J.K. Simmons has no regrets about playing the long game in work and love.
The Oscar-winning actor was 42 when he appeared in his first major screen role on HBO’s “Oz” as white supremacist prisoner Vern Schillinger in 1997. Before that, he waited tables and worked in regional theatre. He was also in his late thirties when he met his wife Michelle Schumacher.
“There were plenty of moments when I was like, ‘Why am I still doing this? Why don’t I get a grown-up job?’ The answer was because I have no grown-up skills,” Simmons said on a video call from Los Angeles promoting his new Netflix action-comedy “The Union.”
“Fortunately, by the time my wife and I met, we decided to start a family and I was having enough success that I could put a roof over our heads.”
The 69-year-old has gone on to become one of the most sought-after character actors in Hollywood, portraying no-nonsense tough guys from a comically irascible newspaper editor in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy to a merciless music instructor in 2014’s “Whiplash,” for which he won a best supporting actor Academy Award.
“There’s no way I would have been ready for it if I had become a celebrity at 22. I would have probably done a James Dean,” Simmons said, referencing the “Rebel Without a Cause” actor whose life was cut short by a car accident at 24.
“It all came at the right time for me.”
The Michigan native says his path mirrors that of the protagonist in “The Union,” streaming Friday. Mark Wahlberg stars as Mike McKenna, a middle-aged man leading a simple life as a construction worker until his long-lost high school sweetheart, Halle Berry’s Roxanne Hall, re-enters his life and yanks him into the high-stakes world of espionage.
Hall is a member of The Union, a top-secret government agency headed by Simmons’ hard-nosed Tom Brennan, which the CIA and FBI outsource their gritty tasks to. They pluck average Joes and train them in firearms, combat intelligence and tactical operations because their unassuming backgrounds make them ideal candidates for covert missions.
Simmons said he was attracted to the concept of “blue-collar spies.”
“It’s the boots on the ground. The soldiers that actually do the work. I liked (the idea of) management versus labour, where even though I’m management, I’m really labour. It was just a fun twist on the whole spy genre.”
Like McKenna, Simmons worked in obscurity for years before a late-blooming breakthrough. But the actor says he “loved” his pre-fame days.
“I was having a great time. It was never a struggle. All I needed was a couch and a slice of pizza because I was just a single idiot making my own way,” he recalled.
As McKenna and Hall reconnect, sparks fly along the way. Simmons said he’s a proponent of finding love in midlife. He met Schumacher, a fellow actor, while working on the 1991 Broadway revival of “Peter Pan.”
“I was 36 when I met her and she was a bit younger,” he said.
“Ironically, we were doing ‘Peter Pan.’ I was finally getting over my own Peter Pan syndrome and felt like I was ready to be a decent life partner for somebody.”
Simmons and Schumacher would go on to have two kids, Olivia and Joe. The actor recalls having some trepidation about becoming a father in his forties, but received some sage advice from Richard Gere, who had just remarried around the same age.
“I was voicing my concern about, ‘Oh, my son’s about to be born and I’m 43 years old. I hope I’m not too old to throw the ball with him when he’s older,’” said Simmons.
“And Richard was so wise and smart. He said, ‘The good news is for guys like us, we’re now finally at an age where we can be unselfish enough to be a decent husband and a decent father.’ And I thought that was absolutely right. Again, it’s just lucky timing on my part.”
Simmons says despite his success, his criteria when choosing new projects hasn’t changed.
“I just want to read a script like I used to in the old theatre days. And either it’s a script that I think is well written or not, and then it’s either a character that I can see and hear myself inhabiting or not. It really doesn’t change regardless of the genre or the medium,” he said.
He adds that this approach has served him well over the years.
“I don’t always make the best choices, but now I’m in a position where I actually get to make the choices, and I’m having a great time.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 14, 2024.
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