Jonathan Rosenthal/Steven LyonAd
Some of Hollywood's most challenging and iconic performances have placed an incredible burden on a single actor and challenged them to rise to the occasion. Jonathan Rosenthal's new movie The Abandon could be one such example. In the film, Rosenthal plays American soldier Miles Willis, wounded in battle, captured, and placed inside an otherworldly cube. There, Willis is physically and mentally tested as he tries to puzzle his way to freedom, creating a tense psychological thriller that rests almost entirely on Rosenthal's shoulders.
In this interview, Rosenthal discusses the project, which he calls “a physically and emotionally taxing performance”, and “one that almost broke him.”
Q: When you first read the script, did you realize how intense the filming would be?
JR: I think, off a first read, the undertaking that I was signing up for was pretty apparent. But it was only when we dove into the first month of rehearsal that the reality of it truly set in. It’s one of those defining moments we all reflect on, where the little voice inside tells you it’s not too late to back down or drop out… which for me personally only (for better or worse) seems to egg me on.
Q: Did you take on any special preparations or acting rituals to help you get ready for this?
JR: I think a short list would be the things I managed not to do in preparation [laughs]. I lost 24 pounds in one and a half months, cut off contact with my family and friends for three months, convinced production to put me up in a Motel 6 (when the sound stage refused to let me sleep on set) and committed to staying in character for most of prep and the entirety of the shoot. Now before you roll your eyes at me, just know I’m already rolling them at myself. I hate that actor stuff… but we all do what’s necessary to find our truth or reality. I just don’t attach some dead thespian’s name to my weird scrap book of stuff that works for me.
Q: You mean you didn’t talk to anyone from your life, as a means to prepare?
JR: When I started jotting down how I sized up to Miles and he to me, one thing struck me in a way that I had to put it at the top of my list. And maybe even make it the only thing on my list. This guy well before the movie even rolls the opening credits lives in total isolation, on a crowded elevator, packed city street, at home with his family. He is so pained by his past that he’s never truly with anyone, accept his tormented self. Now I’ve experienced my fair share of isolation, solitude and pain. But never like that. I’ve been so blessed with the people in my life who, sometimes to my annoyance, would never let me drift into that state. So I had to manufacture that experience, well maybe not had to, but I wanted to better understand him and the people he represents to do their story justice.
Q: There are plenty of stories of actors going to great lengths to get into character, but even then, spending more than two months in Isolation is an incredible step to take for the sake of a part.
JR: It is ,and while some roles don’t call for drastic immersive research, some do [shrugs]. I think laughing about it now, as how silly we can be as actors, knowing I explored the role to its limits, feels way more acceptable than having finished and being left to wonder “What if I had just…?”
Q: At the end of the day, the story is fiction, science fiction. So what made it so important that you would go to such great lengths to tell it?
JR: While the characters and story itself are (obviously) fiction, Miles represents a grossly overlooked fact in our history. The fact that PTSD wasn’t first recognized as a mental health condition in soldiers until 1980 (five years after the Vietnam War). And even then, the diagnosis really didn’t receive a wide application until after studies assessing PTSD were conducted on the returning Gulf War veterans. It became the “why are we telling this?” to this story that truly gripped me. One which the further I dove into research on the role, interviewing veterans, mounds of articles, books, memoirs, and hours and hours of footage, the more important the story within the story became to me to see represented at the film’s core.
The Abandon hit theaters July 19 and is available on digital July 30.
Lionsgate is distributing the exciting independent film which currently sits at 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. Jonathan Rosenthal's performance has already earned the film a Best Actor Award from the LA Indie Film Fest, where it also won Best Picture.
You can find out more about the film and watch the trailer online.