SIXTY SECONDS
THE ACTOR, 61, ON STRANGER THINGS, SEEING A GHOST AND PLAYING A CONGRESSMAN IN HIS NEW FILM, MISS VIRGINIA
Hi Matthew, good to see you… Always a pleasure to visit London, even remotely via Zoom. I’m in Venice, California [pans camera to reveal beautiful home]. It’s very gloomy because of the fires. What with Covid, the ignorance of this president, the social and racial injustice, and climate change denial, if you don’t find something to laugh about, you just start crying.
Miss Virginia is based on a true story about justice, isn’t it?
It is, and I play a guy who had kind of given up until this force of nature, who’s played by Uzo Aduba and based on the real-life Virginia Walden Ford, reignites his fighting spirit. The two of them help to save the education system in impoverished areas in the US.
You wrote diaries on Full Metal Jacket. What was Stanley Kubrick like?
The Wizard of Oz. He very strategically orchestrated the image of himself and how people from the world would see him as this powerful Oz, with smoke coming out of his head, and the scary look on his face. But in The Wizard Of Oz, they pulled back the curtain, revealing that it’s a man manipulating levers and making this projection of himself. And the Stanley Kubrick I got to know was the guy inside a big crab shell, he was soft and friendly with a tremendous sense of humour.
What are your memories of filming Stranger Things?
Just what a pleasure it was to work with Millie Bobby Brown and… and there’s a spider crawling [sweeps it off the table with his hand].
That was very well swept away.
I don’t want to kill it. I’m starting to really believe in reincarnation – that could be my aunt, coming to visit me. Yeah, Millie really was 11 when we did Stranger Things and I think she’s 16, she might be driving a car now. None of us had any idea that it would be as successful as it is. Around the world they get fan mail from all over the place.
You mentioned reincarnation. Do you believe in ghosts?
Well, I’m going to tell you, I was staying off the King’s Road on Glebe Place when I was making Memphis Belle. My wife went back for her sister’s wedding and I would hear upstairs furniture go from one side of the room to the other. I’d go upstairs and, of course, there’d be nothing there. And then some of the other actors came over to my
I don’t want to kill the spider as I believe in reincarnation and that could be my aunt
apartment and said, ‘Oh wow, this place is haunted! Don’t you feel it, really?’ And then my wife came back and I told her about it and she said, ‘Oh yeah, I see the guy all the time. He’s like an old ship’s captain with a big beard and I like him. I think he’s protecting our son.’
Ah, a friendly ghost! Do you have any recurring dreams?
I used to have that one of falling, you know, where you’re reaching out and grabbing things. And my grandmother came up to me in a dream once and she said, ‘Let it go.’ And
I said, ‘What do you mean, grandma?’ She just kept repeating it. And it’s so important. I think that this whole Covid experience offers a great lesson for all of us to be less materialistic and to look inside, and to truly value what’s important in life.
What have you been up to during the crisis?
I just finished a film. I’m not supposed to talk about the character but it was really weird because everyone has to social distance and everybody has to wear a mask. And then when they say ‘action’ the actor has to strip everything away, and you suddenly feel like you’re naked. I spent almost six months working with these people and I don’t know what any of them look like. I know their eyes. Sometimes you’d see them at lunch when they pull the mask down, the mouth didn’t match the eyes.
What else have you done?
Leon Vitali, who was Stanley Kubrick’s assistant, just did a 4k Ultra HD release of Full Metal Jacket so that even if you’ve seen the film 20 times this is going to be like seeing it for the first time. I have a film called Breaking News In Yuba County and another movie called Foster Boy, which is about the foster care system in America.
How do you choose roles?
I try to choose things that are gonna teach me something. I grew up in the ’60s and the protest songs of the ’60s informed me so much in my life, especially Marvin Gaye. My mother taught me that when you go into a room and it’s dark, you’re frightened because you think the room is full of monsters but it only takes turning on the light to make those monsters go away.
Any last messages for us?
It’s something that I would say is part of the British character: chin up. And, keep… what is that saying? Keep calm and carry on. We’ll get through this and we will be better for it.