The son of George C, Campbell Scott was once "Dying Young" opposite Julia Roberts, before shooting "Singles" for Cameron Crowe, and ditching Hollywoood.
After ten years in the shade, he steps into the spotlight as a brutally witty, callous Casanova in Dylan Kidd's brilliant "Roger Dodger". The 42-year-old New Yorker talks strong women, destroying people, and playing a complete "d***".
"Roger Dodger" has been a big success...
Yeah, because it was a tiny movie and that's all I make it seems, tiny movies. But, yeah, people love it.
Is one reason you like it because it's a much darker role than you're normally associated with?
Totally, but you see the thing about Roger is I know I can do it because I've done it a million times on stage and in movies that you haven't seen because they're so bad or they're so small - you know what I mean?
So I see something like that and it's an opportunity to be seen as something I know I can do, whereas most people, because they have little imagination or they're just exhausted by working - executives and things like that - they're like, "Well he can't do that, I've never seen that."
[But] you change yourself, you change your hair, you change your look, you change your voice, you change your walk, that's what I'm into. Now of course I'm getting all these offers to play people like Roger, you know, all these d***s basically.
It's an interesting character, because in other movies he'd be as successful as he presents himself to be...
Yeah, but he's not is he? I think that's the intelligence of Dylan [Kidd, the writer-director]. I think Dylan has worked with people like this, that character is a combination of people he knows. They still exist even though they may seem like they're from the 80s. All the men say they worked with someone like that or the women say "I dated that at one point in my life" - and I always say, "Are you ok?" The fact is that Dylan said, "The one thing I want to do is put strong women through the whole movie".
The fact is you've got Isabel Rossellini, Jennifer Beals, Elizabeth Berkley, and all of them call him immediately on all of his s***, they don't fall for it for a minute. The only one who falls for it is a younger male, his nephew, and Dylan always said that, "He wants the audience when that young kid shows up".
I don't want to ruin it for you if you haven't seen it, but he wants the audience to go like, "No! Don't go with that guy," because we already have seen him in action. I like that. It also gives me and Roger a certain amount of freedom, frankly, because if you know you're not truly, truly destroying the people around you then you can even go farther with what you say. It's all he has, and he's so cruel. It's fun to play someone like that.
You say you only make tiny movies. Is that a determined choice to withdraw from Hollywood?
I only made two studio movies, that was a long time ago and obviously I removed myself. I think some of that is geographical. I live in New York and I want to work there, it's as simple as that.
But also, yeah, I don't want to be in a movie where $40 million is behind "kind of a good idea", you know? If you're an actor, after a while that will not sustain you. Make no mistake, though, I will pay my mortgage at any cost.
"Roger Dodger" is released in UK cinemas on Friday 15th August 2003.
