Photograph by Matt Dinerstein
There’s a bit of irony in the fact that Hollywood actor Christian Stolte continually gets cast to play either a cop or a criminal. The hometown guy, raised in Black Jack, was once on track to become a St. Louis–area policeman. It surely gives him a little extra perspective when his character is robbing banks with Johnny Depp in Public Enemies, playing opposite Gerard Butler in Law Abiding Citizen, or working as a corrections officer in Prison Break. This month, Stolte begins shooting Chicago Fire, a new TV show in which he plays a firefighter. The Onion (theonion.com) is also set to begin streaming Stolte’s new Web series, Lake Dredge Appraisal, an absurdist parody of Antiques Roadshow.
Did you do any acting growing up in St. Louis? How did you break into Hollywood?
I was in maybe one play at Hazelwood Central High, went to Mizzou and did no theater there, and then went to UMSL for a couple of years, and did like 10 plays there. Later, I wound up enrolled in the St. Louis Police Academy; my father was a St. Louis cop. But then, before I could become a policeman, my buddy talked into coming to Chicago to do some theater in the 90's. I did a ton of theater and a little film and TV. I used to operate the camera for a company that did casting auditions, and I got to see the best and the worst actors in Chicago do auditions, and it was a great education for me. I also was able to meet everybody in the industry that way. Then, six years ago, I got the call to be in Law Abiding Citizen with Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler.
Your chest and arms were covered in scary temporary tattoos for that role. Did that make you feel like a badass?
It definitely changed the way other people perceived me. They had me staying at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia, and I just did not look like a guy who would be staying at the Four Seasons. I could tell by the way people were looking at me. Those tattoos took about two hours to put on. They did it by using a very sticky substance, and I was sticky all the time. I would roll over in bed and my sheet would come with me! By the way, I'm always a little befuddled by actors who decide to get prominently placed tattoos. You should see the work that creates in the make-up chair to get rid of them!
You were killed in a gruesome death scene at hands of Gerard Butler in that movie.
Strangely enough, it was kind of a nightmare, but not for the predictable reason. It was very cold, and I just had a sleeveless T-shirt on. I was on this table rigged for special effects, in an impossible position to maintain comfort. For 12 and a half hours I was in that position, freezing, with maybe two breaks to use the restroom. Gerard and the director were trying to keep me entertained by showing me funny photos on their iPhones.
Did you enjoy working with Johnny Depp in Public Enemies?
That’s one of those questions where I look at it in two parallel ways. One of them is, what was the experience of shooting it like, and the other is, what is the end result? I've had people who know me watch that movie and not even realize I was in it. The action is pretty fast. However, the experience of shooting it was phenomenal. I was with the same four guys, including Johnny Depp, from February through August of that year. Johnny was an absolute gentleman, very down-to-earth. He has a delightfully bawdy sense of humor. The only time I ever saw him throw his weight around was on behalf of everyone else. Toting those tommy guns around and going into banks like we meant business was great. We went to the shooting range to get a feel for the guns. We shot part of the film inside a couple of former prisons, one of which I was also in during the first season of Prison Break. That was also the prison where Dan Ackroyd picks up John Belushi in The Blues Brothers, too.
Is it odd to play so many mobsters and killers?
I used to think that was significant, but now it's not something I take very personally. It's just cops and bad guys, and cops and bad guys are overrepresented by film and television. If all you went by was film and TV, you'd think 40 percent of the population was policemen. Usually when I play a cop, I'm a bad cop.
How many times have you been killed onscreen?
I couldn’t even guess. Probably about a half-dozen. It's part of being in the cop/criminal corner. If I looked more like a professor, there’d probably be less violence in my acting career.
One online commenter wrote that you're “known for playing gruff, domineering types (including guards, Mafiosos, and authoritarian fathers).”
I’m pretty realistic, and I'll tell ya, the first lie in that sentence is the word “known.” I don’t consider myself to be known at all. The first group of people that recognize me are guys who work in kiosks at the mall, where they sell cell phones or soap from the Dead Sea. I don’t know why. The other group is young fathers with neck tattoos that recognize me at Chuck E. Cheese. Again, I don't understand why.
What are you involved in now?
Chicago Fire starts shooting in Chicago in July. I play one of the firemen. The fact that it’s a Dick Wolf production, the Law and Order guy, means that, knock on wood, this could be a job that sustains me for several years. Then again, I'm frequently the guy whose character makes one mistake and he gets sent up the river. It's been great shooting the pilot, and I really got attached to the other guys in the firehouse. The public can watch it in the fall. I also just shot a web series produced by The Onion where I play a scholarly appraiser in a parody of Antiques Roadshow. The idea is that all the items have been dredged from the bottom of a lake, and everything is covered in slime. He's a prissy, snobbish, intellectual guy. It's called Lake Dredge Appraisal. You can also watch me now at thegraveyardshow.com, in a web comedy series called "Graveyard." It's about two incredibly bored guys passing the night at work. I play a custodian, and in the same building, this really gifted improviser named David Pasquesi plays the security guard.
You're also scheduled to work on a film soon called Mother of War, featuring Stephen Baldwin.
That’s a story set in the 1800s, about a famous Brazilian guerrilla fighter named Anita Garibaldi. It's supposed to be shot in Sardinia. It’s a fine, fine script. I'm hoping everything falls into place. Mother of War is shooting in October, and if Chicago Fire is still shooting then I may have to forgo one or the other. Mother of War has a lot of swordfighting and horseback-riding and fighting on ships. It sounds so fun.
You've taught a lot of students how to act at an acclaimed place called Acting Studio Chicago.
I used to teach acting, but I really did get sick of the sound of my own voice just gassing on, and I began to feel a bit full of it. When you're talking about acting, most of what you say is unprovable, and can be challenged. You can teach acting, but then again, I'm not sure you can really teach talent. I began to feel a bit like I was cheating people. I began to feel anxiety about it, and it stopped being rewarding for me. One of my former students is on that HBO show Veep with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, so I do get some of that teachers' pride sometimes, though.
It seems like your star is really on the rise.
I feel like I turned the corner when I stopped having a day job seven or eight years ago. I don’t care if anyone's ever heard of me, or recognizes me, and I have no particular need to be wealthy. If I can pay the mortgage by doing something that doesn’t seem like toil to me, I feel like I've won.
