Interviews
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09th
Mar
2010
The teaser trailer to Disney's "Tron: Legacy," a sequel to the 80's classic "Tron." The sequel is directed by Joseph Kosinski and stars Jeff Bridges, Michael Sheen and Olivia Wilde.
09th
Mar
2010
Comedian and actor Carlos Mencia and co-star Anjelah Johnson answered questions about their new comedy "Our Family Wedding."
09th
Mar
2010
An exclusive MakingOf interview with actors Carlos Mencia and Anjelah Johnson as they discuss their participation in the film "Our Family Wedding"
09th
Mar
2010
Last month, after a screening of Avatar at the Writers Guild Theater for WGA members, James Cameron spoke with F. X. Feeney about his writing process throughout his career and in the creation of Avatar. I know a lot of people like to make the easy jokes, and write off Avatar for having an over-simplistic plot, but for anyone who really wants to delve deeper — you should really find time to listen to this one hour and ten minute interview/question & answer session.
link: wga.org
via: deanlines
08th
Mar
2010
2010 Best Actor Academy Award-winner Jeff Bridges.Editor’s Note: Congratulations to Jeff Bridges for finally getting his props with last night's win for "Crazy Heart"! He's now officially lost the title of "Most Underrated Actor of His Generation." In the spirit of Jeff's victory, we at The Interview thought it appropriate to share this article, which originally appeared in the July 1999 issue of Venice Magazine. Enjoy, and well-done, Jeff!
BUILDING BRIDGES
By
Alex Simon
Jeff Bridges is arguably the most underrated great American actor since the late Robert Ryan. A performer of incredible range, whose myriad of characterizations over the past 30 years leave the filmgoer with a continued sense of awe and admiration, Bridges' refusal to fit a mold on-screen might be the very thing that has kept him from becoming a conventional movie star. It's also the thing that has kept his work so fascinating, and so brilliant.
Born into a show business family as the second son of the late Lloyd Bridges and his wife Dorothy, Jeff came into the world December 4, 1949 in Los Angeles and made his first screen appearance at the age of four months, playing the infant in Jane Greer's arms in The Company She Keeps (1950). Bridges appeared on TV's "Sea Hunt" with his father eight years later and was an occasional performer, with older brother Beau, on "The Lloyd Bridges Show" in 1962.
After a stint in the Coast Guard Reserve and drama studies at New York's Herbert Berghof Studio, Jeff made his adult film debut in Halls of Anger, a B picture about student unrest, in 1970. This was followed by the unseen The Yin and Yang of Mr. Go (1970). Having paid his dues with two minor films, Jeff hit pay dirt with the classic The Last Picture Show (1971), portraying Duane, the town football hero and love of local bad girl Cybill Shepherd in Peter Bogdonavich's portrait of a small Texas town in the early 1950's. Bridges was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his breakthrough role, and he hasn't stopped working since. Other film highlights include John Huston's Fat City (1972), Robert Benton's Bad Company (1972), The Last American Hero and John Frankenheimer's film of Eugene O'Neil's The Iceman Cometh (both 1973). The Clint Eastwood actioner Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974, Jeff's second Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor), Rancho Deluxe (1975), Bob Rafelson's Stay Hungry (1976), Heaven's Gate (1980), Cutter's Way (1981), Tron (1982), Against All Odds (1984) and John Carpenter's Starman (also 1984, nominated for Best Actor), Jagged Edge (1985), Francis Ford Coppola's Tucker (1988), The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), The Fisher King (1991), American Heart (1993), Peter Weir's Fearless (1993), and the Coen Brothers' comedy The Big Lebowski (1998). Jeff's production company, Asis Productions, produced the Showtime movie "Hidden In America" (1996), starring brother Beau, which dealt with hunger in America, a subject close to Jeff's heart. The film received a Golden Globe nomination in 1996 for Best TV/Cable Film and earned a Screen Actor's Guild award for Beau as Best Actor. Jeff, who moved his family to Santa Barbara after the '94 Northridge earthquake ("It turned out we had our own private fault line around the old house"), is also a gifted musician, and is putting the finishing touches on his first CD (backed by David Crosby and Michael McDonald), as well as being a prolific photographer. An exhibit of his photos is currently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Santa Monica.
The prolific Mr. Bridges has two new films on deck this summer: the home-grown terrorism thriller Arlington Road in which he co-stars with Tim Robbins and Joan Cusak, and Albert Brooks' scathing new comedy The Muse, co-starring Brooks, Sharon Stone and Andie MacDowell. Both films hit screens in July.
One would assume, based on his numerous portrayals of good guys, that Jeff Bridges would be a good guy in person. In fact, Jeff is so cool, laid-back and unassuming, that a bite to eat with him after a photo session feels like a friendly lunch with your next door neighbor or old college buddy. After a few bites of pasta, you forget you're talking to one of the world's great actors and almost want to ask him if he'd like to fire up a stogie and watch the playoffs on the big screen while you polish off the last of your old man's imported beer. We didn't, but it was tempting...
Arlington Road reminded me of the great paranoid thrillers of the 70's, like The Parallax View (1974).
Jeff Bridges: Yeah, I responded really strongly to the script right away when I read it. It was one of those situations where the writer was always ahead of you. The twists and turns were amazing. I read it completely cold, didn't know anything about it. It was a wonderful read just for that reason. Also, I knew Tim Robbins was involved and I had always admired his work, and knew this would be an opportunity to work with him, although when I read it, we weren't sure who was going to play what part. Tim's wonderful to work with. He's a really generous actor.
Your character was sort of a classic Hitchcock everyman thrown into an extraordinary situation.
Yeah, it had a lot of Hitchcockian elements, which I also liked. (Director) Mark Pellington was another reason I wanted to be involved. I met with him and saw a wonderful documentary he did on his father. The way he shot it was a real plus.
With your character in The Muse, you couldn't have two more different guys. Did you base your character of the wildly successful screenwriter on anyone?
(laughs) I was told that he was based on Jim Brooks (Terms of Endearment, As Good As It Gets), who is a good friend of Albert's. I've never met Jim Brooks, but this character was great fun, and I'm a big fan of Albert's. I loved Lost In America (1985), and a lot of his other films. People wonder how Hollywood works, and it's true that people in this town are always looking for that "special thing." I think the idea that there's this muse, feeding the writer ideas and inspiration is a wonderful one. And maybe it's true...(laughs)
Were you drawn to acting from an early age? When you were hanging out on the "Sea Hunt" set, did you know that this is what you wanted to do?
Not really. I was carried on-screen when I was six months old by Jane Greer, then worked with her again in Against All Odds, 30 some-odd years later. The scene where she carried me on, I had to be crying. And I was a real happy baby, so my mother instructed Jane to just pinch me to make me cry. So 30 years later, in Against All Odds, I went up to Jane before a really emotional scene and said "Could you just give me a little pinch?" (laughs)
Did it work a second time?
Yeah, it did. She's a wonderful actress, Jane Greer. She was in the film that Against All Odds is based on (Out of the Past, 1947), and her performance was so wonderful, so understated, especially for the times. It was a particularly bizarre shoot for us, though. Remember that Rachel Ward and I had some pretty torrid love scenes? All that stuff in Mexico was shot while she was on her honeymoon! (groans and laughs) Luckily her husband, Bryan Brown, is also a wonderful actor, and a very understanding one!
How do you wife and kids react when you have to do a torrid love scene on film?
I think it probably makes them feel uncomfortable more when people ask them about it, and how they feel. My wife is very supportive. I almost feel like she should get a credit up on the screen along with me. But you were asking about when I decided to act...I had done quite a few pictures before I finally decided to act full time. For a long time I had wanted to get into music...actually all my music is kind of resurfacing now. One of the great things about living up in Santa Barbara is that there are so many great musicians up there. So, I'm making an album. I've started a record label and am releasing it myself. It's a mix of rock, jazz, some reggae-type stuff. Three songs were written by a wonderful songwriter named John Goodwin, who's my oldest friend. We grew up together. Michael McDonald and David Crosby are my backup singers! (laughs)
Not too shabby.
No. We've been having a great time. So after thirty-five years of writing songs, it's finally come around. I play piano and guitar in the band.
Didn't your dad do some musical theater?
Yeah, he replaced Richard Kiley in Man of La Mancha and did Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls. He used to love to sing.
He also was a wonderful Shakespearian actor, right? He must've found it frustrating, always getting cast as action heroes.
Yeah, he loved doing Shakespeare. But he pulled off "Sea Hunt" so well, people actually thought he was a real diver, that he was Mike Nelson! So he was typecast as that. Years later, when I was doing Blown Away, there was this part of my uncle. So I talked the producers, and said, 'I know this really terrific actor named Lloyd Bridges who'd be perfect for this.' And they thought about it and said "Yeah but, isn't he really more of a comedic actor, like in Airplane?'"He pulled that off so well, spoofing himself, that finally that's how he was typecast.
Let's go back to how you decided to stick with acting.
I remember the moment. It was right after The Last American Hero. Usually after a film, because acting uses a certain emotional muscle, I feel pretty wiped out and don't want to act right away again. Thank God that feeling passes! (laughs) So my agent called me, and said that John Frankenheimer was doing a film of The Iceman Cometh with Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin and Frederic March and wanted me to be in it. I said 'No man, I want to get back to my music. I've got other things I want to do.' A couple hours later, Lamont Johnson, who'd just directed me in The Last American Hero called and just read me the riot act: "You call yourself an actor?! How can you turn down this opportunity to work with these masters of your craft?!" So I decided to do a little experiment on myself to see if I really wanted to make this my full time job. I figured professionals are supposed to do it, even if they don't feel like it. So that's what I'll do. And it turned out to be a really great experience. It was all shot on one set. Usually on a film you might rehearse for a week or two then spent eight or ten weeks shooting. On this, we rehearsed for eight weeks and shot for two weeks. It was all of us sitting around a table, all these great actors. All my scenes were with Robert Ryan, who's a guy who kind of stands alone. He's such an underrated actor. So it was hanging out with all these great actors and learning from them. It was kind of like a play that we could have taken on the road. John Frankenheimer did such a masterful job of shooting it, keeping the camera moving. The cameras used these huge magazines that could do ten minute takes...I'm not that knocked out by my performance, looking back (laughs). But it was great working with all those guys, and working with them made me realize that this is what I wanted to do.
Let's start with The Last Picture Show. Apparently there was as much drama going on behind the cameras as in front.
It was a great experience. I was 19 or 20 years old, getting to do kissing scenes with Cybill Shepherd...
That must've been tough.
(laughs) Oh yeah, it was. Everyone was in love with her. Peter (Bogdanovich) was so wonderful. The cinematographer, Robert Surtees, was incredible. He was a true master. The whole cast was great. I always felt that Tim Bottoms never got enough acclaim for his work in that picture. He's a wonderful actor. My favorite scene in that movie is the last scene between he and Cloris in her kitchen...Peter had such courage as a director to let the silence in the scenes just hang there. It was amazing. We had a great time going back 20 years later to do Texasville (1990), which was also written by Larry McMurtry. It was just like we'd had a long weekend, and then came back to work...Larry McMurtry just wrote a new book, the third installment, called "Duane's Despressed." (laughs)
He's turning into John Updike. Your character is like Rabbit.
That's right! (laughs) I'm looking forward to reading the book, hoping that down the line we can all get together and do it again, although Texasville didn't do that well, so it might be kind of tough. Peter's original idea for Texasville was to have it on a double bill with The Last Picture Show, which would have been interesting, but that never happened.
Tell us about working with John Huston.
I'm flooded with so many memories...the first thing I remember is the interview. I think Beau got me that gig. Huston thought he was too old for the part, so Beau said 'Why don't you check out my younger brother?' So I had the interview in Madrid, Spain. The night that I landed, I met this girl in the lobby and she took me out on the town and we ate all this great seafood, drank and really had a ball. The next morning I was feeling rather peculiar. All of the sudden when I got to the interview, it turned out that I was really sick. It turned out that I had food poisoning, from the shellfish. The interview was at this museum. John showed me all this fine art while I was vomiting with my mouth closed and swallowing it, trying to maintain! (laughs) He didn't notice at all, just kept showing me all his favorite paintings! I went back to the hotel and was so weak, I couldn't pick up the phone to call for help. Who saved my life, but James Mason, who was staying at the hotel and with whom I'd done a rather obscure picture called The Yin and Yang of Mr. Go, which was directed by Burgess Meredith. Funny story about that: James played a Chinese Mexican in the film...the money fell through and we finally all had to leave Hong Kong and come home. Fifteen years later, I'm flipping through a film catalogue and there's the film! I called Burgess and we had a screening. It was the saddest, funniest thing I've ever been involved in. All the scenes that we left out, they made cartoons out of! (laughs) Then they invented another character played by Broderick Crawford and just spliced him in! (imitating Crawford) "Yeah, I saw him over there, over at Sally's!" Then they'd have a cartoon of me and James Mason...we were laughing and crying at the same time, because this was Burgess' baby.
Let's talk about your photography.
I've been taking pictures for years now, usually on the sets of my movies and at the end of the shoots, I make up books of the pictures and give them to everyone as souvenirs. I've been using a Widelux camera, which is a panoramic camera, sort of what a letterboxed film looks like on video or DVD. I'm putting together a coffetable book of pictures which should be available in a year or so. I'm also getting into the web a little bit, and have a website up (http://www.jeffbridges.com/) if people are interested in what's cooking with either one of those things. It's funny, because I'm not a computer guy at all. I was sucked into a computer in Tron once, but that's another story. (laughs)
Tell us about working with Clint Eastwood on Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.
Well, it was Michael (The Deer Hunter, 1978 Best Picture) Cimino's first film. Clint produced it, and was giving Michael a directorial shot after he'd written Magnum Force (with John Milius) for Clint before that. It was the first film I did up in Montana, and I fell in love with that state. Later, I bought some property and built a house up there. It was a great experience. Clint likes doing very few takes, one, maybe two at most, whereas Michael likes to do a lot, but couldn't since Clint was the producer. So there was one scene where I wasn't happy with the way it was going, and we'd already done a couple takes. So I went to Michael, and said I wanted to do it again. Everyone got really nervous, including Michael, who said "I don't know man, I'm gonna have to ask the boss," meaning Clint. So this hush sort of falls over the set when Clint comes back. He looks around, looks at me, looks at Michael and says "Give the kid another try." (laughs)
How different was Cimino on Heaven's Gate? Did it feel like a disaster?
No, not at all, and I still think it's a terrific film. Michael was very hot off The Deer Hunter, which had won all these awards, so he pretty much had free reign to do as he pleased. He'd shoot dozens of takes, sometimes 50 or 60. The problem with that is, you never know on which take you really have to be "on" as an actor and it sort of threw a lot of us out of synch. The other thing I remember was during the big shoot-out at the end, we all had to ride in a circle, half going one way and half the other. Now most of these guys playing cowboys were real Montana cowboys. And Michael must've had us do two dozen takes of riding around in circles--right at each other! I remember right before every take just going 'Please God, let me live through this one!" (laugh) One of the saddest memories I have making films is going to the premiere of the film in New York and the reviews the next morning. And that terrible sound of a smattering of applause at the end. I notice that every time I've seen the film, I enjoy it more. I think that might be a function of starting to relax into the film's pace, knowing what I'm in store for. I think it's very American, especially nowadays, to be used to seeing cut, cut, cut up on the screen. Even if you're not realizing what's making you uncomfortable, that's what it probably is...a big part of how much a person enjoys a film is what they know about it going in, either from the trailer, the ad in the newspaper or the reviews. And with Heaven's Gate, the reviews were so terrible! Talk about preparation going to see a film! And the reviews were so personal. One review said "If they shaved Michael Cimino's head, they'd find three 6's." I mean, what the fuck is that?! It'll be interesting to see, 10 or 20 years from now, how that film is received. On a positive note, Cimino gave me the whorehouse and that barn on that huge ranch at the end of the shoot, and that's now my house in Montana. The barn's my studio.
Winter Kills is a really crazy, interesting movie.
Yeah...boy. That was another first-time director, Bill Richert. It was all kind of a fictitious version of what happened with the Kennedy clan, sort of crossed similar territory that Oliver Stone's movie did ten years later, in a sort of weird way. That was an interesting film because, here's this young director, who was so charismatic...do you remember the cast he assembled? John Huston, Elizabeth Taylor, Toshiro Mifune, Sterling Hayden, Thomas Milian, Jack Elam, Belinda Bauer, Richard Boone...just a wild, wild cast! He got all these people just out of his sheer excitement about the project. It was interesting on a lot of levels. I had a chance to work with John Huston as an actor as opposed to a director, which was quite different. During Fat City he kind of kept me on my heels. He and Stacy Keach, who did the lead, were very close, but he kept me on my heels, saying things like (as Huston) "We've scheduled some fights for you, Jeff. We're going to turn you pro..." I was so in awe of him. During Winter Kills it was just the opposite. We sort of hung out and you always got the feeling that he was giving the actors lessons in how to work with a director. He was so deferential to Bill Richert, who'd never directed a film before. He was really wonderful. I feel so blessed to have worked with him on both those films. I keep waiting for an opportunity to work with Angelica now, I love her work so much.
Beau starred in Hal Ashby's first movie (The Landlord, 1970) and you starred in his last (8 Million Ways to Die, 1986). Tell us about Hal Ashby.
He was really one of my favorite directors I've ever worked with, a real master, and such "art balls." He would have such faith in the actors and himself and the whole process, that he would be so relaxed that it would seem to an outside person that he was unprepared. It was really just this faith in the artistic process. You just have to look at his work to see it. One of the sad, and tragic things about 8 Million Ways to Die, was the producer had hired this brilliant director who presented the script to me. I said 'Why does Hal want to do this? It seems like kind of a cop, shoot-em up picture.' Hal said "No, no. I want to get into the character's obsession with alcohol, and a whole different thing. I don't really know why I want to do it, which is maybe why I want to do it. The only way I'm going to figure out why is to get inside and examine it." I was eager to work with him, so I got in there. The way he worked, I can understand why the money guys would get frustrated. He would throw out a lot of the script and do a lot of improvisation. Coming from being an editor, which is another great place for a director to come from, he would draw on that skill. I remember him saying the secret to being a great editor is to making yourself so familiar with all the film that you've got, and just sit there and go over, and over every single piece. So the producer was on the set often, had no respect for Hal's process at all. Hal was very smart when one of the producer's guys came to the set to spy on Hal. Hal hired him into his camp to be my technical adviser because he was a recovering alcoholic! He was a wealth of information and most of my speeches were worked out with him...somehow, miraculously, Hal shot the film the way he wanted to shoot it. Then it got down to the last weeks of shooting, with a few days left, and the producer comes down and says "You've got one more day." So Hal, very brilliantly, made us all feel like we had all the time in the world. He let Andy Garcia, whose first film this was, do a bunch of takes for the bit he did on the phone. He wouldn't rush him. He said "Let him discover the scene." And at the end of the day, Hal got everything he needed! Hal was going to take some time off and he gave the film to his editor. The producer came in, fired Hal, came after the negative, then proceeded to cut the entire film against the grain that Hal shot it. Hal was making all these editorial choices in the camera while he was shooting. I remember asking Hal 'Are we going to do much looping in this film?' Hal said "I've never looped a film in my life! I'm an editor. I know how to take a razor blade, shave the emulsion off the film, and splice sound in." I ended up looping about 100 lines after the producer re-cut it. It broke Hal's heart, it really did...We didn't know that he was sick at the time, but he probably was.
Cutter's Way is a very underrated film.
Yeah, I think so, too. Ivan Passer directed it, who's wonderful. We shot it up in Santa Barbara, which is when I really fell in love with it. Ivan was, I don't want to say passive, but he said very little and created this wonderful sort of atmosphere where it could all take place. Jordan Cronenweth shot it beautifully and Jack Nietzsche did a beautiful score done entirely with German women playing champagne glasses. It was amazing. John Heard gave a really remarkable performance. He should have been nominated for an Academy Award.
What was it like acting against a computer in Tron?
It was a mammoth undertaking. It was shot on 70 mm, black and white, then hand-tinted in Korea. At the time it was very innovative, although I think it looks kind of dated now. Wendy Carlos did a great score for it. It was maddening, man. It was a long shoot, four months. I had to go to work every day and put on a dance belt, which is like a jock strap with only one strap--right up your ass! So sitting down or doing any sort of...it was terrible, man. All the sets were black velvet and we were wearing white clothes. After a month in there...I wish they'd explored the love triangle a little more.
How did you approach your characterization in Starman?
I remember going in and reading for John Carpenter. I almost gave myself one of these adjustments that actors give themselves. It was almost like I became a small being inside this huge body and I had to kind of steer it around, you know? I was always trying to "act appropriate," as human as possible. If he was crossing his legs, his legs would be crossed, but his weight wouldn't be quite on them because they weren't being crossed for the same reason that we humans would cross them.
He almost seemed like a baby.
Yeah, and I thought if I could get that initial scene when he's being born, if I could get that together and make that as real as possible, then it would just be a process of him getting more and more human towards the end. I have a dancer friend. One of the things I do to prepare for roles is get a role model, so I'll look through my phone book and find someone who reminds me of the person I'm about to play. So with Starman, I looked through my book for strange friends who I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they were an alien. (laughs) So I came across this guy named Russell Clark who I'd been friends with for years. So I had the studio hire him and we worked for about a week and videoed the work, doing a lot of body work for the birth scene. One of my fond memories of making that film was, I was in my study, reviewing all the tapes I'd made. And I was in there, naked, doing that opening scene of Starman's birth and my wife opened the door, came in, and saw me huddled in the corner, nude. (laughs) She had a very strange expression on her face and very quietly closed the door and left me alone! And also my daughters were small at that time, and I observed how they were in their bodies. I looked at different birds also, that kind of thing.
Who was your role model for your character in Jagged Edge?
I read a book by M. Scott Peck called "People of the Lie." And it was his study of evil people and what evil was all about. It was about selfishness, putting the self above everything else. So that book helped me a lot. As far as people I modeled him after, I really looked into myself, my own dark side for that. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be a sociopath. There's something about that idea that's very attractive to most of us, to do just exactly what you want to do. To just satisfy your own impulses. To me the theme of that character was what that kind of evil costs, because ultimately what we all want is love. To be loved and to express love. Of course when you're that evil and self-concerned, you're the most unloveable that you can be. What you really want, you can't have, because you can't let somebody know who you really are.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from that character was Preston Tucker. He was a really fascinating guy. It was also the first time in a feature film that you got to work with your dad.
That's right. One of the remarkable things about doing that film, was that it was done with the blessing of the entire Tucker clan. I was able to ask them things like 'What was the expression on your father's face during the trial?' So it was really great to have that support from the family. Another interesting thing that happened, about a week into the film I was doing the scene where I get very upset with my crew and I'm trying to get them to finish the car and I was supposed to bang my fist on the bulletin board...the last rehearsal before the take, I hit the thing too hard, and I just felt my hand break. I thought 'Oh shit, I'm gonna be fired now and they're gonna replace me...' I had to go right to the hospital. They put it in a removable cast and I told Francis (Coppola) that I wanted to keep shooting and that I'd try to hide the other hand. So I did the take again, and almost broke my other hand! So for the rest of that film, I had to act with a broken hand, and Preston Tucker was almost Italian with his hand gestures! Plus there were lots of crowd scenes where I had to shake hands with people...it was tough. There's only one scene now where I notice the cast, where I'm spinning around in a chair in an ice cream parlor. But nobody ever noticed it, and I had to use all my willpower not to mention it when I was doing press for the film.
How was it working with your dad on that?
It was wonderful. I'm so glad that Francis hired him. I don't know that you're ever a peer with your father, but...he was my teacher and everything, so we approached the work in a very similar way. He approached the work with so much joy. He loved the process. It was so much fun just pretending with him like that. We'd come up with ideas for each other. We had a wonderful time.
How was it doing Baker Boys with Beau?
That was a dream, both to get to work with Beau, and also with Michelle (Pfeiffer). Steve Kloves, the director, must have written that when he was about 24 years-old. It's one of my favorite films that I've ever done. Another great element of that was the producer, Mark Rosenberg, who was a champion for Steve and held out for him to direct the film.
Was it tough playing someone who was such a shit to his brother? I know you and Beau are very close.
Unfortunately I got a little out of hand during that fight scene. We cut the shit out of ourselves on that chain link fence. During the fight scene, we didn't have a word to say to each other during the scene in case things went too far that would get us to stop. When I'm about to break his fingers, he was saying "No! Stop it! Stop it!" (laughs) I thought he was acting, man! And he wound up having to go to the hospital that night. (laughs) I don't think I broke his fingers, but I sure sprained them badly.
Payback time for little brother?
(laughs) That's right! He used to tease me unmercifully when we were kids.
I think one of your best films is Peter Weir's Fearless.
It was a really remarkable experience working with Peter. He such a wonderful person and a wonderful director. He's very inclusive, really encourages the actors to give as much as they can to the project. I remember one time I found myself being moved to go out and buy myself a lot of art supplies and I found myself pasting all these drawings up on the wall to try to draw what my feelings about the plane crash were. I drew all these crazy, kind of swirling things, then presented them to Peter the next day. He incorporated a lot of them into the film. He's very musical. He loves music so much and would always have music on the set while we were working. He would have a big boom box with tapes that he would play to not only put the actors, but the crew into the mood that he was trying to create. He would also bring the boom box into the screening room when we watched dailies that day, so he would score the dailies! He also assembled a lot of people who had survived plane crashes for us to speak to, and that was very helpful. Also, speaking about role models again, another fella who was very helpful during that was Gary Busey, who's an old buddy of mine. He had read the script and was very moved by it, and wanted to be a part of it because he felt he'd been given a new chance at life after his motorcycle accident. He helped me out a lot.
Was your character of The Dude in The Big Lebowski based on any of the people you grew up with here in L.A.?
Yeah, myself! (laughs) Probably about 50% of The Dude's wardrobe was out of my closet: the jelly shoes, a lot of the t-shirts.
Tell us about your philanthropic work.
I've been involved with an organization called The End Hunger Network for about 20 years now. Originally it started out to be about the issue of world hunger, but over the last 10 years we've shifted our focus to hunger here in the United States because it's gotten so bad. It's hard to imagine that, but the United States ranks last among the top 23 industrialized nations in how it takes care of its poor and its hungry. It's really mind-boggling. You read the paper about how the economy is booming and how many jobs we all have. I keep reading on to find where they mention all the hungry people we have here, and it doesn't say anything about that. So we've shifted our focus here, specifically to children. One out of five of our kids live below the poverty line here in the U.S. and poverty and hungry have a very close relationship. So we're working with other hunger organizations and are in the process of forming a new coalition to bring about political changes. One of the reason it's gotten so bad over the years is that all the programs that were doing such a wonderful job feeding the hungry in our country have had their support systems shot to hell. So we're trying to do a lot of lobbying to inform the public about what's going on. One thing I'm really proud of is a movie called Hidden in America that I produced starring my brother Beau. It was a tough assignment because we didn't want to make a long (public service announcement) about hunger, but a story that generally moved people. Everyone did a wonderful job. Martin Bell and Peter Silverman, who respectively directed and wrote American Heart, directed and wrote Hidden. We're getting Hidden out to 20,000 schools along with a study guide that we've also made to teach kids about this issue. The cure for hunger is all in place. We know how to end it. It's just a matter of getting support for the programs that will put it in place. There's a web site, endhunger.com, that people can go to if they'd like to get involved.
Did you get your social conscience from your parents?
I think so, yeah. My parents have always always viewed themselves as part of the family of man, one big family, and have related to others that way. My father worked with CARE in Africa for a while, which was very inspiring to me. I turned him on to the whole hunger issue and the next week he tells me "Yeah, I'm going to Africa with CARE." (laughs) He was amazing that way.
What's next on your slate?
I'm working on something I'm really excited about called The Contender. It's being directed by a fella named Rod Lurie, who's a former film critic. Most critics, I always found myself thinking 'Well, you didn't like that movie, what can you come up with, hot shot?' you know? (laughs) He came up with a brilliant script. I saw another piece of his that he directed that I was very impressed with, so I'm excited about it. Rod got into the business with the idea that he would become a filmmaker, so he became a critic first, taking the same route as François Truffaut and Peter Bogdonavich. Joan Allen and Gary Oldman are in it, also and they're both amazing. We start shooting in mid-August, and until then I'm finishing my overdubs for the album, so I can get it out sometime over the summer.
08th
Mar
2010
Oscar-winning filmmaker Louie Psihoyos. LOUIE PSIHOYOS KEEPS WATCH ON THE COVE
By
Alex Simon
When Louie Psihoyos’ documentary The Cove was released last July by Roadside Attractions, it had already gained major buzz after nabbing the Best Documentary award at Sundance, and went on to score the Best Doc prize in some of Hollywood’s most coveted arenas: The DGA Award, The PGA Producer of the Year Award, The National Board of Review, The L.A. Film Critics, and the BFCA’s Critics Choice Award. It also won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature—not too shabby for a first-time filmmaker. The Cove was released on DVD by Lionsgate in December.
Psihoyos (rhymes with Sequoias) has been one of the world’s top nature photographers for years, cutting his teeth immediately out of college by shooting for National Geographic, where he landed an 18 year tenure. His passion for diving and underwater photography led him to create, along with Jim Clark, The Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS) in 2005. It also led to his acquaintance with another legendary name in the world of the aquatic, Ric O’Barry, a once-legendary animal trainer who captured, and then trained, the five dolphins who, in the 1960s, starred in the hit TV show “Flipper” as the eponymous dolphin. It was the worldwide popularity of “Flipper” that gave rise to aquatic theme parks, such as Sea World, private “swim with the dolphins” organizations, and the popularity of dolphins as pets which people kept in their backyard pools. All of these factors produced one common denominator in the minds of fishermen: dolphins were suddenly a very lucrative business. When O’Barry realized what he’d unintentionally created, and after the death of the primary “Flipper” dolphin, who literally expired in O’Barry’s arms, Ric O’Barry became a committed conservationalist, and animal rights activist, realizing that dolphins (and their first cousins, the whale), are highly-intelligent mammals and not simple fish as many still believe, and are not meant to be put in captivity, or even worse, hunted and killed. It is the latter which brought O’Barry, and Louie Psihoyos, to the small fishing village of Taiji, Japan.
Seemingly built around its love of the creatures of the sea, the dolphin in particular, Taiji also hides a horrific secret: a remote, natural cove which is ominously surrounded by barbed wire and “keep out” signs, where the fishermen of Taiji, driven by the multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and an even more scabrous market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen (and highly-taboo) hunt for creatures that are not only among the most advanced on Earth, but also among the most toxic, with their mercury levels topping five thousand times the safety level allotted for legally-sold seafood.
Working with model-makers at George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic, Psihoyos and his team of filmmakers and activists made a series of cameras and microphones, disguised to look like the rocks of the cove, hid the equipment under cover of night, and captured some truly horrific footage, and equally chilling conversations from the fishermen, damning not only the fishermen and the community of Taiji, but the highest levels of the Japanese government, as well. One of the most provocative and incendiary documentary films in many years, The Cove combines covert op suspense with ecological and scientific fact. It is a unique work.
Louie Psihoyos sat down with The Interview during a recent L.A. stopover. Here’s what transpired:
Let’s start with how your journey from photographer to filmmaker to activist happened.
Louie Psihoyos: I was a still photographer for many years, then got into filmmaking because I wanted to create awareness of ocean issues. I was trying to really be objective when I went into this film, to tell both sides of the story, because I thought that’s where the magic was. When I realized that the other side didn’t really want their side told, probably because as Ric O’Barry said in the film, if the world found out what was actually happening there, they would be shut down. So I think the dolphin hunters realized that they were in an indefensible position on a couple levels, not just in terms of the humanity and the extinction of these creatures, but the inhumanity to man. These animals are toxic and their mercury levels far exceed the minimum toxicity levels allowed for seafood in Japan, five thousand times more toxic, in fact. I asked some of the scientists about why (the fishermen) continue to do it and they said “The money.”
Former dolphin trainer-turned animal rights activist Ric O'Barry.Economics, plain and simple. And also sociology, it sounds like, because a big part of Japanese culture involves fishing, whaling, and fish in general. So it sounds like there’s also a certain nationalistic pride involved.
Sure, you could argue that, I suppose, but the types of boats they’re using and style of hunting they’re engaging in has only been in practice since 1933. My mother is older than their tradition. So it’s disingenuous to call it a tradition, plus if your tradition is poisoning people, you have to rethink your tradition. We had a tradition back in Colorado, just down the street in Rocky Flats, where they made triggers for plutonium bombs. The argument that the workers had there for continuing to do what they did was “Well, what are we going to do for a living if we don’t make bombs?” Well, they found other ways to make a living. The sons of the dolphin hunters told us that they don’t like doing it, either, that they’d rather be hunting lobster or crabs.
Let me play devil’s advocate for a few questions, if you don’t mind.
No, not at all.
You’re dealing with this very specific subculture of fishermen in this small region of Japan. If you ask an educated, upper-middle class person what they think of dolphin hunting, odds are they’ll agree with your position, because they realize dolphins aren’t so-called “lower creatures,” but actually very sophisticated mammals. But these fishermen are tough, blue-collar guys, most of whom I'm guessing aren’t terribly educated, have been fishermen for generations, probably hundreds of generations, would they really be able to make a living doing something else? Your example of Colorado is bit different. The town of Taiji struck me almost as the Asian equivalent of Appalachia, where people also have a tough time “getting out,” so to speak, and breaking with tradition, even though that tradition might be harmful to themselves, and to others. Is this a fair question?
Yeah, I see what you’re saying. They actually speak a dialect that few Japanese people understand. When we had the covert footage of them talking around the campfire, we had to find a translator who specifically knew this very obscure dialect. So yes, that’s one argument, and a variety of countries, including the U.S., are culpable in terms of the endangerment of whales and dolphins. The bottom line is that all those countries got the word pretty early that the hunting of these creatures continued to go on way after it was sustainable.
And it became illegal to hunt whales in 1986?
As a law it was 1982, and then it was actually implemented in 1986. But the Japanese are still doing it under the aegis of the scientific permit they issued to themselves when, of course, it’s not science. It’s just an excuse to do commercial whale hunting, which is very profitable.
Let’s get back to the original question, which was if you took whaling away from the country in general, and dolphin hunting away from this community in Taiji, would they have a source of income that they could survive on?
Take income away from a couple dozen people? I have to be honest that I don’t really care.
I had the impression that it was more than a couple dozen people, that most of the town depended on the income earned from the fruits of the sea. Taiji struck me as a “company town,” so to speak, just like a lot of the Appalachian communities were literally owned by mining corporations back in the day, and their people exploited.
Well, there’s 26 people in the boats, then the other people work in the slaughterhouse, some are the middlemen, but most of the fishing there is done from other sources. Tuna fishing, for example, is huge there. It has one of the biggest tuna fishing markets in the world. There is a dwindling supply of fish in the ocean, and I know that the top level people I’ve interviewed are keenly aware of it. The Deputy Minister of Fisheries, Akiranakmai, I sat on a plane next to him for ten hours, on a flight from Dallas to Japan. We had had this footage for a couple years that I didn’t want to sit on, because I knew that more of these animals were going to be slaughtered and more children and adults poisoned. So I cut together a P.S.A. from what we’d shot, along with the scientific facts, with the idea of showing it to the Japanese delegate of the I.W.C. So I hop on this plane, one of the last people on board, and there’s this empty seat next to me, and who should sit down next to me, but this man, Akiranakamai! (laughs) I thought, if there is a God, then he has a really good sense of humor. I waited till the plane took off so it would be uncomfortable for him to try and get up to change places with someone on the plane. So I turned to him and asked ‘Do you have any idea who I am?’ He said “No.” I said “Well I know who you are, and I’d like to show you some movies.” And I did. He was furious at the fact that we’d gotten this footage. I said ‘Listen, you’re responsible for five thousand tons of toxic dolphin meat being put on the market every year, a lot of it being sold as fake whale meat. How do you feel about that? You could stop it.’ His response was “Well, I’m in charge of food security, not food safety.”
Louie Psihoyos confers with the model-makers at ILM.You touch on a very important cultural point: Japanese culture is all based on hierarchy. One of the most telling moments that illustrates this point in your film is when you showed the footage to Akiranakamai’s subordinate, his only response was “On whose authority did you film this?” He couldn’t respond any other way, with a real opinion, and neither, obviously, could his boss. So how do you battle something so firmly rooted in a culture that’s completely different from ours?
Well, hopefully this film will cut through, to some level, to the hierarchy, where it will be shut down. There’s two ways to kill a rabbit: you destroy all the grass that it’s eating or you shoot it through the head. With this film, I think we can do both. The Minister of Health, she could shut this down. The minimum amount of mercury allowed in fish to consumed in Japan is .04 parts per million. Dolphin meat has anywhere from 5-5,000 parts per million.
You raise another alarming point in the film, that there are many other very popular types of fish that also have high amounts of toxicity in them: swordfish, tuna, and grouper. What are some of the others you mentioned?
Marlin. Shark. There are advisories for mercury in all 50 states of this country, so it’s available. On the DVD extras for The Cove, we have a 24-minute short that’s on this subject, as well.
Ric O'Barry and friend.Another devil’s advocate question: the ultra-left wing environmentalists who, peacefully, are trying to stop the slaughter of dolphins in this film, it could be argued, are the opposite side of the coin from the extreme right wing who, sometimes violently, in this country picket and in the extreme, bomb abortion clinics or assassinate OBGYNs. In both cases, you have a small group of people trying to keep another group of people from engaging in a way of life that makes their living. I happen to think the extreme right-wingers are naïve if they think that their actions will ever help repeal Roe vs. Wade. Are the left-wingers equally naïve to think that their actions and that of a very talented filmmaker will make a difference here, or are their ideals, and strategy, progressive?
For me, personally, I think it’s progressive, as are most animal rights issues. I personally stopped eating things that walk 25 years ago, however I’m not militant about it. My wife still eats meat, as do my kids. I try to wear vegan shoes. (laughs) But if I was eating fish that was toxic with mercury, I would hope someone would tell me! Some of these fish should have poison labels on them when they reach stores. I’ll give you even more of a left wing point-of-view. At the core of this, we’re not making demons out of the dolphin hunters as much as we are the rest of society for toxifying these animals. It’s such a big issue, but the way we’re getting our energy through the burning of fossil fuels is destroying the planet through acidification. We’re going to lose all the corral reefs by the end of this century. Now do I use energy every day? Sure. When I charged all my electric devices in my hotel room, am I engaging in hypocritical behavior? You bet.
We all do, even the best-intentioned of us, just to survive.
Right, just to survive. Halfway through the making of this film, I realized that we were taking another left turn in the story, in that the film wasn’t just about dolphins and the bad guys who hunt and kill them, but that the real bad guys of the story are us. I did a carbon assessment of what it would take to make the film at that point, and came up with a figure of 646 tons of carbon that would be put into the environment to make the film. Because we were producing the film in Colorado, most of our power there is coal-derived, and coal has a lot of mercury in it. So I realized that one of the dirtiest things you can do to the environment is to make a film about it. (laughs)
A still from the covertly-filmed dolphin hunt inside the cove.So what do you do in your daily life to combat this?
Well, that realization changed the way we used energy from then on. I’m the Executive Director of the Oceanic Preservation Society, and we installed 120 solar panels on our roof, which generates 140% of our electric needs. The electric company gives us a check every month, as opposed to the other way around. We have two electric cars, not the hybrids, but completely electric, that can go 80 miles an hour and 120 miles per charge. The license plate reads “VUS”—Vehicle Using Sun, the opposite of an SUV. Now all our neighbors are installing solar panels on their roofs. We’re trying to do the same thing with this film, to show people what’s possible if you’re committed.
08th
Mar
2010
The theatrical trailer for "Iron Man 2," directed by Jon Favreau and starring Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow and Mickey Rourke.
07th
Mar
2010
It’s a crazy, mixed up world and we are thankful for movies that offer proof. Slashfilm’s Weekend Weirdness examines such flicks, whether in the form of a New York premiere for a provocative indie, a mini review or an interview.
Animal Collective’s ODDSAC premieres in NYC
On March 2, I downed a couple Bushmills and walked to the fine Visual Arts Theatre in Manhattan for a sold-out screening of ODDSAC. I assume by now most of the column’s readers have heard of the abstract release—likely while visiting Pitchfork or encountering a scarf-clad obeyer of Pitchfork—or as it’s described in the trailer above, the first “visual album” from Animal Collective and their video director buddy Danny Perez.
Said to have taken four years to complete and running an hour long, ODDSAC has more in common with a postgrad’s well-funded idea for a Merry Pranksters acid test-as-nightmare than with the socio-scope of traditional drug films like Alan Parker’s The Wall or Ringo Starr’s The Magic Christian. On a few occasions, the entire screen became a Rice Krispies-like wigged-out blanket of squirming hot colors—a bit ironic given how many hipsters refer to Avatar as Screensaver: The Movie.
To the film’s credit, instead of cuing visuals to last year’s hit Merriweather album, Animal Collective created all new music. ODDSAC’s first 25 or so minutes are organic and promising—particularly the layered moments incorporating a rocky embankment, evergreen wilderness, and an isolated drummer. But then the film attempts to jar the viewer with gory scenes like one around a bonfire wherein roasted marshmallows turn mouths and faces into sticky goo. The possible homage to Sam Raimi continues with shots of accelerated Evil Dead-like moons and wilderness carnage. The ending bottoms out in a string of loud and devolved antics that conjure a Harmony Korine aper recreating an episode of Monsters. Worth a look but overhyped, I do hope more bands follow Animal Collective’s lead/intent and explore non-narrative cinema as a creative outlet and cultural time capsule.
Links: ODDSAC site / ODDSAC Twitter / Visual Arts Theatre
Actor David Sherrill on playing Skank in The Wraith and a possible sequel
A recent installment of Weekend Weirdness reflected on the 1986 cult classic The Wraith and its Special Edition release on DVD. After receiving emails from a number of new and diehard fans, I decided to follow-up with a Q&A with actor David Sherrill, who played the film’s memorable punk huffer, Skank, pictured above with the neon faux-hawk.
Hunter Stephenson: Hi Dave. Skank was your first credited role in a theatrical film. The character is one of those great ’80s goons whose style appears heavily influenced by bad punk music and L.A. trash. What and where did you pull from to make the character your own?
David Sherrill: I was into to punk rock and the punk lifestyle in the early ’80s in Los Angeles, so I had seen a lot of different styles and attitudes. I was a big fan of Alex Cox’s Repo Man and especially of Dick Rude who appeared in the film. After reading the script, I felt that Skank was not so much a “punker” as he was a good ol’ boy—a gearhead type who liked to look that way because he thought chicks dug it.
The production’s hairstylist, Leslie Anderson, and I came up with the colored mohawk and make-up artist, Kathy Logan, added a touch of Alice Cooper and Comanche war paint. The clothing and accessories were purchased in Melrose by costume designer Marylin Vance. That stuff was amazing—I still have some of it. The end result yielded the cow-punk tweaker idiot I was shooting for. I actually wore the leather pocket vest later in an episode of 21 Jump Street.
On the new DVD, the director says The Wraith was a rushed and sometimes strenuous shoot. He also discusses a battle between him and the suits, who wanted to tame down your character. Can you share any memories or opinions on the making of the film?
David Sherrill: Well, I thought [director] Mike Marvin did a great job given the schedule and the scope of such a small budget location film. And he gave each of us a lot of range in which to work. My favorite memories involve the cast as a whole. We were all fairly young and new to the scene. Everyone hit it off immediately. I distinctly remember all of us on the plane ride from L.A. to [the set in] Tucson…We were seat-hopping and as excited as a group of kids on their first trip to Disneyland.
Another memory is meeting up with Jamie Bozian, who played Gutterboy, so we could get to know one another before the shoot: I show up at his apartment in North Hollywood and he immediately takes me to an old auto junkyard where he just wanted to walk around and “get into the vibe.” When it comes to character development, Jamie leaves no stone unturned. I love that guy.
Cool. Speaking of Gutterboy, the idiotic and chaotic relationship he shares with Skank is similar to and predates Beavis and Butt-Head’s. Ever notice this? And in the years since, have you and Jamie reunited or revisited the duo?
David Sherrill: There is obviously a long line of comedic duos, but I think The Wraith definitely had some influence on pop culture through the years, from various films to T.V. commercials. I would like to think Skank and Gutterboy inspired Beavis & Butthead because I love those guys. But in reality, who knows? It could have been part of a bigger ’80s trend, remember Bill & Ted? Jamie and I to this day are best friends and he was in my wedding last August. We are actually working on re-writes to a script I wrote for a Wraith sequel. I don’t know if it will ever see the light of day but we are having a blast bringing Skank and Gutterboy and all the other characters back to life.
Links: David Sherrill on Facebook / Weekend Weirdness on The Wraith
The Melvins cover “Dies Irae” from The Shining
Since rock titans The Melvins recently announced summer tour dates, why not feature a YouTube vid of them performing “Dies Irae,” the opening theme to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, synced to that respective, serpentine segment of the film? If any commenters are wondering, that was a long rhetorical question.
Links: The Melvins’ tour dates/ Melvins’ Buzz Osbourne on VBS / “Dies Irae” on Wiki / Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landing
Neil Hamburger’s game show needs our help
For a second, it looked as if the pained career of one of our favorite–actually, he fucking sucks—stand-up comedians, Neil Hamburger, had found the green light at the end of the tunnel of our pointless existence. Supported by those generous and ever-popular fellows, Tim and Eric, Hamburger had spent months developing a game show called The New Big Ball for [adult swim]. However, the program was inexplicably scrapped, leaving Hamburger with nothing to do of late except shit on Tim Burton on Twitter and tour with Faith No More in Australia. But there is hope yet. A handful of equally downtrodden fans recently formed a Facebook group to attempt push The New Big Ball up the hill of reality and back into the fake void of the boobtube—where it will promptly curl up with a jug of alcohol and die.
Links: The New Big Ball Charity Group on Facebook / Neil Hamburger on Twitter / Neil Hamburger’s terrible interview with Slashfilm
More Links on the Brink
A new film festival for action movies, appropriately called Actionfest, will take place in Asheville, North Carolina on April 15-18. According to a press release, the festival has dibbs on the world premiere of Neil Marshall’s Centurion and will see Chuck Norris arriving in person to scoop up a Lifetime Achievement Award. Dear South, impressive. We placed a collect call to Chuck the Truck from The Foot Fist Way for a comment on the blatant Lifetime Achievement snub, but apparently he’s in rehab.
The original youth culture clothiers at Stussy have produced a three-part documentary, available online, about the late hip hop producer and visionary J. Dilla. Part one is above. For more info on the artist: Stones Throw Records
For previous installments of Weekend Weirdness, here.
Hunter Stephenson can be reached on Twitter. If you’d like to send him a screener, or a screening invitation: h.attila/gmail.
07th
Mar
2010
MakingOf will be updating all evening on our official blog, Twitter and Tumblr.
05th
Mar
2010
Film Independent's Spirit Awards mark their 25th anniversary on March 5th.
