How Sally Field Changed Lewis Pullman's Approach To Acting

"“My best friend, Kyle McNeil, who's a great musician, found this bookstore called Equator Books,” the 33-year-old actor says of the now-closed Venice, Los Angeles, shop which was run by poet Michael Deyermond in the 2000s. “The legend goes that Kyle stole a book, and Michael caught him and was like, 'Listen, you can pay that off by working here.'”"

"“The teenager and the book store owner “ended up creating this beautiful friendship,” with Pullman rounding out the trio. “We had a book club called 'Reading for Winners,' and Michael basically was giving us all these books that they weren't teaching us in school that he was like, 'I think boys at this age, you're going to love this.'”"

"“Once I kind of let go of the homework side of reading and then locked in, I was like, this is an imagination playground,” says Pullman, who's in New York to promote his new Netflix movie, Remarkably Bright Creatures, adapted from a novel by Shelby Van Pelt."

"Pullman plays Cameron, a musician in an unsigned band called Moth Sausage and in search of his biological father. When his van, which he also lives in, breaks down, he finds himself stuck in a small town in the Pacific Northwest, where he takes on a job as a janitor and is apprenticed by Tova (Sally Field), a grieving mother and widow."

A high school book theft connected an actor to a bookstore and its owner, creating a friendship and a book club called “Reading for Winners.” The bookstore owner provided books not taught in school, encouraging the actor and his friends to read authors such as Harry Crews, Denis Johnson, John Yount, and Charles Bukowski. Letting go of homework-based reading helped the actor view reading as an imagination playground. The actor later promoted a Netflix film, Remarkably Bright Creatures, and discussed his favorite books, including Train Dreams. He also described his role as a musician searching for his biological father, whose life changes when a broken van strands him in a Pacific Northwest town and leads to work as a janitor and an apprenticeship with a grieving widow.

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