Reece Thompson Talks Ceremony and How The Social Network Made It All Possible

In the four years since Canadian actor Reece Thompson starred in Jeffrey Blitz's crowd-pleasing Sundance entry Rocket Science, he's graduated from stuttering his way through a high school debate tourney to romancing Kat Dennings (in the forthcoming May indie Daydream Nation) and knocking up Hilary Duff (in the TBA indie Bloodworth). This April he joins forces with rising star Michael Angarano (Red State, Homework) to play Marshall, a straight-laced emotional cripple who accompanies best friend Sam (Angarano) on a weekend trip to win back the older woman of his dreams (Uma Thurman) in Max Winkler's offbeat feature debut, Ceremony.

Movieline caught up with Thompson to discuss how he came to co-star in the new film, his still-flourishing MySpace account, and the immortal Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.

You and your co-stars lived on set while filming Ceremony. Did that make for a fraternal atmosphere?

Yeah, it was like camp. And in terms of the vibe, that all starts with the director and Max was so nice, just amazing to everybody. It's great when you like the director that much. He always took the time to talk to everybody and get to know them on a personal level, which is pretty amazing. I hadn't actually ever seen it to that extent, the way he acted towards the crew and everyone on set.

Max being relatively young as a first-time feature director and close to you in age, did that make communication between you especially easy?

I don't know. I've worked with a 16 year old director before, so. But I never felt that age was an aspect of it; maybe that would be more of a question for him, or for other directors who have been older than me.

Considering that Max wrote and directed Ceremony himself, when you first read the script what insights did it give you about him?

It's interesting because yeah, he is very much in this age right now, of our generation. But at the same time I feel like the movie exists in its own world and almost in its own time. You can't really place what time period it takes place in, which I think is cool. I mean, age is always a factor, I guess, in terms of life experience and where the characters come from. They're younger guys and I feel like the older characters are seen through the eyes of a younger person. Like Lee's character and Uma's character; Uma's character is like a goddess, on a pedestal in Sam's eyes. But throughout the film he learns that she's a person, too, and she has her faults. Then on the other hand, Lee's character is looked at from Sam's perspective as being this boisterous, over the top a-hole, but you learn that he's not all that bad. He does have his good qualities and you feel even Sam and Whit find a connection. So Sam's learning about the world as it's happening and I think that was very personal for Max.

Speaking of your characters, Sam is so manic and Marshall is, in a way, the straight man. How do you see their dynamic?

Michael and I talking about the characters early on decided that their parents had probably been friends their whole lives and they'd just kind of grown up around each other and were best friends by default. In a way, they're kind of like brothers. They kind of just accept each other, even though they probably butt heads a lot. But they just deal with it. And I have friends like that too, friends that I've grown up with my whole life and we get in fights and all that stuff but it's like that's just how we are.

What went into your decision to take on this role, and have you had to choose your projects carefully as you've transitioned into young adult roles?

I guess so. I'm still trying to do that, but it hasn't been like I've had to choose carefully. When the good stuff comes my way then I try to get on board with it, but it doesn't always work out. But yeah, it's been challenging just because I've had to realize that I'm not a teenager anymore and I can't go out for those roles anymore. And I've had to make my representation aware of that, too. I keep getting the response that I look too old, or I act too old, for this part. Maybe I should not be going out for as many high school roles anymore and I should be going out for the mid-20s kind of stuff. That's hard too because there's not too much stuff for mid-20s; usually high school and late-20s, early-30s is where the juicier stuff seems to pop up. But it's always a struggle to find good projects - and it's a struggle to get them to hire you once you find them. [Laughs]

How did Ceremony come your way?

Actually, it happened very quickly. Jesse Eisenberg was originally going to play Michael's role and Michael was going to play Marshall. And Jesse had to back out to do Social Network, so they were kind of looking around and Max really wanted Michael to be in the film. He was like, "You can do either -- you can be Sam or Marshall." Then they read people with Michael reading as Sam and Michael reading as Marshall to figure out where it was going to go, and I think there was a while when Jake Johnson even read for Marshall. What happened was Jonah Hill, we were acquaintances, and he kind of recommended me to Max. I guess they were kind of down to the wire to find somebody. My agent called me like, "Hey, I got this script, it's great -- and you have to read it and get it to me in 24 hours." I read the script, loved it, and my girlfriend at the time and I put it on tape at her apartment in Michigan and sent it off. I got a call that they wanted me to come out to L.A. to read with Michael so I came out, Michael and I read together, and Max called me afterwards. I ended up getting the role!

Speaking of comedy, what is Jitterbug Productions?

[Laughs] A couple of friends and I started a sketch comedy group when we were teenagers, just for fun and to start creating stuff. It was a blast. We're all kind of in different places now so it's hard to get together, but it's something I'm interested in. A couple friends of mine are doing Funny or Die sketches now; I'll probably be working with them on some stuff pretty soon.

This might sound weird, but blame the Google generation: I noticed that you still use MySpace.

[Laughs] Oh, yeah!

And I know this only because it says so right at the top, but you logged in as recently as a few days ago. I'm not stalking you.

OK! Wow. I mean, I don't use it that often -- I log in every once in a while. Like every couple of weeks or whatever.

But -- MySpace?! Haven't we all moved on to Twitter and Facebook and whatever's coming next?

Yeah, I'm not going to do the Twitter thing. Well, my friend and I have a band so I have a MySpace for that. But nothing ever really happens on MySpace anymore.

Next up you have a few indie projects.

I have a film coming out called Daydream Nation with Kat Dennings, Josh Lucas, and Andie McDowell. It's a Canadian production, actually. It's coming out in Canada April 15 and coming out here May 9. I also have a film coming out called Bloodworth with Hilary Duff, Kris Kristofferson, Val Kilmer, Dwight Yoakam.

Did you glean any particular insights from any of the veteran actors you've worked with?

It's always a learning experience, every time I'm on set. Regardless of what level the actor's at, you always learn something. And you can learn something from bad actors as well, who I've also worked with in the past. [Laughs] I've definitely had to cut my teeth when I was younger. You learn from every side of it. You learn from the crew, too. You learn from everything.

Ah, of course. So what exactly did you learn from Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2?

[Laughs] Well, I don't think I learned anything from Superbabies. I was only on that for, like, five minutes. One of my acting teachers at the time was working with the kids on set and they had a bit part that they needed somebody to do real quick, so he called me and asked me to come in and do it. I was basically an extra, I just ran out of the room in the scene.

Did you ever end up seeing the finished film?

Yeah, I did!

And what did you think of it?

Um... no comment?

[Photo: Alisa Connan]