After that, movie parts started to come in a flurry. I went to read for David Geffen and Tim Burton for Beetlejuice. Once we started shooting, I sat in my trailer wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. Jeffrey Jones, Glenn Shadix, Catherine O’Hara, and Michael Keaton chewed up the scenery, day in and day out. Comparatively, I just stood there doing almost nothing. I asked Tim if he was getting what he wanted from me. He murmured something about the living characters being scarier than the dead ones. I thought of my character as a milquetoast antique collector and told him I thought I’d channel Robert Cummings. Tim just stared at me and said, “No. Don’t do that.”
Soon after, I met with Jonathan Demme for Married to the Mob. The male characters in Demme’s films are divided between violent or corrupt degenerates (The Silence of the Lambs, Something Wild) and soft-spoken, thoughtful, or just plain odd men (Stop Making Sense, Melvin and Howard). He cast me in the role of Michelle Pfeiffer’s vulgar gangster husband, who fell squarely into the first category. I learned a couple of lessons on this film. One was the idea that directors might mistake your performance for your own persona, and in a way you may not like. And though your job is to deliver, to be that person as best you can, underneath is a quiet little plea that says, “Please don’t think this is who I am.” Also, I loved working with Michelle, who, like Julie Harris, tempted you to confuse acting with reality. Poor Michelle, having to deal with everyone falling in love with her. I would imagine that for some of the actresses I have worked with, like Diane Lane, Julia Roberts, Michelle, and, yes, Kim, it must be exhausting.
Next, I played a small role in Working Girl for Mike Nichols, which was a treat. I also got to work with the legendary cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, who had shot the remarkable Death of a Salesman with Dustin Hoffman and Malkovich and directed by Volker Schl?ndorff. Nichols, witty and imperious one moment, warm and paternal the next, educated me about the invaluable contributions of his set and costume designers, among others. In this case: Patrizia von Brandenstein and Ann Roth, respectively. Years later, Ann and I worked together on Streetcar on Broadway. On set, Nichols knows where he is going, leaving you to come to work every day and say, “Yes, sir.” There are few of these men left, almost none, actually. I have missed the chance to work with Coppola, De Palma, Jarmusch, and Lumet. But I was fortunate enough to shoot, however briefly, with Nichols, Frankenheimer, Scorsese, Cameron Crowe, and Woody Allen.
Oliver Stone, by contrast, introduced me to the director as hostage taker, a man who knew that either you needed to work, or you didn’t want to get sued for leaving the set, or both. I shot the film Talk Radio, Eric Bogosian’s hit stage play adapted for the screen, with Stone. We shot down in Dallas, and after only a couple of days, I wanted to go home. Working with him felt like being trapped with the Barton MacLane character from Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Stone’s “technique” was to generate as much tension on the set as he believed the film required. With sarcastic asides and a passive-aggressive tone throughout, Stone drove the cast and crew to drink a lot each night to blow off steam, which was not an option for me. Stone is a brilliant screenwriter and has directed some very good films. And he is certainly not the most unpleasant person I’ve worked with. But Stone opened my eyes to the Machiavellian filmmaker who would throw his own mother down a flight of stairs if it would help him get his project financed, get the shot he wanted, or simply get his way.
I showed up in Memphis to shoot Great Balls of Fire!, which starred Dennis Quaid. The director, Jim McBride, should have just cut all of my scenes and sent me home. The film is fantastic and alive when Dennis is on-screen and completely forgettable when he is off. I met Jerry Lee Lewis on set one day. As I greeted him he roared, “What kind of a handshake is that? That’s a sissy handshake,” and shoved my hand away. He tormented the producers about payments to secure his services to work with Dennis at scheduled rehearsals. “Jerry’s sick,” one of his handlers told a producer. “What’s it gonna take to make him feel better?” the producer asked. Ten thousand in cash was the reply. What choice did the producer have but to pay? Lewis was incredibly gifted. And he was an asshole.
Miami Blues reunited me with Jonathan Demme, but this time as a producer, as his friend George Armitage, a talented writer, was directing. Tak Fujimoto, the director of photography on the film, was another of the greats I had the good luck to shoot with, but the true prize here was the chance to film with probably the best actress I’ve ever worked with: Jennifer Jason Leigh. Jennifer is brave and honest and eschews vanity in her performances like no woman I’ve ever seen. On that set, she reminded me, oddly enough, of the actor Paul Muni in terms of her unguarded intensity and her brave choices.
*
Boarding a plane from New York to LA, sometime in early 1989, I paused before I sat to take note of the fact that, in the two dozen seats making up the first class and business cabins alone, at least eight or ten men were reading a novel written by Tom Clancy. The Hunt for Red October had been published in 1984, followed by Red Storm Rising, Patriot Games, and The Cardinal of the Kremlin. People were turning the pages of Tom’s books by the millions, all over the world. Paramount Pictures was just getting around to making a movie of The Hunt for Red October, and I was on my way to meet the director, John McTiernan, to audition for the part of Jack Ryan, the protagonist of all those books. The meaning of that incredible opportunity really hit me on that airplane.
My agent, Michael Bloom, had made it clear that Kevin Costner was the first choice for the role, but that Paramount didn’t want to pay his fee. They may have gone to twelve other guys in the meantime, but in the end, it was I who wound up in a makeup chair with McTiernan, the producer Mace Neufeld, and some makeup people as they scrutinized the color of my hair. The hair conversation lasted longer than any I would have on that set about either the script or the character. Rehearsing scenes on the set before we had begun shooting, McTiernan would look at me and say, “It’s too much about props and staging with you. Can’t you just stand there?”
McTiernan is from the “shooter” class of moviemakers. He has little, if anything, to offer actors. But in terms of the kind of films he makes, John has the essential skills of the black belt camera geek. His movies are costly, so he is hired by studios to steer a massive tanker into a harbor successfully, spending many millions of dollars in the process. Like nearly all directors, he hires actors who come ready. He points the camera and you do the preapproved thing you’ve been hired to do.