Josh Lucas: his brush with death in a sea storm told him what he needed to know about life. Now he's approaching moviemaking with the intensity of a Tsunami, showing the world a new side of his acting chops as a drugged-out gang leader in this month's wonderland, a film that skulks through the underbelly of Los Angeles in the '80s

Interview, Sept, 2003 by Jennifer Connelly

Though a swim through his recent credits--The Deep End (2001), The Weight of Water--may lend itself to some puns that are, well, all wet, it was in 2001's A Beautiful Mind that Josh Lucas made his first big splash, as an all-too-human academic, arrogant but amiable. With this summer's monster hit The Hulk and this month's Wonderland, he's again displaying a textured, pensive sensibility, and, as his Mind-ful friend (and Hulk co-star) Jennifer Connelly discovers, these character traits are not limited to the screen.

JENNIFER CONNELLY: Hello?

JOSH LUCAS: Hi, Jen.

JC: How are you?

JL: I'm good. How are you? How are you feeling?

JC: I'm feeling a bit like I'm in some circle that Dante never wrote about, where you're perpetually 36 weeks' pregnant. The time is clicking so slowly, but I'm really well. I'm enjoying being in London. So, I have an assignment.

JL: Well, go for it!

JC: I watched Wonderland today, but for people who don't know anything about it, I was wondering if you could give a synopsis of what the movie's about.

JL: It's about a time and a place and a group of people in Los Angeles that all clashed together in 1981. The film is driven by a drug rage--particularly cocaine--and the story of [the late porn star] John Holmes [played by Val Kilmer] and his involvement with a gang of people who hung out at a house on Wonderland Avenue, which my character, Ron Launius, was sort of the leader of. Incredible violence and darkness ensued from there, which led to a robbery. And in retaliation for the robbery, four people were bludgeoned to death. The different takes on what happened are told through the eyes of the characters who surrounded John Holmes.

JC: It was a great role for you. I was wondering what excited you most about playing it.

JL: Well, it was a very weird experience because my whole part was only eight days of shooting.

JC: Wow.

JL: Yeah, we shot the whole movie in 22 days with an incredible ensemble cast [including Kilmer, Dylan McDermott, Lisa Kudrow, Kate Bosworth, Tim Blake Nelson, and Carrie Fisher], and it was almost like theater in that we were doing scenes from multiple perspectives, so you were constantly trying to figure out which version of the scene you were telling.

JC: [man talks in background] Paul [Bettany, Connelly's husband] says hi.

JL: Hi, Paul.

JC: [to Bettany] I love you, too. Bye. [to Lucas] Sorry.

JL: Tell him I love him as well. So, everyone came onboard based on the script and the fact that it was going to be shot so quickly in this wild format.

JC: How much time did you have to prepare before going to the set?

JL: Very little. I'd been in Europe, and I literally got off the airplane and went to makeup and wardrobe. That night I met with a private detective who had known my character, and he told me as much as he could about him. He told me something really strange: When the Sacramento [Launius' hometown] police department found out Launius was bludgeoned to death, they actually threw a party. He had been such a villainous presence in their lives. I went home that night and something locked in--it was the first time I felt instantly and deeply haunted by a character, and for the next eight days it was like being inside of something I wasn't conscious of. I'd never ever had that experience before--or since.

JC: And how did it feel? Was it frightening? Or kind of exhilarating?

JL: It was ugly. The character is so violent and there's such an incredible level of drug-ridden energy that it was like being on a contact high. It was strange, Jen; it all just kind of happened. And I think it's partly because of the speed of the filming. There was no time to think. No one was ever in their trailers.

JC: On movies where you do have down time, what do you do with yourself in your trailer?

JL: I think about what I just did and what I want to have happen when I walk out there the next time. I'll look at the script and I'll try to find as many books, movies, and pieces of music that I think are going to feed each scene or the character as a whole. During Hulk, it was books like The Art of War, Zen in the Art of Archery--these military-based, battle-oriented books.

JC: Are you reading anything now?

JL: I'm reading a great book right now. Do you know James Salter?

JC: No, I don't.

JL: You know how a lot of chefs in New York go to the restaurant Blue Ribbon after work? James Salter has that sort of thing with writers. He's a writers' writer. Someone told me to pick up his memoir called Burning the Days, and lately I kind of feel like I'm burning the days. Every day is intense and alive, whether it's travel, work, even down time, which there is so little of. What about you? Are you reading anything?

JC: I'm reading this John Pilger book, The New Rulers of the World. Paul, my dad, and I have all been reading it and we can't seem to find another copy, so we have sort of a time-share on it. So, this is where I devolve into non sequitors. What is one of your biggest fears, if not the biggest?

JL: It would definitely be losing touch with reality. Like what happens with madness & la Beautiful Mind, but more than that: There's a transition that can happen for an actor when they start to experience what I call "the fishbowl effect." You must know this. You start to feel like you're in a fishbowl, and people are not as straightforward as they used to be.