Alternative Press magazine
Issue: April, 2006
Pictures:
- Index photo- HERE
- Main photo- HERE
Thanks to Cristin for hosting them
Interview:
Through Being Cool
Milo Ventimiglia
AGE: 28
HQ: Los Angeles, CA
RESUME: Most famously, he played the loner rebel Jess Mariano on the WB's
Gilmore Girls; Ventimiglia has continued his time on the small screen as Chris Pierce in
American Dreams and this year's college-based drama
The Bedford Diaries; he will make a, um, brief appearance this month in the internet-age horror film
Stay Alive, and next year will see the release of
Rocky Balboa, in which he plays the surprisingly square Rocky Balboa, Jr.
BAD HAIR DAZE: "I didn't do anything [except] I got a really bad haircut," Ventimiglia says of his upcoming role as the younger Balboa. "Like, seriously, 1994. It's really short on the sides and cleaned up in the back, but kind of long on top. It's just a bad haircut. The hairstylist in the film, God bless her, she gave me the best bad haircut ever."
MILO WAS A PUNK: Though he claims to despise the current "angry, pierced-lip" set, Ventimiglia grew up listening to classic punk bands like Adolescents and Operation Ivy. "By the time I got to college, I kind of formed my own opinion of what I liked, and it was all punk," he says. "I don't know how many people have heard of Leftover Crack or Choking Victim; they're not quite out there in the mainstream, but that's my most recent stuff.
For those of us who have followed his less-than-predictable career, there are certain thinga you might expect when you call 28-year-old
Milo Ventimiglia for an interview. It would be great, for example, if he were in Connecticut pontificating about J.D. Salinger like Jess Mariano, the cultishly loved badass he played on the hit show
Gilmore Girls. Or, maybe he could be hanging out with Sylvester Stallone after a long day on the set of the forthcoming film
Rocky Balboa, in which Ventimiglia plays the famed boxer's now-adult son. Hell, he could at
least be grooming the impressive beard he boasts in
Stay Alive, a thriller about being stuck in an online video game, due in theaters later this month. But the truth about Ventimiglia is that he's merely a working-class actor who has very little in common with the characters who have made- and will continue to make- him sort of famous. On location in Philadelphia, the former WB star talked to AP about life after Rory Gilmore, obsessive fans and the fine art of playing one really big dork.
So right now, you are in Philadelphia filming the latest Rocky movie. What kind of preparation does it take to play the Italian Stallion's son? To some degree, are you following in his footsteps?
Oh, not at all. He went the opposite way of his father. He went into corporate America, and that's where we pick him up in the story. He's not this huge, buff boxing guy. He's slim, meek [and] not as self-confident.
Basically, he's drinking soy lattes while his father is beating on pieces of raw meat.
Pretty much. You get a little insight about [the character in earlier films]. But there's no indication of what the kid is going to do- if he's going to go into boxing or be an intellectual or whatever.
That film will be out next year, but in the more immediate future is Stay Alive. The film seems a little confusing. So you're all playing a video game, but somehow, everyone actually dies?
It's basically early 20-somethings who find a video game that if you die in the video game, that's how you die in real life. It's like, "Give it a couple of minutes, give it a little time, but you're
gonna die." My character is the Drew Barrymore. It's the initial death.
At least you got to go home early.
Yeah. It was a couple days of work in New Orleans. It was a great group of people, too. I wish I could have spent more time out there. But I just went, did my job and went home.
Between those two films, people must have pretty big expectations for you in the next year.
Granted, these are all really great jobs that are going to get seen, but I don't feel the pressure. I don't feel it's any different than any other year.
Do you already feel famous at this point in your life?
I'm a person, like anybody else. I think it surprises me every single time somebody walks up and talks to me or asks for a picture or an autograph. I just very kindly say, "Thank you." Unless they're crazy- then I run.
Really?
Seriously, I have. But that's not why I do this. I've got a friend who's a navel aviator and he''s flying spy planes all over the world, and I'm like, "Holy ****, I can't believe it!" There are so many jobs, to me, that are larger than what I do.
At some point, did you accept the surreal nature of this? While it's weird that you have a friend that flies spy planes, it must also be bizarre to him that he can Google your name and find blogs about girls wanting to sleep with you.
It's strange. It's the part of what I do that I'm still dumbfounded with. It's like, "You want me to sign a piece of paper for you? Okay." [laughs.] "What are you going to
do with that piece of paper?"
Do you still get a lot of people coming up to you saying, "Hey, aren't you Jess from Gilmore Girls?"
I think once or twice I've had people say, "Hey, you used to be on
American Dreams." and I'm like, "Oh, my God, thank you!" If I go back into the history of what I've done and what's been put out to the general public, it's been
Gilmore. That was a show I was on for two years, and I pop back in and there are chat rooms about the character and whether or not he and Rory should get back together.
It's funny that you're still seen as Jess. You're a pretty different person.
Yeah, and this character that I'm playing now [in
Rocky Balboa] is a dork. He's just a
dork. He buys these dumpy off-the-rack suits with pleats in the pants. The kid is just not a winner. Then in
Stay Alive? Forget about it. I look very different. I've got a huge beard and these huge glasses. You know Coke-bottle lenses? I'm wearing those.
Maybe after Jess, it was time to play a couple of dorks.
What is a dork? I could be a dork. It doesn't matter. It was just time to play something different. I think the general public- they lose sight that actors are malleable. They can move and bend and fold into different types of chatracters and give their own interpretation of a character. It's not necessarily about the way someone looks. It's what's going on within a person's heart and mind.
-Trevor Kelley