PeterCattaneo Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Above: Rainn Wilson lets his hair down for The Rocker.

Fans of Rainn Wilson's offbeat, hilarious and strangely endearing performance as Dwight Schrute on NBC's The Office might expect him to transition into film work with straightforward comedy, and The Rocker confirms that suspicion. However, they might not realize the serious professional motives behind his choice. In the movie, directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Full Grown Monty), Wilson plays a grown-up dolt named Fish with a scary fixation on classic rock. Abandoned by the band Vesuvius in his teens -- before they became a commercial phenomenon -- Fish spends the next twenty years working deadbeat jobs and wishing things happened differently. Naturally, he gets a second chance: When the opportunity rolls around to drum for his nephew's high school, Fish goes for it. Ageism and slapstick humor ensue.

While not exactly a classic, The Rocker proves Wilson has the charisma to carry a movie. The script could use some polishing, but Wilson manages to play a completely dysfunctional human being without ever becoming an annoyance. It's a testament to his skill as an actor with calculated timing. The humor emerges from the naturalism of his performances, which make you believe in the outlandish characters he portrays. In a conversation with Cinematical recently, Wilson elaborated on his particular strategies as his career advances, reminisced about his days as a New York theater actor, and shed some light on a few upcoming projects.

I like the premise of The Rocker so much -- middle-aged wannabe rock star insinuates himself into his teenage nephew's band -- that I'm inclined to go easy on it solely out of good will. It's likable enough, a lightweight rock 'n' roll comedy punctuated by several belly laughs -- but those laughs are all in response to the one-liners, and mostly from one minor character (more on that later). The story, the central personalities, and the uninspired slapstick are bland.

The title wannabe is Robert "Fish" Fishman, played by Rainn Wilson (of TV's The Office) in his first major film role. Fish was the drummer for Vesuvius, a mid-'80s heavy-metal band, but was kicked out on the eve of the group's success. Now, two decades later, Vesuvius is huge and Fish is a bitter has-been (or, rather, never-was).

He gets a new shot at glory, though, as drummer of A.D.D., an emo band whose keyboard player is Fish's chubby nephew Matt (Josh Gad). The lead singer and guitarist, sullen teen Curtis (Teddy Geiger), and bassist Amelia (Emma Stone) are reluctant, but Fish is actually really good on the kit, and he swears he can find them a gig.

*Exclusive official photo from The Rocker, courtesy of Fox Atomic

After Christina Applegate and Tom McNulty sat down with me, the vibe I started to get was that I had been taken care of, which was true. I had asked several times for Emma Stone, but I wasn't going to push too hard for it after everyone had treated me so nicely. So for the rest of the night, I found an out-of-the-way place to sit and just watched as Rainn and Christina filmed a long scene where they walked from one end of the main set to the other, in front of an enormous green-screen, which I think will have some kind of music video footage when it's finalized. The scene revolves around Fish trying to get Kim to reveal the name of her old punk band (see the Christina interview in Part III) and she ends up revealing it -- Scream Weavers. They also eventually get into a little on-the-spot contest to see who can name the most rock bands with a place in their name: Kansas, Berlin, Bay City Rollers, etc.

At one point, while I was watching all of this, Emma, who had to be present to do background work, came over to where I was to relax between takes, but I resisted the urge to hit her up for an on-the-spot interview. Nothing else memorable happened for the next couple of hours, except for an AD telling me I was standing too close to the shooting area at one point. (Also, I forgot to mention this: earlier in the night, I had requested an interview with director Peter Cattaneo, but instead of granting it, he invited me to come over and tape-record him being interviewed by a TV station! Obviously I'm not printing that.) Anyway, around 6:00am on Sunday morning, I stumbled out into the morning light, flagged down my driver and rode back to the hotel. Overall, I had managed to bag three good interviews, and had been able to take a lot of notes, so I was pretty happy. The next Tuesday, back home in Jersey, I got an unexpected bonus -- a phone call from Emma.

ES: Hi, how're you doing?

RS: Pretty good. Sorry I didn't get to meet you Saturday night. You're probably wrapped on the whole movie by now, right?

ES: No, no, I'm actually leaving for work in like, twenty minutes. We're gonna wrap on the 31st, I think, next week.

RS: So why don't you give me some details on how your character fits into the story? I still don't know much about her.

ES: Well, she's the bass player for the band. You know the general outline of the movie. Rainn joins the high-school band and I'm in that band. And basically, Teddy, who is the lead singer and guitarist and then Josh plays the keyboards, and he's Fish's -- Rainn's character's -- nephew, and I'm just a friend of theirs that plays bass in the band.

RS: Does your character have, like, a love interest or anything?

ES: Yeah, she's kind of into Curtis, Teddy's character, and that's kind of an underlying current. Their definitely not dating or together in the movie, it's just kind of ... I think they have an attraction to each other kind of, throughout the plot-line.

RS: Was there one thing in particular that got you interested in this part?

I did this set visit back in July, but when I spoke with producer Tom McNulty on the set, he ended up revealing something that Fox wanted kept under wraps, so after the visit, the studio embargoed me from revealing the news he gave me until August 31. So here it is -- drumroll please. This film, which has been described over and over as a 'Pete Best story,' actually has former Beatle Pete Best! He's in the movie! Tom also revealed that 30 Rock's Jane Krakowski has joined the film's cast. He also announced that a quasi-sequel to The Rocker, based on the film's fictional hair band Vesuvius, is moving forward with Will Arnett attached. A writer is currently being hired and Rainn Wilson will presumably take part. Interviewing Tom was a lot of fun -- the guy was a ball of fire, ready to talk about anything, and even though he talked a million miles a minute, he still gave us a half-hour interview that covers a lot. I've cut the whole thing down a bit, but you still get the big picture.

What kind of rock n' roll are you celebrating with this movie? What's the vibe?

TM: The vibe is big, full-on heavy metal kind of rock. Not so much glam rock. I mean, the guys are definitely, you know, Aerosmith, but there is definitely some Whitesnake, Poison, Ratt, Pantera, Winger, Cinderella ...what other bands do we reference. The band he's kicked out of, Vesuvius, when we began to kind of figure it out and write the songs for it, we did a lot of research watching Heavy Metal Parking Lot and you don't really have to do characters for those guys, because they pretty much ... there was a documentary and they talked about how these lead singers ... 98 percent of the audience were heterosexual dudes and these guys are wearing tight spandex pants and thrusting their crotch into a male audience. So it's this weird celebration of, like, male masculinity, but the guys are full-on lipstick, blush, rouge, women's wigs basically. Look at Motley Crue, for God's sakes, or Van Halen or Poison. It was all dudes and no one ever thought about the idea of, like, this is very into homosexuality. Glam rock was one step away from that.

So looking at it at the time, in context, it didn't really seem weird, but when you step back and look at it objectively, it's like 'Holy shit, this was really a bizarre time in American music, you know? It was about theatricality. I think that -- this is just one man's opinion -- the advent of MTV and literally, suddenly, your image and what you look like and actually making a video became an important part of being a successful band is probably why it went from 0 to 60 overnight. Those guys were just ridiculous. It became about showmanship, and 'can you top this?' and, you know, in terms of the hair and lip-stick. Tommy Lee resembles nothing of what he looked like. Look at Nikki Sixx and those guys -- that Girls, Girls, Girls tour was ridiculous. So that's the basis of the band he was kicked out of. In the movie, the band has become as big as, say, Aerosmith, in terms of the world domination that they have. The idea is Aerosmith or The Stones, a band like that. They don't have the integrity that those bands have, but they definitely have the kind of vibe and popularity.

After the quick interview with Rainn, it seemed that anything I got beyond that on this set visit, interview-wise, might very well be gravy. It was around two or so in the morning, and the crew was frantically committed to setting up a long, complicated shot to be done in front of a green-screen on the main set. So I resigned myself to going back to the main set and watching the set-up. After a while, however, the unit publicist came to find me again, to tell me that the film's producer, Tom McNulty, was interested in doing an interview. Myself and the IGN reporter were quickly rounded up and taken to a tiny office adjacent to the set, and Tom followed. After speaking with Tom for half an hour, the door burst open and Christina Applegate unexpectedly walked in, ready to be interviewed. She was clearly tired from the insane schedule the film was following -- even I was tired, and I had only been exposed to it for one night -- so Christina, if you're reading this, thanks for taking the time.

How about these night shoots?

CA: The first week, by the end of the week, we had started normal days and then it just ... by the end of the week it had gotten so late, and because we're shooting six days weeks they haven't been able to get us turned back around. So it just keeps getting later and later. Probably in about a week it will be back around

When was the last time this happened to you?

CA: Never. In fact, I've never even heard of this happening, to be honest with you. It's not something that happens a lot.

So your character is the mom of one of the garage-band kids -- does she have any other connection to rock n' roll? A former groupie, maybe?

CA: No, well, Kim was actually the lead singer of a punk band when she was 17 years old, and that's when she got pregnant with Curtis, who is the lead singer in the band, ADD. So she's kind of a groovy chick.

Do you get to use any of your musical chops in this film?

CA: No, I get to play in a rock band, which is the new, better version -- I get to play guitar. I'm quite good at that, because I have guitar gear at home, so I came into this with guitar experience under my belt. I used to be really into karaoke revolution, but now it's all about Guitar Hero. Now they're gonna give us the rock band thing, which is cool, because it's a full band. With drums and a singer and bass.

*Exclusive official photo from The Rocker, courtesy of Fox Atomic.

The first cast member to acknowledge the presence of the online press guys that night was Rainn Wilson, who eventually agreed to sit down with us for an interview in the cafeteria area in between takes. He was a perfectly nice, pleasant guy to talk to, but you could tell that he was a little tired from the switch to night shoots, and he was very much in a business frame of mind. In fact, I'm sure I have the tenacity of the unit publicist to thank for the interview happening at all: despite the tough, pressurized circumstances of the shoot, she went out of her way to try to help me get what I came for that night. Here's the interview with Rainn in full, with some questions being asked by myself and some from the IGN journalist. It will give you a good idea of the basic plot and characters of The Rocker, what kind of tone the filmmakers are shooting for, and also what you can expect from Rainn in the future, project-wise.

The plot of the film has been kept pretty much under wraps -- we only know what's been in the trades. What can you say about it?

RW: It's a movie about a heavy metal drummer who gets kicked out of a rock band right before they become, like quadruple-platinum huge. Like the drummer of Aerosmith getting kicked out before Walk This Way, or something like that. And it kind of haunts him for his whole life. The movie does take place in the present day, and he gets another chance at fame, another chance at redemption, by joining his high-school nephew's garage-rock band. So, you know, it's kind of a fish out of water story and my character is named Fish, so it's perfect for a fish-out-of-water-story.

What kind of comedy is it? Is it like Bob Odenkirk-style absurdist comedy, or more straight-ahead?

RW: No, it's a pretty straight-ahead rock n' roll comedy. You know, it would be like a highly-comedic version of an Almost Famous, or something like that, maybe. I play ... he's a crazy, man-out-of-time, you know? He lives to rock, but his idea of that is trapped somewhere between Def Leppard and AC/DC. So he gets this new opportunity, he gets a new lease on life, a chance to live his dream, and in the course of it, he meets Christina Applegate.

Not bad.

RW: Not so bad.

So are you going to actually reference those old bands? Should we expect cameos from, like, Def Leppard or Winger?

RW: We talked about that, having heavy metal cameos but we didn't go with that. But we do see the old band that fired him. Vesuvius is their name, and we got a great cast for that. Will Arnett, Fred Armisen and Bradley Cooper are playing those guys.

July 21: After an entire day of walking through downtown Toronto -- the most interesting thing I saw was a store near my hotel called Not Just Condoms! -- I was almost ready for bed when my hotel phone started ringing. I checked my watch -- 10:15 P.M. The unit publicist for The Rocker had warned me, of course, that the production had recently switched to night calls, meaning each day's filming would begin at night and go through the morning. She had told me to try to sleep during the day, but I've never been able to do that. I can't make myself fall asleep at will, so I knew I'd just have to accept being tired. I grabbed my bag and headed out of the hotel, into the waiting car. A few minutes later, we were rolling into what would seem to anyone like the yard of an auto mechanic shop, with cars and vans parked willy-nilly, tools and machines lying around, and one small door providing the entry point to a large, spacious interior the size of a high-school gymnasium.

"So, what do you want to do first?" the publicist asked me after I greeted her inside the set, and luckily I had an answer. Since it seemed that I had arrived before filming was ready to commence, I asked her if would be possible for me to meet Anthony Richmond, the film's DP who had shot one of my favorite horror films, Candyman. She escorted me into the back rooms where the crew hangs out, and we located Richmond, holding court in an out-of-the-way lounge. A gruff old Englishman with long hair, we hit it off immediately; we talked about shooting Candyman, the squandered genius of Bernard Rose -- seriously, what happened to that guy? -- and the twists Richmond's long career has taken. He's lately garnered a reputation as a DP with a knack for shooting starlets -- Reese Witherspoon, Cameron Diaz, Jessica Alba, and Jessica Simpson vehicles have all employed him -- and we talked about working with some of those actresses. At some point, business interfered and Richmond was called to the set -- the cast was ready to shoot.