Victor Rasuk: his lip-smackin' upstart seduced audiences at the sundance film festival. Your town may be next - Movie Buzz - Interview

In his feature debut as the title character in Raising Victor Vargas, 19-year-old Victor Rasuk gives an extraordinary performance: vulnerable, funny, and filled with subtleties one associates with more seasoned actors. Growing up on the streets of Manhattan's Lower East Side, Rasuk's Vargas is left to figure out the stuff of family, friends, and the opposite sex on his own.

In this film about relationships, Rasuk says it was the special, off-camera bonds that "made it work." And there are several such connections: His real-life younger brother, Silvestre, plays Vargas' younger brother in the film, and Rasuk and costar Judy Marte were classmates at New York's Professional Performing Arts High School, and were in director Peter Sollett's first short. Which brings us to Rasuk's relationship with the director...

MARK SIMON BURK: You and Peter go back a ways, huh?

VICTOR RASUK: Yup. When I was 14, Pete cast me in his NYU thesis film, Five Feet High and Rising. We became close--he's like family. We're a lot alike, actually. It's tough for us to trust people, but we've developed a great trust between us.

MSB: Can you give me an example of how that trust played out on the set?

VR: Sure. Pete wanted Vargas to be a ladies' man--real flamboyant--but I'm kind of shy. There were times when I Shrank and Pete pushed me to places I wasn't comfortable with. I mean, sometimes I felt like an ass, but I trusted where he was going. And it worked.

MSB: And how did Peter trust you?

VR: Well, in the movie, Victor always licks his lips when he talks up the ladies. I got that from LL Cool J, the ultimate ladies' man. But Pete didn't like it. I kept doing it, and he was getting annoyed. But I know Pete: If it really wasn't working, he'd have stopped me. Eventually, he had to write a scene into the script to explain it.

MSB: Besides the name and your little brother's presence, are there any other similarities between you and Victor Vargas?

VR: Yeah. I grew up on the Lower East Side like he does, so I know the streets. My character's father is absent, and my own dad wasn't an everyday presence in my life, either. But I got involved with the Grand Street Settlement program, which kept me doing positive things. There was one special guy who took me under his wing. I was really fortunate.

MSB: Tell me what's next for you.

VR: I'm doing a small role in a movie called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, with director Michel Gondry. I auditioned for a bigger part, which Elijah Wood got, but Michel liked me, so he put me in it. I have a scene with Jim Carrey and one with Kate Winslet.

MSB: Is the one you have with Kate a lip-licking scene?

VR: [laughs] I don't think so. But, hey, you never know, right?

Mark Simon Burk is a screenwriter and fiction writer living in New York City.

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