'The Rocker' shows off Rainn Wilson's Dwight stuff

Tag : Painting Metal

He has cornered the market on schemers, revenge-seekers, windbagsand hasslers, the characters everyone likes in fiction because noone likes them in reality.
From the moment his awkward, cubicle-based authoritarian DwightSchrute on NBC's The Office quietly plotted revenge against prankster co-workers over astapler they embedded in Jell-O, a misanthropic star was born.
Nonetheless, Wilson has made a pact.
"No more creepy, nerdy weirdos," the actor says. "I play one on aTV show and have played them before, and people have seen me asthat. Frankly, I can do a lot more and different stuff. I don'twant to limit myself."
For now, though, creepy, wild weirdos are still an option.
That's who Wilson plays in The Rocker , opening Wednesday, about a sloppy, crazed drummer, embitteredover a missed chance to make it big with an '80s heavy-metal band,who now plans to destroy anything in his path to reclaim formerglory.
Wilson plays Robert "Fish" Fishman, a Cleveland loser whose dreams— as well as his clothes and mullet hairstyle — are 20years out of fashion. As Vesuvius, the group that unceremoniouslydumped him, prepares for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall ofFame, he joins his teenage nephew's garage band and hijacks itsearly success.
The Rocker is the first starring movie role for Wilson, 42, who has becomeone of TV and film's most reliable scene-stealers.
Consider Dwight's boastfulness when he describes himself asassistant regional manager, only to be deflated by Michael Scott(Steve Carell) correcting him: He's assistant to the regional manager. And his hyper-aggressive Rollo theconvenience store clerk in Juno .
The obnoxious and unusual has really worked for him.
"There is always this fear in Hollywood that, 'Oh, characters needto be likable and relatable.' And I don't know if that'snecessarily the case. I think that characters need to be human andthey need to be recognizable, but they don't have to necessarily belikable," he says. "That opens a whole world of comicpossibilities. I enjoy playing essentially unlikable characters andreally committing to it and digging in."
Not only has Dwight earned him two Emmy nominations, including onefor this year's ceremony, but it also has struck a nerve with fans— something even Wilson didn't expect.
"The one thing that really amazed me about Dwight was that peoplelove him. He's so obnoxious, he's mean and petty, but people aregaga for him as a character. They feel for him and adore him, andit's just because it's well-written and a specificcharacterization. It's real."
When Wilson meets fans, he hears a common refrain. "Everyone says,'We have a Dwight in our office.' Everyone says that … whichis pretty astonishing. Dwight is an Amish beet farmer, papersalesman with militant fascistic tendencies," Wilson says, breakinginto a huge, sarcastic smile. "But everyone feels they have aDwight in their office."
His own beat
At Wilson's home in the dry, rural slopes of Agoura Hills, justnorthwest of Los Angeles ("Great … Are you going to give outmy address, too?" he jokes), the actor sits down at a drum set inhis garage and demonstrates the rhythmic prowess he learned for The Rocker . The bass drum begins its thunderous pulse, and Wilson bobs hishead as he keeps a steady beat. At the end, he unleashes amachine-gun-style attack across the snare and tom drums, back andforth, before the requisite cymbal crash.
It's … OK.
"I'm not really, uh, a drummer," Wilson concedes, laughing.
Wilson learned to fake it after several weeks of lessons before The Rocker was shot. He jokes that his inspiration was not Tommy Lee, KeithMoon and John Bonham, but Animal from The Muppets . "Animal is the essence of rock drumming," Wilson says.
A friend whom Wilson credits for "discovering" him says theseemingly cerebral actor has always been in touch with hisout-of-control tendencies.
"My first real dealing with Rainn was a rehearsal session at myhouse that we had for House of 1000 Corpses ," says rock star and movie director Rob Zombie, who cast Wilson asa victim who gets butchered by a family of freaks. "Within 15minutes, Rainn took off all his clothes and was diving into theswimming pool. Total rock-star behavior. He's a rocker at heart."
Emma Stone, 19, who co-stars in The Rocker as the band's bass player (but is best known as the unattainableredhead in Superbad ), says Wilson is pleasantly unpredictable. "He can be touching anddramatic or off-the-wall and hilarious, depending on thesituation," she says. "He's whatever he needs to be. He is ademi-god that has come to Earth to grace us with his multipletalents, which include comedy, unfiltered sarcasm and the abilityto retain his dignity while riding a tricycle into a pool" (for ascene in the movie that illustrates his partying excess).
Close to home
There's no out-of-control behavior during the visit to Wilson'shouse. No pool, either, just horses in the backyard, where hiswife, author Holiday Reinhorn, is out for a midday ride.
His living room shelves are lined with books on philosophy, historyand faith, and the walls are adorned with folk art and modernabstract paintings from artists he helps represent in a fine-artdealership business with his father, Robert.
But there's very little, if any, snobbery in him.
In the garage, where he plays poker, there's a painting of dogsdoing the same. And Wilson is prone to pronouncements such as:"Want to read great literature? Slash's autobiography."
Drawings and cut-outs by 3-year-old son Walter adorn the wall overthe dining room table, and when the child shyly enters the livingroom during the interview, Wilson challenges him to a duel. "Showme your karate. Show me your karate punch, OK? Kee-yah! " the elder Wilson says, and the boy shrinks into a ball.
Meanwhile, The Rocker is the actor's chance to show what he can do. As much as he'd liketo try something a whole world away from Dwight, Wilson says therealities of the movie business require him, for now, to sticksomewhat close to the role he has established.
"What separates them is that Dwight is very tightly wound, and Ithink Fish is very loosely wound," Wilson says. "Dwight may not bethe brightest bulb, but he's very exacting and rigorous, and thereis a kind of philosophy that guides everything he does. In that wayhe's very thoughtful. And Fish is completely thoughtless, really.Fish lets it all hang out, and is loose, and just wants to be arock 'n' roller," he says. "Dwight just wants to be Mussolini."
The Office is also sophisticated, subtle comedy, while The Rocker is PG-13 and aimed little higher than the adolescent age group.
The movie "is not profound. We're not dealing with Citizen Kane here, but it's nice to have a story that has some heart to it,"Wilson says. "It's this movie about a guy with these kids, but he'sthe one who needs to come of age."
Meanwhile, he has plans for something radically different.
"A couple irons I have in the fire have a little more darker edgeto them," he says. "My ideal movie to make is one I have actuallywritten a second draft on, one I've been working on with(Oscar-nominated Juno director) Jason Reitman called Bonzai Shadowhands , about a down-and-out alcoholic ninja," he says. "It's a very darkcomedy, the most (messed)-up version of The Karate Kid you can imagine. That fits my sensibility well."
An early start
Once they make that comedy, Reitman says, Wilson could do what alot of comics can't: Make the crossover to drama.
"He knows how to make anything real. That's what you're looking forin a comedy these days — a guy who can take an outlandishsituation and make it somewhat honest and believable. He's just afantastic actor. While his technique has been used to make reallyfunny TV and movies, what he hasn't had the opportunity to do yetis use that to simply move people in dramatic moments."
Like a lot of performers, Wilson discovered acting in high school.His first play was something called Time Out for Ginger . "Ginger tries out for the football team, and the whole team is upin arms. I was Ginger's dad," he recalls.
Doing the play after his father moved the family from Seattle toChicago helped open up new social circles. "All of a sudden, girlsstarted being interested in me," he said. "I had the lead in theschool play, and girls were like, 'Heeeey, how are you?' And I waslike, "Goooood … how are you?' The course was set at thatpoint."
Eventually, it paid off. He met his wife in New York when they wereworking in theater there during the early 1990s.
Fame and fortune took a lot longer. "I was playing the nurse'sassistant in a bus-and-truck touring production of Romeo and Juliet for a year and a half. That's where I started. I was 23, justgotten out of college at NYU. I worked my way up from there."
He spent nearly 14 years in theater before making the leap tomovies and TV.
"I had a lot of side jobs. I had some of the worst jobs. I did alot of catering and waiting tables. That's pretty standard. But fora while I sold insurance. And I worked at the Multiple SclerosisSociety as an assistant special-events coordinator."
Or was it assistant to the special events coordinator?
Wilson is momentarily derailed by the obvious joke he has set up,then laughs. "Very nice, very nice," he says.
That sort of thing happens to him all the time, but rarely catcheshim off guard.
It's even worse with "That's what she said …," the show'slame rejoinder to point out a common phrase that has a sexualdouble-entendre.
"Fans will come up to meet me and want me to say anything that will let them slip in a 'That's what she said …'They'll be like, 'So do you like acting? And I'm like, 'I like it.'And they'll say, 'That's what she said!' They'll slip one in."
The actor pauses a moment, then adds: "Uh … that's what shesaid."