After a journeyman career that included stints as an MTV VJ, a rapper named Dirt Nasty, a model and the goofball star of three Scary Movie installments, Simon Rex is having a moment. He stars alongside Channing Tatum in the Zoe Kravitz-directed drama Blink Twice , and opposite Lily James and Joseph Gordon Levitt in Greedy People . The uptick in Rex’s action comes after a lauded turn in the Sean Baker-directed drama Red Rocket , for which he won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead.
He played a washed-up porn star (which Rex sort of was for a moment, early on) who is broke and focuses on a young woman he thinks can fuel his resurgence in the skin game. It has given him an entry as a dramatic actor to go with his comedy work. Watch here for the influences that helped Rex form a versatile acting persona that took him from incessantly watching the David & Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams comedy classics Airplane! and The Naked Gun , and finding his way toward working for them in three superb Scary Movie installments.
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