Oh, Just One More Question... (Part 3 in an Ongoing Series)
Featuring Barry Pepper, Craig Robinson, Nate Torrence, Jean Smart, Neil Jordan, David Koechner, Christopher MacDonald, 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 another installment sometimes soon…
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?
Barry Pepper: Oh, boy! You know, I was really, really surprised by two films that I was involved in that I really loved. One was The 25th Hour, that Spike Lee directed, with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Edward Norton. I thought it was a very good film and just didn’t seem to get the release that it deserved. The other one, which came out of the gates at Cannes and won several awards, one for Tommy Lee Jones and one for Guillermo Arriage, was The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. It just sort of faded, but I thought it was also a very good film. It’s difficult to say why these things happen the way they do, whether it’s just mismanagement or audiences just don’t respond. I don’t know what the case is. But I thought those were two very special experiences for me, anyway.
I wish Tommy Lee would direct more. He’s just extraordinarily talented. It was a difficult film. It was very taxing physically and emotionally. But I had a fantastic time working with him. But, you know, when I say “taxing physically and emotionally,” that’s probably my own doing. I like to dig pretty deep into the characters…and stay there. [Laughs.] So that’s probably nobody’s fault but my own. It probably could’ve been far more enjoyable.
There’s another one that I co-produced in Canada called The Snow Walker. It’s one of those things that…well, you know, it was a typical small-budget independent film, but it was really arduous to make. We’re up in the arctic working with the Inuit, and it’s a period piece, and you’ve got no money, and you’re freezing your ass off… I remember having to get my makeup done on the tailgate of a pickup! [Laughs.] That kind of guerilla-style filmmaking. But they’re such rewarding experiences.
What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Aidan Quinn: Wow, there’s a lot of them. [Laughs.] That’s a long list!
It can be more than one.
Well, I did this film called The Assignment. It was done by a division of Sony that went belly up, so Sony kind of just dumped it. And that was…it was something like 12 years ago, and it was kind of Bourne-like, where I play 17 different roles and do accents and this and that. I got to work with Ben Kingsley and Donald Sutherland, and it had a lot of action stuff in it, but it still had great character stuff in it, great acting stuff. So that was a big disappointment that that was dumped, because all of the critics loved it better than The Jackal and other movies that came out at the same time. They said, “Forget the other films, go see this.” But it wasn’t in any of the other cinemas, except for one or two! I’ve had a lot of films like that, though. I mean, I did a film called The Eclipse that won Best Film and Best Screenplay, and I won Best Supporting Actor, at the Irish Academy Awards… [Starts to laugh..] …but that film didn’t even get released in Ireland! But it was shown on television. The national TV station bought it and did a big thing with it. But, you know, those things go on all the time. You just cannot predict or invest in results. You can only invest in the moment of what you’re doing. So there’s constant lessons in learning how to not be attached to outcomes.
What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Craig Robinson: Um…I can’t say that there’s one. I thought Walk Hard would’ve done a lot better, but I can’t really say. I’m one of those people who’s, like, “What’s happening is what’s happening, and we’re on the road we’re on.” I’m happy and proud of all of ‘em.
Were you surprised that Lucky didn’t do better? Because I enjoyed that show.
Oh, now, there you go. I was assured that we were going to get another season of Lucky, and that was just…that was a shocker.
How was John Corbett to work with?
Corbett’s great. Corbett was cool. He’s, like, a Southern boy, so he liked to kick it. He was fun, he’s smart, and he was in Sex in the City, so, man, we would go places and women would swoon over this dude. You hear me? Swooned. You ever seen a woman swoon? Because they swooned. We went to a club in Vegas…it was, like, our premiere or whatever…and Corbett was at the front, and there was 200 people behind him that came from the premiere and this little in-between thing with drinks and hors oeuvres, and we were going upstairs to the club at the Palms Hotel, and the guy was, like, “How many people you got with you?” And Corbett pointed to all 200 people…and they let us all in. And I was, like, “Okay, that just happened.” Corbett is the man.
What’s your favorite project that you’ve worked on but didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Nate Torrence: Wow, that’s interesting. You know what I would honestly say? She’s Out of My League. I really thought that, with this movie, even though it obviously has its raunchy sex-comedy moments, it was much more mainstream than what everybody probably assumed it would be. We’re obviously ecstatic with how it did… [Laughs.] …because, I mean, we’re in the black, and that’s all that matters! But at the same time, I do think that it has so much more heart than a lot of the crazy sex comedies do, and in that, I just thought, “Oh, I think a lot more people would’ve liked this if they’d have given it a try.” And hopefully they will with the DVD. I think it’s going to do really well on DVD.
Which of the projects that you’ve worked on would you say didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Jean Smart: Well, Guinevere pops to mind. That was released in sort of an art-house kind of way, unfortunately, so it didn’t get seen as much as it might have.
Oh, I did a TV movie, actually, that was one of my favorite things I’ve ever done. It was called Just My Imagination, and it got absolutely wonderful reviews, but it was just such a treat. It was sort of a romantic comedy, and it was based on a book about a spinster school teacher who went to school with a kid who became sort of a Bruce Springsteen type of character, in terms of rock music, and became incredibly famous. So he was their little town’s claim to fame, and since it was his childhood home, there’s a museum and all that kind of stuff. And Mary Kay Place was in that, too! Oh, my God, we had so much fun! She played his old girlfriend, and she gave tours, showed off his stuff, and still had his class ring. [Laughs.] He never came home, though, but all of a sudden, he writes this song, it comes out, and it talks about…me! And it infers that we had some wild sexual romp or something, which couldn’t have been further from the truth: I had been a wallflower, and he’d never given me the time of day. I didn’t really know him; I just sort of worshipped him from afar.
Of course, it’s horrifying, and I lose my job as a school teacher, my mother won’t speak to me, and it turns my life upside down, but I’m finally offered a chance by some entertainment news magazine to go to Hollywood and confront him. And I’m so upset that I finally say “yes,” and, of course, I become absolutely dazzled with the whole scene, because I’ve never been outside this little town. And she finally shows up at his concert with this publicist, and he doesn’t have any idea who I am. He doesn’t have any idea why he picked that name. It’s just one that was stuck in his head from high school. So he decides that he’d better romance her…that’s what he’s advised by his advisors… [Laughs.] …and she falls for him big time. Once she sees him in concert, that’s it. She’s gone. And he ends up really caring about her, but she finally goes back home. [Laughs.] Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off on that for so long!
No, no, that’s exactly what I look for when I ask that question!
Well, the problem was that the other two big networks were doing movies about Joey Buttafuco and the girl who shot his wife. What was her name?
Amy Fisher.
Thank you! Amy Fisher. And they were in such competition to get theirs on first that…no, wait, I guess the network I was on was doing one, too. But, anyway, they sort of moved our schedule around so that we ended up getting no publicity at all. So that was sort of upsetting.
What’s your favorite project that you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Neil Jordan: That I’ve worked on? The Butcher Boy. I don’t know if you saw that film, but that should’ve been given a proper release.
Actually, when I mentioned that I was going to be talking to you, one of our other writers said that he thinks of that film and The Crying Game as being your best work. Why do you think it didn’t get a proper release?
Because it was with Warner Brothers, who are a big company. They just didn’t have the interest in marketing a film like that.
What’s your favorite project that you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
David Koechner: [Considers the question.] It’s hard to think off the top of my head, but…Run Ronnie Run. That was way back, but I thought that was more fun than…well, it certainly didn’t get much of an opportunity. Extract, I really enjoyed that one. I thought The Goods was better than what it got, in terms of love from the audience, but it’s a tough time, and you never know about late summer. Either things catch fire or they don’t, depending on how busy people’s weekends are. It’s so hard to know why one project works and another doesn’t, like we were talking about earlier. My One and Only was a delightful picture that no one saw, but I really enjoyed it. Those pictures are harder to market, though, too.
You were also in one of my favorite obscurities: Dill Scallion.
[Bursts into loud, raucous laughter.] DILL! That thing was shot on a budget of nearly nothing, but, I mean, that was fun! We took off in what I think was a real tour bus, and apparently they only had $43,000 to make the film, and they just went. None of us knew that, though, right? We’re just happy to be in a movie! [Laughs.] But, my God, that was a fun experience. Man, that was some kind of fun picture. And that’s another one where the budget constraints meant that Jordan (Brady) couldn’t quite make the movie I think he wanted to make, but goddamned if that script wasn’t hilarious. I remember laughing out loud…hard…when I read that script. But just because of the finances, he couldn’t make the movie I think he really, really wanted to. But son of a bitch, that thing made me laugh. And it’s so nearly there, that movie. It’s so close.
What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Christopher MacDonald: Wow. Well, I’ve got a few of those. (Laughs) I’d have to say that The Iron Giant is one of them. It didn’t get the love at the time, though in hindsight it has. It’s received a lot of attention.
I had a couple of really fun series gigs that I loved. The last one I did was called Cracking Up. It was me and Molly Shannon, and we were this dysfunctional, seemingly fantastically together family with three perfect kids, but behind closed doors, you find out how crazy their life is. It was created by a brilliant guy named Mike White, and it wasn’t given enough love because of the regime changes. The head of Fox at the time left to become the Master of the Universe over at Paramount for a year, so the new guy that comes on goes, “Uh, yeah, no. Uh-uh. I’m not gonna keep that thing going.” It’s like…things changed so much during the years that one of my favorite shows that Imagine Entertainment did at Fox. The Ron Howard show that I loved so much. Arrested Development! Oh, they tried and they tried and they tried, but…I guess ultimately the love wasn’t being found by the audience with that one, so the studio does try once in awhile. But whenever they don’t try, that’s when you feel let down, and this was a great show.
But I loved that character, and I loved doing that show. We had all of these terrific guest directors, because Mike White was so connected, so we had Jay Chandrasekhar and Jake Kasdan, all these great guys, and we were just going, like, “Wow, this is fun!” So that’s one of them. And there are a couple of movies that I wish had gotten a little bit more attention, because…I’ve been blessed with really terrific parts, but you think, “One more!” I feel like I’ve been one part away from some kind of real notoriety, award consideration and things like that, for awhile now. Not that it’s anything I really think about it, but I do think about doing the best job I can on a movie and hoping that the movie carries some momentum and kind of takes off. But it’s like dust in the wind. You just never know. Still, I do feel like I’m just one part away from making big noise, so I just keep making ‘em.
What’s your favorite project that you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Ricky Schroder: I’ve got to say Black Cloud. After NYPD Blue, in 2001 or 2002, I wrote the script, but nobody was really going to give me a movie to direct unless I did it for myself, and…I grew up watching Westerns, loved John Wayne movies, and I always wanted to make a movie in Monument Valley, with that beautiful landscape of Northern Arizona, where those Western were made with John Wayne. The only thing out there, really, is Navajo Indians, and I heard a story about a Navajo boxer, and I was inspired to write it and then put it together financially.
Did it get a theatrical release at all, or was it straight to DVD?
No, it did get a theatrical release. Just a very limited one. Which is why I don’t think it got the love it deserved!
What’s your favorite project that you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Stephen Lang: Well, I did a picture with Bob Altman called Killer App, which was a pilot for a TV show, and it was a great role, and it was a really cool thing. And it never aired. I think it had a lot to do with…well, Garry Trudeau wrote it, Bob produced and directed it, and Bob was, y’know, very tough with the network, as I recall. And it never got on. And that was a real blow, because that was a role I could’ve played for a long time. I loved working with Bob. It was about the computer world. It was set up in Seattle, with computers happening, and I played Jann something, who was the head of Voratech, which is, like, this huge company. And then there’s these other guys who have a company called SpriteCom, and they’re kind of the cool techies, and there’s a battle between them and I’m me. I’m going to eat them alive, that was the idea. (Laughs) And Sally Kellerman was the voice of the computer! So, anyway, there’s that one.
I did Arthur Miller’s final play at the Goodman, in Chicago, along with Stacy Keach and Linda Lavin and Scott Glenn and a host of other good actors, and the New York Times critic came out and savaged the play…most inappropriately, in my mind. And that show will never see the light of day again, and that show…it’s an extraordinarily cool play, and it was the final play that Arthur wrote.
What was the name of it?
Finishing the Picture. So, yeah, those two come to mind. Believe me, I don’t want to get into Gods and Generals, because some of the ass-kicking that that took, it deserved because of the...well, I think because of the editing. And there are things, maybe, that I might not have included in the film that were not wise, whether they’re true or not. But it’s a…it’s still a very worthy picture, and it’s one that I have a lot of affection for. The other two are different, though. They were just good projects that I think got slapped around, whereas I think Gods and Generals brought some of its problems on itself.
So what’s your favorite project that you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
Patton Oswalt: This little animated pilot I did for a comic book called The Amazing Screw-On Head, which is an amazing Mike Mignola one-shot comic that I just thought was…it was so well-done, and the artwork was great, and it was a really odd premise. I just wish that it had done better than it did, because it really deserved more attention, and it deserved to have a life and develop. They only shot the pilot, and it didn’t go anywhere. It was very, very frustrating.
If it makes you feel any better, the DVD is on my shelf as we speak.
Man, I just thought that was so good, and I wish it had done better. It deserved to do better. [Laughs.] Listen to me whining. I should be ashamed of myself!