“Saturday Night Live” alumnus Will Forte takes a stab at drama in “Run & Jump,” a standout at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Forte, director and co-writer Steph Green and co-stars Edward MacLiam and Maxine Peake sat down with WSN to discuss the film.
In “Run & Jump,” Forte plays a documentary filmmaker recording a family as they learn to adjust to their father who recently awoke from a coma. Although there is a dangerous tension between the characters, the cast and their director display a more genial relationship in person, with an electric rapport that showcases them as professionals who admire one another.
Despite this welcoming environment, Forte admitted he initially doubted his ability to play a dramatic role. With a career built upon his 10-year run at “SNL,” embodying a subdued character seemed overwhelming to him.
“It was scary. I loved the script but had no idea if I’d be able to do a good job at it,” Forte said.
“[Green] was confident in me and that made me be confident in myself. I’m so used to playing these big, broad characters, I don’t have the internal mechanism for figuring out the levels of reality. Sometimes I’ll either be playing it too big, or go the other way, playing it too small. So Steph was wonderful at helping find the right level of a real person. That’s what it’s all about, just acting like a normal person.”
Green countered Forte’s perceived challenges.
“He tells a story like he struggled a lot,” Green said. “But actually what he was giving me was always either exactly what I was looking for or so close.”
Met by protest from Forte, Peake simply turned to him and said, “You’re brilliant.”
“I was watching you in scenes thinking, ‘Ah, Will’s really natural. He’s keeping it really grounded and calm,’” she said.
Peake then addressed the often blurred divide between actor and character.
“Sometimes there’s little bits of residue,” she said. “I think the beauty of it was that it wasn’t indulgent. I didn’t come away feeling traumatized, because in a way, I don’t think [my character] is traumatized … this is a woman who’s been through a lot and is grieving but she’s going to carry on. It was a positive within lots of negative. It’s life-affirming.”
When asked about any tips they had for the aspiring actors of NYU, each actor had a different answer.
“Work very hard,” Forte said. “It seems like such a stupid thing to say, you go, ‘oh, obviously.’”
MacLiam fittingly contributed, “Be like a duck: cool, calm, collected on top. Underneath, paddle like fuck.”
A version of this article appeared in the Thursday, April 25 print edition. Isabel Jones is a staff writer. Email her at [email protected].
