YOU TALKIN’ TO ME?
Film quotes pose as questions. Film stars try to cope.
Are you talkin’ to me?
Wait? So I just say whatever I want? Oh gosh. I suppose you can just record me as I ruminate on how to answer. On one level, I want to answer the question literally and say, “Yes, I’m talking to you. What was your name again?” I want to answer it literally. But then of course I can also talk about what that moment in Taxi Driver meant to me when I first saw it. So how do I do that?
Do you feel lucky, punk?
I am so out over my skis in the luck department, I sometimes just can’t believe the life I’m getting to lead. I’m 5ft 5in, Jewish, from Oklahoma. I’m not going to adorn the cover of any magazines for my looks. And yet I’ve been able to have a career somehow in movies, largely because of the Coen brothers. So, yes, I feel like I’m a bit of a punk and I feel incredibly lucky. So the way I now approach acting, I’m taking it more and more seriously, almost feeling like I’m needing to earn that luck.
Why so serious?
I think sometimes I’m serious to a fault. And I’m serious to a fault because I feel that so much has been bestowed on me that I never expected or never even necessarily felt I deserved… so I better take this life seriously because it’s been very good to me.
What’s the last thing that you do remember?
Oh, that’s a great one. [long pause] Since I’m pausing while I think about it, I’ve already forgotten what the last thing I remember is! So I’m going to say that the last thing I hope to remember is my family.
Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?
I try not to, literally, because I’m a very square family man. I’ve got three children and a wife of now 24 years. We’ve been together for 30 years. I want to spend the rest of my life with her and I want to help our children raise our grandchildren. So I don’t go out and dance with the devil in the pale moonlight. But I do absolutely do that creatively. And when I married my wife, when I proposed to her, I said, “Look, I will never stray from you, that won’t happen, but I will roam creatively.” She said, “That’s fine.” And so creatively yes I do dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.
What’s in California?
My wife and I considered moving to California. We looked at real estate out there, feeling like if we decamped to the West Coast where the film industry is, in my career I would end up seeing more of my family, because I could work out there. We ultimately didn’t and I’m glad we didn’t. Even though I’ve had a wonderful career, my family comes to me and I return to my family when I work, so we’re very tight and we see a lot of each other, in spite of the fact that we never moved to California.
What’s your favourite scary movie?
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, hands down. Even though Tobe Hooper wrote, as the Coens did in Fargo, “This is based on a true story,” and it wasn’t, it was filmed and set up in such a way that it really might as well have been true. And I know that it’s in part based on Ed Gein, who was the guy in Wisconsin who killed people and wore their skin.
Have you ever had that feeling where you’re not sure if you’re awake or dreaming?
In movies. That’s why I love movies. The immersion that occurs in a cinema filled with strangers, in the dark, in front of a giant screen, with speakers all around you, is as close as we get to waking dreams. And that we gather together strangers collectively to experience that is one of the marvels of cinema and why I like doing movies.
The preacher’s done washed away all my sins and transgressions!
That’s from a Coen brothers’ movie!
I do have strong memories of that scene [in the river in O Brother, Where Art Thou?]. The boring quotidian answer to that was I was just anxious about whether the water was going to be cold because I’m a wimp with cold water, but I am a believer in forgiveness.
I think if we don’t have forgiveness
– if our sins can’t ‘wash away’ – we can’t live day to day and I sure want to keep living day to day. DW
ETA | NOVEMBER / THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS IS ON NETFLIX THIS AUTUMN.
‘I BETTER TAKE THIS LIFE SERIOUSLY BECAUSE IT’S BEEN VERY GOOD TO ME’