Above, James Marsden, left, and Jack Black are shown in a scene from “The D Train.” (Photo credit: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/IFC Films via AP)

By Patricia Sheridan
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A former Versace model, actor James Marsden is a man of many talents. He sings, he dances and is fluent in both comic and dramatic roles. Born in Oklahoma, he left college to follow his dream to Los Angeles. Unlike so many who try, he made it, starting first with stints on television and moving to stage, screen and
modeling. He stars opposite Jack Black in “The D Train,” in theaters now. The 41-year-old is divorced and the father of three children.

Q: “The D Train” is so layered, and yet it is kind of a comedy, right?

I know. We are still trying to figure that out. I’ll be honest: When I read the script, that tone that this movie strikes is one of the main reasons I wanted to be involved. I just find it difficult to be surprised by any material nowadays, to be taken down a road you just don’t see coming. … They are played with sincerity and conviction, and the comedy comes from that.

When Jack (Black) and I got together on this, we both looked at each other and went, “All right, we have to do this as real as possible.” It can’t be campy. It can’t be goofy. You’ve gotta believe.

Q: I think people can relate to the idea that fame is attractive. So did you find fame weird to deal with at first?

I never felt like I had fame. I mean, there are two types of people. One never has it and is kind of pissed at the world that they don’t have it. The other person is just very appreciative and is like, “This is awesome!”

I have to be careful, too, because fame is not all of it. It’s not all everyone seeks, right? There are actors out there who would strip themselves of the fame if they could, and then there are people who court it. They actively want to be famous regardless of if there is nothing behind it.

There is high school fame, too. You have the Brad Pitt of high school. You know, you have the super star of high school who everyone wants to be. His life looks so much easier. There are so many more girls and attention and adoration and all of that. Everybody wants that kind of attention, especially in high school.

Q; Did you have that in high school?

No, I didn’t. I went to a high school where it was the athletes who got all the attention. It’s not that I wasn’t athletic. I just wasn’t competitive, so I got into musicals and drama and stuff like that. I was more into walking around doing goofy Mike Myers and Dana Carvey sketches from “Saturday Night Live” and making people giggle with that. I was definitely not the cool guy in high school.

Q: You weren’t an outcast either.

I would describe myself as a hybrid, a little bit of a crossover. Yeah, I had friends who were cool and got the attention from the ladies. But they weren’t my close friends. My closest friends were in the arts. So I kind of bridged the gap between the two. I was a little bit more of a stray dog before high school. I kind of stuck to myself and didn’t have many pals.

Q: What made you decide to leave college when you did and go to L.A.?

Let me put it this way: I was always nervous about selecting a major. I never had any real direction. I never had any real passion for something other than this. Nobody pursues acting as a real job in Oklahoma. You have to go get a real job and get a business degree or something. It really got to the point where I had a year of college and I got to experience what that was like socially. I finally went, “All right, I can’t screw around anymore. I have to get serious.”

Everyone around me had focus and a path and a drive to pursue something. There was nothing else I wanted to do, so I thought I will go try it, and if it doesn’t work out I will come back and figure something out. (laughing)

Q: That’s pretty courageous.

It’s funny people say that, but I was so excited to move to L.A. to give it a shot. I just felt like that was where I’d fit in more. It felt like there was nothing to lose. I could only go up, you know? When you are younger like that and naive and kind of an idiot, you don’t see how far you can fall. You don’t see how disastrous things can be. You have this confidence. I was like I am going to do this, and I’m going to will it to happen.

Q: And it did!

Yeah, and you get smarter as you get older and you look back and go, “Oh geez, this could fall apart.” When you wise up you start to see all the pitfalls. You want a little bit of that confidence back that you had when you were younger.

Q: Once you became famous, what kind of reactions did you get from people you knew in high school? Hero worship?

It’s weird. People act strange around people who are on television or in movies. All my close friends from high school, they still (tease), “Oh yeah, look at you, hotshot.” (laughing) That is why they are good friends. You want somebody to kind of like knock you down a couple of rungs on the ladder.

It is the ones that wouldn’t give you the time of day before or didn’t like you and come around and all of a sudden want to be your best pal. That doesn’t really happen that often, but there is this other phenomenon where someone will say something offensive. “I didn’t really love that movie you were in,” or “I don’t really watch TV or movies.” (They are saying) I don’t really care who you are.

Q: As an actor, does anything make you nervous or get you off your game?

Taking your first step into a project. I always get nervous right before a movie. You have thought about everything you want to do for the character. You have plotted all that out, but you don’t have the objectivity yet to know if it is going to work. Once you start filming that first frame, you step into this choice and you really can’t go back. It is getting that first step right. That is where all the nerves come in. It’s like I don’t want to get fired on the first day. (laughs)

You know, actors are just neurotic people, just needing to be validated. I feel like that kind of goes away after a couple of days of shooting. It’s like, “All right, they like your work. They are keeping you around.” You do it on every project. There is always a bit of nerves.

Q: You cannot be typecast. Your characters have run the gamut.

Well, thank you, and that was never by design. But I like it now. I like that because when you are younger you just take any jobs that come your way because you want to be a working actor. It just so happened that my set of skills, I guess you could say, were more spread out. I never felt like I was an expert in anything, but I felt like I was kind of good at a lot of stuff. (laughs) I could pull off a comedy or a drama.

When you get smarter and care about your work and career, you realize that is a cool thing to be when you get an opportunity to play a comedic role or turn around and do drama. I also find — and this is kind of a rule of mine with comedy — that the best comedic performances all come from a place of drama. They have a complete sense of conviction and sincerity in the performance, and that is what makes it funny. That is what (“The D Train”) is. It’s outrageous that this is happening, but I can kind of see it happening to some poor guy out there.