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Oh my God: Sam Worthington
By Bob Strauss - Famous Magazine | Wednesday, March 31, 2010 | Famous Magazine , Interviews | () Comments | Add a Comment
Sam Worthington in Clash of the Titans

When you’ve just been a huge part of the most popular new mythology of the 21st century, what do you do next?

If you’re Sam Worthington, you rewind some 2,500 years and take on the classics. The star of Avatar returns this month in Clash of the Titans, a remake of the 1981 movie about Perseus, the half-human/half-god Greek hero.

“Who wouldn’t want to run around in a dress and kill the Kraken?” Worthington asks during a boisterous interview in Beverly Hills.

“I read the script and was jumping up and down on the bed with a ruler! My girlfriend was looking at me like I was nuts. She said, ‘This is the one you’ve gotta do.’”

Sam Worthington as Perseus and Ian Whyte as Sheikh Suleiman
Worthington's Perseus (right) in action with Sheikh Suleiman (Ian Whyte)

Okay, maybe Clash isn’t exactly The Iliad. But Worthington promises that the new take from French action director Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk, Transporter 2) will be much more muscular than the previous film, which featured Harry Hamlin as a Perseus who looked like he just stepped out of an ancient salon.

“Two weeks into filming it, I was more bruised and battered than I was on Terminator,” says the Australian tough guy, who made his first big splash on this side of the Pacific in last year’s Terminator Salvation. “We took on the Medusa, we took on the witches! It’s a bit more brutal than the original. There’s no togas…well, there’s very little togas. Actually, I don’t wear a toga; sorry, I told Louie I just can’t do it. And Louie’s a very good action director, so it’s extremely exciting and big.”

Worthington gives a hearty Down Under snort when asked if he’s playing Perseus any differently than Hamlin.

“Oh, they’re exactly the same,” he quips. “I had a take on it that I gave Louie and the studio, and they were mad enough to let me see if I could do it. It’s hard for me to discuss that. I still need to see it to know if the take is going to work.”

If Worthington’s past experience is any indication, trying something new and daring ought to pay off handsomely. Born in England and raised in the Perth, Australia, suburb of Rockingham, he was just making his way as a young labourer when love stepped in and changed his life.

“I was a bricklayer, I built houses,” he recalls. “Never wanted to act. I was 19, I met a young girl who auditioned for the premier drama school. I auditioned with her out of moral support, to cheer her along. I got in, she didn’t.”

Ain’t love grand?

“She dumped me a week later,” says Worthington with a shrug.

But he applied himself to the new discipline, even though he started out with about as much knowledge of theatre as Jake Sully has of the planet Pandora at the beginning of Avatar.

Sam Worthington as Perseus
Worthington as Perseus in Clash of the Titans.

“I didn’t know what wings on a stage were,” he confesses. “I thought Chekhov was on the Starship Enterprise, I had no idea he wrote plays. So I was astonished and took everything in. And you finish your sentence after three years, they release you for good behaviour if you’re lucky, and then you go and work and you learn how to act. I’m still an infant in this after 10 years. I just did as much as I could in my own country so I could sit in a room in [Hollywood] and offer something.”

That included roles in such Aussie films as the stomp-dance spectacular Bootmen, the internationally acclaimed Somersault and an update of Macbeth set in the Melbourne underworld, as well as notable stage and TV work. It was enough to bring him to the attention of James Cameron when he was casting about for Sully, the paraplegic human soldier who would find freedom, love and new purpose in the bioengineered body of a blue Pandoran Na’vi.

Work on that part-live, part-motion-capture performance began four years ago. Worthington packed up for the gig and never looked back.

“It’s been non-stop since 2006, when Avatar started,” he says. “I’ve got two bags. I’ve got a bag of books and a bag of clothes. I sold everything else before I went into Avatar. The last four years I’ve been going back-to-back-to-back on jobs. So I’ve been living in hotels. Just kept the books that kind of inspire me and I’ve read over the years and I can’t remember.”

There have been a few disappointments along the way. Worthington was up for the James Bond reboot that went to Daniel Craig, and he recently lost the role of comic-book hero Green Lantern to Ryan Reynolds.

But trust us, he’s not hurting. The actor has two serious films — the relationship drama Last Night with Keira Knightley and the Nazi-hunter thriller The Debt with Helen Mirren — awaiting release. And he’s confident he’s ready for the premium offers that will come his way in the wake of Avatar’s record-breaking popularity.

“I pick because of the director,” Worthington says. “And because you’re working with him, my job is to facilitate his vision. And the second thing is, would I go see the movie? Why work on something for four to 13 months that you wouldn’t go and see? That would be ridiculous.”

About the only thing he has to worry about is keeping his perspective after headlining the biggest box-office success in history. Is he arrogant to think that’s not going to be a problem?

“If this happened when I was 22, it would be a bit overwhelming,” Worthington acknowledges. “But I’m 33, I kind of know who I am. So I just jet around, which is okay as long as it doesn’t affect my work. If I keep producing work of a certain quality that keeps me in the game, then I’m okay. As soon as it starts affecting what I can achieve and I feel that I’ve got nothing left to offer, then I’ll go back to bricklaying.”

Bob Strauss lives in L.A. where he writes about movies and filmmakers.


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