Starring in the film adaptation of Augusten Burroughs’ best-selling memoir Running With Scissors is a big deal for 20-year-old actor Joseph Cross. “For better or for worse,” he says.
Cross began his career with a notable stint on As the World Turns and a smattering of Law ‘ Order appearances. He is featured this year in Strangers With Candy, Scissors, which opens in select cities this week and nationwide Oct. 27, and Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers. But it’s the much-anticipated Scissors that will mean the most for his career.
“To do the book justice and to do [Burroughs] justice was really daunting,” Cross says of the now-massive cult figure, who makes a cameo in the film. “He was totally on board, totally supportive and encouraging. He really gave me the approval that I needed to go and do this movie.”
Scissors, which tells the sometimes-unbelievable story of Burroughs’ upbringing in the home of his less-than-conventional psychiatrist, Dr. Finch, is a perfect fit for less-than-conventional first-time feature director Ryan Murphy. As the creator of Nip/Tuck, Murphy is no stranger to inappropriate sexual relationships, abuses of the medical profession and Alec Baldwin. Since Scissors marks Murphy’s directorial debut and Cross’s first big-time starring role, Cross says the two were really in it together.
Cross describes everyone he worked with on set as incredibly kind and helpful, especially considering the challenging nature of the story. In the film, Cross portrays a teenage boy having an affair with a much -older man, but he handles the role with maturity and vulnerability.
“You’re not going to do anything with fear and intimidation,” he explains, “and I had to get over it.”
Murphy’s adaptation stays as true to the spirit of the book as it can, without delving too far into the sometimes-explicit content of the book. Because Cross hadn’t read the book, he came across the script with no preconceived notions about the story.
“I read the script, and it was tame,” he says. “If you made the book in all of its excess and explicit nature into a movie, you have an X-rated movie, and you don’t have an audience.”
Another obstacle to making the film was the process of fact-checking the entire story. According to Cross, Murphy didn’t get the green light until Sony’s lawyers had checked every detail.
“When [Dr. Finch] started to take his feces as being thoughts from God,” Cross explains, “he distributed newsletters about them to all of his patients, which are on file now. And so as long as it’s on public record, it all checks out.”
As an actor, Cross says he found inspiration for Augusten in his first year at Trinity College. He admits that his first few months at school were a “very strange, lonely time, amidst a very chaotic world.” Having channeled that confusion and isolation for his performance, Cross plans to return to college next semester for the time being.
“I’m not going to work just to work,” he says, confessing that if something grabs him like Scissors or Flags did, he will put his degree off for just a little longer.
In regard to Scissors, which follows some very weird characters involved in some very weird situations, Cross says, “I hope people come away with the idea that you don’t need a stellar upbringing to make something meaningful out of your life, and to become a really good person.”