Film • Henry Thomas
After E.T. he phoned home to San Antonio. Two decades later, Hollywood’s calling again.
(Page 2 of 2)
So he decided to go for it. He did a few movies while he was still in high school, including Milos Forman’s Valmont. He enrolled at Blinn College in Brenham but changed his mind and dropped out. Finally he began to work in earnest. “There were times when I was really desperate for parts,” Thomas says. “If you look hard at my résumé, you can find those moments.” Yes, he was a young Norman Bates in the made-for-cable prequel Psycho IV, but a more prestigious indie flick, the 1994 adaptation of Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class, was followed by Legends of the Fall and a Golden Globe—nominated turn in the 1995 HBO movie Indictment: The McMartin Trial.
Still, his situation didn’t change, either creatively or commercially. “He’s been in some cool projects but hasn’t had that ‘breakthrough’ that propels him past Ethan Hawke, Brad Pitt, or the other ‘that age’ stars,” film guru Harry Knowles wrote in a review of Hijacking Hollywood on his Ain’t It Cool News Web site. “Why? I don’t know. He is charismatic as hell. An audience fave on-screen. But I believe he will break out again in a big way.”
The indie circuit proved to be Thomas’ métier. “What’s great about the industry is that if people know you do independent films, they call you first,” Thomas says. “So I guess I’m on some kind of independent A-list.” Niagara, Niagara is what put him there, and in the upcoming year he’ll solidify his slot by appearing alongside Teri Hatcher in the psychological thriller Fever and David Strathairn in a drama called A Good Baby.
Still, no matter what kind of movies he gets in, Thomas has never been able to escape the straight-man niche. Being overshadowed by a cuddly, craggy alien is one thing, but his everyguy qualities and subtle physicality have also been matched up with a big whale and a Star Trek captain (the 1998 miniseries Moby Dick, with Patrick Stewart), a beautiful babbling Tourette’s syndrome sufferer (Niagara, Niagara’s Robin Tunney), and Legends of the Fall’s blond hair and big furry collars (on Pitt and Anthony Hopkins, respectively). Thomas, by the way, is a little dismissive of his Legends role, that of the little brother who dies half an hour into the movie, leaving his love interest, played by Julia Ormond, to be picked over by the real movie stars. “I was a story element,” he says.
That comment hints at Thomas’ more outspoken side. If he weren’t just a little bit gracious and a little bit circumspect, he would be a perfect subject for one of those Movieline magazine to-hell-with-everybody interviews. For example, when it’s suggested that there are only five or six unnamed actors who can, as they say, “open” a movie, Thomas is quick to respond: “Absolutely, and none of them are very good.” One also suspects that if he were so inclined, Thomas would be entitled to gripe about his audition for Saving Private Ryan; he was not shown a script—top secret stuff, apparently—and did not even get within eye’s view of the film’s director, who happened to be the director of E.T.: some guy named Spielberg. Obviously he didn’t get the part, though it’s easy to imagine him as several of that film’s characters. He also leaves out all the good details when he tells a story about how, against his better judgment but in need of money, he tried out for “one of these ski-mask-type movies”: “I go into this audition thinking, ‘Christ, what am I doing here? This is dumb,’” he says. “The director is even sympathizing with me, going, ‘You know, I think you’re a really great actor. This isn’t normally the type of project that I do.’” Then, to top it off, the popular young actress he was supposed to read with didn’t show up, blowing the whole thing to bits.
Lucky for him, not getting that part meant he was available when All the Pretty Horses came up. It is the kind of movie that could bump him to another level—a high-profile picture with major potential in terms of both Oscars and dollars. Thomas’ character, Lacey Rawlins, may be second fiddle to Matt Damon’s John Grady Cole, but he’s in almost every scene that doesn’t involve the love interest.
For Thomas, it was a dream come true. He’s a huge Cormac McCarthy fan, and he’d kept tabs on the project from the day it was announced, watching as it became attached in both fact and rumor to various directors and leading men. “I kind of sat there a while going, ‘Okay, who can I possibly play in this film? How can I get in?’ They were trying to get Leonardo DiCaprio to do the lead, and I thought, ‘Damn, I’m too old.’” Then, when actors like Edward Norton and Brad Pitt were mentioned, Thomas thought maybe he’d be young enough to play Blevins, the runaway who tags along with Cole and Rawlins for part of the story. But when Thornton got involved, the door swung open, as the New York company the Shooting Gallery (which had worked with him in Sling Blade) had been responsible for Niagara, Niagara. “I knew Henry was perfect for this part way before he was hired,” Thornton says, “He turned out to be even more perfect. He shocked me a couple of times.”
Making the movie was nice, and help for his career would also be welcome, but the best part of the experience for Thomas was meeting McCarthy; how many people can say they have? “It was probably the greatest thing that’s happened to me in quite a while,” he says. “I mean, I’ve read almost everything the man’s written. I really admire him as a writer. But also it was important for me to get a sense of some kind of approval—to meet him and shake his hand, to talk to him. It’s not as if he came on the set and said, ‘Let me tell you a story.’ He sat there and told a lot of jokes. It’s almost like his writing: He’s interesting without forcing it down your throat.”
The same could be said about Henry Thomas.
Pages: 1 2
My Library
