Aidan Quinn is in demand, well paid, and respected by his peers. Yet he's not a big star, and he likes it that way. Here he talks about everything from doing nude scenes and kissing men to working for "insane" directors and the importance of saying "I love you."
Aidan Quinn and I are tramping through Central Park. We are, you could say, at play in the fields of Manhattan. It's an unpleasant summer day: the humidity is intrusive and the temperature's hotter than the sex in 1984's Reckless, Quinn's first film. Even this heat, though, seems no excuse for Quinn's unfabulous outfit: a white T-shirt, black jeans and brown Birkenstock sandals. Maybe, though, it's actually perfect that Quinn has opted for this sensible attire. Maybe he gave it some thought: the weather, the drive into the city from New Jersey, the anonymity he'd need among the midtown rabble.
With this in mind, I ask him if he ever plans anything before being interviewed. "Not really," he says, as we scramble down a slope and into a glade rife with raucous children. "I don't care. I mean, I've been stupid in the past, and I've learned from that. Some actors actually think about what they're going to talk about during the interview--they read up and meditate and plan quotes and get all inspired. It's very smart, but it's so planned. I never think to do that."
Because, if you ask me, he's too busy rummaging through his closet, searching for some getup guaranteed to make absolutely no impact. And, if you're still asking, I think he picks his roles the way he selects his wardrobe. Over the past decade, Quinn has amassed an impressive body of work in movies, television and theater, and he's performed with consistent excellence. He's won hearts and he's won nominations. Yet his name still elicits puzzled expressions from most people. He's the most famous actor who's not quite famous. Why? Perhaps because he's always done what he thought was the right thing: he's made illogical choices, taken up causes, fought with directors, rewritten scripts and selected substance over celebrity. In effect, he's worn Birkenstocks throughout his career.
Quinn, his wife and their young daughter live in New Jersey and upstate New York, so the landscape of Central Park must feel familiar to him. We're dodging cars to get to the park's grassy places: Central Park may be bucolic, but it has its share of roads. Like Los Angeles. "I like to visit L.A.," he says, "and I love L.A. when someone puts me up in a hotel and pays for my per diem. And I love all the tropical smells..."
Wait a minute. I remind him that, in 1984, he told a magazine he was "essentially a socialist," that it was "sick the way people spend money in Hollywood," that he "can't see staying in expensive hotels and riding in limousines." Has that attitude changed?
"God, yes!" he admits, laughing. "Well, that was before I made a home... I still don't like limousines, or get a kick out of being singled out as something special, that status thing. That doesn't do anything but embarrass me.
"Money is just something to be circulated," he says a minute later. "When you have a family and a couple of mortgages and you work in a business that is more a business than it is an art, then money is important." A limo passes, and he adds, "I still feel very conflicted about it."
I remind him that back in 1984, he also said, "Money makes you crazy." He said he believed "multimillion-dollar contracts for one movie are ridiculous. And immoral."
"Well, they are," he states now. "Not that I've ever made a million dollars for a part in a movie! So I don't have to worry about that obscenity, yet. I make very good money, but people really have no idea that if you have an agent, a manager, a business manager, an accountant, and a press agent you literally get thirty cents out of a dollar. I don't believe anymore that money is inherently evil. That's a really bullshit philosophy."
And speaking of bullshit philosophies: when he tells me he enjoys only a few cigarettes a day--"in the morning, after eating, and with tea at night"--I realize that enjoy must be the operative word, because he's lighting one after the other as we walk.
We finally arrive at the outdoor cafe by the zoo, and after we've settled at a wrought-iron table under the shade of a large tree, I tell him I want to go over his movies one by one, and hear some anecdotes.
"Oh God, I'm horrible at that," he says. "I wish I'd known..."
"Reckless," I begin. "You were publicly negative about it when it came out."
"Okay," he says, with a shrug. "First of all, I loved making it, contrary to what you've picked up. I had a great time. You know, I'm grateful to that film: one, it put me on the map; two, it gave me great reviews, even when the critics hated the film; three, it started my career. What disturbed me was that Jamie [Foley] was a first-time director. He was 29. I was 22. I have a collaborative mentality: you work on something and make it better. There's rarely a script you don't have to change. Even when you're working on something that's brilliantly written, like Avalon. So, I was disappointed in the outcome of Reckless, and I was naive enough to be somewhat public about it. On the one hand, insecure; on the other hand, arrogant--they go hand-in-hand. I mean, I'd asked, warned MGM not to send me out for publicity because I wasn't crazy about the movie, and I didn't know how to lie. I really didn't--now I do!"
Quinn laughs. "Now, to this day, my wife can't stand that I have a negative reaction to Reckless. She, like, thinks it's, you know, like, a good movie for what it is."
He can't even come right out and say that someone else likes it. I ask him if he has softened his opinion about it lately.
"I... I haven't watched it."
"Do you have it on video?"
"I have 'em all on video," he says. "But I never watch them. Never."
Wasn't there some trouble involving the sex scene with Daryl Hannah in the high-school boiler room?
"No. My problem with it was that Daryl had a problem with it. Daryl had a tremendously hard time with those sex scenes, and I felt bad for her. She'd say that those scenes weren't in her script, and I'd say, 'What?!' Jamie would say that was bullshit, and they'd start fighting. So it was extremely uncomfortable. I thought we could just do some kissing or something she'd be comfortable with."
Here's what I really want to know: "Was there anything between you and Daryl Hannah, the future Mrs. Kennedy? It sure looks like there was."
"We had a really interesting, hot-and-cold relationship," Aidan says, training those ice-blue eyes directly on me. "Like, we really, really liked each other and were supportive of each other, and then we really, like, got under each other's skin and couldn't stand each other. There was a real cat-and-mouse thing."
"Did you have sex with her?"
Aidan looks away from me and smiles. "I'm not gonna tell you," he says. "I wouldn't answer that."
"You showed your dick in that movie," I say, unloading the other barrel.
"You know, my wife says I did that," he says, unfazed, "but I don't remember doing that. In what scene?"
In the shower, I tell him. "You're washing, in profile, and you've got your dick hanging there."
"You see my dick? That's unbelievable."
What's unbelievable is that he doesn't remember.
"I'm of two minds about that," Quinn remarks. "On the one hand, I never wanna be naked in a movie in the American system; on the other hand, it's ridiculous that there's so much attention put on it. People should be naked all the time, because that's part of life."
And now with video there's pause, slow motion, single-frame, and you can print a still and fax it to your friends.
"Exactly," he says. "Exactly. My thing about looking good is that it should be the character. If I'm playing a character who's concerned about his body--an athlete, say--I'll get in shape. If I'm playing a character who doesn't or wouldn't, I don't. I almost never get in shape for a movie, even though I know it would be a good career move. I hate seeing movies where a poor fuckin' sharecropper in the '30s takes his shirt off and he's fuckin' cut, with a washboard stomach and perfectly chiseled muscles that no farmer would ever have, that you can only get from intensive workouts with a trainer, isolating muscles. It drives me crazy! On the other hand, if you're a leading man and you're good-looking, it's definitely a good career thing to do."
So, of course, Quinn wouldn't do it. "Next, we have Desperately Seeking Susan," I say. "You have the distinction of being in Madonna's only good movie."
"Right," he says. "I thought she was great. Terrific." He stubs out his cigarette, twists the paper end closed, and places the butt next to the other ones he's collecting on the plastic cafe tray.
"Is it true you didn't get along with Susan Seidelman?"
"Susan and I had some disagreements, certainly," he says. "Yeah. Again, about the same kind of issues. The thing with Susan was about changing things in the script, and finally we came to an agreement: I would do a scene her way, and she would let me do it my way. She used most of mine. There was a lot of strife on that set, a lot of shenanigans. Most of the cast and crew thought that movie was gonna be a turkey, and when they saw it they were pleasantly surprised. Usually it's the other way around."
Stakeout?
"I had a good supporting role, playing a psycho killer. I think a big-name actor dropped out at the last minute."
Who?
"I think it was Val Kilmer, I'm not sure. Again, it was one of those things where I said, 'Yeah, but let's work on the script.' And [director] John Badham and Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez were very amenable to me coming aboard. So we worked on the script."
"I didn't see The Lemon Sisters" I tell him.
"It's not a good movie," he says. "But it was a fun part. Carol Kane is a friend of mine and she kept begging me to do it. So, I basically did it as a favor to her."
"The Handmaid's Tale," I say. "Saw it, liked it. It was fun."
"Fun?" he asks.
"Entertaining. No?"
"Well, I was, you know, I'm very critical." He lights another Virginia Slims cigarette with a match. "I was disappointed in the movie," he says. "But certainly it was a very worthy project. I worked with great people; I had a great time with Natasha [Richardson]. And I got to meet Robert Duvall and have some scenes with him." He leans forward. "I went on to co-star with him. I think he's one of the best, he really is. You can never catch that guy acting."
"I can never catch you acting either," I tell him. "It's always as if the camera has snuck up on you."
"Yeah, I like that style," he says. "I would, however, not like to be married to that style all the time. I would love, more than anything, to do an out-and-out farce with huge physical energy. Just because you're from the minimalist school, it doesn't mean you can't go big. I enjoy humor, and it's something I've gotten very little chance to explore. I don't get offered those parts. And if I don't get offered a part, I don't get a part. Ever."
Just at this moment, we're interrupted by a clutch of New York youths, shrieking on the path outside the cafe. "Someone got shit on," Quinn says, looking over my shoulder.
"Thank God no one was hurt."
What an odd reaction to birdshit, I think, in a city better known for its gunplay.
"I was once shit on by a mother starling," he explains, "as I was observing how cute she and her three little ones were. I was saying to, like, 12 people, 'Ohhh, look...' and she shit right in my eye! It really stung, like acid. I was staggering around and falling down and the people were splitting their sides laughing. See, I enjoy those types of scenes. Slapstick happens in life."
Like that experience in a gay bar in Chicago?
"Well," he says, amused, "I was in a gay punk bar that was owned by two gay friends of mine. This was when I lived in Chicago. It was the best dance bar for alternative new-wave music in the early '80s. There was this incredible-looking black woman sitting at the bar. I was playing pool, and she kept ogling me. And I kept ogling her. It was 50-cents-a-shot schnapps night, and I was gettin' better 'n' better on the pool table. And she was enjoyin' me more 'n' more, and startin' to say things to me that were really funny. Well, it didn't take long till we were in the men's bathroom. And we were... kissing. And we were goin' at it." He's warming into the story. "And I was kissing her, and all of a sudden I ran my hand down her neck and looked at her Adam's apple--and it was big. And I looked at her shoulders, and they were big. And then I looked at her hands..."
"And they were big?"
He nods. "And I went, 'Oh my God! You're a man!' " he says, laughing. "And I went tearing outta there. And the whole bar knew what was happening the whole night. They were hysterical. I mean, I actually got to the point where I was kissing him. It wasn't like, you know, that movie, but it could've been very close."
"We're up to Avalon now," I say, "but I think I skipped over The Mission."
"Yeah, I made that film so I could work with Robert De Niro," he says.
"You died right in the beginning of that. You looked so authentic in The Mission, the way you carried yourself, the way the clothes seemed to belong to you."
"I like period films," Quinn says. "I did a lot of work on posture. I loved putting on those clothes and getting to play around. I still have that vest and I wear it occasionally, to premieres and stuff. People think I'm a hippie."
"That's all you got?"
"Yeah, the rest was rented; they wouldn't give it to me. I only had a small part."
Okay, Avalon.
"That was a great experience," Quinn says, and I expect him to add a but..., a hello-sweetheart-get-me-a-rewrite brouhaha. Instead, he tells me, "It was a kind of charmed film, where you really had the feeling that as much fun as we were having making it, it was gonna turn out commensurately that well. And it did. Loved working with Barry Levinson, the cast got along, we hung together. I liked being in Baltimore."
"You liked being in Baltimore? Do you usually hang out with the cast? Are you sociable?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sociable, if there's time for it. When you're doing a lead role on location and you're in every scene, you work six days and then you sleep.'"
"At Play in the Fields of the Lord was some location, right?"
"That was an unbelievably difficult and... challenging experience," he says. "I don't regret it. But I don't know if I'd go back into it willingly again. It wasn't the jungle--I loved the jungle. We were three months over schedule, and it was a true Heart of Darkness experience in terms of what was happening on the set every day. And what was happening to the movie. And what was happening to the director. And what was happening to the relations between people."
"I've heard it was a real horror for you," I say. "And that there were problems with director Hector Babenco."
"There were many horrors involved with it," he says. He crumples his empty Virginia Slims pack, adds it to the refuse on the tray, and takes a cigarette from me. "Hector, many, many times during that shoot, was not a sane person. He was insane. Ultimately, he and I respected each other, and he was not that cruel to me--because I don't allow it."
"What do you mean by cruel?"
"Well, when you're rehearsing a scene from seven o'clock in the morning until one o'clock in the afternoon in the jungle, in the heat, with full emotion, no camera, no viewfinder, just so he can get an idea of how he wants to shoot it, because he was so confused and so tormented--that, over a period of time, is tantamount to abuse. We had a good producer who made it worthwhile to be there, but he wasn't able to put any restrictions on Hector. So Hector could do whatever he wanted and keep us there as long as he wanted. Hector literally lost his mind a few times. I feel for him, in a way; I hope he's sorted out some of the demons that were comin' outta him. He's done some great work.
"There were a lot of cultural fights," he says. "We Americans were down there because we loved Peter Mathiessen's book, we loved the message. But between the North American idealism and the South American, um, total lack of idealism, there was a huge clash. A lot of us were adamant about not polluting the jungle, and the [South American] crew would indiscriminately kill any animal we came across.
"One day, the boom guy, Vito from Brooklyn, tried to stop the Brazilian crew from killing a tarantula. They were stompin' on it, and he was pullin' them off. And a fight almost broke out. I tried to intercede so the spider could escape. And Hector started yelling, 'You Americans make me sick: you killed two million people in Vietnam, but you don't want to kill a little spider.' He enjoyed inciting that kind of conflict." He puts out his cigarette and twists the end. "And, by the way, it was 58,000 people who died in Vietnam," he says.
"John Lithgow and Kathy [Bates] had their own problems with Hector, but they got along with him more often than I did. The thing about it is, I'm really an easy person to work with."
When he says this, it could be that my face experiences a brief, involuntary change of expression.
"When you print what I'm saying about these films," he says, "people are gonna think, 'Oh my God, this guy's difficult!' But if you ask the directors and the people I work with... I have a great time; I love the whole process. And I compromise, I'm not unyielding. There was a time, after I'd done Crusoe--which was another very, very difficult experience--when my wife said to me, 'You should think about doing something else.' I was miserable a lot of the time. Then, around the time that I was working with Barry Levinson, I decided to work with people I like and respect more often. With people who are sane. Do I want to go away for six months and work with a crazy person? No. Unless the crazy person is brilliant and worth it."
"Is Babenco crazy but worth it?"
"No," Quinn answers. A moment later, he recants, somewhat: "I love At Play in the Fields of the Lord. Babenco did a good job," he says with a shrug.
The Playboys is up next.
"I had a lovely time," he says of the experience that took him back to his native Ireland. "I always go for a story. And I loved that character."
I tell him how wonderful I think Robin Wright was in it, and he agrees. "And Sean Penn was there, so I didn't have to worry about the press," he says. "Sean took all the headlines, all the attention. They left me alone. Completely."
"What do you think of Benny & Joon?'
"I think it was a sweet, fablelike movie," he says. "That was another one where I came in at the last minute."
Replacing... ?
"Woody Harrelson. Boy, I was in a frenzy, 'cause I actually worked more than Johnny Depp or Mary Stuart Masterson. And it was the straight man, he had to be the emotional center, the responsi¬ble one. We had a wonderful time--the three of us were just like kids. Johnny was amazing. I think he's incredibly talented."
By now, Quinn's got a small mound of butts on his tray. I'm beginning to feel guilty about the collection forming at my feet, so I pick them off the ground and put them on the tray. "I usually stick 'em in my pocket," he says.
"What bothered me about Benny & Joon," I tell him, "is that your character, Benny, never tells Joon that he loves her, never hugs her. She really needed a hug."
"It's funny you should say that. It drove me crazy, too. That was the director's choice. He felt it was stronger if we said it with our eyes, that Benny wasn't that type. I disagreed.
"I have a big family," he says, "and 'I love you' wasn't said a lot growing up. But once we reached a certain age--late teens--and went through some difficulties, we started to say it all the time. It's important."
Blink.
"Good popcorn movie," he says. I grimace. "You didn't like that one?"
"There was nothing to like. Although you and Madeleine Stowe were good in it, the story and dialogue were awful. Was it the money?"
"Well... no, it wasn't the money. It was an opportunity to play a character and work with director Michael Apted. We knew the script had some problems, and we worked on it a lot and it got a lot better. You know, you get older and a lot of dreams fade, because of your life and because of the way you are, or whatever, but it would be hard for me to not do a film in a decent role that Michael would want me to do. 'Cause it's important to me to work with someone I really like."
"Are you a big star?"
"No."
"Do you want to be?"
"No," he says. "And now you're gonna hear the same boring answer you hear from all actors in my kinda range: you would like to be a bigger name so you get better choices, so you get offered the better scripts first."
"You're a good actor, you get good parts, you're well known," I say, "but you're not famous like, say, Alec Baldwin. Is it your fault?"
"Yes, definitely," Quinn says. "A lot of it is my fault, because it doesn't interest me. And I break the rules all the time: I should be doing this one, and instead I do The Playboys. I don't care if one's going to be a commercial hit--this I don't like, and this I like. You do have to think careerwise sometimes in this business, but I think I think enough about my career. I make a tremendous amount of money, and I'm very well respected. I just don't get the consideration that big stars get as far as scripts go, or as far as input goes."
All that may change after his next three films hit the fans. The first one up is Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, starring Branagh and De Niro. I tell Aidan that I've read the book and it's nice that the Frankensteins finally get to tell their side of the story. "Yeah, well it's certainly not everything that her book was," he says. "You couldn't do her book. But it takes more from her book then any other version has."
Does De Niro play the monster as sensitive?
"Yeah. I'll bet you he'll be incredible. I had some scenes with him. Now and then it's nice to do a supporting role--I get to work with great people, I get time off, and I don't have to worry about carrying the movie."
Then there's Legends of the Fall, directed by Ed Zwick and starring Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins, "a big, classic, epic kind of movie," according to Quinn. "Brad is actually hugely responsible for me being in it. He wanted me to do the movie really badly."
Is he a fan?
"Yeah, definitely. And I'm a fan of his. He does some work in this movie you've never seen come outta Brad. This movie was a serious journey for the actors who worked on it. With the exception of Anthony Hopkins, who has the amazing ability to be hysterically funny one second about the absurdities of acting, then a moment later would blow your socks off with a great performance the second the director said 'action.'
"I wonder if that title's gonna change," Quinn says about the third big film he has finished, The Stars Fell on Henrietta, due out next year. He co-stars with Robert Duvall. "It's a big production in a way, but a simple story. It's from Warner Bros, with Clint Eastwood producing. I play a poor sharecropper in Texas in the '30s."
"With a washboard stomach?"
"No, none of that," he says, laughing.
Well, I didn't think so. That would be a good career move.
"One of the things my representatives have convinced me of is that it's time for me to get my due as an actor," he says, as he gets up to dump our butts into an environmentally correct receptacle. "So, with these three movies coming out, I'm gonna be out there a little more."
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Stephen Saban interviewed Robert Altman for the October 1993 Movieline.