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Interview: Lewis Pullman on Playing a Life Coach in Skincare

ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Skincare star Lewis Pullman about the upcoming thriller directed by Austin Peters. IFC Films will release the Elizabeth Banks-led movie exclusively in theaters on August 16, 2024.

Famed aesthetician Hope Goldman (Elizabeth Banks) is about to take her career to the next level by launching her very own skincare line, but her personal and work lives are challenged when rival facialist Angel Vergara (Luis Gerardo Méndez) opens a new skincare boutique directly across from her store. She starts to suspect that someone is trying to sabotage her reputation and business, and together with her friend Jordan (Lewis Pullman), she embarks on a mission to unravel the mystery of who is trying to destroy her life.

Tyler Treese: Your character in Skincare is a life coach. That’s like an instant red flag when I hear that occupation. What was your prep for this role? Did you look into any real-life life coaches? Especially those who are projecting an image more than who they really say they are.

Lewis Pullman: I watched a lot of YouTube videos, and it was really fun because, obviously, there are some great life coaches out there, but there are too many bad ones. So that was obviously the route I was looking into more. It’s clear that he is an entrepreneur of sorts, but he’s like a jack of all trades, master of none sort of.

There’s that scene where I do get to do some life coaching, and we weren’t sure how much we were gonna use of it, so Austin usually let me go for it. I was just kind of summoning all the life coach sessions that I had experienced in the month prior. Just coming up with this. They love a good analogy, but some of them are literally, if you were to [really] listen, you’re like, “This doesn’t make any sense what you’re saying.” So, to try to put in some of that, I thought it would be interesting.

When we were first talking about Jordan’s voice, I thought trying to figure out how he sounds or likes the people that maybe he respects and how they sound. I started listening to a lot of interviews of Justin Timberlake because… not that he’s a life coach, obviously, but he has a beautiful voice and it’s kind of seductive and sort of soft and slightly effeminate. I thought that it was 2013, so what if he was obsessed with Justin and was trying to kind of — ’cause he sort of is a chameleon — replicate certain people that he’s looking to or mirror them. But we ended up tuning that down a little bit, the Justin Timberlake voice, but it came out a little bit when he was doing his voice coaching. Thought that was pretty funny.

I love that you mentioned how there’s a lot of talking in circles because it really doesn’t cut the mustard if you really look at what they’re saying, but if you say it confidently or eloquently enough, people are just completely fooled.

That’s the key right there. That’s sort of, honestly, that’s at everything that’s at the nucleus of Jordan is like. Fake it until you make it kind of mentality.

I love Elizabeth Banks’ performance here, and you both get some excellent scenes together. What just really stood out about her as a scene partner and getting to see her go all out? I know she’s great in comedies, but it’s so nice to see her just have such a juicy, dramatic role here.

God, I know, isn’t it? When I read this, I knew that she was attached to it, so I could easily imagine her doing it. It’s one of those roles where you’re like, “Nobody else.” Who else is gonna be able to lock into this like she did? And she did it even better than I ever imagined. So, yeah, it was like every day a masterclass just of her.

She works so hard and has such a good work ethic. She’s a great director as well, so it’s cool to watch how she breaks down a scene and how she approaches it. But she’s also like a very joyous person and the more joy there is on a set, the more relaxed everyone is, the more free they are to try things out. I think that that she set the tone and so it was one of the great joys for me getting to work with her.

You were just at San Diego Comic-Con and Thunderbolts* had such a big showing. You have to be so secretive about these projects, so how was it just seeing the crowd really respond positively to it and getting to see that work starting to pay off?

Oh man, that was incredible to be able to have a seat at that table. Yeah, my heart stopped when I walked out on that stage. It was beautiful, I mean, all those people that were in there were so kind, and it was cool to be able to see. We worked so hard on the movie and then to see face to face the people who love it so much, why we put so much work into it, and how appreciative they were even before it came out. But you know, just to see that I was like, “All right. Yeah, it was all worth it, what we did.” I’m excited for them and everybody to see it.

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In conversation with Lewis Pullman, star of ‘Lessons in Chemistry’

Warning: Major spoilers for the show “Lessons in Chemistry” ahead. 

“Lessons in Chemistry” is an underdog story – a show about a woman taking back control of her life after unfortunate circumstances, about how it’s never too late to find yourself. But before it turns into that, it’s a love story. 

Based on Bonnie Garmus’ book of the same name, “Lessons in Chemistry” stars Brie Larson as Elizabeth Zott, a woman working as a lab tech in the 1950s who dreams of being a scientist. Eventually, Elizabeth will go on to host her own cooking show, but at the beginning of the series, her aspirations continue to fall flat, time and time again. That is, until she meets Dr. Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman). 

Over the course of the show’s first two episodes, the relationship between Elizabeth and Calvin evolves from cordiality between colleagues to a blossoming romance between two people who, up until this point, were perfectly content to be alone. Watching these two intensely guarded people begin to open up to each other is almost cathartic, in a way, and the chemistry between Larson and Pullman is quick to ignite. For a moment, it feels like everything is falling into place – until tragedy strikes, and Elizabeth is left to deal with the fallout. 

“Lessons in Chemistry” premiered on Apple TV+ last October, but Rough Draft Atlanta recently got the chance to speak with Pullman about his role in the show. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

I read an interview with you where you said that you didn’t audition for this show. What is that feeling like? Not having to audition, just being asked to come in for a part?

Lewis Pullman:  It’s a good question, because it is a different thing, you know? You’d think it would be entirely good, but there are some parts of it that … can be a little alarming. You’re like, well what is it that I have done that makes you think [I’d be good]? I don’t know what I’m gonna do, so how do they know what I’m gonna do if I don’t know what I’m gonna do yet? 

I think there are two very intriguing reasons to do something. One is when somebody sees something in you that they believe in that you don’t. That is always a good reason to plunge into something. And then the other is when somebody doesn’t see something in you, they don’t think you can do something, but you know that you can. I think those are both very intriguing paths to follow. 

It’s interesting you bring up that duality. Which one do you think this was for you, and what made you say yes? What drew you to the role?

Pullman: This was something that I really felt like – when I read it, I was very flattered that I was being thought of, but I didn’t know exactly what they were looking for. It’s such a specific story. It’s not like it’s just a [romantic drama]. It’s so many things, and it’s not really Calvin’s story, you know, at all. So where does he fit in, how does this character best serve Elizabeth Zott’s story, were all these questions that I had. 

Once I got the answers – which were essentially like, it’s not trying to really fit into any sort of genre, we’re trying to just tell a truthful story, which is what Bonnie Garmus’s book was. It’s a very unique, beautiful story about a woman conquering a whole minefield of misogyny despite all odds, and being very distinct despite [living] in a time where being distinct was not celebrated. So it was cool to just try and figure out the puzzle piece of how Calvin fits into that.

I read a couple of interviews with you, to get a jumping off point for this, and I think you’ve spoken pretty thoughtfully about trying to fit yourself into the story in an interesting way. Not to jump into spoilers right away, but your character dies after two episodes. I think that creates a difficulty of crafting a relationship that we only get to spend so much time with, but it has to be really upsetting when it’s ripped away. I think you and Brie Larson achieved that, but what was the process of building up that chemistry? Did you do a chemistry test? How much time did you spend crafting that relationship? 

Pullman: We didn’t do a chemistry test. Lee Eisenberg, the showrunner, and Sarah Adina Smith, the director of the first two episodes, and Brie – obviously, Brie Larson, she’s a producer on this – I think that they were all on the same page from the get that it was going to be an open dialogue, and we were going to be able to do rehearsals and have conversations about what we wanted to bring into it. That kind of created a landscape of very, you know, you can bring a little bit of yourself to this story, which I think immediately makes you feel like you can bring more humanity to it, you know? Sarah Adina Smith really encouraged those small moments that maybe weren’t on the page, you know? Finding those little beats and those little things that make a relationship feel four dimensional. I think I gotta just give all the credit where credit’s due. It was designed really well. The writers really made it – you know, it’s like a mini movie, the first two episodes, which is beautifully arced out and very intricately designed. It feels full, and right when it feels full is, you know, obviously when it’s taken away. 

I was supposed to just be in the first three episodes, and I think that they realized that they were able to do that, actually, within the first two episodes. Because if you give them too much time with [Calvin and Elizabeth], then it’s really not very nice [laughs] to an audience. 

Well, I hadn’t read the book and I was completely shocked. So it definitely worked on me. 

Pullman: That’s good to hear. 

And the added aspect of having the dog narrate the death – I mean, if you want to talk about kind of a mean thing to do, I was a little bit of a wreck. 

Pullman: The dog. The dog!

I know. The dog. What a great dog. Wonderful actor. 

Pullman: A beautiful dog. Truly. 

In relation to that idea of trying to find an aspect of yourself in a character, I was reading another interview with you where you said that’s part of the reason you choose characters, but you also like to choose roles that intimidate you, or scare you in some way. I wondered if you could elaborate on that, and what type of roles give you that feeling? 

Pullman: I think there are scripts that you can read one day and feel extremely connected to it. In indies sometimes, they take a long time to take off. So then, it can be two, three years later and you revisit the script and you’ve already developed, or moved on, or explored some sort of realm that was intriguing about that [script] … you’ve already either explored that, or you’re not interested in exploring that, or it doesn’t scare you anymore, or it doesn’t feel like some sort of hill you want to climb.

I’ve found that, strangely, the fear is – well, it’s those two things. There’s the duality of it, like you were saying. You can read something that’s so far from yourself and feel a challenge – you know, I think the word “problem” is interesting, because I think it can have a negative connotation. But there’s two different types of problems, right? There’s one problem where it’s daunting and it’s not exciting to solve the problem. And then there’s a problem where it’s almost like a puzzle, and it’s intriguing, and you’re pulled in and you want to try and feel challenged to solve it. 

[I look for] problems that light you up in that childlike way, where you’re challenged to figure it out. You’re like, can I do this? How do I do this? There’s something exciting and kind of scary about that, walking into the dark. But I do think it’s that fear that kind of forces you to make choices. You have to be in a very inebriated, kind of inhibitionless state, because there’s no other way to discover those things except to be fully free. You cannot be restricted. So, there’s something exhilarating about that. 

It’s interesting, the word “problem.” Did Calvin make you feel like that? He ends up being a pretty warm presence throughout the show, but he starts off kind of thorny. 

Pullman: I think he might even be thornier in the book, maybe. That’s also, in my opinion, what the book did so well, and what Lee Eisenberg and the writers just nailed, was the two characters, at the point that you meet them, they’ve accepted that they’re better off alone. You know, they have found their part of the world that they like existing in, and most of that doesn’t involve interacting with other people. So I think there’s such reward when they finally collide, and they’re actually [with] this other person. 

Brie did this thing – I don’t know if she did this intentionally – but I think one of the reasons why the chemistry reads so well is she rarely smiles … in the first episode until she’s with Calvin. And there’s such reward in seeing her kind of open up. You read that as trust, and you read that as willingness to fall in love with somebody, which Elizabeth had been so protective and resistant against. Nobody had interested her or challenged her. 

That’s a really good point. Calvin appears in the show after his death, but as sort of a manifestation of Elizabeth’s grief, in a certain way. How do you, or do you at all, alter your approach to the character in that instance, from an acting standpoint? 

Pullman: I think I went into it and was like, he is more kind of this ethereal thing. But then I realized, you know, it’s basically a glimpse or a little flash of where he would be, where they would be, what they would be doing if he was still there. But it is a little bit from her perspective, because it is, technically, from her imagination of what he would be doing, I guess. But she knew him better than anybody, so I just basically tried to play it like it was any other moment – except for the very last moment, which is sort of more like he was kind of leaving her. 

Yeah, some kind of peace. 

Pullman: Yeah. 

I know that you’re also a musician, and obviously jazz plays a big part in Calvin’s story at the beginning. Were you really into jazz before? How did you approach his relationship to music with your own background as a musician? 

Pullman: You know, I played in jazz band growing up, but I was never drawn to jazz, personally. I think originally, Calvin listened to a lot of like, Frank Sinatra. I can’t remember if it was Lee or Sarah who came up with the idea of having his music, his love for music mirror … the way his brain worked, [which] was very much sporadic and this kind of improvisational, kind of like manufacturing chaos in order to find the patterns and find the inspiration within. 

That was a very helpful part in getting into him, was listening to a lot more jazz, and trying to feel that little more frantic, more searching for something [feeling]. There’s something very uncontrolled and controlled about jazz, and I think he had certain parts of his life that he really needed to be in control of, and then other parts he had no regard for.

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Lewis Pullman Is Sorry for Making You Sob During ‘Lessons in Chemistry’

The actor spoke to Cosmopolitan about playing board games on set with Brie Larson and why he was okay taking a role where (spoiler) he dies two episodes in.

If you’re coming here because you've been personally victimized by Lessons in Chemistry (aka you sobbed hysterically into your popcorn and glass of wine while watching episodes 2 to 8), welcome. You’re not alone, and we’re here to help. Actually, we’re mostly here to talk to Lewis Pullman, who stars as Calvin Evans in the series that follows Brie Larson and Lewis as the titular chemists who fall in love but in a flew-too-close-to-the-sun kind of way before tragedy strikes. Lewis has the very-difficult job of helping to construct a believable and complete love story in only two episodes. And spoiler alert: He does it.

We asked him about working on that task with Larson, why he loved Calvin and Elizabeth’s dynamic and why acting feels a little bit like being a clown sometimes.

Editor’s note: There are many more spoilers ahead for Lessons in Chemistry, so if you haven’t finished the show yet, don’t say we didn’t warn ya!

I’m wondering how the conversations about this role went with your agents when they were like, Okay, Lewis, role looks great. You do die in episode 2. Tell me about how this came about for you.

[Laughs] Nail on the head there—that’s kind of how it went down. It’s a no-brainer to get to work with Lee Eisenberg and Brie Larson on a story that is so beloved. But that also comes with a lot of fear. You don’t want to be the one stick in the spokes.

If you were to look at my grades from high school, I was unsure whether I could fake being a scientist. I love their relationship, and I love his personal history and him as a character, but I’m honestly so bad at science. Luckily, they had all these incredible scientists on set to help us. I had to ask them to explain it to me like I was a 2-year-old.

You and Brie have such wonderful rapport in the first few episodes of the series. I’m wondering what the chemistry read process was like for the two of you.

We didn’t have a chemistry read for Lessons in Chemistry. We tried to build the scaffolding by workshopping a lot of things and not being afraid to try and fail and land on exactly what it was about these two people that made them such magnet to each other. They found each other in such a rare, statistically unlikely scenario, especially because they’re such particular people.

And Brie is so great. She brings a whole basket of games on set and has such a lively and playful approach to her work. So we would be playing games in between takes with the whole cast and that immediately makes it feel like a family.

What kind of games? Like, board games or card games?

Like Boggle and Catch Phrase. She had a whole plastic tub of them. It was so fun. And you’d do a scene and then you’d go back and you pick up right where you left off in the game.

What was your favorite part of the Calvin and Elizabeth dynamic?

It’s a very fresh-feeling romance and they are these very awkward people. They don’t abide by a lot of social norms and they don’t like most people or they don’t get along with most people, which makes the likelihood of them finding somebody that they get along with decently, let alone fall in love with, extremely improbable. It’s so fun to play people who aren’t used to being in romantic relationships. It’s almost like the age-old alien comes to Earth and tries to assimilate with humanity.

I liked how earnestly they were into each other. There was no cynicism in their relationship.

Especially once they finally accept it, because it is so hard when you’re used to being alone for so long. It must feel like an impossibility. And everything feels dissonant. And even the best things that feel so good, they’re new, so they feel uncomfortable.

I want to fast-forward a little and talk about your character’s death. I’ll admit I had not read the book, so I was surprised. And I was literally watching it with my goldendoodle on my lap, sobbing hysterically. What was it like to film?

Oh no! That was one of those moments where I was like, I’m a clown. What I’m doing for a living is that I’m a jester, I’m a fool. We had to shoot that three different ways: one where the camera was static, one where I’m trying to pull a fake dog, and one without a bus, where I mime being hit by a bus. We’re in Pasadena with all these onlookers. But it even surprised me when I finally watched the whole series. It happens in such an abrupt and in a way that has a violence to it that is realistic without being too gory. And that final shot on Six-Thirty is heartbreaking. That dog really stole the show there.

Have you had any friends or family text you being like, “Thank you for making me sob, Lewis”?

My mom was like, “No more dying in movies, please. Can we stop?”

For the rest of the series, you appear in flashbacks. How did you wrap your head around playing a character that the audience knows has since passed away? Do you alter your performance in any way?

When I read it on the page I was like, Oh, this is easy. I just come in and comfort her. But I’m not exactly playing Calvin. I’m playing Elizabeth’s perception of what she would hope Calvin might do in that moment. When you lose somebody, you can’t help but try and fill in the blanks of how they might support you or respond to you or what questions you wish you could ask them and how they might answer it. And so in some ways, those scenes were less Calvin, and more trying to be a physicalization of Elizabeth’s grief and almost a hologram of what she predicts or she fantasizes about what he would be doing or saying.

Yeah, he’s almost a dream to her at that point.

Yeah, totally. I got a little too accurate on some of it because I would just come around the corner and console her and Mad, and I was like, Where am I coming from? What am I doing in my office? Was I doing work or did I have a ghost mask and I was just like, haunting the halls? That was something that was not on the page.

What was your favorite scene to play in the series?

I love the Christmas scene montage. Brie and I got to play and dance and try and bring to life to their relationship, the manifestation of their bliss. You’re also creating memories that you know Brie’s character is going to look back on, so the richer, the better. And that was such a fun, playful day.

My last question for you—it’s a very serious one: The outlet Decider called you a “mega dreamboat” in the show, and I’m wondering if you’d like to respond to that.

That’s such a high compliment. I didn’t know about that. A “mega dreamboat,” that’s a double whammy. That’s a high honor. I think there’s many others heads fit for that crown. I wouldn’t put myself on the list, but I’m honored to at least spend the rest of this afternoon pretending.

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Captain America’s Danny Ramirez Gives Lewis Pullman His Best G-Force Face

There are a few ways to know when you’ve made it big in Hollywood, and starring in a Top Gun movie is probably at the top of the list. Well, that— or landing a role in the MCU. Danny Ramirez, who stars as Falcon alongside Anthony Mackie in Captain America: Brave New World, has now checked both boxes. But the 32-year-old actor is way more than just a major blockbuster player. As he gets ready to appear in the second season of The Last of Us, Ramirez called up his old friend and Top Gun: Maverick costar Lewis Pullman to reflect on joining some of the biggest franchises in Hollywood, though he hasn’t forsaken his indie roots. “That’s where I came from, that’s where I’m going to, and that’s where I will live,” he told Pullman from the backseat of a Cadillac, naturally.

———

LEWIS PULLMAN: Where are you?

DANNY RAMIREZ: I’m in the back of a Suburban? A Cadillac? A Cadillac.

PULLMAN: Nice. Scream it from the rooftops, buddy.

RAMIREZ: Yeah, it’s always a dream to be in the back of one of these, you know?

PULLMAN: That’s what you did all the work for. [Laughs]

RAMIREZ: [Laughs] This is the payoff. 

PULLMAN: Okay. Should we start this thing?

RAMIREZ: Let’s do it. I appreciate you doing this. 

PULLMAN: Dude, I love you to death. I was honored to get the call. I want to start with this. I just went to the premiere of your movie, and it was the biggest premiere I’ve ever been to, and you were the star of it. You had your whole family there, and some of your best friends, and you had to leave two hours after to get on a plane to go to wherever you are right now. Paint me a picture of where your head is at, where your heart is at. What’s sinking in? What’s not sinking in?

RAMIREZ: I think that gave me a little whiplash. To be fair, it was a little chaotic to think that my mom was visiting L.A. for the first time, and then I just had to peace out on her. And then leaving the premiere is another thing, but in regards to the film’s reception, or the size of the premiere, that to me felt like a small premiere, which is weird. I had such a curated experience of it, and it was still a celebration, but it was just… segment, segment, segment. And then, the celebration itself was watching the film with everyone. But the rest of it paled in comparison to having my family be there.

PULLMAN: Where are you right now?

RAMIREZ: I’m in New York. I’m about to do Hot Ones.

PULLMAN: You’re going to do Hot Ones?

RAMIREZ: Dude, I know. I don’t know if they’re ready for what’s going to happen to me.

PULLMAN: They’re not. For the readers out there, he’s born with probably the worst tolerance to spicy foods, but also the most gumption to continue to push past the discomfort. I couldn’t think of a better person to be on Hot Ones.

RAMIREZ: It’s me and Anthony [Mackie], head to head.

PULLMAN: You just have to put yourself in a position where you’re going to be destroyed for a couple days, but you have to beat Mackie.

RAMIREZ: That’s basically what I’ve solidified in my head.

PULLMAN: First of all, I was so fucking proud of you watching this thing, man. It was an out-of-body experience, because I’ve gotten to know you so well and your performance is so magnetic. You’ve also done a lot of indie movies. What do you find are the main similarities between an indie movie and a huge big blockbuster like this?

RAMIREZ: That’s a great question. We all got lucky that a director like Julius [Onah] was the one that led us through Captain America [Brave New World], because he’s an indie director. That’s where he comes from. And the way he approached the story kept it grounded, outside of  the days that you have to do some crazy stunts or some green screen things. So the energy he brought to set was that of an intrapersonal character drama. Honestly, this presser has been hilarious, because everyone’s like, “Yeah, Top Gun and Captain America, you’re a big action guy. Would you ever do indie movies?” I’m like, “Yo, that’s all I ever do, don’t rewrite my story now.” That’s where I came from, that’s where I’m going to go, and that’s where I will live.

PULLMAN: Right. You’re a part of The Last of Us now, which is massive, and with these huge franchises that already have existing IP, there’s a lot of expectations. You have Top Gun, Captain America, The Last of Us, so there’s a preconceived notion about what world you’re stepping into, what character you’re playing, how it should be. How do you navigate going those projects while staying true to what you want to do?

RAMIREZ: Another great question. You’re doing so much better than all these press junkets. To me, it makes it easier because the world’s established, so I have a bunch of tethers. It’s already a moving train. I’m not going to decide, “Hey, you know what? Let’s go this way.” I don’t want to shift its destination. Everyone knows their role. You’re a part of a system.

PULLMAN: Is there a world or a type of work that you feel like you haven’t touched yet, a collaborative format that you haven’t had the opportunity to dive into? And what would that look like?

RAMIREZ: I think a straight-up comedy. That’s terrifying to me. There’s parts of this movie that I’m funny in, because it’s circumstantial and situational, but a broader comedy terrifies me.

PULLMAN: What I appreciate so much about your performance in this is you do have a lot of the comedic relief on your shoulders, and you do play it with so much reality, and such grounded-ness. You’re not hamming it up. 

RAMIREZ: Thank you.

PULLMAN: You’ve worked with so many incredible people in such a short amount of time, and I feel like you are really good about collecting and protecting little gems of knowledge from them. Is there something that you learned from Mackie that you’re going to take with you?

RAMIREZ: Yeah, it goes back to the previous question about a pre-existing culture on a set, and the first day on Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Mackie pulled me to the side. He’s like, “Yo, being in the MCU is like being in a theater troupe. Everyone here has been working together for the past 15 years.” And so sitting with that information, I think it was, “You’re not going to reinvent the wheel. Don’t come here to change the course, but let’s collaborate.” And that’s the same way we created Top Gun: Maverick. We were all fresh and new, but there was no need to impose ourselves and play selfishly. So I took that theater troupe mentality, hoping to establish it in the future projects.

PULLMAN: I love that he took the time to tell you that.

RAMIREZ: It was two sentences, right? It was only 30 seconds of his time.

PULLMAN: 30 seconds on his schedule. That’s two days.

RAMIREZ: Yeah, that’s true. He is Captain America.

PULLMAN: Okay. I’m going to divert to a sappy one here. You work pretty consistently. Even when you have time off, you somehow fill it with work that’s setting the stones for whatever’s next. You must get tired. What do you tell yourself in those moments, where you feel like you might be becoming complacent or you might be settling for mediocrity?

RAMIREZ: Well, I absolutely get tired. I’ve gone through different phases where I seek balance, and I was seeking it so intensely, that I was like, “I’m not seeking balance.” There were times within the training for this movie that I was tired and didn’t want to do the extra miles at the end and I was like, “No, I get to train like an athlete right now. What would little me think of this moment?” Or if I have to work a scene and I’m exhausted, I’m like, “Little me would be happy that I’m going to be able to provide for my family.” 

PULLMAN: That’s cool.

RAMIREZ: Yeah, I tap into that quite often, because there’s so many moments that I think I could get jaded. You get jaded real quick if you run into people that are not doing this for the right reasons. That’s one of the things that affects me the most, is seeing someone that just wants to do this to be famous.

PULLMAN: Okay. I’ve got some rapid-fire questions. You’re stranded on a desert island, you can only watch three movies for the rest of your life. What are they?

RAMIREZ: Interstellar would be one. I’m jealous of my friends that are able to quote Will Ferrell movies like it’s scripture, so I’ll go Step Brothers just to have a light movie that I could memorize, so if I ever get returned back to society I would still fit in, just because so many people quote that movie. The third would be City of God.

PULLMAN: Nice.

RAMIREZ: That’s the movie that got it all started for me, because I think the other two are missing romantic elements. This one has romantic elements, but it’s also a really good drama.

PULLMAN: Yeah.

RAMIREZ: And then, I’ll sneak one in, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.

PULLMAN: You’ve been telling me to watch that for a year. 

RAMIREZ: You have to, dude. You’d love it.

PULLMAN: Okay, I got to get on that. 

RAMIREZ: I see you update your Letterboxd all the time and I never see Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. It’s almost a slap in the face. [Laughs] This is why I asked for you to interview me, so I could turn this around on you.

PULLMAN: They should create a thing in Letterboxd where you can pay a hundred bucks and then lock somebody’s account until they watch a certain movie.

RAMIREZ: I would pay for that. I would have paid a hundred bucks for you to experience a great movie. That’s sick.

PULLMAN: Here’s a question. You do have to fly in this. Flying in films has been done so many times. What was it like up on the wires with the wedgies? How was that for you? Do you have a great landing, right before you kick those three dudes’ butts?

RAMIREZ: Well, that was because of the experience on Top Gun. I felt like if Tom [Cruise] saw my body positioning, he’d be judging the aerodynamics.

PULLMAN: [Laughs] Yeah.

RAMIREZ: You’ll see in the BTS, I’m holding proper form, so whether or not body parts were replaced, that’s not on me. I was aerodynamic, and banking when I had to bank, and trying to make sure that my head was in the right position because wind will then affect lift, and all these things.

PULLMAN: Right, and you don’t want to whiplash.

RAMIREZ: Yes. I think that’s what was instilled in me having done Top Gun. “Tom’s maybe going to watch this and if he does, I better come correct.” So there were days that I would be the only one putting on a G-force face.

PULLMAN: Yeah.

RAMIREZ: Just because Sam’s suit is a way more advanced thing that I’m like, “Alright, he’s under a different reality.” Mine’s a little bit more analog, and so we have tubes to breathe, and I’m the literal cockpit. I’m the jet. 

PULLMAN: Okay, I’ve got two more questions. The last scene in this film is such a beautiful scene and your performance is incredible. You and Mackie are really locked into a truly open heart place. Can you give us a little bit of how the sausage was made in that scene?

RAMIREZ: Yeah. So that was the first scene I shot in the whole movie. Day one.

PULLMAN: That’s classic.

RAMIREZ: Day one with Anthony, obviously we’d known each other because of the show, and when we were in Prague, he took me in, guided me through that process. But we weren’t close, close. So I was also like, “Damn, okay. He’s probably going to be like, Who’s this kid that just got upgraded to a bigger role in this universe?‘” And then Julius kind of nudged over and whispered some stuff in my ear in regards to things that we had talked about, that I told him to remind me, just of honoring my dad and trying to turn that energy of grief into something that can be beautiful. I saw the moment that it clicked for Anthony, and because it was day one on set, I saw the respect build within that. And then he’s like, “Aright, we’re going to play ball.”

PULLMAN: That’s awesome.

RAMIREZ: And then, that final scene that we did, the final take we did, which is what you see most mainly in the movie, he turned it on to a level that I think was like, “Okay, we’re making this really grounded.” That was a north star for the rest of the film. 

PULLMAN: I mean, it really works, and you guys really did earn that. 

RAMIREZ: Yeah.

PULLMAN: Okay, last question. What are you excited about? What are the rays of sunshine peeking out of the horizon that you are looking forward to?

RAMIREZ: Well, it’s working with you, dude. I’m excited to work with you on the plane. It’s the project that we have cooking together. It’s having more agency in the stories and being able to pick. Because still, to this day, the jobs that I’ve had have been booked out from a point that I was auditioning for, grinding and getting them. But now, I think the scary part of the career is next, which is maybe having to make some decisions.

PULLMAN: Yes.

RAMIREZ: And even if it’s an audition, it’s picking and being selective, because I think we’ve been spoiled to work with really talented people, and I want to keep learning. That’s kind of what I’m looking forward to: working with people I love and people that I can learn from.

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Lewis Pullman interview: Lessons in Chemistry was a 'challenge'

"I appreciate chemistry, but it's not how my brain really works," Lewis Pullman readily admits while discussing his role as chemist Calvin Evans in the critically acclaimed Apple TV+ limited series "Lessons in Chemistry." He tells Gold Derby’s Latasha Ford, "There's something very intriguing about trying to portray somebody who's written as a savant and a genius, when you're not that. And so that was a good challenge." Watch the full video interview above.

Pullman attended the "Lessons in Chemistry" Emmy FYC event at the Television Academy's Wolf Theater on June 9 in North Hollywood, California. At a max-capacity screening and panel, the actor was joined by co-stars Brie Larson and Aja Naomi King, executive producer Lee Eisenberg and director Sarah Adina Smith.

As for learning all of the complicated chemistry terms, Pullman reveals how Larson "really had the load of that, and she's like a savant as a person in real life -- she can just read a full page of that stuff and be able to regurgitate it." He then confesses, "I'm not like that. I need to spend a week and a half on it. But we had these great actual chemists on set, so that was really helpful. I would always be like, 'All right, explain this to me like I'm five years old.' I would also record them reading my lines, because it's like a different language -- it just looks like hieroglyphics to me."

While Larson had "a lot of those really rough scenes," both emotionally and physically, Pullman was "lucky" because "it was really fun to be able to kind of live in these very elated, blissful states." He tells us that his character is "kind of experiencing these new emotions for the first time, so there's this very childlike nature."

The actor claims that the moment Larson's character Elizabeth Zott leaves him, "That was probably Calvin's lowest point and there's nothing harder than leaving somebody without any answers." Pullman remarks, "It's worse than being broken up with or something, because your brain starts to create the worst possible scenarios, and you're left in this kind of state of limbo. That was probably his most agitated, turbulent place, I would say."

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Florence Pugh and Lewis Pullman talk mental health journeys and most-used emojis in GLAMOUR's Friendship Test

Four years on, Florence Pugh has made her big return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And after her on-screen sister Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow met her demise (sorry, spoiler!) her character Yelena has found a new friend. Kind of.

In Marvel's newest superhero movie Thunderbolts*, Florence's Yelena finds herself teaming up with other misfit superheroes Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Red Guardian (Stranger Things' David Harbour), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko).

But the closest bond she forms is with a mysterious new character Bob, played by Lessons in Chemistry star Lewis Pullman. When they find themselves trapped in a vault as part of a plan to assassinate them, the pair begin a friendship that sees them confide their deepest traumas. The “void” – an evil power that feeds on traumatic memories – is used throughout the film as a clever allegory for depression. It's refreshing to see a Marvel blockbuster explore the mental health journey, with Florence and Lewis very much at the forefront.

Plus, we see Florence break a Guinness World Record within the first few minutes of the film by base jumping off the second tallest building in the world, the Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur. An unmissable power move to watch on screen.

GLAMOUR sat down with Florence and Lewis to talk their own mental health journeys alongside the movie, as well as the bond they forged on set.

Even though it’s undoubtedly an action movie, at its core Thunderbolts is about fighting your inner demons and trauma, quite literally – what do you hope this film says about mental health, particularly male mental health?

Lewis: I think there was a lot of this that was very personal for me, and so I felt important to try and represent it in an accurate way and in a realistic way. There's so much fear around getting the language right when you're talking about mental health and saying the wrong thing, it can prevent you from actually talking about it.

And so I think it is kind of the perfect vessel with the Thunderbolts, we are all kind of just mess-ups who are trying to figure out these really deep and very complicated themes about mental health. And I think that they're messing it up on the way. That really important to remember. You don't have to know the right terms to start talking about it or to think that you can help somebody with something.

And then also I think that it was really important to represent how it can look different… just because you're smiling doesn't mean there's not a lot going on in there.

GLAMOUR: Did you guys draw from your own experiences of mental health and lows in life?

Florence: During the making of this movie, I had one of the most wonderful, bizarre realisations where the lesson that this film was trying to teach us was something that I was learning from as we were shooting the movie.

And it was really wonderful to be taking inspiration from the art that we were creating and allowing myself, I suppose, the graciousness that Yelena allows herself of actually accepting that she needs help and accepting that she needs to allow others to care for her, which is something that I find very, very hard. I like being the carer and I like being the person that is there for everybody. And I think during that movie it was a real nice wake-up call of actually going, "It's okay," and it's okay to accept that you're not [feeling] great and it's okay to accept that you're feeling quite weak and it's okay to ask for help and it's okay for people to help you.

I had a nice mirrored realisation of the work that I was creating was the exact thing that I needed to teach myself.

GLAMOUR: Florence, what was your first impression of Lewis?

Florence: I remember instantly laughing with you, and that just continued throughout the whole movie, so very, very funny. Very clever and very funny. That was my first impression. And I also knew in the first rehearsal when we were going through the script and seeing which bits that we liked and which bits that we wanted to change, instantly feeling relaxed. I was like, "Okay, cool. I've got a great scene partner and he's a really good craic. So this is going to be a fun experience."

Lewis: My first impression was you being like, I need to have my dog on the…

Florence: On the studio lawn.

Lewis: And we were all like, "Yeah, you should have your dog." And you're like, "It's not allowed. There's no dogs or animals allowed." And we were all like, “That's absurd.” And you were like, “I know.” And you're like, "I think I'm going to..." And you did the most Thunderbolt-y thing. You were like, “I'm going to bring my dog anyway.”

I remember just having a lot of fun joking around, but then you are way better about joking and then going into the scene and doing an unbelievable job.

Florence: There were so many takes where we would be in the middle of a deep, deep bit where we would be off on a completely different tangent and then they'd be like, “Okay, and rolling!”

GLAMOUR: Florence, what is Lewis' biggest ick?

Florence: I don't like the term ick. I don't believe in the… I think it's really shit. And it only really associates to men and I don't like that either… People fuck up and that's absolutely fine. Why are we making a big deal out of it? [To Lewis] I don't know your ick and I don't care about your ick, because I embrace all of you.

Lewis: I don't have any icks… Who would play Florence in her biopic?

Florence: I haven't thought about that. That's assuming I've thought about it. That's assuming that I think that I deserve one.

Lewis: Do you think it would be a cool movie?

Florence: No way! No way! There are plenty more important and more brilliant people that deserve a biopic. I can't even speak.

Lewis: Yeah, I do think I want to throw my hat in the ring.

Florence: I would love! Okay. Okay. Now I changed my mind. If you were playing me in my biopic, I would actually help fund that.

Lewis: And I would pitch in quite a bit as well.

Florence: I would genuinely love to see that. And I, almost go as far to say that the movie doesn't need to be made. Just get us to the camera tests! Just get us to the camera tests. I just need to see your footage attempting to look like me… Kevin Feige? Do you want to be a part of this? Okay. Who would make the better action hero in real life? Actually you, because...

Lewis: It's simply not true. Go ahead.

Florence: He did so much prep for getting into physical shape for being his character and he was so dedicated and I remember the day that he was allowed to have a burger again and it was like he'd been shut out in the desert for weeks and then there was food placed in front of him. He was like, "Ah," like shaking for burger and a milkshake. And that takes real dedication.

Lewis: Especially when you don't even see it on camera.

Florence: So true… What original Avenger would Lewis be?

[To Lewis] I actually think you would be a really funny Tony Stark. Could you imagine you as a Tony Stark?

Lewis: Cannot

Florence: It would be hysterical.

Lewis: That's another movie I'd love to make and then never release.

Florence: It would... Just for us to watch.

Lewis: Yeah, just for us, a little home viewing.

GLAMOUR: Should we make a list of films that need to be made?

Florence: So no one can see them, but just for us to enjoy.

Lewis: Okay. What is Florence's most used emoji?

Florence: It's changed over the years, but recently it's the person doing a cartwheel. So cute.

Lewis: So cute.

Florence: So effective for anything. Like if someone says, "Are you coming out tonight?" Just send them that. Or "Are you up for lunch?" Send them that. Or, "Hey, did you do the laundry?" Send them that. It's honestly brilliant.

Because when you have fucked up and you haven't done something, it's even funnier. No. Whoo!

Lewis: I haven't even really unlocked that. I need to bring it to my most used so that I can incorporate...

Florence: And then also the disco man.

Lewis: Oh, the disco man's great.

GLAMOUR: I feel like I'm not fully utilising my emoji keyboard.

Florence: Me neither. I used to do... It was either just the turd. I love the turd. He's so cute.

Lewis: Classic.

Florence: Just a little smiling poo.

Lewis: It really looks like a poo...

Florence: Yeah, it was either the turd and now it's the cartwheeling man or the disco man… Or the pregnant lady… Yeah, she's great. Especially if it's like, “Do you want to come to dinner tonight?”

Who is funnier you... Or Lewis? Lewis.

Lewis: That's not true.

Florence: It is true.

Lewis: It is not.

Florence: It is true.

GLAMOUR: Why?

Florence: His comedic timing is brilliant. He also just loves to laugh at himself, which is just the true key to any person that's funny. And also he made me laugh the most on set. I also spent the most time with you on set.

Lewis: Yeah, we spent a lot of time-

Florence: But we were both delirious on set together, because at the beginning of the shoot when we were still trying to figure out how we were going to make days, the shoot would get longer and longer each day. And we'd be finishing on a Friday at 10pm, 11pm at night. And that was when we were truly going really cuckoo.

Lewis: Really bonkers. There's some really, really crucial scenes in the film that we do at the end of the day with five minutes left.

Florence: It's quite mad, actually. The scenes that are in the movie that we shot at 10pm at night on a Friday.

Lewis: Pivotal, pivotal.

GLAMOUR: Lewis, what surprised you most about working with Florence?

Florence: My smell?

Lewis: I never really smelled you. Which is a surprise, because we were doing a lot of running around.

Florence: Oh, yeah.

Lewis: I would say what surprised me most was how generous you were with just helping guide me into this crazy thing.

And I think without being like... "Let me help you," it was a very sneaky way that I didn't realise was happening until midway through I was like, "Oh, she's been very much a champion of taking me under..." I'm trying to avoid the taking under the wing.

Florence: Because it sounds a bit weird-

Lewis: But yeah.

Florence: Because then you really might smell me. I think entering this world and entering these movies is a really big deal and you don't really realise in the moment what's happening. And it's really intimidating because there's a lot of moving parts and because when you are the new person, there's so much that you're trying to process that you don't realise that you have power in certain situations or that you can help a scenario. And I think it's really important that there is someone, like I had, you know, Scarlett [Johansson] was that for me, to have someone that is just allowing you time to process things and allowing you moments to take control of scenarios.

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IN CONVERSATION WITH LEWIS PULLMAN — Numéro Netherlands

Your character “Bob” has been kept quite a mystery, and rumours have already been swirling the internet that there is more to him than meets the eye. He seems like a fascinating character. How did you approach bringing him to life, and what aspects of him resonated with you personally? 

I was so lucky to be able to work as closely as I did with Jake Schreier (director of Thunderbolts) when taking the chisel to the marble with Bob. From the very beginning it was obvious Jake had become the expert of all things Bob and had as much care and empathy for the character as I did. So Jake was really my north star when going about building him and crafting the pace with which we unveiled his many layers and how we unstack the Russian nesting dolls of Bob throughout the course of the film.

Were there any challenges you faced while embodying Bob? Did you have to do any specific prep work – whether physically, mentally, emotionally – to fully dive into the role?  

It definitely was a significantly physically and mentally challenging experience, which I loved. 

I sort of tried to go about the prep with an athlete mentality. On a movie of this scale I figured we would be doing scenes many many times, so a lot of the training and character prep I did wasn’t necessarily what was going to be on display in the film but it was going to help me be more agile and have better stamina, physically and emotionally, when doing certain scenes over and over again and not losing steam. 

The film brings together a group of beloved characters, from Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova to Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes. What was it like on set between you and your co-stars? How was it to work with them?

I mean, this is one hell of a cast of titans. I learned so much and could fill a whole playbook of knowledge from each of them from seeing how they operate within this world and process. Florence, whether she was aware of it or not, really generously took me under her wing and helped me navigate a lot of the variables that were so new and nerve wracking for me. I really look up to her and was really fortunate to have her guidance.

Without giving away too much, is there a particular scene or moment in the film that you are excited for audiences to experience? 

There is a scene in a very tight and cramped space that was a blast to shoot and it was where we all really built a real bond when shooting it. If there ever is a blooper reel, I’m sure 50% of it would end up being from that scene alone.

How has taking on roles in large-scale blockbusters like Thunderbolts & Top Gun: Maverick evolved you as an actor? How does the experience compare to working on more intimate projects like The Starling Girl or even Lessons in Chemistry? 

I think the most surprising thing I’ve learned is that in many ways there is no difference. It’s still about best serving the voice of whoever's turn it is to tell their story around the campfire. 

And speaking of the now Emmy nominated Lessons in Chemistry, what was it like to play two different versions of the same character, Calvin – one which is  alive and one imagined by Brie Larson’s character Elizabeth?

It was an interesting exploration trying to distinguish the difference between the two. There was strangely a beauty and freedom in portraying Calvin after he was gone. He becomes a manifestation of Elizabeth's grief, but it’s bittersweet because there were also moments of “what could have been” and existing in the love that could have continued. There was a lot of joy in giving that part of the story life.

A lot of your characters are quite layered and complex. How do you choose your roles? Are there any specific themes, stories, or even genres that you’re drawn to? 

The goal posts are always sort of changing when it comes to what I’m drawn to. Whether it’s getting the opportunity to work with someone I admire or getting to live in a world I’ve always wanted to exist in, or getting to explore a part of myself that I’ve never had the chance or have been too scared to shine the flashlight on. Usually if something scares me about a role that's a good sign. I don't want to get too comfortable, I think I just bore everyone and myself when I do that.

I can’t not mention your father Bill Pullman, an iconic actor at this point. I imagine, but correct me if I’m wrong, that there must be a lot of pressure weighing on you to fill his shoes. How do you deal with such expectations? And do you intend to walk in his footsteps, or would you rather carve your own path in a different way?

Phew, tell me about it. Well he’s one of my favorite actors and favorite people in this life, so I definitely felt that pressure deeply in the beginning. I think once I realized that filling his shoes was a Sisyphean task, I figured that I wasn’t going to get anywhere true by walking in his footsteps wearing his shoes. He has done, and is doing, such a singular thing and all I can do is use what he’s taught me and do my best to try and blaze my own trail and honor all that he’s taught me as an artist and my pops.

How would you define success for yourself?

I don’t know why this is such a hard question for me. I think keeping your hunger and curiosity alive and redefining success as you go has been important for me. Sometimes I assume doing something will give me that feeling of accomplishment and once I do it I find I was wrong. So it’s just about going back to the drawing board in those moments and taking into account how much we change, zooming in and zooming out, and having patience with myself.

What projects are you hoping to bring to life through your own production company? Can you share more about that venture and what inspired you to take that step?

Our whole idea for the production company was to create a theater troupe type structure but for film. To have a space that fosters a continued collaborative process. One of the most frustrating parts about filmmaking for me is you cultivate these incredible collaborative relationships that blossom half way through the process and then you finish the film and oftentimes never work with that person again unless you’re lucky. This felt like a way to take the reins a bit in that realm, to put wind in the sails of artists we believe in.

When you’re out of work mode, how do you like to spend your time and how do you recharge?

Family. Friends. Dog. Montana. Drumming. Drawing. Reading. Sometimes living too deeply in the brain space of making movies can kind of trap me in a mode of operation where I forget that there’s actually a bowl of apples on the table if I peek my head out from behind the easel. I can lose sight of what the subject of all these stories really is in the first place. I hate when I catch myself thinking “Oh, that would make a great movie” or “I want to steal the way that person picks their nose and use it for a character”. I try to do the most non-movie stuff when I’m not making movies. I think that probably serves both sides, at least for now.

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Lewis Pullman Steps Out of the Shadows

It’s a sunny Saturday in April, and in about two weeks, Lewis Pullman’s life is going to change. On May 2, Thunderbolts*—Pullman’s first foray into the industry-defining, fan-obsessing, billions-of-dollars-generating Marvel Cinematic Universe—will debut in theaters around the world, to above-average reviews and a weekend-winning $76 million domestic gross. In the film, which at press time remains the number-one movie in America, most of Pullman’s co-stars (including Sebastian Stan and Florence Pugh) are reprising roles they've played in previous Marvel movies. Pullman, on the other hand, plays a new character named…Bob.

Sounds underwhelming, but as comic-book fans figured out the minute the trailers dropped, Bob is also the Sentry, a Superman-esque figure who’s canonically stronger than the Hulk and almost as smart as Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four—and who, in the course of the film, loses control of his malevolent alter ego and becomes the movie’s primary antagonist. We’ll refrain from further spoilage, but Marvel has already announced that Pullman will be part of the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, the 2026 event film that Marvel hopes will restore the studio to its Phase Three glory; the Sentry will presumably play a key role in that film as well.

But at this moment in April, Bob is not yet a household name, and Pullman, 32, is still able to go unnoticed on the patio of his favorite burger place in Silver Lake. He’s still got some superhero bulk to his body, there’s a smattering of faint tattoos on his forearms, and he’s wearing a sick vintage T-shirt with a dragon on it, but the other customers pay more attention to a friendly dog who is enjoying the weather. Pullman, whose only public social media profile is a sporadically-updated Letterboxd account, seems like the kind of guy who’d want to maintain this low-key presence for as long as he can. Besides, during his decade inside the entertainment industry, he’s realized there are no guarantees.

Pullman is best known for playing characters with a dopey naivete or a churning intensity. In Thunderbolts* he gets to do both. The film is also the first time he’s been part of a project that’s kicked off the summer movie season, but he’s trying to moderate his expectations.

A little while later, once he’s devoured a burger and repaired to a dark bar up the street, he offers his sensible perspective. “If there’s anything I've learned—and I learned this from my dad too—it’s that you hear often, This is really going to move the needle, or whatnot,” he says. “That can be a kind of dangerous thing to think if that's something that you want and it doesn’t happen. I've heard that enough times and the needle remained stagnant.”

When Highston didn’t go forward, Pullman dedicated himself to getting better at auditions, since the idea of doing them terrified him so much. “That's scarier than any other part of the process. It's just so many unnatural elements in that room,” he says. “I grew up a very anxious kid and not very socially apt in a lot of ways. I was like, If I can do this, I can be a ninja conversationally outside of that.”

As Pullman honed those skills, he started appearing in his friends’ movies and music videos as they too were entering the industry. “I said yes to everything,” he explains. “I wanted to just do as much as possible, no matter how embarrassing or humiliatingly clownish it was. I was like, it doesn't matter, because I just need to be able to not treat the camera like a villain and treat it like a friend.”

Then he adds, “There's so much blackmail material out there of me where I was just trying to figure it out.”

Pullman got his first big break with 2018’s Bad Times at the El Royale, a Tarantino-ish film from writer-director Drew Goddard, set in a hotel that straddles the California-Nevada border, and might also be purgatory. He played an outwardly meek bellboy harboring his own sinister secrets; it was the last role cast in the movie, because they couldn’t find the right young actor. Too many of them played up the damage and potential danger in the character, but Goddard was searching for something else, and immediately saw it in Pullman.

“It's what you're looking for in casting, which is someone who is deeply connected to the soulfulness of the character, and Lewis just accessed that,” Goddard says. ”There's something about men, and young men in particular, where they're afraid to be compassionate and earnest. Whereas Lewis—his beating heart just comes out on the screen immediately."

Though El Royale underperformed at the box office, critics took note of Pullman, even as he shared scenes with Jeff Bridges, Chris Hemsworth, and Jon Hamm giving uninhibited performances. Over the course of his brief career, he’s also performed alongside consistently great workhorses including Lili Taylor, Bill Camp, Kyle Chandler, and Jason Clarke. Pullman is an eager student of the acting craft, but has realized that maybe not everyone on set is as down to talk shop as he is. “I always want to get right into asking questions and geeking out about it, but everyone's different and everyone has different processes and sometimes don't want to crack their bubble of imagination to be like, ‘How was Hell or High Water for you?’” he says.

That wasn’t his experience on Top Gun: Maverick, the domestic box office champion of 2022. In that movie, Pullman played another character named Bob, whose bad-ass call sign is also… Bob. In a room of cocksure alphas, Bob is an oblivious beta. The supporting cast of the Tom Cruise vehicle was stacked with hotly-tipped young actors—Glen Powell, Miles Teller, Monica Barbaro, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez—but the star at the center of the film made himself readily available to them.

Ramirez joined the MCU a few years before Pullman, taking on the role of the new Falcon alongside Anthony Mackie’s Captain America. When the Sentry offer came, he encouraged his friend to suit up and he’s been impressed—but not surprised—by how fast Pullman’s been able to excel at this type of performance.

“It's this beautiful universe that started before we joined and is going to continue after, and to fully trust fall and be as vulnerable and open in those moments, it feels different than doing it for an indie, obviously,” Ramirez says. “For him to do that and to be caught by the filmmaker and the rest of the cast, and to continue delivering every day, it shows the stamina he has as a performer and the willingness he has to investigate the truth."

Before Pullman returns to the world of superheroes with Avengers: Doomsday, he’s been doing some more low-key work. He just returned from Vancouver, where he filmed a Netflix movie called Remarkably Bright Creatures, based on Shelby Pelt’s enormously popular novel. The film mainly revolves around him, Sally Field, and an octopus inside an aquarium—though the octopus will be added entirely as a special effect in post-production. “We were just looking at an empty tank the whole time,” Pullman says. “The amazing part about that though is that if I ever was looking in the tank thinking, How do I imagine the fucking beauty of this alien creature?, I would just look over at Sally Field. It was like she was fucking seeing the octopus.”

The commercial success of Thunderbolts* could put Lewis, for the first time in his career, in a position where his involvement might help a movie get made. To this end, he recently started a production company, Buckwild Pictures. He has plenty of friends who write or direct and can’t get the money to move beyond the short film stage and make something bigger. “There was something really alluring about that maybe I could be some sort of an asset for driving these things to the finish line, if possible,” he says.

I asked Pullman if he ever talked to his dad about how his life changed after Independence Day. He has; Bill told him the best thing about starring in the highest-grossing movie of 1996 was the possibilities it opened up.

“That's what I'm most curious about, is if something does shift, whether that will give me the opportunity to potentially tell stories that I've always wanted to be a part of, but was never really considered for—whether that be because they couldn't imagine me in it, they hadn't seen me in anything, or because I didn't have any sort of pull in this demographic and couldn't get financing here or there or whatever,” he says. “I'm not looking forward to it, because I don't want to say that, but I am curious about if that were to happen.”

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Lewis Pullman On 'Thunderbolts*,’ Quitting Instagram, & Relationship Privacy

“When was your last panic attack?” Lewis Pullman asks me. We’ve been talking about how we’re both too anxious to enjoy psychedelics — “I don’t like feeling out of control in my brain,” he says — which is not really the conversation you’d expect to be having with a newly minted Marvel star on the eve of his blockbuster hitting theaters. But during the course of a nearly two-hour, three-rounds-of-Sancerre lunch at The Odeon, Pullman — now starring in Thunderbolts* alongside Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan — is gladly game, maybe even a little relieved, to go off script following a breakneck press tour.

“All the actors in Thunderbolts* are so darn good at [the publicity] part of things. Everybody’s biology is different… but I need time to refuel the tank,” he says, wedging a wintergreen Zyn into his upper lip. “My mom was saying, ‘You got to remember: You’re in a flesh suit. You’re still a human. You still need to rest.’” He’s hoping a boozy meal will lead to a snoozy afternoon: “I might just do one more glass, because I want to take a nap.”

Pullman doesn’t read as self-conscious. He’s generous with eye contact, easy to banter with, and immune to checking his phone. But the 32-year-old has always considered himself highly sensitive. The youngest of three siblings, Pullman says he put a lot of pressure on himself to “stay out of the way” as a kid. By 14, his mother sensed there might be something deeper happening beneath the surface. She put him into therapy, and he was diagnosed with social anxiety and OCD. “I’m such a reactive person. Even being in this loud space, I feel like I'm taking in a lot of data,” Pullman says. “I think all my senses, the valve is a little too open at all times.”

This has made figuring out what to do with his life occasionally tricky. Pullman studied social work in college and volunteered at AHOPE Day Center, a homeless service center, in Asheville, North Carolina. But he just couldn’t close the valve. “One of my main mentors, Asia, told me, ‘When you drive home find a marker on the road, like a telephone pole. Once you pass that you’re not allowed to think about work anymore,’” he says. “Creating boundaries, holding your own space, and monitoring your emotional energy is actually what is required and that was really hard for me to grapple with. There’s a lot that can bleed over.”

Was a life in the arts — disappearing into roles, summoning emotions the second a director yells “Action!” — a better match for those open-valve gifts? Yes and no. In Thunderbolts*, Pullman plays Bob Reynolds (and his superpowered personas, The Sentry and The Void) — one of the New Avengers with a history of addiction and mental health struggles. Pullman talks about the impact of the role with the intensity of someone who just played, well, The Joker.

“He has a pretty barbed past, very traumatic, with just a rough family situation, so you meet him when he’s like that and constantly having these flashbulbs of grief, of just strangulation of his past,” Pullman says. “I’m still kind of shedding it.”

He doesn’t mind going deep, though. “I just went through a phase where I stopped doing therapy because I was like, ‘Well, what if I fully fix myself and then I have nothing to draw from?’ It was so douchey,” he says. “To think that by ignoring something, you’re going to be able to [tap into it]? If anything, by looking at it closer, you’re able to understand it more and control it better.”

Pullman grew up in a family of creatives: His father is actor Bill Pullman; his mother, Tamara Hurwitz, is a modern dancer; and his siblings are both in the arts. They lived in Los Angeles but spent summers on the family’s ranch in Montana herding cattle. Today, Pullman’s low-key combo of button-down shirt and jeans gives more Yellowstone than 90210. Drumming was his gateway into performing — he’s played in the band Atta Boy since high school — and he starred in a few short films during college. But acting professionally always intimidated him, so much so that Pullman would sometimes take his glasses off during auditions. (You don’t have to worry if the casting director looks happy if you simply can’t see them.) “There’s a lot of stimuli that has nothing to do with what’s happening, so it was a way of softening the edges where I was more in control,” he says.

Early roles in projects like Battle of the Sexes, Bad Times at the El Royale, and Catch-22 assured him he was on the right path. By the time 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick came around, he was hooked. In the long-awaited sequel, Tom Cruise reprised his role as alpha pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, who returns to his old training school to both teach and make betas out of a new crop of hot-shot pilots played by Miles Teller, Glen Powell, and Jay Ellis. Pullman’s bespectacled character, however, is already plenty submissive: He gets partnered with the only female pilot and keeps his shirt on during the film’s beachside biceps bonanza. Pullman jokes that between Maverick and Thunderbolts*, he’s carved out a niche playing the “shirt-on characters” in blockbusters otherwise populated by sun’s-out-guns-out types. “I relate to that cripplingly self-conscious, keeping-the-shirt-on-at-the-pool-party kid,” he says.

He did, however, bulk for Thunderbolts* just in case.“I was ready for a scene where this whole SWAT team was supposed to shoot this shirt off of [my character’s] body. I got fitter than I’d ever been in my life and we didn’t even shoot it!” he says, laughing.

Top Gun was formative in other ways. Between takes, Pullman was happy to sit on the sidelines and soak in the wisdom of those higher up on the call sheet. “Tom was putting himself in our shoes every day and consciously giving us the experience of working with a veteran like him. But then there was also another tier of experience where I got to learn from Jay Ellis and Glen Powell,” he says. (When I blurt out that Jay Ellis is also extremely hot, Pullman meets my gaze: “Absolutely, smoldering hot.”)

For Pullman, Powell’s path from entry-level script reader to actor-screenwriter was particularly inspiring. “From Glen, I learned about the long game and planting seeds for ideas that might not happen in two or three years,” he says. “But if you keep your nose to the grindstone, they will happen, and they’ll be that much more fully fleshed out because you’ve been existing with them for that long.”

Pullman’s career has already been extremely fruitful. He earned an Emmy nomination for his work in 2023’s Lessons in Chemistry opposite Brie Larson, and he’ll star in the next project from the husband-and-wife team behind last year’s Oscar-winning The Brutalist. Yet he’s still adjusting to the pressures that come with superhero fame. Like, Reddit-threads-about-whether-he’s-dating-Kaia-Gerber pressures. How does he deal with that?

“That’s a fair question. I think one of the great benefits of growing up with my dad is he always really prioritized and valued his privacy,” Pullman says. “You know the casualties of the landscape that you’re signing up for, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be proactive in creating an armor for the things that you love most.”

Staying off the internet helps. Pullman has an iPhone mini, but the only form of social media he uses is Letterboxd. (“I got rid of [my Instagram] for stupid actor reasons,” he says, cringing at himself. “I was like, ‘I don’t think my character would have Instagram.’”) Everything else is just stimuli to tune out.

After lunch, I walk Pullman back to his hotel, and he immediately appears lighter while taking in the relative calm of Tribeca in the late afternoon. With the sun shining down on us and that well-earned nap on the horizon, he seems properly recharged. “I really want to bring my best self,” he says of taking his career to Avengers-level heights. “I just have to get used to: Sometimes wherever I am is what they’re going to get — and that’s as good as I can do.”

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Lewis Pullman Is Becoming More Powerful

LEWIS PULLMAN KNEW he was going to have to look ripped—he just wasn’t sure how much of him anyone was actually going to see.

There’s a moment fairly early on in Thunderbolts*, the 36th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, when the 32-year-old actor’s character—then just known as a dude named Bob—is shot many, many, many times with machine guns. But Bob isn’t just a dude named Bob; he’s actually the Sentry, the end result of a secret government project led by CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) to create the perfect superhero. And, as it turns out, Bob will rise from the literal ashes. But how much of someone’s shirt remains after getting shot approximately 1,000 times? Pullman worked out his whole body extensively in the months leading up to filming; whatever happened with the big reveal, he was going to be ready.

“I had to be prepared for whatever felt plausible for when people are shooting you with automatic machine guns,” Pullman says on a late-April morning at Men’s Health’s Manhattan offices, just a couple days before the movie will officially be unveiled to the world. “How much of your shirt is actually going to come off?”

The answer: only about half of it, if that. The result looked like a singed crop top, a comparison Pullman himself makes and later laughs about. “It was the most extreme transformation I’ve ever done,” he says, “and you don’t even see that much of it on camera.”

He had experienced a certain type of last-minute physique cramming before, on the set of Top Gun: Maverick (coincidentally, another movie in which he plays a character named Bob). While he keeps his shirt on during that film’s famous football scene, many others did not. It was there, Pullman says, that he first saw costars dehydrating themselves to increase their vascularity and doing pre-shoot workouts until the very last minute. (“In the days leading up, there was more male insecurity than you’ve ever seen on any set ever,” Glen Powell told Men’s Health in 2022.)

“I was just sitting on the sidelines for that one,” Pullman says. “But now I got a taste of it—and a heavy dose. You look shredded, but you feel like shit.” He adds, however, that it was all worth it to look exactly how he needed to look. In that Thunderbolts* scene, it becomes clear that Val’s experimentation is affecting not just Bob’s mental state (he’s experiencing bouts of amnesia, exacerbating his history of mental health issues), but his physical state as well. And, well, the superhero part sure appears to be working, because this guy just survived a wave of bullets and has a core that would make Thor jealous. “After that scene was done, I had one of those ice cream Snickers. Maybe three of them. And then I had a milkshake. And a burger, and ice cream, and French fries,” he says. “Just going all in. It was a serious Last Supper moment.”

As we talk, Pullman has the easygoing, down-to-earth demeanor of someone who’s been around the movie business his whole life, someone who takes the work seriously but doesn’t need to make a big deal out of all its attendant fanfare. At times, he can be the spitting image of his dad, movie star Bill Pullman, exhibiting the same charm and artistic curiosity that have made his father such a unique presence in films as varied as the blockbuster Independence Day and David Lynch’s surreal Lost Highway. Lewis, too, has already been in a diverse mix of movies and major TV shows over nearly a decade—highlights include the cult-favorite 2018 film Bad Times at the El Royale, Hulu’s Catch-22 series, and Apple TV+’s Lessons in Chemistry, the latter earning him an Emmy nomination—but his complex and surprisingly intimate role at the center of Thunderbolts* feels likely to launch him to a new level of stardom.

With Thunderbolts* now leading the charge in the MCU’s run toward next summer’s Avengers: Doomsday, Pullman spoke with Men’s Health about landing the role, playing a superhero whose story revolves around mental health, and what comes next.

MEN’S HEALTH: I want to start with a quote from writer-director Drew Goddard about casting you in Bad Times at the El Royale: “It was one of those good old-fashioned casting searches. After meeting with lots and lots and lots of actors, Lewis came in and you just felt that immediately. The last time that happened, quite honestly, was when Chris Hemsworth walked in for Cabin in the Woods. You’re just looking for actors who inherently fit the role—and then also transcend the role.”

LEWIS PULLMAN: Jesus. God love Drew Goddard.

MH: He was referencing Chris Hemsworth partly because you were both in Bad Times at the El Royale. But now that you’re also playing a superhero in the MCU, it takes on a whole new context. Does any part of this feel like a full-circle moment to you?

LP: In some ways. I mean, the circle hasn’t really come to a full connection yet, because it’s a hard thing to realize and come to terms with. I always try and keep my expectations low. I never really expected to be a part of the MCU, you know? I just expected to be an admirer of it. So it was trippy to see it at the L.A. premiere with my family. I held my mom’s hand the whole time. I was like, “Oh, I didn’t actually do that. I wasn’t actually there.” It was very surreal, very trippy.

MH: You had a bit of an unusual casting process for Thunderbolts*. What was that like?

LP: Steven Yeun was going to play the Sentry, which I think was such awesome casting. It was a testament to the quality of the role and of the world. And then, due to scheduling and life happening—which always happens—he had to drop out. They were in a bit of a scramble to find a guy. Obviously, knowing that, it was a big pair of shoes to try to step into. And in that massive world, it’s hard to remember that you have your own things that you can bring into it. Your job is to fit into the world and assimilate into it, but it’s also to enhance it and bring any sort of relatability you might have to the character. That was something [director] Jake Schreier constantly reminded me of, which was beautiful. He empowered me in that way. He was asking how I related to Bob, and there was much to relate to in that sense. I really found a kinship with this character.

MH: You mention Jake, the director, who previously did such great work on Beef. Just like Beef, Thunderbolts* captures a lot of complexity in its characters—more than you might expect in a superhero movie. Did you look back at that series?

LP: I rewatched Beef once I got the role, just so I could see Jake’s eye, what he’s curious about, and where his lens tends to land when he’s telling a story. That was very helpful. He’s very comfortable venturing into the uncomfortable, which is such an interesting mix to add into Marvel. Uncomfortable things can be polarizing. It was a cool, fun risk they were taking with it. There are a lot of topics in the movie that are uncomfortable. It deals a lot with mental health, which can feel too close to home for some people. It can be an area and a topic they want to steer away from. But I think it was a great opportunity for us to say, Growth comes from one’s ability to sit in the discomfort. I’ve already found a few people who have seen this film, and it connects with them, in a way, because I think they were able to sit through some things that aren’t commonly seen in massive pop-culture movies.

MH: What was the most difficult part of physically preparing to play this godlike superhero?

LP: Finding a body type that worked for both Bob and for Sentry. They’re very different people, and they have very different purposes within the story. To make that transition both believable and shocking within a very short amount of time was very challenging. But I was lucky to be in the hands of this awesome trainer, Brendan Johnston, who just said, “We’re not trying to build a lot of mass.” We were trying to build definition, and all those small, intricate, sinewy muscles that will pull the light. That was done a lot with boxing, which I hadn’t done much of but that I really loved. I’ve continued to do it since we wrapped production, because I don’t like cardio. I don’t like feeling like I want to die when I work out, because then I’m not going to get back in the gym. I have to make it fun for myself so that I can continue incentivizing getting my butt out of bed and into the gym. Boxing was a great way to do that, because you forget that you’re exerting yourself as much as you are, and you’re working so many parts of your body. You’re recruiting all these muscles that are normally kind of dormant.

MH: There’s some really intense action in the movie. You’re literally taking on a full team of superheroes at one point. What kind of fight training did you have?

LP: It was some of the most hands-on, intense stunt training I’ve gotten to do. I was lucky enough to work with an incredible stunt double, Alec Back. He’s a great buddy of mine now. He’s so well-informed, and he has such a good, versatile background. So we were able to design how the Sentry fights in a way that was very specific to me and specific to how we wanted this superhero to look.

I did a lot of research prior too, wanting him to have his own signature style in fighting and in his silhouette. I also really wanted to differentiate how Sentry fought versus how Bob fights. That meant working on allowing some of my more naturally sloppy instincts to come through with Bob, to look more like he was in a schoolyard fight. I wanted it to be very messy and scrappy and not have any form. And then with the Sentry, to have these very controlled, very effortless, very minute movements so that the reaction to his impact, in comparison to how little effort he’s actually outputting, looks drastic. You get a real sense of just how much power is harnessed within him.

MH: One of the movie’s most climactic moments is the Void fighting Bob. Did you have to learn both parts of the fight choreography for that?

LP: Thank you for asking that! Nobody’s asked me about that, and it was one of the most difficult sequences to do! You know, as I mentioned, I just started boxing, and it’s sort of a boxing match in some ways. I had to do both sides, but luckily I was with Alec, my double, and so he would play my other self when I was playing whichever was going to be seen on camera. It’s very difficult to remember that choreography because it’s a long fight. For each setup, you have to switch back and forth for the whole fight. So you do the whole fight dozens and dozens and dozens of times. You’re oscillating back and forth, you’re strobe-lighting between which part you’re doing. So it’s really hard to remember in a split second whether you’re supposed to be the one punching or the one being punched. Luckily, Alec is very good at reflexively moving on his feet, so we were able to think on our toes. It was almost more mentally exhausting than it was physically exhausting.

MH: I think the idea of both literally and figuratively fighting yourself is really interesting conceptually and, in that scene, visually too.

LP: It was such an operatic, climactic thing for me, personally, to actually walk through and experience. Because I do feel like often we are our worst enemies. We always assume we need to keep those negative voices around because they’re within us for survival reasons, to protect us from danger. But oftentimes they’re assuming the lowest version of ourselves, and they’re extremely cauterizing in our growth as people, as emotionally available beings. So to actually walk through the act of suppressing those negative feelings was really powerful for me.

MH: The movie then expands the visual metaphor about mental health by having characters traverse a series of “shame rooms” that confront them with their own insecurities and failures. Did you know the movie would grapple with these themes so directly when you signed on, or did that reveal itself over the production?

LP: It felt like a theme amongst many themes when I was first pitched the film. It didn’t feel like the driving force. Once we were on set and we were moving from shame room to shame room [in the film’s third act], I realized the power of the symbolism and getting to visualize these labyrinths of anxiety and trauma we subject ourselves to. It really uses the format incredibly intelligently because so much of what we’re talking about takes place in our minds. Wyatt Russell [who plays John Walker] said something brilliant the other day. He said, “A lot of Marvel is about the exploration of outer space, and this is the exploration of inner space, of the mind, which is just as limitless as outer space is.” I thought that was a good way to frame it.

MH: Bob and Yelena have great chemistry in the movie as two people who understand what it’s like to grapple with trauma and self-doubt. What is your real-life relationship with Florence Pugh like?

LP: So much of it comes down to Florence just being an outlier of a person and an artist. She is so full of joy and humor, and she experiences life in such a rich way. She doesn’t let any moment pass without being very conscious and deliberate about it. I grew very close to her, and very fond of her, because she also took me under her wing. I think it was very much reminiscent of when she first joined the Marvel Universe and how intimidating it was. I felt instantly like I was in good hands. I trusted her. And so I owe it all to her. You know, anything that feels like it was real on camera was the result of Florence being so gracious, and human, and embracing.

MH: Julia Louis-Dreyfus is also amazing in this film.

LP: She’s a legend, and a queen, and a GOAT.

MH: You get some really great moments with her.

LP: I was constantly trying not to break. I mean, it’s like being thrown into a hockey rink and you’ve never held a stick, but you’re expected to just play with a pro. She’s so dexterous, and she’s so thoughtful. Of the entire cast, she’s been the one who has spent hundreds of thousands of hours in front of camera, and she’s so comfortable. She really knows how to maximize her time with every take and every scene. And she has such a dry confidence in this, which is just inherently hilarious.

One of the most bizarre things we had to shoot was when I actually have her by the throat—and that was terrifying. I felt like I had a national treasure in my hands, and I was like, “I don’t want to do this!” But she was game. She was like, “You’re really supposed to be strangling me here.”

MH: A big scene between Bob and Val is when he first walks out in the Sentry costume she’s basically focus-grouped for him, along with new, blond hair. How did it feel to go blond? Did you actually dye it?

LP: That was a wig. Lane Friedman was our incredible wig master, and she designed it in a way that felt like it was just a little off-putting. It’s not supposed to look like our ideal version of a superhero; it’s supposed to be a little off-kilter. It’s supposed to make you think, There’s something wrong here, and I can’t quite put a finger on it. And so there’s something a little creepy about it. It’s not as glorious as Thor’s hair! I felt weird with blond hair—it’s probably not something I would do in my day-to-day life!

MH: Speaking of this big, exciting blockbuster movie that you’re in, I’m also a big fan of your dad’s work as an actor…

LP: Me too.

MH: Something he did that I loved, especially during a particular run in the ’90s, was star in a big blockbuster movie like Independence Day and then do a very filmmaker-driven movie like Lost Highway with David Lynch. In the last couple years, you’ve done something very similar, where you’re in both big-budget movies and smaller indie films. Is striking that mix something you think about when picking projects?

LP: It’s definitely something I’ve wanted to do, and I really love the process of indie filmmaking—it’s sort of where my heart lies. There are so many things that make the process far more difficult. Obviously, there’s a lack of resources and time that you don’t struggle with on a movie like Thunderbolts*. But there’s also an urgency to it; there’s this fiery flame you’re trying to catch because you know you’ve only got three takes per setup. So there isn’t this disposable ideology around time. And there’s something very exciting and very theater-like in that way of working, which I love. It’s also a great opportunity for a lot of new voices and perspectives to be heard and seen. There are a lot of really great brains out there that just need a platform—and the indie world is where they can sharpen their teeth.

MH: One indie project you have coming up is Ann Lee, the new film from Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet. I became a big fan of theirs last year after The Brutalist came out. What was that experience like?

LP: I loved that experience so much. They are such pros at being very economical with their process, but also not feeling restrained or constricted. You forget it’s on a shoestring budget, because they’re so resourceful. And Mona is such a guttural and fearless director. Talk about somebody who’s not afraid to dive headfirst into the weird, the disturbing, and the beautiful. I’m so excited to see it, because just hearing how she talks, and what she’s curious about, and the questions that she asks…I know she’s going to have a very, very, very specific perspective.

MH: You and Danny Ramirez were roommates at a certain point after Top Gun: Maverick, and now you’re both in the Marvel Universe. Do you guys talk often?

LP: I just saw him at the Thunderbolts* premiere. We talk all the time. It’s a friendship that I’m so lucky to have, because we’ve been on such bizarrely similar trajectories. I’ve just been one step behind him, and he’s had such great advice and encouragement for me.

We are just really trying to hammer home that we will not let people down if they let me and him interact in future films. We’re really going to milk it for all it’s worth! We’ve been trying to get projects off the ground together since Top Gun, and we’ve got a couple in the oven, but we’re so excited to have one finally happen [next year’s Avengers: Doomsday]. And we didn’t even really have to work for it! We have so much fun working together; we both have the same kind of attitude about why we do what we do.

MH: By the end of Thunderbolts*, the Thunderbolts have rebranded as the New Avengers. Where does Bob—who isn’t sure he can ever keep the Void from returning—go from here? As you mentioned, he’ll be back for Avengers: Doomsday….

LP: It’s a great question. I’m really excited to find out. The Thunderbolts don’t want to let him out of their sight, because they realize that if he’s caught in the wrong hands, or if he’s not being supported enough by the right people, he might be dangerous. But they also want to keep him close in case they can figure out a way to use him. He’s a very good asset. It’s a hard situation they’re in. With all the other characters that are going to be in Avengers: Doomsday, there will be so many opportunities to figure out how each might come into play—and how Bob might come into play with any of them.

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Lewis Pullman on Tom Cruise’s ‘Top Gun’ Training — and That Beach Scene

Feeling the need — for taking notes. Lewis Pullman and his costars underwent grueling training in order to pull off their Top Gun: Maverick fighter pilot duties — and it couldn’t be done without Tom Cruise.

“I had to just transform into a sponge and just absorb, absorb, absorb because it was a new lesson every day. I mean, he is a Titan,” Pullman, 29, exclusively told Us Weekly of Cruise, 59, on Friday, June 24. “I’ve never seen anyone approach filmmaking the way he does, and I’ve also never seen someone that far into their career who still has such drive, has such curiosity, has such passion has such a reluctance to settle, is always trying to make even the smallest scenes better. And he’s so invested in learning about, I mean, he’s already learned about it, but in every asset of filmmaking, he seems to have a vast understanding of every particle that goes into making a good movie that everyone around the world can relate to. And so that was just incredible, incredible to watch.”

The Outer Range actor plays Lt. Robert ”Bob” Floyd in the acclaimed sequel to 1986’s Top Gun. Since its May 27 debut, its already soared past the $1 billion mark at the box office. Cruise returned to reprise his role as Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and insisted that the film needed to be seen in theaters. (It was initially delayed due to the rise in coronavirus cases.)

“He’s not really competing with anyone. The only one person that he is really competing with is himself. So to watch somebody have that kind of internal push and pull tug of war is really inspiring and really contagious,” Pullman said, adding that Cruise took the lead on mapping out the training course the cast took part in.

“We had to do all this swim training in order to get certified in order to get into the plane that wasn’t even in the movie,” Pullman recalled, laughing. “But despite all that, despite the challenges, Tom really set up this course himself, he designed this training, this training program himself. And so who better to do that than Tom Cruise? Who knows exactly what an actor is gonna need from the ground up to get to be able to perform at that level, and that training two and a half months, what that had to look like. And so it really, he kind of gave us this really gradual program and in such a way that it felt manageable and in these kind of like bite-size digestive portions where it was like, ‘OK, I think I can do this. I think this is absolutely insane, but I think I can do it.’”

“Learning how to handle G’s is one thing, learning how to handle motion sickness is another thing. Learning how to kind of just be able to be really aware. And there’s a lot of stuff that you have to do on the day when you’re up there shooting,” Pullman explained to Us. “And so to kind of be able to handle all these different biological shifts and environmental shifts are going on and kind of like claustrophobia and you’re up in the air doing insane maneuvers while also trying to get a good performance, get what we needed for the story line, make sure that it was dynamic, make sure that the continuity worked, make sure that the sun was in the right place between two and three o’clock otherwise, the shadow of the camera [will be] on your face.”

Other newcomer pilots — Miles Teller, Glen Powell, Monica Barbaro and Jay Ellis — also needed to get prepared physically. Safe to say, the iconic football beach scene was one of the many reasons why. Pullman, however, kept his shirt on for a strategic reason.

“The whole cast was undergoing some serious battles of impulse to get ready for that scene. Everyone was working out like crazy. I was playing Bob, who’s a bit more of a library dweller. I was like, you know, I think it’ll just feel a little dissonant if Bob takes his shirt off and he is a little ripped. I also think Bob wouldn’t take his shirt off. I think that’s kind of maybe an uncomfortable thing for him to do. I think he’s a bit more of a kind of reserved, quiet guy. He kind of likes to watch how things play out before he really inserts himself into a situation,” he said. “And so I was one of the only people who really wasn’t hitting. I mean, I would go into the gym just out of camaraderie. Glen Powell infamously one time was doing some lateral flies and was whispering something to himself really intensely. And I was like, ‘Glen, what are you saying?’ He was like, ‘Montage’s last forever.’”

The line, of course, took on a life of its own. That was his mantra. And then everyone started to just chant that,” he recalled. “But it was a pretty fun scenario to be a part of.”

As for whether his costars may have been jealous he didn’t have to go as hard at the gym, he mused: “I mean, maybe. But then you see the scene and everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, it was worth it.’”

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‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Actor Lewis Pullman Dissects His “Quiet Burning Ember” Character And Shares Advice From Iconic ‘ID4’ Father

In a conversation with THR, the actor explained how much he values the bond with his flight partner Monica Barbaro and how impressed he was with Tom Cruise's devotion, not only to the picture, but to each and every pilot actor.

There was a fleeting moment when Lewis Pullman considered he might be in over his head.

The Top Gun: Maverick actor could never have imagined just how intense and daunting the training was going to be for the highly anticipated sequel to the 1986 Paramount classic. But it was Tom Cruise, the film’s leader both on- and offscreen, who got Pullman where he needed to be for a masterful performance.

In Top Gun: Maverick, Pullman plays the shy, reserved (but extremely capable) Lt. Robert “Bob” Floyd, weapon systems officer (WSO) for mission pilot trainee Lt. Natasha “Phoenix” Trace (Monica Barbaro).

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Pullman explained he took great pride in playing the “quiet burning ember” Bob, as his modesty and humbleness were reflected in several of the actual United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program (TOPGUN) pilots whom the actor met while working on the film.

During that same THR chat, Pullman also discussed how much he values his bond with his flight partner Barbaro and how impressed he was with Cruise’s devotion, not only to the picture as a whole, but to each and every pilot actor. In addition, Pullman also shares the kismet advice he received from his iconic Hollywood dad, Independence Day star Bill Pullman.

Did you wonder what the heck you got yourself into during the rigorous training?

(Laughs.) Yeah, man. I mean, it really kind of snuck up on me, the reality of what we were actually doing. Tom Cruise’s only true competition is himself. So, every time he goes into a movie, it’s not like he’s looking around to see if anyone else is trying to do the same thing — because nobody is. (Laughs.) It’s just about if he can top the last thing that he’s done — and he always does!

Tom was so darn generous with his time and with his energy. And you know, he set up the entire training regiment for us himself. He designed it in a way that really crept up on us. In the beginning, it was like this is a summit that I don’t know if I could reach. It’s just crazy. But he gave us a very gradual on-ramp, so by the time we were actually pulling 8.5 g’s — it was there before we knew it. He understood the assignment and what we were going to need in order to be confident and give good performances up in these [F/A-18 Super Hornets] while actually pulling g’s and doing these serious aerobatic maneuvers.

I have no doubt Bob will be an audience favorite. In a way, he reminded me of Miles Miller from Bad Times at the El Royale. Do you enjoy those characters the most, the quiet guys who can take care of business when the time comes?

(Laughs.) It’s all on the writing, but it’s a pleasure to be the vessel. I really enjoyed playing Bob. I wanted to make sure that there was a pilot — because I was a pretty shy kid growing up — who represented maybe not the cockiest or most overly confident. He’s more of a quiet burning ember who knows he can burst into flames at any moment. His only real need is to perform at a high level in the sky. That was an honor because so many of the TOPGUN pilots who I met, they’re geniuses, and they’re badass — but they’re also incredibly modest. So, I just wanted to make sure that was captured in some sense.

Did you and Monica spend extra time together in training? How did you build that bond and trust the characters would need to convey onscreen?

We were doing all this flying and flight training, and Monica was one of the biggest badasses of any of us! She seemed to have no issues with what was going on, whereas I had hurdles with fear or motion sickness. So it was very easy to have that onscreen dynamic because we lifted each other up a lot. She gave me a lot of advice and encouragement, and vice versa. Because we knew what their relationship was like early on, we spent a lot of time hanging out. She’s exceptional in this film, and she’s an exceptional person.

How would you describe the g-force you experienced to someone who has no idea what that kind of pressure is like on the human body?

(Laughs.) I’m trying to think of like how would I describe this to myself three years ago before we started training because it’s so outside of anything that is normal. It’s like you’re a marionette and all your strings are being dragged down to the center of the earth. It’s like a very heavy animal is sitting on top of you. It is wild, man. And the fact we got a chance to make that feel like it was normal, so we not be overtaken by the biological shift, was a great opportunity.

We would do these flight briefings, where we would fill out these forms about how many g’s we pulled and what difficulties we were having. We then emailed them and thought they were just going out into the ether, but then you’d see Tom Cruise the next day. And he’d come up to you and be like, “I read your brief, and I just wanted to know if there’s anything I can do.” And if you said you wanted to try new things and push further, then the next day, you’re doing it. For the busiest man I’ve ever personally met, he was remarkable at taking the time in such a generous and caring way to make sure that we were confident and had every resource at our disposal.

Everybody seems to have an amazing Tom Cruise story from this film. Would you mind sharing one with me beyond what you just said?

In the F/A-18s, we didn’t have monitors that could go back to base camp; they couldn’t watch the takes we were doing. So they built this little wooden mock cockpit called “the Buck.” And we would go in before each flight to do rehearsals and run through safety procedures. And there was this amazing moment, actually, it happened a bunch of times, when I was sitting in the Buck, and Tom Cruise was sitting on a stool giving me advice and direction on how to make the scene as dynamic as it needed to be. I was like, “This is as good as it gets, right here.”

Due to the pandemic, the movie was pushed several times. Can you share the emotions you’re feeling right now, knowing the moment for Top Gun: Maverick has finally arrived?

It’s quite overwhelming. I don’t really know how to identify some of the feelings I’m having. But it is really comforting to know that people who were questioning why it was taking so long to come out, why don’t you just put it on streaming — there’s no need to answer that question now. All they have to do is sit in the theater, and it will all be made clear. This has all the elements that theatrical experience needs to have, and audience members want to have. So, I am super jazzed that we didn’t put it on streaming — and I think everyone else will be, too.

Finally, since I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing him a few times, I must ask: Has dad seen the film yet, and did he offer any advice from his fighter pilot days against aliens in Independence Day?

(Laughs.) He hasn’t seen it yet, but I cannot wait for him to see it. He’s working on a play right now, doing rehearsals. I always run everything by him before I start a job, and he always delivers me gold. He used greenscreen in Independence Day, but he gave good movement advice, to really convey the physicality of what’s going on. Mainly, he offered to make sure this character felt real and grounded and to absorb everything from the real TOPGUN pilots, so I could do justice to what they do.

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Lewis Pullman of ‘Thunderbolts*’ Has Become Hollywood’s Go-To Bob

In “Top Gun: Maverick” and the latest Marvel movie, the actor has played memorable characters by that name. “I should probably take a breather from playing Bobs,” he said.

Lewis Pullman still isn’t sure if he’s playing a hero or a villain in the latest Marvel movie, “Thunderbolts*.”

“He’s very malleable and easily influenced because he hasn’t had a real, strong, reliable source of love in his life,” the actor said of his character, a dark Superman-like figure known as the Sentry/the Void — although his civilian name, Bob, is how you might remember him best.

Think what would happen if Superman were super-depressed. Oh, also, he appears capable of vaporizing people with a flick of his hand.

“There’s a contrast between being this all-powerful being and then having your greatest weakness and your main Achilles’ heel be your own self,” Pullman said in video call this week from his apartment in Los Angeles.

He had just returned to the city, where he was born and raised, after a Vancouver, B.C., shoot for the Netflix movie “Remarkably Bright Creatures,” based on Shelby Van Pelt’s enormously popular novel. That was followed by a whirlwind press tour that had taken him from London to New York to Los Angeles to Miami and back to Los Angeles, just in time for his brother’s wedding. He looked like he’d rolled in from the beach in a white T-shirt, denim button-up and perfectly windswept hair, and books by authors like the novelist Harry Crews and the playwright Sam Shepard were stacked behind him, with boxes resting atop tables.

“I haven’t really had the time to unpack,” he said, apologizing for the mess.

Pullman — the son of, yes, Bill Pullman — is the breakout star of the latest Marvel film, which has attracted praise for its candid depiction of mental health.

“What I love about this film is that it is so adamantly trying to rid our society” of the stigma around mental health, Pullman said. Like his character, he has an introspective bent, turning over every question in his mind before answering.

While Pullman had never read the Marvel Comics featuring the Sentry — also known as Robert Reynolds, shortened to Bob in “Thunderbolts*” — he was drawn to the profound sadness and isolation of the character, whose Hyde-like alter ego is the Void, the darkness that lives inside Bob.

Struck by bouts of melancholy, he forges an unlikely friendship with Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, who was trained as a child to be a Black Widow assassin.

“She sees something of herself in him,” Pullman said. “She sees that they are both at the end of their lines.”

The role is a breakout turn for Pullman, who earned an Emmy nomination last year for his portrayal of a brilliant scientist in the Apple TV+ series “Lessons in Chemistry.” Before that, he played a pilot — also named Bob — in the 2022 hit “Top Gun: Maverick,” opposite Tom Cruise.

“I should probably take a breather from playing Bobs,” he said with a laugh.

In the video call, he shared what drew him to the character and his own experiences with anxiety, depression and therapy. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

How did you first get involved in “Thunderbolts*”?

I got phone call that was very vague and cryptic, and I was like, “I should meet with Jake [Schreier, the director] and see what this is all about.” He couldn’t give me the script, so he told me the story old-fashioned style, word by word. It was great to have that experience. You don’t get it very often.

I had only three days to prepare for the screen test and audition, which wasn’t as much time as I’d like. So I tried to go as broad as possible, and then shrink it down and go as specific as possible in finding and discovering where it is that I, as Lewis, can relate to this character.

Where did you pull from?

What was so exciting and terrifying was how much I related to this character. In terms of the mental health parts of it, the anxiety and the depression, I have a good healthy dose of O.C.D., and just self-doubt and that negative self-talk that can paralyze you. I’m lucky to have come from a great family that was very proactive and resourceful about helping me figure it all out. And so to try to inhabit somebody who didn’t have that — I was close enough to those alleyways to be able to see what it would have looked like had I not had those.

Have you had candid conversations with people in your own life about mental health?

I was a social work major in college in North Carolina, and so I have had many conversations about these topics. Coming into this project, it was obvious that it was a major theme. But it was never our goal to make this a P.S.A. This is still an incredibly fun, large-scale blockbuster film. But by shining a flashlight on it, it becomes more real. In many ways, my anxiety is something I’m grateful for. It’s there as a protective mechanism. You don’t just make a movie about it, and then the conversation’s over. I’ll be talking about it until I circle the drain. And that’s something I’ve come to be OK with and embrace.

Do you also have personal experience with depression?

That’s something that’s less of a consistent force in my life. It comes in waves. But it’s something that’s deep in my marrow because, when you feel that, it’s very hard to forget. I was able to tap into that in a way that was safe, with therapy, and then friends and support.

I go about therapy in the same way that I go about acting — I assume that I never know anything, that there’s always something to learn. I did a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy in high school, and now I’m in talk therapy. I’ve realized that the times when you should stick with therapy the most is when you think you’re doing the best without it. That’s a mind game that I’ve fallen for a couple of times.

Why do you think the character has resonated with people?

That oscillation that he has between feeling this worthlessness, met with this true belief in yourself, is very resonant. That’s something important about Bob: He wants to be of use, but he’s been told his whole life that when he tries to get involved, he always makes things worse. A lot of us have been told that, in one way or another. And so to see this very real person amongst these surreal and extraordinary circumstances is what makes it so resonant.

Why do Bob and Yelena have such a strong connection?

She is one of the first people who really sees him. They have this commonality of desperateness for connection and for meaning. That was something that I related to with Florence. She was so generous and compassionate toward me coming into this world. She saw that I felt like I didn’t belong and didn’t feel like I was going to be able to ever rid myself of this impostor syndrome. And she took it upon herself to be a very supportive, not just castmate, but friend. And that’s hopefully what you see on camera.

What was shooting that climactic group hug like?

There were so many moments like that where Jake was like, “If we can sell this, it’ll work. If we can’t, it’s going to fall apart.” And that was this high-wire act that we felt the whole shoot. That was a hard couple of days. Luckily, Jake really made sure to protect that time in the schedule. And it was toward the end. So being able to have all that lived-in emotional memory, it was able to all just culminate into that moment.

What has it been like to see fans embrace the character?

I’d put so much weight and pressure on myself, because I wish I could have watched a character like this in high school. And so I really did not want to mess it up for little me. It just means a lot that people are going to see it, that they know that it’s not just a fun action movie, that there are also hard topics.

What do you hope people take away from the film?

I hope that people watch this who need to see it, that they find something they didn’t know that they needed. Two hours in a movie theater seems like a small amount of time, but it really can shift the course of your life.

What would you say to people who feel like Bob?

It’s OK to not smile, it’s OK to cry, it’s OK to let all those feelings out, and to not bottle them up. You’ll find that, more often than not, there will be somebody there to catch you, if you’re vulnerable enough to let them.

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Salem's Lot Star Reveals How Faithful the Movie Is to Stephen King's Book

Lewis Pullman is following up his Emmy-nominated turn in Lessons in Chemistry with two very cool genre movies — the edgy "sunshine noir" of Skincare, and the highly-anticipated film adaptation of Stephen King's Salem's Lot. In the former, he stars opposite Elizabeth Banks as Jordan, an aspiring influencer who may be in over his head as he tries to achieve his own brand of stardom in modern Los Angeles. In Salem's Lot, he leads the film as writer Ben Mears, who returns to his hometown and discovers that it's been infiltrated by a vampire. There's been some controversy surrounding the project, as the studio decided to pull its theatrical release and bring it straight to Max, even though King took to social media to sing its praises.

And Pullman confirmed to us that it's indeed a successful end result. "I'm excited about it. I saw it, and it's a blast," he told MovieWeb. "It's a killer movie. I think people are going to be really, you know, it really does justice to the book... Gary Dauberman gets to do some good Gary Dauberman things."

Lewis Pullman on the Cast of Riff Raff: 'Gods and Goddesses'

Lewis Pullman can also be spotted in a highly anticipated ensemble comedy called Riff Raff, which stars Jennifer Coolidge, Gabrielle Union, Bill Murray, Ed Harris, Brian Cox, and more. Here's how Pullman described them: "Good Lord, the most insane totem pole of just gods and goddesses," Pullman told us. "I got to just soak that up like sponge. That was incredible."

And we had to ask if icons like Coolidge and Murray are indeed as legendary and quirky in real life as the movies and TV shows make them out to be. "Yes, they are," said Pullman, adding:

It all makes sense why they are who they are and where they are in their careers, because they are just, yeah, they're anomalies. And, you know, Ed Harris, God, I can't believe that happened to me. That was a hell of an experience.

Skincare Surprised Lewis Pullman

In the meantime, Pullman pulls off a showstopper of a performance with Skincare, which also features its own wildly talented ensemble. Jordan immediately grabs our attention once he swoops into Hope's salon, asking if she can de-age him in this competitive Hollywood climate that surrounds them. And of course, as the juicy plot unfolds, there may be more to Jordan than what meets the eye. Says Pullman:

"I didn't really see where Jordan was heading, which is a great sign that the script didn't give you too many breadcrumbs, you know, didn't make it too easy to track where things were heading, and exactly how many layers this guy had, you know? He's sort of like a Russian doll of all sorts of different reveals, so that was really exciting, but also kind of difficult to strategize how to play that, you know? But that was the fun of it."

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Lewis Pullman Shares Dad Bill Pullman's Honest Reaction to Thunderbolts* Script

Lewis Pullman shares what father Bill Pullman first thought of the Thunderbolts* script

The Top Gun: Maverick star plays a mysterious character in Marvel's latest flick

Thunderbolts* arrives in theaters May 2

Lewis Pullman is revealing how father Bill Pullman reacted to the script for his son's first-ever Marvel project.

Speaking with PEOPLE for a recent press event for Thunderbolts*, Lewis, 32, said while his famous dad, 72, has yet to "slip into this universe" a.k.a. the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he always has wisdom to pass on due to his own impressive acting career.

"He always goes story first, and writing first, and character first," Lewis, who plays a mysterious character named Bob, said. "I was waiting to get the full script so I could send it to him so we could talk about it."

Putting on a serious Bill Pullman-esque impression, Lewis continued, "Once he read the script, he was like, 'There's a lot to do here. Yeah. I think there's a lot to be done.'"

When asked if he or his family were Marvel fans ahead of his own debut into the superhero franchise, the Top Gun: Maverick star admitted, "We didn't grow up watching TV and we were allowed like a movie or two a weekend."

"We watched a lot of what my parents grew up watching, and so there was a lot of older stuff," Lewis shared. "I was the youngest child, so my vote for movies always got pushed to the last. I would've put Marvel on there, but... my voice was not heard."

Now that he's embedded into the MCU himself, Lewis added, "I'm getting my entire family to sit down and watch this movie. So it'll be monumental."

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Lewis Pullman Wants to Play More Romantic Leads After 'Lessons in Chemistry'

Lewis Pullman's face has been everywhere this year, from The Starling Girl to Lessons in Chemistry, where he plays Calvin Evans, the love of Elizabeth Zott's life.

Pullman's character in Lessons in Chemistry is a jazz lover, and the music reflects his chaotic but pattern-seeking approach to chemistry.

Pullman is interested in playing more romantic leads and enjoyed the unique twist on romance in Lessons in Chemistry, which deviated from traditional storytelling.

Lewis Pullman has had a hell of a year. From the premiere of The Starling Girl at this year’s Sundance Film Festival to working with the late William Friedkin on The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, his face has been everywhere on streaming and in theaters— most notably, in Apple TV+’s hit series Lessons in Chemistry, the Brie Larson-led drama following a chemist who gets pushed out of the lab and into a very different line of work.

In it, Pullman plays Calvin Evans, a fellow chemist who is not only the emotional core of Elizabeth Zott’s (Larson) world but also the love of her life. Though his physical presence in the series is minimal, Calvin’s impact on the story is unmatched, both for Elizabeth and for Harriet Sloane (Aja Naomi King), who are brought together by their affection for a singularly kind, intelligent man. With the show now in the rearview, Collider was excited to sit down with Pullman to discuss the series and his experience working with its nearly all-female creative team, including his relationship with Larson. Over the course of the interview, we discussed how he relates to Calvin as a character, the music he associates with the jazz-loving chemist, and whether he’d want to play more romantic leads going forward, a sentiment the internet is sure to agree with.

I know that you’re also a musician with your band Atta Boy, aside from being an actor, and as far as Lessons in Chemistry goes, Calvin is a massive fan of jazz. Were there any songs or any kind of music in particular that you associated with him?

LEWIS PULLMAN: Wow. That's a cool right off the bat question. Well, it's interesting because initially in the script, Calvin was more of a fan of… I think I have a playlist. Let's see what I’ve got on here. He was more a fan of Frank Sinatra, so I started off listening to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and Louis Armstrong, but Lee Eisenberg and Sarah Adina Smith and the rest of the writers I think had a great point, which was that Calvin…his strategy for chemistry and the way he works best is by kind of almost stirring up all this debris of chaos and then finding the patterns within.

And so there was something about the rhythmic nature of some of the more hectic jazz musicians that suited how he worked best, and suited also the contrast of how Elizabeth works best. So I had to kind of pivot in there, but I still did end up listening to some of my old playlist, 'cause the jazz, I personally don't connect as much to the jazz, but the jazz was much easier to dance like an absolute fool too. So that was helpful.

Awesome. Just while I'm thinking about music, I was at the Atta Boy show in Brooklyn this month and I just wanted to tell you, you guys did a fantastic job.

PULLMAN: No way, Maggie. Oh my God. Thank you for coming. That's so awesome.

Of course. And I hope you guys tour again soon. I would love to see you live again.

PULLMAN: We want to. That was so much fun. That was such a fun show. It's such a sweet, welcoming audience.

For lack of a better word, Calvin really serves as the romantic hero in Elizabeth's journey, and you also notably starred in Press Play last year with Clara Rugaard. Are romantic leads kind of a thing you're interested in doing going forward, or is that a coincidence?

PULLMAN: No, it is something I'm definitely interested in. I think what intrigues me is that both of these were kind of disguised romances. That wasn't the center. Press Play a little bit, but that was also a time travel movie, and then this is a series about Elizabeth Zott that happens to kind of get kicked off with this romance. I don't know, maybe there's something intimidating about just doing a rom-dram, or something [where] there's nothing to hide behind. So both of those were really appealing to me, 'cause they just had a twist to them that wasn't expected. Because in Lessons in Chemistry, it's not your average trajectory. Even the way that the writers on this [wrote] the meet-cute and how Bonnie wrote everything, it's not traditional, which I think is what makes it exciting. How to convey all the things that we know and love so much about a rom-com or a rom-dram in a way that feels new and unexpected was really appealing. I love getting hit by cars and vehicles.

Yeah. [laughs] It's such a shocking moment. I had read the book, and still watching it, it was like, "Oh my God."

PULLMAN: I know. Me too. When I watched it I was shocked also, and I did it.

I will say, I know about a million people who would love to see you in a romantic comedy or a romance drama. So if you want to keep doing that going forward, you definitely have an audience behind you for it.

PULLMAN: Oh, that's good to hear. I'd love to. I would love that.

You've had a fantastic year, with The Starling Girl out of Sundance and The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, and then this, and you also shot Outer Range Season 2. That's an insane amount of projects just for one year, but what draws you to a project? Is it a genre, a character, a director?

PULLMAN: All the things that you just mentioned are super different. A lot of it's character and a lot of it is also, like Caine Mutiny, that was just the opportunity to get to work with William Friedkin, who's an obvious film legend. But then, yes, it's about trying to find my way into a character that feels like two things. One that, if I'm going to be able to bring something to it that I feel like scares me and intimidates me, maybe there's a shade or a sliver of myself that I know is in there, but I haven't retracted it or I haven't excavated there.

That usually is terrifying, but also exciting and ends up feeling like a free fall that I kind of enjoy. That, and then working with people whose work I admire and not repeating any sort of characters. That's something of late. I'm searching for things that feel new or feel unexpected and feel scary. But also, you never know, when a script lands in your lap, you just can't really predict. I try and just have low expectations because sometimes that leads to great surprises and low disappointment, and you can only manifest so much.

Speaking of Outer Range Season 2, is there anything that you can give away about what we can expect from Rhett that season? It seems like, end of Season 1, he was the only one that came out relatively unscathed.

PULLMAN: I think every character's journey in the second season is pretty surprising. I was pretty surprised to read what they had done with it in the best way possible. So I think there's a lot of clues that can be mined and then there's a lot of things that are coming out of absolutely nowhere and it's going to be really exciting. And really, it's got that metaphysical kind of bizarre buzz and energy to it. So I'm excited. I'm excited to watch it. I haven't seen any of it.

When that got renewed, I was so thrilled because it ends on such a cliffhanger moment that I was like, "If this doesn't come back for a second season, I will be so sad."

PULLMAN: Yeah, I know. I would've been too. I was happy to be able to follow through with a lot of that.

Going back to Lessons in Chemistry, you have an entire episode dedicated to Calvin that's pretty much new material that wasn't in the book. So working on that, what was that like? Did you have any influence on that, or were you just given all of this extra material that wasn't in the book to work with?

PULLMAN: Lee Eisenberg, the showrunner, really set up a good dialogue, and Brie [Larson] is so incorporative of everybody's ideas and wants to make sure that everyone's perspectives are included. So it was really an honor to be able to be a participant in some of those conversations. And then also, this is a beautiful feminist mythological tale. Not mythological. Odyssey of this woman, Elizabeth Zott. We were so lucky to have all female directors. So in a lot of ways, I wanted to be there to best serve the story and to best serve Elizabeth's journey, and how to elevate it and to put gas in the tank of where she goes and what she discovers and what she accomplishes. And so I did a lot of that just by probably listening.

Speaking of lifting Elizabeth up, you're obviously working very, very closely with Brie Larson. What was that like? What was it like getting to work with her in such an intimate setting?

PULLMAN: It was an awesome creative experience. It was just an incredibly enriching creative experience because she undertook this role with no…what's the word? I guess she undertook it without taking for granted the weight and the responsibility of it. She works so hard. She's insanely smart. She really also takes a lot of time and energy to make the set feel fun and safe, and she brings games on the set for everybody to play in between takes. She institutes Croc Fridays. That kind of an approach to working really kind of is an umbrella of tone for the rest of the cast and crew.

And so when somebody works like that, you really want to try and match them. And I think her wanting to do justice to Bonnie's incredible story while also balancing this degree of gymnastics that you have to do when you're adapting a book into a different medium, she really kind of used that challenge as an opportunity to further deepen the story as opposed to getting pigeonholed trying to do justice to every single storyline. I think she was constantly thinking, "How can we elevate this? How can we not just make this an exact replica of the book and how can we give it its own life?" Which I think, that kind of attitude is so rare to get to work with and so it was an absolute pleasure every day on set.

Calvin as a character resonates with a lot of people. Do you see any of yourself in Calvin or vice versa now that you've finished working on the show?

PULLMAN: I see things that are similar and I see things that I admire about him that I don't have that I wish I did that I want to work towards. I think there are certain blind spots he has that I can relate to, where you have such tunnel vision on something that you can miss something entirely. And I think the way that he overcomes that is with such an open eagerness to learn and to accept and grow and I think he's, in all honesty, a little [more] ahead of the curve than I am in that. I'm a slow learner. But that's one of my favorite parts about Calvin is that beautiful openness to change and to shift your kaleidoscope of perspective willingly.

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It was all good ‘Chemistry’ for Lewis Pullman, whose role in the series was expanded

A meet-cute it ain’t. When brilliant, arrogant chemist Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman) first encounters brilliant, guarded lab tech Elizabeth Zott (Brie Larson) in “Lessons in Chemistry,” the sparks are practically toxic. But when he sees her again at a work event, and then starts vomiting at her feet from an allergic reaction to another guest’s perfume, she takes him home and cares for him, and both their wary hearts start to crack open.

He teaches her to row. She feeds him exquisite meals. They work on a theory of abiogenesis together, as couples do. Life is bliss, until — spoiler — he is cruelly snatched away. But in the Apple TV+ limited series, based on the book by Bonnie Garmus, their love story continues to permeate her life long after he has left this plane of existence, due in no small part to Pullman’s indelible performance.

Series creator Lee Eisenberg, who was writing and shooting almost simultaneously, recalls watching the actor’s dailies. “When you see Lewis, you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m seeing a once-in-a-generation talent, and if anyone feels a fraction of what I feel watching this, he is going to take the world by storm.’ I went back up into the writers’ room and said, ‘How can we find ways of keeping Calvin alive in a way that doesn’t feel like a cheat?’”

First they had Calvin appear to Elizabeth in moments of deep need, not as a ghost so much as a physical manifestation of her grief. “It was great to do those scenes because I got to experience brief flashes of what Calvin’s existence would’ve looked like had he not passed,” Pullman says, sitting in an otherwise empty patio at a spot in Silver Lake.

Then they wrote an entire episode in which Calvin’s Dickensian background is revealed. “I was definitely surprised and really, really grateful when Lee came to me and said that he wanted to expand Calvin’s story, because I was already having such a good and creatively fulfilling time on this project,” Pullman says. “For them to invite me in for a little more time was very meaningful, and for me to get to spend more time fleshing out Calvin with this group of creatives was huge.”

Calvin’s brief visitations “allow the audience to care about what that relationship means to Elizabeth without it feeling like they’re being derailed too much into a different story. Because so many of my favorite parts of this whole series are watching Elizabeth’s story after Calvin,” adds Pullman, son of actor Bill Pullman.

Pullman, who made an impression as Bob in 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” hasn’t played a romantic lead as such before, but he didn’t even read the role with Larson before he was offered the part. “It does feel like a bold move to not have a chemistry test on something that is called ‘Lessons in Chemistry,’” Pullman notes wryly. He credits Sarah Adina Smith, who directed the show’s first two episodes, with helping him find his way to Calvin’s heart. “Initially, I came in playing Calvin a lot more outwardly prickly. She was like, ‘I think that once he falls in love with Elizabeth, something settles inside of him, and there’s a sense of calm and of purpose and of confidence that fills him,’ and she was absolutely right. That helped me have someplace to go.”

Mastering the other type of chemistry was harder. Originally, he tried to understand Calvin’s area of expertise, “and rapidly realized that I would need a lifetime of education to really be able to wrap my head around it.” So he learned the essentials and turned to the show’s technical advisors to coach him on how to say the lines authoritatively.

He was in awe of Larson’s grasp of her many jargon-filled monologues: “I think she actually understood what she was talking about.” She was also a crack student at rowing, a hobby of Calvin’s that he shares with Elizabeth. “If there ever was a sport where, as an actor, you’re worried about little gives that are going to make you like a blaring, obvious fraud, it would be rowing,” he says. But he wanted to get it right, especially for the book’s fans. “And also, I wanted to at least look like I was as good as Brie was, otherwise it wouldn’t play.” Here again, a coach helped.

He felt lucky to work opposite Larson, who was also an executive producer of the limited series. “She led the whole operation stoically,” he says. “And she would still bring this very bright and warm light into the whole set, which makes everybody want to do an even better job, because it feels like you’re really doing it with your friends and your family, and you want to bring your best self to that.” Even when it’s not in corporeal form.