Get Choke’d Up: Interview with Gregg, Rockwell

Sam Rockwell in his Colonial glory.

ComingSoon talked to director Clark Gregg and actor Sam Rockwell about Choke, Gregg’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel. It’s a long interview with a lot of info in it, and as always, it wouldn’t be fair for me to just copy and paste it here, so please go read it at ComingSoon. But here’s a few pieces.

ComingSoon.net: I wasn’t really a fan of the book, but I think the movie actually works better in some ways. What made you want to tackle Chuck Palahniuk for your first film as a director?
Clark Gregg: Naivety was a nice of way of saying it. I mean I’m a perv and I read it and I loved it, and I thought it’s cinematic, it’s got the Colonial village and it’s funny and it’s the saddest thing that I ever laughed hysterically at. It felt like an unbelievably unique blend of that stuff, and I also felt like the whole kind of notion of sexual compulsion and the kind of transformation of that into intimacy, or the attempt to, felt like something that’s really everywhere, and not explored in any movie. After I started working on it or later when we started to get the movie made, people said, “I never thought there was a movie in that book.” I didn’t know any of that and other people said, “You must be so intimidated because he has such ardent, even psycho, fans, you know, plus you must have been really intimidated by having to live up to ‘Fight Club.’” If I’d been smart enough to pay attention to any three of those three things, I never would have tried to do it. I would never have really processed any of that until it was way too late.

Rockwell: …I just got this call that this script had been sent my way. I heard Clark had written it and I knew “Fight Club” as a movie, so I asked about it, and I just heard “Colonial theme park and sex addict” and I was in already. I read it and I called Clark and we both mentioned some movies. I mentioned “The Fisher King,” “Tom Jones” and he mentioned a few movies. Did you mention “Alfie”?
Gregg: “Harold and Maude.”
Rockwell: That’s right. He mentioned “Harold and Maude,” “Bad Santa,” “Five Easy Pieces.” We talked about…
Gregg: …traditionally sympathetic protagonist movies.
Rockwell: Yeah, anti-heroes from the ’70s, but we talked about “The Fisher King” and we both said, “Yeah, that’s how I see it. That’s how I see it.” And from there, it just seemed like it was a go. We are going to do it and we’re going to find some women and that was it, we were off to the races. 

There you go. As I said, read the rest of it here.

I’ve had mixed feelings about this film. First off, I always get set on edge whenever there’s a cultiness built up around someone, and Palahniuk, through no fault of his own, got stuck with that after Fight Club–the movie, I might add, more than the book. There’s a funny bit in the interview where they talk about how people are so fixated on Fight Club that when word came out about the adaptation of Choke, casting suggestions rarely ranged beyond Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Anyway, with Choke, when I read about it, I loved the Colonial theme park setting, but I thought it sounded like another one of those books/movies that tries to act important but is really just about a guy having lots of sex with stupid women, and isn’t he cool, and isn’t that the life all guys aspire to (probably). I like Sam Rockwell a lot, though, so that instantly makes me want to give it a chance. Plus I was really intrigued how in the interview they both talked about how they were influenced by The Fisher King, a movie I always really liked. So I think I should be more open-minded about it than I previously had been about it. Undoubtedly everyone else is already really excited about the film. Have fun, all of you, when it opens this week.