close up is an interview series where we ask people about the films that have influenced them the most. This installment is available as a podcast (above) and as an article (below).
Today, I spoke with actor Brandon Bales about the films that have influenced him the most: Bottle Rocket, The Thing, Mulholland Drive.
Brandon Bales, actor
Brandon Bales in Vice (2018)Brandon Bales is a Los Angeles-based actor who has worked in film, television, theatre, and video games for more than fifteen years. He’s also one of my best friends. I met Brandon when he auditioned for a short film I wrote in film school. I can still remember his audition and thinking that he saved the film with his interpretation of Adam, a petulant stage actor on the verge of a mental breakdown. We’d seen at least a dozen actors, all of them talented, but each one played the scene with so much self-pity and obtuseness that I was starting to panic. When Brandon came in, he tapped into how comically childish Adam was and how self-important people in the theatre world act in. I felt like he gave us our film back, and when I went home that night I started rewriting the script to fit his audition so that the director and producers had no choice but to cast him.
Brandon and I spent a lot of time on set talking about films and music and relationships and breakups and when the production was over, we kind of never stopped hanging out. Since, I’ve seen Brandon in numerous stages productions and most recently in a hilarious role as a CIA agent in Vice opposite of Christian Bale (no relation that I know of). I’ve also seen him fall in love and become a father. Along with being an incredibly talented actor, he’s a remarkable and unique friend.
So I wanted to know what films were responsible for making him the way that he is. His tastes are as unique as his talents and career.
Bottle Rocket (1996)
Brandon: My favorite movie of all-time is Bottle Rocket by Wes Anderson. It always felt like my movie, if that makes sense. Even if now I look back at it and it feels quaint or small or slightly juvenile. It always felt like my movie. It’s still Owen Wilson’s finest performance ever. It’s just a fantastic, sweet movie where the humor isn’t like huge jokes or dick jokes or anything, it’s completely character-based humor — which I love.
It’s just so odd. The first time people might see this movie or Wes Anderson’s other movies, people don’t quite understand what to make of it because the jokes aren’t so direct. That’s why I love it. I’ll even say that compared to other Wes Anderson movies it’s his least twee and least precious. It’s more direct, not that it’s in any way confrontational or mean or anything. That’s just how I feel about it.
I absolutely love it. And I still watch it once every couple of years and I just have a goofy smile on my face the whole time.
The Thing (1982)
Brandon: I think that it’s one of the most incredible, tense, atmospheric, exciting horror movies where you literally feel trapped like the characters do in this Antarctic station. And the effects of the movie are phenomenal. I love Kurt Russell in it — Kurt Russell is just always so charming and engaging and amazing. And I love all the other actors in it.
It’s just disturbing in the best way. A lot of current “horror” movies are just gore-fests or torture-fests or whatever, but this is one that feels atmospheric and like you’re trapped there with them. And the levels of distrust — it’s very relatable. Just love it!
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Brandon: I almost call it a horror movie. I think it is a horror movie. There are horror movies that bend your mind and make your mind panic. That’s what’s so great about the movie. Whatever you think about dream movies, movies that have all happened in a dream, whether you think that’s an easy out or whatever — it’s about the dream of a city, the dream of a place. Naomi Watts’ character is a prisoner of her own mind, which is the prisoner of this cultural idea that she can never fully live in. Something she wants desperately.
[Laughs] I guess it’s not ironic that me as an actor brings this movie to the table. It’s such an encapsulation of Los Angles, the industry, what people do to be there and stay there, and let themselves become other people in order to stay there in that space. It’s just devastating. It’s hilarious and terrifying and scary. I’ve seen most of David Lynch’s movies, and it’s definitely my favorite, his most effective movie for me.
And finally, Naomi Watts is unbelievably good in it. She’s incredible. I absolutely adore her performance in that movie and it’s probably one of my favorite acting things ever.
Evil Sexy Hamlet: Did you see that before moving to LA?
Brandon: Yeah.
Evil Sexy Hamlet: What were your thoughts of LA then, before moving here? How did you view and how did it live up or not live up to this vision of what the city is?
Brandon: It’s hard for anything to break through that idea of Hollywood for anyone who hasn’t been involved. Because you want to believe there’s a place for you and you want to believe that you will find your place in it, especially as a young actor and artist. So I couldn’t quite relate to all of it at the time … but it did give me pause. And it was effective just as a piece of cinema without resonating on the specific Hollywood angle.
But once I got here and was actually involved in it, revisiting [Mulholland Drive] makes it so much richer. The scene of [Naomi Watts] giving her amazing audition is just legend. Every actor has this — whether they admit it or not — has a dream of going into a casting room and blowing away everyone with this amazing performance, and she goes in there and does just that. And it’s just this hugely cathartic thing where everything in her life has led her to this point and she suddenly becomes someone else, she’s suddenly become this amazing actor that can transform everyone’s minds in a moment. That certainly resonates. She has this amazing scene and then two seconds after that she steps away with the casting director and everyone just laughs “They’ll never get this movie made. Haha, what a bunch of idiots!” The movie itself just completely turns around from this scene and just shits all over it. There’s so much bitterness in this town — myself, I’m not immune to that stuff, as well.
It’s just an absolutely stellar movie that has so much random stuff that shouldn’t work together but somehow when you combine it all it’s incredible, and so sad and so scary and so funny — that’s my favorite type of movie that makes me feel all those types of emotions in one solid package.
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