I recently had a chance to talk to Corey Stoll about his breakthrough role in Woody Allen's summer box office hit, Midnight in Paris, where he plays renowned author Ernest Hemingway. We talk about his background, working with Allen and the video game that never was.- Erik Anderson

 
ICS – First off, thanks for taking the time this morning to talk to me.

CS – Thank you, thanks for your interest.

ICS – Let’s get right to it. I want to go over a bit of your background; you’ve starred in a TV series, been in television movies, on the stage and film and even a video game. Where did your desire to be a performer begin?

CS – That last part isn’t actually true.

ICS – It’s not?

CS – It’s not! (laughs) I don’t know how it got on my IMDB page. I’d love to do that job but I haven’t gotten that one yet. As to your question, I think it began probably at that root place where most performers' desire to perform comes from and that’s wanting attention. That was the root cause when I was a kid and I was lucky enough to have some pretty sophisticated teachers in elementary school and junior high school who introduced me at a pretty young age to theater. When I was a kid I saw a lot of theater, growing up in Manhattan. I think just seeing the range that actors could inhabit for so long was really inspiring and exciting. You know, I am a character actor and I love transformation. Part of transformation are the very obvious things, putting on a wig or period clothes and accents and different speech patterns, but part of it is also inhabiting different media and different styles. I often get the question, ‘You do theater and film and television. Which do you like the best?’ It sounds like a corny answer but I love going from one to the other. It keeps me on my toes and it keeps it interesting.

ICS – Let’s talk a bit about your character in Midnight in Paris. You play Ernest Hemingway, or at least a version of him, and to me your performance is the very definition of scene-stealing. You are the takeaway from the film probably more than any other element. You are the 'who’s that guy?' guy. Since the majority of the film is, spoiler alert, a fantasy of Owen Wilson’s character, how did you decide how you were going to play Hemingway?

CS – Well, Woody Allen had a very strong opinion about how he wanted this character played from the very beginning. From the very first audition I didn’t have anything prepared, I thought it was just going to be a meeting. I had heard stories where he would just look at you between his fingers, look at you up and down and say, 'It’s nice to meet you,' and that was your audition and people would walk out a little crestfallen. We talked for a little bit and then he gave me a couple of pages, which turned out to be that speech in the car on the way to Gertrude Stein’s house. I was so excited to see the name Hemingway on the page because I had no idea what I was auditioning for, so he gave me five minutes to prepare. And I think that was actually to my benefit because he really wanted Hemingway, certainly in those extended speeches, to be a literary cipher. The one note he gave me in the audition was ‘just read it off the page.’ If there was a unifying theme to his notes to me it was ‘do less.’ It’s brilliant because that’s what Hemingway introduced into the literary landscape, this reportage that was this spare, sparse prose. I think he basically wanted that embodiment of that sort of lean prose.

ICS – I’ve read you were a big fan of Woody Allen in high school. What was the most surprising thing about working with him that you weren’t expecting?

CS – He directed me a lot more than I was expecting. I think, you know you hear a lot that he's just sort of super hands-off. I think Sean Penn had sort of complained about that. I think Sean Penn’s performance [in Sweet and Lowdown] is just brilliant. But, then there were times when you’d have these big group scenes and he sorta basically just blocks it. Maybe he’ll throw a note out. And that’s the thing, sometimes he’ll throw a note but if the actor doesn’t take it he doesn’t push the issue. I think he thinks that basically it’s the actor’s role and he can guide them but it’s their interpretation, which I think shows an enormous amount of respect for actors and it’s probably how he’s gotten so many great performances from his actors, aside from just giving them great material. But that’s probably the most surprising thing. I was sort of expecting to be on my own but selfishly I wanted as much time with him on as possible. But, he wasn’t much of a chatter because he spends most of his time on set reading The New Yorker and checking the weather on his iPhone.

ICS – It seems then that most of his dialogue goes right into the script.

CS – Oh yes, but that being said, he’s not precious in the least with the dialogue. From the beginning he was constantly reiterating, ‘if you don’t like any of the dialogue, change it.’ Obviously he’s a brilliant writer and a very confident writer but he was also incredibly generous. You know, if you wanted to ad-lib, and there were times when he demanded it. There were times when he had written the meat of the scene but the head and the tail hadn’t necessarily been scripted. In fact, my very first scene there was no real beginning to the scene and he said, ‘oh, just ad-lib it.’ It was exhilarating and horrifying.

ICS – That sounds a lot like some experiences of working with Mike Leigh.

CS – Yes! He is a director I would love, love to work with.

ICS – Well, that’s a perfect segue then. Who would you like to work with in the future?

CS – There’s so many people out there. You know, Scorsese obviously. I would love to work with Werner Herzog but that would probably be a daunting thing. I mean, I don’t want to be in the position of Klaus Kinski and pushed to my absolute limit, but there is something in me that sort of romanticizes that sort of extreme commitment. I’ve never really been that type of method actor that gains or loses weight or knocked out my teeth, but I love projects that sort of take your whole body and soul and I think Werner Herzog sort of demands that.

ICS – The response to you and Midnight in Paris has been pretty incredible. It’s his highest-grossing film in 25 years, and Oscar buzz for you and the film is gaining quite a bit of momentum. I’m not sure if it’s something you’ve thought about, but did you think when you auditioned that this would be the result?

CS – No, absolutely not. (laughs) I mean, everything about this project has been gravy. I know it sounds like false modesty but from the moment I knew that I had a meeting with Woody Allen I was thrilled. But, it has really snowballed in terms of incredibly good fortune. It’s just such a juicy role and working with him and in Paris and with Owen Wilson, who is one of my favorite people I’ve ever worked with. He’s so smart and generous and I know it sounds like a typical junket comment about how great my co-star is, but it just happens to be true. I think he was really key in making the film work because he fills that Woody Allen role in the movie but in such a positive way. Woody is such a great performer but there’s this sort of negative, neurotic character that he takes on, and Owen is almost neurotically sunny in the way that he portrays that character, which makes the movie so light. It enables you to put the focus on these crazy characters he’s surrounded by, and his enthusiasm for this world, I think, is infectious.

ICS – Yeah, I have to agree. I think Owen Wilson’s version of Woody Allen, that is often in Allen’s movies when he’s not in them, is probably one of my favorites in 10 or 15 years. He brought such a lightness and humor to it that was really different than a lot of folks have done.

CS – But, back to your question, I remember my girlfriend called it. She had come to the set and saw the beautiful production design, the lighting, the costumes, and she was already being swept away by the nostalgia and she was like, ‘this is gonna be big.’ She knew it before anybody. People love this time period, they love this world, and it’s true: this movie is a little 85-minute trip to Paris.

ICS – It’s interesting that Clive Owen is also playing Hemingway in an HBO movie coming out next year. While his is a very different take than yours, is Hemingway coming back in fashion?

CS – You know, he’s definitely having a moment. It was just the anniversary of his suicide; I’m reading now The Paris Wife, which is this fictional novel of the life of his first wife from her perspective and it’s pretty great. And then there’s the Anthony Hopkins project that takes place during his time, not in Cuba, in Key West? Anyway, Hemingway had this ship outfitted with a 50-caliber machine gun and was searching for Nazis. That’s the thing about this character: I think he’s such a great character because he was also complicit in this amazing character. You know, writing it with his life and his blood, sweat and tears. He had all these crazy parts of his life. He was actually the first American in liberated Paris. He was a commander, he had this troop of 40 men and the first thing they liberated was the bar at the Hotel Ritz.

ICS – What can we expect to see from you next?

CS – Well, I just did this pilot for FX, this superhero show, so that was fun to go in a completely different direction. And there’s some things that are percolating but I can’t really talk about them now.

ICS – Well, I’ll see if I can make some calls on that video game thing for you.

CS – Yes! We should do that. You know, call up the game company. It would be great press. Some random person put it on IMDB and it wound up getting me a job.

ICS – Well, you know, once you say something on the internet it’s fact.

CS – Yep, and then you know, every actor will be putting themselves in a video.

ICS – It’ll be the next big thing, and you can start it.

CS – Awesome.

ICS – Corey, thanks again for chatting with me today, take care.

CS – Yeah, you too!

photo courtesy of AskMen