That's because Stoll has the most memorable of Midnight's many showcases: As Ernest Hemingway, the native New Yorker brings clipped, piercing levity to Gil's disbelieving romp through the Jazz Era and beyond. It's a role as transformative as the film itself, with the 35-year-old actor best known as detective "TJ" Jaruszalski on Law & Order: LA rocking a Hemingway hairpiece and stalking around the salons and saloons of Paris with outsized aplomb. It's a game-changer for Stoll to say the least, bumping the film and TV veteran into a new echelon of not just visibility, but also versatility.
Movieline met up with Stoll recently to talk over the Midnight factor, balancing man versus myth, and why his parents can't stop watching (and re-watching, and re-watching).
Midnight in Paris is pretty much a phenomenon by this point. What's your take on that phenomenon, how it's developed and your place within it?
It's all very surprising. I think from the second I got the role -- or from the second I auditioned for the role -- I though, "This is awesome." But it's weird: It's hard as an actor not to think about what some things will do for your career. Shockingly, it wasn't what I was thinking about at all with this -- this dream chance to play one of the most amazing Americans ever for one of my heroes. For Woody Allen! So I thought, "Yeah, this is just great." But his movies haven't been making huge splashes over the last few years, so I wasn't expecting this to be any sort of a hit. But I also knew it's a Woody Allen movie, so it's going to last. It's going to be part of film history. So all of this -- that it's his biggest hit ever, at least in terms of gross and all that -- it's cool, but I was not expecting it.
So you approached it as a creative opportunity?
Absolutely. I had so much time to prepare, which was so great. Often when you have time to prepare, you don't necessarily know what to do. But it all sort of worked out for me to just read Hemingway and find out about him. I could have prepared for a year or two years. It was limitless.
How did you prepare?
Reading was the bulk of it. I read about him and about the other figure in that circle, but the I was daily listening to the sounds -- the rhythms -- of his writing, the muscularity of that. Actually speaking it aloud often was the most effective and useful thing that I did.
Is there any film or video footage of Hemingway available? I've never thought to look.
I'm not sure. I only listened to one little audio thing, and it was so not the Hemingway you think of when you imagine him. Obviously it is him. It's his real voice, but...
So was your approach to play Hemingway as we've mythologized him versus Hemingway the historical figure?
Well, he mythologized himself. But yes, it's the former. It's not a biopic. Some people have said, "It would be so cool if the whole movie was about him." I'm not sure -- at least the way the scenes I had were written -- if my performance would have been sustainable for a whole movie. I think part of what's successful about it is that you just get a taste of it -- probably similar to Hemingway himself. I think he'd probably be fun to hang out with for a weekend. I don't think you'd want to travel with him to Kilimanjaro. He alienated pretty much everyone he knew in his life.
So I was looking at your résumé going back a few years. Your roles include a detective, agent, sergeant, detective, "Intel type," agent... How do you think the hard-boiled characters you've played inform playing a guy like Hemingway -- even if it's essentially sending them up?
That's interesting. Actually, I was just looking at a clip where I played this hit man -- in Lucky Number Slevin. He was this orthodox Jewish hit man, super deadpan. I was watching it and thinking, "That's sort of what I'm doing with Hemingway." It was kind of shocking to me. But that stillness and directness is one thing that I've been able to capitalize on a bit. It actually comes more from theater: that ability to plant yourself and really be present.
Going further back, what is your background? Where are from, how did you get your start?
I'm from here[New York City]. I was born on the Upper West Side. I went to the High School for Performing Arts here, then went away to liberal arts college and came back. When I was in college, I was doing a lot more experimental, performance-arty sorts of stuff. But I cam back and started working in theater. I went to grad school for theater and was working here for a while, and then I went out to L.A. with a play that had moved out from New York. That's when I started doing film and television. I've come back a few times to do some theater.
But you'd say that your principal interest now is doing film and TV?
I think in the short term, it is. Right now there are opportunities opening for me in a way that they hadn't before in film and television -- especially film. I'd like to concentrate on that. But it's all about the best project to be involved in. Obviously there's some calculus in the career stuff that you have to think about, but it's not necessarily about which medium it is. Film is this sort of rarefied, more difficult thing to get good jobs in, but theater and television can also offer the chance to play great roles and work with great people. I definitely am not cutting myself off from that.
Going back to Midnight in Paris, what really blew me away was how transporting it is. But to really be transported means that you can't know what happens going into it. Even knowing Ernest Hemingway is in this film seems a spoiler too far.
I guess so. But wasn't there a study that just came out that said something like we actually enjoy stories more when you know the ending?
Maybe! But isn't there a part of you that feels deprived? You got to be in the film, you played this great part, but you never got to experience Midnight in Paris in the way that has captivated this audience of millions.
I don't know. I've gotten so much more attention for this -- even with all the spoiler alerts -- than for anything else I've ever done. I mean, I don't know what else it would be. I think most journalists most haven't really cared. Every review has pretty much given the story away. But it's not The Crying Game. It's not The Sixth Sense. I know that also because it's a movie that a lot of people are watching over and over again, so there's something about it that's more than just the surprise. I'm sure the surprise is great the first time, but... I mean, my parents have seen it six times.
Six times?
They're very proud!
That's... I did see it twice.
Did it hold up?
Yes! But just because it is so successfully transporting.
Exactly! It's Paris! And I think that's what's so brilliant about that opening. People like to compare it to Manhattan -- the opening montage -- but actually, I think he's doing a very different thing. In Manhattan, it's this sort of opening salvo in this artistic expression. It's about, "Here's the story I'm about to tell, and welcome to my world." In this, it's more of a buffer: "I know you just parked and walked through the mall and got your ticket , and here you are." So it's just a few minutes of no language -- none of the sort of modern American realities. You're going to take that time, and it becomes something of an airlock. It's great.
Can you recall your first meeting with Woody Allen?
Mm-hmm. Very much so. I didn't have any material; they didn't say to prepare anything or give me any sides. It was just a meeting. I showed up. He was very complimentary about a play that he saw me in, and then he said, "We'd like you to read something." His assistants weren't prepared for that; I don't think he'd told anybody what was going to happen. So there was this flurry of activity where they got the sides and they handed them to me. It was that monologue where we're in the car on the way to Gertrude Stein's house. It was like a two-page sentence with no punctuation. It was a lot to prepare in five or 10 minutes. But then I came in and did it, and he seemed really happy. He gave me one little adjustment, and I did it again. And that was it. It was a great audition -- the best audition of my life in terms of the sense of not having to feel like I was auditioning, even. It was just this sense of, "Here, just read this. What does this sound like? Is this going to work?" I was shockingly un-nervous for what the stakes were, because you look at it and think, "Wow. There are so many actors who would kill for this role." And it's so well-written, and it's such a juicy character, and you know that Woody Allen is going to direct it perfectly. It was just up to me to not screw it up. [Laughs]
No pressure!
It was just so much fun. The fun and the excitement and the thrill of all these things coming together sort of overtook any sense of nervousness.
How close to the audition was the characterization we saw onscreen?
Probably by the time it got to screen, it was simpler. That's one of the tragedies of an audition is that you feel a need to show the director every color of the rainbow that you're capable of giving as a performer in ever given moment. So you act a lot. The fact that I was able to read so much Hemingway and be in Paris, and that Woody's direction was always to do less and less and less, made it so that what's onscreen is a minimalist version of what one wants to do when one is give this kind of meaty role. But I think the myth of Hemingway and the sound of Hemingway's writing is all about being pared down. It's all about simplicity -- and simplicity to the point of self-parody. Using the same words: "It was good, it was fine" -- sort of these hypnotic run-on sentences that are brilliant language. But when you just take away that little bit of art, it's ridiculous.
So what's next for you?
I just finished shooting The Bourne Legacy, so that was fun.
Who do you play in that?
I'm one of the... scientists from a... secret government organization...
Oh, I get it: No spoilers.
Yeah. I think that's about all I'm allowed to say. But it's a great character who's a lot of fun, and I got to work with Ed Norton in all my scenes. So that was cool. But yeah. That's all I've got.
[Top photo: WireImage]