One on One Mark Pellegrino
March 18, 2010 Celebrity Interviews, Lost 4 Comments |
Mark Pellegrino is such
a big deal in Hollywood these days that people who see him on the street just want to walk up and touch him … then again, that could be because his god-like character Jacob on Lost can grant immortality to anyone he lays his hand on.
We recently sat down with Pellegrino to talk about playing a Christ-like figure on Lost, being a part of the pivotal rug peeing scene in the cult-classic film The Big Lebowski and his fondness for wiener dogs.
How did you get into acting and when did you decide it’s what you wanted to do for a living?
Kind of by accident. I took this commercial workshop, I don’t even know why, kind of as a lark and the guy who taught it thought I had something and set me up with an agent. I started going out on auditions not knowing what I was doing at all, but doing okay in spite of that. My agent decided I was green and needed to be tutored a little bit and set me up with a list of acting schools to go to, and I went to this one that was really cheap and near my house. It turned out to be one of the best acting schools in the West Coast. I got introduced to the craft and couldn’t turn back from there.
Were you able to work steadily early on or were there large stretches where you were unemployed?
Both. I started working early on, even though I didn’t quite know what I was doing, and there would also be some periods where I would go for a few months without any nibbles or auditions for work. It was like that for about four years where I would work and then a couple of months off, three months off, then work some more. Then, after that, it got a lot more consistent.
One of your early credits on IMBD lists you as playing yourself in Hulkamania 4. What exactly was Hulkamania 4 and what was your role in it?
I have no idea what that is. Those things on IMBD, I don’t know quite what they are. But that one, they must have used some footage or maybe some documentary stuff from the film No Holds Barred that I did way back when where I played Hulk Hogan’s little brother.
How was playing Hulk Hogan’s little brother in No Holds Barred? That must have been interesting.
It was pretty awesome. I was still learning and in the very, very early stages of learning about acting and I’m sure it shows, but professional wrestling had reached its peak I think at that time of popularity and it was huge. Vince McMahon, I think, sold the WWF right after that for like a billion dollars or some unheard of sum of money. And Hulk was at the top of his game, so I had seen him a lot on TV, especially after I got the part, I started watching wrestling a little bit more.
It was interesting working with him because he was actually kind of savvy and there was a scene where he had to get emotional and he really got emotional. You don’t expect that out of a professional wrestler. And he’s a nice, down-to-earth guy, which was pleasant since he was an over-the-top kind of guy when he was in the ring. He was very quiet and understated outside of it.
Jeff Bridges just won an Academy Award for Best Actor. You had a chance to work with Bridges on the Coen Brothers’ film The Big Lebowski. What was it like working with Bridges and the Coens and how did it feel to be a part of the pivotal rug-peeing scene?
You know, I’ve always loved Jeff’s work. Then when I got to work with him, I thought that he was an unsung genius. I know that word is thrown around a lot in Hollywood, but literally the guy is just such a great craftsman and so good at what he does. I couldn’t help myself sometimes in scenes just studying him, watching him work. It was pretty amazing.
And the Coen brothers are obviously great. One of them works with the actor and kind of works with you on how he wants the scene to go. And the other one kind of sets up the shot. Ethan would kind of talk to me about the scene; Joel would be doing his thing. Every once in a while, you’d get a little conference with the two of them, but not often. Mostly it was Ethan sitting there in the bathtub while I was dunking Jeff’s head in the toilet. Actually, not dunking his head in the toilet. He had a bad neck, so he had to do all that himself and I had to make it look like I was dunking him and holding him down.
Are you surprised at how enduring that movie has been? It’s become a cult classic and fans now hold annual Lebowski Fests.
In a way yes and in a way no because it’s one of the few movies that I’ve been in that I’ve actually watched more than once and have seen how it just gets better every time. You discover in it things that you didn’t see before for some reason. Like an onion, you keep peeling it away every time. So I can see from that. I don’t know what magic was in it that makes it that way, but it is that way and it’s deserved. It’s like in the top 50 cult films, right? Or top 10 maybe?
It’s great and all of the characters are so dynamic and so strong and so clear. Even when somebody like John Turturro comes on film for five minutes, he’s memorable.
We also wanted to ask you about Dexter. You played Paul Bennett, the abusive ex-husband of Rita …
I prefer to call myself the “misunderstood” ex-husband of Rita.
We never did get to see things from your perspective. Maybe you really were the good guy. You had this serial killer dating you ex and you were just trying to protect your family from him.
That’s it. That’s the way I looked at it. Once I got wise to him that something was up, I was the one who starts to turn things around. I just handled things a bit inappropriately, I guess. (Laughs.) I think getting drunk and trying to rape my ex-wife is a little inappropriate, but you know, I loved her.
There were definitely some great scenes with you and Michael C. Hall in that show.
Yeah, and what’s funny is for like the first couple episodes, I didn’t think he liked me. And I found out later that he didn’t think I liked him. We kind of avoided each other all of the time. We had such a contentious on-screen relationship that it seemed to be bleeding over into the everyday stuff. I think it was just both of us working off each other and thinking we were getting these things off the other because one day we were just both accidentally at craft service and started talking to each other. And I was like, “Oh my god, I thought you didn’t like me.” “I thought you didn’t like me.” “Oh geez.” He turned out to be the nicest guy on the planet. We talked a lot. From then on, it was very different, but those first couple of episodes were a little harrowing.
How did you land the role of Jacob on Lost? Were you a fan of the show before becoming a part of it?
You know, I never even owned a TV until a couple of years ago. So I rarely watch TV. I just don’t have time. And when I did get a TV, I borrowed it from my mom, this old like 1970s thing – not 1970s because I could hook a video up to it and I would just watch videos when I wanted to.
So I had read the treatment for Lost when they were about to do the pilot and I even went up for one of the parts; I don’t remember which one now. But it was one of the best treatments I had ever read. It was a total page turner. And I never watched the show at the time that I auditioned for [Jacob] and had no idea that the part I was going up for was such an important part. I just knew it was a guest star with a possible recurring theme to it.
The situation is – I guess people are so hot to get information from Lost that the sides you audition are not the sides that you work with. And the character is a different name, so if anything gets leaked out it’s kind of like a red herring. So I just auditioned this scene and did well on it and I thought, “I did well, that’s all I can do.” Didn’t find out how important is was until I actually landed on Oahu and started talking to people.
Finding out Jacob’s identity was one of the huge mysteries of Lost. When fans finally saw you in the season five finale on the beach talking to the man in black, it was a huge moment on the show. Were you aware when you were shooting that scene that it was going to be a big moment for the fans or was it just another day at the office?
Well, I did know by that point because we’d done that close to last in the shoot. So I did know at that point that it was a big revelation for people, but knowing that, I still tried to make it a day in the office so that I wouldn’t get overwhelmed by any of that information. Because there’s a lot of it. Every moment in this show seems to have almost Biblical proportions of subtext to it and meaning and history. Oddly enough, this sounds weird to say as an actor, in a weird way, I’m glad I didn’t know that because it makes things a lot easier.
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