Oh, Just One More Question... (Part 2 in an Ongoing Series)
Featuring Peter Farrelly, John Landis, Carla Gugino, Ray Liotta, J.K. Simmons, Jon Lovitz, Guy Pearce, and more
Ever since my days as an assistant editor and writer for Bullz-Eye, I’ve regularly enjoyed asking people one specific recurring question toward the end of our conversations, and while I’ve switched up the precise phrasing here and there, the general premise is always the same:
“What’s your favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?”
Here are a collection of answers to that question, and with the exception of one of them, I’ve placed a link to the original piece within the first appearance of their name, so feel free to click back and check them out after you’ve finished reading this piece.
Oh, and rest assured that I have many, many more answers to this question from various past interviewees, so don’t be surprised to see a sequel sometimes soon…
Over the years, do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Peter Farrelly: Wow. Ah, boy, that’s really… [Long pause.] Yeah. Y’know, it’s funny, people ask me, “Well, what are your favorite movies?” And you’d expect it to be, like, (There’s Something About) Mary or Dumb & Dumber, and I love them, but…making movies is sort of like having kids. You feel closer and more protective of the kid who never made it than the kid who went off to Harvard Medical School. That kid’s gonna do fine. But you worry about the other kid who, for whatever reason, didn’t do as well. And you tried just as hard on that one, but…so, yeah, Kingpin was a crusher when that came out. It did nothing. Well, it did $25 million, but that was…I went into a dark place after that. I felt that Stuck On You could’ve done a lot better, too. I really liked Stuck on You. You know, those two come to mind.
And I wish The Three Stooges had been released in the summer. It was a terrible time to release this movie. They released it in mid-April, and the kids weren’t even off on Spring Break. They were all done with Spring Break, and…on the weekend, it opened great, but in the week, it did zero, because kids were in school. And it did okay, but I believe that if they’d released it June, July, or August, it would’ve been double. But on the other hand, you can’t control the world, you can’t control everything, and, y’know, maybe nothing mattered. Maybe it could’ve been released at the best time ever and nothing would’ve changed. But, yeah, you do feel like some of them deserved better.
Do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
John Landis: Oh, gee, that’s interesting. I don’t know. You know, you make movies, and they sort of have a life of their own. They go out into the world… [Laughs.] …and depending on where I am and who I’m with is the movie they want to talk about. But…yes, I can think of one. My only children’s film was called The Stupids, and I’m quite proud of that movie, but it was unfortunate: I made it for a company called Savoy, and they went bankrupt while I was in post-production, so my film, along with a number of movies, went on a shelf. And Mike Eisner and Disney tried to buy it, and that would’ve been great, because it was PG. Maybe it was even G-rated. Captain Kangaroo’s in it, for God’s sake! [Laughs.] It has puppets! It’s a children’s film!
But it sat there for about three years because Victor Kaufman wouldn’t sell it without the other movies. You had to buy the whole slate of Savoy movies. It would’ve been great if Disney had bought it, because it would’ve said, Walt Disney presents The Stupids. But it was eventually bought by New Line, and that’s when they were doing the Freddy’s Nightmare movie. I’ll never forget it: I went to a screening and…they had never seen the movie. They bought it for a lot of money, but they’d never seen it! [Laughs.] These schmucks, they thought it was a teenage tits-and-ass movie because a girl named Jenny McCarthy, who was a model in Toronto, she had a small part, but in the years that it sat on the shelf, she became Playmate of the Year and a celebrity. So they thought, “Tom Arnold? Jenny McCarthy?!?” They thought it was gonna be a tits-on-the-beach movie! So when they saw it, they went, “This is a children’s film!” I went, “Yeah…?” And they were really upset about it and kind of dumped it. And it always bothered me, because if you show that to the people who it’s aimed for, which is ages 7 to 10, it plays great. [Laughs.] I’m very happy with that picture. So that’s the one I wish had gotten more love.
Would you say there’s a favorite project over the years that you’ve done that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Carla Gugino: Oh, gosh, a lot of them. [Laughs.] Let’s see… I mean, honestly, it happens so often, because so often you make movies that sort of go under the radar. I did a movie called Judas Kiss quite a number of years back, with Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Hal Holbrook, and Simon Baker. That movie did really well around the world, but it just didn’t really get a lot of play in this country.
Miami Rhapsody, which was David Frankel’s first movie, that’s another one. It was with Sarah Jessica Parker and Antonio Banderas – that’s where Antonio and I met – and Mia Farrow, Paul Mazursky, and Jeremy Piven. That’s also where Jeremy and I first met. That movie could’ve been a huge runaway comedy hit, and it has a real cult following. People who have seen it love that movie, but not that many people have seen it, relatively speaking. So throughout time there’s a lot of that. I think that as an actor you just kind of get used to it. You kind of give your gift, you give whatever you give, and you move forward, because the rest of it’s out of your control.
As far as your TV work that’s kind of underrated, I’m a huge fan of Threshold, but I really wish they’d release Karen Sisco on DVD.
I know! You know, it’s so funny, “Karen Sisco,” I have to say…well, first of all, thank you for Threshold, too, but with Karen Sisco, what’s really fun is that, right now, I’m working on Justified, and that’s our old Karen Sisco team, and it’s also Elmore Leonard, so that’s a really fun world to revisit. I have a really soft spot for Karen Sisco as well, and…interestingly enough, if you’re an Elmore Leonard fan, you can get this on iTunes, but Joseph Gordon Levitt directed a short film which I produced with him that Elmore is also in support of. It’s with Eric Stoltz and myself, it’s called Sparks, and it’s based on a short story Elmore wrote called Sparks. You can get it on iTunes, and it’s only about 15 or 20 minutes long, but it’s a really cool short film. But, yeah, Karen Sisco, we only did 10 episodes, but people still always come up to be about that show. Because of the timing and because of all sorts of networks and studios behind the scenes, it just didn’t have as long a life as it should have. But it was certainly a special show.
I usually ask people about their projects that didn’t get the love they deserved. You were in a series in the ‘80s called Our Family Honor that I can’t believe more people don’t know about, given the cast involved. It was you, Michael Madsen, Eli Wallach…
Ray Liotta: Yeah, that was a really good series! I also did a series a couple of years ago called Smith that was really good and barely saw the light of day. We did a couple of shows, and that was it. But with the way things are with television, now if the numbers we were doing then were compared to what’s considered a hit now, we’d surely still be on the air. [Sighs.] It’s a crazy business.
What about underrated films?
Well, Dominick and Eugene was a really good movie that a lot of people didn’t see. I don’t have a list of the movies that I’ve made, so I don’t know offhand. But I’ve made a bunch. [Laughs.] Operation Dumbo Drop was a really good movie with a horrible title. There’s also a movie I made called No Escape that didn’t really get big play, and that was a really good action-genre film. And Snowmen. It’s not a big distributor getting us out there. It’s a true independent movie, but…I just think it’s beautiful. What it says, what it’s about, and the questions that can arise from a kid’s point of view. How do you live a good life? How will you be remembered? What’s really important and what’s not? It’s beautiful.
Do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
J.K. Simmons: Well, I certainly wish more people had seen The Music Never Stopped. I mean, we did get out there a little bit, but I wish more people had seen that. And, yeah, there’s another one that’s in the same boat, called Off the Map, that we shot about eight years ago that never really got the audience it should have. So, yeah, when people go onto Netflix, after they get The Music Never Stopped… [Laughs.] …they should get Off the Map. It’s another period piece, and…well, it’s interesting, because it’s hard to really say what it was about. It was a quirky slice-of-life thing. Sam Elliott, Joan Allen, and…oh, God, I’m so terrible with names, but just a brilliant performance by…another actor whose name I forget. That’s terrible. But it’s a genuinely sweet but quirky little movie.
What would you say is your favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Jon Lovitz: Mom and Dad Save the World, which I did right after I left Saturday Night Live. Actually, I left Saturday Night Live to do that movie, and I had a blast doing it. I had a great role, and I got to be really funny, but unfortunately it was… [Hesitates.] They kind of took the edgy jokes out, and it came out two years later for, like, a week. But the people that have seen it, they really love it. I think it’s one of the funniest things I’ve done. One of the guys who wrote it, Ed Solomon, wrote Men in Black, among other things. It was a great script, but…you just never know. Even if a movie’s great, they’ve got to release it right, and they don’t always do. So, yeah, that would be the one I’d say.
What would you say is your favorite project that you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Mena Suvari: Probably this project, Garden of Eden. [Offers a humorless laugh, no doubt in reference to the fact that it was actually made three years before it was actually released.] But, I mean, I don’t look at material that comes my way in the sense of, “Oh, I have to do this movie because it’s a big studio movie that’s going to make a lot of money, so I can brand myself.” I don’t look at it like that. I never have. It’s always about the characters and the story. Like, I’m so taken with this story and the book itself, and I was excited about it. I hadn’t worked on a project where we were making a film out of a book. For me, a lot of my experience has been people saying, “Oh, the book was so much better than the film,” or, “Oh, the film was so much better than the book,” you know?
So it was important to me that the language of Catherine really carried over from the book into the film…and then, you know, it’s out of your hands! I honestly never would’ve thought it would’ve gone so long without coming out. I got to the point where I kind of stopped thinking about it. I kind of stopped asking my agent, “What’s going on with this movie?” And then all of a sudden Roadside Attractions picked it up, and I feel like that was really the saving grace for the film, because it was such a small film, an independent. But I just loved the content so much that…I felt like it was such a powerful story just for people to experience, whether or not they agreed with it, just to get you thinking. See the film or read the book and just think about your own life. That’s all I ever would’ve wanted from working on this movie, I think.
Well, I was just wondering if you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved.
Peter Riegert: You know, it’s really… [Hesitates.] That’s a complicated question. The movie that to me represented the greatest of all experiences, only because it was so magical and fulfilling, was a movie called Local Hero, which I did with Burt Lancaster, by the Scottish director Bill Forsyth. It received tremendous esteem, but it never made the money that you would’ve liked for it to make, because the more money a movie makes, the better chance you have of getting another movie like that. That’s just the business part of it. So that’s probably one example.
I did a movie called Utz, based on a Bruce Chatwin novel, that I thought was really interesting. That barely got recognized. I also did a movie called Coldblooded with Jason Priestley that was written and directed by Wally Walodarski. That was really interesting.
I directed a film myself that I co-wrote called King of the Corner. I started writing and directing, or adding it to my life, about 10 years ago. I started with a short film called By Courier, which is an O. Henry short story, and that got nominated for a Live Action Short Academy Award. That was kind of fun. And then after that I did King of the Corner with myself and Isabella Rossellini, Eli Wallach, Eric Bogosian, Beverly D’Angelo, Rita Moreno, and I took it around the country by myself for seven months. The Landmark Theaters put it in their theaters, as well as some other independents around the country. That didn’t get hardly any information. But these things exist, you know? In DVD form or cable form, or some form. And I’m hopeful that I’ve done some stuff that will get rediscovered as time goes by. There are the ones that succeed in your day, and… [Trails off.]
I’m really proud of White Irish Drinkers. I think it has a lot of magical stuff in it, and…we’ll see. I mean, I think it’s passionate, it’s about something, and…you know, what’s kind of funny is that you mentioned Animal House, and this isn’t Animal House in the regard that we were talking about it, but it’s got that unbridled passion to it, you know? It’s about struggling as a young person to make your mark, to break away from your neighborhood or your community or your family or your background, to strike out on your own. That’s never an easy deal. And I thought John captured that really well. So I’d say… [Hesitates.] You always want everything to make a fortune. I’d be an idiot to think otherwise. But that’s how competitive the business is. It’s just Darwinian. It’s extraordinary. It’s amazing anything gets made, let alone anything good, you know? But I love doing it, and I love finding the material and meeting new actors.
I thought Karen just did a fantastic job, almost unrecognizable in the way she looks. And Stephen Lang, he’s a very brave actor. I mean, look, here’s a perfect example of an actor’s story: this guy does a movie called Avatar which made, like, two billion dollars, and cost three hundred million dollars to make, then he goes and does a movie like this, which I’m sure in his mind’s eye…I mean, he’s not an idiot. He knows the difference in terms of its power, with regards to his career, but he chose it as an actor, and…it’s a half a million dollar movie. It’s just shocking. But nobody leaves a movie, I don’t think, going, “Wow, that was really worth it for the budget!” You pay your money and you want an experience. I think that’s a very magical part about the business. I’d love to be in a science fiction movie…or any movie!...where they spent three hundred million dollars. The doughnut budget on Avatar alone was probably more than our entire budget for White Irish Drinkers! (Laughs)
What would you say is your favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Karen Allen: Gosh. By “love,” do you mean attention?
Yes. Maybe the distribution wasn’t what it should’ve been, or the box office wasn’t there…
Well, you know, one of my favorites, just because it’s such a brilliant piece of writing and I got to work with some of my favorite actors on the planet…I did a version of The Glass Menagerie that Paul Newman directed and Joanne Woodward played Amanda, and I played Laura, and John Malkovich played Tom. I had done the play a couple of times with Joanne Woodward in two theaters – Long Wharf, and up at Williamstown – and to have the chance to do that, ‘cause it’s really one of Tennessee Williams’ greatest plays, I suppose that was one of my favorite experiences. And, unfortunately, it didn’t really get very good distribution, because the company that was to distribute it was going down the tubes as the film was being finished. It was in competition at the Cannes film festival, and it had certain moments of glory, but it didn’t ever really get seen. So I suppose that would be the one that would pop into my mind.
What would you say is your favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Mimi Rogers: Oh, probably The Door in the Floor. I mean, Jeff Bridges should’ve gotten an Oscar for that film, and I thought that the movie was heartbreakingly beautiful and just so well done on every level. Even though I’m a member of the Academy, I was really quite infuriated that it was not sort of paid attention to at all. Have you seen it?
I have. Actually, I was just going to say how odd it is to have seen such a different side of Tod Williams as director of Paranormal Activity 2, knowing that he was the writer and director of The Door in the Floor.
Yeah, he did a truly masterful job on that film.
What’s your favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Guy Pearce: Well, that’s kind of two questions, really. I mean, out of the ones that didn’t get the love that they deserved, I think that A Slipping-Down Life is right up there. It was hampered by sort of a bureaucratic scenario where we made the film in ’98, we went to Sundance in ’99, but then Happy, Texas got sold for $12 million, and our producers suddenly saw dollar signs and weren’t accepting anything less than that for our little movie. And the only people who were showing any interest in spending anywhere near that kind of money were people who were saying, “Well, we want to re-cut the movie, and you have to do this, and you have to do that…”
So the producers took the film away and totally re-cut it! And so when we said, “Well, we’re not going to support it now, because it’s not the movie anymore…” I mean, they really screwed with it. So it sort of stood in a bit of a stalemate for eight years, and, eventually, through a legal mess, the director and the bank managed to get the original movie back and out and released, but by that point, it had such a stigma that people kind of didn’t even want to be bothered with it, and it just sort of fizzled out. And, yet, I think it’s a really lovely film, the poor little thing! [Laughs.] And unfortunately for Toni Kalem, the director, and for Lili (Taylor) and I, it didn’t get the attention that it perhaps could have. And people loved it at Sundance when we screened it in ’99. We got a great response to it! But then it just sort of faded away.
And I think probably… [Hesitates.] Well, I was going to mention Factory Girl, but that’s a different thing altogether. I don’t think Factory Girl is as good a film as it could have been, but I feel very proud and pleased with the work that I managed to do, and speaking for Sienna (Miller) as well, she felt very good about the work she managed to do. But the film just didn’t sort of work the way it should.
Lastly, to sort of add to the question, I’ll add to the answer: my favorite film of all time that I’ve done is definitely The Proposition. I don’t think that probably got the attention that it could have, although it’s a dark movie, so I didn’t expect that it would. But I think it’s an extraordinary film.
Yeah, but anyone who went into that film knowing anything at all about Nick Cave (who wrote the screenplay) can’t have been surprised that it was dark.
Well, no. [Laughs.] No, they can’t, really.