Matthew Fox is best known for his role as Dr. Jack
Shephard in J.J. Abrams award-winning smash-hit series “Lost.” For this role,
he jointly won the 2005 SAG Ensemble Award, as well as being nominated for the
Golden Globe and Emmy for Outstanding Leading Man in a Drama Series. His
other television work includes the popular Golden Globe award-winning series
“Party of Five.” He recently made his theater debut as 'Bobby' in Neil Labute'sIn a Forest, Dark & Deep, for which he
received rave reviews. For film, his credits include Speed Racer, Vantage Point, Smokin' Aces, We are Marshall and the
forthcoming movies Billy Smoke and World War Z starring Brad Pitt. In unstoppable action, and unforeseeable
twists, ‘Alex Cross’, Matthew Fox
plays the baddie role and arch adversary of private investigator Alex Cross
played by Tyler Perry
 |
| Photo courtesy of UIP |
When it came to casting Cross’
adversary, Cohen went against conventional wisdom which would have led him to
who would make the best villain. Cohen’s take on it was that it should be
somebody who could have played the hero, thus accentuating the ambiguity of the
character. “I met Matthew Fox for another
movie and while it didn’t happen for us, I came away with the impression that
he was intense guy and I remembered him.
“I
thought if he could somehow wrap his mind around a villain of this proportion
that he would be amazing and I really think he rose to the occasion of playing
it,” says Cohen.
To elevate the movie to another level,
Cohen believed that it was essential Fox transform himself into something
neither an audience nor the actor himself were familiar with. “Matt
put himself physically and emotionally on to a whole different level,” says
Cohen. “This is a villain unlike anything
anyone has seen.”
Fox lost nearly 35 lbs. for the role
creating a visage that has him looking gaunt, nearly skeletal yet leaving
behind only sinew and muscle on his 6’2” frame.
“Rob
is just a very, very cool director with amazing taste,” says Fox. “He told me and I agreed—months before we started filming—that playing
this part was going to require a big commitment physically. I felt I had to
lose a lot of weight and get shredded down so that on the outside Picasso
looked like someone who would have these disturbing ideas.”
In a way, Patterson and then the
filmmakers have constructed Cross as the most American of icons: a lone sheriff
in the old west who enforces the law and looks for justice where he can find
it.
“He’s
a civilized man who, as the movie goes on, loses his civilization one layer at
a time until he’s down in the depths with Picasso,” notes Cohen.
By contrast Picasso’s twisted sense of
logic has him inflicting pain his victims or even himself, as he believes this
is the only time that a person can be totally free. “He captures the moment with
agonizing Cubist-like sketches because the character becomes more and more
obsessed with the actual moment of death,” says Fox of his role. “In his mind, he’s giving his victims a
moment of truly being alive before they die.
“He’s
very much of an existentialist and the notion of shattering people’s constructs
of right and wrong and the way the world should work, but he’s essentially
chaos personified.”
Perry recalls his one and only
non-acting encounter with Fox: “We met at
the production office and he says, ‘I’m Matthew.’ I say, ‘I’m Tyler and this
will be the only time we’ll be talking until we’re done.’ And he says, ‘yep,
you’re right,’ and we went in separate directions.”
“ALEX
CROSS”
is released and distributed by Solar Entertainment Corporation.
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