Catching Up with Tomo Nakayama of Grand Hallway on Acting in Touchy Feely
Photo by Alicia Palaniuk
Tomo Nakayama is used to performing, but the Grand Hallway lead singer usually does it with a guitar in his hand and a microphone at his mouth. Acting in a movie — and a movie by one of the most exciting emerging directors around — is a far different thing, altogether. The Japanese-Vietnamese-American talked with us recently to tell about falling in love with Ellen Page in Lynn Shelton’s new film Touchy Feely.
Paste Magazine: How did you come to be involved with Touchy Feely?
Tomo Nakayama: I worked with Lynn on an MTV web series she did a few years ago called Five Dollar Cover, which was a bunch of vignettes, short films starring different bands from the local music scene. I was in one of the bands that was featured. We became friends, and she started coming to my shows. She saw me at an acapella show where I sang this Judy Garland song, and after that she kept bringing up the performance and talking about how much it affected her. And then one day, out of the blue, she sent me a script and said she wanted me to be in her next movie.
Paste: It’s your first IMDB credit as an actor; had you done films before?
Nakayama: I’d done some short student films, but I’d never been in front of the camera. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I went to set, but Lynn creates this safe environment where everybody is working together for a common goal, to tell the story. So it’s really easy. And the part was basically written using aspects of my life. I really am a barista, and I play music. So those were details that were easy to react to! The actors were really down to earth. It’s essentially like a grown-up version of make believe, right? It didn’t feel any more complicated than that. And Lynn doesn’t tie you down to your lines; she’s more concerned with how you yourself would say it. So it’s easy to get into the moment and get inside the character.