Drum Come True

Rainn Wilson on hitting it big in The Rocker — and in his own life.

by Sam Adams

BEAT AROUND THE BUSH: "It's not a movie where somebody can be rubbing their vagina against somebody's leg." (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

The story of The Rocker — middle-aged ex-drummer gets a second shot at glory with a teenage band — may be the kind of thing that happens only in the movies, but it's not so far from Rainn Wilson's life. Wilson, of course, is famous for his role as The Office's psychopathic but oddly charismatic Dwight Schrute, but the 42-year-old actor spent a long time waiting for his big break.

Wilson and his Rocker character, Robert "Fish" Fishman, differ in important respects, namely that Fish, who was booted from his first band and has been ruing the slight for the last 20 years, had one big chance and missed it, where Wilson's rise was, as he puts it, "more of a long slow rise up the Amway pyramid of Hollywood." What he does share with Fish, Wilson says on the phone from Boston, is that "I know what it's like to suddenly be famous at 40.

With his towering frame and Frankenstein forehead, Wilson is hardly a cookie-cutter leading man. "I like to play outsiders," he says, "and misfits and geeks and weirdos. I don't know how to play popular, well-adjusted people. That's my tribe."

Although The Office thrives on discomfort, one of the things that attracted Wilson to The Rocker was its uncharacteristic sentimentality. "It's sort of sweet and curiously old-fashioned, almost John Hughes-ish," he says. "It's somewhere in between Uncle Buck and Say Anything, which I think are really fun, great movies."

Wilson, a practitioner of the Bahá'í faith, whose SoulPancake.com aims to "de-lamify" spiritual discussion, was also attracted by the family-friendly script. "It's not a movie where somebody can be rubbing their vagina against somebody's leg," he says. "That's just not right."

It's not that Wilson is opposed to the recent wave of R-rated comedies: He's currently writing a script for one, called Bonzai Shadowhands, with Juno's Jason Reitman, and he loved Knocked Up. But he disdains movies that have nothing more to offer than "v-words and f-bombs." "For me, it's just about smart projects," he says. "You can be smart and dirty, or smart and family-friendly, and both are good."

(s_adams@citypaper.net)

The Rocker is now playing at area theaters. See review on adjacent page.