Tidning: New York Times
Kom ut: 14 Augusti, 1998
Av: James Sterngold

The director Frank Darabont had an experience common to many filmgoers this summer when he was watching Steven Spielberg's wrenching World War II drama, "Saving Private Ryan." He found himself mesmerized by the character of Jackson, a Bible-quoting sniper with an angular face and an ambiguous humanism.

Mr. Darabont was so impressed that he quickly offered the actor who plays Jackson, the little-known Barry Pepper, a part in "The Green Mile," a new film he wrote and is directing about a group of guards on Death Row in 1935 and their unusual prisoner. Mr. Darabont, whose last film, "The Shawshank Redemption," won several Oscar nominations, had Mr. Pepper read for the role of the guard Percy, who is a misfit and a loner. But he found that the role did not fit the actor.

"He had an innate sweetness and a real soulful light in his eyes," Mr. Darabont said of Mr. Pepper, who is 28. "It wasn't working. But he was a perfect Dean, who's maybe the most sensitive of the guards. Barry can play anything, but it's much harder to be an interesting good guy than an interesting bad guy."

Actors can quickly become hot after a compelling performance, but usually not this quickly. Mr. Pepper has been acting just a few years, and he has suddenly won a prominent part alongside, for the second time, Tom Hanks, who plays the head guard in "The Green Mile," which is based on a novel by Stephen King. The film is being shot on the Warner Brothers lot here and is expected to be released next summer.

"I didn't want to meet Frank originally on Percy because I knew if he offered it to me I'd have to take it, and I feared being typecast as a sort of evil character," Mr. Pepper said. "It was a difficult choice, but I decided to leave my ego at the door and do what I always do, which is bring a little of my dad to my character. I was so totally flattered that they saw some sensitivity and asked me to do Dean."

Mr. Pepper credits his unusual upbringing and his father's adventurousness for giving him the inner strength that comes through in Jackson and got him the part as Dean. He grew up in Canada, eating largely wild game, like moose, venison and duck. When he was five, his father built a 50-foot sailboat and packed up the family; they sailed for five years throughout the South Pacific. Mr. Pepper was educated partly by his parents and partly at schools where they stopped, in places like Rarotonga and New Zealand.

Mr. Pepper and his family eventually moved to the west coast of Canada, where his parents built a farm. He found his calling in college.

"I don't like to play the victim," he said. "I look for the choices the character makes for himself. Even if you play a villain, you do an injustice to him if he's just, like, programmed to do those things. It's always more complex."