Sarah Michelle Gellar

The Rock Southland Tales Interview #1 - Boxer Santaros and Richard Kelly

The Rock on His Attachment to Southland Tales: “I’ve been close to this now for over a year now. Before I went to shoot Doom last year was the first time I read the script. And read it and then re-read it and read it again and then re-read it again. And then I came to the conclusion that the best thing for me to do was stop trying to piece everything together and get extremely close to Richard Kelly. Because there are so many things in that script that only he can answer and only he can piece together.

And a lot of it is left up to one’s interpretation. So that’s what I did. I stopped trying to piece everything together, got extremely close to Richard and made sure I understood what my interpretation of Boxer was. We’re on the same page together with Richard.”

The Rock on Figuring Out What Southland Tales is About: “I realized that Southland Tales is about myself. That’s exactly what it is. I came to that conclusion. I sat back one night and it took me about a week’s worth of thinking. I said, “Southland Tales is about Boxer Santaros.” So that’s my answer.

The Rock on Boxer Santaros in Southland Tales: “Boxer Santaros is a movie star who gets kidnapped, has amnesia, doesn’t know he’s a movie star, who becomes a paranoid schizophrenic and also extremely neurotic. Of course, that’s the movie star part of it, which I based on a lot of people I know. That, and constantly searching for the truth. Boxer has a supernatural gift. He can see things and he can foresee the future. That’s about all I can tell you. He knows things are going to happen and he foresees the apocalypse.”

The Rock on Boxer Santaros’ Relationship with Other Southland Tales Characters: “His relationship with Seann is doing research for a role. There’s a screenplay that Boxer writes, which he wants to direct as well, and he’s doing some film research. Seann is a Los Angeles cop, I go on a ride-along and things ensue. My relationship with Sarah is, when I come through, Sarah is the one person in my life who I feel like I can trust. And when I come through out of my amnesia state, she’s there. And we develop this relationship. Sarah is my girlfriend and Mandy Moore is my wife.”

What Will Those of Us Who Don’t Know Richard Kelly Personally Get Out of It?: “Number one, they’ll be challenged. I think they’ll be challenged in many, many ways. You don’t have to get close to Richard Kelly to understand what Southland Tales is. By the way, that’s the beauty of what I believe we’re filming, which is left up to interpretation. There are a lot of things that are going to be left up to one’s interpretation. And it will make sense. I’m sorry to be cryptic, if it seems like that.”

The Rock on Musical Elements of Southland Tales: “I was going to [sing] and then...no. It’s not a musical at all. I think earlier comments were, it’s a like part musical, sci-fi and thriller mixed in with dark comedy. But no, I can honestly tell you it’s not a musical. Other than a great soundtrack, no. But we do dance, though. There’s a great dance number at the end, with my wife and my girlfriend.”

The Rock’s Attraction to Southland Tales: “Before I read the script, I was speaking to my agent and we talked about Richard Kelly. I was familiar with Donnie Darko and I really liked Donnie Darko, actually. And he said, ‘What do you think about working with Richard Kelly?’ And I said I would love to, sure. And he said there’s this project and it’s called Southland Tales. And I said great, I’d love to see it, send me the script. He said before that Richard had asked that he just meet with you first. So I met with Richard.”

The Rock on Meeting Richard Kelly for Southland Tales: “I loved his ideas for Southland Tales, I loved his visuals. He had a couple of mockups of what we would look like and what he saw and this is what the mega-zeppelin looked like. And I was really really, really impressed with his creative process and his urgency not only to be different and to be creative and to be edgy but have it make sense. The meeting went great and then he sent over the script. He said, ‘Now you can read the script.’ I read the script and I loved the script and I loved the character. There are a lot of different levels.” From Fred Topel,Your Guide to Action-Adventure Movies.