Alpha Dog - From Russia With Love
Posted by Rachel Lux on 31-May-07 @ 01:29 PM|
Playing a real person on the big screen is no easy task-especially when that person is the teenage victim in one of the most highly-publicized kidnapping/murder cases of the last decade. But that's exactly what ANTON YELCHIN has done in this month's long-awaited Alpha Dog, taking on the role of a semi-fictionalized version of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz, who was kidnapped by a drug dealer in Southern California in 2000, held as ransom for the drug debts of his older half-brother, and eventually killed. With a cast that includes Sharon Stone, Bruce Willis, Emile Hirsch and Justin Timberlake, Alpha Dog has been the subject of much controversy-mostly due to the fact that the prosecutor in the Markowitz case served as a consultant on the film before the actual prosecution was complete. Yelchin's own teenage years have, thus far, been considerably more pleasant. The son of two former figure skaters, the 17-year-old has lived in L.A. ever since moving from his birthplace in St. Petersburg, Russia, when he was six months old. During a break in shooting on his next film, Charlie Bartlett, Yelchin gave AP a call. INTERVIEW: J. Bennett PHOTO: Ralf Strathmann Your parents were both figure skaters. Can you skate at all? No. [Laughs.] I suck. My parents had aspirations for me to become a skater, but I totally shattered them. I have no talent whatsoever when it comes to skating. When I was little, I enjoyed playing with Legos more than skating. I hear you like to play chess. Are you any good? I used to be a lot better, but I haven't played in a while. I was on the set last week, and I was watching these two guys play. The more I watched them, the more I started to remember and sort of get into it again. But I think chess is one of those games you have to dedicate your life to if you want to get really good. I think that's why I've only ever been decent, but nothing better. Do you play any musical instruments? Yeah-that's why I haven't been playing very much chess! [Laughs.] I spend most of my free time playing guitar. I have a Strat and a Gibson SG, and I'm looking for an acoustic right now. Recently, I've been going through a hardcore Bob Dylan phase-his later, electric stuff, like Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde-so I've been jamming on stuff like that. I like the blues, too, like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf-type stuff. When you got the role of Zack Mazursky in Alpha Dog, did you go back and read about the actual kidnapping? Yeah, I did. I read about it, and then I talked to this historian who was on set and actually writing a book about it. I talked to him a lot about the family and that kind of stuff. I relied on the script the most for what I was gonna do, but just for my own information, I did research [on] what happened. The film makes it seem like there's a bit of Stockholm Syndrome happening between your character and your character's kidnappers. Yeah, but I didn't think of it that way. It was more like he looked up to these guys-which made perfect sense to me, because he felt really constricted in his own household, and... I actually talked to the historian about this. I don't wanna say he was repressed-it's not like you're being repressed if your mom gets pissed off because you're smoking pot-but his mom cared about him a lot and didn't give him enough room. And his brother was this insane Jewish neo-Nazi tweaker, and he really looked up to the freedom that his brother had. The [kidnappers] were his brother's friends, regardless of this feud they were having, and he looked up to them in a similar way. Your character also has a three-way in a swimming pool with Amanda Seyfried and another girl. How did that go? Great. [Laughs.] It sounds pretty great, right? When it's actually happening, I was concentrating on making it look good, but afterward, you're like, "Yeah, that's pretty cool." When you're doing it, though, it's really awkward. I don't understand how anyone could really enjoy it, because there're like 20 people watching you; there are people swimming around in the pool with you, whispering things like, "Move your arm!" But it looks cool in the movie, so I can't say it sucked. The movie was tied up in litigation for a while. Did you follow that at all? I followed it for a bit, but it was just sort of irritating. I know that's selfish of me, but you know, I loved working on it, and I just wanted it to come out. So I got irritated and stopped paying attention. What was it like working with Justin Timberlake? Oh, he was great. He's a really talented guy and very down to earth. He's very dedicated, and such a talented musician, too. I think he launched a fashion line, and he played a show afterward, which I saw. A lot of the stuff he does is ingenious. You're working on a film now called Charlie Bartlett. What's it about? It's a comedy, essentially; there's not a lot of real drama in it. It's about this kid Charlie, played by me, who gets expelled from his private school for making fake IDs. So he goes to public school and starts selling prescription drugs that he gets from his psychiatrist. It's really funny. Robert Downey Jr. plays the principal, and Charlie starts going out with the principal's daughter, played by Kat Dennings. If you could play any role from any movie in film history, which would you choose? Probably DeNiro in Taxi Driver-it's such an amazing character. I'd love to play that role, but I also kind of wouldn't wanna touch it, because he's so perfect. I'd probably just fuck it up. And a future me would be watching it and think, "Wouldn't this movie be so much better if Robert DeNiro was in it?" ALT ANTHONY YELCHIN AGE: 17 HQ: Los Angeles, CA RÉSUMÉ: The short-lived Showtime series Huff, as Byrd Huffstodt, son of the titular psychiatrist played by Hank Azaria; David Duchovny's 2004 directorial debut, House Of D, as Tommy Warshaw, the young/flashback version of Duchovny's own character; this month's Alpha Dog, as Zack Mazursky, a semi-fictionalized version of real-life 15-year-old kidnapping/murder victim Nicholas Markowitz; the upcoming Jon Poll film Charlie Bartlett, as the delinquent title character. SOUNDTRACK STUDIES: "I really like music because I think it's an integral part of life, and I think it can be an integral part of filmmaking," Yelchin says. "Stylistically, it does so much. I'm always trying to listen to as much music as I can and learn about it, so when I'm making a film I'll have that much more knowledge about it." TASTE TEST: "I listen to everything," Yelchin enthuses. "I've been listening to Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers lately. [Then] there was a day recently when all I listened to was that Ice Cube song, 'It Was A Good Day.' The last concert I saw was Rancid, a couple of weeks ago in Ventura-they were awesome." ALT |
