Chris Marquette is one of those actors that you know his face but don’t yet know his name. The amount of movies and TV shows he’s been on is pretty decent for someone so young, and he isn’t showing any signs of slowing down as he has a ton of upcoming projects like Fanboys, Choose Connor, The Beautiful Ordinary, Calvin Marshall and The Education of Charlie Banks.

Obviously the one I’m most excited to see again is Fanboys – that’s the movie about the group of friends that tries to steal the print of Episode One in 1998 before the movie came out. Awhile back I reviewed a test screening and if you missed my review you can read it here. And for those wondering when the film will finally be released, Chris says August but I’ve also heard September. Obviously it’s a film I care about and will keep you informed.

As I said in the headline, during the roundtable interview Chris talks about making The Invisible, all of his upcoming projects, and we reminisce about The Girl Next Door and Just Friends – two films that still get him a lot of attention.

Before reading the interview with Chris, here is the studio provided synopsis on The Invisible:

THE INVISIBLE is a supernatural thriller about a teenager who finds himself trapped between two worlds – invisible to the living and all too close to the dead.  A high school senior with a bright future, Nick Powell (JUSTIN CHATWIN) is suddenly attacked on a dark night, his shattered body left for dead.  Now, caught in a haunting limbo where he can observe the world of the living but they can’t see him, his only chance at a future is to figure out the mystery of what happened to him and why before time runs out.  But how do you solve a murder when the victim is you?               

As always you can listen to the interview instead of reading it by clicking here. It’s an MP3 so you can easily put it on an iPod or a CD for listening in your car.

And I’m not going to have time to transcribe my interview with Margarita Levieva so if you want to hear her talk about making the movie you can listen to the audio. It's an MP3.

The Invisible opens this Friday at theaters everywhere.

Question: What pitfalls of getting cast as a friend in something like this?  And what do you bring to the party that’s a little bit different?

Chris Marquette: You know to be honest I've tried to seclude myself from the story as much as possible only to kind of bring as much humanity as I could to that character because at a certain point you don't really follow this character, he just sort keeps popping up now and then. So I tried to create something in my own head as to what was going on the entire time you don't see him so that when he does pop up it like oh, wow, he's feeling some crazy stuff.  God knows what happened to him the last few days. I've always tried with this movie to keep it as human as I possibly could and not try make it an exposition point for the story. I tried to never make my scenes about like where did the body go rather than like seeing how bad this kid felt about what's been happening. 

How big of a technical challenge was it because the scenes were staged very specifically with having to not acknowledge Justin if he were there in the background.

It was pretty difficult sometimes man.  There were some scenes I had with him where he's like shaking me and that's really hard to do. There was only one time I remember I like completely broke. He said something that made me laugh and I just remember I couldn't get rid of the smile for a second and I was supposed to be very, very serious and so I remember being like alright let's start again because it's weird man. Try having somebody talking in your ear and you're pretending that's not happening at all and not only pretend that's not happening but pretend other things are happening simultaneously like that became a trick.  It's easy to ignore somebody but it's harder to ignore them and concentrate on what exactly you're trying to do.

Did you come up with technique for that?

Yeah, I just didn't talk to people very much.  I kind of listened to a lot of music and you try to create your own silent world in a way and be as like in your own head as much as possible so that if other things come in they're a little dinned down, you know, they're a little quieter.

What was it like working with Goyer?  What was he like as a director?

Goyer was cool man. Goyer was really nice to have because Goyer was so relaxed. Goyer knew exactly what he wanted so and we had the time and I feel like enough talent with the DP and the whole entire crew and the whole cast to where he could sort of move his pieces around until it clicked. And he was like cool, now let's move so it was nice because it was a movie where you're constantly trying get so much tension built up between you and somebody else reviewing what's going on and so it was nice to be able to go back to the person in charge and be like "how was that, dude?"  And they'd be like "it was good, it was really good".  And you're like "cool, ok good. I can calm down. Thank you". 

I was going to say you've been doing a lot of feature films and you've been working constantly and you've got a lot of stuff coming up in the future.  Do you ever wonder what would have happened if Joan had managed to stay on the air for 8 years?

Yeah. I imagined ....the weird part is that I did more features when I was doing Joan than I had done right afterwards.  I'd done like 3 movies while I did the 2nd season of Joan of Arcadia so they were actually willing to work around ....both were willing to work around the schedules because my concern when I first signed on to Joan of Arcadia was that I wouldn't be able to do feature films and that I would be tied up for God knows how long and I was really scared of it so the show runner/producer was really nice and he's like I'll help you out the best I can and so there was never a huge fear.  There was never like a oh, God I'm going to be stuck on 8 years and never be able to do these cool movies but in a way I'm kind of thankful that I'm not working constantly too.  A movie like this took a lot out of me at a certain point I realized.  Like all of a sudden I was done and I was really tired and exhausted and I'd been up in Vancouver basically cooped up in my hotel room for 3 months and it was nice to be back in the world and not have anything to do.  Joan of Arcadia was a show we filmed 16 hours a day 5 days a week so that just became like one of the most exhausting things I've ever worked on in a good way, but still very exhausting.

You’re also in a whole bunch of things coming up. I have a list so let's talk about Calvin Marshall, Beautiful Ordinary, Choose Connor, Fanboys.

Yeah, Calvin Marshall, we haven't filmed it yet.  I think its going possibly the end of this year. Choose Connor is a friend of mine's movie. It's a very low budget movie which I did a very important part of the movie but a very small part of the movie that came out really well. It's going to premier CineVegas in June or July.  I'll be down there for it.  It's a really great movie they made for like about $550,000.  But it's a great view into politics based on the view of this 20 year old kid who wrote and directed it. It's really… he did an incredible job.  Beautiful Ordinary is a movie that's like Dazed and Confused. It's an ensemble cast. My younger brother was starring in and they had a part to play like his good friend and they re-wrote the whole thing and asked me to play his older brother.  It's cool. I played like this drug dealer who gets his little brother to sell all these drugs in high school for him and it's sort of just about their relationship and it's a crazy Dazed and Confused movie in a sense where it's like the end of high school and it's like 3 days after that where everybody's just letting loose and partying and saying goodbye to each other and it's cool.  It came out really well, I just saw it and it's cool.  That should be going to a couple of film festivals soon.  Education of Charlie Banks is going to premier at Tribecca in like 2 weeks and that should really cool.  I just saw it and I actually liked it.

Are you going to Tribecca?

Yeah I'm going to be at Tribecca, so I'll be there April 26th that's when I fly in.  It's a really cool movie. I recommend it to be honest and not because I'm in it.  I think it's kind of cool. 

Fanboys is going to be fun?

Fanboys is way fun.  Fanboys is really nutty. It's wacky, man.  They let me and 3 other guys basically like do and say whatever we wanted to.

You're one of the Fanboys?

Yeah, I'm one of the Fanboys.  My character is dying and so they decide to drive him across the country to steal the print of Episode 1 in 1998 before it comes out.  So it's really nice. It's a really great subtext of friendship and they're like me and this guy and he finds out I'm dying and sort of disappeared from my life and now you find out I don't have very much time to live so he sort of comes back into the picture and we rekindle our childhood friendship.

It's coming out soon right?

Yeah, it’s not set in stone but as of now its August 17th.  But they’re going to start doing screenings in the next couple of months.

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