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Jeremy Sisto turning bleakness into a career
(SH) - This is a good time to be the dark and mysterious Jeremy Sisto. For the miniseries 'Caesar' (airing 8 p.m. EDT Sunday and Monday, TNT), he brings his trademark moodiness to the title role, a part normally played as adventurous, heroic and romantic. In 'Wrong Turn', now in theaters, he can be seen as a bewildered traveler who's trying to elude cannibalistic hillbillies in West Virginia. And in HBO's black comedy 'Six Feet Under', he's the gloomy Billy Chenowith, a man who made a pass at his sister, Brenda, last season. 'I have something to offer,' he says of dreary roles, 'if I am allowed to show intimate, personal darker sides of myself. 'There's an old Indian ritual in which they played out darker sides of themselves to sort of purge that from them, to keep it from happening to them in the future. I guess there is something to that with me ... to go through that for the world to see.' It has worked well for the Northern California native. He has appeared in more than 40 movies and TV shows since 1991. If his part didn't call for gloominess, the titles of the projects certainly did: 'The Day Lincoln Was Shot,' 'Suicide Kings,' 'Three Women of Pain' and 'Desperate Choices,' among others. Where does this come from? 'The darkness comes from my desperation, mainly fear,' he says. 'That's what darkness is. It's fear.' But, there is a method to his madness: 'You try to avoid operating daily from that stance. To operate from a fearful place is not good. You'll be tested all your life by walking by dark allies.' He says he drew upon his own dark side to play a convincing Caesar. 'There's a darkness inside of me that I can reach into to play ambition or sadness,' Sisto says. 'There are enough similarities (between he and Caesar) to play the role. 'Although, I have to say, I think there are more dissimilarities between myself and who this guy actually was.' Fear almost kept Sisto from playing Caesar. 'I didn't know if I could do it,' he says. 'He is such a well-known character. But I thought, 'Hey, why not?' So I tried it, and I think it worked out well.' Still, Sisto is taken aback when looking at a TV poster showing him in his Caesar garb - cape, leafy head band and all. 'It's so strange,' he says, with a hint of levity in his tone. Shot more than a year and a half ago, 'Caesar' is a four-hour miniseries that begins with an adult Caesar trying to debunk the Roman system. He's an everyman whose outspokenness leads him up the ranks. Eventually, he rules the known world but at great personal costs. Richard Harris, Christopher Walken and Chris Noth also star. 'I look for something I can relate to in every story,' Sisto says of the roles he's offered. 'I try to find a personal connection in some way so that I can feel like I am putting a part of myself into my career.' |
