Theo Rossi Unpacks The Human Complexity OI Bruton & Reveals His Comfort Watch
The prison film is a well-worn source of cinematic drama, with heartbreaking stories and riveting thrillers using the jailhouse as a means of examining humanity. It’s usually a source of pretty morose storytelling, given the harsh realities and tragic stories that often surround prisoners. It’s also a place where the right performance can find some real humanity, like what Theo Rossi plays with in Bruton (2026).
The actor is garnering some of the best reviews of his career for his performance as Bruton, taking the real-life story of a man who changes while behind bars in an emotionally raw but effectively grounded direction. Sentenced to a decade-long jail sentence after a manslaughter charge, Rossi's Bruton applies his experience as a hustler to prison culture as a means of survival. During an interview with JustWatch, Theo Rossi examined what characters excite him, why he loves to watch old commercials, and what got him so excited for the experience.
What was your first reaction to reading this script? It’s such a specific, intense character study. It’s not even like most prison films.
No, it's like no other prison film. What you just said there is what turned me on the most about it. You have The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Blood In Blood Out (1993), The Hurricane (1999), The Green Mile (1999), Escape From Alcatraz (1979), all these great prison films; they’ve been done. And you think sometimes… they can exhaust the genre. Then something comes along, and you go, "Whoa. That's different.” What Vincent had told me when we first spoke was that we weren’t making a prison film. We're examining a guy's life for these 11 to 13 years of his life, and prison just happens to be a part of it. That's just the backdrop. We're really on the journey of this guy's life and who he becomes in it.’
Vincent had no interest in making a dark prison drama that just makes people feel terrible when they leave. He said, ‘I want them to feel a certain way. We're gonna get them to really invest in this guy and the story with his daughter.’ That's what I noticed when I first read it. It was kind of popping off the page. This guy is different. This guy is really gregarious, making a lot of mistakes, and whoa, look who he becomes. This is the job I do. If you can start here and go there and play everything in between, you really want something like that.
I’m always interested when performers have an archetype they like to explore. You look at your characters in shows like Sons of Anarchy (2008), Luke Cage (2016), and Emily the Criminal (2022), all of them have this rich, grim core. As an actor, what is it about that kind of character that interests you?
You hear it all the time, it’s almost silly at this point. It’s the complexity of a person, right? But the truth is, every human is complex. Every human has their own complexities. It's just that some of them get movies made about them. We all have deep complexities in us. No one is simplistic in their life. Life is complicated. We have all these different ways we live as humans, and we go through these different emotions. With some of them, they're just more likely to be made into a story. I have been fortunate to play these guys that are on the wire in a way where like, they have to make these really big emotional decisions. We're watching their breakdowns or their breakthroughs, and I really relate to that because I've always tried to be so in touch with life.
I get a kick out of this whole thing we're doing here. It's gonna be so short. We're gonna die. Nobody's gonna remember us. It's all just the way it is, right? I get such a kick out of life when bad things happen, when good things happen, when love happens, when sadness happens, when you're crying, when you're happy. I just get such a kick out of it all because we're truly alive. I really gravitate towards these people that have this stuff going on that I think most people don't. The rougher and deeper and more complex and strange, I just relish in it. It's so fun to jump into that body. It’s why I really try hard to never play [too similar of characters]. Even if they're both criminals, they're wildly different criminals. I want to play everybody so differently, because we're all so different. Even if we were raised in the same exact place, and we were the same height, and we had our parents in the same jobs, we'd still be wildly different. That's what I'm trying to do, and that's why I go near all these characters that have these really big highs and lows.
We here at JustWatch like to know what people who work in the industry watch. Is there anything you turn to as a comfort watch to calm down after films like Bruton?
Right now, I'm on location filming, and I'm doing a rewatch of The Sopranos (1999). It’s the greatest show ever made. There's nothing better to have on. Every time I go to put something else on, ‘I'm gonna give this movie a try,’ I realize I could just watch three episodes of The Sopranos. I know I'm gonna enjoy it more [Laughter]. I'm finishing season one right now.
I'll tell you something I enjoy that I think people probably think is insane. Thank God for YouTube; I love to watch blocks of old commercials. I choose a year. Let's say I'm big in the late '90s, early 2000s. I find four-hour blocks of commercials from those years, and I watch them while I'm writing or while I'm doing emails. I get so much joy out of it. I can't explain why. Commercials used to be made incredible! Almost like films. They inform you of the time. It's wild how time works. I watch these things and, especially the ones from pre-Y2K and then post-2001, you can almost watch how life existed through these commercials. So I watch those a lot. That's a huge thing for me.
What else do I watch that I wish people would watch more? I watch a lot of documentaries. I like to hear versions of stories that I didn't know much about, or that I'm getting more informed on, you know. So I watch a ton of those. I really like to watch ones on this crazy business. Marty, Life is Short (2026) is unbelievable. I just watched that one. It was truly extraordinary. My Mom Jayne (2025) was extraordinary as well. I’ve started getting into horror movies that I'm watching now because my nine-year-old loves horror. I've really started getting into horror. This is all new to me because I never watched horror movies! I really do see the appeal now.
What would you call the biggest surprise you encountered during your experience on Bruton?
The father-daughter relationship and how that became the heart and soul of the film. It became the epicenter of it. I thought it was an examination of this guy's life and everything that went on with all these different characters. But the way [that relationship] has resonated with people, for whatever that reason is - - maybe they’re feeling distant from their own parents, maybe they’re having something with their own children, wanting something from a parent they never got. It’s been really resonant with people.
I went in thinking I was gonna watch this and it was going to be the most miserable human prison movie, and yet I'm coming out feeling like I’ve been having fun. I liked how I felt. [That humanity was still there.] The fact that they're enjoying themselves in a lockdown prison movie is crazy. I love that. I didn't see that. With Vincent, there are really dark moments in the film, really rough stuff. Yet, at the same time, there's always this hope that's under it. I really applaud [the real Bruton] so much for handling all that. I think everybody coming out of that situation feels this thing coming out where they don't want to feel crushed. I think it gives you a little bit of a different outlook on prison.
