NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� For a long time, it bothered Richard Jenkins that he didn't look or come off like the movie stars he grew up with. How could he, the son of a dentist from DeKalb, Illinois, measure up in the same business as Lawrence Olivier, Marlon Brando and Spencer Tracy?
鈥淚t鈥檚 really hard to believe that you鈥檙e enough. I mean, for me it was terrible," Jenkins says. 鈥淪ometimes I still don鈥檛. But you always go back to: 鈥榊ou鈥檙e it, buddy. That鈥檚 all you got. If it鈥檚 not enough, OK. But it鈥檚 all you got.鈥欌��
It鈥檚 appropriate that at the center of a film called is Jenkins, an everyman extraordinaire who has made a career of close-to-the-bone, lived-in performances. The film, directed by Stephen Karam from , is a harrowing ensemble piece led by a typically humble yet tour-de-force performance by the 74-year-old Jenkins.
He plays Erik Blake, who, with wife Deidre (Jayne Houdyshell) and his elderly mother Momo (June Squibb), has arrived from Scranton, Pennsylvania, at their daughter's Chinatown apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. Brigid (Beanie Feldstein) and her boyfriend, Richard (Steven Yeun), have just moved into an aging basement duplex with streaky widows that look out on an airshaft. Inside the rundown apartment, lights flicker and the nearby boiler rumbles. Erik gazes as the mishmash maze of piping and the holes that need caulking.
Their conversation, with sister Aimee (Amy Schumer), reveals characters with their own brokenness. 鈥淭he Humans,鈥� which a24 released Wednesday in theaters and that also airs on Showtime, throbs with the existential dread of a family just hanging on. Helplessness and guilt hover especially over Erik, a longtime school custodian struggling to plug up all the Blakes' leaks.
You read something and you go, 鈥楧o I have anything to offer this?鈥� Sometimes you say, 鈥楴o, not really. That鈥檚 somebody else,鈥欌�� Jenkins said in a recent interview in a Central Park South hotel. 鈥淏ut this one ... I understood his response to things. When I watched it, I thought, 鈥楪od, that鈥檚 pretty me.鈥欌��
Karam makes his directorial debut with an adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-finalist one-act. For the play, which opened on Broadway in 2016, Karam drew heavily from his own Scranton family to craft an unsettling Chekhovian drama heavy with metaphor. Living in pre-war apartments and passing under painted-over steel beams in subway stations that seemed to him like fossils, Karam felt in his own New York existence the haunting echoes of the past.
鈥淵ou feel history. You feel lives lived,鈥� says Karam.
For the film, Karam built an uncannily accurate replica of an apartment he once lived in, right down to the graffiti on the elevator. In taking 鈥淭he Humans鈥� from stage to screen, Karam enlarges and intensifies the drama.
鈥淭he space is decaying, but in some ways, I think of the space as being remarkably resilient, too 鈥� like human bodies and human beings,鈥� Karam says. 鈥淭his family, for all of this struggle and strife and the breaking down of different aspects of their life 鈥� losing their girlfriend or their health or a mother 鈥� is holding on. I'm interested in how people keeping bringing a gallon of paint.鈥�
Jenkins has lived in Providence, Rhode Island, with his wife, Sharon, for 52 years. They went expecting to stay a few years, but Jenkins became a company member of the Trinity Repertory Company for 14 years. 鈥淟ived there. Started doing movies. Just stayed," says Jenkins. They had two children. Jenkins would take the train down to New York for auditions. He didn't start landing film and TV parts until he was 35. He was 60 when his got his first lead role in a film, Tom McCarthy's 鈥淭he Visitor鈥� (one of two Oscar nominations for Jenkins; the other was for Guillermo del Toro's 鈥淭he Shape of Water鈥�).
鈥淚 always say that in this profession you鈥檙e going to get your ass kicked either when you鈥檙e young or when you鈥檙e old," says Jenkins, smiling. "It鈥檚 better to get it over with.鈥�
One bit of advice changed everything him. , author of 鈥淗ow to Stop Acting," told Jenkins: 鈥淨uit trying to hide who you are.鈥�
鈥淚 was unhappy with myself as an actor for forever, the way I was doing it. I thought I had to either change and figure it out or do something else,鈥� Jenkins says. 鈥淚t was boring me and I thought if it鈥檚 boring me, then the audience must be really thrilled. So that鈥檚 what I鈥檝e tried to do in the last 20, 25 years. Sometimes it鈥檚 more successful than others. Sometimes I see myself and go, 鈥榃hy does anyone hire me?鈥� Then sometimes I go, 鈥楾hat鈥檚 OK.鈥�"
For Jenkins, it doesn't matter if a part has an accent, a limp, a murderous streak 鈥� any performance involves being comfortable in your own skin, being yourself.
鈥淔or you to deny that and block that off, I think, is wrong," says Jenkins. "For me, it just doesn鈥檛 work. It came later in life for me.鈥�
It's helped make Jenkins one of the most vulnerable and human of character actors 鈥� someone you feel like you know because, in a way, you do. Jenkins isn't John C. Reilly鈥檚 father in 鈥淪tep Brothers,鈥� or the scamming patriarch of 鈥淜ajillionaire," or the gay federal agent who unwittingly takes acid and asks 鈥淚s this a musical table?" in 鈥淔lirting With Disaster." But all of those parts reflect some of Jenkins' own good nature.
On 鈥淭he Humans,鈥� Karam went in expecting Jenkins might have the proud certainty of a veteran performer only to find him curious, respectful and generous.
鈥淭he understanding of this family was just so specific that I almost had to shut up and listen to Richard talk about his kids and his life and his understanding of the family,鈥� says Karam. 鈥淭hat, to me, was kind of magical.鈥�
In his mid-70s, Jenkins is perhaps more in-demand than ever. He reunites with Del Toro in the noir 鈥淣ightmare Alley," out in December. He'll play Jeffrey Dahmer's father in an upcoming miniseries from Ryan Murphy.
On film sets, Jenkins has gotten used to being the oldest person, he says, with the recent happy exception of the 92-year-old Squibb. He doesn't mind. He loves young people, he says.
鈥淲hat happens is the older you get, the more you appreciate it. You look back on your life. I do. I live in the past,鈥� says Jenkins. 鈥淎nd you look back and you say, 鈥極h my God.鈥� People who say luck has nothing to do with it, they鈥檙e full of (expletive). It鈥檚 huge. If I hadn鈥檛 done this. If I hadn鈥檛 done that. If I hadn鈥檛 gone in that room. If I didn鈥檛 do that play. It鈥檚 just one after another. I鈥檓 a lucky man. That鈥檚 what I am.鈥�
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Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
