He might be known as Dwight from “The Office,” but Rainn Wilson isn’t letting his trademark glasses get in the way of his career. According to Dark Horizons, the actor has been offered a load of goofy characters but instead chose to play a more grounded character in the fantasy adventure “The Last Mimzy.”
“It was a very interesting process because I just finished the second year of 'The Office,' which was just starting to kind of catch on and get known by people,” Wilson said. “Some offers were coming in from movies and they were very broad kind of family films that weren't bad by any stretch of the imagination but after playing like this kind of over the top, annoying, crazy creep for a full year, I read 'Mimzy' and I really responded to the story.”
“The Last Mimzy” revolves around two children who discover a box containing a wide selection of unusual toys. But in reality, they are a collection of devices designed to increase their intelligence to the point where they are well beyond the status of genius. When their intelligence causes a blackout, the government traces the surge to the "toy" rabbit Mimzy – a strange sentience from the future.
“It's pretty rare that you read a script that's really about something,” Wilson said. “It has something to say but at the same time it doesn't hit that nail on the head and it's not pedantic in any way. It has a spiritual, mystical message that's woven through the science fiction elements that really struck a cord and I literally was at the end of the script and I was in tears, of reading it. I felt it was something I had to do and it was kind of a choice between that and these really broad, family films where I would be running into walls a lot so it was nice to get to stretch those muscles and play a real character."
In real life, Wilson is a Baha'i, and while he takes his religion and its spiritualism very seriously, he has no problem associating his own spiritual beliefs with Hollywood.
"I've worked in a lot of things before I was an actor and I worked in New York in various fields and I had a moving company and catered and I worked in the theatre before I came out here and there's a lot of like superficial, materialistic jackasses out here, no question,” he said. “But there's also some of the nicest, most grounded, most thoughtful people that I've ever met working in Hollywood who really want to make a difference and tell good stories and entertain people in a positive, uplifting way. I think there's a lot of great work like that in Hollywood which I don't think gets the attention. I think if you just look at kind of the range of movies that come out, there's all kinds of uplifting family films that have a strong message to heal racism and heal sexism and bring people together and stuff like that."
"The Last Mimzy" hits theaters March 23. In the meantime, New Line Cinema and Airlock Alpha have joined forces to give out prize packs from the movie worth $40. All you have to do is solve the mystery. Start your adventure by clicking here.
About the Author:
Alan Stanley Blair is the news editor for Airlock Alpha and assistant news editor for its sister site, Inside Blip. Contributing from his home in Scotland, he is currently studying for a diploma in freelance journalism and feature writing.
