What were those songs?
I had a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song, I had a Jeff Rosenstock song, and I had “All Eyes on Me” by Bo Burnham.
Oh, that’s interesting. What Yeah Yeah Yeahs song?
I haven’t listened to them in ages because I was trying to get rid of them from my head. The Jeff Rosenstock one was like, [starts singing] “Someone’s gonna bleed and dribble trails in the snow.” But I used to listen to it for a totally different reason. And it was an acoustic version of “Cheated Hearts” that I had. The acoustic version is really sad and beautiful.
Have you overcome your inability to dance in public as an adult?
I still suck, but every now and then the mood strikes and I can do it.
Let’s end with Sam’s physical appearance. He has this dark hair and orange-y glow. He also picks at his skin and has interesting posture—it’s not ramrod, but it’s not totally hunched either. Can you talk about the combination of all of those things? How much did you bring to it?
The hair was [director] Chris Long and Joel and Joe’s idea. They wanted him to have dark hair. They felt my natural hair color wasn’t exactly right. But I’d also just finished the play, and I had my hair dyed prior to the play because I was doing The White House Plumbers, playing John Dean. There was still some of that left. My hair color was a little bit unnatural, and then they dyed it brown. They were interested in him being slightly younger than I am in real life. I asked them if I should lose weight. I thought he was quite nervous and on edge. Should he be quite slim despite his foodie tendencies? And they said, “No, you should enjoy your Christmas.” I ended up putting on some weight for it, so he’s a little doughier than I am, perhaps.
The orange-y glow was down to the makeup and the color grade. If they dye your hair darker, they have to make your skin darker, too, so it doesn’t look too crazy. I was like, Listen, I’m going to play him as a version of me, so I’m not going to try to control his image too much. He just felt a little bit teenage in terms of a lack of impulse control and not being able to understand other perspectives. When you hit puberty, suddenly everything just goes a little bit mad in that way.
With the clothes, I was much more involved: how short he wore his tie, how he tucked his shirt into his jeans, his chain. He had a fixation on that area of his body, just having something around his neck that felt incongruous with the rest of him. It had to do with going out and thinking, Yeah, I can be tough. I can wear this chain and do that. And yet that’s nothing to do with the rest of his personality. I didn’t want him to be any one thing where you would look at him and say, “Oh, I know who that is,” He could disappear in a room, but if you looked at him for a second too long, you’d go, “Oh god, he’s quite an interesting mix of things.”
It creates an unsettling feeling around him. He’s not a freak, and he doesn’t stand out that much. But then you realize he has a weird tone to his skin, and the way he picks at himself is a little uncomfortable.
Exactly. He’s also holding a lot back. In terms of picking at his skin, I ended up with these mad welts on my hands. I wouldn’t even notice it was happening because I’d be at it all day. I’d find myself hitching up my trousers a lot because he doesn’t want to appear slovenly. He’s always trying to control some aspect of himself. He sets his jaw and tries to keep things in. I noticed that in a couple of videos of people I watched, using the jaw to try to control things.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Matthew Jacobs
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