John Newton Interview, Mar. 16, 2008

john Newton : I play 'Dudas' who is a kind of a bit of archetype urban archeologist. He's compared to some of the Jungian classical complex figure who's basically the mysterious figure around the story where you don't know who's dreaming who, out lead feme fatale or 'Dudas'. Is she in his reality or he in hers. So you have a whole kind of intrinsically complex web of layers of reality with pararallel reality. So it's a really complex script, it's really hard to talk about it about, did you see the film? [*see editor's note below ]

Reelscene : Yes, I saw it.

John Newton : You were at the thing yesterday weren't you? Yeah. So you kind of know what I'm talking about. So 'Dudas' is very confused, he's someone who has a hard time with dealing with his past. And so he's kind of played with some of the, ... he's found a script, a transcript from Germany and he's found some ways to kind of bend and play with reality[and] he's gotten caught in his own spiderweb in the process.

Reelscene : How did you think about this role with the characterization. Did you look at it strictly as a script or did you try help interpret in certain ways?

John Newton : You know, James [Kerwin] as a director, he's very specific about his point of view and his vision for the character and in the script so for me just making sure I stayed in alignment with that. I think as actors, a lot of times actors go off on their own tangent and try to be creative just for the sake of being different. I felt that wouldn't be true to the script so I really wanted to stay pretty close to what he had on the paper which was a lot. He put a lot there for the actors. For me it was just doing a little bit of psychological research and some research into some of the quantum mechanics a lot of which I've already studied but I hadn't studied to the extent that James has. He's a physics major as he talked about.

Reelscene : How was this role different than from any of your others aside from the study. Was there any other particular challenge.

John Newton : It was definitely a challenge. This role was far different than anything I've ever even come close to. It was very complex, psychologically complex, emotionally complex and I had to reach kind of deep into my psyche to pullout what I felt was necessary for the character to have traitwise.

Reelscene : Well, working on 'Superboy' you were already stepping into a well known icon so this was like a totally brand new thing.

John Newton : Yeah, totally. In fact with 'Superboy' I tried to kind of do the opposite of what had been done before and I think it probably backfired a little bit on me. I wish I'd, maybe not tried so hard not to be like Chris Reeve that ... that maybe split the ground, split the middle ground a little bit. But this was a completely different role for sure. I'd never seen anything like this on film before.

Reelscene : Is there any other roles that you feel challenges with or any type of movies that you might have felt different about?

John Newton : You mean other roles that I've played in the past challenges with? Well, I've had to deal with a lot of emotionally distraught characters and I love that because I love diving going deep within myself and pulling out what I need to pull out for the characters. I think every role is challenging in it's own way, every role, every character you play bring's up it's own shadow aspects of yourself and to me, as an artist, that's what you live for, that's what we,... that's what any great painter or musician or actor relates to as far as being creative.

Reelscene : And you were in "The Christmas Card" ?

John Newton : Yeah, I had the lead in "The Christmas Card" which was Hallmark's highest rated programming they've ever done. They run it a lot around Christmas. It did real well and I was grateful to have the lead role in it. Ed Asner got nominated for an Emmy this past Emmys but he didn't win. It was a real good story, traditional Hallmark.

Reelscene : What else do you have coming up?

John Newton : I have two independent films that I did. One is called "She Lived" and the other is called "Dark Mirror". Those are coming up and just basically the strike is over now and so we're kind of going to be looking for more work and a lot of the actors are getting back into the swing of things to see what shows go back and what don't.

Reelscene : Are you going to stay in acting or expand into other areas of filmmaking?

John Newton : I've been writing quite a bit over the years. I've optioned a screenplay and I'll probably continue to do both. I might get into a little producing and stuff as I get older. I think it's good especially in this business 'cause they always seem to go younger and younger for stuff. It's good to have other options as someone in the industry.

Reelscene : Are you writing scripts or novels?

John Newton : Scripts, oh yeah, scripts, yeah. I mean I write short stories and things too but that's just to kind of hone my writing and help me with ideas to put into the screenplays.

Reelscene : Which do you prefer or do you like going back and forth between the two creative processes?

John Newton : You mean as far as writing or acting?

Reelscene : Yes. It's a different dynamic.

John Newton : I enjoy both for different reasons but I think getting actual work, the acting just feels more challenging, feels like really competitive. But as a writer too I think writers don't always get their choice of druthers that they'd like to be writing about.

Reelscene : Maybe you feel compelled to write something?

John Newton : Yeah, yeah, I do, I do. I have a lot of stories that I want to tell. Mostly about just humanity and humans waking up. I'm fascinated with us as a culture, as a civilization just kind of coming into our own. It feels like we're kind of stunted in a lot of ways, emotionally and sociologically. I'd like to see us rise up and maybe become what a lot of the great teachers like Christ and Buddha and these greats that have walked the planet showed us what's possible. I'd love for us rise to the occasion and survive. That'd mean a lot to me.

Reelscene : Well thanks and good luck.

John Newton : Thank you.

* editor's note: This does not reflect poorly on Mr. Newton but instead reflects on the common practice of some interviewers who will ask general questions to the actor without actually seeing the movie. Reelscene, in keeping to higher journalistic standards, strives to research into the background subject matter as much as possible. Remember,it's 'news for filmmakers, by filmmakers'.