Alex Wolff Talks ‘The Line,’ Touring With Billie Eilish and Working With Christopher Nolan: “It Spoils You”
Patience has paid off for Alex Wolff and his nearly decade-long commitment to Ethan Berger’s The Line.
The fraternity-set drama follows Wolff’s Tom “Sunshine” Backster, as he enjoys the short-term and potential long-term benefits of his affiliation with the (fictional) frat, Kappa Nu Alpha. The honeymoon phase then takes a dark turn when his best friend and roommate, Mitch Mitchell (Bo Mitchell), goes to extreme lengths to haze the new class of pledges, particularly Austin Abrams’ Gettys O’Brien. Moreover, Tom’s new relationship with Halle Bailey’s Annabelle Bascom also opens his eyes to the toxic culture he’s fostering. The film ultimately shines a light on the destructive practice of organizational hazing that has led to far too many real-life tragedies.
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Wolff has been fortunate to make a living as a performer since he was 6, so he opted to forego a traditional college experience. However, as is customary for him, he went above and beyond during prep by spending a week at a South Carolina-based frat.
“You feel like you have an authority. You also feel like it’s a place where you could maybe inflict some of your personal pain on someone else and be encouraged to do so. That behavior is the bottom of humanity,” Wolff tells The Hollywood Reporter of The Line, now playing in select theaters. “So I experienced a big complicated wave of emotions. There was the excitement of college and the excitement of being included in this way, but there was also real dread and disgust at the whole tradition of fraternities and hazing in general.”
Wolff and his older brother Nat Wolff have been playing music together since they made their on-screen debuts in The Naked Brothers Band: The Movie, a musical comedy that their mother, Polly Draper, helmed. They now release music eponymously as Nat & Alex Wolff, and during an Oscar party earlier this year, Alex met decorated pop star Billie Eilish. He was present on behalf of Christopher Nolan’s best picture winner, Oppenheimer, while she was there in support of her Oscar-winning song, “What Was I Made For?” in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. That introduction has since led to a musical collaboration and tour.
As for Oppenheimer, Wolff had a memorable sequence in which his physicist character, Luis Walter Alvarez, caught J. Robert Oppenheimer’s (Cillian Murphy) attention when he abruptly exited a barbershop and ran at full sprint to alert “Oppie” and co. that the Germans had split the atom. Wolff may have had a short stint on Nolan’s set, but it was as impactful as any job he’s had so far.
“It doesn’t matter if you have one line or you’re there every day, Chris Nolan is one of those people who makes you feel like it’s the most important thing you’ve ever done. More than any other director I’ve worked with, he just makes you feel like you’re valued,” Wolff shares. “The only problem is that it spoils you. You then compare everybody else to this true maestro, this almost God-like figure of a director. But getting to watch and learn from him was pretty profound for me as an actor and as an aspiring director.”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Wolff also discusses his memories of working alongside his late The Line co-star Angus Cloud.
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First off, thanks for taking a break from hanging out with global pop sensations to be here today.
(Laughs)
For the uninitiated, you and your brother Nat are on tour with Billie Eilish right now. Was she a fan of your music back in the day? Is that how this tour and collaboration started?
Well, I’m not really sure. Hopefully. We just met and hit it off [at an Oscars party], and then there was a weekend at Coachella where we played songs back and forth. There was this musical spark that went off, and it was just an immediate connection. And then Nat [Wolff] played her his new song “Soft Kissing Hour,” and she just said, “Oh, I want to produce that song.” So we got really lucky that she produced it and sang on it, and it’s one of our favorites that we’ve made. So it’s been a great privilege to get to have her as a friend and to get to play music with her. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We really believe she’s the voice of her generation.
Nailing a live performance as a musician versus nailing a difficult scene as an actor, which one gives you the greater high?
It depends on what the scene is, and what I’ve had to eat and what the night before was like. I’ve had some serious fulfillment on both sides and disappointment on both sides. But I’d say that a live performance as a musician is the more immediate gratification, for sure. It’s more similar to doing a play.
You have the crowd energy.
Yeah, it’s completely about the crowd. It’s completely about the thing that’s happening right then and there, versus providing the DNA for what will later be molded into a scene. I love that, too, but it’s just a different sensation. So being on this tour has been pretty special and doing movies is pretty special. People, since I was young, have wanted to get a straight answer out of me, but they’re both so molded together in my mind. I’ve run this Ethan Hawke quote into the ground, but I heard him say that it’s like fingers on a fist. Music is one finger, acting is one finger, writing is one finger, directing is one finger. They’re all part of the same creative fist, and that’s how I look at it. It’s all part of the same mechanism of expression. But I get really excited about whatever one I’m doing. And I try to do each one 100 percent, which is definitely tiring and difficult.
What compelled you to tackle frat life and college hazing in Ethan Berger’s The Line?
Initially, it was the script, and then I fell in love with Ethan’s vision for it. He wanted to make a movie that showed how it happened, not just what happened; but the how. I found that very captivating in a way that wasn’t exploitive. It was really carefully and tastefully woven, and I felt like I had won some great prize in getting to find the script. It was kind of an underground script, and I think people didn’t really understand what the movie was. I understood that it was a movie about relationships, and it builds to the worst travesty that you could imagine for a young man. So I just found that to be really fascinating and moving and prevalent.
I later did a lot of research about Timothy Piazza and other kids who’ve lost their lives in this very antiquated, disgusting tradition of hazing. There’s an overall problem about fraternity traditions in general and how these young susceptible, insecure men protect the secrecy and “sanctity” of tradition when that tradition doesn’t protect them or their lives. So I found that to be really powerful and deeply unsettling.
I think The Line was supposed to film much sooner than it did, but did you end up shooting it in early 2022 right before Oppenheimer?
Yeah, I think that’s exactly when I filmed it. It’s kind of a blur because I’ve been with this movie for the better part of a decade, but that sounds right. I trust you more than me. (Laugh.)
You didn’t have a traditional college experience, so did part of you want to briefly experience the positive aspects of that life before the hazing story ramped up?
That’s a really interesting question, and I’m not sure that ever occurred to me. It did become clear halfway through the movie that it was a college-like experience, as I was causing trouble with a bunch of people my age in Oklahoma. But I had already lived with a South Carolina-based fraternity for a week to prepare for the movie, and I immediately felt a smorgasbord of emotions. I thought, “Wow, it does feel really good to be this independent. It does feel exciting to be included in this way, not just at a college, but in this fraternity.” So I understand why young men join, especially if you’re insecure and looking for identity. You’re surrounded by identities, and you can take little pieces of all the men that surround you. You also feel powerful. You feel like you have an authority. You feel like it’s a place where you could maybe inflict some of your personal pain on someone else and be encouraged to do so. That behavior is the bottom of humanity. So I experienced a big complicated wave of emotions.
I fell out of my chair when I heard the accent that you were doing as Tom, and his mom (Cheri Oteri) even calls him out on it by referring to it as a “faux Forrest Gump accent.” Was it really just something he was putting on?
It’s hard to say. I know people who are Southern, and after they go home for Thanksgiving, they return with a twang and use certain phrases that I’ve never heard them say. Then they’re with their college buddies from New York, and suddenly, their accent is completely gone. But the movie is not about the character of Tom faking an accent and then coming into his own; it’s about someone who is really insecure about his identity in general. So he found an identity, and he gets convinced that it is his identity. Putting that accent on makes him feel more at home than when he’s at home. That’s something that a lot of young people, especially young men, can relate to. It’s this feeling of aimlessness, and knowing that humans are pack animals, it feels so much better to be like the people around you than to not. It’s very painful to feel alienated, especially at that age. A fraternity is catnip for someone like that because they’re basically saying, “Hey, here’s an identity, kid. Here’s something that you can do that’s larger than yourself. This is power. This is wealth. This gives you women and all the things you’ve dreamed of. All you have to do is sacrifice your innate moral compass.”
Sadly, The Line is the final work we’ll see from Angus Cloud, who died the summer of 2023. What’s your lasting memory of him from this experience?
He is the actor that I try to take from the most, because I was shaken to my core while acting with him. Angus was the most in-the-moment and pure actor I’ve ever worked with. There wasn’t a second of phoniness, and in every scene with him, I am better than I’ve ever been with anyone else. I said that immediately after the movie, and so I worshiped him as an actor and a performer. Since I saw him on Euphoria, I thought he was like Marlon Brando or something. He was a shining star, and I was taken aback by how graceful and giving and warm and sweet and hilarious he was in real life. I really considered him one of my best friends after only a few weeks of knowing him. We got very close, and every day I spent with him, I felt like I learned something about myself. So I felt so privileged to be in the same room as him.
While we were making the movie, we started writing down quotes of his because he would either say the funniest thing we’ve ever heard, or he’d say something really profound and deep that we’d always felt but never said. So we still have this long list of all the amazing things he used to say and do. I can’t say enough positive things about Angus. I just loved him. I loved him from the second I met him, and he is one of the greatest people who’s ever lived.
You played Leonard Cohen in the series So Long, Marianne, which tells the story behind the song. And similar to The Line, you completely changed your voice for the role. Was that a level of pressure you’ve never felt before in a role?
Definitely. When I played the Boston Bomber [in Patriots Day], that level of pressure was me constantly questioning if I should even be doing it, morally. But with So Long, Marianne, I just didn’t want to let people down. From the second I got the part to today, I still feel nervous about it. So, yes, it’s by far the most pressure I’ve ever felt by a billion times.
What’s your takeaway from your experience on Oppenheimer?
It doesn’t matter if you have one line or you’re there every day, Chris Nolan is one of those people who makes you feel like it’s the most important thing you’ve ever done. If you mess up or you fail, he’s the first one who’s going to catch you. More than any other director I’ve worked with, he just makes you feel like you’re valued. Taking a risk or being present is valued, and he makes you feel that it’s worth something and that you’re making his movie better, even if you’re a small part. So that is a lesson that I will take with me for the rest of my life, and the only problem is that it spoils you. You then compare everybody else to this true maestro, this almost God-like figure of a director. But getting to watch and learn from him was pretty profound for me as an actor and as an aspiring director.
A Quiet Place: Day One definitely felt like the work of Pig director Michael Sarnoski, and I thought you were quite moving in your role. What New York City meal would you risk life and limb for à la Lupita Nyong’o’s character and pizza?
(Laughs) I wouldn’t risk my life for any meal. It’s insane that she wanted to do that, but I would risk my life to hang with Michael Sarnoski and Lupita Nyong’o. I would risk my life for that. So I definitely wouldn’t risk my life for a meal, but if hanging with those two cost me my life, then it would probably be worth it.
I’m talking to your Jumanji director Jake Kasdan soon, and because Jumanji: The Next Level brought the game back into the real world à la 1995’s Jumanji, I’m going to bring up your proposed title of Jumanji: Full Circle for Jumanji 4. I refuse to let that idea go.
You’ve got to tell him! You’ve got to say, “I spoke to Alex Wolff, and he has this idea.” [Writer’s Note: Kasdan responded very well to it.]
Lastly, is If She Burns, your second film as writer-director, still alive?
Yeah, I’m finally making my next film at the start of next year, with the amazing Victoria Pedretti and Justice Smith and Asa Butterfield. The Hollywood Reporter did an amazing article about it, and we’ve gone through ups and downs in the way that every independent film does. But I’m lucky that it seems to be moving, and I’m crossing my fingers that we really do make it this time.
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The Line is currently playing in select theaters.
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