To become someone in Hollywood, you often have to lose yourself first. It’s a truth Matt Bomer uncovered playing The Last Tycoon’s Monroe Stahr, a wunderkind studio executive who ditches his past (and his name) as he strives for power.
“One of my favorite scenes is when he calls his mother and we get a glimpse of who he left behind,” the actor, 39, tells Us Weekly of the Amazon drama. “She asks if his girlfriend calls him Milton and he says, ’No, she calls me Monroe like everyone else.’ You just feel the distance and pain.”
Emotions aside, Monroe suffers physically, too. Diagnosed with a heart condition, “he has a ticking clock on his life,” Bomer adds. “He feels he has to put his stamp on the world and achieve immortality in the limited time he has. Those kind of stakes are always interesting to me as an actor.”
Though the series — based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished manuscript of the same name — is set in the 1930s, Bomer insists it still resonates today. “Hollywood really hasn’t changed,” says the dad of three (with husband Simon Halls, 53). “This not only tells an interesting story, it comments on a lot going on now.”’
The Last Tycoon, also starring Lily Collins and Kelsey Grammer, begins streaming on Amazon Friday, July 28.