- So a lot of people ask if you were...
You know, if I was scared.
It was a scary move to just uproot yourself from Oklahoma
and move to California without really knowing anybody,
and I say, "No, it was the opposite.
"It was thrilling.
"It was exciting because I was doing what I wanted
"to be doing."
I wasn't mature enough or old enough to know
how badly I could fail.
Going back to Oklahoma and finishing school just wasn't
an option in my mind.
I'm very grateful that the business
and the fans have allowed me to play around a little bit
and not just do one thing.
I'm James Marsden and this is the timeline of my career.
[upbeat music]
- Maggie! - Daddy.
- Mr. Sheffield, I was just--
- You were just leaving!
- Right.
- My very first job was the pilot episode
of The Nanny, starring Fran Drescher.
I had two lines.
I had just moved to Los Angeles from Oklahoma.
I was 19 and...
I was just young and, I guess, naive enough
and confident enough to make the move.
I got an apartment and, luckily, I had a friend
of my father's, who was a manager at the time,
he agreed to get me new headshots
and send me out on auditions,
and this was one of the very first audition I went on.
Again, it was a couple of lines.
I was making out with the daughter on a balcony,
I was asked to leave the party.
It didn't...
It wasn't really any big stretch
but if you weigh that between staying in Oklahoma
and working at a fast food restaurant,
I was excited and over the moon just to be doing something,
anything at all as a paid actor.
- So you studs lined up who you're taking
to the Homecoming dance yet?
- I was going to take Julia Roberts
but she got married on me.
Har-dee-har-har.
- Chad Westerfield in Saved By The Bell: The New Class.
Got to check that off the old career bucket list.
That first year of my career in '93,
I did a lot of episodic comedy TV, stuff like that.
I did Blossom, I did an episode of Party of Five,
so it was all like...
When you're starting out,
you kinda just take whatever comes your way.
I was a big fan of the original Saved By The Bell.
It was a cool kinda welcoming into the business
to be a part of something that I remember sitting
on my couch, in my living room in Oklahoma, watching.
- Har-dee-har-har.
- I made a mistake and I am never gonna be forgiven for it.
I am always suspect because I screwed up!
- My So Called Life was just starting to take off.
They wanted to sort of Jared Leto kind of young,
long haired teenager who is one of several adopted kids
by this family, who also adopt all these animals,
hence Second Noah.
You know, we shot it on film.
It was a ABC primetime family show.
Like, that's when I started showing up
in Tiger Beat magazine.
Remember all those teen beat magazines?
I remember after we shot the pilot,
we had a big, kind of, dinner party with the cast
and the producers at this steakhouse in Tampa, Florida,
I think I probably had a drink
and I probably shouldn't have been drinking at the time,
and I got up and sang some old standards,
and the producer looked at me and she goes,
"When this goes to series, you're gonna be in a band."
And sure enough, the series got picked up
and she had me singing every episode with my guitar,
looking all smoldering and singing about all my...
My sadness lurking inside.
- See what I mean?
- Where's my sister? - She's upstairs sleeping.
- Where are my parents? - At a meeting.
- Yeah, what meeting? - Steven, you're hurt.
- I'll live.
- So I started auditioning for more film roles
and Disturbing Behavior came along.
That was David Nutter,
who was a really great television director,
did a lot of The X-Files.
David really wanted to make it really smarter
than your run-of-the-mill teen horror flick, I guess.
So it was a little more psychological
than some of the other jump scare teen horror films.
And there was this young newcomer to
the business named Katie Holmes,
and she had done this show called Dawson's Creek.
I was like, "Well, that seems like really good company.
"That show is just blowing up."
It was the first time for me to be cast
in a lead role, really, as like the guy.
I'm on a poster.
I'm on a movie poster at a bus stop.
There was a building on the side of Sunset Boulevard
that was my face plastered on it with Katie Holmes as well,
and Nick Stahl.
I didn't wanna get cocky because I always felt like
as soon as you get comfortable,
they're just gonna pull the rug out from under you
and it's all gonna go away.
But this was my first foray into doing a film
that was gonna end up in theaters,
which was pretty damn exciting at the time.
- It's fine.
- Gossip and news are the same thing,
they've always been the same thing.
People tell stories, that's what makes us human.
- I was still trying to find my footing
as far as what type of roles I really wanted to pursue.
You know, I was young and I wanted to be taken seriously
as an actor, and I still do,
but I think every guy goes through that James Dean period
where they just...
They want to be Marlon Brando or James Dean
and to do that, you have to prove that you're
a dramatic actor.
That cast was Lena Headey,
who we all know now from Game of Thrones,
Norman Reedus, who we all know now from Walking Dead,
Josh Jackson, Kate Hudson, Eric Bogosian.
I mean, it was an insane cast,
And Davis Guggenheim directed the movie.
And he had me and Lena, and Norman share an apartment
in Soho in New York City
because these three were roommates.
It was the first time I felt like I'm being treated
like a significant actor,
like someone whose got skills and natural ability
and can kind of flow on set.
It turned out to be a good film.
- And I like gossip, it's fun.
- It must just burn you up that a boy like me saved
your life, huh?
You gotta be careful, I might not be there next time.
Oh, and Logan,
stay away from my girl.
- On Gossip, the costume designer,
she was getting ready to work on this
new Fox film called X-Men,
and I was like, "What's X-Men?
"You mean, like, the comic book X-Men?"
She was like, "You'd be great for one of the roles.
"You should come in and audition," that's how she talked.
I immediately called my friends from Oklahoma
that were big comic book nerds and I said,
"Who is this guy, Scott Summers, Cyclops?
"Tell me more about him"
and they gave me every edition comic that I should read.
"This is very insightful into who he is
"and where he comes from and..."
I also realized that the guy is like six foot five
in the comic and I'm, you know, five ten,
five ten and a half, five ten and a quarter.
So I remember going into the first audition,
they were having me read with Famke.
Famke's really tall so I wore big boots,
to give myself a little extra height,
and a tight T-shirt, did push ups,
and I did these curls with my arms to get all pumped.
And, you know, it's just what you do as an actor...
Or I did anyway, I don't do it anymore.
I auditioned for X-Men, I think, four or five times.
My last audition,
I didn't hear back for a while and I thought,
"Oh well, I'm not even gonna ask my agent who got cast.
"It'll just bum me out."
I remember getting a call, thinking that
that ship had sailed,
and I remember them saying,
"Congratulations, you booked Cyclops, you booked X-Men."
And I thought, "There's no way, that's...
"How?"
I think what originally had happened was
that Jim Caviezel had been cast.
I still thank him to this day for that.
For whatever reason he had to drop out for, thanks
'cause that was a big one.
But this cast with Ian McKellen and Halle Berry,
Patrick Stewart, very fresh faced Hugh Jackman.
Hugh and I, we put our suits on for the very first time
and they were these one piece, leather suits
that had no side-to-side movement at the waist
because it was all just one piece,
and we had to vault over this wall
and none of us could get over the wall
because our suits were so stiff.
Add to that, that I couldn't see out of these glasses
or the visor that I was wearing.
I've never felt less like a superhero.
I think, at some point, we all were scared
that we might lose our jobs on the first one.
During the process, no one really felt like it was working.
Like, this could be cool or it could be a disaster.
And we had our premiere on Ellis Island,
overlooking the Twin Towers with fireworks going off
and it was just like, this is what I imagined
when I was a kid of what Hollywood,
or having success in Hollywood, would look like.
It was pretty spectacular and a lot of fun
to watch it take off.
And then even more fun to step into the second one.
- No, no, no, it's okay. It's okay, it's me.
I'm so sorry.
- We came back and the scope was bigger,
the script was bigger,
the costumes were more fine-tuned and refined
and there was a little more muscle built-in to the leather.
A little more mobility in the movement of the suits.
It was feeling like the train was just starting to take off.
They just had the following formula.
The recipe was spot on and it worked
and I got to be a part of it.
- Scott!
- [shrieks] Stop!
- Something big happened that made us all think,
"Well, we're not sure that they're gonna do a third one."
There hadn't been a script yet.
Bryan Singer left the franchise to go do Superman.
They asked if I wanted to play a role in that movie.
- That article that you wrote...
- "Why The World Doesn't Need Superman."
- No, no, no, no, the other one from years ago,
before we met. - Well, which article?
I wrote dozens about him.
I was practically his press agent.
- "I Spent The Night With Superman."
- Superman had left, Lois Lane had stayed behind
and found a guy, a human, who is close as to Superman
as possible,
and I was like, "Sure, I'll take that role."
And then I heard the wheels started turning much faster
on X-Men three.
There was a moment where it felt like it might've been
an either/or.
Like, make a choice.
It turned out that we were able to work out the schedules.
And then when I finished actually shooting Superman Returns,
I was able to go back and do a couple of weeks on...
About a week and a half on X-Men three,
where Cyclops meets his end.
- What's he doing here?
- He's staring at you.
- Oh Miss!
I'm all better.
Now, how's about that date?
- The Notebook was an audition
and I think everybody had been cast at that point.
Obviously, it was a tremendous cast
and a really interesting character in that he's not
like some jerk who's...
You know, the audience is rooting for her...
Rooting against him, you know?
He's actually a really nice guy,
he met Allie too late.
There were moment where it felt like,
was this really schmaltzy?
Is this...
Are people just gonna roll their eyes at this movie?
And then I remember seeing some of Ryan and Rachel's scenes
and Garner and Gena Rowlands' stuff
and I was like, "Whoa, Nick Cassavetes is...
"He's making something special here."
There was a sense that everyone collectively wanted
to elevate the material.
I don't know, at the time, people would use the phrase,
"Chick flick," which I never liked.
To me, a movie is either a good movie or a bad one.
I'd rather see a great chick flick than a bad action movie.
I remember going to the premier, and it was in Westwood,
and they were passing out Kleenexes,
and I was like, "Don't do that
"because people are gonna come in and [mumbles]...
"It's gonna ruin their expectations.
"They're gonna go, "You think I'm gonna cry?
""I don't need this.""
And they were like, "We've tested the movie, trust us.
"We need them, they need them."
And I remember seeing the movie and I was crying like a baby
like we all did.
And I remember going to the bathroom afterwards
and there were grown men splashing water on their face
in the bathroom and I was like,
"Man, that was something very, very special."
[upbeat music]
- 'Cause it's time for the Corny Collins Show.
Brought to you by Ultra Clutch Hairspray.
♪ Oh every afternoon when the clock strikes four ♪
- My agent called and said,
"Hey, what do you feel about doing a musical?"
'Cause I think they were considering Ashton Kutcher
and Jake Gyllenhaal and a couple of
other people for the role, and I said,
"All right, when they're not available
"or when they don't wanna do it,
"I'll be waiting in the wings."
And I remember sitting down in New York
with Craig, Neil and Adam Shankman to audition
and just to have a general talk about the role.
Four o'clock in the afternoon, a little bar off Broadway,
I feel this tap on my shoulder
and it's Julia Roberts,
and Julia Roberts leans in and says,
"I don't mean to interrupt but I love you in The Notebook."
And I stood up as fast as I could and gave her like
the most uncomfortable hug
and I said, "I love you in everything you do."
But then she just said, "Sorry, I didn't meant to interrupt"
and walked out.
In my head, I was like,
"That had to have just gotten me the role."
And then as soon as my brain thought that,
Adam Shankman went, "I guess we'd be kind of stupid
"to say no to the guy that Julia Roberts just said hello to
"and loves your work."
That happened and I got to be Corny Collins.
Most fun times in front of the camera I've ever had.
It was a party.
I've always wanted to do a Broadway musical
but I've always been a little bit of a coward.
But Hairspray allowed me to kind of exercise those muscles
a little bit.
One of the more special projects I've been a part of.
♪ I'm the man who keeps it spinnin' 'round ♪
- Are you in league with the wicked old hag
who sent my poor Giselle to this foul place, Artie?
- It's really rare for me to read something
and go, "I've got it!
"I know exactly what to do."
The closer you get to that feeling,
I think the more success you're gonna have playing the role
or more fun you're gonna have as well.
So I remember reading the script of Enchanted
and reading this character, Prince Edward,
who, you know, just loves the sound of
his own voice too much.
So I auditioned for it and they liked the audition,
and I remember saying, "Do you want me to sing?
"Is that part of the audition?"
And they were like, "Oh no, no, no, we're just...
"We're casting for the acting parts."
And I was like, "Oh, that's...
"That's kind of a bummer."
And then...
And Amy was cast
and they wanted to hear me and Amy sing.
We started singing old Disney songs, like,
just kinda messing around.
I think they were surprised.
I think they were...
'Cause Amy comes from...
Like, she has got a huge musical theater background.
She used to...
I don't know if she'd agree with me.
She was like, "I used to sing on cruise ships."
I don't know that that qualifies for a huge music background
but I remember sitting in the makeup trailer with her
and Idina Menzel, and Amy would...
She was like a fan standing on the side
of the road at a premiere
and Idina Menzel walking in front of her.
Every day, it was like, "Idina, will you sing
"two lines of Defying Gravity with me?"
When we had our first read-through of the script,
it was Amy and I and Tim,
and we had like a rehearsal session.
And we were kinda looking at each other like,
"How big are you gonna go with this?"
"I don't know, how big are you gonna go with this?"
And we all just kinda went, "[bleep] it!
"We gotta go for it.
"You can't half ass this.
"You gotta like commit."
- Don't try my patience!
- I know you didn't take my car, Ian.
I'm gonna lift up this door and my big, fucking glorious,
bitchy Judge is gonna be sitting right there,
gleaming at me.
- I got sent this script which was like
a coming-of-age comedy called Sex Drive,
and I was at the point where I was like,
"Do I need to go do a coming-of-age comedy,
"like a Meatballs kinda movie?"
Although I have a special place in my heart
for those types of movies.
And I'm like, "Just take a peak at it,
"just the read script."
And I read the script, and the character was, like, juicy.
That's all I can say.
Bleached tips,
earring in the right ear, not the left ear,
motorcycle jacket,
taekwando pants,
tough guy redneck.
But he was like this abusive older brother
who drove this car called the GTO Judge.
He was in love with the car
and the younger brother steals it to go on this mission
to meet this girl he met online,
and I am just determined to find my brother
and end him.
I just had so much fun.
Sometimes, I gotta rein myself in with, you know,
going a little too over the top.
Sometimes over the top works
and I think in that situation, it worked.
- Very green here, isn't it?
So green!
It's like I'm inside a lime.
- I got a call from my agent saying,
"Hey, there's a table read for this.
"It's Chris Rock, it's Martin Lawrence,
"it's Danny Glover, it's Tracy Morgan."
Where do I sign?
But it was just a table read at the time.
And I'd seen the original and it was perfect.
No one does farce like the Brits.
And I remember Alan Tudyk played my role...
"My role," I played his role.
This is a guy who is nervous about meeting
his girlfriend's...
Oh sorry, his fiancee's father at a funeral,
which is a predominantly black funeral.
To calm him down, he takes what he thinks is valium
and it's acid.
To me, it's like that's just comedy gold.
So I did the table read, got big laughs
and I remember Chris Pine was in the table read as well.
We walked out of the table read and he goes,
"You're gonna get that role
"and that's the role that I want."
And I was like, "You wanted the..."
I was like, "It's the best role in the movie."
I said, "I don't know if I'm getting it but..."
He goes, "After what you just did in the read-through,
"it's yours."
And he was right, I ended up getting the role.
It was the coolest acting exercise
because it was like, "I can't do anything wrong,
"I'm on acid.
"Whatever the script says, okay.
"All of a sudden this plant looks like a llama
"and I wanna talk to it,
"so you gotta follow me over there to talk to the llama."
I'd never done acid,
too much of a chickenshit,
and I was at...
I was like, "Who's gonna know what an acid trip is like?"
Teamsters in their 50s and 60s
that grew up in LA and grew up in the 70s were like,
"Hey, what's this like..."
"Oh well, you know, the trees would sorta be vibrating.
"The trees would be purple and see the telephone wires?
"They would be sort of vibrating and stuff."
So every day, I would ask a new teamster, like,
"What was their experience on acid?"
That was my preparation for the role.
- I know you were looking.
- Liz, there's someone in the apartment.
♪ Someone thinks you're special ♪
♪ In every single way ♪
♪ I wrote this song to wish you ♪
♪ A happy Valentine's Day ♪
- Criss Chros on 30 Rock.
You know, it was like a time period when people
like Matt Damon and Jon Hamm and these people were showing
up and being boyfriends to Liz Lemon,
I thought, "Yeah, good company to keep."
And who knew that like after the first season...
The season that I did, I think it was the sixth,
I was like, "I doubt I'll be asked to come back."
Usually, it's like they'll have a new boyfriend
for Liz every season.
Not to say anything disparaging about Liz,
she's not that kinda girl.
But she never really had the best luck with the boyfriends.
So I thought, for sure, I wasn't coming back
and they said, "Hey, we'd..."
Robert Carlock, one of the head writers there
and a brilliant man, said,
"We'd love to have you come back for another season.
"We want you all to get married."
I was like, "Criss Chros and Liz Lemon getting married?
"Okay!"
It was perfectly written.
It was meta-humor.
It was another one that was just firing on all pistons.
It was, like, I think the first time in my career
that I was like with the major league players of comedy.
- Yeah, this is cover!
- 'Cause you pretty much destroyed my career.
You realize what it did to me
by making me call myself Jack Lame?
It was a living hell!
I had to get a new driver's license.
I can't get restaurant reservations!
- Again, another story of me doing the read-through.
I sat in the read-through with Will and everyone
from the original one.
I got lucky in the read-through again
and it got huge laughs...
Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill were all in there
and everyone's laughing, it's like...
It was a surprise that I was, that Marsden was funny.
It was sort of the general feeling.
And Will told me later, he goes,
"I saw you in a movie called Sex Drive.
"You were so damn funny in that
"and that's why I want you to be in this movie."
So that's how I got cast as Jack Lame.
Just being on that set with those guys
and listening to them riff of of each other,
talk about another party.
It was just like,
you know, you wake up excited to go to work
and just to hang out.
It was so relaxed
and so ridiculous.
- It's like a frat or KISS Army,
you're in it for life.
- But maybe someday soon,
we'll have the life we've both been dreaming of.
- No.
You never will.
- Everyone knew at the time, HBO was in a whole other level.
I was shooting a movie called 2 Guns with Wahlberg
and Denzel Washington, and my agent said,
"Hey, I know we're wanting to concentrate
"on films more right now,
"but Jonathan Nolan has written a brilliantly crafted show
"for HBO."
I Skyped with Jonah
and we sat on the phone call for about a half hour
and he just told me what his ideas were,
and what the philosophies of the shows were.
I had very limited access to scripts.
I read the first episode, I think,
and nothing beyond that.
And he gave me a little bit of information
about where it would go.
Existential, where we're going with humanity
and "what is consciousness
"and when does that begin and end?"
And they ended up casting Evan and I.
I quickly got to be pretty proficient with a pistol
and on a horse.
They didn't want you learning too quickly on the horses.
You had to walk around Melody Ranch
on a horse, walking them,
you couldn't get them over a canter or even a trot,
with a bicycle helmet on and you just felt kinda ridiculous.
We would get on set and then we wouldn't have
the helmets on, obviously.
We had cowboy hats and...
And they'd go, "Okay, just come screaming over this hill
"as fast as you can on the horse!"
It was a little bit of like, "Holy shit.
"I hope I don't fall off this thing."
They were very measured about when the cast got the scripts,
and as the scripts kinda came along while you were shooting,
you started to realize what was going on
and where these characters were going, so it was...
It was an amazing experience to sort of watch it all unfold.
It was cool to see Teddy's evolution.
And you see these classic tropes of the wild west gunslinger
who saves the fair maiden
and you just turn that on its head,
and, all of a sudden, Evan is the tough guy and the hotshot
and she doesn't need saving at all.
So rewriting that playbook a little bit,
it's been a special, special experience.
- I got some reckoning to do before I can be with her.
- It's the government wack job who keeps trying
to kill us unsuccessfully.
Nice of you to swing by on your way to Comic Con.
- Yeah, what are you wearing?
- It's a flight suit,
designed to modulate my body temperature
and reduce drag. - Yeah, and yet
you are still are one. - Hoo hoo.
- And this is another one.
Sonic was just like, "Hey, let's...
"Let's have fun."
It was another opportunity for me to tick off two
more boxes, which is one,
be a part of the iconic Sonic coming to the big screen;
two, work with one of my heroes, Jim Carrey.
What can I say about the guy?
He informs so much of what I did in high school
and in college,
and wanting to be an actor and wanting to be a comedian,
and physical comedy.
To be opposite him, screaming at you and berating you
and punching you, it was a lot of fun.
It was...
That movie mixes perfectly,
bringing this beloved character to the big screen
with big, cool action sequences and...
I get paid to do this?
Why?
This is just fun.
- Punched him in the face.
- Hi Judy.
- Hey.
- I wanna talk.
Hello Abe.
- Hello Steve,
you asshole.
- So I was really tired after Sonic.
I was like, "I don't wanna anything."
And my agent was like, "Liz Feldman wrote this thing,"
and Jessica Elbaum, who I worked with,
of course, with Anchorman.
She was like, "Marsden, you'd be great as this guy.
"And it's Christina and Linda Cardellini, who love you.
"He's a bit of a douche but..."
I'm like, "[moans]
"Played those guys, how do we make him interesting?"
And I got on the phone with Liz Feldman.
She goes, "Look, just read the first couple of episodes.
"I think there's a great opportunity to be
"this kind of jerk, douchebag, dickweed
"and have so much fun with it,
"to the point where you're making fun of those kinda guys."
I was reading it and just laughing out loud, and going,
"Oh my God, this is so much fun to play this guy.
"He's so despicable."
But he's a baby,
like a big wimp.
And then just, again, another one.
Like, "Oh, this is a lot of fun.
"I'm having a good time playing this dirt bag."
I don't know what that says about me.
People loved it and it was exactly what people needed
at the time.
And sometimes, it's just on the page.
Like, "Oh, this is really funny.
"Can I be a part of this?"
I'm interested to see where the industry goes
and where this business goes,
but we're always gonna want storytelling,
we're always gonna wanna laugh, always gonna wanna cry
and feel, and have somebody take us down that path.
It sounds kinda dorky, I know,
but that's the human condition.
We're always gonna want that
and I feel pretty fortunate to have been accepted
into this industry and that world
where people wanna see you on the screen.
It's a great feeling when someone taps you on the shoulder,
be it Julia Roberts
or be it just a random fan on the street,
that you made an impact on somebody.
That's the stuff that I hunt.
Those are the roles that I look for
and there's always something new that's coming from it.
I feel very lucky and, you know,
you just wanna keep doing it as long
as you can keep doing it.