When Tobe finally encounters his idol, well past her prime, he meets someone he did not expect to meet -- a single mother worn down by life. Movieline spoke to Ingram about his big Velour break, futile tryouts for everything from Spuperbad to The Social Network and the tension on set between Brian Dennehy and apparently everyone but Ingram.
When looking at your IMDB page today, I noticed that you are up 463 percent.
Are you serious?
Yes.
Four-hundred and sixty-three percent?
That does seem like a lot.
Wow. My dad is big on the IMDB. He loves visiting it all the time.
Is that who's doing it?
[Laughs] Yeah, right. It's the STARmeter, right?
Yes.
My God. I mean... Do I get paid for that? If I reach a certain goal, do I get a cool card?
How did you nerd Tobe up without making him a caricature?
Everything came from either -- whether it be physical or the way that he talks or how he reacts -- it all came from either experiences that I had or things that I've done or from people that I know closely. So I guess the best way to say it is... um... My God, this is where my two years of home school comes in, and I can't put a sentence together. Everything is grounded in reality, in my life, that I put into him. So, I don't really know. It wasn't really a conscious thing.
He actually reminds me of a guy I knew in junior high...
That's what I get a lot of! And I think that's the biggest compliment in the world. If it reminds you of a real person, that's the best comment I could get. But [writer-director] Keith [Bearden] said to me, "Don't worry about making him interesting." He said, "You have a lot going on inside, you're a complex guy with a lot of emotions running through you. If you just let that ride on Tobe's point of view, it will be interesting." So... [looks over at a plate of uneaten food] God, I think it's the food that's distracting me because I haven't eaten...
I feel bad, I'm keeping you from your food.
No! I'm sorry. I'm so not good at these.
What's was it like working with a nude Brian Dennehy?
[Laughs] Luckily, I was not on that side of things. I remember the first time we shot it -- because we did multiple takes, God bless them all -- [the crew] were all behind him. I remember the first time he did it, I just saw the whites of everybody's eyes get really big and then they would recoil. But, other than that, I'm sure nude Brian Dennehy is the same as the Brian Dennehy I knew and met and worked with. He's great; he reminds me of my real grandpa. He would sit in the van with me after shooting and he would just talk with me. I would ask him questions and we would talk for hours. And he really, really devoted a lot of time to me, which was fantastic. He's great. He didn't get along so well with most other people, but him and I had some strange connection.
What happened with the other people?
Keith says that Brian Dennehy has two modes: "He's either sleeping or not listening to me." You know, Brian knows what he wants. He would ask, "What lens are you using?" And he had it perfect every time; he knew exactly where everything fell. He just knows what he's doing. So! When you combine that with a first-time writer-director, you know there's going to be a little push and pull and there definitely was. But eventually Keith got what he wanted and Brian's great in it.
It sounds like you just had to embrace the Dennehy.
"The Dennehy" is what we called him! We never called him Brian, everybody, behind his back, always called him "The Dennehy." You did; you just had to embrace him. And he wanted to make things very Shakespeare and very deep. And Keith would just kind of say, "Brian, listen, I'm just going to do it my way." I'm waiting for the special-edition action figure of naked Brian Dennehy. It's 90 percent scrotum, though, the action figure.
What is your action figure going to look like?
My version, I think, is a number-two pencil just repackaged in a Meet Monica Velour themed package.
And you had a make-out scene with Kim Cattrall. Intimidating?
Yeah. That was the first scene that we rehearsed, ever. And it was probably the third time that I had met her. I met her once in a callback and she was very kind to me then. And I had heard stories about Kim Cattrall.
What does that mean?
Just that she is a powerful woman -- extremely powerful and strong -- and I just heard very exaggerated versions of that. It's so not true. And it was intimidating with everybody, the night before I would meet them. And it was such a fleeting thought upon the handshake, everything was fantastic. And it paid off. Kim and I have a wonderful friendship. I've spent time at her house and she'll cook me dinner.
Is this your biggest role to date?
Hands down.
What else have you auditioned for?
I auditioned for The Social Network.
Which role?
For Mark Zuckerberg.
What was that process like?
It was very professional. Sadly, I didn't make it too far. I had a perfect impersonation of Mark Zuckerberg. Have you seen Mark Zuckerberg? [Does a brief Zuckerberg impression] It's not really what Jesse does...
No. And yours does sound a little more like what Zuckerberg sounds like.
It was much better. And I guess that's not what they wanted. What else have I auditioned for? Sadly, they always want names for the bigger movies. Oh, Superbad, I did pretty well in Superbad for the McLovin guy.
He was an unknown, too.
He was an unknown, yeah. His audition, he went in right before me and you could hear everything through the door. Those are the worst auditions, when you can hear everything. Or the best.
When they're not doing well?
Right. So, Seth Rogen was in there with everyone and... on the floor laughing. Hysterical, hysterical, hysterical. And you could tell that by the time I got in there they had come down off of that high and I was either going to have to do 20 times better -- but he's just that kid. That was a tough one to follow. It was a terrible experience. I'm glad I didn't book it, though. That kid got pigeonholed quite a bit.
So how do you become a name? Is that why you do a film like this?
I hope!
Have you thought about this?
A lot. I'm really hoping work begets work. I'm hoping that not only will this have its limited release but it will do well. Because, you know, limited releases kind of come and go. Which is very scary to all of us. Especially to Keith, too, because this is his child. I'm hoping it will be in the public eye, people will enjoy it, see what I have to offer and, hopefully, not only see Tobe anytime I come into the room to read something. Which is on my shoulders, too. But hopefully they've seen enough diversity in me that they will call me in, in the first place, and I can prove to them I'm not Tobe.
Does it help that your appearance, especially your hair, in the film is different than your actual appearance?
Absolutely. The one thing that didn't help were and are the comparisons to Napoleon Dynamite. It's the hair and the glasses and the tall, skinny, lanky thing. Tall actors don't work, that's a problem, too. I'm six foot three and a beanpole, and there just are not a lot of tall actors who work, and I'm not sure why. I'm trying to figure it out, and it's an ongoing battle.
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