Christian McKay: From Concert Pianist to Orson Wells
December 4, 2009 by Lance Carter
Filed under Performing Arts News
The Wall Street Journal: Despite having an injury, Richard Linklater expressly flew to New York to catch your final performance in “Rosebud” to check out your acting. That must have been exciting.
Christian McKay: It was one of those things that I’ve read about, that divine luck that actors sometimes get — but mostly not. I mean, I’ve a very lucky person and I’ve had a very contented life, but I always thought that kind of luck was beyond me. With his coming to see me, I had my own little Cinderella moment, my word.
Consequently, he invited you down to Austin for a good old-fashioned screen test.
It was marvelous. Actually on the plane down, the woman who was sitting next me to asking why I was going to Texas, and [after I told her], we spent the entire flight chatting about his films. At that time, I only knew about four or five of them, so it was a great pleasure to work with Rick and then go and check out his films and be astonished by them. I was particularly astonished by “Waking Life”; I love that film. Rick is an emblem of that wonderful American tradition of the maverick — like how Orson was a maverick, but Rick can move form one genre to another with total ease.
And how was working with Rick?
He’s a great actor’s director and a great actor himself; he’d hate me for saying that, but I think it’s true. He’s a wonderful storyteller — he has that in common with the old man. He taught me how to act on film. For an old stage ham [like me], that was a difficult job. The gestures of the stage would be death on film, and I had a very technical job to achieve. I’m playing a theatrical, larger-than-life character, so I don’t want to be subdued. Film is limitless, but some stage presentations on film can look too theatrical.
