The film was shot on a real ledge of a New York hotel! What was your reaction when you first stepped out there?
It's on the film. The first time that I step out in the film is the first time I did it in real life. I just said, ‘Roll the camera.'
Did you respond the way you'd anticipated?
No! No one had any idea. I think they thought I was going to burst into tears and curl up in a ball and say, ‘I don't want to be here. I'm an innocent man. Can we do it inside and make it A Man in a Room?' [Laughs] But it was better to just film it and go with it because then I couldn't back out. And when you're up there, you get more comfortable. Your body's always reacting because of the adrenalin, but before we knew it, we were filming the majority of the movie there because I was getting more ambitious and the camera crew was getting more ambitious. Literally by the time we turned around, we'd done eighty percent of the film on the actual ledge and didn't really need to go into the studio.
And being in New York must have lent the film a real atmosphere...
Yeah, we kept gravitating back to New York because we realised that the crowd would be an essential character, and a lot of the people you see in the movie are just cinema verite style pick-ups. The director had done a doco [Ghosts of Cite Soleil] and knew that New Yorkers don't like film crews at the best of times interrupting their day so they're yelling abuse and Asger [Leth, director] just got the camera and started shooting people. A lot of those people were either for real or just disgruntled fans of mine yelling, ‘Jump!' New York can offer you that kind of crowd energy.
Going back to Avatar, do you look at your career now as "before" and "after" Avatar?
Yeah. It's two chances. I had a career in Australia although I never personally planned it and then Jim came along and you get a second chance. It's weird; you definitely look at it in two halves.
Just before Avatar, I hear that you had sold all your things and were planning on living in your car. What was the motivation there?
I was turning 30. When you cross that river, you reflect on who you are and I didn't like who I was. The career I had was fine enough, the friends I had were fine, I just didn't like the person that I was. It's hard to admit that, but that's what happened and then everything I looked at in the house reminded me of that person and I thought, ‘If I sell everything then you can control-alt-delete your life and do it yourself and grow into the person that you want to be.' You've still got to wake up and look at yourself in the mirror every day.
Do you think being at that stage in your life helped you get the part in Avatar because you went for broke?
Yeah, for sure. There was a bit of belligerence from me because it was like, ‘What's this?! Another crap audition for something?!' I didn't know what the hell it was and Jim saw that and said, ‘That's the character!' [Laughs] I had that kind of gung-ho recklessness. I was like, ‘Sure I'll audition for your movie, I've got nothing else better to do.' They wouldn't tell us what the movie was to start with and then when I realised Jim was behind it, he said, ‘Just keep that attitude.' Then the time rehearsing with Jim and working with him, you grow into a different person anyway.
With big-budget blockbusters like Avatar and Clash of the Titans, do you find it difficult to tap into the humanity of your character?
Yeah, it can be. It just always comes down to the script. With something like Clash of the Titans, I personally dropped the ball. The movie's fine, everyone in it is fine, but personally I didn't like what I did. I didn't create a character. It was a generic action hero in a special effects movie. I didn't try as hard as I could or should have. So when you sit down to start Clash 2, that was the main thing you nail. I sat down with the director and looked at the script and said, ‘Okay, what kind of character is Perseus?' instead of going the other way and saying, ‘That's a great action scene, that's a great set piece, that's a great monster... what the fuck story are we telling?' It gets a lot easier once you realise it's always got to be about the story.
You recently joked that you wanted to make a comedy with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe...
Yeah, that was a pure joke, but I just really liked the image of that [Laughs].
But do you find that in America you're seen as the intense action guy and they're the type of scripts you're always sifting through?
It's funny, you can rebel against that or accept it and the scripts I get offered are ones like that. But it's okay, these are movies I like going to watch and within that setup, you get offered the chance to do something like The Debt so I enjoy the position and don't whinge about it. If you look at someone like Harrison Ford, he was primarily an action guy, but he would go and do a Witness or a Working Girl. You've got to work with it. If you look at someone like Jessica Chastain, no one knew who she was and while she was out of the public eye, she'd done seven chameleon roles. So now she can be a chameleon in any of her choices. When I came out in the public eye, I'd done three action movies so straight away that's who they think you are, but I'd rather embrace it than go against it.
And you've met with James Cameron for Avatar 2...
He's told me the story and it is monumental, but more technically in regard to how he wants to shoot it. We don't know when it's going to go ahead because he's still trying to figure out how to do it, but I can guarantee it's going to be incredible.
Man on a Ledge is released in cinemas February 2. You can score a double pass to see the film here.
