Another career lesson occurred while shooting The Edge. A year earlier, in 1995, I had become quite committed to the work of one of the entertainment industry’s leading arts advocacy organizations, The Creative Coalition, founded in 1989 by actor Ron Silver in cooperation with then HBO CEO Michael Fuchs and a roster of actors including Susan Sarandon, Stephen Collins, Blair Brown, and Christopher Reeve. Silver had wanted to harness the energies of politically engaged members of the industry who were willing to work on behalf of specific causes. His basic idea was to invite his more activist show business friends to study the issues on a level they had not been exposed to before. Programs were produced wherein experts and scholars lectured the TCC members—including not only famous actors but also writers, producers, musicians, and agents—as well as the public. TCC raised awareness on a range of core issues that included arts advocacy and the responsibility of the federal government in arts funding, gun control, First Amendment rights and issues related to freedom of expression, the reproductive rights of women, federal and state enforcement of environmental regulation, and campaign finance reform.
At the 1995 retreat, which was held in New York, I vividly recall standing next to Chris Reeve and knowing that he would run for political office, probably the Senate, and soon. He had cultivated a more moderate and politically adroit stance while serving as TCC’s president. He spoke more carefully and was less confrontational with our “opponents,” and he admonished me to follow suit. The very premise of TCC, that movie stars could effectively draw the attention of legislators and impact public policy if they had been sufficiently briefed, was embodied by Chris. It was entertaining to walk the halls of Congress with Chris to lobby for the issues TCC had adopted. The congressional staffs and elected officials themselves reacted to Chris in a charged way. Members of Congress would beam when meeting Chris and shout, “Come on in here, Superman!” Two weeks later, he broke his neck and was paralyzed. Soon after that, I was elected TCC’s president.
While shooting The Edge in Canada the following year, I informed the producers of a TCC commitment I needed to keep in New York. I went so far as to have them book my plane ticket to avoid any confusion about my trip. However, the late-evening flight from New York was delayed, and the connection, an odd Las Vegas junket to Calgary, took off without me on it. I wrote down the names and contact info of the flight crew in charge and called the first assistant director, a guy named Phil Patterson. Phil, who played a role similar to a sergeant in the army, seemed worried by my news, but took a deep breath and said, “We’ll try to shoot around it. Get here as quick as you can.” The next morning, I flew from New York to Calgary, stopping in Toronto. The trip took up most of the day. I arrived at work that Monday, in the late afternoon. We did a couple of uncomplicated shots, and I went back to my rented house in Canmore. The next day, I walked into my trailer to find a FedEx envelope from a Fox attorney named Bill Petrasich waiting for me. Fox was suing me for the lost production time.
After some inquiries, I was told that the head of the studio at the time, Tom Rothman, had envisioned someone else in my role, an actor who was either unavailable, unaffordable, or unwilling. Therefore, when the time came to make my deal for the film, Fox negotiators were taciturn, as they were negotiating with someone who was certainly not their first choice. Perhaps I had them over a barrel, to some extent, because the movie was in the pipeline and they believed they had to move forward. But when you are unwanted, your demands are always viewed as excessive.
When shooting films on location, I brought seven men with me: Carl Fullerton, makeup; Rick Provenzano, hair; Myron Baker, personal wardrobe; Fred Liberman, driver; Ted Haggerty, standin; Gary Tacon, stunt double; and Greg Pace, personal assistant. These guys had shot several films with me. They were my movie family. They also cost the studio some money, which may have pissed them off. However, the idea that a major studio would threaten to sue a lead actor on one of their films for missing work as the result of someone else’s error or negligence, even though I had offered them all the proof they needed that it had been far beyond my control, was more than ridiculous. It was abusive. I went to Art Linson, the producer, and asked him to intervene.
A producer, I’ve been told, is a person who brings an “essential element” to the table to get a film made. That can be money, material, or movie stars. Linson, who had made films like Melvin and Howard, The Untouchables, and Casualties of War, was the type of producer who was “friends” with certain actors, which I assume gave him a leg up when submitting scripts for them to consider. Robert De Niro and Sean Penn fell into that category, and rather quickly, it became clear I did not. Linson did nothing to help me. I was now stuck in the middle of Alberta, my wife and young child at home in LA, with a director who had no business making the film and a producer who was content to watch the studio fuck with me as some kind of payback for my desire to bring the same crew I’d taken on the road with me for years. Years later, Linson, believing that his own career was the stuff of Hollywood legend, made his memoir What Just Happened into a 2008 film with De Niro playing him. De Niro called me and asked me to play a character based on myself in the film. It was a testament to the loyalty of Linson’s friends that De Niro would even ask me such a stupid question.
With little hope that a good film would emerge from this scenario, I was left with Tony, the breathtaking scenery, the wonderful music of Jerry Goldsmith, and the cinematography of Don McAlpine. We helicoptered to the top of Mount Assiniboine, which, at 11,850 feet, is the highest peak of the southern Canadian Rockies. When we alighted from a helicopter at the top of Assiniboine, I felt as if I had died and gone to heaven. Prior to that trip, I thought Big Sur was the most beautiful place I had ever been. I may even have voted for the beaches in East Hampton, right in my own backyard, or Kruger National Park in South Africa. But in Alberta, everywhere you look is unforgettable. The people are lovely, too. Away from the ceaseless noise, hucksterism, and smugness of America, Canada itself is a balm to the soul.
During the shoot, I learned more about Tony. He was raised in the same town in Wales as Richard Burton, who encouraged him at a young age to attend the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. As he spoke, I envisioned this shy boy who liked to paint going on to become an Oscar-winning film star and receiving a knighthood from the queen. Tony spoke casually about his training at RADA and his early stage career at the National Theatre under the direction of Laurence Olivier, and stunned me with his assertion that Hollywood had always been his goal. But if I pressed him further, eager to hear more and showing him my own apprentice’s heart, a smile would come across his face and wonderful stories about Olivier’s vanity, playfulness, and, above all, talent would spill out.