Graham Phillips talks Zach's love life, his Sundance movie ...

Tell me about Goats, the film you have premiering at Sundance on Jan. 24. It’s based on the Mark Jude Poirier novel, and you star as a 15-year-old who leaves his mother (Vera Farmiga) and eccentric pool man-landscaper father figure (David Duchovny) in Arizona to attend an East Coast prep school and reconnect with his estranged dad (Ty Burrell).
I fell in love with the script the first time that I read it. I immediately went and read the book, before I even auditioned. It’s really difficult for someone my age to find roles that are substantial, that you can really sink your teeth into. The arc that this character goes through is unlike anything that I’ve ever been able to do. The Good Wife is a great experience because I do, on a certain level, have an arc, but it’s over two or three years because I get a scene or two an episode. This was a two-month experience, and every single day it was a totally different dynamic. You’re filming 10 pages a day, all sorts of different scenes out-of-order. I literally made note cards for each scene to organize my thoughts and talk about where I was with every person, place, and object in the scene. So it really was a great learning experience for me. I’m really excited to see it. The cinematography is beautiful. It’s a first-time film director, Christopher Neil, but he’s done a ton of commercials and has been an acting coach for a long time, and he’s the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola.

So you have most of your scenes with David Duchovny?
Exactly. Then Vera Farmiga and Ty Burrell are tied. And then the rest of the scenes are with all my roommates and classmates at Gates Academy. We filmed in New Mexico and in Connecticut, which has a very Dead Poets Society feel to it.

Had you ever talked to Josh Charles about Dead Poets Society?
[Laughs] I hadn’t. I actually watched it for the first time a little while ago. What was so weird: I was watching it, and I had no idea who was in it, and he looked EXACTLY THE SAME. I was like, ohmygod, you’ve gotta be kidding me. If only he was tossing a baseball and talking about law, it would have been perfect. He’s also one of my favorite guys on set. He could not be a cooler guy, couldn’t be more down to earth. When I see him on the street in New York, we talk for like 15, 20 minutes. He’s an extremely kind guy, and he’s super young at heart.

What was the best part about working with Duchovny?
I was kind of struggling with the whole college thing. If I know I want to be actor and a director and write screenplays, what approach do I take when I’m in college? Julianna [Margulies] actually helped me out a lot with that. She went to Sarah Lawrence, and she talked me through her experience. David Duchovny went to Princeton, and he thought he was going to be a writer, but he told me about how his experience as an English major really helped him out as an actor and as a filmmaker. That really helped me making my choice of college. We got to a level where he felt comfortable writing me a letter of recommendation for Princeton. And that’s where I’m going. I’ll start this fall.




But its top-rated series, Dexter, has set its "likely end point" in 2013, after two more seasons, Nevins says. Though he allows some wiggle room to reconsider, he says the knowledge will let the writers stretch: "It's time for Dexter to shake up what he'll do, so he's not such a lone wolf."

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