Gabriel Byrne: Talent to Byrne

"What was the first movie you made?"

"Excalibur. John Boorman very kindly put me in it. He asked me to be one of the knights. It was a horrendous experience. I couldn't imagine how people wanted to make films for a living. I couldn't believe that you had to do things over and over again. I thought that what happened was, they put the camera down, and you did the scene and, somehow, the camera magically got all the angles. I kept saying, 'You mean we have to do that fucking scene with the horse again?' We did it Friday, and now it's Monday, and I'm still on the fucking horse. That movie did absolutely nothing for me in terms of getting more work. I was still in Ireland, and nobody came knocking. And then, in the same haphazard way, I went to London."

"And made your big move?"

"Well, some actors are really blessed. There's so much luck in this business. You can be in your first movie and the movie is a hit, and you get to play great parts from then on, and you have it made. Or you can be a schmuck who's in 50 movies, if you're lucky, and maybe one hits, finally. Like Daniel Day-Lewis was in a movie that broke through. What was it called?"

"My Left Foot!"

"No, it was My Beautiful something..."

"The Unbearable..."

"Yes," Byrne says with a smile, "it was The Unbearable Heaviness of Movies."

"No," I say, "I believe the proper title was The Unbearable Pain of My Beautiful Left Foot."

"And as I was saying," he says through his laughter. "What the fuck was I saying?"

"So are you blessed, or one of the schmucks?"

"Well, the movie I made called Defence of the Realm was big in England, but there's no film industry over there, so it didn't make much difference. I came to America when I was 37 or 38, and nobody here knew who I was."

"And ...?"

"And I did Hello Again..."

What I am imagining is this sturdy, talented guy, fresh off the boat from Europe to make his big career move. He gets teamed up with Shelley Long, who is riding her success with Bette Midler in Outrageous Fortune, and together they're roped into a major Disney flick, which turns out to be one of the biggest disasters in moviemaking history. But all I can manage to say is, "Hello Again?"

Byrne turns red, and gives me his theory of how-good-actors-get-involved-with-bad-movies. "It's quirky the way these things go," he begins. "I had turned down Raging Bull, and Robert De Niro had turned down Hello Again. He really wanted to do Hello Again, but I got Hello Again, so he settled for Raging Bull."

I try to interject here, but Gabriel's on a roll now, and I can't get a word in edgewise.

"When you're involved in a film, it's about that time in your life, and how you got on with everyone, and the location and how much you liked it or didn't. When I look at a movie of mine, it produces really ambivalent feelings. In one way, you think, 'Oh God, that moment is captured forever. There it is.' But the time that surrounds that moment is gone forever. When I hear people being nostalgic about a place, I think, it's not the place they're talking about...it's what was going on in their life at that time. And it's gone forever. You remember what the movie started out as, what it tried to be and, maybe, what it never became. It's so personal. It's difficult to feel hateful about a movie that I've done, even when they don't turn out good. Because nobody sets out to do a lousy movie. You look at it and you say, 'That was me at that time.' It's like looking at old photographs. I know some people who don't like to do that. I'm personally fascinated by other people's photographs. I'm the person who comes into your house and says, 'Go ahead, show me the home movies. Oh, that was your father, I see the resemblance.' Other people can say, 'That movie is crap, or it's fantastic' But I can't separate like that, even if you're in a movie that everyone says is brilliant. There are certain things that I won't do, and others that I will do, and maybe some that I shouldn't have done. Whatever other people's perceptions are, I'm in a very comfortable place with myself now, as a person, and in terms of my career. I've always done films that are a little bit off the beaten track, and I'm as far advanced as I think I should be at this stage and I haven't had to do anything to contradict the kind of person that I am."

Finally he takes a breath. I get a word in edgewise. "Did I imply that I didn't like Hello Again?"

He laughs. "Who knows why we do things sometimes? I did Siesta with Ellen, which some people think is the greatest film they ever saw. Of course, most of them are medicated. Then I did something with Kathleen Turner [Julia and Julia]. And then Miller's Crossing. Mostly small, art house, European movies in-between. About Miller's Crossing...God, I don't want to sound pretentious, but it's a sad reflection on people who go to movies. There are pieces of crap that make $400 million, and then here's a movie that people had to think about, and listen to, and it was about important things, friendships and morals, and yet it was set in that gangster genre. I just think it was too advanced for a lot of people, and it didn't have any big stars, and it was up against GoodFellas, and The Krays and King of New York. It was the wrong time to release it. But, having said that, I think it's a movie that will be around for a long time. As the Coens will be, because I think they're original and wonderful."

"Do you go to the movies a lot?"

"Yeah. All the time."

"Jesus, you really are different from the other actors I interview. They always say, 'God this is so embarrassing, and I know I should go to the movies, but I'm so busy and I'm so blah, blah, blah...'"

"How can you not go to the movies and read? My favorite movies are the French, Italian and European films. The Masters...Truffaut, Fellini, Fassbinder..."

"All the sad stuff. It's like you're still waiting for Beth to be resurrected."

"Exactly. I have the tape of Cinema Paradiso here, which I've already seen twice. My Life as a Dog..."

"So you read, you go to the movies, you're married, you have a young son. You almost sound normal."

"Well, acting isn't my whole life. It's a great job. I work hard for 26 weeks a year, I make about two films a year, and I get paid pretty well for that time. But the rest of the time is mine. And that's wonderful. When I'm done with the movie, I like to be gone, to be in places where people don't know that much about the movies."

"They don't seem to know what to do with you Irish actors out here in Hollywood."

"Oh, I don't know about that. The only worry is that you'll be forever typecast, strictly because you sound a certain way. Ever since I heard Sean Connery in some movie saying, 'I've lived in the desert all my life, and speaking as an Arab ...' And you're thinking, 'No fucking way you're an Arab, Sean.' But who cares? Who gives a shit if he's from Edinburgh or Addis Ababa? I'm delighted to see all those stereotypes being broken. Let Kevin Costner play Robin Hood. Let Sean Connery play an Arab. I think it's great. It means that actors won't be categorized by the way they sound. It's bad enough that we're judged by how we look ..."

"You don't really have to worry," I say, pointing out the obvious. "You have real leading-man's looks."

"What I have, Martha, is ... hair. Touch wood." He runs his hands through the thick mass and laughs.

A knock on the door startles both of us. It's the makeup man, asking if Byrne can come to the trailer for a touch-up. Which he can, only I haven't gotten around to asking about his two new films, Into the West, which he stars in and produced, and Cool World, which pairs him not only with Brad Pitt, but with Kim Basinger, and Ralph Bakshi animation as well. So I tell him that he can't even think about leaving until he tells me about the two films and anything else I haven't gotten to yet. Byrne continues in the same unhurried tone, throwing caution, and makeup, to the wind.

"Into the West was done in Europe. It was written by Jim Sheridan, and I was an associate producer. I developed it, brought it to Harvey Weinstein at Miramax and got it financed. It's the story of two boys and a magical horse that comes from under the sea who brings them on a journey across Ireland to find their mother, who's dead. It's set among the gypsies in Ireland. Ellen plays one of the gypsies, and she's fantastic. But I always say that, don't I? Anyhow, I'm thrilled with it. I think people will really relate to it. It's in the European tradition of movies.

"And in Cool World, I play an American. Don't ask me to do the accent, please. That's the hardest thing to do. I practiced 'how now brown cow' for weeks. I wonder how well American actors would do if they had to go to England and speak with British accents. It's like being at a party, and all of a sudden everyone turns to look at you and they're saying, 'Now, do your song and dance.' And they're listening with their instinctive, intuitive ears. So you feel a bit intimidated by that in the beginning."

"So it's live-action combined with cartoons. And Kim Basinger ... tell me about the woman who's perfect to play a caricature."

Byrne, ever the diplomat, just smiles. Broadly.

"Ralph Bakshi directed it," he says. "He's incredible. It's half-cartoon, half-real. My character, Jack, is someone who went to jail because he killed his wife's lover. Which, if you ask me, is a pardonable offense. You can't hate a guy who does that. If he was a guy who killed 12 innocent people then, well, he doesn't deserve to be in the rest of the movie. But because he killed his wife's lover, they figured the audience would say, 'Well, he had a point.' So, though I've been to jail, I have the audience's sympathy."

"Why do men always shoot the lover, and not the wife?"

"I made that point myself. I said, 'Why did I kill him?' Men always go for the men, not the wife. It's a rationalization to protect yourself. I don't know what I'd do in that situation. I'd probably say to her, well, theoretically I can understand it. But I'm afraid I have to kill you too, honey."

Ellen, are you listening?

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Martha Frankel interviewed Ethan Hawke for our March issue.

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