Random Reminiscing: Looking Back at my Many Random Roles Interviews (Part 15 of Quite a Few)
Having just passed the 10th anniversary of my first Random Roles, I’m feeling a tad nostalgic, so I decided that I wanted to start looking back at my contributions to this A.V. Club feature, since it’s the portion of my freelance career of which I’m most proud.
If you accidentally missed the previous part of this reminiscing, you can check it out by clicking right here…and if you missed the part before that, well, each installment has a link to the previous installment in the intro, so just keep on clicking back until you’ve read ‘em all!
If you’re all up to date, though, then for heaven’s sake, why are you wasting time with this intro? Just dive right in!
Xander Berkeley:
Sid & Nancy (1986)—“Bowery Snax”
Straight To Hell (1987)—“Preacher McMahon”
Walker (1987)—“Byron Cole”
Xander Berkeley: The first time I did my own makeup in a film was for Sid & Nancy. I got the part because I went in completely making myself look like a drug addict—right down to having a warm bottle of beer in a brown paper bag and a cigarette—because I knew this was, like, downtown independent film, and they’d be impressed with little touches like that. People were still smoking in places at the time. I didn’t really smoke, but I let the cigarette smoke go into my eyes to get my eyes bloodshot, and I sort of stumbled into the office. I remember [casting director] Vickie Thomas, a dear friend to this day, looks down at my résumé picture, which had me looking very spruced up, and she said, “You look so, um, different in the picture here.” And I was like, “Yeah, it’s nice, but not for this meeting. Whatever. I don’t like to have to fuss and dress up and fake that shit.” [Laughs.] So they thought, “Okay, we got this guy here.”
So they shot me on video, and they sent it to Alex Cox in London. They had already started filming, and they were shooting it kind of in chronological sequence, which was a great part of that film, because it got to change and gain weight as it went along, and what Gary [Oldman] and Chloe [Webb] were bringing to it, we all got to work on scenes before we shot them and adapt them accordingly. But, yeah, when I showed up on the set in New York, Alex looked at me and went [With a withering sneer.] “Oh. You’re so… clean. I thought we had miraculously found an actor who was a junkie who could behave naturally in front of the camera. Oh, well, we’ve already incorporated your dialogue, so we couldn’t with a clear conscience not use you…” But he walked away so disappointed that I was not a junkie, that I looked clean. [Laughs.] So I went back to the hotel, broke out my little German kit, and I broke all the capillaries, put the soap—or the egg whites, whatever I used—in my air, and I had my outfit that I’d already picked, and I just staggered around in the street. It was an amazing thing.
I wouldn’t do it now. I hadn’t quite turned 30 yet, so I was still able to do the sort of adventures where you get to experience how people react to you on the street when you look very different—instead of the girls that might smile and nod when you walk by, they’re actually going to the trouble to cross and walk on the other side of the street to avoid you. That puts you in a certain state of mind. [Laughs.] Makeup has always had that kind of magical capacity for me, starting out in the theater. Doing repertory with an audience that was there for every show—like, a subscription audience—they were the ones who would be at the galas for each opening night party, and they would argue that you had not played that other character as well as this one you were doing there, because that was a different person. To me, that was my aim: to have that capacity for transformation that’s half acting, half visual makeup.
Obviously, Alex Cox must’ve eventually accepted you in the role and appreciated your work, since he used you in several other films.
Yeah, the closing frame of Sid & Nancy, he leans in and says, “Get your shots: We’re going to Nicaragua!” And I was like, “Ain’t there a war goin’ on there?” “There certainly is… and that’s why we’re going!” And I was like, “Oh, dear, you’re one of them anarchist anti-American types, ain’t ya? There’s a war goin’ on! Geez, I wanna work with you… Lemme try to work with ya, but… work with me: There’s a war goin’ on!” [Laughs.] And I did get my shots, and we did wait around, and the pieces got pushed back because…well, that sticky war thing was going on! The American government wanted very much to know what we were up to.
And in the meantime, he comes up with this: “Xander, as you know, idle hands are the devil’s workshop, so I’ve written a spaghetti Western in three days, and we’re going to shoot it in four weeks on the old Sergio Leone sets in Almería, Spain. Are you interested? Oh, and by the way, as perhaps a further enticement, the musicians who provided the score for Sid & Nancy are all very much onboard for becoming actors but need guidance.” That meant the Pogues and Joe Strummer and Elvis Costello were going to be there. I was like, “Oh yeah, I’ll figure out a way to get to Almería. Oh, you’re gonna fly us there? Oh, great!”
That was quite an experience, that whole thing. That’s where I watched him kind of lose his mind a little bit. There was a great degree of hubris going on—the young auteur who could do no wrong—and I always thought he should’ve just stayed, for his own sake, a little more on track in preparing for Walker. That was such a huge period-film undertaking. There were some times where he was taking on a little too much, and he was deliberately… [Hesitates.] Like, when we tried to present things that might make Straight To Hell a little more coherent, his response was, “Fuck it! It’s a B-movie! Let’s go!” And that was his main thing: He wanted to make kind of a deliberately questionable film. [Laughs.]
It seems that he succeeded.
Oh, he succeeded. [Laughs.] And we succeeded in having an incredible time. I’m still friends with those guys. I was deeply broken up when we lost Joe, and although I don’t remain in close contact with Shane MacGowan, James Fearnley—the accordion player for the Pogues—and I are dear friends and see each other a lot. I’ll be eternally grateful to Alex Cox for having provided me with the extreme experiences of life that he did when he did. And I wish he was making more movies that people saw.
Have you got at least one story about going out drinking with the Pogues?
Oh, yeah. [Laughs.] There’s actually a great song on one of their records about Almería, Spain. There was a fiesta going on, a major affair, the biggest one in all of southern Spain, and everyone in southern Spain—and probably middle and northern Spain—seemed to have descended on the town of Almería, and right outside the Grand Hotel, where we were staying. And we’d go out, because they made so much noise, the cacophony was so overwhelming, that you couldn’t really sleep, so there was a great deal of carrying-on at the fiesta with the Pogues.
We were watching three generations of women—like, granddaughter, mother, and grandmother—in the same lurid dresses and makeup, and there were all these weird, dangerous, non-OSHA-approved amusement park rides just whirring around, and these little stands where you could get a brandy and coffee, and all this stuff like that, and they just kept going into the night. You know, they’re so much unhealthier and less sturdy, but, man, have they got a tolerance to drinking that I just had never quite seen before! I was like, “This is fascinating! I can barely keep up just drinking the coffees!” [Laughs.] We had a blast. There was a great group of women on hand for that as well, and everybody just sort of fell in love and had a ball.
Which raises one other question: Do you have any Courtney Love stories?
Oh, Courtney… [Laughs.] She was there as a hanger-on in Sid & Nancy. I don’t even think she had a line.
Isn’t she playing with kittens in one scene?
I think so, yeah. She very much emulated Chloe’s performance in Sid & Nancy in her own performance in Straight To Hell… and then sort of used it as a template for her life! I remember one other charming thing about Courtney once we were back in L.A., maybe a couple of years later. The starring role in Straight To Hell did not take her trajectory into the luminary status that she’d imagined it might and hoped it would, and she was working at a thrift store, a trendy little secondhand store off of LaBrea. I said, “Courtney, how are ya?” I was getting my girlfriend a present and picked something out, and she said [Does exaggerated Courtney Love impression.] “Xander! I’m starting a band! I’m moving to Seattle! I met the coolest guy! I’m telling you, he’s a genius!” And I’m like [Patronizingly.] “Good for you. I’m sure that’s gonna be great.” And lo and behold, it was Kurt Cobain. But I have to say that I’ve actually been so proud of a lot of the things that she’s actually pulled together and pulled off over the years.
Is there any one story that sums up the Walker experience for you?
Yeah: There was a war going on there. Did I mention that? [Laughs.] I have a lot of stories about Walker, but one that leaps to mind is when Peter Gabriel—because he wanted Alex to direct his rock video—appeared out of the blue on a night when I think I might’ve been killed otherwise. I was trying to walk through the fire, and I was about to have my head smashed open by a rock, and he emerged from the crowd just at the right moment, when things were just about to go horribly wrong, and was directly responsible for my survival.
Tyler Labine:
Breaker High (1997-1998)—“Jimmy Farrell”
Tyler Labine: That was my first TV series as a regular. It was a UPN show, but it was from Saban TV, who did all the Sweet Valley High and Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers and all that shit. They were, like, “Well, we’re gonna take a foray into high-school-on-a-boat territory!” [Laughs.] Oh, well, that sounds interesting! I had auditioned for it very early on and for, like, every male character on the show, including [Ryan] Gosling’s part, Sean Hanlon. Eventually they called me back and said, “Look, they’ve actually written a character for you. They just want you to come back in and read it. Are you up for that?” And I came in, read for it, and they’re like, “Yeah, that’s perfect!” So I got cast before anybody else in the show, and I had to help audition and read with other actors coming in to play my cohorts, one of whom eventually ended up being Ryan Gosling.
The funny part of the story is that Gosling came in from Florida, and—I think he was on some teen show at the time, or he was still dicking around with The Mickey Mouse Club or something—but he showed up and was in the corner of the audition room. And I had brought in a friend of mine to read for the part, and I was pushing really hard for him. Ryan’s sitting in the corner in a leather jacket, and he’s all tan, with his Leonardo DiCaprio haircut, and me and my friend Bill are making fun of him. [Laughs.] I was being a complete dick! I wasn’t really making fun of him, I guess, but he was trying to get into the conversation, and I’m going, “Oh, this kid’s too cool for school, I’ve got to take him down a peg or two. You’re in my house! You’re on my floating school, man!” But then he came in and read for it, and my buddy blew it big time, but when Gosling left, we were all, like, “Holy shit, that kid can act, man!” He was funny and basically he was the best actor I’d seen come in for that role, let alone any other role I’d auditioned for in my life. And he was just 16! The only complaint I had was that I still thought he was maybe too cool to play the character. So they flew us to L.A., and I read with a whole bunch of other people who were reading for Sean, but Ryan came in again and just killed it.
We shot that show for, like, nine months—we shot 46 episodes—and then it got canned, but it’s still stayed on the air for 15 years! So they made some money off that show. I didn’t. [Laughs.] But Gosling and I have remained friends ever since, so that’s great, and I’m still friends with a lot of the people from that show. One of my best friends in the world, who I lived with for eight years, was on that show with me: Scott Vickaryous, who played the tough guy of the show, Max Ballard. It was just a real formative time in my life. I went through a big ego blowup where I thought I was just God’s gift to acting. I’m on this stupid kid’s show, but we were, like, boy-band famous for awhile. We couldn’t go to the mall without getting mobbed. It was insane. And I just let it get a little out of control. But I was only 19, so I’m glad I learned that lesson really young, you know?
Terry O’Quinn:
F.D.R.: The Last Year (1980)—“James Roosevelt”
Heaven’s Gate (1980)—“Capt. Minardi”
For your first on-camera appearance, which came first: F.D.R.: The Last Year (your first TV movie) or Heaven’s Gate (your first movie)?
Terry O’Quinn: [Starts to laugh.] Wow. Uh, F.D.R. I don’t remember much at all, except for… I remember Jason Robards sitting in his wheelchair, cutting the biggest fart, and just laughing so hard that he started rolling backwards: “Sorry, boys!” But I don’t remember much about that at all. I was very young.
Heaven’s Gate I remember, because it was the first movie I ever was cast in. I was doing a play at the Center Stage in Baltimore, and I got cast in this movie, and they said, “Can you ride?” And of course I said I could ride. [Laughs.] I was in Maryland, which is horse country, so I went out to this farm and started taking lessons, because I had time before I shot. They said I was gonna start shooting in May, and it was still the end of March. So as I was doing the play, I went out to this barn and started riding, and I met this girl out there who was teaching. And in May, they said, “It’ll be June.” In June, they said, “July.” And in the meantime, the play closed, I ran out of money, and I moved into the barn.
I lived above the barn, and I agreed that I would muck stalls for free. So I did 50 stalls a day, and then I rode horses, and this girl and I gradually got closer and closer. In July, they said, “August.” In August, they said, “September.” This was famous, you know, Heaven’s Gate. So the girl’s dad and her two big brothers came down and ran me off the place ’cause they said I was just a gold digger! And then she came with me, and I got a job at the racetrack, out walking horses, and she went and trained people’s horses for them. Finally, in September, I went and made the movie. And then in November we got married. And we were married for 30 years. It’s been four years since that [ended]. But… that was Heaven’s Gate! [Laughs.]
How was the actual experience of making the film?
It was weird. You know, it was my first exposure, so I thought, “Wow…” They were wasting time and money. When I got there, there was a guy who ran up to me in the lobby of this little hotel in Kalispell, Montana, and said, “You’re Terry O’Quinn? I’ve been here for six weeks, and my first scene is with you!” [Laughs.] I said, “Really?” And it was another week before I worked! People were getting hurt left and right. It was clearly just such a waste of time and effort and money, and people were so jaded and tired that when I went and saw the movie… There were great things about the movie, except it ended, like, five times. It was half an hour too long or something. But I just thought, “Wow, moviemaking is crazy!”
So how did you find your way into acting in the first place?
When I was in high school, I fell in love with Olivia Hussey in Romeo And Juliet. Franco Zeffirelli… It was the first time it ever occurred to me to be an actor. I was probably 15 or 16. But I thought, “Wow, this is happening somewhere. Somewhere they made this happen.” Because they didn’t even do plays in my little hometown. So when I went to college, one night in my first month there, they were holding auditions for Henry IV, Part 1. And I was, like, “Shakespeare! Just like Romeo And Juliet!” So I just walked in, and apparently I was a male body that was tall enough and in good enough shape when they needed one, so they put me in the play as Edwin Mortimer. And that was it. I was hooked. I was hooked on the experience and on the people. I figured I’d found my tribe. [Laughs.] A bunch of rejects!
Don Johnson:
The Magic Garden Of Stanley Sweetheart (1970)—“Stanley Sweetheart”
Don Johnson: My God. I thought that was a well-kept secret. [Laughs.] Yeah, that was my first film, and it was very instructive, because I was the lead in the movie. It was an MGM movie, and it was made by [producer] Martin Poll.
It was part of those youth-movement films that the studios were trying to make to catch up and catch that marketplace, and Stanley Sweetheart was written by Robert Westbrook—I think his mom was [gossip columnist] Sheilah Graham—and it was a big book during that era, but as a movie, it damn near buried me! [Laughs.] It damn near sent me back to Missouri!
How did you find your way into acting in the first place?
I did some school plays. But I was playing football in my last year of high school, and I got kicked out of my business class for falling asleep, and the counselor said, “Well, the only thing left open is during the seventh period, when you’re having your football practice. So you have to quit football, and you have to go into this drama class.” And I went, “Oh my God, they’re going to make so much fun of me on the football team. What the fuck!” [Laughs.]
So I went in, and… it wasn’t easy to get into the class. I had to audition for the teacher, and I’d never really auditioned for anything. I met her first at her classroom door, and she said, “Can you sing?” I went, “Uh, yeah.” She said, “Can you dance?” I went, “Well, a little.” She said, “Come back at four o’clock, and if you can get in the musical, you can get in my class.” So I went back, and I sang, I danced, I read a scene… and she gave me the lead in West Side Story! So that was the kiss of death right there. [Laughs.]
She saw something in me that I didn’t know I had, and she started throwing Shakespeare at me, and Molière and Brecht and Sam Johnson and Jean Genet and, I mean, just incredible playwrights and authors and things like that, and forcing me to read them. And they weren’t required stuff for the classroom, but it was required for me. For me to get a passing grade, I had to complete all of these assignments. I thought she was picking on me, but what she was actually doing was civilizing me. [Laughs.]
And then I got a scholarship to the University Of Kansas in theater, and I was there for about a year and a half, and then I got hired out of the University of Kansas for the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. I was doing plays and repertory out there, and then I got hired to do another play in Los Angeles. I got discovered in that play for Stanley Sweetheart, and then it went on from there. But it was kind of a bumpy 10 or 12 years or so before Miami Vice. [Laughs.] Maybe 14 or 15!
Kevin Dunn:
Snake Eyes (1998)—“Lou Logan”
Kevin Dunn: With Brian! I love Brian De Palma. I had worked with him on Bonfire [Of The Vanities], and he asked me to do Snake Eyes. I just remember the extremely long shots. We did a shot going up the stairs in the old—where the Montreal [Canadiens] used to play before they built the new ice hockey arena. And he’s trying to get this shot with the Steadicam where I’m following Nic Cage up the stairs, and there’s just a million things that could go wrong, so it took all day, but we finally got it.
A funny story about that film: Gary Sinise’s character in that was named Kevin Dunne. I said, “That’s a bad joke, Brian.” [Laughs.] But, anyway, I got to the airport, they whisked me off, and it was, like, “Oh, hello, Mr. Dunn!” And they drove me to this hotel, and it’s this beautiful old hotel. I was like, “Wow, I thought I’d be at the Marriott or something!” And I walked into the lobby, and they’re all like, “Hello, Mr. Dunn!” “Hi, Mr. Dunn!” And I go up, and it’s a penthouse suite, with a 30-foot circular living room and three bathrooms. I called my wife, and I said, “Wow, you’ve gotta come up here! This is incredible! I know they’re not paying me that well, I don’t know why they’d put me in this hotel room!” And then I got an abrupt phone call at 11 p.m., saying, “You’re not supposed to be there. That’s Gary Sinise’s suite.” So they came and, sure enough, they whisked me back to one of those Marriott-like places, and as I was leaving, all of the help was looking at me like, “Imposter! Get out!” But I didn’t put it together, you know? I just thought, “Wow, I guess everybody’s living like a king on this movie!”
Morgan Freeman:
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)—“Ellis Boyd ‘Red’ Redding”
Morgan Freeman: Well, when I got the script for Shawshank, nobody said anything about it. Just, “Read the script.” So I read it. Then I called my agent and said, “I don’t care which role it is, I’ll do it. I want it.” And then I said, “What role do they want?” He said, “They want you to do Red.” I said, “You’re kidding! That’s the movie!” [Laughs.] But, no, they weren’t kidding. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The film has gone on to be viewed as a classic, but it wasn’t a huge commercial success when it was originally released.
You know why?
Why?
Because nobody could say Shawshank Redemption. Marketing only really works with word of mouth. It’s like, now you can see how things… well, as you said earlier, they go viral. That’s word of mouth. I tell my friend and you tell your friend, and you say, “I saw this movie, it was really terrific, it had so-and-so and so-and-so in it, and it was called… Shank… Shad… Sham… Well, it was something like that.” [Laughs.] You do that, and I’ll forget all about it! That’s why it didn’t do well.
Was it gratifying to see it finally finding an audience over the years?
In a way, yeah. I mean, I didn’t have a back end. [Laughs.]
Do you find that to be the film quoted back to you the most?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. “Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.” I hear that all over the place!
Foxy Lady (1971)—“Girl Next Door”
Cannibal Girls (1973)—“Gloria Wellaby”
Black Christmas (1974)—“Phyl”
Black Christmas (2006)—“Barbara ‘Ms. Mac’ MacHenry”
It’s hard to tell from IMDB: Was your first on-camera appearance in Foxy Lady or on The Hart & Lorne Terrific Hour?
Andrea Martin: [Bursts out laughing.] Now, let me just think about this, though, because Ivan Reitman saw me doing something before I got Foxy Lady. Maybe he saw me in Godspell? [Sighs.] You know what? I don’t even know what came first. God, that was a long time ago. But let’s just say that it was Foxy Lady, and let’s just say thank God you can’t get that movie anymore. I tried to call Ivan to see if I could use a clip from that movie at an awards show I was hosting, and he said he didn’t even know where it was. So thank God! Because those were my early days when I said, “Yeah, I’ll be semi-nude! That won’t haunt me…”
So, yeah, there was Foxy Lady, and then Cannibal Girls. Oh, I’ve done some great films in my time. [Laughs.] Cannibal Girls followed on the heels of the success of Foxy Lady, in which Eugene Levy and I improvised the entire movie. That was another Ivan Reitman film. We shot it in 12 days, and then we were awarded the Best Actor and Actress at the International Horror Festival that’s still going on in Spain. And I never actually knew for sure if it was even a real thing until one day a few years ago when I was, like, “Oh, I need a boost in my self-esteem. Let me see what the International Horror Festival is.” And sure enough, it was a real thing!
Cannibal Girls, unfortunately, is one you can’t escape from: Shout! Factory put out a special edition of the film a few years ago.
Yeah, that’s what I hear. Honestly, it’s gory, but it’s actually got a lot of funny things in it. Eugene and I really did improvise it all. It’s kind of quirky, and it’s a favorite among the horror-film cult. And then I went on to do Black Christmas, dear God! It’s one of the original—if not the first—sorority-house killer-in-the-attic films. I don’t know that genre very well, but there were many to follow after that stranger-in-the-house formula, and that was certainly one of the first. Bob Clark directed it—Bob Clark of Porky’s fame—and he died in a very tragic automobile accident a few years ago in California. That was very early in my career, and it starred Olivia Hussey—hot off the press from Romeo And Juliet—Keir Dullea, and Margot Kidder.
And John Saxon, too.
And John Saxon, too! You know everything! [Laughs.] You probably remember these better than I do!
You said that Cannibal Girls was gory, but Black Christmas seems like it would’ve been a completely different type of experience.
Well, it was really early in my career, as I say, so I still hadn’t done a lot of film work, but I was working with four veteran film actors, so I watched and learned. But we shot the film in a very old house in Toronto, and even though there weren’t the special effects or the benefit of a music score to scare us, there was still something haunting about being in that house and shooting there. I remember just a very eerie feeling, like, “Oh, my God, maybe somebody is in the attic and they are going to kill us!” [Laughs.] So it felt very authentic when we were filming it.
How did it feel when they asked you to appear in the 2006 remake?
I loved the idea that I was a sorority girl in the ’70s and the house mother in 2006. You know, I was interested in being part of it and seeing where that sequel or remake would take you, but I think there was a real difference between the movies. The first movie didn’t have the benefit—actually, maybe “benefit” isn’t the right word—but it didn’t have the addition of really graphic images and it was left more to your imagination. I think the first film we did was actually more frightening. But, again, I don’t really know that genre very well, so I don’t know what people are used to. My take, though, is that now it seems to be a case of “the more gory, the better.” I’m the kind of person who likes to see a very depressing foreign film from Iran at three o’clock in the afternoon in New York, and I’m the youngest person in the theater. That’s my idea of a good time. [Laughs.]