Los Angeles, Dec 18 (IANS): Oscar winning actor JK Simmons doesn't pick his project based on genre, but maintains a distance from horror.
"I've never really been drawn to -- or away from -- anything based on genre although, well, horror I don't particularly like," Simmons said.
Simmons is known for featuring in "Law & Order", "Oz", Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" trilogy, "Whiplash", ""Kung Fu Panda 3", "Zootopia" and "Spider-Man: Far From Home". He is seen in a dual role in science fiction thriller TV series "Counterpart", which airs in India on Zee Cafe. In "Counterpart", the concept of parallel dimension has always put everyone in dilemma. The show wrapped up after second season.
Talking about the role, he said: "When I was playing both characters in the same scene, yes it might be one guy in the morning, the other in the afternoon, depending on how involved and complex the scene was, and of course most of the time, it is not just my two characters. There are other actors in the scenes. So, yes, there were some technical hurdles in the first season that frankly made it difficult for everybody. I think we've found ways to shoot the show that are smoother and that don't interfere with the process. Instead of having to act with a tennis ball on a grip stand or The Invisible Man, the vast majority of the time I'm able to act opposite someone; the other actors who have scenes with their doubles are experiencing the same thing. My double is a guy name John Funk who functions as a regular stand in on the show but is also very much a co-actor as well."
The show shoots its exteriors in Berlin. What did he learn from the city? "Actually, it was crucial to do a significant amount of shooting in Berlin with whole metaphor of the wall, and even though it's a contemporary show there is a sort of an end of the cold war feel to it that exists very much in modern day Berlin. It's a really interesting city in a lot of ways. I'd never been to Berlin until five years ago or so. The history still has a lot of feel of World War II and the cold war east-west divide," he said.