Bill Paxton Interview

"I said CUT!" Bill Paxton wants you to know he can direct with the best. Frailty is one of my favorite films ever but who would have thought that the man's next vision would be the golf genre? Paxton manages to find plenty of drama in the true story behind The Greatest Game Ever Played and darn near scores a hole in one with an intriguing mix of effects, family drama and pure sports movie suspense. A recent chance to talk with the man behind these and other classic films like Aliens (Game Over DUDE!), Near Dark (I hates it when they ain't shaved!) and True Lies (Best bladder control issues ever!) was a must do even if it was in the company of other journalists in a roundtable format. I lucked out only having to share my turf with one other colleague.

I: This seems like such a departure from Frailty.

BP: Well you know in a way it really isn’t. Both are family dramas about fathers and sons. And there’s a little bit of a Gothic vibe in Greatest Game. Harry Vardon is haunted by his Victorian childhood and there’s a scene almost straight out of Frailty where Shia’s character comes home late one night and finds his dad sitting in the dark and behind him is the shed and porch. We even took an axe and stuck it in a tree stump in the background.

I: So people should think of Greatest Game as Frailty II then!

BP: No, I thought I’d do another independent film after Frailty but my agent said, “If you want to take the acid test why don’t you try a major studio film. Of course the trick was getting to make the film without all the micro management and way we did that was to shoot it like an art film. It wasn’t really a conscious decision but it worked well because ultimately we did employ their formula that worked for sports films like Remember the Titans where they have a central actor/star which gives the director the chance to build around that with a really good ensemble cast. And of course using Shia who I think is a really great actor boosted Disney’s confidence in where we were headed with the project. It was fun because just as we we’re getting ready to lock the picture down in edit Jim Cameron and Jonathan Mostow agreed to screen it with me and they both turned to me when it was over with this look that said, ‘How did you get to make this movie?”

I: So depending on the success of The Greatest Game Ever Played do you see yourself having to choose between acting and directing?

BP: My hero’s have always been guys like Keaton, Chaplin, Clint Eastwood who figured out how to empower themselves. As an actor you spend so much time trying to figure out how to fit into other peoples movies and get offered things that you aren’t even sure you’d cast yourself in. You can only chalk up so much to the idea of getting experience and after that it starts to look like time wasted.

I: It’s so incredible to be sitting here for me. I have such respect or Frailty but my first image of Bill Paxton is from Aliens.

BP: Game Over!!!

I: You mean the interview is over- I have to leave now!!

BP: Game over dude!!! Yer out.

I: Bill Paxton harassing Arnold in The Terminator…

BP: Well, I’m always harassing Arnold. Now that he’s Governor even more.

I: Then there’s Weird Science, Near Dark, True Lies… early on in your career you built a career out of being “that guy.” And then out of nowhere came Frailty, this movie that scared the living hell out of everybody that saw it. Now your doing a movie for ?Disney?

BP: Yeah, how about that. I’ve always wanted to make films but what I discovered early on is that everybody’s got a different story in life and there are a lot of ways to carve a path through any profession. People know me as an actor but I started learning about movies by making super eight films when I was a teenager so for me it’s always been a mixed bag. I’ve always been one to see in my minds eye what was being shot and not just my own part in the scene.

In some ways I have had a strange evolution. One thing I am very lucky about is that I’m a character actor that got to become a leading man- that is very rare in our industry. But so much of it just has to do with trying whatever I could to survive. I’ve certainly had my share of misses, films I probably shouldn’t have done but I was trying to make a living. But then I’ve been lucky enough to be associated with James Cameron, Sam Raimi, people who believed in me more than I believed in myself at different times. That really helped me to have the conviction to go forward. I certainly never believed I’d be able to tackle a film as large as The Greatest Game Ever Played.

I: Your approach to shooting the film really punches up the drama of golf.

BP: Yeah it’s funny but I’ve never been a big fan of visual effects because they can call to much attention to the camera. Frailty was really self-contained but I realized Greatest Game needed more. I grew up around the game and made all my extra money on the course finding golf balls, shagging balls, caddying. I was a real club rat, even though I wasn’t much of a golfer, because the course was so gorgeous, I loved that.

And that’s what I found fascinating about this film. People look at golf as if it’s this pastoral peaceful game but all you have to do is look at Tiger Woods play and you know that’s not the case. In a tournament situation these guys are focused, it’s a kill or be killed situation. I started to think that if we could just focus in on those eyes that maybe we could create all sorts of Hitchcockian points of view. The kid has to be able to pull the pin into himself or it just shoots away and contrast that with Harry Vardon whose like The Terminator, he steps up on the tee and the crowd disappears, everything disappears except the ball the tea and the green.

I: Did you find the dramatic arc of the film more complex than Titans or other recent sports movies?

BP: I found it interesting that everyone in our film is empathetic. You want the kid to win but it should still be hard to imagine the champ losing. It’s so cinematic. I knew this would be a spellbinding film if I could get it right.

I: But that’s your whole career isn’t it? I think of your movies and they really are films that create a spell around their characters. Do you see yourself looking towards bigger and bigger films?

BP: Not necessarily. I think what I’m looking for are timeless themes. To me Frailty is about the nature of lost love. I know that sounds a little crazy but it’s a tragedy of a family that we have to watch disintegrate. We all approached Frailty as if it were set in a parallel universe. It’s not really about whether or not the dad received a vision from God. At the end of the film we discover that he did and that this universe is governed by a Jehovah, an Old Testament God that demands atonement and that the tragedy is that this dad has been asked to do what is for him an almost impossible thing.

Greatest game has timeless films as well; the innocence of youth, the hero’s quest. If you can find timeless themes you can make movies that are as relevant now as they will be in a thousand years. Size is irrelevant.

I: Doesn’t that speak to the acting style that was called for in Greatest Game as well?

BP: I think it refers to acting in general. There is such a thing as playing big but I think a more interesting thing is to leave the audience to project their own thoughts and hopes and dreams onto what you do in a scene. I remember telling Shia “I don’t want you to blink during this shot because it will telegraph to the audience that you know there’s a camera there. The great enigmatic actors like Steve McQueen always left you guessing and so you couldn’t look away, the story becomes your story for at least a moment.

Film acting is kind of a paradoxical experience. We actors are so anxious to show all the choices we’ve made but it’s not always the best way. Paul Franklin said something to me when I was just starting out. We were shooting a scene for One False Move and he saw me really struggling and he said, Bill the camera’s not interested in what you can do. It’s interested in who you are.”

I: But that tension you’re describing applies to you in real life to not just as an actor. Do you mind navigating the tension between being the “good meteorologist” in one movie and doing really thoughtful films?

BP: ah… Thunderbirds. You know I can never go back to England now. It’s good for me. I did Mancow this morning and he destroyed me man but you know it’s the balance between that and the smile on someone’s face when they run up to you on the street and yell “Game over, dude!”