{"id":95853,"date":"2025-08-20T03:27:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T03:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/95853\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T03:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T03:27:07","slug":"paul-walter-hauser-on-americana-and-not-fitting-in-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/95853\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Walter Hauser on \u2018Americana\u2019 and Not Fitting in Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt\u2019s hard to see a movie this summer and not see Paul Walter Hauser<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor is starring in supporting roles in Marvel blockbuster Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/a> and The Naked Gun<\/a> reboot, along with a starring role in the finally released Tony Tost film Americana<\/a>, which went to SXSW in 2023 and was met with relatively positive response before encountering several release delays.<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite his busy summer on screen, Hauser is quite discerning about the projects he takes on. He reveals he turned down roles in both Kevin Costner\u2019s Horizon and Luca Guadagnino\u2019s Challengers because he knew the roles lacked the depth he\u2019d be looking for when it came time to shooting. \u201cI feel way too competitive and way too hungry to eat garnish and pretend it\u2019s a meal,\u201d the Emmy Award-winning actor tells The Hollywood Reporter on a phone call.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s only days after the premiere Fantastic Four: First Steps, and Hauser admits he\u2019s dealing with a bit of sleep deprivation due to his busy schedule and his wife giving birth around the same time. But he stresses life is great. <\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, the Americana star speaks with THR about the film getting a release, turning down roles in hit movies and why he feels like an outsider in Hollywood. <\/p>\n

\n\tHow are you feeling about Americana finally hitting theaters? I know you worked on this a few years back.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmericana is legitimately my favorite movie I\u2019ve ever made, which you can print. I\u2019m not worried about any social blowback there. I just think it\u2019s wildly original, the script was so attractive. It was all about the writing, and Sydney Sweeney was just on the come up where everyone was starting to find out who she was because of White Lotus and Euphoria. When we wrapped, we were told it would go to a festival. A year later, we had it at SXSW in Austin, and we got great reviews, so we were like, \u201cOh, we\u2019re sitting pretty.\u201d Then we were just sitting. There was no pretty. We were wondering what the hell happened.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt survived a studio going bankrupt and a few other things before finally arriving via Lionsgate.<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t know when a good time is to drop a movie like this. I just know no matter whether it blows up and it\u2019s the next Everything Everywhere All At Once, or if it comes and goes and makes $800K in theaters, it\u2019s still going to be one of these movies that will have long-term success. I know people are going to stumble upon it, and it\u2019ll become some 13-year-old\u2019s favorite movie in three years, and it\u2019ll be like what Reservoir Dogs was for me at their age.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re in several other projects this summer, and they\u2019re all, thematically, quite different. What is it about these roles that you lock in on that makes it worthwhile to you?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think with Marvel, it was the fact that I was working with Matt Shakman again [on Fantastic Four: First Steps], who directed me in an episode of It\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia 15 years ago. There was something so sort of sweet and full circle about that, and he\u2019s such a sweet, good-hearted man. I\u2019ve always wanted to do a superhero movie, and I heard that Robin Williams always wanted to play The Joker, and then he wanted to play The Riddler, and [Jack] Nicholson and Jim Carrey kind of beat them out for that, so I was like, \u201cMan, you got to do this for all the guys who wanted to do it and didn\u2019t even get to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat about The Naked Gun?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was less about being the star of the film or making a bunch of money. It was more that I thought the movie was going to be really good, and it\u2019s a chance to work with the brilliance of an Akiva Schaffer or a Liam Neeson. Both are iconic to me for different reasons, and I liked those guys and I love Atlanta. We were shooting in Atlanta, and I have so much history there with Cobra Kai and I, Tonya and Richard Jewell. Atlanta is like seeing a friend. Then we ended up moving here. I live in Atlanta now.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou live there full-time?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, full time. That Naked Gun trip was very influential to that life choice, which was cool. Then the third one, Americana, that was all writing, writing, writing. Nobody made a bunch of money on that movie. It was all just we are lucky to speak the words of the Tony Tost brain. I still feel that way. The writers don\u2019t get talked about enough. Doug Mand and Dan Gregor, who worked on the script with Akiva [Schaffer] for Naked Gun; those jokes are banger. I\u2019ve seen the movie twice now. When I saw them on set, there was no reverence. I was just kind of joking around and being stupid with them, and now I almost regret my lack of reverence for them, and the tonality with which I handled myself. I wish I would\u2019ve asked questions and been less assuming.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow much of your Mole Man role was cut from Fantastic Four?<\/p>\n

\n\tI went from four or five scenes down to about two or three, so that was hard. I had a scene with Vanessa Kirby that I loved, and that was my main reason for really being excited about playing him. [It was like]. \u201cOh God, I get to work with Vanessa Kirby. We get to do this moment.\u201d I had a lot of fun getting to go in and talk smack to The Fantastic Four in their own lair. I improvised the line where I say to Joseph Quinn, \u201cDon\u2019t get mad at me. I didn\u2019t dress you.\u201d Which is totally me ripping off Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. It\u2019s just me doing my thing and taking from the best, and then it\u2019s funny to see what they end up keeping.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhere do you think you\u2019re at as an actor in terms of selecting projects? Do you feel you\u2019d found the space you fit in or do you have things you\u2019re still hoping to explore?<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s so much I haven\u2019t done that I want to do desperately. Kevin Costner offered me a part in Horizon, but it was one line of dialogue and the character had nothing to them. I don\u2019t need to be a piece of furniture in anybody\u2019s movie. I love Kevin Costner, and I want to work with him, and it\u2019d be an honor, but I also want to do something good. The same thing with Luca Guadagnino, [who] offered me [a role] to play the tennis judge during the big matches in Challengers. I could tell it was going to be something, and I love Luca, and he\u2019s been nothing but sweet to me, but also I feel way too competitive and way too hungry to eat garnish and pretend it\u2019s a meal. I would rather hold out for the right thing. On the day I\u2019m just going to be all hungry, and then I\u2019m going to look stupid and then I\u2019m going to feel awkward. In Hollywood, I don\u2019t feel like I fit in at all.<\/p>\n

\n\tReally?<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, I\u2019m an outspoken Jesus guy, but I also can\u2019t stand Donald Trump. I no longer live in L.A. I am obsessed with professional wrestling, and I\u2019ve made somewhat of a career out of that. In a weird way, I almost feel like I fit in the wrestling world more than I do in Hollywood. I\u2019m a way better actor than I am a wrestler, but I just\u2026 I don\u2019t know, when I walk into a wrestling arena and there\u2019s a bunch of nerdy fans with signs and autograph stuff, and I feel like one of them. Whereas, when I\u2019m at a Hollywood function or a premiere, it feels like that awkward high school thing [where] there\u2019s a bunch of pretty people who are saying all the right things, and I\u2019m the only one who wants to truly be some sort of unleashed version of themselves, and I feel very alone in that for some reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s hard to see a movie this summer and not see Paul Walter Hauser. The actor is starring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88,9614,21542,16491],"class_list":{"0":"post-95853","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-fantastic-four-first-steps","11":"tag-paul-walter-hauser","12":"tag-the-naked-gun"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}