I suppose the contemporary actor who I most wanted to emulate was Pacino. Al’s passion, intensity, and sexuality, all of his now legendary signatures, took my breath away. The scene in Serpico when John Randolph presents Serpico with his gold shield, a bullet hole bored into Al’s face, his indignity, disgust, and rage are barely containable. As Randolph presses the badge onto Al’s chest, Pacino collapses in tears that, to this day, go straight through me. I didn’t want to imitate Al. But I wanted to learn from him. The task was to maintain a reservoir of emotional truth, pain, and love.
Even though Marlon Brando’s film career seems far in the past now, for some he remains a sort of gold standard. No doubt, Brando is a monolithic talent. He reached an undiscovered place in terms of emotional truth and complexity in film acting. And he developed this gift at such a young age. But Brando’s difficult relationship with the business, and with himself, left me wondering when Brando was acting and when he was mocking. His contempt for what he viewed as false or pretentious in Hollywood resonated with me. When he gave his all, the results were incomparable. But it became clear later in his career that he had no intention of giving his all in many films. A battered, fatigued Brando thought that simply showing up was enough. Perhaps actors with Brando’s unmatched talent, and the attendant worship that comes with that, run the risk of such cynicism, even self-destruction.
Movie stardom amplified Brando’s family issues, industry battles, and neuroses, ultimately overwhelming him. Pacino always struck me as different. Pacino seemed focused on balancing his two roles as actor and star, not easy given that his own accomplishments in the movies are legendary. He returned to the theater with some regularity, certainly more than most at his level. Like Nicholson, when it was called for, he left his vanity at home and just played the role, and beautifully, as in Angels in America. In films like The Godfather and Scarface, he put the character’s ugly nature on display. However, in films like Dog Day Afternoon, Carlito’s Way, and Donnie Brasco, his ability to break your heart is like no other. I don’t know about you, but I go to the movies to have my heart broken every now and then, and I’ve always relied on Al to bring that emotional wallop to his films.
Although I studied their work, I could never have Holden’s career, or Brando’s, or Al’s. Those careers are of their time. What I did have was Gus Trikonis’s advice that I simply focus on trying to do my best in whatever film role I landed.
Once the Tom Clancy franchise was out of the equation, I didn’t have to worry about protecting some squeaky-clean image. I learned that if you are willing and have an aptitude for playing an intelligent villain, your options change. Many actors, to this day, shy away from playing the bad guy. Even though those roles can offer great acting opportunities, some stars won’t take the chance that such work might tarnish their image. In the case of stars like Cruise and Hanks, this is understandable. They have towering careers in the movies built upon a combination of integrity and heroics. When I watched Cruise in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, I thought he had won the Oscar. He was riveting. But perhaps someone told him to never do that again and, for Cruise, villainous roles disappeared.
In movies like Malice and The Juror, playing the “negative value” in the script (a phrase I borrowed from the great director Harold Becker) was both fun and not without a cost. Hollywood studio executives, so limited in their creativity, make things easy on themselves by ruling that you can’t be the hero of a film if, in your last one, you stepped onto a school bus with a flamethrower. (Especially in one of their own pictures!) In the ’90s, most of the films I had made after Hunt had underperformed, or were outright turkeys. The Shadow, The Getaway, Heaven’s Prisoners, and The Juror offered me some wonderful experiences, but little luck at the box office.
When Rob Reiner asked me to do Ghosts of Mississippi, I thought that it was a real chance to gain back some ground in terms of my film career. The picture had been developed for Tom Hanks, and when he was unavailable, I got the call. But from the moment Reiner said “Action!,” it was clear to me that he wished it were still Hanks in front of the camera. Back then, Reiner left little to chance and made films only with the biggest stars available. In spite of a very soft script (“Another civil rights story told through the eyes of a white protagonist,” Coretta King complained to Myrlie Evers at the premiere. “Where is Medgar?”), making the film was very gratifying, although it did not succeed. However, in the summer of 1996, a script arrived that I had a hunch was my last real chance to save my movie career.
The first play by David Mamet that I performed in was A Life in the Theatre in 1987 at the old Hartman Theatre in Stamford, Connecticut, directed by A. J. Antoon. In 1972, Antoon held the distinction of being nominated for two Tonys in the same season, winning best director for That Championship Season. Antoon, a remarkably agile director, emphasized the importance of lighting, sets, and how the actor must move on the stage within his design for maximum effect. Antoon died of an AIDS-related illness in 1992, just five years after we worked together.
The piece is a two-hander and one of my favorites by Mamet. The other actor was the great Mike Nussbaum, a veteran of numerous early Chicago productions of Mamet’s work, including this play. Every day I traveled from Grand Central to Stamford during a snowy winter. It was the theater, which means that along with compelling material, there were no frills. In late December, we began rehearsals using a banquet room on the second floor of a VFW hall near the theater as a rehearsal space.
Like nearly every actor trained in the past few decades, I am a great admirer of David’s writing. Whether by way of scenes from Sexual Perversity in Chicago attempted in acting classes, our production at the Hartman, or filming Glengarry Glen Ross, I respected his ear for great dialogue. His roles for contemporary men are like no other. The lines that close act one in Oleanna make up some of my favorite writing in the theater. Carol struggles to communicate with her professor, John, saying, “All my life . . .” and stops. John replies, “Go on.” Carol says, “I’ve never told anyone this . . .” And suddenly, John’s phone rings. His wife is calling, and John’s life punctures their halting foreplay. When John hangs up, a humiliated Carol snaps out of her unaccustomed vulnerability. The moment is priceless. Whenever I’ve seen it performed, I gasp slightly and I love teaching it in any class I’ve taught.