Whatever the job, the versatile Peter Sarsgaard is the man ready for it. He’s good at playing bad, great at playing good and superb in everything that lives in between. He’s a character actor, a commanding creative, and a “creator.”
Where it started:
Everyone has a hero. For Sarsgaard, his earliest memories of actor adoration go back to the days of watching legendary actor Peter Sellers in “The Pink Panther” and “Being There.” “Acting looked really fun and interesting and he seemed like a comedic actor and a serious actor at the same time — kind of his own thing,” Sarsgaard remembered. “I always really like his acting.”
How to be a Kennedy:
Sarsgaard admitted he was hesitant to take on the role of Bobby Kennedy in “Jackie” because he “didn’t want to worry about mimicry.” But once director Pablo Larraín put his fears to rest, he dove into preparation. Phone conversations between brothers Bobby and John F. Kennedy were the most helpful forms of prep because they helped him get “a sense of that relationship that’s the missing relationship in the movie,” he said. It was important, he said, that the scenes he shares with Portman in the movie felt like “there’s another person in there.”