From comedy rap with Charlie Sheen and to a sitcom with Meghan Markle, Rex has had a rollercoaster life. Now, Sean Baker’s film Red Rocket has bestowed one quality that eluded him – respect for his acting
What must it be like to have a penis the size of a draught excluder? “I wouldn’t know, dude!” says Simon Rex. The one the actor models in the new comedy Red Rocket, in which he plays a disreputable middle-aged former porn star named Mikey Saber, is in fact a prosthetic. Rex’s actual penis is there for all to see in several porn videos he made as a callow, cocky 18-year-old back in the early 90s. Until this week, though, he was being coy about whether that was really him in Red Rocket’s nude scenes. Now, as he puts it, “the dick is out of the bag”.
Having established that the recording of our video call won’t be uploaded anywhere – “Cos I look like I just got thrown off a balcony,” he says, running a hand through scruffy hair – he relaxes into a chatty, chipper mood. He is speaking from his Los Angeles hotel room on the morning after he was named best male lead actor at the Independent Spirit awards. Kristen Stewart presented his prize, then looked on admiringly as the 47-year-old reflected on a career that was “in the toilet” before he got the call from Sean Baker, director of The Florida Project, inviting him to come to Texas to make Red Rocket.
