[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for Reverse the Curse.]

The Big Picture

Logan Marshall-Green was humbled to be offered his role in David Duchovny’s film ‘Reverse the Curse.’
Marshall-Green wanted to get lost in the character on the pages of the script, so he developed a very specific look that included gaining weight and wearing a long wig.
The actor, who has also made the transition to director himself, values character and connection.

Based on the book Bucky F*cking Dent by David Duchovny, the indie dramedy Reverse the Curse follows Ted (Logan Marshall-Green), adrift in his life without a career to speak of and a father (Duchovny, who also wrote and directed the film) whose already ill health worsens whenever the Red Sox lose a baseball game. To keep Marty’s spirits up, Teddy decides to lead him to believe that the Sox are on a winning streak, which actually brings them closer together and results in a bond the two have never really shared. And in the process of making amends, Ted meets his father’s “death specialist” (Stephanie Beatriz) and realizes that if he’s ever going to share his life with someone else, he might want to figure out his future.

During this one-on-one interview with Collider, Marshall-Green got emotional when breaking down the reasons character and getting lost in one is so important to him, having had a teacher at NYU that made it clear it’s a gift that you’re given by the heavens. When it came to Reverse the Curse, he talked about how surprised he was to be offered the role of Teddy, wanting to go all-in with his vision for the character on the page, connecting with Duchovny, risking failure to see if your ideas will work, and why leaving this character behind was so challenging. He also shared whether he’d like to direct again, and what he’s doing next.

Collider: How did this project come your way? It seems a little bit like it might have been a difficult story to explain because there’s deceptively a lot more things happening in this movie than appears on its surface. Did you just get the script and go into reading it cold, or did you know what you would be reading?

LOGAN MARSHALL-GREEN: I got the script knowing I was being offered a role in this film, called Bucky Fucking Dent. I actually knew who Bucky Dent was because I’m a baseball fan, but I didn’t know that David Duchovny had written a book called Bucky Fucking Dent. When I read it, I was really surprised and taken aback because I’m normally not offered these kinds of roles. These are the roles I’ve always looked for, that ask so much, when it comes to disappearing in a character, and not just a character, but a type of character, which is incredibly emotionally stunted, yet somehow empathetic at the same time. All the themes in it just resonated to me. My first thought was that this had to be a mistake. I didn’t know David before and I certainly wanted to know what this book was that the script was based on because I loved it, so I read the book immediately and I was like, “I wanna meet David. This is an incredible project.” I was immediately humbled to be a part of it and I knew I wanted to go full-bore into the character. I just needed to know that David wanted that character from the book because I didn’t necessarily look like that, at that point. And then, when we met, it was an immediate connect, and not because of how we saw the script. We met at a restaurant and really just started talking baseball. He’s a Yankees fan, and I’m a Mets fan. The rapport was so easy, and so it was such an easy yes from me. It’s exactly the role that I’m always looking for, which is something different.

Related ‘Reverse the Curse’ Review: The Truth Is out There for David Duchovny The writer, director, and star just can’t find that emotional honesty.

It’s technically possible that David Duchovny could be your father, but it’s not the first thing that would immediately pop into my head when thinking about the two of you. Did you talk about that aspect of it, at all?

MARSHALL-GREEN: It’s not impossible, given the story. I don’t think it’s ever spoken about, but I think it’s safe to say that they had their only child when they were young. It was a different time back then. It actually didn’t ever come up. It never snagged my sweater. The surprising thing was learning that David was actually gonna play Teddy for a long time, in his mind. This is based on David’s own words, but it was only when he realized that, since he had started the story in his head in 2005, he had maybe grown out of Teddy and had shifted into thinking of playing Marty, which changed everything for him.

Logan Marshall-Green Had a Very Specific Look in Mind for His ‘Reverse the Curse’ Character

Your character has a very specific look in this film. How did you figure that out? How much of that was exactly what you had in your head for how he would look, especially knowing there would be a transformation part-way through?

MARSHALL-GREEN: The character was built by myself, but it was guided by David’s book and his screenplay. The book definitely gives you a much more specific sense of who Teddy is, right off the bat. That was very important for me when I was signing on, and I made sure David understood that. The only thing I asked was that he allowed me to disappear and take the dive through the character. A lot of people don’t wanna see that. A lot of directors and producers want the actor to be the actor and not the character, and that is just not who I’ve ever been. And so, it was of the utmost importance that I’d be able to disappear in this role, and David could not have been more on board. I told him I was gonna gain weight. We had about a month and a half before the shoot. I really just are in the unhealthy way and gained about 30 pounds for the role because I knew that there was gonna be some scenes where you would see him with just tighty whities on and naked in the locker room, and you needed to feel who this guy was. He looks 45, even though he’s 35.

David always heard Teddy’s vernacular and cadence to be something in an accent like Walter Kirk, the writer, which is a very specific, intellectual, writerly feel. That was added into my voice, if you will. But everything else, from top to bottom, with the way he walked and the way he ran in those jogging scenes, everything was a choice to get out of Logan and into Teddy. There were times when people were just looking at me like, “What are you doing?” When Stephanie [Beatriz] first saw it, I was really nervous to be presenting this raw on set each day. That made it one of the best experiences I’ve had with character, having the writer, the director, and my scene partner believe so fully in me and allow me to go there. The silhouette was what the book asked for, the script asked for, and what I asked for, which was a little more rotund.

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You can have ideas in your head, but until you actually see them, you also don’t know if it will work or not.

MARSHALL-GREEN: Yes. I sent David a lot of reference photos. There was a John Lennon photo where he had these amazing muttons. I didn’t have long hair, but we wanted him to have long hair. Half the budget was on the two wigs, which were made by a beautiful wigmaker in Los Angeles. We put the wig on in David’s apartment on day zero, which was the day before we started shooting. We were just trying to steal some scenes around New York in Central Park West. We were up in his apartment, putting the wig on for the first time in front of him, and we were about to cut it when David was like, “We don’t need to cut this.” The wig was beautiful. The wigmaker just killed it. But then, I’d grown this big beard out, similar to what I have right now, and we knew we had to take clippers and just go straight down from the bottom of the nose, under the chin, in a ruthless swipe of hair because it couldn’t really look like he went to the salon to get it done.

We were in for a penny, in for a pound. When I looked up with the wig on, Teddy was revealed, and David was just like, “I fucking love it!” It was horrible with the straightest edge, but it actually, in many ways, brought out even more of Teddy. He’s just unkempt. There was something about creating what I would call a landing strip towards my goiter, the underneath of my neck. That’s something I’ve always hid in character because people in a lot of productions don’t want to see a goiter when you’re in profile. To be honest, I’ve always hid my goiter, or whatever it is under my neck that I’m insecure about. It’s probably nothing to anybody else, but in this case, I knew I wanted to embrace it for him. Those muttons actually helped accentuate the other part of the profile.

When you do all of that for a role, does it make it easier to then go back to seeing yourself once it’s all over, or is it just really weird, after fully living in somebody like that, to go back to you when you’re done?

MARSHALL-GREEN: It was one of the hardest things I’ve done. I’m still working on it right now, if I’m being honest. I’m training for a role and I’m still getting Teddy off my belly. The day we wrapped, my partner and I drove to New York after and that was it, no more donuts for me. I knew it just had to stop. I knew if I didn’t set a line of demarcation for the character, the choice was gonna get lost. I’ve always been about choices for the character and always putting the character first. I’m so privileged to be able to escape reality and enter a character. What I’ve been taught is that it’s a duty, and you call, down from the heavens, that character and they bless you with their existence. That may sound highfalutin and esoteric, but that is absolutely the truth. I have a duty to that man that he wrote, and child that he wrote. That’s always been the utmost importance to me. So, the second we ended, I started a year-long approach to getting this weight off of me, so that I could continue to play roles, and that’s exactly what I’m still doing. I just got back from the gym because I’m now being asked to play a hunk in the next one, but Teddy lives on in the tire around my belly and I love him for it. I think it’s a great thing.

Logan Marshall-Green Admires the Approach of Fellow Actor/Director David Duchovny
Image via Vertical Entertainment

As an actor who’s directed a movie yourself, which you also wrote, what was it like to see how David Duchovny worked on this? Did you see any similarities in the way that you like to approach that sort of thing? Did you get any tips from him that you would carry over into anything you might do in the future?

MARSHALL-GREEN: I’ve only directed one thing. It was something I wrote, but did not act in, so it was certainly a different experience for me. I had a different daily load. You don’t know what you don’t know, and that’s one of the greatest and worst things about making your first film. Once you’re done, you know everything you wished you had in the beginning. When I got to set, it was nothing that David said, but just the way he led, he kept so still in the chaos of independent filmmaking, even wearing more hats than I did. I wish I’d been stiller and watched a bit more. I was too busy trying to fulfill my own vision and be approachable with actors. I also had an incredible actor on that, with Ethan [Hawke], who I was learning from, every day. Ethan helped me make that film. I would never have made that film without him. David, too, relied on every department, and he created a family where we all picked each other up and blurred departmental lines. That seems easy on the day, but that takes a lot of trust in your director. David had such a peace of mind and a stillness, at times. He never brought any pressure onto the set, that he was feeling from producers or whoever. I loved his set, and that’s why I never left his set. I just wanted to stay and continue to learn how to make film, like I always have. He’s a great filmmaker.

Related Logan Marshall-Green on Making His Feature Directorial Debut with ‘Adopt a Highway’ The actor/filmmaker also discusses the abandoned plans for ‘Quarry’ Season 2.

Are you looking to direct again, sooner rather than later, or is it something that feels further out on the horizon somewhere?

MARSHALL-GREEN: I had really planned to direct something I’d written before I’d written Adopt a Highway. If anything, I made Adopt a Highway to try to make this other film. I’ve learned that it’s a timing thing for me. I don’t know how to direct other people’s visions yet. It’s more appealing to direct my own writing and not to necessarily be in them. I have noticed that it strikes a very fine balance because directing takes up at least a year of your career and your life. You have to really immerse yourself in it. I have not found that year, energetically, to do everything that’s asked of a director, which is to get the thing financed, then find the cast to get it further financed, and then shooting it and editing it, which was one of the biggest, eye-opening experiences in my life. It’s very easy to sit back on any film and say, “This stinks.” It’s hard to bring a film to a TV set or theater, and then to get the eyeballs on it. I just wanna make sure I’m armed with all the empathy, the patience, the stillness, and the drive though to tell the story. I definitely feel like it’s a seasonal thing for me, and I couldn’t tell you when summer is gonna happen again. I love acting. I need to act. It helps therapize me. I love the ability and the privilege that I get, to let go of what I’m dealing with and just focus on another man and enter his experience. That’s also what pays the bills.

Logan Marshall-Green Is Still Working to Shake Off His ‘Reverse the Curse’ Character
Image via Blumhouse

You’ve said that you’re preparing for the next character. What are you doing next?

MARSHALL-GREEN: I don’t think I should say what it is because I think they’ve intentionally kept it, not necessarily secret because I don’t think I’m some big surprise in the thing, but I’m shooting a very well-known TV show. I will be a hunk on a very well-known TV show, out soon. When I got this job, it was with a dream creator, director, and writer. I’d been waiting for him to call me because I knew he was gonna call me. That’s what I told him. I was still working off Teddy, and he made it very clear, “We need the silhouette to be different then where you are now.” Since January, I’ve been working very hard, and they’ve helped me. They have really invested in this change. This is the first time I’ve really ever gone and bulked, not in a gym body way, but to get into a different silhouette that you haven’t seen yet.

Related ‘Quarry’: Logan Marshall-Green on the Difficult Emotional Journey of His Hitman Anti-Hero Also, why it was essential to have one director throughout the season.

We spoke about Quarry when it was on, and I still love that show. Character is definitely what interests me, which is what I find interesting about the work you do, including in Reverse the Curse.

MARSHALL-GREEN: Thank you. That’s of the utmost importance. I’ve always been a character actor. I don’t know why, but I just got emotional, pardon me. I had a teacher at NYU who made it clear that character is a gift that you’re given by the heavens. Even though you’ve done the work and tried to take the dive and tried to disappear, there’s a duty and a process to asking permission to live in someone else. That always stayed with me. This teacher of mine, Janet Zarish at NYU, spoke so beautifully about Shakespearean actors calling down from the heavens, these historic roles in the history of plays or just simply roles that have been defined. It hits me so hard, how grateful and fortunate I am to be in a position where I get to call down another person’s experience and be able to put mine aside.

Some days, you ask the heavens to give it to you, and some days it’s not there. That’s where craft and technique, Janet Zarish at NYU and all the teachers that came before, and my mom, come in. If anything, I was taught to never become that lead actor. I don’t know why I’m so emotional, sorry. It’s an important question and I appreciate you asking it because it’s a double-edged sword. I wanna disappear, but any actor wants to be seen, at the same time. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want attention for what I’m doing. As my mom always said, the role of the actor is to observe and not be observed. I’ve always taken that with me. No matter what the career would become, I’ve always remained so satisfied, being behind the character and not in front of him.

Reverse the Curse is in theaters and available on-demand. Check out the trailer:

Watch on Vudu