on billboard
The actor premieres this Friday in theaters ‘Sundown’, by the Mexican Michel Franco, an uncomfortable story in which nothing is what it seems
Tim Roth (Dulwich, London, 61 years old) tells by videoconference that one of the most complicated and difficult things for an actor is to “do nothing” and eliminate what the public perceives as acting. «No matter how comfortable one is in front of the camera, it is a presence that is always there, it is the fourth wall, and one of the most complicated things is to break it, get rid of it, and achieve, for example, that the viewer feels with me on the beach in Acapulco».
It is fundamentally what the British achieves in ‘Sundown’, the latest film by Mexican director Michel Franco, which hits theaters this Friday. Nothing is what it seems in this film that collects the vacations, at full speed, of a British couple with their children, in one of the resorts that are in the paradisiacal Acapulco. Days of drinking and recreation are suddenly interrupted when a loved one passes away and the family decides to return to London. Not everyone, because Neil, played by Roth, claims to have left his passport at the hotel and says that he will catch the next flight.
What follows is the story of an apparently empty person, without any soul or expressiveness and oblivious to everything that happens around him, who decides to drink the days posted in one of the beach bars. Original and intriguing, the film plays on the confusion with the spectator, who does not stop asking himself questions and conjectures while he attends each uncomfortable decision of the character in astonishment.
Did the same thing happen to Roth while reading the script? “With Michel it never happens that way,” explains the actor, who had already worked on ‘Chronic’ with the Mexican director and on ‘600 miles’, of which Franco is a producer. “Michel is never going to give you a script to read and decide whether or not to do the movie,” he continues. “Usually the starting point is a phone call where he tells you that he wants to do a movie about a certain topic,” says Roth. Then a creative exchange begins, with abundant conversations, where all kinds of ideas arise, until one fine day Franco gets away from everything and writes the first draft of the script. “That first version, we trashed it again and started over with more trades, but it didn’t stop there. Also shooting we are constantly changing things until we finish shooting. Michel’s is a really very creative and unique process,” says the actor.
Get rid of the movies
Interestingly, Roth has yet to see the movie. “I will do it. There is something very special about the way it shoots that fascinates me, so I will see it for sure, but I want to see it the right way, which is in a cinema, with a group of strangers in a dark room, not at a festival. I’m sure I’ll be very surprised.”
The truth is that the interpreter is not very given to be seen on the big screen. “I stopped watching the movies I’m in a while ago,” he says. “Sometimes you do things that you think are going to be great and when the movie comes out, you find out it’s the disappointment of your life. Other times, you do something that you think is going to be horrible, and the result is wonderful. So you never know what is going to happen », he reflects. Over time, Roth decided that once his work on a production was done, the film would become part of the audience. “As much as it appears on the screen, whether it’s in the movies or on television, it’s no longer a part of me. I learned to let go of them and for me, in a way, it’s like moving forward », he analyzes. “Before I used to take what they said about me as something very personal and it affected me a lot, whether it was good or bad, so I made the decision to stop doing it, I think it’s much healthier to get away from the movie,” says who says no already read reviews about his work, “neither good nor bad,” he adds. You won’t read this text either, he laughs. “In fact, when I give the interviews, I am more interested in what the journalists have to say about the film than I am, who has not seen it. In addition, the interviews are more interesting this way because we can have a much more pleasant conversation », he concludes amused.
#Tim #Roth #difficult #actor