M&C Interview: Adam Scott talks ‘August’

Movies Features

By Ben Rhudy Jul 11, 2008, 11:56 GMT

“August”, the latest film by director Austin Chick, tells the tale of two New York City brothers who are struggling to keep their sinking Internet company Landshark from sleeping with the fishes.

The film is another take on the “dot.com boom” and burst of the late nineties when publicly traded technology startups rose and plummeted in value within a matter of months.Joshua Sterling, played by Adam Scott, attempts to be the center of logic in the duo, while Tom (Josh Hartnett) blows his newfound wealth on sports cars Scott is currently shooting the comedy “Step Brothers”, co-starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly for director Adam McKay and producer Judd Apatow. The film focuses on three spoiled guys who become stepbrothers after their single parents get hitched. Adam Scott in August

Adam Scott in "August"

In addition, Scott stars in the highly anticipated HBO series “Tell Me You Love Me” which features an ensemble cast and premieres in September. Scott also recently appeared in the blockbuster comedy “Knocked Up”, directed by Judd Apatow. He will soon be seen in “The Great Buck Howard” opposite John Malkovich. This previous year, Scott appeared in the dramatic thriller “First Snow”, directed by Marc Fergus and co-starred Guy Pearce, the dark comedy “Corporate Affairs” for director Dan Cohen, and the romantic comedy “Who Love the Son” starring with Lukas Haas and Molly Parker for director Matthew Bissonette. Scott took a few minutes to talk to M&C about playing the role of Joshua Sterling in “August”. M&C: Tell me a little bit about the character of Joshua. Scott: He’s the brother of an entrepreneur…well, he’s an entrepreneur who started an Internet company with his brother. His brother (Tom) is a bit of a rock star character, as there were many in the late nineties and early odds, when these companies were really taking off. There were these guys who were just real characters; flagrant some would say. So Joshua is more of a straight-and-narrow kind of guy who is just trying to keep the business afloat while his brother is being a little too ambitious.M&C: He seems to be a more traditional techy sort of guy…sort of an old-school tech guy.Scott: Yeah. He’s more of the brains behind the operation, trusting his brother to take care of everything on the public relations side, and it’s getting away from him a bit. M&C: What are his motivations for co-founding the company?Scott: It’s basically just taking an idea that they thought was revolutionary and then realizing that now is the time to happen. I mean, people were giving out money. [Public companies] were giving out money like there was no tomorrow and they had an idea, and they went for it and it worked for a while.M&C: What sorts of research did you do for the part?Scott: My wife was working in the dot.com industry at the time and my brother as well, so I kind of had some idea of how these companies worked. And characters like Tom Sterling…guys who were just a little careless. They thought that the world was going to be behind them forever, when it really wasn’t. It’s interesting, really. Sort of Gatsby-esque. As far as research goes, I already had an idea about the kind of character Joshua would be. There are some great documentaries to watch about the era…”Startup.com” and there’s another one about a company who tried to join up with Starbucks to offer movies. There’s a lot of material out there about these companies who had hundreds of millions of dollars and aren’t around anymore. It’s not a subject that is explored very often.

Josh Hartnett, Adam Scott, Austin Chick. Photo date: 9 July 2008 Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris - © WireImage.com

M&C: Do you think Rodman penned the film as a warning?Scott: I think it’s a great template for a relationship story between these brothers. As far as a warning goes, I’d say yeah, maybe. The industry has started to find its footing and people are being a lot more cautious. Businesses like Facebook and MySpace have a firm foundation because of the companies who came before, like Landshark, which bit the dust.M&C: You’ve done a lot of supporting roles. Was it challenging playing a character who is a bit more in the center of the storm?Scott: I guess so. I think Josh Hartnett is really in the center of things. I still have the luxury of being on the sidelines a bit since he’s carrying the movie on his shoulders. But it was nice to get a really nice, meaty part for once.M&C: Did you and Hartnett hit it off immediately? Did you have to build camaraderie?Scott: Things went really well from the first time I went in to audition with him and we seemed to work very well together.M&C: What really drew you to this movie?Scott: I think it’s a really great idea of having this relationship between two brothers, and it’s an interesting piece of history as well. You really don’t get to delve into that very often.M&C: What was your first impression of the script? What style of writing does Rodman employ?Scott: It’s a very realistic script. You get this very detailed picture of the relationship between these guys and Tom’s relationships with all of the characters in the movie without it being overly occupied with exposition. You get a sense of his past with these characters without it being spelled out for you.

David Bowie, Josh Hartnett in August. Photo date: 27 May 2008

M&C: What types of roles are you really interested in these days?Scott: I really just take it role by role, and I don’t really have a specific idea of what I want to play. I just read stuff and figure out what I might enjoy doing. If they’re interested in me and things line up…you just hope it all lines up. M&C: What projects do you have in the works?Scott: “Step Brothers” is coming out July 25. I’m starting the second season of “Tell Me You Love Me” in August. I’ve got three movies that are in the can that will hopefully be hitting the festivals later this year. I’ve been keeping busy.“August” opens in limited release today, Friday, July 11th. Visit the movie database for more information.