Samuel L. Jackson talks about learning how to take the high road in his new thriller Changing Lanes.
Doyle Gipson is having a very bad day.
After getting into an early morning rush-hour fender bender with a smarmy lawyer on a New York highway, Gipson’s beset by a series of catastrophes, not the least of which include attempted murder, complete bankruptcy and the loss of custody of his two beloved sons–all within a mere 24 hours. Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed.
In Roger Michell‘s (Notting Hill) taut psychological thriller Changing Lanes, Samuel L Jackson brings the beleaguered Gipson to life. A struggling insurance agent and recovering alcoholic, Gipson is doing his best to keep his family and his fragile world from falling apart. The man he collides with, Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck), is Gipson’s opposite, a high-powered, young, coporate attorney quickly climbing the ranks of a prestigious firm, the kind of man whose life seems perfectly planned and flawlessly executed. The collision unwittingly causes their paths to cross, and what was a minor incident ends up having a major impact on their lives forever.
“These are two men who, in any other situation, would be invisible to one another,” explains Jackson. “They move through completely different worlds and yet, because of this small little moment, they are forced to deal with things in themselves that they might not ever have faced.”
As it turns out, both men are on the way to the same courthouse, where Gipson is to meet his estranged wife for a custody hearing and Banek is arguing a case. Their chance encounter on the highway has disastrous effects: Gipson loses the custody hearing because he’s 20 minutes late and Banek leaves an all-important file behind with Gipson at the accident scene. Over the course of the day, the men’s carefully constructed realities begin to unravel as they try to resolve their problems–although each initially tries to help the other, misunderstandings and angry words send the situation into a tailspin.
Although both men are decent enough people, they let their self-destructive qualities get the better of them. Gipson’s quiet rage and Banek’s cocky self entitlement are
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exacerbated by the lost file and the missed court date, eventually throwing the two into a disturbing cycle of give-and-take revenge; a vicious circle which causes the quick disintegration of both men’s morality.
“Gipson’s desperately trying to hold on to his family and he’s desperately trying to hold on to his job and he’s definitely trying to hold on to his sanity.” explains Jackson. “He thinks there are a lot of forces acting on him.”
While there are certainly some negative forces hovering over his head, it becomes apparent that Gipson’s greatest enemy is not Banek and his swaggering ego, but Gipson himself. Like it or not, he’s compelled to examine his own motivations and stop blaming his problems on external causes.
“Gipson’s used to blaming all his woes on someone else. He doesn’t really want things to work out, ” says Jackson, “partly because he’s not truly ready for them to work out.”
The earnest, put-upon insurance salesman is not the sort of role we’ve come to associate with the explosive Jackson. He plays the unstable, honest Gipson with quiet intensity and a surprising vulnerability, traits one might not expect to be so well portrayed by an actor who usually specializes in delivering action-packed whup-ass.
“What drew me to the script was that the guy was so complex,” explains Jackson. “He was a complete 360 from Shaft and all those other badass characters that people tend to associate me with.
“I like to think I can play any kind of role at all, and this was good challenge for me after the other roles I’d done,” he continues. “I needed to recharge those batteries. I wanted to play a guy that was quietly raging.”
Ultimately, Changing Lanes explores the ways in which desperation, anger and selfishness can lead a man (more quickly than he might have imagined) down the road to self-destruction. It also examines the motivations behind–and consequences of–the decisions one makes in life.
“Gipson has a plan but his plan isn’t working. As a result he begins to unravel, which is something I think everyone can relate to,” Jackson says. “We all run up on a wall of some sort occasionally and we don’t know what to do. Doyle keeps bumping his head into things and he finally reaches this bursting point and lashes out.
“I think a lot of people go through life blaming everything else for their problems instead of taking responsibility themselves,” he adds. “That kind of thing happens every day.”
