Texas Monthly Talks
Bill Paxton
(Page 2 of 2)
And William Shatner and Sally Kirkland. Ken introduced me to Peter, and I told Peter that I had a background in art and furniture. My father was in the wood business, so I knew a lot about different periods of furniture and architecture and interiors. So I got a job. The only hitch was, I didn’t know Los Angeles. Trying to navigate a twenty-foot van full of set dressing all around L.A. when MGM is in Culver City and Universal is over the hill in the Valley and you’re going out to Pasadena to get set dressing—I just ran myself ragged with pickups and deliveries. After I got through that job, I was a veteran. Peter Jamison said, “I’m starting another job on Monday. I’m going to be co-art-directing a film with a friend of mine named Jack Fisk.” I was smart enough to think, “What am I going to do if I’m not working?” At least at work I’d meet people. So I said, “I’d love to sign up with you guys.”
That was another crew job. How did you move over to acting?
I got accepted to NYU, which was starting a program in which you could study with Stella Adler. I didn’t see the point in film school back in those days. I still don’t see the point, to tell you the truth. It seemed like a lot of the film students I would meet would talk esoterically about Godard and Hitchcock but really weren’t making films. But I wanted to study acting, and I thought the place to do that was New York. And I thought the greatest living acting teacher in the world was Stella Adler. She taught Marlon Brando, my favorite actor of all time. So I said, “That’s for me.” I moved to New York in ’76.
And you’ve acted ever since. If you look back at your filmography, you’ve been in an amazing number of movies—you’ve worked consistently. And many of the movies on there have been big, beginning with Stripes. Honestly, I don’t remember you in Stripes.
It’s funny. I never actually shot anything. I was hired as a day player. They were doing a mud wrestling scene, and I was supposed to make a bet that Bill Murray takes, or I was to take a bet he makes. I remember being on the set for four days in a row, but they never got to my bit. I didn’t realize in those days that there’s always stuff on the call sheet you’re never going to get to. Still, I got paid $750, which was a fortune in those days. And they were nice enough to give me a credit. If you’re not in the film, you’re not supposed to be credited, even if you were hired to be in it, but a lot of times the producers will include you anyway so you get residuals.
If you go past Stripes, you hit a lot of significant movies that you actually were in: The Terminator, Commando, and Weird Science, which I know you’re very proud to have as a credit. That’s the one people remember.
They also remember themselves. Most of the people who come up to me to talk about that movie were probably adolescents when they saw it. It’s a real fantasy film. You invent this perfect girl who you can do anything you want with, and you’re thirteen or fourteen years old? I mean, come on!
The other thing people remember is your character, Chet. Everyone had a sadistic brother. You get to be that sadistic brother for all time.
Yeah. In a way I joined the pantheon of villains you love to hate. Not supervillains but more of the irritating type of villains, like Neidermeyer [from Animal House].
As for your later credits, I always think about One False Move, because whatever other movies you’d done, this was the one that caused people to say, “He’s an actor.”
I made a transition that’s very hard for a lot of actors to make. I came up as a character actor. In One False Move I kind of emerged as a leading man, and that’s really what that was all about.
It also was a great movie.
It was a great movie. I came of age on that film. I realized that the only way you hit that next level in terms of a film persona is to let go and accept the fact that, for better or worse, you’re all you’ve got, but by the same token you’re interesting enough. The camera’s not as concerned with what you can do as who you are. I’ve played a lot of different roles, but they’re all, for the most part, in my range. It has to do with accepting yourself. Once you do that …
It’s an interesting point, because if you think about some of the big movies you made later, you were playing yourself. In Apollo 13 you were playing yourself. In Twister you were playing yourself.
It only seems like you’re playing yourself. Whenever a camera’s rolling and you’re aware of it, you’re shooting a scene. It’s artifice; it’s an illusion. Even if you’re being yourself, you’re pretending to be yourself.
But coming across as credible is something.
That’s true. It’s such a funny thing when people say, “Oh, he just plays himself.” You can say that about a lot of great actors, like Jack Nicholson, who’s one of my all-time favorites. But he does more than just play himself. One thing I’ve always loved about his work, and what I have tried to get into my own work, is this certain relish. You don’t want to just see someone playing the part or being believable. It’s got to be brought up a notch.
I’d say you’re definitely bringing it up a notch in Big Love. Why did you decide to do a TV show?
It was the farthest thing from my mind. I was in preproduction to direct my first studio film, The Greatest Game Ever Played, and I got a call from my agent, Brian Swardstrom. He said there was a pilot they were going to shoot for HBO and that Playtone was involved. That got my interest, because Playtone is Tom Hanks’s production company. Then Brian said it was about polygamy, and I was like, “Oh, God, what the hell is this?” My first thought was a Deliverance-type setup outside of the city limits in some compound. Brian said, “Just read it.” I read it, and as soon as I finished reading it, I was on the phone to him saying, “How can I do this?” Because it was obviously about so much more than just polygamy. It was a clever, original piece. I never had seen anything quite like it. I thought, “What a great role, this patriarchal guy with three wives.” I’ve never in my career gotten to mix it up with the dames as much as I had wanted to.
Well, if you’re going to mix it up with the dames, it might as well be with three wives. Has HBO been the godsend that it seems to be? Everything it does is so much better than the rest of TV.
I’d never wanted to do a network show. There were too many cooks in the kitchen. You had the creators, the network, standards and practices, the advertisers. And I’ve always hated commercial interruptions. HBO’s a whole different animal. The Sopranos has truly been a phenomenon. It has the fidelity of a feature film: the lighting, the art direction. Everything is fully realized. Two hours of The Sopranos put together are better than a lot of theatrical films that you see nowadays. So when this thing came along, I jumped at it, and it’s worked out great. We’ve finished filming our second season. The Sopranos finish on June 10, and we’re on the schedule the following week, on June 17. When I was traveling through Texas—Austin and Dallas—it was amazing how many people, particularly women, came up to me to say how crazy they are about the show.
They all want to be your fourth wife.
Exactly. They want to be a sister-wife. They want to get into it.
How does your real wife feel about this? Whatever your situation may be at work, the fact is, you have a wife already.
I’m trying to talk her into bringing a sister-wife into the scene here at home.
Pages: 1 2
My Library
