Steve Zahn: On Surviving Rescue Dawn

He's our favorite funny sidekick guy. Cute, blue-eyed actor Steve Zahn has played lovable losers in That Thing You Do, Daddy Day Care, Sahara etc. and we always end up rooting for him. Steve is raising a young family on a farm back in Kentucky and only comes to Hollywood to act and publicize his films. Back home, he's soccer-dad and hay bailer. Right now, in several markets, you can catch a very different Steve in a knock-out performance as down and out real-life Vietnam war POW Duane Martin in the harrowing and very-well-executed escape film Rescue Dawn co-starring Christian Bale.

Steve had to lose 40 pounds for the role, driving his family a little nuts. Meeting with us in Beverly Hills, he had on a blue shirt that matched his eyes and made us crack up several times throughout the interview with tales of his and Christian's antics on set and the harrowing filming conditions as well as news on his upcoming roles in the big TV Western "Comanche Moon" in which he plays the young version of Robert Duvall's role in the classic "Lonesome Dove" and more new projects.

Get ready for a warm and funny chat with this sweet, one-of-a-kind actor.

Steve: [on sitting down with us] I like this stuff [doing press days]. I do, I swear to God. It's interesting. I live on a farm so it's like therapy. I don't get to talk to anybody but my horses. My horses agree with everything I say.

TeenHollywood: Well, we're glad you made the trip out to talk with us! So, you are really skinny in Rescue Dawn. How did you lose the 40 pounds?

Steve: I was like, 'I'm going to do a raw diet' and then I was running. Sometimes twice a day, but at least five miles a day. But, after two weeks, I was just out of my mind with the raw thing. And I remember sitting there by myself in the kitchen, like having an argument with the air. 'Wait, if I heat up the vegetables, I'm going to get fat? I'm going to eat salmon! How about that? I'm going to eat some salmon!' And I totally gave in. I had salmon every night, and then I was cool with that. And then the only cheat I would do is like I'd have a bourbon every other night, or whatever. But I lost a lot of weight. It was crazy.

TeenHollywood: Did you and Christian trade weight loss secrets? He's always losing and gaining for various roles.

Steve: Yeah. [laughs] Christian, he was like, 'I'm going to just smoke a cigarette.' He was just starving himself. There was no craft service on set so we told one of the dudes 'Hey, can we have some bananas? Come on, man, they grow here wild!' We had to ask all day, and it was like, 'Did you get bananas yet? He's like, 'No'. He brought the bananas finally in a bunch, and we wouldn't let anybody touch our bananas. They're so good. Awesome. It was just fuel, basically. There wasn't any extra food, it was just fuel to get through.

TeenHollywood: What attracted you to this role? I mean you knew you'd be suffering, shooting out in the jungle.

Steve: Yeah. I was extremely passionate about it. I found that story so moving. And I was like, 'I'd love to be a part of that.' And I knew I wouldn't be on some producer's list for [playing] a POW in Vietnam but [director] Werner Herzog met me and he made me a steak at his house and we talked, and we looked at maps and finally he said 'I think you should be Duane'. And I said, 'Whatever you say'. It's hard to express to someone your passion for a subject matter, but I really have a lot of passion for it. I am a nonfiction reader. I love military history, history in general, European history. And so I was very excited.

TeenHollywood: What did he tell you about the real Duane?

Steve: He didn't know very much. I found a couple of the guys who survived the crash that he was in. He flew in a helicopter, which was a rescue and recovery. And the other guys survived and weren't captured and he was. It was just basically, 'Well, he's a guy from Denver, he's a good guy.' That's another thing that I loved about the story. He and [fellow prisoner] Dieter needed each other's companionship and warmth. This isn't a war picture. It turns into a story about nature and about the will to make it another ten feet because your body is dead, literally dead. And what we tried to act toward the end was they just couldn't even walk, you know. They were so delirious.

TeenHollywood: How do you mentally prepare yourself for playing this kind of role?

Steve: I don't know. I just had so much compassion for him and being with someone as remarkable as Christian Bale, who's such an amazing actor, it makes it easy. It makes it fun. It's not really easy but it makes the job just a blast and fun. It's not work, you know?

TeenHollywood: Any injuries? The conditions looked horrible.

Steve: We were just banged up and we weren't sitting in trailers. When it rained, it downpoured, we just sat where we sat. We were literally on rice paddy dikes, and we were just laying back. Our feet were over the edges in the mud. These people were in there working their rice while we were shooting this movie and they couldn't care less. It was nice and just different.

TeenHollywood: The film is so serious so did you cope by joking a lot on set?

Steve: Oh, we were. Christian is one of the funniest guys I've ever worked with. We would just laugh. You know, when you're just tired and you're just punchy, we were in that kind of weird state. Werner would go, 'All right. Here's what I want you to do.' And he'd go into the jungle, and he would walk, a very funny walk and we were laughing so hard! He didn't know what we were laughing at. Christian would start walking like that. There was one time that we just broke up laughing.

TeenHollywood: You've got such a great sense of humor. Did you ever tease Christian about being Batman?

Steve: Oh yeah, constantly, sure. Yeah, we gave each other a lot of crap.

TeenHollywood: Where would you sleep? Were there tents outside?

Steve: No. In Chiang Mai we had a hotel there. Some of them were surprisingly great and some of them weren't very good at all. It was Thailand right after the tsunami, you know. We had this orange dirt on our feet from shooting and the hotel was getting so pissed because everybody was coming home and tracking this in. It would get on the towels and they said 'we're gonna charge you for the towels because we can't get the orange dirt off'. So, there was a station when we got out of our vans where you had to do this scrub down outside the front of this beautiful hotel.

TeenHollywood: I was noticing in the credits for Rescue Dawn, that you're the only one of the actors who had an assistant. What did the guy do for you way out in the jungle?

Steve: We go back to the hotel at night and get a couple of beers and just play 2001 NHL Hockey. That's why I have an assistant. 'Hook it up to the TV. Make it happen'. Nate's been my assistant for a long time and I love him to death and he's wonderful. It's hard running the farm and the family and all that and so it's helpful to me. Whether somebody else has one or not, I don't care. I don't think of it as a luxury. I get so homesick so it's nice to have this person that has become my buddy there to hang out with. Otherwise, I'd go out of my mind.

TeenHollywood: That Thing You Do came out recently on DVD. You are in a separate part of the extras and you have a mustache.

Steve: I was doing "Comanche Moon" in New Mexico and they were like 'we will fly you down.' I told them 'I have one day off. We're doing a six hour mini-series and we're doing like six scenes a day and Gus McCrae [his character] talks through every scene, constantly. I can't do it'. I couldn't get out of there so they came up and we did my extras up there.

TeenHollywood: Do you hear the song from that movie now and cringe?

Steve: I don't mind it but my kids actually dance to it. I'm like 'that's me!' but I love going to see music in bars and stuff and they're like 'come on up. We're gonna play it'. You understand, I can't remember. I couldn't play one note from that.

TeenHollywood: Speaking of "Comanche Moon" and playing Robert Duvall younger, did you watch his performance in "Lonesome Dove" over and over?

Steve: Oh sure. I really respect it. I've seen that so many times. So it was hard for me. It's such an honor but it scares the hell out of me. I don't want to mimic him. I don't want to do a caricature of Robert Duvall but, at the same time, people are expecting certain things. So, I did mimic him to a certain extent but it's 20 years younger and it's different and I'm really happy with it. Karl Urban played Call and he's wonderful. He does the same thing. We really dealt with it very delicately and I'm really proud of it.

TeenHollywood: You live on a farm in Kentucky. Why live there and not here in Hollywood?

Steve: I like to fish. I like it dark at night. I don't dislike it here. I love comin' here and doin' this but that's my speed and I've always been happy. I might have a different career if I lived here but I keep workin'. It works.

TeenHollywood: Besides "Comanche Moon" what is next for you?

Steve: I did Strange Wilderness. I was in a hotel room in Hanoi reading this comedy and laughing so hard and trying to figure out 'is it funny 'cause I'm in Hanoi in my underwear [laughter] or is it funny?' I was like 'I have to do this. I'm laughing so hard'. It comes out in September. Then I did Sunshine Cleaning with Alan Arkin and Emily Blunt and Amy Adams and we just finished that. I play a detective and I'm having an affair with Amy Adams. I get her and her sister, Emily in on cleaning up after murders and suicides and that's kind of the backdrop for this strange family movie. Very interesting, very funny.

TeenHollywood: Have you been home with the family at all?

Steve: It sounds like I'm so busy but I have been making waffles for my kids, which I do when I'm at home for nine or ten months now. I've been like bus driver, field trips and bringin' in cookies for snacks? I'm there. I'm the dude. I'm at gymnastics with all the moms and they're like [southern accent] 'do you think Tyler should play football this year and play full pads? I think that's ridiculous!' I'm like 'f**k, I don't know'.

TeenHollywood: Sounds like you are ready for a re-make of Mr. Mom.

Steve: Oh, totally. I'm so ready to work that it's unbelievable. Ahhhhh! It's like 'is there anything out there? I'll do s**t, something just bad!

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