Serendipity strikes for Simon Rex as an adult-film antihero

By JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — It would be an understatement to say that Simon Rex is drawing the best reviews of his life playing a down-and-out adult film star in Sean Baker’s “Red Rocket.” It’s not just acclaim that’s new to the 47-year-old sometimes actor, sometimes rapper and Los Angeles nightlife fixture. It’s being taken seriously, at all. In “Red Rocket,” the former MTV VJ plays “a suitcase pimp,” as one character calls him, who returns home broke to East Texas. Rex, who was nominated by the Gotham Awards, is perhaps the most unlikely contender in this year’s Oscar race. “Red Rocket” opens in theaters Friday.