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Prolific film and television actor Clifton Collins Jr. at Giffith Park in Los Angeles on December 17, 2021. (Carlos Jaramillo / The New York Times)
Every time Clifton Collins Jr. boards a flight in the middle of a production, the possibility of the aircraft crashing petrifies him. “I have to finish the movie,” thinks the actor in mid-flight.
As soon as the movie is complete, turbulence and ups and downs? None of that is important, because he commented: “I have another movie on the way; especially if I have the hope that it will be good ”. “I don’t care if it fails. I would feel bad for others, but I am fine. I finished”.
Collins, 51, has maintained such an intense focus for more than 30 years as an eccentric character actor, adding his talents to casts from renowned directors such as Steven Soderbergh (“Traffic”), Alejandro González Iñárritu (“Babel”) and Quentin. Tarantino (“Once upon a time in Hollywood”), though he is perhaps best known for his various appearances on such television series as “Westworld” and “Ballers.”
Now the actor is finally living his big break, an extraordinary lead role. In Clint Bentley’s poignant indie film “Jockey,” Collins plays Jackson Silva, a mature horseman who faces physical ailments and the possibility of being a father. The visceral performance, the fruit of immersive preparation, has already earned her an Independent Spirit Awards nomination, her first time, and a special acting award at Sundance. It’s not his only role in a major film this season — Collins plays a carnival member in Guillermo del Toro’s sumptuous film noir “The Alley of Lost Souls” —but it may be the one that makes the big difference.
© Distributed by The New York Times Licensing Group
Prolific film and television actor Clifton Collins Jr. at Giffith Park in Los Angeles on December 17, 2021. (Carlos Jaramillo / The New York Times)
During a recent interview at a restaurant in the Studio City section of Los Angeles, where he was wearing a simple Pink Floyd T-shirt, a Homeboy Industries cap and a warm flannel shirt, he explained: “I’ve had other starring roles, but none like this ”.
The difference lies not only in screen time, but also in his continued collaboration with first-time director Bentley and producer Greg Kwedar, who cast him to star in Bentley’s directorial debut, “Transpecos,” a thriller. in which he played one of three Border Patrol agents who are forced to participate in an illegal drug trafficking mission. For his role in “Jockey,” Collins increased his commitment and invested money as an executive producer.
To play Jackson, Collins lost kilograms despite his already thin complexion in order to have the skeletal body of a jockey. However, that was only the superficial transformation. At Turf Paradise, the Phoenix racecourse where the movie was shot, he became a laborer, working on site every day and helping with the horses to shed the actor tag in the eyes of the real riders.
“I didn’t want to be seen as an actor. I didn’t want to receive special treatment, ”he explained. “That the people you are playing accept you is the greatest gift any actor could ask for,” he added.
When it comes to character integrity, Collins gives it his all, no matter the size of the paper. For the prison drama “The Last Castle” (2001), he consulted several speech therapists before agreeing to play a character who has a speech disability, even if it was only a supporting role. In another job, the comedy “Bright Business” (2009), he almost refused to play an amputee because the director had not considered the details of the character’s situation in detail.
His demands were not intended to make him seem grand, but rather a way of respecting the experiences of people for whom those circumstances are not a disguise, but their truth. “You can’t just stomp on the challenges that people are trying to overcome in real life,” he said.
In “Jockey,” Collins shares scenes with professional jockeys whom he tried to guide through the cinematic process with patience and room for spontaneity. The moving talk in a hospital scene with an injured “jockey”, played by a royal horseman, Logan Cormier, was the result of the camaraderie he generated over time with his non-actor colleagues.
“You take it for granted when he’s being generous to people like Clint Eastwood” in “The Mule,” Bentley said. “But having that same generosity with someone who has never acted and in some cases will never act again says a lot about his quality as a person and an artist.”
Collins, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, also channeled memories of his father, who, when sober enough, would take him and his sister to their trailer in Inglewood, California. When his father was with friends at Hollywood Park, a nearby racetrack, he would sometimes let Collins join him and teach him how to bet on racehorses since he was little. Jackson’s final speech in the film – about Jackson’s father, who was an angry man who only showed affection when drunk or gambling – came from precisely those bittersweet childhood memories.
Del Toro turned to Collins for “The Alley of Lost Souls” (his second collaboration, after “Titans of the Pacific”, the epic film of the “kaiju” genre) because the actor “seems incapable of transmitting anything other than authenticity, in addition to always being present and full of ideas, “said the director by email. Collins “has a cadence, rhythm and tone that no one else has,” added Del Toro. “Cinema is in his blood and in his eyes. His gaze captures the camera and our attention completely ”.
For the actor, exploring the set of “The Alley of Lost Souls” seemed like entering the world of yesteryear where his maternal grandfather, Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez, lived, a proud Texan who made his own success as an artist, whose career It started in traveling marquee shows. Mexican-American vaudeville shows, such as La Carpa García, were popular during the first half of the 20th century, and Collins’s grandfather for the most part performed before Latino audiences working in Texas fields. Later he would work as a contract artist for John Wayne, and the most important film in which he participated was the Western film “Rio Bravo” (1959).
“My grandfather was the only person who said: ‘Yes, you can’, and it only takes one voice to say it, a person you respect,” said Collins, who first tried studying engineering at university before dedicating himself full time. to acting, with the approval of his grandfather.
Collins said it was his work in “Capote” (2005), in which he played a prisoner on death row named Perry Smith, that convinced Gonzalez-Gonzalez that he would have a future in acting. “I was very concerned that he was going to be successful or could have a career in this business,” Collins said.
One night while filming “Alley of Lost Souls” in Toronto, Del Toro encouraged Collins to write a script about Gonzalez-Gonzalez. Collins began writing it that very night.
Now that his work on “Jockey” and “Alley of Lost Souls” is finished, Collins has decided to focus again on the script about his grandfather. After honing his storytelling skills over the years creating music videos for country artists like the Zac Brown Band (“Chicken Fried”) and Jamey Johnson (“High Cost of Living”), he has also set out to direct the film.
“That is the only specific goal I have. I can’t see beyond that, ”Collins concluded.