Josh Lucas

After starring roles in high-profile movies like Glory Road and Sweet Home Alabama, Josh Lucas certainly doesn’t have to lend his name to a low-budget, low-profile off-Broadway play like Fault Lines. But Lucas loves the stage: Before he was a film heartthrob, he took on the role of Judas in Terrence McNally’s controversial Corpus Christi at the Manhattan Theatre Club. While building his screen career, Lucas continued to make time for theater, notably as the Gentleman Caller in the 2005 Broadway revival of The Glass Menagerie. Now off-Broadway theatergoers can see him giving a sly and subtle performance in Naked Angels’ production of Fault Lines, Stephen Belber’s clever drama about a reunion of two old friends that goes seriously awry when a stranger enters the bar. The 37-year-old actor—who was born in Arkansas and raised all over the place—has several films awaiting release and has signed on to star in Possible Side Effects, a new Showtime series being developed by Tim Robbins about a family-owned pharmaceutical company. Just before a recent performance, the charming actor chatted with Broadway.com about his career and why Fault Lines’ macho dialogue including an extended disquisition on the prostate rings true.

What drew you to Fault Lines?
I thought it was very clever; the twists were interesting and theatrical. But what really got me was the way it talks about questions and issues in my life that all my friends seem to be battling with. A friend of mine who is about to turn 40 has completely lost his mind. He’s decided that he needs to change his life entirely and has become bizarrely judgmental. I have a group of male friends who get together and basically bash each other and then proceed to get into deep conversations that almost end up in fistfights [laughs].

Do guys your age really talk about their prostates [as the characters played by Lucas and Dominic Fumusa do for the first 15 minutes of Fault Lines]?
You have no idea! Really, genuinely, that’s been an issue recently to the point that it’s like, what is going on? [Laughs.] I thought I was the only one concerned about it and then I read the play. And then I started having conversations with people and everyone was like, “Yeah, man!”

Your character, Bill, who’s married, is in conflict over becoming a father. His single friend, Jim, claims he’s looking for a mate. Do you identify with their angst?
I see both sides of both characters. I relate a little more to my character, but I’m a guy who is not married and who’s out sleeping with young girls, so I see that side of it too [laughs]. I have a lot of the same desires and the same yearning for family and for settling down, so I really see those issues the play brings up and the questions that I think it honestly and intelligently and humorously asks.

Why didn’t you play Jim, the ladies’ man?
I thought about it, but I just felt more in tune with this character; I felt more compassion for Bill than I did for Jim. Also, I liked the theatrical arc Bill goes through. He walks into the play oblivious, in a good space in his life, and rug is pulled out from underneath him pretty harshly. From playing pool at the beginning of the play to vibrating with pain and rage at the end—that’s a wonderful trip. The play is 80 minutes long and yet you go through this huge journey.

Fault Lines seems to be attracting a young, enthusiastic audience.
I think the staging [by director David Schwimmer] is really accessible, and the writing is about young people turning a bit older. The audiences who respond most are the ones who aren’t “normal” theatergoers. I’d love for a whole group of Wall Street guys who never go to the theater to come and watch this play. It’s so much fun to have a drink with people after the play and hear stories of the betrayals their friendships are going through—everything from the darker questions of miscarriages, which a number of my friends have dealt with…just those heavy young middle-life issues. We've had audiences who were roaring to the point of standup comedy and others that were dead silent, but both audiences walked out and said, "We thought it was amazing."

Should anyone be surprised that a movie star like you is starring in an under-the-radar off-Broadway show?
I don’t really follow any prescription in terms of the smart or “right” thing to do [in my career]. What happened was, we did a workshop at Vassar over the summer, and we all fell in love with this piece of material and with each other. We felt this very playful, symbiotic working style, and there was a sense of wanting to keep it going. We found a theater [the Cherry Lane] and managed to go immediately into rehearsal, and here we are. We’ve done this whole thing in five weeks; it’s been a remarkable journey. And a lot of it comes down to the fact that we are having such a good time together. Often, that’s what comes off the stage—the experience the actors are having together. If people aren’t having a good time onstage, it’s probably not a great play to be in the audience watching.

What do you enjoy about stage acting?
I think it’s Matthew Broderick who said, “The difference between film and theater is like the difference between soccer and hockey. One of them takes a ball and the other takes a Zamboni and massive amounts of equipment on an ice rink.” There’s an incredible sort of soulful isolation onstage—it’s you, the words and the people you’re playing with. I find that tremendously rewarding, and also the fact that you’re feeding off an audience every night. It’s an experience you never, ever have doing a film. Film is basically taken from you quite quickly and put in the hands of a huge number of people. I started doing [stage acting] semi-professionally when I was 15 and I’ve come back to the theater at least every 18 months or so. I really feed on it. I really love it.

It’s been 10 years since you played Judas in Corpus Christi, which created a storm of controversy. What’s your memory of the craziness that surrounded that production?
I think all of us were stunned by it. The fact of the matter is that we were moving in and out of the theater in tunnels because they were so afraid of the protests and how ugly it got. Basically it was a lovely little play that got put in a very ugly international spotlight, and so the joy of our experience got sucked away because it became something that wasn’t really about the ideas of the play anymore.. I don’t think any of us who were doing it saw that play as particularly weird or offensive. It was kind of sweet! Maybe even too much so. But there were beautiful moments out of it, too. I’m godfather to one of the kids in the cast, [the son of] Mike Irby, who’s on the TV show The Unit. Serious friendships were made out of that.

You were the best thing in The Glass Menagerie, but you’ve spoken negatively about that production [which featured Jessica Lange, Christian Slater and Sarah Paulson].
I had a terrible experience. I’ll be totally direct. I don’t really want to go into the reasons why, but I think Dallas Roberts was viciously and unjustly fired. [Roberts was replaced by Christian Slater as Tom just before previews began.] It’s a bit of a haunted play. Even from the original Laurette Taylor production, there’s always been serious problems, whether it’s actors not getting along, bad reviews, whatever. It’s weird. And when you’re out there doing your first big Broadway production and there are serious problems before you even get in front of an audience—an actor gets fired the way Dallas was, and the production gets terrible reviews—when you have to go to work every night and put your heart and soul into it, the experience really becomes monotonous and uncomfortable.

Would you like to try something else on Broadway?
I would absolutely love to, even other [works by] Tennessee Williams. People have talked about a couple of different plays. But to return to your earlier question, I’m loving the off-Broadway experience. When I did Spalding Gray [Stories Left to Tell] it was similar. Susan Sarandon is becoming a friend of mine, and I told her how much I’m enjoying this, partly because it is a bit under the radar. And she said to me, “I’m really interested in coming back to the stage, and that’s how I would like to do it—in a format where you don’t have that huge pressure.”

The pressure is definitely more intense on Broadway.
As you know, the New York critics can be incredibly difficult, particularly toward actors who primarily work in film. I understand the frustration about taking jobs away from amazing theater actors, but truthfully, I think there’s a viciousness sometimes toward actors who are taking a huge risk of going onstage and helping sell tickets. That pressure has made the system, particularly on Broadway, a bit uncomfortable for people. We do theater out of love. I am not supporting myself doing this play! [Laughs.] The vitriol that is thrust upon movie actors on Broadway has made me…not reluctant to do it, but I would want to do it in a situation in which I was totally in love with the material and the people I was working with.

How do you handle the push/pull between big-budget movies and smaller roles, documentaries and working onstage?
I’m just trying to find things I fall in love with and stories that connect with who I am. The mistakes I’ve made in my career have been to do things that I felt were the correct career move as opposed to the right “soul” move. Every time I’ve done that, it’s backfired. I’ve done a couple of productions with Ken Burns now [including the documentary The War] and you start to realize that a certain level of artists follow their heart. That’s really what it comes down to—they’re not doing something because they think it’s a good move career-wise.
Give me an example of something you regret doing.
I did the movie Stealth flat out as a career move. And if you know anything about me or my politics or my heart, that’s a movie that just didn’t make sense for me. It’s not who I am; it’s not what my political beliefs are.

I didn’t see Stealth. Was it pro-military?
In a way, yeah. I was told by the director that it was not going to be, but in the end, he told the military the exact opposite, that he was going to make a military recruiting film. When you’re inside that kind of experience and you’ve done it not because you thoroughly loved the material but because you thought it would be a smart move…that’s something I can’t really do anymore. I’ve learned my lesson, and I’ve found that I’m much happier when I’m doing things that come from the soul and from the joy of expression and storytelling and playing. To bring it back to this [play], I think that’s why all of us are having a ball. We’re up there playing together.

In many, many movies, it seems as if you’ve played against your looks.
That’s true, and honestly, I don’t know if I want to do that as much as I have. They’re beginning to fade [laughs]. My prostate is taking over!

You don’t have any romantic comedies coming down the pike, for instance?
No, but to be honest with you, I have really searched for one. I just haven’t found one that I thought was particularly good. And I’ve missed out on a couple that ended up being good that they went with another actor. They’re not a dime a dozen, that’s for sure. The good ones are particularly competitive and difficult. It’s not an easy format, but I would love to do it again.

Has living in New York affected your movie career?
I think it makes it harder. It makes the process a little bit slower. But I also think it keeps you a lot saner. In Los Angeles, there’s an aggressive, adrenaline-rush of ambition that pretty much everyone is dealing with; it’s a very isolating environment out there because everyone is fighting for the same jobs. Here, very few people I know are in this industry at all. Most of my friends are all over the map in terms of artists, construction people...that's what I’m almost obsessed with about New York City, and what I pull from tremendously creatively. I thrive off the spontaneity and life force of this city.

How did you get involved in Tim Robbins' upcoming Showtime series Possible Side Effects?
I did a movie with Susan [Sarandon, the upcoming Peacock], and then Tim came to me about this project. He has a lot of concern that independent films don’t get seen and that you can’t make a living doing them anymore. He said, “Listen, I’ve got this New York-based series, and I think we can build a family with some amazing actors.” Ellen Burstyn in playing my mother; Tim Blake Nelson is playing my brother; Tim is directing and has written it. He talked about the caliber of acting and material and directing being as good or better than independent film, and that’s the sense I’m getting from this as it comes together. We start a week after I finish this play.

You were wearing an Obama T-shirt on opening night. Do you think he’s going to win?
Are you kidding? I’m going down to Pennsylvania on Monday to do two days of work at some colleges. I’m doing everything I can, that’s for sure.

You should knock on some doors and watch what happens when they see you standing there.
That’s what I’m going to do!

See Josh Lucas in Fault Lines at the Cherry Lane Theatre.