Cameron Monaghanis a serious performer; one can tell by speaking with him how much reverence he has from filmmaking and acting. This can be seen in the hesitant care he takes in choosing words and the self-awareness he has for his craft, which has led to beloved work inShameless, Star Warsvideo games, and the underratedJamie Marks is Dead,not to mention, of course, his adored work inGotham(playing aJoker that even Mark Hamill loves). That’s why it was surprising when was so open and honest about a kind of professional crisis he had been experiencing prior to his excellent performance in themagnificent recent movieParadise Highway.
“I was working on another project in Montana at the time, and to be completely candid, I was having a pretty difficult time on the set,” Monaghan tells us. “I came into that project really late in the game, and I wasn’t really happy with how it was turning out. I’m not throwing anyone under the bus, I think it was just one of those circumstantial things where it was a very difficult environment. And I was kind of questioning my faith as an actor, as a performer, and trying my best, essentially, just to stay alive.”
Cameron Monaghan’s Acting Career Felt Shattered
That film was likelyShattered, which also stars Frank Grillo, inParadise Highwayas well. “I kept hearing about a script calledParadise Highway, that a few of the same producers were also working on, and I kept hearing about how good it was and how interesting it was. And I needed to read something really good; at that time, I needed to find something to have faith in.” Monaghan continues:
When that film [Shattered] released in January, I was kind of in a very strange mindset. You know, I just finished up working on Shameless for 11 years, and I’ve been working as an actor for over 20 years at this point. I think that you develop your own methods and your habits and all these things as a young man and as an adolescent, and at a certain point, you begin to question what those methods are.
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“I had my ‘come to God moment,’ I guess you can say,” Monaghan continues, “where I felt really uninspired, and I wanted to just do something different.”
Monaghan Found Himself With Paradise Highway
Feeling professionally and emotionally adrift in the business he’s spent two decades excelling at, Monaghan was forced to take a new approach if he wanted to stay in the game. “I started pursuing art kind of on my own terms. I started, after that film, turning down most things and saying no, in trying to just find something that I really believed in or that I thought was really special, writing my own things, just creating from my own perspective instead.” Fortunately, Monaghan found the script forParadise Highway, saying:
I thought that it was pretty stunning. It was about human trafficking and sexual slavery, which are obviously really dark and heavy subject matter, and yet, there was a humanity to these characters. There was a beauty to the storytelling, and there was a lightness within the context of all this darkness. And I thought that was really special.
The experience of filmingParadise Highway(which is being released today in select theaters and on demand and digital) seemed like a career-altering shift for Monaghan, who stars in the film oppositethe great Morgan Freemanas two FBI agents pursuing child traffickers. “Now I feel like I’m coming to it as a different performer, and as an adult, essentially,” Monaghan says with a peaceful smile. “I’m very excited for whatever this next chapter of my life is, because I think that I’m just growing as a human being. And I hope that that’s reflected in the art as well.”
