Luke Wilson, Giovanni Ribisi, and Gabriel Macht star in “Middle Men,” the story of the birth of the internet porn industry, directed by George Gallo. The film is being released by Paramount on August 6.
| Middle Men | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster
|
Lead Roles
Wilson, whom many know from films such as Old School, Home Fries, Legally Blonde and Idiocracy, plays the lead character, ‘Jack Harris.’ As to his initial reaction to the story, “It always struck me from the start when I read the script that it would be a fun movie to watch. Whether I was fifteen, my age or my dad’s age, this is something kind of different that we haven’t seen before.”
As for the two drug-addicted ‘Middle Men’ whom Luke Wilson’s character gets involved with, the part of ‘Wayne Beering’ landed into the lap of Giovanni Ribisi, while the role of ‘Buck Dolby’ was taken by Gabriel Macht.
Gabriel Macht, who stars in The Spirit, admits, “I knew that this would be a wild ride in creating the character.”
Giovanni Ribisi also had great appreciation for his co-stars and said, “In this movie, Luke is better than I have ever seen him. There is all this chaos going on around him, especially with me and Gabriel, but he’s the calm in the storm – the guy who sort of made sense of it all.”
The sentiment was quite the same as Luke remembers, “They’re both really good actors and it was fun for me. It was like playing sports with someone better than you, which kind of validates your game to work with people that are really good like Giovanni and Gabriel.”
The producers realized they had something very special with this trio and Director/Co-Writer George Gallo agrees having said, “These guys reached for places that are rare. They worked without filters and came up with some brilliant character traits which add to the fabric of the film.”
Supporting the Middle Men
Though the movie focuses primarily on this odd trio of partners in a business that few admit exists, Luke Wilson, Giovanni Ribisi and Gabriel Macht were supported by a great cast of character actors; Jacinda Barrett, Laura Ramsey, Terry Crews, Rade Sherbedgia, with Kevin Pollak and James Caan.
James Caan, whose career spans over three decades including starring in Luke Wilson’s first film Bottle Rocket as well as such classics as The Godfather and Brian’s Song, plays the crooked lawyer, ‘Jerry Haggerty.’ He admits, “This movie is about a bunch of bad people and I play the worst.”
Kevin Pollak, who plays FBI Agent ‘Curt Allmans,’ offers, “I’ve known George Gallo since I appeared in The Whole Ten Yards, so when he gave me this script, which is hilarious in that Midnight Run sort of way, I jumped aboard.”
In addition to the above, cameo appearances were made by Robert Forster as ‘Louie La La,’ a Chicago wise guy who mentors Luke Wilson’s character during his younger days, and Kelsey Grammer as ‘Frank Griffin,’ the District Attorney, who suspects ‘Jack’ of foul play in running his Internet billing business. Jason Antoon, who was last seen in Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, has a larger part as ‘Denny Z,’ a nefarious adult entetainment producer.
