You may remember him as young John Dutton from Yellowstone, but to his fans, Josh Lucas will always be known for Sweet Home Alabama. He played the dashing lead in that film.
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However, in an interview with Vanity Fair, Lucas said the movie actually damaged his career. Well, Lucas' perception of himself after the movie damaged his career. He didn't want to be known as a pretty face. So he tried to do a bunch of small films, which ultimately led to little exposure.
He said, "I was thoroughly dismissed for it, frankly. It was like, 'Oh, you're an LA TV guy. You're a pretty boy LA TV guy.' I couldn't break through that door. And then it's frankly always been a bit of a, 'Oh, you're a Sweet Home Alabama guy.' I consciously—and probably did very difficult damage to my career—was trying so hard to fight against that. I did a thousand independent movies that nobody saw. I tried to be Sean Penn in all of them."
However, Lucas is happy that some people are finally starting to see him for his acting. He explained, "It's funny to now go to [Palm Royale] and have people be like, 'Oh, you're funny!' I can't tell you how much I yearned for years to go back and do that. It's actually the place I think is the most interesting and rewarding and difficult from an acting standpoint."
He continued, "And to be with all of these women, some of whom are true comedy legends. I know people get angry with the sports metaphor, but I truly always saw acting as tennis, and I felt like when someone's hitting the ball well at you, it is so much fun to play. When they're hitting the ball badly at you, it's pretty easy to look like you don't know what you're doing with them. In this case, this experience with these women hitting so hard at you—it's so, so much fun."
Josh Lucas Talks Career
Of course, Lucas was always going to have an uphill battle. Lucas opened up about moving to New York as an outsider. He wanted so badly to prove himself.
He said, "I so wanted to go to Juilliard. I didn't have any money, and so the idea of going to a school where they don't allow you to work was not a reality for me. I was born in Arkansas, but I moved from Washington State, where I went to high school, a little fishing village, and I came to New York wanting to be a theater actor and really prove myself."
Lucas continued, "And what I did find very quickly was that all of those Juilliard teachers, they teach privately, and they have acting classes and movement classes and voice classes. So that is what I did for years. It was that incredible period in New York City where you're pounding the pavement. You're literally going to every single voice-over, commercial audition. You are desperately trying to make a living. And I've worked all sorts of weird jobs, but I also made that choice every night between, Do I get a beer tonight, or do I get rice and beans?"
