To look at 37 year-old actor James Spader, with his soft
demeanor and heavy-lidded eyes, you would never guess that he could
play anyone other than a confused and/or sensitive young man caught
in the middle of a moral dilemma or a bad situation. But though he
has played such roles with elan, including his recent bizarre turn
in the highly controversial Crash, he is probably better known to
moviegoers for his convincing portrayal of creeps and
back-stabbers, most notably in such films as Baby Boom, Wall
Street, Wolf and Two Days in the Valley.
Born in Boston, Spader did the New York theater scene for
years before turning to film. After a handful of supporting roles
in such movies as Endless Love and Pretty in Pink, he hit the
big time as the screwed-up Graham in Steven Soderbergh's Sex, lies
and Videotape, which won Spader the Best Actor Award at the 1989
Cannes Film Festival.
Spader's most recent film is Critical Care, which was the
opening night feature at this year's Chicago International Film
Festival, and opens theatrically this Friday. In Critical Care,
written by Chicagoan Steven S. Schwartz (based on the novel by
Richard Dooling), and directed by Sidney Lumet (Dog Day
Afternoon, "Network), Spader plays Dr. Werner Ernst, a young and
ambitious intensive care unit physician who dreams of wealth and
fame in his field.
His path is detoured, however, when he falls for a beautiful
young actress (Kyra Sedgwick), whose father is on life-support at
Dr. Ernst's hospital. Pillow talk quickly turns into legal
testimony, as Ernst finds himself caught between two sisters who
are fighting for the right to decide whether or not to pull the
plug on daddy, a decision that means $10 million to the victor. In
the process of defending himself, Ernst slowly comes to remember
why it was he became a doctor in the first place.
I recently chatted with Spader, an incessant chain-smoker, in
a downtown hotel room before he was whisked off to attend the
Chicago Film Festival's opening night festivities.
Let's start with the film's highly stylized intensive care
unit. It looks like it could be part of the space shuttle.
It was very intentionally done that way, for its
nightmarish effect, suggesting that all humanity has been erased.
It does look futuristic, but you still get the feeling that perhaps
it is upon us.
It also gives a sense of doctors and nurses playing God.
it was purposely designed that way, shot that way and
acted that way. the movie is put together in a way that suggests a
parallel universe that maybe exists. and despite its black comedy,
it certainly deals with issues that exist.
Sidney Lumet is a director who does a lot of rehearsing
before shooting begins, probably owing to his background in theater.
Not to mention a rather hefty background in live
television.
What did you learn about your character in the rehearsal
process that didn't come out initially in the script?
I don't know. That's hard to put a finger on. I mean, I've
done a lot of theater, so I had a sense of how to utilize the
rehearsal period. But the serious issues that the film deals
with--and that my character has to face in terms of his own
humanity--are the sort of bigger issues of mortality that came
along at just the right time in my life. Leading up to doing this
film, I'd spent the last five years of my life in hospitals,
whether it was visiting my parents or the birth of my children. So
there was an awful lot percolating in my head about these issues
that the film deals with, and the screenplay just spoke to those.
During those years, were you ever faced with anything as
intense as a life or death decision?
My father was very sick for a long time. He died about two
weeks before I started production on this film. He had been in and
out of hospitals for quite a few years, but we chose not to have
the latter part of his life exist in a hospital. We chose to keep
him at home.
A key character in the film is Dr. Butz (played by Albert
Brooks), who is the chairman emeritus of the critical care unit.
Though he is in many ways a comic character, the issues he raises
about critical-care insurance and long-term care have a certain
validity.
I was pleased when Albert signed on, because I knew that
his scenes would have that sort of dichotomy, serious issues that
were treated with a certain amount of levity.
But were his arguments cogent, especially based on your
own experiences?
The character of Butz in the film has the burden of
presenting--in a blustery, tyrannical way--his skewed take on the
medical health care system in America. He's a man who has become
sour, but also has a tremendous sense of irony. The argument that I
find most convincing is that we do try and protect ourselves
against death. Very often in this country, if we're able to, we
quite methodically and by design create our own future for
ourselves.
Dr. Butz's speech about how he's going to go, with a big
cigar in one hand and a drink in the other, without a lick of
insurance, seems to me to be the moral center of the film.
I've seen death happen in many different ways. Sometimes
it's been quick and forgiving. Other times it's been prolonged and
unforgivable. Quick and forgiving would seem to be better, but by
the same token, we do seem to prepare ourselves for the long haul.
Butz's point seems to be that we can't know. It's that
"undiscovered country."
This country is different from a lot of other countries,
where the elderly live out their lives still within the nest of the
family. Here, the elderly tend to be dispatched, as opposed to
being brought back into a fold that they themselves created.
Was Dr. Ernst a difficult part for you to play?
Yes, because a lot of the stuff I had to do required
putting more of myself into the film than I usually do. In most
films, I'm playing somebody very different from me, dealing with
ideas and issues that are very different from the sort I deal with
in my everyday life. Dr. Ernst isn't really like me, but the
decisions he has to make are not dissimilar to those decisions I
have had to make in my own life. Treading on familiar ground
requires putting more of yourself into a role. Usually, I'm able to
hide within a role. Here, I wasn't able to hide.
Is it more fun to hide?
Yeah, it is.
Chicago Tribune Article:
1997
By: John Petrakis
