The greats are ‘The Shining’, ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, ‘Don’t Look Now’, ‘The Exorcist’ – those movies were not really slashers: they were about psychological terror and had very deep emotional backdrops. If we do our best, ‘6 Miranda Drive’ can be that kind of a movie.
Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government asked me to serve as a fellow at its Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. After my varied and celebrated career in television, movies, publishing, and the lucrative world of corporate speaking, being a fellow at Harvard seemed, frankly, like a step down.
With any of the movies I’ve had a chance to do, or any of the TV shows I’ve had a chance to contribute to, people approach me and say, ‘Hey, would you like to do this?’ I laugh out loud and say, ‘Yes, that’d be funny.’ Or, I’m very moved by what I read and say, ‘Yes. How can I help you?’
But I like schlocky violent movies, but I’m for strict gun control. But then there was a time I was at a laser tag place, and I had such a good time hiding in a corner shooting at people. In other words, I’m your basic confused human when it comes to violence.
My choices in projects have all been character or role-based, and on a financial level, it’s obvious: as an actor on a TV series, I get a wonderful paycheck, and a consistent paycheck, which doesn’t always happen when you’re doing theater or movies.
It’s a big criticism of Greenaway films that they are far too interested in formalism and not enough interested in notions of emotional content. It’s a criticism I can fully understand from a public that has been brought up by Hollywood movies that demand intense emotional rapport.
In my formative years, I never missed the ‘Creature Double Feature’ on Saturday afternoon TV, even if it meant switching back and forth between ‘Gamera’ and the Red Sox. I did a book report on Stephen King’s ‘Night Shift’ in seventh grade. Unrated Italian horror movies became a weekly rite of passage once I hit seventeen.
My siblings and I, we were raised on TV and films. Not a day went by that we weren’t watching one of three movies – ‘Caddyshack,’ ‘Animal House,’ ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ – on rotation. Our comedy, our personalities were set watching ‘Sesame Street’: these really sort of wacky, Jim Henson-y characters.
There’s no master plan; I’m just going with what I’m inspired to do and what I get asked to do, and luckily the things I’ve been the most passionate about, I’ve gotten to do. And a lot of times I’ve gone up for movies that I didn’t really care that much about, and I never got that.
I never got in this business, in cinema, to make horror movies. They arrived on my doorstep and I got typecast. Which was fine, I enjoy it, but I got into this business to make westerns. And the kind of westerns I used to see, they died. So that didn’t work out.
I really love the independent movies and I just think that sometimes when they throw a lot of money into it and a lot of special effects and a lot of stunts that you lose the connection, the human connection and I personally love movies that are about the human connection.
Just because there are celebrities in a movie, it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t think The Ant Bully did all that well the first week at the box office. Compare the movies that have a lot of celebrities with the Jimmy Neutron movie, which had no celebrity voices and grossed almost one hundred million dollars.
Bergman movies were the most influential. They used to show at Goucher University, which was where my parents used to live. ‘Brink of Life’ was the first one I ever saw. Three pregnant women in a maternity ward and their misery – I love that. That is what I want to show at my funeral.
My mother was keen that I complete my graduation and never ever wanted me to be in the movies, as my father had made five films that lost money. One of the films he made was ‘Agneepath,’ which was hugely hyped but underwhelming at the box office, and I remember that my dad had to sell my grandmother’s flat to pay off the loan.
The action movies changed radically when it became possible to Velcro your muscles on. It was the beginning of a new era. The visual took over. The special effects became more important than the single person. That was the beginning of the end.
There are so many great actors, but I really have a lot of respect for Johnny Depp. I’ve seen a lot of movies with him in it and, even if it’s a film that wasn’t as successful as you thought it would be, I’ve never seen him put in a bad performance. My favorite actors from history have to be Steve McQueen and James Dean.
As an actor, the ambition is to play interesting characters. And in the indie genre world, the budgets are low. That allows me, as an actor, not to have a financial value behind my name, to justify me being in these bigger parts for these types of movies.
I was a history major, but that was because it took the fewest requirements of any major. In my sophomore year, I started getting back into making movies. My senior year, I took playwriting classes, and I feel like that’s where I learned to be a writer.
For whatever reason, I think we have one type of animated movie and it’s so wrong. I want to do a drama, I want to do an action, a comedy. In live-action, there are all sorts of movies. There’s independent movies, big movies, action movies, funny movies, and for us we have one movie.
Film buffs who don’t live in Hollywood have a fantasy about what it’s like to be a director. Movies and the people who make movies have such glamour associated with them. But the truth is, it’s not like that. It’s very different. It’s hard work.
There’s something strange about theater. My characters consistently demonize elitism, but of course it’s taking place in a theater where only so many people can see it. I’ve been in silly popcorn movies – the kind of thing that as an actor you might feel embarrassed about – but those movies reach many more people.
In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.
What I look for in a script is the plot point and whether they’re strong, obviously, or not, whether the characters are rich or not, and if I can do justice to the character or not. Some movies you look at and the script is so bad that no one can do anything with the script.
Movies make teenagers have quippy answers for every question. Nothing seems to faze them, and they’re like, ‘Oh, whatever.’ You’re not like that when you’re a teenager. You’re really earnest. Things really feel like life or death. And you kind of oscillate between emotions at one time. It’s very emotionally draining being a teenager.
I read ‘Tiger Beat’ and ‘Bop’ from the time I was 9, 10, 11 years old. I loved movies. I saw ‘E.T.’ seven times. I used to yell at people who called me when ‘L.A. Law’ was on because they should know better. So I just have been so in love with the business of Hollywood since I can remember.
