JAMES WOODS (Beverly's Father)
Can you describe your character?
I played a pretty terrific dad who had terrific values and wanted the best for his daughter and was sad for her that she made mistakes in life that, had she listened to him, she might not have made and been able to fulfill her dreams.
Did you feel that your character changed during the film?
I think he was always the same incredibly decent, moral man who loved his family, and cared for them, and supported them and worked for them.
How was it to work with Lorraine Bracco?
We had a great time. This will actually probably be in the DVD - there's a whole sequence where we do a dance and Drew is kind of sad - well, not sad - she sees the kind of joy that we have with each other, that we actually love each other and are sexy with each other, and all those things. She starts to realize probably, on some level, that she's made some decisions in her life or made some mistakes in her life, that are going to have a long-term impact and that she may never have that with the character Steve Zahn plays - her husband.
This movie could have been six hours long because there are so many stories in it. I had a great time with Lorraine; she's a lot of fun. It's amazing about talented people - and I think they're all really exceptionally talented - they're always pretty easy to work with, and a lot of fun. All the people in the movie were great; we didn't have any sour notes like you very rarely but sometimes have with people. Everybody seemed to be enjoying it.
"Riding in Cars with Boys" takes place 30 years ago. Did you know any girls like Bev in high school and does it make you revisit those times?
When I was in high school, we were all laboring under the illusion, or maybe it was a reality, that everyone in our school was a virgin. We had very strict rules. It was a public school, but you couldn't let your hair touch the collar of your shirt and you weren't allowed to wear jeans - much unlike the schools are today where I don't know what the standards are. On the other hand, we had I don't know how many National Merit Scholarships and people went to Harvard, MIT, Yale, Dartmouth, and Georgetown from our school - so you do the math. We had a rather strict school and we had people of enormous success and achievement.
It's seems that during those times there were less choices.
I think people always have choices, it's just whether they choose to make them or not. Everyone thinks that choices are handed out by some big divine intervention, but they're not. We make choices every day of our lives, no matter what you do, at any age. People talk about decisions that are made, our parents were at war at 19 years old - fighting and dying and being wounded for their country. I think that we've been up until now a rather indulgent nation, and now I think we're starting to become more serious adults. The word "choices" is just one of those propaganda words. You have choices every day and you make them every day.
What attracted you to the role?
I've done so many movies in my life and I'm not really interested in doing programmers anymore. Anytime there is an issue that I'm kind of interested in and I don't know a lot about - when I read the script I thought it was an intriguing investigation in what it's like to evolve from a girl to a woman. As a man, there's not much I know about that. It's just interesting to see the kind of challenges that women face and the little issues that men don't think are really relevant, but are probably really relevant to girls as they're maturing and the mistakes they can make because biologically they can be burdened with pregnancy, and all it's consequences. I thought it would be kind of interesting to just be around that and see what it was about. I thought it was in the hands of really responsible people - Penny and Jim Brooks - and I know Drew is a wonderful actress. I just thought it would be a fun journey to take, a fun thing to investigate. I know Penny is so detail-oriented that we'd probably find some really funny, very human things along the way. She appears to have achieved that.
Is this the first time you've worked with Penny?
Yes it is. We've been friends for years. I got this part from the way we have "worked" before. Penny loves to consider scripts she just might do. She's a very detailed, in the best sense, obsessive person. Whenever she thinks about doing a movie, she sometimes invites all her friends over to her house at a table like this and we do a reading. She'll get wonderful actors like Mark Wahlberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, or people like Lorraine or Ellen Barkin - she just gets good people together. You might not be right for a part, but you just read so she can hear it. One day she called me up and said, "I'm reading young girls for the movie I'm doing - 'Riding in Cars with Boys.'" She said, "Will you come over to my house, we're auditioning? Would you just read the dad with them to kind of help me out?" I said sure, so that it wouldn't be a casting director reading it, and she'd get a sense of how good the kids were. And I read with her final choice, Mika Boorem, who ended up getting the part. And I didn't think anything about it. We had a great time because she's a very talented little girl - she's really nice - and I knew the results were good but she was very easy to work with. About six months later she (Marshall) called and asked if I'd like to do this movie. I said I would but I'm so wrong for it. I can't sing, I don't cry easily or ever, and I don't sound Italian-American and I don't look like a cop. I said I look like a skinny Iowa farmer - I don't think I belong in this group. She said, "No, I kind of liked it, it's not clichéd." So she kind of beat me up and made me do it. Then I was doing another movie and I couldn't get down there for a month and a half - they kept delaying the other movie. It was a nightmare. But once I got there it was a lot of fun. They had to shoot around me for a long time and I kept saying you should probably replace me because I didn't think I'd ever finish on the other movie.
If you were the father of a pregnant 15 year-old and she said she didn't know what to do - what would you say?
Well, you know it's hard to say because this is just speculation. I can't imagine that happening to me because I hope I'd sort of instill that in my daughter. My brother's had this talk with his daughter saying this isn't about doing anything right or wrong, what this is about is the whole world is ahead of you and you'll always have time to make this choice in your life. But there are still many other choices you can have as a girl about to become a woman, and your whole life is ahead of you and all the wonderful things you can do, as well as do this with somebody in the future. You don't have to do it now so just be very careful when you're tempted to do things. Hopefully that would work but if it didn't, then I'd just try to help her through it as best I could, I guess. It's so hard to speculate hypothetically. It's interesting - I think we shot that scene where he gets the news - the first time we shot it it was a much more comedic scene. I mean it was where they all thought he was going to scream and yell, when in fact he's crying like a baby. It's like the big soft Italian father, and it was very funny. But it was a little too funny and we didn't think it was the right choice in the writing. Penny didn't think so, and I agreed with her. So we shot it later and she said, "What would you say?" I said I'd say, "You're really special, you're my first child, and you're great and wonderful, and you've just ruined your life now. I don't know what to do, you've broken my heart." He would say that, I wouldn't say that to a child. But that's kind of what his way is to deal with it, because he is so brokenhearted. In that time and that culture - this was not like it is now where everyone has a right to do what they want. People actually seemed to have more of a sense of responsibility and they were more aware of the consequences.
How do you handle fans?
I'm famous for being nicer to my fans than anyone on the face of the Earth because I figure a) They pay my salary, and b) It's probably like a big moment in your life to meet somebody so I would say, just come on up. I've never had a problem with a fan in my life. They usually come up and say "Gee I enjoy your work" or "You're one of my favorite actors." It's kind of an inhumane way of looking at one person as being sort of more special just because they make movies - but I understand why people feel that because the media has made some kind of silly element out of us being celebrities. Celebrity - I don't even know what that means. Obviously it's the same basic word as celebration, but I don't know what's being celebrated. Anyway, I kind of go out of my way to talk to them (the fans) about them.
It's very rewarding, to answer your question. There are people who come up and it really means a lot to have them meet you. I have a special thing because I did "My Name is Bill W" so I have a lot of people who are recovering alcoholics coming up to me, and they very clearly understand I'm not that character. They all sort of know that I was never in AA or an alcoholic, or had any of those problems that a lot of celebrities had, but they really appreciate that as an untroubled person, in that sense, that I was dedicated to that, and I promoted that, and was aware of the impact potentially in people's lives. And also, my work is generally more along the kind of material driven lines, rather than success or money driven, so with that comes the fact that I'm involved in projects that have some meaning to people about certain things politically or emotionally or morally. So, I get kind of a little more serious following. As well as my 4-year-old fans, who, of course, are "Hercules" fans. I have to tell this because it happened. A little girl - 5 or 6 years old - asked me for my autograph, and I said sure. I assumed she hadn't seen "Once Upon a Time in America" so I asked, "Did you see "Hercules?" She said, "No, no, but I saw his movie." That's worth all of it - all the aggravation.
Whose work still knocks you out?
There are a lot of people who do. As directors, the Coen Brothers knock me out. They are phenomenal, just great filmmakers. As actors, Russell Crowe I always find very compelling. If you take away the tabloid stuff, and the big movie stuff, like "Gladiator," if you look at his work in "LA Confidential," I thought he was fantastic, and really good in "The Insider" - and terrific in "Gladiator," by the way. It's not easy to do that stuff seriously. You have to get over the sand and sandals kind of clichéd look and do it with a commitment, which he did. It's not easy to do. I find myself compelled by him. DeNiro is still one of our greatest actors. There are so many young actors coming up who are good. Cameron Diaz has sort of reinvented the charm and joy of watching what a woman can be on screen, without a political agenda. Actually just be charming as a woman, and talk about somebody who loves to see fantasy or escape - someone who actually just loves to smile. Someone who is really thrilled about being pretty and charming and witty and bright. All those things that we find attractive in anybody, but as a man, particularly in a woman. What a miracle - she smiles, she's an amazing movie star. Someone else is grumpy and it's like "Get her off the screen." Two of our biggest movie stars are Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz, and they smile onscreen. Something people have forgotten about doing for 30 years.
Since the devastation of Sept. 11th, and with the bombings of Afghanistan - from a Hollywood perspective - can we ever be the same?
I don't know the answer to that. I don't know whether being the same would be such a good thing anyways. I've seen a lot of very positive things come out of this horrible event, in terms of our solidarity as a country and our seriousness about our purpose. Maybe that will make for more serious films in the future, as well, in terms of a greater focus in what we do and how we try to affect people. I hope.
How has this affected you personally?
It's affected me in a positive way because I've been so incredibly moved by how supportive people are for the victims of the terror attacks. I've been very pleased to see the degree of solidarity that we have with the people of our nation and other nations that have the same civilized values. It's been an extraordinary time of support and giving and caring, and really true patriotism - in the sense of caring about all of our citizens together, each of us for each other, for the country, and for our values. It's been like Dickens - these are the best of times, and the worst of times. Sometimes the way you respond to horrific, evil deeds is the measure of one's self as a man, as a nation, as people, as a community.
Does it have an even larger affect because we are at a time in history when everyone can access instant information?
Yes, there is an upside and a downside to being interconnected. There's a lot of gossip, but you also get a greater pulse of how people feel and what people think. We are not presumed to think a certain way just because the little news media tells us we have to think a certain way. People have their own responses and pretty much disregard things that they think are foolish and embrace things they think are intelligent for them - things that feed their notion of how things should be. But it seems to be amazing to me how clearly connected we all are, and focused we all are.
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