How I Came to The Work of Actor RUSS RUSSO
(or rather, how it came to me)
by Pablo D’Stair
Like much of the art that has come to mean so much to me in life—from the work of Joyce and Mamet, to McGoohan’s The Prisoner to the giallos of Argento et al.—the work of actor Russ Russo was not so much something I discovered, as it was something the world repeatedly conspired to make me aware and appreciative of. If not for a continuous series of coincidences that eventually revealed themselves to be overt nudges, insistent fingers of the hand-of-art pointing at something I was imperatively meant to be aware of, I would be in the likely position of most reading this article—that is, I would find myself, at the mention of the fellow’s name, able to offer nothing but the question “Russ Russo?…yeah, who is that?”
What follows is the true history of how I was, by no effort of my own, made aware of the works of an actor I truly believe to be one of the finest currently working, an artist who I count myself fortunate to have eventually made the personal acquaintance of.
***
In all plain candor, I cannot even say that I “discovered Russ Russo” through the film Williamsburg, though it was in the frames of it I first laid eyes on, heard voice of him. That is, I have no actual memory of where I watched the film, under what circumstance (was it in theatre or on video? was I alone or in the company of others? did I half-interestedly pick it out based on cover art or was it shown to me offhand by an acquaintance?)–all that I do know is that from the moment I viewed this little Jarumusch-esque jewel of independent cinema, Russo became a back-burner-presence in my thoughts. I did not—as fine as their performances were, do not get me wrong—take the time to consciously note the names of any of the other performers when the credits rolled, but know I took a distinct moment out to see who played ‘Brother James’ and from that moment “Russ Russo” would innocently crop into my thought processes, my little daydreams of making films of my own. “Who would I cast in X or Y or Z role?” I would, in reverie, so often ask, and one of the most frequent answers would be “That guy from that one film, Williamsburg—that guy Russ Russo.”
***
The coincidental progression of my becoming aware of his work continued in the following way: one of the other constant answers to my fanciful question of being a filmmaker with the authority to cast whom I felt was “Norman Reedus” (an actor whose work I became aware of and as passionate for in as random a way as Russo’s, Reedus first announcing himself to me in his role opposite Alan Rickman in a more-or-less unheard of thriller called Dark Harbor). I here mention Reedus and his random introduction to my thought-life most particularly, as it was through him (in a sense) that I next actively “encountered” Russ Russo. I had written a series of essays on the short films Reedus directed and of a lazy afternoon (this years and years after having watched Williamsburg) I happened to check Twitter to find some fellow had tweeted his enthusiasm for one of the essays in particular: This fellow?—Russ Russo. I had some brief interaction, very casual, via correspondence with Russ, confirming he was, indeed, the self-same actor I had in mind, but nothing further than a few “I dig your work” messages exchanged between us before my life, as it often does, soon swallowed me up in other things.
***
Why I was watching television of an evening, staying at a friend’s (surfing the far more channels than I had at that time access to in my own home) why I was there with some idle moments at just that time of the evening I also cannot recall, but landing on the G4 network just as a screen went black, an actor’s name appeared, alone on the screen: Russ Russo. The film was an intriguing sci-fi short called Against the Wall, Russo, it seemed to me at the time, maybe in the role because the filmmakers had wanted to cast “someone who looked a lot like Christian Bale might look” (funny story, Russo later did play “Christian Bale” due to his likeness in the “Call Me, Maybe” parody video built around Nolan’s Batman franchise). Thing was, the short was just to my taste—simple, unflashy, measured—rather like a delicious teaser for what might be something larger one day, but just as much self-contained as any truly great short story in an issue of Asimov’s or any pulp anthology of old. A ten minute short, no other purpose than to exist for the sake of its subdued coolness, I nodded my approval at the thing and twice as much at Russo, himself, for his participation. I was keen to see if I could get back in touch, but also too busy to find time.
***
So—a penchant of mine is to frequent the ol’ RedBox, every once in awhile, with the particular intention of grabbing some inconsequential movie to pass a rare free evening with—usually, I am after a “bad but watchable film” (though, I must admit, several of my favorite films in the last several years have come from such a hunt, two in particular being 388 Arletta Avenue and a marvelous, all-but-completely overlooked gem called Skew) and usually it is a horror film I take away. On a night in particular, I nabbed a thing called Donner Pass, imagining it would be drivel. The film opens in flashback, a “re-enactment” of the fate of Donner Party and there, bearded (and, as always, giving ten times better a performance than the material he was performing necessarily called for) was (or I thought it was) Russo. His character lasts not long, two, three minutes screen time at most, some half dozen or ten-at-most lines of dialogue, but the gravity I now readily expected of him was there (one of those things a keen film viewer notices, one of those ancillary things that so often make one glad they watched an otherwise tossaway episode of Law and Order or took in a matinee of some dime-a-dozen bank heist or car chase film). Here was Russo, now lurking in my private RedBox haunt, a thing I verified via the Donner Pass credits and by (first time in forever) dotting through Twitter to find Russo was, quite nonchalantly, mentioning the film was now available.Not to be remiss, let me add that the film was pretty solid—nothing I wanted to write home about, but other than a kind of average last act it was something that had a verve, a reason to exist beyond just being an on-the-cheap horror flick—there is an energy to it I like, similar to that of some Ewan McGregor movies I love but don’t feel lived up to the full potential energy their scripts and makers likely had within (Rouge Trader, Nora, The Serpent’s Kiss, in case you wonder which Ewan films I mean).
***
Sometime after that is when I, through learning of his attempt to Kickstarter a film project he had written called Heat Wave, was able to briefly make Russo’s acquaintance (this—another odd connection I will get to in a moment) made possible by the fact that I was, quite randomly, in Los Angeles to spend a day on the set of Paul Schrader’s films The Canyons, which I was a backer of. That encounter and my thoughts on him as an artist I set down in two articles here and here.
***
Touch was lost after the Kickstarter reached its goal and he got busy with work. I, meanwhile, continued on being busy and taking submissions of manuscripts to the literary press I co-run. In a submission, I was told I should check out another author, a friend of the current submission-writer, a friend too shy, allegedly, to submit work herself. The name of this author was Darelene Kingslee. And when I Googled the name, for whatever, completely baffling reason, the third or fourth entry down on the results page was a link to a film starring not Darlene Kingslee, but an actress called Faye Kingslee—a short film it turned out (his name bolded in the Google result) also starring Russ Russo. And again, a short, perfectly atmospheric and contained piece, everything dependent on subtlety in expression, in unspoken performance on the part of the central male figure, Russo (who, I might add, now having seen him in several roles…I still could not immediately be certain was the same Russo, so absolute is his immersion in any role, his performance nothing to do with “I am an actor” but instead “I am just exactly what this character calls for, myself-as-connected-to-any-other-of-my-work effaced”). The film (please do view it here) a simple thing, a take-it-or-leave it to most, I have no doubt, but his performance, for my taste, was hypnotic (and would have been, I say with emphasis, even without the fun, growing set of coincidences so evidently wanting him in front of my eyes).
***
I love the television program Breaking Bad (as any worthwhile, thinking person does) and in it most especially I was fond of the character Gustavo Fring, portrayed so amazingly by Giancarlo Esposito. Learning Esposito was a character on a (at that time) new NBC television program called Revolution, I tuned in to a random episode, despite my more than modest dislike of most things “J.J. Abrams” related. See—I have a real love for not the central or even main-supporting casts of television programs (I like them, don’t misunderstand) but a dear, dear love and fascination for those actors and actresses who have small scenes to play, play them so often seamlessly and with more art than it takes (in my opinion) for the main casts to do their roles (and if not “more art” then at the very least with an air of artistry and absolute devotion that seems out of proportion to doing a “bit part” in a scene most viewers are not paying strict attention to them in, just seeing them as means to an end for what the central cast members are up to—this all said here just to inflict some of my random, ranting cinema/television philosophy on anyone reading). So I was not exactly surprised that there, front and center, pre-credits, was Russ Russo (his character not lasting too long, per the status quo it seemed) again turning in a mostly dialogue-free performance of intense gravity to mesmerizing effect, but was more delighted. “Give Russ a fucking show, Abrams!” I thought to myself and, indeed, think I did get in touch with Russo again to tell him my feelings were so.
***
Now, again we did not keep in any kind of touch—I always worried I was pestering him or that he might have thought I would only be getting in touch to subtly bug him about “What happened to Heat Wave?” as I had contributed a modest bit of dough and had not since heard news about it. So it was months and months later that, quite randomly, I received an e-mail from him explaining he would be working on a new film to be called Novel (actually, he told me it would be called The Elusive D.B. Cooper, but the title became Novel by the time I found footage). “What was so interesting about this that he had to e-mail me about it?” one might wonder: Well, it was to be the second mainstream starring role for adult film star James Deen, who of course is the star of Schrader’s The Canyons and someone, in our one encounter, Russo and I had discussed. I chuckled, kind of felt maybe I was really just in a coma dream and that only a handful of faces and names were accessible by my brain to develop a sleeping-state reality, because otherwise it was just too odd that my circles of random reference were constricting, coalescing, joining in to some kind of absolute Single. Little could Russo know, of course, that what was much more fascinating to me than even the coincidental presence of Deen was that the film was not officially being filmed yet, only a very stylish, “preview” of the film, a short-film in its own also serving as teaser and “chapter one” of the project—this exact method of getting attention to a project something I had (as I often did, but in this case only days before) been discussing with some friends about doing with a film we wanted to get off the ground. I watched the trailer, intrigued by the cursory outline of plot Russo had given in his e-mail as much as just by Russo’s presence (I had, by this time, looked up his filmography and knew he had a growing body of work much of which I was unfamiliar with, but had never, actively, sought out his work, maybe unconsciously preferring the way it would just poke its head in and out of my life, whenever it saw fit). Again: an artwork in itself, the preview a complete world, an intrigue, a film almost as good already, not existent, than it could ever be in completion; “a teaser that contained something more impressive than could its realization as whole,” I remember was my impression…except for one thing: Not enough Russo. Or except for two thing: not enough Russo and the flat fact that by this time I was so convinced that if Russo lent his time and talents, his pure artistic enthusiasm toward the director and the material, than just like even in the sometimes less-than-spectacular films I had seen him in sometimes, there must be some core greatness, something that if realized would be towering, the future, what and the way things should be done.
***
I still don’t seek out Russo’s work actively, perhaps to my shame, don’t (until this article) go around name dropping him to promote his interests or to (perhaps somewhere) get some hipster/indie film buff cred at casually mentioning the work of a fine actor-in-obscura, an actor whose projects, short or feature, completed or gestating, truly give me the greatest confidence that the renaissance of independent cinema I believe the US is having (and is poised to soon have even a more full version of) is a reality, not just a fervent hope of mine, but it occurs to me that the list grows and grows of random encounters I truly hope the world affords me (I am waiting for you to “ahem” over my shoulder Blue Collar Boys, to receive a seemingly “sorry wrong number” call from you The Projectionist, to suddenly have you be waiting around a corner like a friend I met once in a dream once, Shreveport—I am waiting, though I encourage anyone reading to venture forth and take these and all things Russo-related by the face, the shoulders, and embrace them with abandon).
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