Hooking up with Clark Gregg

Clark Gregg is a man of moderation. When he sat down for an interview about his latest movie, Choke, which he wrote, directed, and starred in, he spoke modestly. He was frank, but not negative. Passionate, but not overzealous.

Gregg began his career as an actor, not as a director or writer, but he pulled no punches when disclosing his personal motivating factors for making the shift. "It was a lust for power really," he said with a grin. "You spend a lot of time as an actor serving someone else's vision and that can be good. But if you like to tell stories, at a certain point, you want to tell the story your way." And with Choke, he said, he felt connected to it in a certain way. "I really felt like it was written for me."

"There's a whole lot to Choke," Gregg said. "It's funny, sad, absurd … yet it always remains grounded, and there's a lot of heavy stuff in there, and that's my favorite kind of material."

Given that Choke is an adaptation of a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club, there was a lot the movie had to live up to. "If I was smarter, it would have been more daunting," he said of making the next Palahniuk adaptation after Fight Club. "This is a different kind of piece, but it still has the Palahniuk voice to it."

But surprisingly, Gregg said that Palahniuk's involvement with the writing and direction of the movie was minimal. Palahniuk could be found on the set occasionally, but Gregg rarely ever got to see or speak to him - something the latter was disappointed about, since many of the actors on the set interacted with Palahniuk and had nothing but good things to say about him. "I only had one conversation with [Palahniuk] after securing the rights to the film," Gregg said. "I had sent him the script, so I called him and asked him if it was all right and all he said was, 'Yes. Don't be too faithful to the book,' and hung up."

The reaction from Palahniuk, however, was not due to indifference. Rather, it was that he trusted Gregg to take the piece and run with it. "It took me years to decide how I wanted to make the movie," Gregg said, admitting that had he included everything that he loved from the novel, it would have been a nine-hour movie. "In the end, I realized that I could make it whatever kind of movie I wanted it to be. [Palahniuk] is like Yoda; he knew that when I called him, but it took time for me to figure that out."

Indeed, Gregg did take his liberties with the film, as there are noticeable discrepancies between the novel and movie. It can be noted that the movie revolves heavily around themes of love and redemption, although they don't seem to be the predominant themes in the novel, to which Gregg said, "They're there. Those themes are in the novel, but when it's a movie, it's different. It's part of the transformation. This was a model for all characters: The whole thing is about the main character trying to figure out and sort out what's wrong with him." He used the example of a character named Nico, with whom Victor has numerous sexual encounters over the course of the film. In contrast, in the novel, Victor has sex with many, many different people. By establishing this relationship with Nico's reoccurring character, Gregg said, it created a more significant advancement in Victor's story when he parts ways with her.

Gregg believed that, at its heart, Choke is a romantic comedy. "Choke is being sold as a movie about sex addiction," he said. "It is, but at the same time, it's more about intimacy." He discussed how the movie illustrates the negative effects of misusing sexuality; he said that when we begin to freely "hook up" simply for the sake of doing so - at this point, he asked us kids for confirmation that he was using the term in the right context - it begins to damage our intimacy muscles. "So when you finally come across someone that you want to love, you find that you can't, and that's what you see [in the film]."

At this point, Gregg continued to muse about the importance of these themes that he emphasized in the movie. He does not believe Choke to be a message movie, but on the other hand, he believes that it is crucial to know the dramatic idea beneath it. "Once you know that, you can maximize the use of everyone," he said, pointing out various characters from the movie, including Nico and Charlie, Victor's boss. "You need to establish how they challenge or enable Victor in his quest to overcome his challenges."

The process for Gregg was not an ideal one, however. "Do I wish I could have had more money to do this? Yeah! But I didn't," he said. Though he was candid about the challenges he faced, he wasn't negative about the experience, and very clearly harbored an immense amount of pride for the project. "This is not the way I would wish directing a movie upon anybody," he said. "But I made it the way I wanted to, I got the actors I wanted, and people stepped up with money. I was shocked this even got made, because of how out-there it is. But it's my naughty little baby."

While he may be finished with Choke, Gregg doesn't plan on slowing down any time soon. He said that without a doubt he will continue to act, even though he has now made his foray into writing and directing. "Just because I'm a writer and director now doesn't mean I want to stop acting. There's no point in limiting myself," he said. "That's like saying, 'If you're a cook, why would you play violin?'" He will continue to star in the sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine, which is now in its fourth season, and is a production that he said he is "immensely proud of." In terms of his future movie credits, he said earnestly, "Well, they're making an Iron Man 2, and I'm hoping, praying, that I'll be getting a call soon for that."

So he wants to continue acting, but what about his other endeavors? "Yes, I'm working on a new script," he said, adding that he would be willing to direct it. "I hope it won't suck." When asked about the subject matter, he jokingly responded, "Hooking up!" Chuckling, he simply said, "It's about a lot of different things. I don't want to give anything away yet."