Josh Duhamel: Movies need to motivate me

Actor Josh Duhamel has decided he will only accept a role which inspires him, even if that means turning down a lot of money.

The 42-year-old star is no stranger to the rom-com genre, with Win A Date With Tad Hamilton! and When In Rome on his resume. It's only recently that Josh has decided to go in a new direction, as made clear by movies such as 2013's indie flick Scenic Route and his current project Lost in the Sun.

"I just made a conscious decision a couple of years ago that I didn’t want to do anything that I wasn’t completely inspired by," he told comingsoon.net. "That meant turning down a lot of things that would’ve paid a lot of money or whatever, maybe had a lot more exposure. I got into this business to make movies that I love and things that inspire me, things that I’m going to be proud of years down the road.

"Not to say that, of course, I want to stay in the studio game and do movies like that, but I also want to stretch myself and prove that I can do things that people maybe didn’t think I could, and just to tell stories that I think interest me in some way."

Lost In The Sun sees Josh take on the part of small time crook John, who strikes up a bond with an orphaned teenager called Louis (Josh Wiggins). Trey Nelson, who up until this point helmed TV projects, directs the film and his leading man was impressed by the hard work he put in.

"He’s a very thoughtful writer and director and it’s nice because it’s nice to work with guys that are collaborative," Josh smiled. "Maybe that’s what also drew me to it, is working with these first timers so that we could have a really collaborative sort of experience and really experiment with things and figure out what really is going on. You know, oftentimes, in these smaller movies, you’re not bound by any big studios that sort of dictate how it’s going to go, and you can take more risks."