You might know Tim Blake Nelson from his role as Delmar in the Coen Brothers’ modern classic “O Brother Where Art Thou” or any of his other many credits as a character actor.
Last year he published his debut novel “City of Blows,” and he’s now celebrating the release of his latest film, “Bang Bang,” in which he portrays an embittered retired fighter on a search for purpose.
Tim Blake Nelson is about to accept the Flannery O’Connor Award for Storytelling at this year’s Rome International Film Festival, coming up from Oct. 31 through Nov. 3 in Rome, Georgia, and he joined Lois Reitzes on “City Lights” to discuss this honor and his latest work.
The actor’s work in “Bang Bang” pushed him into new territory with his character acting, explained Nelson, “[I’ve] certainly never been in a boxing ring. So for me, it involved months of training, six days a week, spending pretty much half a day every day with, again, that the one day off in a boxing gym… And also engaging with a lot of the fighters just to absorb a more confrontational mentality.”
Nelson praised the tight screenwriting of Will Janowitz, explaining that he “embraces certain tropes so that the audience will expect the movie to be a certain thing… but without spoiling anything, halfway through the movie it shifts and something happens that is both surprising and yet somehow deeply coherent… It really is organic.”
