I jeszcze jeden wywiad z nim opublikowany w TeenHollywood
http://www.teenhollywood.com/d.asp?r=81816&cat=1035 . I czytając to co mówi o sobie, swojej pracy, fascynacji Japonią, muzyce jakiej słucha, roli w "Shooting Livien", automatycznie porównuję to z wywiadem Katherine Heigl.
Jason Behr: An “Alien” in Japan
You might have first met cute, dark-haired Jason Behr as Max Evans, the misunderstood alien from the popular TV series “Roswell”. Since the show’s demise, he’s been busy with indie films that offer the young actor more diverse roles.
His dip back into the mainstream joins him with old friend Sarah Michelle Gellar as they play two Americans caught up in a frightening mystery in a haunted Japanese home. The Grudge offered Jason the chance to visit a country that has always held his interest. We wanted to know about his start in show biz, his fave horror as a kid and what drastically different indie film role is coming up. He was glad to answer our questions in our exclusive one-on-one interview.
When we entered Jason’s hotel room, the actor was picking up and tossing down posh, designer clothes that were draped all over his bed, choices he needed to make for his various upcoming TV interviews. The hottie prefers a casual look; jeans, casual shirt so he looked a bit befuddled and seemed glad to abandon the quest for the perfect outfit to sit down and chat.
Jason offered me something to drink and I told him I’d been drinking water all day and hadn’t gotten into the Sake the studio gave us as a gift.
Jason: Yeah, I saw that. So you’ve been chugging Sake have ya?
I assured him that I hadn’t touched the stuff and we’re off…
TeenHollywood: You had never been to Japan before so was there a bit of culture shock for you?
Jason: Culture shock, yes. The first night I got there, I was walking around the city amongst all these people who you have no real way of communicating with unless they speak English because you don’t know any Japanese. You look at these neon signs everywhere with symbols and no letters that you can recognize. With Spanish and other languages you can kind of sense what they might mean but it’s all visual and you have no idea. It’s very surreal like I just took the blue pill and I’m down the rabbit hole. It’s a totally different world.
TeenHollywood: So was nothing familiar?
Jason: Well there are a few symbols you recognize like the golden arches (of McDonalds) or Starbucks which is on every corner. But, other than that, it’s all completely new.
TeenHollywood: Did anybody who recognized you from “Roswell” bother you?
Jason: Everybody was pretty cool. If anybody said anything, it was always very respectful and very nice and very complimentary, nothing too bad.
TeenHollywood: Were you a scary movie fan as you grew up?
Jason: Yeah, I think when you’re growing up, the cool thing is to say ‘oh, I’ve seen that movie or that movie’. I’ve bought tickets to The Goonies and really went to see whatever horror film was out at the time. Walk to the other theater, sneak in and hide and hope not to get kicked out. Jaws was the very first movie I saw that scared the **** out of me. I remember having nightmares for months. At the time we lived in a place that had a pool and even then I’m thinking, ‘oh ****’. I think I was five years old. I love to swim and thought that shark could be anywhere!
TeenHollywood: What has been your most touching encounter with a fan so far?
Jason: Sometimes people will donate their time if not money or things that they’ve made, to causes that I’ve been involved with. There’s a group out there that are called the MIBs [Men in Black] and they’ve done a lot of stuff for me for the pediatric AIDS foundation. And that, to me, is above and beyond the call of duty in showing someone that you appreciate their work. Giving time to causes like that is really touching.
TeenHollywood: When you left for L.A. at age 19 with maybe 200 dollars to your name, did you know anyone in Hollywood?
Jason: There was a kid that I used to skateboard with when I was in the 7th grade. I don’t know what it’s like out here but in Minnesota, the next city over might as well have been France to your England or something. I only knew this one kid because skateboarding had just become popular at that time and Tony Hawk and all these guys were popular. This kid was really good and I’d see him at all the competitions. He was my biggest competition. He’d get first and I’d get second or vice-versa. I hadn’t seen him for years and years and he called me out of the blue knowing I had done some acting and was ‘hey, what’s up Jason? I’m out in California. What are you doin’? He said ‘my roommate has moved back to Minnesota because he didn’t like L.A. anymore so you want to move to California’? And I was like ‘sure, I’ll go’. So I literally got on a plane a week later.
TeenHollywood: What was the first acting you did?
Jason: The first time I did anything was a seasons’ greeting for one of the local television stations in Minnesota. I was maybe seven or six years old. We were being dragged in this horse-drawn buggy through this blizzard and I remember we had to sing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” but I had no front teeth and so I was saying “We with you a marwe Chwithmath” [with a lisp]. I remember thinking that the guy driving the buggy looked just like Abe Lincoln so I was asking my mother, ‘why is the President driving our buggy?’ He’s been dead for a while.
TeenHollywood: So that experience hooked you on acting?
Jason: Well, I guess it was because we were out in the snow playing around, having a good time and then went to eat McDonalds.
TeenHollywood: There are all these young fellows like on “The O.C.” and other shows who’ve started their careers in television. You’ve been through that so what advice would you give them?
Jason: I would tell anybody from somebody who is a working actor right now to somebody who is just getting into this or starting theater or an experienced, paid actor, I know it’s a cliché but trust yourself. The only person who knows what’s right for you is you. A lot of people are going to tell you what they think you should do or what is the best choice for you but only you know. So I would say just trust yourself.
TeenHollywood: You’ve done some indie films. Is that where you can be more creative and break out of the TV stereotype? Like the film Shooting Livien? [in which Jason plays an emerging singer/songwriter].
Jason: Livien was fantastic. I play guitar. I didn’t play a lick of guitar beforehand. I knew a couple of chords and that’s about it. I told Rebecca Cook, the director, ‘how are we gonna do this. I don’t sing and I don’t really play guitar’. And she said, ‘it’s okay. We’ve got the guy who wrote the songs and he’s going to come in and he’s gonna teach you how to play these songs’. I’d asked for some sheet music and she said ‘there is none. The guy that we got is this wunderkind kind of guitar player. He’s been playing since he was five years old and he’s incredibly talented’.
TeenHollywood: So what did you have to do to learn?
Jason: She just sent me the guy’s music to listen to. I broke it down, got all the words down. It was pretty extensive. I had to know more than chord progression. I got out to New York to meet with him and had about a week and a half before we started shooting and all of the music stuff was loaded into the front of the shoot. I thought I had ten days but the musician was hard to nail down. Every day would come and go and I would get more anxious to see him and learn the best that I could. And the first meeting with him was a disaster because, as brilliant as he is, he wasn’t able to help me. I was such a beginner and he was so far advanced. He can’t really teach so they got me someone else. It was fun. Livien was the most amazing, creative experience I’ve yet had. I lost 20 pounds. I thought it was essential for the character. He wasn’t sleeping or eating. He was doing all these drugs.
TeenHollywood: Christian Bale did the same for The Mechanic but people think he went too far. He looked like a Holocaust victim.
Jason: Yeah, I was about 135 pounds. I looked pretty ill too I guess because everyone was trying to feed me on set. The weight loss was just part of the character for a rock star. I was determined to torture my body. We just submitted it to Sundance so we’ll see when it comes out. It was a great experience.
TeenHollywood: What would your idea of the perfect date evening be?
Jason: Humm, go to Japan. Drink a lot of Sake, eat a lot of sushi, stay up till like six o’clock in the morning talking about whatever comes to mind.
TeenHollywood: What was the worst job you ever had?
Jason: The worst was shoveling snow in Minnesota as a kid. You go to people’s houses and ask if they want you to shovel their snow. If it’s somebody who is a bit older or someone’s grandparents, you usually do it for free. The shovel was definitely taller than I was. I'm sure I looked just like a shovel stuck in the snow because I was a very small kid. It’s so cold. It’s like 30 degrees without the wind-chill but it’s something you did for extra bucks in the winter; their driveway or their sidewalk.
TeenHollywood: You’ve known Sarah for a long time, even before you guest starred on “Buffy”. In The Grudge, when weird ghosts are attacking or scaring you, didn’t you just expect her to get up and kick their butts?
Jason: [laughs] Kick their ass. Kick their butt.
Yeah, when I first worked on that show with her, I’d seen a couple of episodes and I knew that she was a butt kicker and I’d better watch myself or she’d throw me in a headlock and start pummeling me. That’s what that character was but I think in this, she wanted to do something different with this one. No one was slinging any stakes at anyone in this one.
TeenHollywood: What music would you put on your playlist or in a CD player?
Jason: I grew up on Bob Dylan and The Beatles and Lennon and The Stones, the classics. That was what I was exposed to and now I still listen to that stuff. But, I have a very eclectic taste. I like White Stripes, Radiohead, Jay-Z, Eminem, The Beastie Boys, Nirvana. That’s what I’d put on a disc and take on a trip.
TeenHollywood: Gotta ask. Have you ever been to Roswell at all? I grew up 80 miles from there.
Jason: Really? I’ve driven through there. It’s flat.
I kolejna rola w nowym filmie, którego produkcja rozpocznie się w styczniu 2005 !
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372873/