Actor Bill Pullman has played a war hero-turned-President in Independence Day, a Han Solo stand-in in Spaceballs, an eccentric genius detective in Zero Effect, a concerned dad in Casper, and all manner of cowboy characters in a bunch of westerns. Dozens of other roles are mixed in between those ? big and small, light and dark. He?s had an all seasons kind of career, but more recently, the focus has been on characters that are seemingly hiding from deeply buried pain in their lives.
We spoke with Pullman about that pattern and his work on The Sinner and in the new film, Trouble (which is now out in limited release). We also discussed his deep commitment to research for a role in Vice opposite Christian Bale, the chance that Spaceballs 2: The Search For More Money rumors will ever come true, his take on playing complex characters like Lefty Brown, and how he sometimes feels the need to wall himself off from other actors.
Yeah, I do, yeah. Or different mediums, sometimes. I?m gonna do a play in London in the spring, and that will be before getting to The Sinner again. And doing something light is always very good, and then [you] go do the heavy stuff. And Trouble was done a couple years ago now, so it was interesting to have it emerge right now. The spirit of that Ben character. When I watched the movie recently, it struck me, wow, what was I in the middle of then, that made that guy come out like that? [Laughs] It?s almost like I was watching a distant cousin behave or something. And Sinner, we?re shooting it and it starts to air as we?re shooting it, still shooting it. So that?s an odd thing, the opposite. So it?s good that they?re both living side by side right now.
