Chris Marquette: "Invisible" Best Pal

You knew him as the lovable Adam Rove on the popular TV series "Joan of Arcadia". He's been acting since age 8 and, more recently, was seen in Just Friends, Alpha Dog, American Gun, The Girl Next Door and Freddy vs. Jason. Chris Marquette just has that sweet guy thing down to an art. In the new thriller The Invisible, Marquette plays Pete Egan, a wounded-soul best friend to Justin Chatwin's character. Well, he's a best friend but he wimps out and sells out when the chips are down. We exchanged Q and A with Chris recently on the Disney lot and got the scoop on fun shooting the film, how he approached playing a wimpy character who might be misunderstood and wazzup with his long-awaited Star Wars devotee film Fanboys. Check it out. P.S. We just spoke with Amber Tamblyn and she lovingly calls Chris "Marquesha". Awwww....

TeenHollywood: How did you get connected with this movie?

Chris: I'd worked with Ryan Reynolds who is a really close friend from Blade: Trinity so I'd actually heard a lot about the film from Ryan and he told David [Goyer, the director] a lot about me and my agent was also a very good friend of his. I think we had met once. It was an interesting mix of worlds for a little while. The first six months before this happened, our worlds were combining.

TeenHollywood: What did you like about the story or characters?

Chris: It's about real characters in a very supernatural scenario. That's what attracted me so much to the script is I always liked it that they made these people has human as possible in such a crazy circumstance. You would expect this movie to be some kind of ghost story and I don't think it is really. I think it's really about these people making big decisions and big changes. It's a metaphor for a ton of things. I think these people are just living their lives like a lot of people I've read about in similar situations. They're just trying to keep going and survive.

TeenHollywood: What would you do if you were invisible? Justin's character doesn't choose to look at the girl in the shower although Justin would!

Chris: [laughs] What would I do? Oh man. I would definitely look at everybody in the shower, no, no. I'd have to say I would love to see all the secrets that governments keep. I would love to go into like Area 51 or go into the President's office and look at secret papers. Or the head of the C.I.A.'s office and read things. I'd end up doing that.

TeenHollywood: Cool! There's a danger that your character might come off as unsympathetic because of the decisions that he makes and the consequences but yet you like him. How did you approach that?

Chris: I never saw him as a bad kid. He's not a terrible kid and he actually really loves Nick [Justin's character]. He almost wants to be Nick he has so much admiration for him. He never looked at what he was doing as bad. He's constantly letting himself sink, letting himself get pushed around and mashed down. He just doesn't have the confidence to say to himself 'no!, no!, no!'. He's a guy who is surviving second to second. Every minute is a struggle. People push him and he's got to find a way out whether it's lying or manipulating or blaming somebody else; making it easier on himself by making it harder on somebody else. That's what he does. A lot of people do that. A lot of good people do that.

TeenHollywood: So you can find that humanity in him?

Chris: Yeah. I think that's what it is with this friendship because it's a real friendship. That's the way I always tried to treat it. This was genuinely his best friend. He just made some really bad decisions along the way.

TeenHollywood: You are friends with Justin now. Did you guys hang out off set while shooting?

Chris: No. We weren't friends before but we had known each other before. He worked with one of my closest friends so I had seen him every few months. I saw him at a movie theater one time, at a bar another time. We sort of had a small history but, straight off the bat, he and I really clicked really well and we did spend a lot of time together. It was nice. Both of our birthdays were in the same month, October so both spent our birthdays together up there and it was really cool.

TeenHollywood: We hear that Justin showed you around up in Vancouver?

Chris: Yeah, he did. He was telling me everything about the city. We went on a crazy drive up a mountain one time which we found out was a bike trail but we took like a rental SUV and, all of a sudden, we're halfway up this bike trail and we realize 'we can't go anymore'. We had to back down the mountain for an hour and a half. It was absolutely great. Definitely an adventure.

TeenHollywood: Margarita Levieva is really good in this. She was so tough. What was she like between scenes? Did she stay in character?

Chris: What a great character she built. Yeah, she did but Margarita's a very naturally sweet person, a vulnerable person, someone who has a very tough shell and that shows in meeting her but, at the same time, really sensitive to how people feel. Margarita and I were constantly working with each other and I think she gave me utmost respect and I did her. We really clicked on a certain level that I don't know if I can talk about really. Most of the time we weren't really talking to each other. It was like 'you do your take and I'll give you everything I can and I'll do mine... everything I can' and then go back to the hotel, wake up the next morning and do it again. That was it. There were no dinners or anything.

TeenHollywood: Well, she was always yelling in your face.

Chris: Exactly. At a certain point, it's an interesting line you cross with people when you have to pretend to hate somebody. There's something that resonates in yourself. It's kind of uncontrollable but, with her and I, it was nice because toward the very end of the movie, we could feel relaxed and comfortable enough with our characters and what we were doing that we could really open up and get to know each other and we did. It was nice to share all that beforehand and then end it on such a positive note.

TeenHollywood: Was this a difficult shoot for you?

Chris: Yeah, for me it was. I don't like to be pushed around at all. Without trying to sound like any kind of badass or anything. But it was really difficult to shed things and leave yourself so open constantly, to have to be such a wuss. After a while, you give so many people power in your life and give them so much room to say and do whatever they want, that becomes a big part of your life. I remember too that, after a while, it was really difficult to communicate with people I was close with at a certain point. It was really difficult to let people in too. I felt like I was hiding all of these secrets.

TeenHollywood: Sounds like it took an emotional toll. Did you get hurt physically at all?

Chris: Yeah. I got bumped up a bit. Margarita was in the gym every day. She was running like a madwoman. That girl has so much energy, it's amazing and I was eating donuts off to the side. She definitely thrashed me around. We had a scene that they cut out where she had put a gun to my chest and they sort of cut around the gun because it was too violent but there was like a big huge mark on my chest for about three weeks because it was the butt of this gun constantly being jabbed in the same place. I had totally forgotten about it until I watched it 'oh, yeah. I forgot how painful that was'.

TeenHollywood: This is all very different from "Joan of Arcadia". Would you ever go back and do another TV show?

Chris: I'd never say never but, as of now, no. I did this show called "Huff" afterwards, a few episodes of that which was a cool character and there's always something nice when they come and offer something so if there was ever a part that I felt I had something to offer to them and I got the opportunity to do it, then yeah, more than likely.

TeenHollywood: The "Joan" fans wrote a lot of letters to keep it on the air.

Chris: They definitely did. To this day I still meet people and get to talk to people. That show did something I didn't realize it could. It was really nice, yeah.

TeenHollywood: What is up with that film Fanboys? Is it ever going to come out?

Chris: Fanboys will be out I think, as of now, August 17th. They are going to start doing screenings soon. It's cool. It's a wacky comedy with a nice undertone of friendship. It's like a road trip movie. It was me and they hired three other guys who are just insanely talented and funny so they just let us do sort of a free for all improv in a way.

TeenHollywood: Why was it delayed so long?

Chris: I think it was just the timing and also they showed it to so many people involved in Star Wars that we've gone back several times with additional scenes. Like Kevin Smith had seen it and he came in and was like 'oh, man. I love it'. So they let him write and direct one of his own scenes in it. They added that in and George Lucas saw it and loved it and gave us all of the sound effects from the original Star Wars movie so they went back in and re-put in all these sound effects and some cool special effects. It's like everybody that's seen it and loved it has attached themselves in a way to make the movie better so that's what they've been constantly doing. It's a great thing that's been on hold.

TeenHollywood: Hey, what is that interesting silver pendant you are wearing?

Chris: [picking up the pendant around his neck] Oh, it's an old 18th Century family crest, not my family, but there's a little lion and an antelope and the lion's for hope and courage and the antelope is for stability.

TeenHollywood: Hey, three qualities you really need in Hollywood!

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.