It isn’t every day that an actor plays a watchmaker. In fact, American actor and singer James Marsden is used to playing roles in drama movies like The Notebook, adventure roles in the X-Men series, and even starring in the dark comedy, Dead to Me, currently on Netflix and in the sci-fi show Westworld, among dozens of others. However, in the recently released drama video, “Born of a Dream: A Man of the Future,” Marsden plays Florentine Ariosto Jones, the American founder of IWC Schaffhausen. Recently, in a one-on-one interview, Marsden, an IWC brand ambassador, shared his thoughts about playing this role and how time influences all he does.

The IWC film is the newest addition to the brand’s “Born of a Dream” series intended to highlight the lives of extraordinary people who followed their dreams in the face of adversity. F.A. Jones is a prime example. In the movie, Marsden portrays the young Jones (complete with scenes from the Civil War that he fought in) who pursues a dream of creating a global watch brand by marrying American industrial technology with Swiss craftsmanship. Marsden aptly captures the excitement and trepidation Jones experiences throughout the journey from Boston to Switzerland, and the establishment of the International Watch Company, IWC, Schaffhausen. The video can be viewed here.

“Normally, my involvement with IWC doesn’t include acting or film-making, so it was a cool opportunity to share with the world the story of F.A. Jones and the birth of IWC,” says Marsden. “As an actor, I only want to be involved if I feel there is a compelling story to be told and this one intrigued me. I have always been fascinated with watchmaking and the craftsmanship that goes into it and so this resonated with me. We all want to pursue our dreams and hope they come true. This tale of a man who had a vision and bet on himself when the odds were against him, and overcame plenty of obstacles, I like those themes. That’s the journey of life. You have to find your path and find your passion and have the courage and determination to go for it. So, for me to be able to lend my skills as an actor, it was a nice little marriage there.”

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The Boss Baby is back and this time it’s a family affair. DreamWorks Animation has added Jeff Goldblum, James Marsden, Eva Longoria, Ariana Greenblatt, and Amy Sedaris to the voice cast of the upcoming Boss Baby sequel, which has officially been titled The Boss Baby: Family Business. Alec Baldwin is returning as Boss Baby Ted, with Jimmy Kimmel and Lisa Kudrow also reprising the roles of Ted’s parents.

Tom McGrath, who directed the 2017 installment, which earned more than $500 million worldwide and was nominated for an Oscar, is back to direct the sequel with producer Jeff Hermann.

The new chapter sees the Templeton brothers — Tim (Marsden) and his Boss Baby little bro Ted (Baldwin) — as adults now who have drifted away from each other. Tim is now a married dad and Ted is a hedge fund CEO. But a new boss baby with a cutting-edge approach and a can-do attitude is about to bring them together again and inspire a new family business.

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James Marsden was in the only place he could be. Not in his acting career, which has been fruitfully darting this way and that for years—quite literally, sitting for a recent phone call in his car in the driveway of his Los Angeles home, the only spot where he gets decent cell reception. “If it sounds like I’m talking from a submarine, let me know and I’ll change positions,” he said sheepishly.

Marsden has, over nearly three decades in Hollywood, proven surprisingly amenable to change, recalibrating his hunky star profile to best fit each disparate role that has come his way. He and I were talking during the COVID shutdown because I, perhaps like many of you, recently noticed in my unending watching of things just how ubiquitous James Marsden seems to be. Especially, of late, on television. Marsden wrapped his two-season run as a hapless and later murderous robot cowboy on HBO’s massive sci-fi series Westworld in 2018; in the spring of 2020, he appeared in both the lauded FX on Hulu period series Mrs. America (as a smarmy politician and TV host who doesn’t do right by Cate Blanchett) and the Netflix sleeper hit Dead to Me, as the (spoiler alert!) twin brother of a man murdered by Christina Applegate in the season-one finale.

In the fall, Marsden will migrate to CBS All Access as part of the ensemble of a much-anticipated adaptation of Stephen King’s doorstopper 1978 novel The Stand. From science fiction to historical drama (with some satire), to contemporary dark comedy, to plague apocalypse is a pretty wide range to walk, yet Marsden has never seemed uncomfortable in building his curio cabinet of roles. He has become a true journeyman actor, one whose matinee-idol good looks can sometimes belie the thinking, shape-shifting performer behind them.

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James Marsden is everywhere. He knows it too. “I get texts from people saying, ‘You are on my TV screen all the f**king time. How do you do this?’ I’m like, ‘I’m sorry!’”

There’s truth to the ubiquity of his Hollywood existence. Since coming onto the scene in the early ’90s, Marsden, 46, has amassed an extensive resume of more than 75 credits (and counting), featuring roles so different from the others that it’s nearly impossible to put him in a box. If you’ve thought it, he’s probably done it. From playing the hot guy on The Nanny’s first episode to earning superhero cred as Cyclops in the X-Men franchise, to capturing hearts as the dreamy leading man in 27 Dresses, to dipping into the secretive world of Westworld as an innocent cowboy, Marsden has led a charmed career — a fact he’d be the first to acknowledge. (When you can check Disney prince off the proverbial bucket list, you’ve reached a different level.) More impressively, he hasn’t slowed down since.

When Marsden hops on the phone on a Tuesday afternoon in June, he opens with an apology for mixing up the interview times as his Oklahoma niceness peeks through. “I told my PR rep, ‘I’m an actor. I never said I was smart,’” he playfully jokes. Somehow, we doubt that to be true; after all, he’s been more than a little busy. By mid-March, right before a nationwide lockdown was ordered, Marsden wrapped three incredibly varied TV projects during a six-month span, hopping back and forth from Netflix’s dark comedy Dead to Me to FX on Hulu’s period piece Mrs. America, to CBS All Access’ upcoming Stephen King drama The Stand. Ask him how he pulled off triple duty and even he doesn’t know.

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The Season 1 finale of Dead to Me could have easily been the end of James Marsden’s involvement with the Netflix dramedy. His manipulative and malicious character Steve Wood was undeniably dead after he confronted Jen (Christina Applegate), who knew he was responsible for her husband’s death, and aggressively demanded access to his ex-fiancée Judy (Linda Cardellini), who’d been living with Jen. Apart from flashbacks that might explain exactly how Steve wound up face down in Jen’s pool, it was hard to envision a future for the character on the series.

Creator Liz Feldman had an idea for how to bring Marsden back for Season 2, though. He’d return as Ben, Steve’s “semi-identical” twin who looked exactly like him but was his polar opposite in terms of personality. And yes, the show leaned right into the soapiness of that development, starting with an absurdly comedic introductory scene, which finds Jen opening her front door to find the man whose body she stuffed in a deep freezer suddenly standing right in front of her with a cheesy grin.

Ben’s arrival on the show is just as stunning for audiences as it is for Jen, but it’s virtually impossible not to be won over by the guy as the season progresses. Instead of oozing arrogance and cruelty like Steve, Ben is completely disarming and leads with self-deprecating humor. His surprise arrival does more than just keep Marsden in the picture for Season 2. As Ben, Marsden becomes an essential component of the show’s action, heart, and humor and remains an absolute scene-stealer — quite a feat considering both Applegate and Cardellini are still firing on all cylinders this season.

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The title of Netflix’s dark comedy “Dead to Me” suggests that mortality is a relative state, but it’s still a bit surprising to see James Marsden — whose character ends season one face down in a swimming pool — return for season two.

It wouldn’t be “Dead to Me” if there wasn’t a twist. Marsden is no longer playing Steve, Judy’s (Linda Cardellini) wealthy, aggressive former fiance. Instead, he’s Ben: Steve’s sweet, dorky, not-quite-identical twin brother.

In the latest episode of Netflix’s “Scene Stealers,” Marsden joins “Dead to Me” casting directors Sherry Thomas and Russell Scott to discuss the unusual casting coup that changed the stakes of creator Liz Feldman’s half-hour show.

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I’ve uploaded HQ scans from the April 2020 issue of Safari (Japan) Magazine.

GALLERY LINK:
Magazine Scans > 2020 Scans > Safari (Japan) (April 2020)