![]() They were coming from the refinery to the set in their oiled-up clothes and we were like ‘OK, let’s go.’” “With (‘Red Rocket’) it was just the opposite. “I’m used to working on sets where everybody thinks they’re hot (expletive) and you’re dealing with a lot of egos and big personalities and divas and people showing up late for this and that,” he said. Rex relished the time working with actors who aren’t stars. That realness extends to the movie sets, such as a drug house where actual users came by to make a purchase. He often taps locals to play major roles: Case in point, Brenda Deiss, the actress portraying Lil, Mikey’s seen-it-all mother-in-law, who was discovered by Baker near a Porta-Potty). ![]() “Red Rocket” was shot in Texas City and Port Arthur, amongst other locales, and rings with authenticity, from its images of oil refineries to depictions of drug houses.īaker’s au naturel style operates on the fumes of a low budget and tends to skirt filming permits and other legal requirements. Rex loves the off-the-cuff scrappiness of Baker’s canon, which depicts American lives of those often shrugged off by Hollywood people who cling precariously to life on the fringe. ![]() He makes certain to sprinkle into each conversation remarks about the debt he owes “Red Rocket” director Baker, the distinctive filmmaker whose credits also include 2017’s “The Florida Project” and the 2015 shot-on-a-iPhone “Tangerine.” In two interviews, one onstage in October when was he honored by the Mill Valley Film Festival and another the day after at the Fairmont in San Francisco, the refreshingly frank Rex shows an appreciation for where he is now. He’s mellower, and prefers to distance himself from the Hollywood pack, happy to kick back on his off-the-grid plot in Joshua Tree. Times have changed for Rex, who once hobnobbed with the likes of Paris Hilton and Charlie Sheen. The juicy starring role (the camera’s on Rex from first frame to last) thrusts the handsome 47-year-old former model, whose career has hopscotched from acting to singing and back again, into a role he’s unaccustomed to - that of the critical darling. ![]() 17, including in the San Francisco Bay Area. ![]() He punctuates the point with: “He’s just crazy.” An unemployed porn actor (played by Simon Rex, left) woos a teenaged employee of a doughnut shop (Suzanna Son) in a scene from “Red Rocket.” (A24 Films)įollowing its screening at the Mill Valley Film Festival in October and a limited opening in Los Angeles and New York last week, “Red Rocket” opens wider Dec. “I think Mikey has delusions of grandeur,” says Rex, describing his character. While Mikey’s dubious plan is as grandiose as it is disgusting, San Francisco native Simon Rex’s fully committed performance as Mikey is a glorious revelation, so documentary-like real and fierce that it’s ignited awards chatter since the film’s July world premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. In Sean Baker’s raw, unfiltered “Red Rocket,” beaten-down, out-of-work porn star Mikey Sable slumps his way back to his East Texas hometown, where he again mucks up everything around him.ĭesperate, narcissistic and endowed with one particular standout attribute, Mikey crafts a sleazy scheme that finds him sinking his manipulative hooks into a teen-aged doughnut shop worker named Strawberry (newcomer Suzanna Son). ![]()
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