A sudden star for the acclaimed Sideways, due on DVD Tuesday, Church is cresting after years of respected but modest work. As Sideways' roguish road-tripper Jack, he earned an Oscar nod as best supporting actor. And he just cashed in by signing to play a villain in Spider-Man 3.
Thomas Haden Church, arriving in Santa Monica, Calif., to accept an Independent Spirit Award, may make two more films before he begins work on Spider-Man 3.
Since his biggest pre-Sideways hit film was the oafish George of the Jungle, you can't blame him for grabbing that bull by the horns...
Just who is Thomas Haden Church, anyway?
Well, he'd rather not say. He won't say where he was born, except that it was "in Texas." Raised a military brat, he's lived in El Paso, Harlingen, Laredo, Fort Worth, Dallas and Austin.
"I like to keep my private stuff pretty vague," said Church, who owns up to being single, having a girlfriend and having a daughter, whose name he won't divulge. He will say he owns a home in Dallas that he's leased out, and he prefers beer to wine.
Which beer? He won't say, only that "given my physical training for Spider-Man, they only want me to drink light beer."
Church has been in Los Angeles lately for wardrobe fittings and "being in the mud all day. They did plaster casts of my body for prosthetics. They also wanted to cut my hair to get an idea for (computer) animators (to determine) what my look will be."
He's also mum on whom he'll play when director Sam Raimi starts shooting near year's end. Rumors swirl that Church will be Venom, a classic villain from Spidey comics, or perhaps a new baddie.
He's been training at a gym in Kerrville, and he may make two more movies before Spider-Man 3 starts to roll. He also just did voice work for an animated Charlotte's Web with Julia Roberts and Jennifer Garner. But Spider-Man 3 is "my biggest commitment so far in budgetary terms. It's pretty huge."