Very rarely do you catch an actor during that chrysalis phase between crawling out of the cocoon of one character and into the skin of another. This is exactly where I caught Lou Taylor Pucci, who is an innately gifted actor, well known for playing vulnerable souls and identity seeking characters, like the thumb sucking angst-ridden teen, Justin Cobb in Mike Mills’ 2003 debut feature, Thumbsucker alongside Tilda Swinton, Vincent D'Onofrio and Keanu Reeves. The role made him a fixture in mid-aughts indie cinema.
Then there is his most recent role as Evan in the genre-bending, sci-fi, love story horror film, Spring, which features a more mature actor grappling with demons that are both figurative and literal. In Spring, Pucci plays the heartbreaking role of a young man who loses his mother and decides to go on an adventure of a lifetime. The film, shot on the beautiful coastline of an ambiguous Italian village, shows his character searching for meaning, destiny, self, love…anything to quell the longing. He finds his purpose when he meets Louise, a beautiful young woman who is hiding a frightening, monstrous secret that far outweighs anyone’s definition of “baggage.”
The film is the second feature by inventive directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead who start the film off during the low tide of the character’s mourning of his mother and his stages of grief. As the tide rises, the film crashes beautifully on the coast of Italy, where slow motion drone shots and multiple minute long pans follow the character into a deep, dark world where every part of his psyche is pushed to the limit. It is a Kafkaesque tale that harkens elements and overtones of German Expressionist cinema with a little bit of Jarmusch-cool.
Pucci fits into these roles perfectly. He is an actor that is not afraid to be vulnerable, which is the mark of a great actor – if not a believable one. I first met Pucci, who is a New Jersey native from a creative, folksy kind of showbiz family (think the Carter family), before the premiere of Spring. He has grown a massive beard for his next role, as Romeo 'Prickface' Griggs, in Poor Boy – a film about two misfit brothers who try to survive in the desert. In the following candid interview, Pucci talks about his unique upbringing as an altar boy, his dichotomous entrance into the world of independent cinema and his future goals as an actor in the Hollywood machine.
How did you get your start?
I started in musical theater. I grew up in a, I don’t know what the word would be, because I can’t exactly say that I was in a poor family, but I was in a lower middle class family. There was not much money. But my dad was a musician and my mom has done modeling and she loved musicals. One of the first interesting memories I have of my dad was him up on stage at a fair playing guitar.
So it was in the blood already?
Well, yeah, my name – they named me Lou Taylor Pucci, because my mom and dad both thought it was a good stage name. They thought I was going to be a musician, which is hilarious.
That’s really thinking ahead.
So, yes, I grew up in a family that was based in entertainment and art. My dad was also a graphic artist and still is. He is actually still in bands now as well. He is in a Crosby, Stills and Nash cover band. He’s a great singer with a really high voice. So I was sort of born into that. I have two brothers and a sister and I was the first one, so they wanted me to do something. My mom wanted me to take dancing lessons.
Did you enjoy it?
You know, I was about 9 or 10 and I was in school and people were such assholes about everything, so it was literally, like, “faggot this” and “faggot that.” And it was terrible. I had very few friends that I could relate to in my regular school. But I did it…I took the lessons. It took about a year of fighting – then finally I was, like, “Fuck it, I’ll take the lessons!” I was basically given this option by my parents before I even existed. They would say things, like, “All you do is watch TV and go to school.” Then they said, “You can either become an altar boy at the church or you can audition for a community theater show and we’ll bring you there and give you ten dollars.” Basically, they really wanted me to be on stage. So, I decided, “whatever, I’m going to be an altar boy.”
Wow…what was that like?
I was an altar boy for about six or seven months. I was really up for it for a little bit longer than that. I loved it…the different colored robes and different colored belts. It was actually pretty funny. Finally, though, I decided that I couldn’t do this any more. You have to wake up so early. It’s the same thing every time. You know, I did grow up with church as a big part of my life. We didn’t go to church every day, but I did go to a Catholic school for my entire life. Even during high school…I went to an all boys Christian academy.
Finally you acquiesced?
Eventually I said yes, I took the ten dollars, and auditioned for Oliver! and I got into the show. When I auditioned, I was like, “Holy crap, I didn’t know I could do anything like this. I am singing and I’m dancing right now.” And this was just at the audition! They auditioned me to play Oliver…I got up to the last callback, but I faltered at the end because I had never read any script or had done any acting stuff in front of anybody.
Did you get a part?
I was a part of the ensemble anyways, not Oliver, but all of a sudden, it was like, holy shit, I have all these friends and there’s a bunch of girls in the show and they like this stuff and I like this stuff right now because I had all these people I could relate to finally. It was great.
"...I went from wearing a sailor suit
to playing this tortured hitchhiker.
I mean, I wasn’t even going to go to the
audition, because it was so ridiculous..."
Then what happened?
Well, I started doing Broadway [after community theater]. Amazingly, long story short, I ended up on stage doing The Sound of Music running around in a sailor suit as Fredrik Von Trapp for like a year and a half. I was about 12 when that happened.
That’s an amazing trajectory!
Yeah, it was. Well, I think there was a strange motivation my whole life that maybe I didn’t know about. All I saw was my parents fighting about money and so I just wanted to fix everything. I had this complex based on fixing or helping the family. As the first born, I felt this inclination to take care of my brothers and sisters. You have to be a part of their life. And I don’t know, my dad became a huge guy…he had a weight problem that was very insane. So, it was a real concern that he was going to die. Luckily, he has since taken control of his life, but I definitely came from a real weird, fucked up family and we didn’t have any money. But the only thing that they did have is an insane amount of ambition and love and they wanted me to do something. So, they would drive me to these community theaters and they would drive me to New York.
They were really dedicated.
They would take the bus to New York and the take the bus back to New Jersey to finish whatever they had to do and then take another bus to pick me up and take me back home. This was every day.
So, when did the movie thing start happening?
I think I was about 16 and I was still in high school and I was going to a lot of auditions. I was auditioning for about a year. So, I did the theater stuff and then I decided to take time off. I decided to go to high school. I wanted to be a real kid. I wanted to go to prom. I wanted to do things that normal kids do. Because I realized that I probably was going to do things that weren’t normal for the rest of my life. So, I went to high school and I was going to auditions, but I really wasn’t getting anything. I think I was not getting what film was. I didn’t know what it took to be in a film. I mean, I came from a theater background.
But you eventually booked something, right?
So, there was this one audition…for Personal Velocity….and Rebecca Miller wrote and directed the film and Parker Posey is in it with Fairuza Balk and Kyra Sedgwick. You know, Rebbeca Miller is married to Daniel Day Lewis and is daughter to Arthur Miller. The thing is, though, that I had no idea about any of this. It was just this opportunity that came up. I went to the audition and I went from wearing a sailor suit to playing this tortured hitchhiker. I mean, I wasn’t even going to go to the audition, because it was so ridiculous from what I knew that I thought I could only fail.
