Wes Bentley looks back on his one-of-a-kind career in Hollywood from 'American Beauty' to 'Knight of Cups'
Frazer Harrison/Getty
Wes Bentley is best known for his roles as a brooding extrovert, as in “American Beauty” or “The Hunger Games.” His piercing eyes and stern look have made him the perfect choice for roles in which dark and mysterious are requirements.
His latest movie, "Knight of Cups," by legendary director Terrence Malick, is filled with mystery, exploring the befuddling past of a Hollywood screenwriter, played by Christian Bale. Bentley is the writer's troubled but loyal brother.
We talked to Bentley about some of the highlights from his career, starting with "Knight of Cups," out this weekend.
To prepare for "Knight of Cups," Bentley spent a lot of time "in rooms."
Broad Green Pictures
To fully understand what Terrence Malick wanted from him, Bentley said there was “lots of time spent in rooms, building the history.”
First, that meant meeting the director, which led to a discussion less about the movie and more about their past.
“Geographically we’re from a similar area,” said Bentley, who is from Arkansas; Malick is from Illinois. “We also had a lot of similarities in our childhood and family life, so we mostly talked about that.”
That talk carried over into prep for the film, as Bentley and Bale spent a lot of time together talking about themselves.
“I took it all as the experience of now. Whether it’s in the film or not, I’m all good with that,” he said of the notoriously unique process Malick employs. “I knew working with Terry, a lot of what I did might not make the film.”
The success of “American Beauty” was hard for him to cope with.
DreamWorks
Most of us first met Bentley on the screen in his breakout role in the best picture Oscar-winning 1999 film “American Beauty,” playing Ricky, the loner-next-door neighbor who loves to record plastic bags floating in the wind.
Then in his early ‘20s, the actor admits it was hard to take in the exposure of the movie.
“It was a blessing as an actor,” he said. “Personally, it was tough. It was tough to follow up on that. I feel I have a skewed vision of it. It was so weird and felt extreme. I was young and had a lot of big lessons learned, and a lot of that had to do with the attention that came from the movie. At the end of the day, I just didn’t know what to do at that moment, as far as dealing with the attention.”
Why he thinks no one went to see “The Four Feathers.”
Paramount Pictures
A few years after the success of “American Beauty,” Bentley starred in one of the most anticipated movies of 2002, “The Four Feathers,” the latest adaptation of the A.E.W. Mason novel that follows the British Army’s Gordon Relief Expedition in the Sudan in the late 1800s.
Putting him alongside Heath Ledger (Bentley plays his best friend in the role) and Kate Hudson, the movie was touted as a modern-day “Lawrence of Arabia,” with its lush desert cinematography. The movie turned out to be a bomb, only taking in $30 million worldwide (the film cost $35 million to make).
Looking back, Bentley speaks very highly of the experience.
“I’ve seen it a few times since its release, and I’m proud of it,” he said. “There’s no CGI in that movie. Spending three months in Morocco and three months in London, it was an incredible life experience. Heath [Ledger] really did become one of my best friends.”
Bentley believes it was bad timing that led to the film’s disappointing release.
“We shot it before 9/11, and they had no choice to release it after, and the subject matter was close [to the events]. That’s all I could ever reason with,” he said.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider