Emory Cohen has played the tortured, quiet young man struggling to be understood in so many films, that it's genuinely jarring to hear him be so friendly, warm, funny, and loquacious; it's almost as jarring as seeing him in Big Gold Brick, a film he headlines with manic, comic energy. His character, Sam, is almost a delicious parody of some of Cohen's past work in brilliant projects like The Place Beyond the Pines, Brooklyn, and The OA. Sam is a brooding, introspective writer with anxiety, but Cohen plays him with such over-the-top slapstick shenanigans and precise comic timing that he almost comes across as if Jerry Lewis took on Cohen's role as the death metal murderer in Lords of Chaos.
With long black hair and nervous eyes, Cohen opens the film trashing his apartment in a drunken rage and embarking on a suicide mission, but this is a comedy. He marches down the street with such a unique gait, mostly out of his mind, before stepping out in front of a speeding car. The driver, played by Andy Garcia, is wracked with guilt and invites Sam into his home to write his biography. However, Garcia and his family (including Megan Fox and Lucy Hale) are not everything they appear to be.
His Comedy Debut
Big Gold Brick is a delightfully weird and disarming movie, and Cohen's performance is the comedic glue that holds it all together. He tapped into the despair and struggles of his earlier performances and transformed that pain into something wholly unique.
This is really the first comedy that I've ever done. The work to find the darkness, anxiety, and pain of the character was the same work that I've done on every movie, really every character. The stuff that was different was the slapstick comedic stuff, and I was having a lot of fun doing it. I was really influenced by Chris Farley, in a lot of his SNL work but especially Tommy Boy. It was a good opportunity because like, I started to feel more comfortable in the slapstick side of it than the angst and the anxiety of it, but it was a real amazing experience to get to marry this world of drama that I came from, with this world of comedy that I'd always wanted to do.
Related: Big Gold Brick Trailer Ties Up Andy Garcia, Megan Fox, and Oscar Isaac in a Twisted Comedy
Comedy may have been an untouched field for Cohen, but he wholly commits to the physicality and silliness of the role in successful and strange ways. This is perhaps because he had always wanted to do comedy, so when he had the opportunity, he seized it.
I used to, sometimes on other films that I've done, I would sit in my trailer and I would watch gag reels or blooper reels from comedy films, and they all looked like they were having so much fun, making each other laugh and dressing up, and I'm going "Oh my god, I want to do that." It was a lot of fun. I was just happy to have the opportunity.
From Oscar Isaac to Emory Cohen
Brian Petsos, the writer and director of Big Gold Brick, made his film by effectively combining two of his early shorts, Ticky Tacky and Lightningface, interweaving them with wild, fantastical elements and new narrative threads to create something bizarre and different. Oscar Isaac (who plays the titular character in the highly anticipated Moon Knight) starred in each short film, and now appears briefly as a Dr. Strangelove-like wealthy maniac in Big Gold Brick. What helped Cohen the most was perhaps studying Isaac.
The starting point for anything in creating Samuel was watching Oscar Isaac in Ticky Tacky and Lightningface, and understanding that that was like the canvas that Brian was giving me to paint on. That being said, though, I remember early on, Brian came up to me [and] was like, you're playing the character a lot more comedically than I thought you were. 'Is that okay?' And he was like, 'Yeah, I like it.' I was like, 'Yes!!!'
Cohen is a director's actor. He's humble in the way that, when he trusts a director's vision, he gives all of himself to the project. For instance, any viewer can sense the level of trust Cohen had in his The Place Beyond the Pines director, Derek Cianfance, when watching his scenes in the film (which has been considered one of the best films of its decade). The organic naturalism, the acceptance of real-life mistakes and rhythms as part of his performance, is extremely vulnerable but endlessly rewarding.
Being Told What to Do
Cohen must've trusted Big Gold Brick director Brian Petsos quite a bit, allowing the film to draw out one of the strangest and most memorable performances of his entire career. That level of trust and humility shows, and Cohen dominates every scene he's in, even alongside massive Hollywood names like Megan Fox and Andy Garcia.
Brian would do this thing where at the end of takes, he would just kind of give you five different things to do. It was so much fun and so freeing that it got to the point where Brian was like, you know, "run around in a circle around the building." I would just do it. I know that they have different styles, but Brian reminded me a lot of how I felt around Derek Cianfrance [director of The Place Beyond the Pines], this kind of complete trust in this person's cinematic brain to know what they're doing. The level of respect that if they told me to do something, I was going to do it. [...] I like being told what to do. I don't have all the answers. And it's more, it's more fun. I mean, I want to collaborate. That's how I want to work.
Brian has a brain for cinema that I don't have. Like, I'm an actor, you know, I'm not a director. I don't know about different palettes and the color and this and that, because I'm not visual like that, I'm more emotional, I'm in the feel and the impulse of it. So there was a lot of just trust in what Brian was doing.
Related: The Place Beyond the Pines Cast Interviews with Ryan Gosling [Exclusive]
Trust and the Future
Cohen has seen the film and has witnessed the confirmation and validation of his trust in his director. The film is a wild, anarchic ride, and it does Cohen justice. After having talked about Big Gold Brick for so long, he's finally able to see it in a theater with an audience and relishes the chance to watch the movie with his director, Brian Petsos. He is arguably most excited about getting to show it to his friends and family, and Cohen's ebullient enthusiasm is as contagious offscreen as it is on.
This week, we're doing some Q&A days, so it's going to be the first time for me to get to watch the movie in a theater with an audience. That's going to be the first time. The first time I'm going to watch the movie with Brian is going to be this week, which I'm really excited about. It's going to be the first time that I'm going to get to watch the movie with my friends and family, which is really cool because they're so tired of hearing me talk about it [...] It's an exciting time, it's happening now, you know? It's really happening, and pretty exciting and crazy and all the rest.
Cohen's next big project is with the recently revered director Jeremy Saulnier, who has received much acclaim for Blue Ruin, The Green Room, and Hold the Dark. The thriller is titled Rebel Ridge, and is the first time Cohen will be doing some intensive stunt work. He's excited about this with the same kind of humility and gratitude he displays for the rest of his burgeoning, interesting career.
Like Brian, [Saulnier is] another incredible filmmaker with an incredible cinematic mind, and a guy I've wanted to work with for a long time since Blue Ruin. It's really great to get to work with him, you know, very stunt heavy. Very different for me, and learning a lot about that side of cinema, you it's a really interesting, different experience. I'm very fortunate, and I'm very grateful to get to work with these kinds of directors.
We're grateful, too. Big Gold Brick will be available in theaters, and on-demand and digital, Feb. 25.
