- The Observer, Sunday January 14 2001
It can't get much more nerve-racking than this: you're 15, you've never acted in a feature film before, and now you're in a big Hollywood movie. Worse still: you're playing the central character, who is, for all intents and purposes, the director as a teenager. Fortunately for Patrick Fugit, star of Almost Famous, that was all part of the plan.
Inspired by Mike Leigh, Cameron Crowe decided that the lives of his actors should mirror the lives of his actors. So to play William Miller, the round-faced, awkward, naïve and precocious 15-year-old who grows up fast as a journalist on tour with a Seventies rock band, he wanted someone who would start off as innocent as possible.
Even Crowe had reservations about what he was doing. 'I was worried. You know, he doesn't have a lot of so-called technique, which is why I cast him, but it also made us run long and go over budget. But he's so real that I fell in love with the idea of the character being gloriously passive, being the observer at the circus. I just put the camera on him and we watch him watch everything else.'
Fugit's previous experience amounted to two episodes of the sickly drama Touched By An Angel, a Weird Al Yankovic video and a TV movie called Legion Of Fire: Killer Ants. He didn't even know anything about music. 'The [script] pages I was given had been rewritten as politics to keep the movie secret, so I thought it was a movie about politics,' he says. 'And while we were reading, Cameron said, "You're doing great, Patrick. So, do you like rock'n'roll?" I went, "Um, no." And it was silent for a minute. I thought it was an odd question.'
These days, he's thoroughly immersed in Seventies rock, and wouldn't go anywhere without his Led Zeppelin CDs. Meanwhile, he's feeling guilty about the instant success. 'It's crazy. Most people work up to this point by doing something like walking a dog in the background of a Harrison Ford movie. I got rushed to the front of the line. Sometimes it gets uncomfortable when I'm around those starving-actor types. I just want to apologise.'
Coming from Salt Lake City, the whole decadent rock'n'roll world lovingly recreated in Almost Famous is a long way from his life. While William Miller is relieved of his virginity by a trio of groupies in a motel, Fugit's experience of girls couldn't be more different. 'Eighty per cent of the people are Mormon, so that can be a big thing when you're in high school and want to date girls. You get the girl who's allowed to date and you meet her dad who has the gun behind his back, saying, "Have her back by nine".'
Five things you should know about Patrick Fugit
1. He screen-tested for the lead role in Spider-Man, but was deemed 'too young'
2. His first piece of homework for the part was watching Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains The Same
3. Before the film, he owned one CD - by Chumbawamba
4. His hobbies are 'motorcycling and exploring canyons'
5. He comes from Mormon capital Salt Lake City, but isn't a Mormon
• Almost Famous opens on 9 Feb.
