Baker’s coup of casting is most apparent in the contrast between Mikey, the cheerfully arrogant has-been, and the town’s struggling residents, who’ve never gotten out and have little to show for their efforts. Though he comes to Lexi with his tail between his legs, wearied by the pack of woes and self-inflicted troubles that beset him in California, and promising to do better, Mikey about town is a vainglorious glad-hander, puffing out his chest with tales of stardom and quickly wearing out his tenuous welcome. Mikey builds his relationship with Strawberry on an ever-mounting pile of deceptions, which threatens to come crashing down and get him kicked out of town before he can take her with him. At first it’s just sex that he’s after, but then he decides to try to lure Strawberry to Los Angeles to act in porn, with him as her manager-slash-pimp. She is seventeen-or, as Mikey crows, “legal as an eagle”-and he insistently pursues her. At a nearby doughnut shop, he meets a counter clerk and high-school student named Raylee (Suzanna Son), who calls herself Strawberry. Instead, Mikey reconnects with the head of the local marijuana trade, Leondria (Judy Hill), a friend from high school, and becomes a small-time dealer. When he admits what he’s been doing, doors slam shut. Mikey looks for work locally, but he has a seventeen-year gap on his résumé, and employers are hesitant to hire him. She grudgingly agrees, even as her mother, Lil (Brenda Deiss), whom she lives with, demands two hundred dollars a week in rent. She is not happy to see him, but he has twenty-two dollars in his pocket and nowhere else to go, so he asks to crash with her. Despite the actor’s lack of experience in art-house films, his performance is the highlight of “Red Rocket,” in which he appears alongside a similarly unlikely gallery of actors.Īt the beginning of the film, Rex’s character, Mikey Davies (whose porn name is Mikey Saber), travels by bus from Los Angeles to Texas City, where he drops in on his estranged wife and former onscreen partner, Lexi (Bree Elrod).
Remarkably, Baker, who conceived “Red Rocket” many years ago, has always had Rex in mind for the leading role: a flailing porn star who returns to his home town. He had done little acting of note in nearly a decade.
Simon rex house tv#
Rex, who is forty-seven, had previously worked as an MTV v.j., as a solo porn star, in supporting roles on TV shows, and in the “Scary Movie” franchise. And in Sean Baker’s latest film, “Red Rocket,” which opened in theatres on December 10th, Simon Rex accomplishes something perhaps even harder than appearing onscreen with no track record he pulls a drastic career category shift. In “ West Side Story,” Rachel Zegler, formerly known as a YouTube performer, sings powerfully in her first film, in the starring role of Maria. In “ Licorice Pizza,” the musician Alana Haim and the teen-ager Cooper Hoffman make their extraordinary and accomplished film débuts. Looking through the history of best actor, it’s hard to find a former nominee that resembles Rex and his character – which could be both a blessing and a curse.It’s been a good season for surprise casting. Rex’s background as a former adult film actor is sure to be a topic of conversation and could keep the more conservative base of the Academy at a distance. While former nominees such as Viggo Mortensen (“Eastern Promises”) have nabbed attention, actors with nude scenes are often passed over, even when their films are in the awards race (i.e., Harvey Keitel in “The Piano”). With the HFPA out of the awards calendar this season, Rex’s campaign will rely on the critics’ prizes (NYFCC winner possibility?) and/or a concentrated blitz with SAG voters and the actor’s branch.Īnother obstacle will be Oscar voters’ aversion to male nudity. It’s also the type of performance the Golden Globes voters would have fallen over themselves to nominate and even reward.
As society becomes more sensitive to the mistreatment and abuse of women, this aspect could leave many cold and unable to connect. However, the elephant in the Oscar room is the audience is witnessing the character, in essence, groom a young girl. His hilarious one-liners and frantic sparring with Bree Elrod, another awards-worthy candidate, for supporting actress, is impeccably orchestrated.
Rex embodies “Red Rocket’s” protagonist Mikey Saber through and through, and he’s a character that you simultaneously love and hate.
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