Steve Zahn, Ray of ‘Sunshine’

Steve Zahn has mastered the role of the token funny guy, the goofball, the loyal sidekick. Think back to: Reality Bites, Saving Silverman, Happy, Texas, Forces of Nature, That Thing You Do, or Strange Wilderness. He’s gone down the physically challenging route (Rescue Dawn) and worked with legends (Tom Hanks and John Malkovich in The Great Buck Howard). The classically-trained and Harvard-educated busy working actor stars in Sunshine Cleaning -- due for nationwide release on March 27 -- with up-and-coming Hollywood sensation, Amy Adams. The film plays like this: Adams and costar Emily Blunt play sisters with conflicting priorities, both lacking a solid sense of meaning in life. They decide, through the encouragement of Zahn (who plays a police officer as well as Adams’s high school love/current adulterer), to start a crime-scene cleanup and biohazard disposal company, which fills them with pride, and leads to a number of quandaries -- some comical, some heart-wrenching. From the producers of Little Miss Sunshine and encompassing the same type of family chutzpah, Zahn lights up the screen.

What was it that attracted you the script for Sunshine Cleaning?
Initially I thought I was a really good script, and it was really well-written and those are few and far between. You just read something and it’s beautiful and done right, and you hear who’s in it and you think oh man, this has potential. Just the cast alone was enough. We shot this even before Amy really took off. This was over two years ago. So it was just as she had finished Enchanted . I’ve worked with Emily Blunt prior to this in The Great Buck Howard and thought she was amazing. And Alan Arkin—enough said there. An icon. It’s a crapshoot, all movies are. Even with a great cast and a great script it can still be a bad movie. But you know that was enough and I told [the casting agent] that I’d play either guy part. I just wanted to be in it.

It’s an emotive film.
It was just so simple, it’s hard to explain because of the simplicity. There is a need for love and a need for comfort and warmth and at the same time a need to take responsibility for someone else’s warmth and comfort and love—whether it be your friend or your dad or your sister or your lover or your kid. And ironically, I think it fell into a perfect time too, as far as how things are with the economy and how people are struggling now. It really fits.

Was it difficult to keep your character Mac’s reserved demeanor with Amy Adams—who seems so giddy?
I just thought, the role is very clear. She wants so much more and even if he wants to give that he just can’t because of his situation. Seeing how he’s a married guy with kids. It’s about that one hour of comfort and that’s all. On paper, it’s easy. But, then you get on set and you go, ‘Wait a second, she’s a smart girl. There has to be something here. It can’t be just facts. They have to love each other.’ So they changed the dynamic a little bit for the better. Why would she still be with him? He’s an idiot. So it evolves.

In the scene where Mac visits Rose’s house, Mac and Rose share this beautiful moment where she finally stands up for herself. When you read that in the script were you cheering for Rose?
For her, yea. I think because in that scene Mac can play it as, ‘Well what the fuck. It’s over? That’s it?’ He could have been a prick, and yet it really didn’t happen that way on the day, which I thought was very interesting. He’s sad, he knows that he’s fucked up and that he blew it. He should have been with her. And that’s sad.

How long were you on the set filming?
Probably five days, but the entire shoot was probably 20 some days. In these little movies you just work your asses off, and there’s something great about that because it doesn’t give you a lot of time to think too much. But the hard part is that you work too fast.

Do you prefer being in film or being on stage?
I feel a little guilty about this but I haven’t been on the stage in quite a long time, and only because of logistical reasons: where I live and how my life is now. It’s difficult for me to do a play. I found that I have such fond memories of theatre, and I’ll go back eventually when my kids are older. Obviously, I love film and I think of it as doing a little play everyday. You still have an audience when you have a scene in film. The other day, we were filming and I was walking across the street and people were watching and going, “How boring this is.” And that’s when they say (in redneck twang) “I can do this shit. That guy’s walking across the street and making millions of dollars, how hard is it?” Yea millions. That’s what we all make, millions on every movie. I just rake in the cash. I mean, that is a fucking misconception. You go do one movie and you get paid like payday, and then you do five after that for free. Basically for free.

Do you have a stomach strong enough to do biohazard removal?
I do have a strong stomach. I grew up and lived on a farm, and I deal with dead animals and all that. But I don’t know. I don’t think you can answer that until you’re actually doing it. But I think I could probably do it. If I was a betting man, I’d put millions on it.

I’d say biohazard removal would be on my list of worst jobs. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
I’ve had a bunch. Landscaping, corn detasseling, working at the machine shop. Those are all tough jobs. I did a lot of that stuff growing up. And Hardee’s. that was gross. Working the grill at Hardee’s. Fries and burgers.

What are you working on to hit the million mark now?
I have Management coming out in May. We shot that a year and a half ago. That’s the trend now. It’s crazy how long it takes. But right now I’m in New Orleans and I’m working on a pilot for HBO, called Treme. It’s a neighborhood outside the quarter here, and the series is with David Simon who created The Wire. It’s really a great script about the rebuilding of New Orleans after Katrina through the eyes of these jazz musicians. It focuses on the culture here and why New Orleans matters.

What are your thoughts on the Big Easy?
It’s great. I really love it down here. There’s no city like it. And I’m talking about beyond Bourbon Street. Second line and the brass bands and the people—that becomes a culture. [Treme] is so much about that. It’s not all about the buildings, although the buildings are beautiful. It’s about the people here. It’s a great thing about acting—you get to see things that people live who have lived there their whole lives have never see. You get invited into their world and you’re like, ‘Man, this exists? Wow.’

After you shot your most physically grueling film, Rescue Dawn, did you take time off to recover?
No, I actually went right into this fucking, crazy, wacky, comedy, Strange Wilderness. I went from the POW to this insane Jonah Hill, pot smoker movie. I loved it. It was insane. But I don’t really take breaks because breaks kind of happen on their own. Being on breaks suck.