Interview: Michael Paré on his new sci-fi flick, SPACE WARS: QUEST FOR THE DEEPSTAR, '80s classics like STREETS OF FIRE and EDDIE AND THE CRUISERS, and more

Just about anyone who grew up in the ‘80s has at least a passing knowledge of the works of Michael Paré. It was damned near impossible to miss out on his various gigs over the years: he was one of the punk high school kids on The Greatest American Hero, he was a bad-ass in Streets of Fire, and even if you didn’t see Eddie and the Cruisers on cable at some point, it’s inconceivable that you didn’t catch Paré lip-synching in the video for “On the Dark Side” by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band at some point.

The thing about Paré, though, is that although he might’ve first found popularity in the ‘80s, he’s one of those actors who’s never stopped working, and while you might not be able to immediately place the stuff he’s done as a character actor, you need only check out his IMDb page to confirm just how busy he’s kept over the course of the past several decades.

I was fortunate enough to hop onto a Zoom interview with Paré in conjunction with his new flick Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar, a low-budget but highly enjoyable sci-fi romp that makes its digital debut on May 2. Thankfully, he was kind enough to chat about a number of the other projects that he’s got in his back catalog, including several other sci-fi flicks (Space Rage, World Gone Wild, Moon 44) as well as everything from Hope Floats to Village of the Damned.

Join us, won’t you?

It's a pleasure to talk to you, and I can literally say that I've been a fan since The Greatest American Hero.

Oh, thanks! I've been very fortunate to be working as an actor since The Greatest American Hero!

No kidding. Your IMDb page is more than a little respectable.

Yeah, well, like I said, I've been fortunate - and grateful - to be employed in the entertainment industry, sir. 

I was able to watch Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar, and it's so amazing just to watch it and think how much production companies are capable of doing with a low budget nowadays thanks to computers versus, for instance, a film like Space Rage in the '80s.

Or The Philadelphia Experiment. Think of that!

Good point. Well, how did you enjoy making this film? Because your character has definitely got some Han Solo vibes to him.

Yeah, hey, you know, it was a very fun little script. It's pure entertainment. Garo [Setian] had this very vivid vision in his mind, so it was a very relaxed set. They spent a lot more time on post-production than we did shooting. And I've worked with Jeff Miller, the producer, many times. I've been doing this so long, it's very rare that I walk on a set and I haven't worked with somebody there, but Jeff I've made many movies with. And Garo, I hope we get to do a few more of these. I mean, it's a fun show.

Actually, one of my questions was going to be if you saw yourself doing a sequel, since certainly there's material there for one.

Well, I'm honestly hoping that they decide to do six episodes, like a television series. Sarah French is great. She's like a real movie star - or television star! - and she's very pleasant to work with. Sadie Katz is... [Starts to laugh.] I've worked with her a couple of times, and she's just hilarious. She's a very funny actress. And Olivier [Gruner], I've worked with him a few times. I did a Chinese television series with him, actually.

I'm curious: how did you find yourself doing a Chinese television series?

Uh, they called me and asked me if I would be interested. [Laughs.] They were shooting in Las Vegas and then in Sai Pan. So I said, "Yeah!" Vegas, I drove in, and Kara Wang, who's got a show on Freeform (Good Trouble), we played detectives who are partners, and we'd drive into Vegas, shoot for two days, and drive back, like, once a week. 

Pretty cool.

Yeah! And then we went to Sai Pan for a month, which was really cool. It's a small island off the coast of Guam. Think of that!

Not a bad deal. Well, I have to ask about your character in Space Wars, whose name is Kip Corman. Was the last name an intentional tip of the hat to Roger Corman?

Maybe. You don't know what these writers and directors and producers have in mind when they come up with these names. But, yeah, that's probably one of the inspirations. 

As I said, it reminded me of Star Wars, at least spiritually, but it also captured the spirit of '80s sci-fi films like, say, The Ice Pirates.

Yeah! Stuart Raffill directed that, and he directed The Philadelphia Experiment.

Absolutely. Which is a nice tie-in to the fact that I actually went back and revisited The Philadelphia Experiment when I found out I was going to be talking to you. I saw it in the theater when it was originally released, and I still think it holds up. I mean, the effects may not be top-shelf, but as a story...

Well, you know, the story is based on true research and development they were doing in the Navy in World War II. I can tell you something interesting: Einstein, Oppenheimer, Tesla, and L. Ron Hubbard were all involved in this. L. Ron Hubbard was an officer in Navy Intelligence. Maybe that's where he got his insight into other dimensions. [Laughs.] 

I wanted to ask you about some other stuff in your back catalog. Obviously, one of the big ones for anyone who grew up in the '80s is Streets of Fire. I've heard it referred to as a rock 'n' roll fable. How do you look back on the experience of doing it?

Well, you know, I was a kid. I was only, like, 24, and I don't think there was anybody in the cast over 30. Maybe Rick Moranis or Willem [Dafoe] were around 30. Maybe 31 or 32. But we were a bunch of kids in a rock 'n' roll myth directed by Walter Hill, big budget on a back lot. The music was fantastic. I rode a motorcycle, I drove a car with three on the tree, I got to shoot guns and shotguns and had this really cool pistol... I mean, it was a ball, man. I did my first love scene with Diane Lane!

There are worse people to do a first love scene with.

Yeah, right!

There's also that great knife scene.

Yeah, well, that's one of the most magical moments. I only had that knife for, like, a day before we shot that. 

I was wondering what was involved in terms of preparation.

One of these stunt guys showed me how to do it, and I just practiced a lot. I had a lot of experience with knife work in the kitchen, so I was okay with it from the beginning. But opening it up and closing it and all that stuff, it just took a little practice.

How was the experience of doing Eddie and the Cruisers? That may be one of the masterful lip-synching jobs I've ever seen.

You know, it was my first movie. I was a supporting role in The Greatest American Hero. You know, it was Billy Katt, Robert Culp, Connie Selleca, and then me. I was fourth-billed, and I worked one or two days per episode for 17 episodes. And I did a movie of the week with Ray Liotta and David Caruso (Crazy Times), and then I got Eddie. So I think I was only 23 years old in that!

Since you mentioned The Greatest American Hero, what was Robert Culp like? Because he was already a TV icon by then, thanks to I Spy.

Yeah, and Billy Katt was... Well, Billy was doing movies. But Robert Culp was a real sweetheart to me. He didn't take great interest in me, but he was patient, and he gave me ideas and told me how to work the marks on the floor. I had never done that. He says, "You know, the tape marks, you can't look at 'em, and if you're worried, slide your feet. You'll feel the tape." So Robert Culp was a good guy. So was Billy. So was Connie. We had a great time on that. Faye Grant, Don Cervantes, and myself, we were a regular crew. 

With Eddie, could you have ever imagined up front that there would've been a sequel to that movie?

Uh, no. Marty [Davidson], the writer and director, was... You know, he was kind of like a megalomaniac tyrant, where he wrote it, directed it, produced it, was in the editing room every day. And the idea that somebody else would try to make a sequel was just, like, "What, are you kidding me?" But the record company took over, and we made a completely different style of movie. 

Any chance of an Eddie and the Cruisers 3? I know that actually has been talked about at various points.

Yeah, a lot of people ask about it. But until the studio or the record company calls me and says, "Do you want to do 3?" it's just an interesting idea.

You're actually the second person from the movie that I've chatted with for my site. I interviewed Matthew Laurance a couple of years ago.

Oh, really? He lives in Kentucky now, right? Me and Matt became great friends on that. I brought him on Streets of Fire and got him a part on that, and we did the second one up in Montreal. Yeah, Matt and I were really close for a long time.

I wanted to ask about another sci-fi film in your back catalog, one which I mentioned offhandedly a moment ago: Space Rage. Just the opportunity to work with Richard Farnsworth must've been pretty cool for a young actor.

Yeah, that was funny. I was living in New York, and my agent called me up and said, "We've got you a little sci-fi movie out here." They wanted to get me back to California. And Farnsworth... You know, he did that movie The Grey Fox, about the train robber, and he was a legendary stunt guy, so he was another old guy who I got along with really well. You know, you've got to give these people who have a resume, a history in this business the respect that's due. I got along well with a lot of the older actors I worked with. 

Do you remember the first person to really impress you by being there to read offscreen lines for you even though you knew they didn't have to?

Well, most of them did, as I recall. I don't remember anybody... [Hesitates.] There was one situation where they assumed that nobody did that, but when they saw that I did it, then they did it also. You know, it's a respect thing. I did a big movie in China, and the lead was an American television star, and she didn't even come to work the day that they were doing my coverage! So some people are like that, and other people, they enjoy their work. You know, some people are more considerate than others. Look, doing sci-fi, I work with tape often. [Laughs.] They put eyelines for me. You're dealing with monsters where the monster often isn't really there! So I don't want to say there's a similarity between people who don't share the scene and monsters, but...there is some kind of connection there, right?

You did another sci-fi film that's kind of an underrated classic: Moon 44. 

Yeah, that was Roland Emmerich's first movie, man! That was... Let's see, it was around Thanksgiving when I called my agent and said, "Listen, man, get me a job out of the country. I want to get the hell out of here." I'd just done a television series for two years, and I was sitting around. And they said, "We got one for you in Germany, but you've got to meet the director." So I met Roland at one of my my favorite restaurants, and he said he wanted to work with me or this other guy. And I said, "Well, I love the script, but do I have to fly on Christmas Day?" He said, "Yah, that is necessary." So I went to New York and spent Christmas Eve with my family, and then I flew to Germany.

Roland is... Well, first of all, he's German, and his English isn't perfect. At least it wasn't back then. And it was all on the page. The whole story was on the page. It didn't require a lot of direction. And, c'mon, I'd already been acting for 12 or 13 years by then, I'd done a lot of work, so I didn't need a lot of direction for a little action/sci-fi thing. And Dean Devlin was in it. I met Dean, and he and I became friends. Y'know, it was 10 weeks in a warehouse outside of Stuttgart. The whole set was built of Styrofoam packing crates from his father's furniture business. [Laughs.] Very creative. The crew was fantastic. Walter [Lindenlaub], the director of photography, was really artistic, and they spent a lot of time lighting. You know, when you have a simple story, you can get really creative with the lighting and the camera moves and the direction. So it was a great experience. It was really, really fun. 

A friend of mine on Facebook wanted me to say "hi." His name is John Ellis, and he designed the sets for The Black Marble Shoeshine Stand.

WOW! Wow, that was a play I did in New York with Louis LaRusso, who wrote and directed. Louis was one of my mentors. After I did Houston Knights for a couple of years, I went to New York and did Louis' play for three or four months, and it was a wonderful experience. It was the second play of his that I did. 

I think John said that the last time he traded messages with you, you said something to the effect of how you couldn't afford to do theater anymore.

Well, you know, you don't get paid much, and it's really an indulgence, but it's something every actor should do and be willing to do. Like, if I get another television series, on the hiatus I'll do another play. I'm a member of the Actors Studio, so when I'm not working full-time, I'm doing regular acting jobs. It's like musicians: if you're a guitar player, you've gotta play guitar every day. If you're a martial artist, you've got to work out every day. An actor should work on their craft every day, one way or the other. All that we can do by ourselves is, like, read poetry aloud. However, a musician can play his guitar by himself and a painter can sit in the garret and paint his canvas, but an actor has to have a stage. And that's why I continue to go to class.

Obviously, you've got a lot of stuff on your IMDb page. When I interviewed Eric Roberts, who's got more than a few credits himself, he basically said that the reason he's in as many films as he is is because it's work and because it gives him the opportunity to act. 

Likewise! There's a lot of famous and talented actors who say, "What else am I gonna do? This is what I am. I'm an actor. So I act."

You mentioned Houston Knights. I was just going to mention, in case no one has told you, that it recently popped up on Crackle for streaming.

Oh, really? [Laughs.] That's great! Michael Beck and I had a lot of fun on that. We were buddies. We went to the shooting range together, we ate lunch together... I really enjoyed working with Michael. And Jay Bernstein! Man, he was a Hollywood icon. You know, I didn't have to audition or anything for that. Jay called my manager and told me he was gonna do this and that he wanted me, so we went and shot it. 

How did you enjoy working with John Carpenter on Village of the Damned?

You know, John is another one of those real moviemaking artists: he writes, directs, produces, scores... He even flies the helicopter for the helicopter shots! I mean, John is a real auteur. And he's very relaxed. He smoked a lot. [Laughs.] I had a drop and pickup, so I went up there and shot half of my role, then I went home for a couple of weeks, then I came back. The first time I was there, I was smoking as much as John. Then when I went home, I had a son, and I was, like, "Ah, I can't be smoking around him." So I quit! And then when I went back up for the second half, I stayed quit, but...I think John was smoking Winston 100s, and while I was up there in the beginning, I was bumming cigarettes from him. He's a very cool guy. John is cool. He's a cool filmmaker. And Christopher Reeve was there!

That's what I was just about to ask you. It's been so long since I saw the film that I can't even remember if you had any scenes with him.

Yeah! And he was riding that horse every weekend, the one that finally threw him and broke his back. But Sandy King, John's wife at the time, was going to have a dinner party and invite a bunch of people from the cast. And I said, "Let me cook something!" And she said, "What can you cook?" And I made curry for everybody. I made an enormous pot of chicken curry. And Christopher Reeve said, "Wow, this is really good curry!" So Superman liked my curry. [Laughs.] I made super curry!

Is there a favorite project you've worked on over the years that didn't get the love you thought it deserved?

Bad Moon, the werewolf movie I did with Eric Red.

Is there a favorite project you've worked on over the years that didn't get the love you thought it deserved?

Bad Moon, the werewolf movie I did with Eric Red.

That's another one I rewatched when I found out I was going to be talking to you. 

I loved making that movie. I was doing a bunch of low-budget action movies at the time - I was living in Europe and shooting them - and I happened to be in L.A. when my agent said, "Eric Red wants to meet with you, the guy who wrote The Hitcher." And I met him... I think it was on the Warner Brothers lot, and I'd read the script, and I said, "Man, this is the kind of movie I've always wanted to make. The transformation scene is just classic. It's epic! So what's the next step?" And he said, "Just say yes." And I said, "Yes!" He said, "There's one thing: there's gonna be four days that you have to sleep in the trailer, because we have four hours to put the prosthetic on, we have to shoot 12 hours, and we have to have another four hours to take it all off and get it cleaned up. You've got to do that four days in a row." So I had four 16-hour days in a row. But I would've done it 10 days in a row for that role.

Eric loved that movie. We had two or three weeks of rehearsal - like, in a rehearsal hall - and he had a big budget for the special effects. This was still before CGI was so popular. And Eric was great to hang around. He was another one of those guys like Walter Hill and John Carpenter. These are real filmmakers, where it comes into their mind, and two or three years later you can go to the movie theater and see it. These are real giants. Roland Emmerich was like that, but...it wasn't always so inclusive. Walter wasn't somebody you hung around with. Eric and I would eat dinner and just hang around. Walter I didn't hang around with. John Carpenter, I met him at the one restaurant where everybody went to during production, and I ate with him a few times, and of course I cooked at his house.

Anthony Ferrante, who did Sharknado, I did a movie with him (Nix), he's one of those guys. If someone would give him $20 million, he'd make a big, epic movie, and it wouldn't be Sharknado, it'd be something more deeper and more complex and moving. He gave me a really, really great role. There was no action. It was just a really great dramatic role. And I got to be friends with him, and I really respect him. I wish somebody would give him five or ten million dollars to make a movie that he wants to make. But nobody calls and asks me my opinion on those things. [Laughs.]

Anthony's great. I met him when we were both lowly TV critics, attending the TCA press tour.

Oh, really? You know, I worked with another critic: John Fallon. I don't know if you know him, but he used to write for Arrow in the Head. And he directed The Shelter. You know, people who study film often make good directors. They don't have to be writers or producers. Some people just understand the language of film, and if you watch a million films, you don't realize how much you're absorbing in the process. 

As far as other directors you've worked with, I wanted to ask about Uwe Boll. 

Uwe and I became friends on the first film he shot in North America: Sanctimony. It was Casper Van Diem, Eric Roberts, and myself. They put us all in apartments, so I call up Uwe and said, "Let's cook this weekend!" He said, "Yes, what can you cook?" And I came over and I made coq au vin with wild rice and morels, and we became friends cooking together. I made, like, 10 movies with him, and we always had fun. He just shot a new movie in New York about a month ago. 

I'm always surprised by the breadth of the movies you've done over the course of your career. You were also in one of first movies my wife and I watched when we started dating: Hope Floats.

Yeah! I had to audition eight times for that. Eight times. Forrest Whitaker was a very gentle director, and it had an Academy Award-winning cinematographer - Caleb Deschanel, Zoe's dad, a very artsy guy - and Sandra Bullock got her Academy Award not long after that. But Caleb... I worked with him a couple of times after that, and he's one of those guys who, when he's looking at you, he sees you differently than you do when you look in the mirror. He sees contours and lights and shadows and expressions changing. Very subtle guy. 

Another movie of yours that I watched beforehand... A friend of mine recommended it, saying, "You've never seen a love scene like the one in this film." It was Point of Impact.

Oh, with Barbara Carrera?

Absolutely. I'm just curious: that scene he was talking about, it seems like something that, in this modern day of intimacy coordinators, you might not be able to pull it off in quite the same way.

Nobody exploited Barbara Carrera.

And I'm not saying they did.

No, Barbara was a grownup. And nobody had to coerce her. Bob Misioroski went and made another movie very similar to that with Casper Van Diem and one of the Baldwin brothers. You know, what can I say? You've got to do that as an actor. I think you've got to make a semi-erotic thriller. There was no pull-out cum shot. There were no dicks or pussies. I did that kind of thing a couple of times. The one I did with Dennis Hopper had a lot of love scenes in it, also. But, y'know, ever since the Playboy Channel... They made the best erotic videos, because it was all about the lighting, the camera, and the incredibly beautiful women. Barbara was incredibly beautiful. She was one of the most beautiful women in the world for, what, 10 years? That she was willing and trusting Bob Misioroski to not exploit her and for all of it to be beautiful shots... I mean, there's nothing demeaning about those love scenes. 

Plus, it's a movie with Michael Ironside. You can't go wrong with Michael Ironside.

[Laughs.] Ironside's a great guy, man. He's really a cool guy. I've worked with him a couple of times, I think, and he's another gentleman with an incredible history. You know, he played classical violin, he paints... He's a very complex guy! So, yeah, I dug Michael.

Well, I'll bring it back around to another '80s sci-fi film before we wrap up: World Gone Wild. Partly because of Bruce Dern, but also because of Adam Ant.

Bruce Dern... I just did another movie with Bruce Dern that'll be coming out soon. He plays kind of a... Not an exorcist, but the opposite. He's a guy who does the process of possessing somebody, and I'm, like, his Renfield. There's a scene where I'm reading all of these Latin verses, and all hell is opening up for Bruce. I had a great time with Bruce. Bruce was another guy who's one of these super-talented big Hollywood stars, and we got along really great. We had, like, three or four great scenes in World Gone Wild. And Bruce was just a regular dude, hanging around the set, doing comedy, making a lot of jokes and laughing. I had a great time. We made that while I was on hiatus from Houston Knights. 

Oh, and Adam Ant was hilarious, man. Because, y'know, he's a pop star. He was a big fucking rock 'n' roll pop star, and here he is acting. And being British, I asked him a little bit about his adventures into acting, and he said, "Terence Stamp taught me how to act." It was, like, no question about it. "I know how to act. Terence taught me." So I said, "Oh, okay." [Laughs.] We had some fun on that. He played a really weird character, with his white flowing robe, riding that fucking helicopter through the desert, being towed by slaves or something. I don't know how they were towing it. But we were, like, six weeks in the Tucson desert, so it was really hot, man. I mean, really hot. 

I appreciate you being willing to hop on and do this, Michael. 

Sure, man. Oh, but you gotta promote Space Wars.

Absolutely. That's why I led off the conversation with it. And I wanted to bring it back to that to close. I know you mentioned you were up for doing more of these things, and I'm definitely down with that TV series you pitched. I think it'd be a lot of fun.

Yeah, so do I! I'd love to do that. And that's what I keep telling 'em. I'm, like, "C'mon, how much could it cost you?" [Laughs.] "How hard would it be to sell? Dean Devlin has a sci-fi streaming service. Go to him! Come on!" There's plenty of outlets now. 

I think it'd be a blast.  And like I said, it's amazing what special effects they were able to pull off on that budget. The monsters, the ships... All of it! So I'll keep my fingers crossed for the further adventures of Kip Corman.

Yeah, me, too!