Chris Messina on Monogamy and Chewing Out David Chase

In Monogamy, Chris Messina plays Theo, a burnt out wedding photographer who starts a side job that involves photographing clients in a more natural, unaware surrounding. When one of his clients with the provocative handle "Subgirl" (Meital Dohan) shows up for her session and puts on quite a show, it leads Theo down a road of obsession that puts a strain on his current engagement to Nat (Rashida Jones). Movieline sat down with Messina to discuss the dark twists of Monogamy, an audition outburst that led to him being banned for life from the future work of The Sopranos' David Chase, and why it was unfair that Devil got caught up in the stink left over from M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender.

The tone of this film shifts pretty drastically from the beginning to the end. Is that what drew you to this film?

Yeah. I did like that about it. I mean, the tone does get gradually darker and, for me, I come from New York theater and I've played all of these amazing, crazy characters. And I got cast in Six Feet Under and then Vicky Christina Barcelona and I was put on this path of a "nice guy Republican lawyers," which is really cool, but I wanted something darker and more complicated characters. And so when [Director] Dana [Adam Shapiro] approached me about the film, he said he wanted to do a documentary about these characters and it was really a turn on for me. I was a big fan of Murderball, so that's really what got me attracted to doing the part. There were 30-minute takes, there were no marks on the ground and the camera just followed us wherever we went. So it was like we were making a documentary about these people.

So during the scenes where your character is following someone around, those had to be more scripted, though, right?

Those were more, kind of, scripted. We knew that she was going to walk to the car and she didn't know exactly what she would do -- she knew that I would be watching and taking pictures. But the scenes with Rashida and my friends in the movie and a lot of the stuff when I was alone was kind of like you were left alone to do what you wanted to do.

Like the scenes in the bar?

Do you know the Brooklyn Social Club?

Yes, I do.

That's a great little bar.

So you were just hanging out in a bar kind of doing what you wanted?

Yes. We would always talk about "What is the point of this scene?" or "Why is this scene in the movie?" and "What are they kind of talking about?" but then we were free to kind of drift and go in and out of it. Which was really nice, it's a real treat to have that freedom as an actor.

Did you enjoy filming in Brooklyn? It seems less challenging than Manhattan.

Yeah, it's true. There were a lot of challenges just like everyday challenges to every movie but not specific to Brooklyn. I used to live in Brooklyn, in Cobble Hill, so it was good to be back home.

And if I didn't know that it was being filmed in Brooklyn, the about Pabst Blue Ribbon being consumed by the characters would have tipped me off.

I think that's probably a beer that Dana drinks or likes. [Laughs] I think that might have even been in the script.

Your character, Theo, is a photographer who finds shooting weddings mundane. On the outside looking in, a photographer might sound immensely fascinating, but every job has a mundane side to it. When do you, as an actor, find your job monotonous?

Yeah. Monotonous... I mean, I'm blessed. I'm lucky to just be a working actor. There are so many great actors out there and I'm just lucky to have gotten work. As corny as it sounds, I'm often pinching myself going, "What great opportunities and great parts and great people that I've gotten to work with." Like Rashida or Dana or Woody Allen or Amy Adams. To be in a movie with Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci, and I'm on Damages right now... the companies I've gotten to keep have been fantastic. What's monotonous about being an actor and often makes me want to throw in the towel or drive a car off a bridge is the auditioning -- the waiting around. The work itself is always exciting and there are always a million things to learn from it. And I think most actors will tell you, it's the waiting and the auditions. It's the nonsense of that. The work of it is beautiful, but you spend a lot of time waiting to do the work and that's the worst part.

What's your worst auditioning story?

I have a bunch. I auditioned for The Sopranos long ago and I was in a play at the time, off-Broadway. It was only for one scene and the scene was maybe a page and a half long and it was only a couple of lines. I went to the audition and then they called me back - which was absurd to me because you could just go through your Rolodex and give this role to anybody. But I had a callback at Silvercup Studios...

Over in Queens?

Yes. So I went out to Queens and when I got there I thought that they had probably called back four guys. And they had called back about 54 guys -- which immediately angered me. And most of the guys that were there weren't actors, as they often did on The Sopranos; they were a bunch of guys in sweat suits and guys in leather jackets. And I waited a really long time, almost like two hours to go in. And I was getting anxious because I had a play that night. I called my agent and he said, "Just hang out." I finally got in and they didn't read the scene with me. They read like a line and then I would say my line and they would say, "skipping down, skipping down," and then they would read my cue line. So we didn't even play the scene, it was being played in a lot of silences. So they said, "Thank you, Chris." I said, "That's it?" And David Chase was in the room with a bunch of producers and I said, "Really? That's it?" And I said something like, "God, you know, I came all the way out here for a callback to Queens, I have a play to do, you guys have no respect for actors," and I slammed the door. I think David Chase or somebody from his office called my agent and said, "I'll never hire Chris Messina ever again." It's a terrible feeling to be disrespected like that, but a great feeling to kind of voice it out loud which made me feel powerful at the time.

You almost think they might have liked something like that on The Sopranos?

Yeah, I thought David Chase would like it. But I guess when you're doing a big, big great show like The Sopranos, you don't give a f*ck what some measly little actor cares, says or does. At that point I was feeling, and I kind of feel this often in my life: why waste your time casting this role? Just give it out! I know a million actors that could do it. It's not hard. Bring somebody in!

The most frightening scene in this film is when your character gets caught looking at what Rashida Jones' character thinks is porn on the computer. I think this is every guy's nightmare.

That's a wild feeling. And she's so cool in the movie about it, though, because she kind of gets a little turned on by it. And she doesn't scold me or reprimand me for doing it. She asks me, "Do you like that?" But I mean, part of his job is to take pictures and that's what that woman was doing.

Something kind of like that happened to me once a long time ago. Funny, she also said "Do you like that?" -- but totally not in a cool way.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Not in a good way. I've never been caught in my life looking at porn, to be honest with you. I've never been caught. But, you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with looking at porn except if somebody you were with was looking at it constantly. And maybe that wouldn't even bother me. If they were looking at it constantly and not sleeping with me, then there would be a problem.

Did you feel that you and the cast of Devil got unfairly caught up in the backlash to M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender?

With Devil? Yeah. Yeah, I think we did. I loved playing that role. I got to play a cop and it was something really different. Yeah, I think everybody has turned on M. Night and Airbender got killed and so, yeah, I think we did get caught up in that. And I think, actually, that movie wasn't directed by M. Night -- that was directed by the Dowdles and I think the Dowdles got an unfair shake. Because people just kind of thought that M. Night directed it and he didn't. He was a big part of it and a great part of it and he produced it, but those guys did Quarantine. They're really good directors and cool guys an that was their movie. And I think we somehow got lost in all of that. I wish there was kind of article beforehand that r
eally talked about what it was and that Night was doing a really cool thing and he's still doing it. He's supporting these young filmmakers to come do their thing and he gets to be a part of it and go back to his roots. It actually is a really cool thing. The movie, actually, did well -- but it could have done better.