Interview: Clifton Collins Jr. Talks NBC’s The Event and The Experiment
“I am little scattered brained right now,” says Clifton Collins Jr. in our phone conversation this afternoon. Over the past year Clif has become an awesome friend and supporter of Fusedfilm.com and when he asked me to talk with him about his upcoming projects, how could I say no?
Scatter brained is simply a comment on one of the hardest working actors who says that “variety is what I love.” There is no doubt he has variety in his career ranging from genre roles like a Romulan in Star Trek to a zany vigilante saint in Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day.
Collins shows up in roles and parts you wouldn’t expect and though garnering critical raves in Capote, he doesn’t let that get to his head. “I just work. I love movies, I love what I do and my manager has such a great hold on that when we look at projects,” says Collins, “its the variety and different genres that appeal to me.”
This Fall season Collins will widen his range even more and show off his acting skills as part of the “bad-ass” ensemble cast of NBC’s new series – The Event. A conspiracy driven show revolving around the supposed largest cover-up in US history, Collins’ character Thomas will be someone that he says, “is a key player in the show’s secret conspiracy.” He is a business man of sorts who needs to get close to the President to share some information.
Its hard to talk about the show with Collins, or any actors involved with it for that matter, because even they do not know the endgame or whats going to happen week end and week out. “I think journalists think I am fucking with them when there isn’t much to say. I mean there is only so much we can talk about you know?”
Collins and I joked, as I mentioned it was aliens, because that is my rule of thumb with these types of shows. “Funny you mention that when I showed a teaser to a buddy of mine, he freaked and begged me to tell him something. I couldn’t and he asked me if I was going to work to fly on my spaceship,” joked Collins who right before the call finished signing his paperwork for NBC.
So what drew Collins to the show? after roles in films why the small-screen? Collins tells me that it was his manager who thought it was something that catered to his wants as an actor, that variety he loves in his roles.
“Truly it was the style of storytelling it really engages the brain – very little exposition. Its a blast in reading the script and dealing with these moments that are happeniong but also I am learning as my character is because there are things he doesn’t know either.”
Collins will not show up until the second episode of the series, which premieres this September 20, 2010 on NBC at 9pm/8c, but will be in all the subsequent episodes thereafter. Collins says, “The series is a thriller, love story, and mystery with an element of science fiction. Those cool things we love as a genre show.”
When talking about genre shows as these its hard not to ask if Collins had seen previous series like Lost and Flash Forward.
“Actually no only because I do not watch a lot of TV due to time. I did catch the finale of Lost though because I was sitting next to JJ at his finale party and realized I missed something huge.”
Collins was on hand with the cast at Comic-Con 2010 where the pilot episode was screened. According to tracking and other pubs the crowd response suggested “The Event” came up a big winner.
Even with his TV role coming up Collins will be seen in the film called The Experiment getting released on DVD/Blu-ray in September. Collins loved the role because he was able to work with Forest Whitaker and Adrien Brody among others.
” Its a loose remake of a german film known as Das Experiment with Forest Whitaker, Adrien Brody and Paul Schering directed it. It was great to work with those guys, especially Forest again.”
The Experiment revolves around 26 men who are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control. Collins’ character in the film is Nix, who is ex-Arian brotherhood.
The film was shot in Iowa and though busy Collins said he was able to work on one of his other passions, music video directing. Collins did award winning work last year with videos for the Zac Brown band. In latest endeavor is a video for country artist, Jamey Johnson’s “High Cost of Living.”
Clifton not only directs/produces the video, but he stars as the lead actor in the video as well.
“these videos are something I love and its a great change of pace for me in between filming,” says Collins, “who knows maybe it will lead to me directing something big one day.”
We sure hope so just ask McG and Michael Bay, all former music video directors. Only 40 years young, Collins is someone who tries to live his life with new experiences that help in grow and keeping things “fresh.”
We certainly enjoyed our time with Clif again and hope The Event really works out because it will be great to see him on TV consistently in a compelling series.
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