The one kind of movie Lewis Pullman is dying to make: “I wanna weasel my way in”
When your dad is one of the most famous movie presidents in history, that’s a lot to live up to, a conundrum faced by Lewis Pullman, whose father, Bill Pullman, is most famous for playing fictional President Thomas J Whitmore in the classic disaster flick Independence Day.
However, that’s not all, given that he led David Lynch’s Lost Highway, had a supporting role in Sleepless in Seattle, and who could forget his ground-breaking appearance in Casper?
With more than a little pressure on his shoulders, there was every chance that Lewis could have crashed and burned, but instead, he’s done himself and his dear old father proud.
After his breakout appearance in Bad Times at the El Royale, Pullman went on to appear in a number of high-profile projects of varying genres, from black comedies to horrors to a landmark entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, proving that there isn’t anything he can’t do.
According to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, there is still a genre that Pullman would like to take on, actually, to be more specific, there are two filmmakers that he thinks he would get on very well with.
“I really wanna try and weasel my way into the David Gordon Green, Danny McBride world,” he said, “They’ve kind of created their own genre of comedy, and it’s right up my alley in so many ways, and it looks like so much fun that they’re having. Like whenever I’m bummed out, I literally watch bloopers from Eastbound & Down or Vice Principals or Righteous Gemstones, and it is an immediate blast.”
Though they’re better known for their individual efforts these days, Green and McBride came up together in the noughties, with the latter working behind the camera and the former acting in front of it, hitting the big time with a string of comedies including Pineapple Express and Your Highness. They also collaborated on the rebooted Halloween series, with Green directing and McBride writing as well as doing the same for The Exorcist: Believer, and both those offences should have had them flung behind bars in movie jail.
But that’s what makes Pullman’s comments so interesting; if he’d talked about Green and McBride’s “own genre of comedy” just five or so years ago, he might have been on to something, as that’s when these two were at the peak of their powers. They were riding high on the success of the first two shows Pullman mentioned, while the first series of The Righteous Gemstones was receiving rapturous praise up and down the board. Now, however, the shoddy job they did with not one, but two beloved horror franchises has very much damaged their reputations, such that, as it stands, Pullman probably should avoid them at all costs.
Perhaps the bad press surrounding Green and McBride will blow over, and they can go back to making fun and subversive comedies, which, if they do, they know exactly who to call to offer a starring role, of course, as long as they don’t cast Pullman as Jason Voorhees, they should get on swimmingly.
