Kevin Sorbo has been a staple in Hollywood since the 1990s. He's played the title character in the TV show Hercules and been in over forty other projects over the course of his career. Prior to becoming an actor, Sorbo was a model and after having a stroke in the 90s, wrote a book called True Strength.
Sorbo sat down with me to talk about his new movie Storm Rider, working with his wife, future projects, and his movie co-stars. You can read the interview below!
How did you get involved with Storm Rider?
Pretty much like any movie I get, you know my agent will send me a script, I'll check out the script, and if I like the first twenty pages of it I'll keep on reading, if not I'll pass. And this one I loved. I loved the idea of it. I liked the cowboy world. I kind of look at this like a modern day cowboy story in a way. I play a veterinarian who deals mostly with horses and I'm a big fan of Jeremiah Johnson in the old Robert Redford movie.
It reminded me of the type of character he was, sort of a gruff character, sort of a loner who just wanted to live his own life and he gets things changed drastically as I [his character in Storm Rider] do when my brother gets thrown in prison for fraud and all of a sudden I've got to take care of his two kids. So my life is turned upside down as is theirs, because my life is quite different from the cushy and very privileged life that the kids have been living. So it's interesting. It's a growing experience on both sides until they find a happy place, so to speak.
You do play this gruff exterior, protective kind of character. Was that character easy to slip into when the cameras started rolling?
You know, if it's written on the pages, I find it easy. It was a well-written script. But it's funny, 'cause as an actor, you put on the clothes and the hat and whatever makeup they put on you and you get on the set and you've already prepared yourself for whatever scenes you have to do that day, it just sort of flows. And that's what happened with this story. And everybody in our lives we know what happiness is, we know what's sad, we know anger, we know hatred, and all these different emotions, so it's really a matter of taking whatever the scene requires and tapping into those emotions while it's happening. And it's fun. I mean I'm very comfortable with who I am as Kevin Sorbo, but I love the craft of acting and trying on different shoes, or in this case trying on different hats as a cowboy.
I liked the character and I liked the interaction you had with the other characters. It was very easy-going and a carefree kind of relationship you had with the other actors. Was that how it was on set?
Yeah, Kristy Swanson and I have worked together before on a movie called What If and we have a great relationship. We knew each other before that movie, but shooting that movie four years ago already, cemented our relationship and who we are and the type of movies we like to do and the type of movies we like to be in. So she's so easy to work with, she makes me laugh. She's got a very witty and sarcastic sense of humor. And Dani [Danielle Chuchran], who plays my niece named Dani [laughs] is just lovely. The camera absolutely loves her and we have such good chemistry together that we've been paired together already, shooting a sci-fi movie together right now.
So you get to work with her again, that's great.
Yeah, and she's moving down to LA and she's not going to be too far from where I live. So I told her we can collaborate on a couple more things because I've got a couple of scripts that are really good and I think she would be great in. She's a very good actress. She's gonna be a big name, trust me. People are gonna hear from her, she's gonna have a long career.
Yeah, she was very good and I don't recall seeing her in anything before, but she was like fresh air in this movie.
You know, she's done a lot of stuff, but you're right, a lot of people don't know about her yet. And most people would probably know her from years ago in the The Cat in the Hat movie that she shot with Alec Baldwin. So yeah, she's been around. So a lot of people don't know her, but they're gonna start hearing more and more about her. And she does all her own riding in the movie, she's one heck of a horse woman. Speaking of horses, you were surrounded by a bunch of animals on set. And your character's a veterinarian, but we don't really see you interact with them much on camera. Did you interact with them at all off screen?
I've ridden horses and stuff but they didn't want to put that in there, I guess. It really came down to shooting time of the movie. They just didn't want to have to deal with that in this movie. They just wanted to get to the story right away. This is what Sam does for a living but it's not his life. So in terms of where they wanted the movie to be, they wanted to deal with his personal life and the relationships that affect his life. I think they wanted to keep it actor driven and not really deal as much with the animals.
And I think that's good because before I started watching the movie I thought it was going to be the run-of-the-mill she gets into a contest and has to race a horse kind of movie. But it wasn't like that at all and I liked that.
Our director Craig Clyde also wrote the film and he was so easy to work with because he's an actor as well as a director. And I love working with directors who have acted. He was very open to ideas, his ego wasn't there and he wasn't like "you have to say it this way", which can happen. He'd let us improv here and there so long as we didn't take away from the overall story.
I know you've worked with your wife onscreen before and she's in this movie as
Yes, I joke and say she plays a very kind of bitchy New York woman. [laughs]
What was that like, seeing as how you were a little attitudal with each other in the film?
It was fun. I think we got to vent a lot of our own frustration with being a married couple [laughs]. But she's kind of thrown her hand in the ring for her acting lately. We have another movie coming down the pipeline called Normal Like Me, which starts shooting early next year, so she's doing more stuff. She's got a lot of things going on. A book coming out soon and she's got her own radio show, so she's busy doing a lot of stuff.
You've generally made a career out of playing sci-fi/fantasy characters like in Hercules and Andromeda. Has it been a purposeful decision to kind of star in the opposite like Storm Rider and Soul Surfer? Is it a personal thing, since I know you had a stroke a while back?
The stroke happened between seasons five and six on Hercules and I wrote a book. I'm very fortunate, obviously, that I'm alive, let alone able to function. It took me three years to push real hard to get past the things I had to get past. And since then I did Andromeda for five years and forty movies after that, so it's been a mixture of things.
I don't have anything in particular I want to do. I know there are things I wouldn't do as an actor, but you know, I've done psychological thrillers to playing pastors, so it's been a mixture. I mix it up pretty good and maybe subconsciously I'm doing that on purpose, but I'm ready to get back on TV. I'd like to do another television show again.
That would be very exciting. Is it something you would like to do in the future, doing movies or a TV show that are more on the thriller/heroic side?
I'm not sure. I've got three scripts right now that we're trying to raise money for through my production company that are all very, very thriller and action-driven. So, it'll really come down to investors. You know, everyone's fighting for money because the economy has hurt Hollywood just as much as it's hurt everything else.
You can buy or rent Storm Rider on DVD and Video on Demand today!
