|
|
It's a good thing the guy didn't see Spader's latest film, David Cronenberg's Crash, for it's possible they'd still be standing there talking, if not arguing. Based on the 1973 novel by British science-fiction writer J.G. Ballard, Crash is crudely put, about a group of Toronto residents who get of, quite literally, on car crashes. Spader plays James Ballard, a TV producer, who, along with his wife, played by Deborah Unger, is drawn into a subculture of crash survivors after he has a near-fatal collision with Dr. Helen Remington, played by Holly Hunter. Though there's no denying the brilliance of Cronenberg's uncompromising vision, Crash is, at times, damn creepy to watch. It's easy to see why the jury at Cannes had to come up with a special award to celebrate its "audacity."
"I don't know if I should get in a car with you after seeing Crash," I say as we arrive at Spader's Range Rover. "Oh, no," laughs Spader who's also soon to be seen as a hit man in the darkly comic ensemble piece Two Days in the Valley. "Things have slowed down quite a bit." When Spader asks if I've ever tried Hugo's, the West Hollywood eatery we decide on, I say that I interviewed John Leguizamo there for Too Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, the ask the actor if he's done drag. "Yeah," he laughs, then serves up the first of many surprises. "Interview magazine did a shoot where they did me hair like Joey Heartherton. I make a great Joey Heartherton."
DENNIS HENSLEY: I saw a screening of Crash a few weeks ago. It was a packed house.
JAMES SPADER: Was it as divisive as the audience in Cannes? In Cannes, people were loving it and hating it.
I don't remember anyone running out screaming.
No one fainted?
No, but it was weird getting in a car afterward.
People have said that. I'm always surprised by that. It never affected me that way.
It didn't affect your attitude about driving at all?
Well yes, in a couple of sort of boring, practical ways. I saw some crash-test footage during the film that showed crashes without airbags and also what happens if there is no headrest. Now I would never drive in a car unless I've got a headrest, and I would be reticent, at least with my kids, in a car if it didn't have airbags.
What was your gut reaction when you first read the script? You obviously didn't go, "No way."
Not for a second. I didn't know what to make of it at first. It was very disturbing, very powerful, and yet intriguing. I spoke to David on the phone and I found myself getting more and more intrigued. By the end of our conversation, I said, "I really want to do this film."
What did you handlers think of your decision?
I've always made my own decisions. I've been with the same people for a long time. If there's a dicey piece of material floating around it always comes my way, and they're used to that.
What did your wife think of you making Crash?
You know, I'm making a film. My wife is a very cool, secure person.
Have your parents seen it?
No. I don't thik it's their sort of film, but ultimately it's up to them if they want to see it or not. I don't really make films for my parents, but they're very generous in their appreciation.
You get to have sex with everyone in the film.
That was a plus, certainly a deciding factor.
As unsettled and intrigued as I was by the film, I found it didn't really stay with me, and I think it's because there was no one on the screen that I related to. Nobody ever questioned what they were doing. It could just as well have been on Mars.
James Ballard purposely set a futuristic story in the present in his novel, and he said he felt the film sort of started where his book left off, and that's a place I have a feeling we may have reached in our lives. That feeling of enormous isolation and diconnection from ourselves, from people around us, from the world. A lot of the stuff that Ballard has played around with concerns man's reconciliation or conflict with the technology that he himself has created, and he chose the automobile for this.
Have you ever been in a car crash?
Yeah, a few, but I've never been in a serious car crash when I was driving.
Did you call on those experiences for the film?
Well I remembered the adrenaline. I thought David dealt with the crashes in a really interesting way in that they didn't evolve the way many crashes in films do, where they become this spectacle. In Crash, they're jarring and extremely uncomfortable and over before they even start, seemingly, and all you're left with is the aftermath, which is how they are.
There's not a lot of dialogue in the film.
The language in the film is sex, that's the dialogue. The characters are pursuing ideas that are quite interior and in many ways self-serving, so they're not always articulated.
The scene that I found the most erotic was the car-wash scene.
(Laughs) You're into pain and violence, then.
I liked that it was going on under everyone's noses. That scene in the car wash where you're driving and you tilt the rear-view mirror to watch your wife have sex with another man reminded me a bit of the voyeurism of Sex, Lies & Videotape.
It's interesting that you say that. Ths lie that Graham in Sex, Lies & Videotape has been telling himself is the same as Ballard's lie in Crash, and this is, "If one is a voyeur in life, then they are not a participant." Except Ballard knows exactly what's going on. I wanted to be in Sex, Lies & Videotape because I loved the dichntomous relationship within Graham, between passivity and aggressiveness. I found him to be a tremendously aggressive character.
Then there's one scene where you get it on with the gash in Rosanna Arquette's leg. It's strange because once you realize that the film might be going there, you think, Oh please don't, please don't...
Oh, yes we will. Oh, yes we will.
...but then you realize you kind of want him to. Kind of, you know that if the film doesn't go all the way, you'll be disappointed.
Aren't you just a little curious?
I also appreciated that the film didn't back off from showing the character's sex scene with Elisas Koteas's character. Was that a first for you on film?
Yeah, I had never done a sex scene with a man before. (Shrugs) You know, it was a scene in the movie.
I wasn't sure what to make of the ending.
The ending's rather hopeful, I think.
It's as though your wife, who has been the least physically damaged, is trying to catch up.
Oh, she's on her way. (Laughs) She's trying her damnedest. That's the hopefulness.
Your other new film is Two Days in the Valley. How did you get involved with that?
They sent me the script, and it was unlike anything I had read. I thought it was funny.
The writer/director, John Herzfeld, what has he done before?
I don't know. Everyone I spoke to, I'd say, "Have you seen anything John has done?" and no one really had. Everybody jumped in with both feet because of the script. I had a ball.
I really bought that you were evil in this film. Is there a secret to playing a convincing heavy?
I enjoy myself tremendously. I think that helps because it allows you to commit to what you're doing with a tremendous amount of convinction, which, I guess, comes across on film.
I've read where you said that people on film sets love the bad guy. Why do you think that is?
Generally, the bad guy's only around when there's trouble. It's sort of his job to kick the butt of the movie. I know I enjoy it, too. Let someone else deal with the exposition.
What was your first movie?
A film called Teammates. It might have been a soft-core porn film. I'm not sure. I never saw it. My credit was Drunk Guy. I got drunk at my birthday party and passed out in the cake.
What did you think the first thime you saw yourself on the big screen?
It would have been Endless Love. My feeling probably was that I had to pee. That always happens. I must always be the guy that the director's going, "Oh God, they're walking out," and it's just me going to the bathroom.
What was it like doing Pretty in Pink at the height of the Brat Pack era. Was it cliquey?
There was a sort of club, but I was pretty removed from that. I was a hired gun.
Were you ever tempted by the whole young Hollywood party scene?
Not really. I've never felt a part of any sort of organized scene. I'm very close to my family and I've got some very, very close friends who I've known since high school.
What were you like it school?
I was a miserable student, but I had a lot of fun. I spent my entire academic career, which only lasted until I was 17, goofing around.
When did you get into acting?
I did it in junior high and grammar school and I just kept doing it. I remember in first grade the teacher put on a record of the poem, "Casey at the Bat," and I just remember playing along with the record. We'd put on plays when we were kids. I think it was a matter of economics because my parents were teachers, so we never had much allowance. So I would shamelessly drag my neighbors over and we'd play comboys and Indians and charge them a quarter to watch. It was like, "Tomorrow we're going to have a wonderful performance of Hide and Seek." It was a way to earn money, I mean, I used to set up a table in front of the house and sell anything that wasn't nailed down. My mother would buy groceries and I'd be charging a quarter of what she pais for them.
How did you learn the facts of life?
I remember my dad talking about it and I can't remember how much I knew at that point. I was playing doctor with great commitment and regularity at an extremely early age.
Were you performing major surgery or just sort of friendly check-ups?
Surgery--invasive surgery--at a very early age.
Did you parents know what you were up to?
Yeah, because we were always quite open for business. We were a store-front family outfit.
Who were your patients?
Anything I could get my hands on.
Not the family dog.
No.
Were your sisters privy to your escapades?
I don't know. We lived in a cabin-like house during the summers, with knot holes, so there was a lot of peeking. Again, invite my friends over, charge money. My sister dressing in the next room was a great event.
Was your first girlfriend early too?
Yeah. In first grade my world revolved around Jenny Bensely and Annie Vada. They were also two of my most active patients. They were hypochondriacs, and I was too.
What's the worst job you ever had?
Acting. (Laughs) I worked at an amusement park manning the Whack the Cats game.
What were the other carnies like?
Well, it wasn't Six Flags. To sum it up, there was a scary-looking guy who worked the Whirly-Gig ride next to my booth and every few days, I'd see him walking to the front office with his head down. I'd look over and he'd go, "Man, a kid fell off the Whirly-Gig."
I understand you met your wife while teaching yoga. You don't seem like the yoga-teacher type.
I got away with murder. At that time I think I was shoveling crap at the Claremont Riding Academy and my sister decided to join a health club in New York, so I applied for a job there because it looked like there were a lot of hypochondriacs wandering around. So I went to the grocery store and got a book at the checkout stand on yoga. I'd turn the lights down and promptly go to sleep in the front of the class. I refined napping to its purest form when I became a lifeguard. It was like pools in health clubs in New York where it never gets deeper that about four feet, so if anyone starts to drown all you have to do is yell, "Stand up!"
Did you and Susan Sarandon ever do it in the same room as the lamp?
No, it was the kitchen. We did it in the kitchen but they cut it out. They thought it was gratuitous. Gratuitous is a word that I think should be stricken from the English language. The doctor is always in.
Would you like to make films your kids could see?
Yeah, but Disney doesn't call me very often.
Do you have any reservations about raising your children here in L.A.?
Well, we spend summers back East. But I like living in the city, and they can play in the yard here. You have to create your own life here. It doesn't just exist for you. I think that's what makes people come here and say it's a vacuum. It's only a vacuum until you fill it.
When you first started making decent money, what frivolous thing did you go out and buy?
A '68 Camaro convertible. I lived in New York, so it was really frivolous. I spent more on my parking garage that I did on my apartment. Cars have been an enormous part of my life.
Then Crash must have been...
Made sense to me.
What do you miss most about New York?
Walking, trash cans, pizza parlors.
What do you miss the most about L.A. when you're there?
(Laughs) Driving.
