James Woods: Out of the Woods?

Knowing that conventional in Tinseltown is unlike conventional anywhere else, I ask Woods whether, as a bachelor about town, he ever trafficked with Heidi Fleiss or one of her equivalents. "I cannot imagine why a man would want to go to a prostitute," he says. "Why would I want to be intimate with somebody who doesn't care whether you live or die? They'd rather you be dead, so that they could steal your wallet. All that high-class call-girl bullshit? I don't care if you're at some Saudi Arabian sheik's house for $100,000 a night or you're blowing a guy in a car on Sunset Boulevard, a whore is a cock-sucking whore. I loathe whores, I loathe people who go to them. I would shoot myself first. A whore hates herself, hates the world, hates you by definition. When this [Fleiss] thing came out, I said, 'Why are they jeopardizing their marriages, their careers, their lives, over a whore?'"

Hey, just asking. After all, judging by his track record, long-lasting relationships with women may not be the thing he's best at. "I've had the shit pounded out of me every single time," he concurs. "The problem with everybody in Hollywood is that they want the BBD--the bigger, better deal. So, you think, 'Christ, man, my marriage depends upon my movie grosses! God forbid if the picture doesn't make a hundred million.' My marriages have been hurt because with so many women, you go to a party and the guy with the picture in the top five moneymakers happened to be there and goodbye, it's over. I mean, you have to check the party guest list to make sure you're not going to get a divorce that night."

Whether he's going stag these days or not, there's no question that Woods looks in great shape, lean and hungry. What pulled him through his ordeals? He tells me, "I quit smoking and every single day, I remember thinking, 'Well, at least I don't smoke.' It was one little thing to hold on to. The other thing I had to hold on to was the fact that my whole life had been one of a spotless reputation. I don't drink. I don't do drugs or beat my wife or gamble or do any of the bad things in life that people are haunted by. And also, I had this really terrific body of work, thank God, of which I could simply be proud. That took the curse off this confluence of events that was simply a string of bad luck and of not paying attention to the signs. I lament the missed opportunities in my life while I was busy tussling with the devil. But I decided, 'I'll lick my wounds later,' then I literally performed a bootstrap operation on my career and worked my ass to the bone."

Work, he has. I tell him how disappointed I am that he and Sharon Stone--who years ago was beaten out by Sean Young to co-star with Woods in The Boost--didn't cause a scandal or two while making The Specialist. "We had our little moments of 'actor intensity,'" he says, laughing, "but she has a terrific sense of humor. I'd say stuff like, 'Sharon, in this scene, do you think you could do such-and-such?' and she'd say, 'Well, I could have if you'd hired me for The Boost.' There's a scene where my character beats the shit out of her and I asked Rod Steiger if I could borrow something he did in In the Heat of the Night where he hit a guy with a lot of small slaps, which is very humiliating. Sharon said, 'Go ahead, do it. Don't bruise me.' What started as six or seven little slaps wound up, with 10 different takes, to be, like 60. I could tell it was really bothering her. It's really unsettling. Here's this multimillionaire movie star having to be degraded and humiliated and she was an absolute champion about it. I don't know why people trash her so much. She's really a movie star on-screen, absolutely electric and edgy."

I tell Woods how standup I think it is that a guy whose penis has been so talked-about publicly, by everyone from Dana Delany to Sean Young, chose to let it all hang out in a scene in Curse of the Starving Class. In fact, at the screening I attended, when the notorious Woods member appeared on-screen, a woman nearby turned to her companion and said, "What's the big deal?" When I tell him, Woods laughs off the subject, as well as the much-publicized comments about said appendage. "To have to end up naked in the rain holding a lamb--very Biblical New Testament imagery--with a crew of 100 big Waxahachie, Texas drivers and all, and these huge rain bars overhead to provide a downpour, I wasn't thinking about being exposed. I'm playing a man completely in alcohol dementia in that scene. A long way across the field, this big Texas guy bellows, 'Mr. Woods?' and the whole crew stops. I said, 'Yes, sir,' thinking this guy is going to beat the shit out of me with a crowbar saying, 'Are you crazy running around naked in Texas?' Instead, he said, 'I just want to say it's an honor to work with you because you're giving art to people and putting your heart and soul into it.'"

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