Red Rocket
All actors and roles (10)
Short description
Sean Baker directed this 2021 comedy-drama, which he also wrote with Chris Bergoch. It follows Mikey, a former adult-film performer who has run out of options in Los Angeles and returns to his small Texas hometown. He moves in with his estranged wife Lexi and her mother Lil, and the uneasy household briefly stabilizes. Then Mikey meets Strawberry, a young woman working the counter at a local doughnut shop, and his old habits reassert themselves.
Simon Rex plays Mikey, with Suzanna Son as Strawberry, Bree Elrod as Lexi and Brenda Deiss as Lil. Released in December 2021, the film sits between The Florida Project and Anora in Baker's directing career.
Made for about 1 million dollars, it took roughly 2 million dollars worldwide, a return that reflects its modest scale. On IMDb it holds 7.1 out of 10 from around 43,000 votes, while on TMDB it has 6.8 from a much smaller pool of voters. A critics' rating of 8 out of 10 across 211 reviews places it above the audience scores, suggesting stronger approval from professional reviewers than from general viewers.
What's left behind the scenes
- Director Sean Baker spotted Brittany Rodriguez while she was walking her dog and immediately offered her a role in the film.
- Before becoming known as a VJ in the 1990s, Simon Rex starred in pornographic films under the pseudonym “Sebastian.”
- Simon Rex was personally invited to the main role in the film by the director and screenwriter Sean Baker, who cannot stand working through agents. Thus, Rex's agent had no idea he was involved in this film until the end of shooting.
- Suzanne Sone told the Los Angeles Times in an interview that she watched the finished film for the first time alone, at her home in Los Angeles, in the kitchen. She was so eager to see how she came across in the erotic scenes that the actress paused it before they began to calm herself with a little dance, but it ended with her breaking her leg. Five days later, she was already at the film’s premiere in Cannes in a wheelchair and with her leg in a cast.
- On her very first day on set, Suzanne Sone had to perform nude in scenes where she engages in lovemaking with Simon Rex’s character and sings. These were her first love scenes in her career.
- During the filming of the fight in the parking lot, passersby repeatedly called the police to report a disturbance.
- On October 23, Sean Baker called Simon Rex, whom he had not met before, convinced him to urgently record an audition and send it to him, and then drive to Texas to avoid dealing with airplanes and quarantine measures, and then, three days later, begin filming.
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