"Doing weird interpretations of American presidents" is how Benjamin Walker sums up his nascent career as we chug espressos at a café in New York City. The 30-year-old actor's two biggest roles to date: reimagining our seventh president as an Indian-slaughtering emo rocker in the deeply irreverent Broadway musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and currently playing our sixteenth in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the film version of Seth Grahame-Smith's best-selling novel.
In it, Walker wields an ax-shotgun combo—the better to alternately split vampires' heads and blow their brains out. (Which is, of course, totally factual.) Only in America would dead presidents as action figures be a niche to get pigeonholed in. The Juilliard grad, however, hasn't totally settled on acting; he'd much rather talk about his stand-up work, the monthly comedy night he hosts, and getting roasted recently by Janeane Garofalo. Or maybe it's fame he's wary of; Walker's seen it firsthand as Meryl Streep's son-in-law. (He's married to actress Mamie Gummer.)
As he finishes his coffee, he offhandedly asks a favor: If we meet again in a few years and he's turned into a douchebag, would I, you know, tell him?