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J.K. Simmons on His First Leading Role in The Music Never Stopped and Moving Past Spider-Man

J.K. Simmons has appeared in countless films and television shows, but the Michigan-born actor, 56, is only now making his debut as a leading man. In Jim Kohlberg�s The Music Never Stopped (available on DVD this week), Simmons plays a hard-nosed father dealing with an estranged son (Lou Taylor Pucci) who suffers a brain tumor that keeps him from forming new memories. The only way the pair can connect is through the very rock music � an impressive soundtrack for the micro-budgeted indie that includes Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead and the Beatles � the father despises. Like Almost Famous, The Music Never Stopped is a delicately written and acted movie loosely based on true events that profiles heartbreaking human moments around a powerhouse set list� only on a much more intimate scale.

Simmons rang up Movieline on Tuesday to explain why it�s impossible to summarize his first lead project, why he hasn�t seen the new Spider-Man trailer yet and why, after 10+ years voicing the yellow M&M, he can�t keep the candy-coated chocolates in his house.

I never cry in movies but I teared up in The Music Never Stopped. It is such a touching, well-acted story.
Well, I�m glad you saw it. I wish more people did. Maybe they will if you get the word out.

A lot of movies tend to over dramatize relationships between parents and their teenage children, but even in this movie�s extreme circumstance, your relationship with Lou Taylor Pucci�s character seemed so natural. How did you establish such an honest character and bond with Lou?
I think it was almost an ideal combination of things because first of all, the script that Gwyn Lurie and Gary Marks wrote was so spot-on in every aspect � like the Dr. Oliver Sacks/music therapy and the period detail. But to me, most importantly, the characters that they wrote and put on the page in tandem with Jim Kohlberg having the right sensibility as a director and assembling the cast was everything. Lou Pucci and I were able to get together and bond before shooting and really connect with each other just as actors with similar philosophies about creating a character and serving the story. As human beings, we just clicked. He has a great relationship with his dad too so that helped. It was a great combination of positives.

This wasn�t your first time playing a father. How did establishing this parent-child connection on The Music Never Stopped compare to your experience prepping to play Ellen Page�s onscreen dad in Juno?
This sounds disingenuous but if it�s the case of a great script, which was the case with both Juno and The Music Never Stopped, I just try to lift the character off the page. When you�re working with truly, ridiculously talented actors like Lou Pucci and Ellen Page, the style, to me, it doesn�t even have to be consciously arrived at. It�s just something that�s intrinsic in meeting. In an ideal scenario, when you have actors like Lou Pucci and Ellen Page who are young and can actually listen as an actor � which is an underrated and somewhat unusual skill especially in film � then you just count your lucky stars that you�ve found yourself in that situation. I just wish that all the people that saw Juno would see this movie. [Laughs] That would make this situation even better.

How would you pitch this movie to people who haven�t seen it yet?
Right there, that�s part of the problem. For me though, there is a reason why I�m 56 years-old and I haven�t branched out into producing, directing or writing � I�m a one-trick pony. I like to act. Every other aspect of show business, I find uninteresting. I have no idea how to pitch a movie and with a movie like this, you can lay out the synopsis of the plot and everything but to me, it sounds like �Oh, OK, whatever.� I can�t boil this down to a synopsis and make it seem interesting. What I like to tell people is, �This is a really good story about relatable people who go out of their comfort zone to connect with another human being. And it happens to involve some really cool �60s music and other interesting elements about Oliver Sacks and music therapy.

Was it draining or more therapeutic to work on a movie as emotionally charged as this one?
I keep coming back to this but if you�re working with actors as good as these, then finding that emotion is easy. It�s just there. All you have to do is be open to it. There are elements of the movie that continue to be relevant in life for me.

Like what?
I got a kid who�s butting his head up against adolescence and there are some good perspectives from this movie that I have to remind myself of once in awhile. I have to try to relate to him the way he is now and not the way he was when he was a cuddly, little three-year-old. People evolve and it�s important to not stop evolving just because you�ve reached �adulthood.�

Speaking of evolving, audiences are used to seeing you as a heavy hitter in ensemble projects but this is the first movie where you really play the lead role.
Yeah, this was literally my first opportunity to be the number one name on the call sheet and that was great on a number of levels, mainly just because I felt more so like a real collaborator from the very beginning. From the moment I signed on, I was in touch with Jim about the rest of the casting, preproduction choices and having a little input during rehearsals. A lot of my jobs � and quite frankly, I prefer it this way � I�m dropping in to do a week on a movie and then I�m out or I�m doing a TV show where I work two or three days a week instead of five. It was fun to be there from day one to the very last day and to be more of a collaborator in every aspect of making the movie. But that wasn�t the reason why I took the job, just to be the lead, because frankly I still think of Lou as the lead character in the movie even if the billing works the other way around.

Even so, It seems like you�re in a pretty sweet spot in your career right now with four movies in various stages of production, your work on The Closer, a steady stream of voice roles. Do you remember the moment when you felt like you had really established yourself as an actor?
I�m still not sure that I have. [Laughs] Unless your name is Clooney or Pitt or Hanks, I think it�s hard to feel completely like you�re established or where you want to be. This script, which I am eternally grateful for, came to me but only after it bounced off a couple other guys first who didn�t want to do it or couldn�t schedule it. I�d love to be more established. I�d love to never have to audition for the rest of my life and have every good script in Hollywood come my way. At the same time, when I look back twenty years and remember that I was struggling to pay my rent for a crappy apartment in Hell�s Kitchen and doing regional theater for a subsistence wage, and now I�m able to live in a big, fancy house and send my kids to private school � there�s always somebody who is better off and worse off than you are. That�s an important perspective to keep in mind I guess.

25 years in, what still excites you most about acting?
It is really fun though when just out of the blue, a little plum part in a TV comedy or an independent film that ignites me, comes my way because the director thinks I might be a good fit.

Which project do people recognize you most for these days?
That�s changed a lot recently actually. For awhile it was either Oz or Law & Order and then it was Spider-Man. I still can�t walk half a dozen blocks up 8th Avenue in New York without someone yelling, �Yo, Oz!� I�ll always be attached to that. I get a lot of �Hey, it�s Juno�s dad� and stuff about The Closer.

You were able to reprise your Spider-Man character in the upcoming Disney cartoon series Ultimate Spider-Man. Now that anticipation is building for The Amazing Spider-Man, do you feel like you have to lay J. Jonah Jameson to rest in some sense?
Yeah, in a way. The Sam Raimi group doesn�t get to make any more movies so when they asked me to be the animated J. Jonah Jameson, I made sure that it had the Marvel and Stan Lee seal of approval and I thought it would be a fun thing to do. And it was.

Have you seen the trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man yet?
No. I know less about show business than anybody, including my retired parents in Montana. Unless someone puts it literally in front of my face, I don�t see it. I did hear that my character wasn�t going to be in the big movie. I don�t know whether that�s good or bad news. I guess it�s good I don�t have to watch somebody else have the fun of playing J. Jonah Jameson.

Lastly, I enjoy your commercial voice work as the yellow M&M. Since you�ve been working for Mars for over a decade now, do you get all of the free M&Ms you want?
Unfortunately, no. I need to ask about that � although my daughter is allergic to peanuts so we don�t want to have those around the house. It�s ridiculous but [the M&M commercials] have been such a truly great, fun job� and they pay the mortgage. Billy West, who plays the red M&M, and I have been doing that for 13, 14 or 15 years. Every year, I go back to my old summer stock theater in Montana to see a few shows and they always announce �Oh, we have a special guest in the audience tonight. J.K. Simmons who you may know from Broadway, movies, blah blah blah. And did you know, he�s also the voice of the yellow M&M?� That M&M credit always gets the biggest cheer of the night. Go figure.