British hunk Alex Pettyfer, who's on the cusp of stardom, thanks to his starring roles in I Am Number Four and Beastly, says being an actor in L.A. is like being in prison and slams the superficial Hollywood scene as "socially disgusting."
Pettyfer, 21, a former model and child actor, pulls no punches in a startlingly candid new interview, where he expresses his disdain and disillusionment with the shallow Hollywood acting world.
“Being an actor in L.A. is like being in prison: you go, you serve your time, you try to replicate Johnny Depp’s career—and then you move to Paris," says Alex, who previously dated Glee star Dianna Agron.
Pettyfer, who prefers to stay home with his dogs rather than hit the L.A. nightclub scene, says Los Angeles is a vapid, soul-sucking vaccum.
“L.A. is growing on me a little bit, but it’s still a sh*thole," he says. "I think it’s this insidious pool where nearly everyone lives in fear.”
“Geographically it’s fantastic: in a half hour, you can be on the beach in one direction, go snowboarding in another, or go out into the desert, but socially it’s disgusting," says Alex. "I wish they’d just run all the c*nts out.”
Pettyfer, whose first major big-screen role was playing British superspy Alex Rider in Stormbreaker (2006), hates red-carpet events and the paparazzi.
“I really don’t give a sh*t about any of that," he says. "I wish I had some interesting stories [about living in L.A.], but to be honest I mostly just do my work and then go home. I don’t go out, I don’t drink, and I don’t do drugs.”
Like many young actors, Alex went to Hollywood to pursue acting as an art, only to discover how shallow the industry truly is.
“I felt like the industry was just a factory," he says. "You hear a lot of people say they want to make art in this industry, but so few people actually f*cking do it. Now I’ve come to accept that’s just the way things are: it’s called show business, not show art.”
While Pettyfer is slowly gaining a reputation as a diva with major attitude, his take on Hollywood has been echoed by other actors. Canadian star Ryan Gosling, 30, said part of the reason actors do drugs is because they don't have structure in their shallow lives.
Gosling explained:
"The problem with Hollywood is that nobody works. They have meals. They go to Pilates. But it’s not enough. So they do drugs.
If everybody had a pile of rocks in their backyard and spent every day moving them from one side of the yard to the other, it would be a much happier place."
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