J.K. Simmons on Becoming a Deadhead Dad in "The Music Never Stopped"

J.K. Simmons has only been given to us in small doses on screen -- Daily Bugle editor/publisher J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man movies, Aaron Eckhart's boss in Thank You for Smoking, Paul Rudd's dad Oswald in I Love You, Man, Ellen Page's dad Mac in Juno -- all roles where he got to play the scene-stealer. But with his latest film, The Music Never Stopped, Simmons is finally a leading man. As Henry Sawyer, Simmons is a father who lost his son 20 years ago, but tries to repair the relationship when Gabriel (played by Lou Taylor Pucci) ends up in the hospital, now brain-damaged. Thanks to a tumor that's since been removed, Gabriel is incapable of forming new long term memories and thinks he's still in 1968 (it's based on a case written about by Oliver Sacks, "The Last Hippie"). Gabriel's parents discover that music helps Gabriel stay lucid, recall and possibly even form memories, so Henry immerses himself in all the music that Gabriel loves -- and that Henry used to hate -- so they can connect. Simmons talks about playing dads, authority figures, and geezers.

Q: What's it like to finally carry your own film?

A: It's really fun. I was concerned when I started reading the script that the character would fade away, and it was really great to see how far it would go, how much of a father/son relationship story it was, so I was immediately in love with it. It's not the part that comes down the pike for my type all that often.

Q: What would you say your type is?

A: Fat, bald, and 50! [Laughs]

Q: Maybe that's why you get so many authority figures to play...

A: [Chuckles] There's a great irony there, as anyone who was around me growing up can testify to. I was not at all good with authority figures, at least not those with blind authority, who mishandled authority. I felt growing up very much a child of the '60s.

Q: So you probably related more to the character of your son, Gabriel, in this film...

A: It's definitely closer to my generation, but this was a great perspective to have on both parts. It was one of those script that I just read it, and got it, and knew I could portray this guy. Unlike Lou, I didn't have to do a lot of research, because it was all there on the page. But being a father is a giant cheat, because then any father/kid thing is accessible to me now. I didn't have kids until I was 43, so I was playing dads well before I was one, and I hope I did OK, but it's easier now. And the characters are so well drawn in this, and the medical story, the joy of bringing someone back to life, and the love and redemption. Everyone has something they wish they could take back, like that scene where they're yelling, when Lou's character is a teenager, and he storms out, and I yell, "Don't come back!" And then 18 years later, Henry and his wife have this stagnant life, because of one angry outburst. So the miracle is that they get a second chance.

Q: This film was in development for over a decade, and at one point, Brad Pitt was going to play Gabriel...

A: I hadn't heard the Brad Pitt thing, I didn't know he was attached. I know people sometimes think of him as beautiful Mr. Leading Man, and they underestimate him as an actor. From my perspective, no one was better for this part than Lou. He was living in L.A. at the time, and we just hung out for hours, getting to know each other. It did sit on shelves for many, many years. One of the concerns people had was how expensive it would be to get the rights to the music. They thought it would have to be a 20 million, 30 million, 40 million dollar movie. But [director] Jim [Kohlberg] had the connections to get the music rights, and it wasn't 20 million.

Q: When you were filming, did you not know which songs you would get, save for when you're calling them by name? Did you have to fake it?

A: That's the way it usually is. Like the montage where I'm listening to his albums? If you're listening to rock and roll, you want to feel the beat, but we didn't know what music it would be. Same for Lou, but luckily he could just do that Deadhead sway... 

Q: Were you ever a Deadhead?

A: I was not a Deadhead. My sister was a Deadhead, in junior high school, high school. I heard the Grateful Dead by osmosis. I hung out with Bob Weir and Mickey Hart at Sundance, and I had to confess that I only listened to them by accident. They wer pretty cool about it. I was more into Jimi [Hendrix], and Janis [Joplin], and the Beatles, too. But the first song I ever learned on guitar was Dylan, "Blowin' in the Wind."

Q: Of all the films that you've done, you've had some great lines. Any favorites? Mine would be the one you had in Burn After Reading, "Report back when it makes sense."

A: That one should be needle-pointed on a pillow! [Laughs] There's some gems there. The Spider-Man ones, that seems a lifetime ago, but those were super fun.

Q: Anything from Harsh Times? When you're looking for a sociopathic killer-type, "We're all a little goofy around here"?

A: You know, I've never seen that movie! When I was doing that, I was also doing Thank You for Smoking, and it was a small part. I did it for two reasons , one because it was with Christian Bale, who is one of the truly great actors around, and two, the script was really smart and real, and it was something that I hadn't seen before.

Q: You have this scene with Christian where he's interviewing for a job. He's already failed the LAPD's psychological tests, and you're recruiting for covert work at the Department of Homeland Security. And despite the type of job, which would station him in Colombia for an anti-drug task force, he wants to bring his girlfriend, get married, so you're just shaking your head at him...

A: That was an easy scene to do. It's always a battle in this business to have a career and a life -- I rarely spend much time out of town anymore, because being with my family is really the priority in my life. That's why it's nice to have a TV show, for ten months out of the year. So that was both me and my character's point of view there, "You can't do this job and have yourself a life."

Q: Did Christian stay in character, or at least in dialect on set? And since his character slips in and out of two ways of speaking, which one did he use?

A: He stayed in dialect, as I recall. I do that myself when I'm doing a film. It's just easier, if you're doing a dialect that's foreign to you, to stay in it. He wasn't doing it all the time, but he was not sounding like his UK self. But he wasn't in character. He was pretty light-hearted and easy-going. But no, there was no Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with his character. [Laughs] It was just one of those small budget vibes. No one was there to get rich. It was just a project they believed in.

Q: Kind of like The Music Never Stopped.

A: Yeah. Having said that, Spider-Man had that ridiculous budget, but Sam Raimi made everyone feel the same way. But the smaller films, those are passion projects that you do because there's a story you really want to tell. I'm not looking to be number one on the all sheet. But you want an interesting story, where you can have an impact. And that can happen with five minutes on screen, or carrying a film.

Q: What's next for you?

A: I just got back from New Orleans, for Contraband, where I play the ship's captain and Mark Wahlberg is one of the sailors on my ship. There may be some smuggling involved, but I am not a smuggler. And I just shot Geezers in L.A., in between my stints on that.

Q: You're not a geezer!

A: [Laughs] I do not play a geezer. Believe it or not, I play an actor who has to play 85 years old. It's kind of a Spinal Tap-ish mockumentary that happens to be directed by my wife [Michelle Schumacher], which is how I got the job, sleeping with the director. [Laughs] Most of the name actors in it [including Kevin Pollack, Tim Allen, and Kyra Sedgwick] are playing themselves, because the core cast are actors in their 70s and 80s who've been around for a while. They're just not Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman!