James Woods: Out of the Woods?

Fine, fine. But where, in the career dossier of a guy who seems born to weird-out in Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese movies, are his Tarantino and Scorsese movies? This strikes a nerve. "It's so bizarre that you're saying this--are you aware that I'm doing a Scorsese movie?" Woods asserts, peering at me oddly, telling me how he'd just landed a role in Casino with Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci. How did it happen? "About four months ago I heard about Casino, in which there were two leads and the rest are just cameo roles. Toni Howard, one of my new agents at ICM, said, 'Every agent in town calls Scorsese, it's like hitting a brick wall. I'd never recommend this usually, but how would you feel about going in yourself?' I called, talked to his secretary and said something most agents don't want you to say: 'Take this down verbatim: Jimmy Woods called and said he will work for you anywhere, anytime, in any part, for any price.' And I got an offer to play this wonderful, pivotal part, only a week's work, like, five little scenes, but the character precipitates the whole debacle of the script. So, how did it happen? I just asked."

The pointed way in which Woods had uttered "new agent" wasn't lost on me. After all, before recently moving to ICM, he'd been represented by Creative Artists Agency for over a decade, during which time he was doing award-winning turns in TV movies while losing out on such roles as the heavy in Philadelphia. While he goes out of his way to say nice things about the industriousness of his former agents, he nonetheless attributes some of his recent career woes to them. "People want to see me do powerful, great characters flying at the edge of the envelope or really bizarre, wacky comedy. I don't think trying to make me a conventional leading man working in 'these sort of fluffy movies was the right move. I'm really not that guy. Bobby De Niro is not that guy. Anytime one of us tries to do that, everybody goes, 'What are you doing? All CAA thinks about is the biggest salary you can get, period. My [former] agents were saying stuff like, 'If you star in a movie with so-and-so, and it makes $100 million, then you can work with anybody.' I said, 'You know what? I beg to differ. I don't think that if you do a movie with Pauly Shore, with all due respect, Sydney Pollack is then going to hire you.'"

Sighing deeply, he observes, "If there was anybody meant to star in a Tarantino movie, it's me. Ten days after I went with Toni Howard and Ed Limato at ICM, they sent me up to meet Tarantino. The first words out of his mouth were, 'Finally, I get to meet James Woods.' I'm sitting there thinking, 'I haven't worked on a decent movie in two years and he's saying this?' I said, 'What do you mean?' and he said, 'I wrote Mr. So-and-So in Reservoir Dogs for you.' I don't want to say the exact role because the actor who played the role is really wonderful. I said, 'Look, I've had a really bad year, so could you explain why you didn't offer it to me if you wrote it for me?' He said, 'We made a cash offer five times.' Of course, it was for less an amount than my [former] agents would want me to work for, but that's not the point. I wanted to cry. I'd rather work for a third of my salary and make Reservoir Dogs.

"But I didn't get to do Reservoir Dogs, didn't get to know Quentin, so I didn't get to do True Romance or Pulp Fiction. All because somebody else decided money was more important. They were treating me like I was an idiot. I told my new agents, 'Never treat me like a child.' Now I'm getting 20 scripts a week, and the day before yesterday, I finished my fourth film in a row, and I've signed on to do two more. I made less money this year doing six movies than I made when I was at CAA doing two movies. And I couldn't be happier."

Oliver Stone will produce one of those two upcoming pictures, Killer, based on the journal of a condemned psycho killer who rehabilitated himself while doing time in Leavenworth in the '30s. Speaking of missed opportunities, I'd always heard that Stone bypassed Woods for the role Tommy Lee Jones landed in JFK, and when I ask for details, Woods replies, his voice dripping with disdain, "A young woman secretary mismanaged some communication between Oliver and me about two years ago and it caused an incredibly bad rift for about a year. Our friendship and our love for each other was victimized by somebody else's narcissism and carelessness and lying and stupidity."

An employee slip-up aside, didn't something more specific-- and decidedly more unpleasant--transpire around the time Stone made JFK? Woods admits, "Oliver offered me a part in JFK and my agent at the time said, 'You shouldn't do this. You should be on equal footing with Oliver.' I said, 'This is a very expensive, complex film and they need a box-office star like Kevin Costner to play the lead role. I'll do one of the smaller or cameo parts--everybody else is.' He said, 'No, you're too big for that, you're not doing a cameo.' I listened, I let my friend down and I really regretted it. That's why I called Scorsese and that's why if Oliver wants me to play an extra in his next movie, I'm going to do it. I made a mistake. I'm proud of the fact that I was gracious enough to tell him that I had made a mistake and that he was gracious enough to say, 'Don't even think twice about it. Let's just continue with our friendship.' When we finally resolved it, there was this incredible sense of loss when we both realized that each of us thought that the other was dealing in this kind of adversity. In fact, both of us were missing each other's friendship, company and artistic nourishment."

These days, Woods is full of bright hope about the upturn in his professional and personal fortunes. "Like after any disaster, a fire, an earthquake or anything else, there's a rejuvenation process. Now, I have no crummy girlfriends or wife, no toxic business relationships, I'm building a wonderful home, I have a great career, my health is good. I'm being offered four movies at a time, all of a sudden people are willing to pay my price. I'm back."

But I want to know who is back? Is this the real Woods? Or a nicer, more agreeable Woods--one that's perhaps just a veneer? "I'll tell you who is really back: the guy that I always wanted to be and didn't have the courage to believe I really was," he confides. "I had the confidence as an actor, but not as a man, to believe that I was worth all of the good fortune that God has graced me with. I think a lot of it had to do with having my best friend killed in front of me when I was 10 and two years later, my father died. I think those early childhood traumas make you feel like you're living on borrowed time. You're very hard on yourself. It took having someone lie about me so horribly, so hatefully, with such terrible motives, to make me realize, 'You know what? This is so untrue.' All of a sudden it liberated me from all those other pressures of guilt that I felt in my life. I said, 'I'm a really decent, good man. Why am I so hard on myself?' If I have a few warts, make a few mistakes, hey, I'm human. So what? That's who's back."

So, is little Jimmy happy at last? "A year ago, I would have said, 'I'm not satisfied with my career, I've lost my direction.' Now, it's almost perfect. You know why I do what I do? I'll paraphrase Zooey: 'I do it for the fat lady in the dark in the fourth row.'"

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Stephen Rebello interviewed Johnny Depp for the October Movieline.

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