Rex: Well, we recently did a screening in LA, and we did a Q&A afterward. Thompson: Have you had much response or feedback from people in the porn industry about Red Rocket and your character, Mikey Saber? It’s easy for me to tap into that pace, but his motivations are so different. You’ve got to fly through it, not listen but talk, talk, talk, and be that guy. When you read the script, it’s these four-page monologues where he’s going 100 miles an hour. The physicality, his speed, his energy, his rhythm, that was easy to tap into. That was the only part where I felt like I had to act. He’s a selfish, narcissistic sociopath, and I like to think I’m not any of those things. Yeah, he’s silly and goofy, and it is easy for me to tap into that energy, but the things he does are awful. Let’s go with it and see what happens,’ but there was also a lot of the fact that this guy I play, Mikey Saber, is a horrible person. How much of this was you relaxing into the role compared to genuinely acting and giving a performance? Thompson: Many actors say when you find the right role, it’s different from having to act. (Left to right) Simon Rex and writer-director Sean Babker on the set of 'Red Rocket.' A24 It took a long time, 25 years, but I can finally call myself an actor and own it.’ After this, I’m like, ‘Holy s**t!’ Watching Red Rocket, it’s like I’m telling myself, ‘Dude. I fortuitously fell into it, and here I am. I’m just a guy who got lucky, and Gus Van Sant auditioned me when I was on MTV years ago to be in Good Will Hunting.’ He told me that I was not ready to do that movie but said I should take acting lessons, so I did. Even when I was working a lot, I’d be on set and be like, ‘I’m not one of these guys.’ I’d be in acting classes off-Broadway in New York doing Stanislavski method, doing scenes from plays, and I thought, ‘I don’t feel like an actor. I didn’t see myself seriously as an actor because I never felt like one. My work was a few Scary Movies, sitcoms, Dirt Nasty, and I wasn’t like a serious actor. I think it’s okay not to take yourself too seriously, but I take the work very seriously. I also don’t think I took myself seriously, and that’s probably part of the reason why as well. Rex: That’s fair to say, and it’s okay, but thank you for being sensitive to that because that’s the truth. Thompson: To be in the room now in awards season, with the positive reaction to Red Rocket at festivals and from critics, how does that feel? You’ve got this career that spans decades, but for me, it’s almost the first time, and I mean this respectfully, that you’re being taken seriously. We need you in Texas immediately.’ I just went. He loved it, and he said, ‘You’re the guy. As soon as he had me do a cold read of an audition, he sent me one paragraph of the opening scene, and I did it by video on my cell phone. Let’s go.’ There was not even one question in my mind. Collectively, we were all like, ‘What’s going on?’ When Sean Baker calls you to do a movie, it’s like, ‘Great. I was sitting around, and I live out in Joshua Tree, in the middle of nowhere in the desert during the pandemic, the world felt like it was ending, and there were lockdowns and riots and COVID. Something like this, having not come through an agency or an audition, was just very different. You get little peaks and valleys and moments but nothing like this, not the lead in a Sean Baker movie that would come directly from him. I had a good run when I was younger in the early 2000s I was working a lot, and then your career kind of fizzles. I was contemplating any other form of income and work because, with the acting stuff, it’s tough to work. Simon Rex: I was very surprised because the phone wasn’t ringing, quite frankly.
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