Eric Stoltz: Shhh Don't Say Anything

"Why?" Stoltz asks her. "Is someone filming you doing this?" But she rolls away without saying anything.

Stoltz laughs and says, "That was the original title of that Cameron Crowe film I did. Actually, it was the name of the intended sequel. Shhh, Don't Say Anything should be the title of this interview. In fact, I'm going to start saying that. Ask me a question."

"Do you wear underwear under your kilt?"

"Shhh, don't say anything," he says, putting his finger to his lips. "You'll have to see the film."

"Why? Are there some extraordinary camera angles?"

"Some surprising horse-mounting," he says.

"Do you think of yourself as famous?"

"No, but I think that I'm occasionally recognizable. I like it that way. I'm able to function in [public]. I can go to the grocery store, go to the Laundromat. I can live a life."

That's a life? "Is there a Stoltz machine of people who manage your career?"

"It's a very meager one," he says. "Let me put it this way," he says. "I'm with CAA, who represents Tom Cruise on one level and me on the other. Now, who do you think requires more machinery?"

Mmm, multiple choice. I have a fifty-fifty chance of answering correctly. "You," I say.

"Why would you say that?"

"Because if Tom's up there and you're down here, you'd need more of a push."

"Ah, but you're assuming that I wanna change my position," he says. "Well, I'm very content with where I am. I'm kind of happy with my career. Most of the movies [I have coming out] are small ones that I've produced, that won't necessarily enhance me financially or increase my popularity. They're just films I wanted to do."

Stoltz co-produced Bodies, Rest & Motion and Sleep With Me "for a reasonable budget," he says. "And Bodies actually turned a healthy profit, what with video and foreign rights." And he's poised to co-produce Bullet's Dream, a psychological action-thriller. So what's in it for him to produce?

"An opportunity to work with friends, to have creative control over what we wanna film, who we wanna cast, what crew members we wanna hire. If we wanna change a scene and improvise 10 minutes, we can, without having to get permission from studio heads. The inmates are running the asylum. I think that that lack of organization lends independent films a certain spontaneity and energy."

"Do I smell directing?"

"I don't know," he says. "I've been offered a few things, and I've thought about it. But, having produced, I'm really aware of how much energy and angst goes into directing. I don't think I have the stamina to direct at this point. Although someday I might like to try my hand at it."

"Do you think Bridget Fonda is famous?"

"No comment."

"When you go out together, do people come up to you?"

Stoltz laughs. '"No comment,' he says, laughing and lapsing again into the third person."

"When they do approach you, is it because of you or her or both?"

"A little of both," he says. And that was it for then on Fonda. Later, from Scotland, he pours his heart out: "I have a great deal of love for her, but I'm not interested at this point in dragging her into my press. It's intrusive, and in the past it's been a mistake."

Back in New York, I press on. "Other than scripts," I ask, "do you read?"

"I do read," he says. "I just started a novel called Girl, Interrupted, given to me by a girl who is... short. And yet very attractive."

"What do you mean by 'and yet'? Julie Christie is short."

"She didn't give me the book though. I loved her in Don't Look Now. Although I always confuse that film with Don't Look Back, the Dylan film."

"Viewed side by side," I say, "you can really tell the difference. One's in color, the other's in black-and-white, for example. A more difficult task is distinguishing between Mask and The Mask, which are both in color."

"There's also The Waterdance and Waterland," he says.

"You know, The Waterdance is constantly on cable, but I've yet to see it all the way through," I confess. "But I've seen many parts."

"My sex scene with Helen Hunt?"

"I love Helen Hunt. Can we talk about her for a minute? I know you don't have a TV, but she..."

"No, actually I've been trying to get on her TV show," Stoltz says. "I go down occasionally to watch Helen tape her show, because she's a friend and I adore her. I told the producers that I wanted to be on the show. Cut to two years later and I haven't heard from them. I came up with a plot where I would play Helen's old boyfriend who comes to town and is going through a divorce and asks to sleep on their couch and has a wild sexual affair with Helen. She's entirely capable of it. There's a side to Helen Hunt that is extremely sensual and not [evident] on the show. But that was my idea and I'm still hoping."

"Who else do you love?"

"I love Meg Tilly. And Winona Ryder and Uma Thurman and Jessica Lange. And, of course, Bridget."

"You've probably noticed this," I say, "but it seems that you work repeatedly with the same people."

"Usually they're guys," he says, as if the male were a noxious odor. "Enough with the guys. But I've worked with Laura Dern twice, in Mask and Haunted Summer."

"Haunted Summer, the movie you were naked in. And you've been naked ever since. You were naked in Naked in New York."

"Hence the title," he says. "Anyway, what is the big deal with nudity? When I see a love scene where the actors are strategically covered, I think, 'There's an actor who's uncomfortable being nude and they shouldn't have taken the role.' It takes me out of the story and I end up thinking about how self-conscious the actor is."

"What about violence?" I ask while he's so forthcoming.

"I think violence, cynicism, brutality and fashion are the staples of our diet. I think in the grand history of story-telling, going back to people sitting around fires, the dark side of human nature has always been very important. Movies are part of that tradition. If you can express the dark side, or evil, in a symbolic way in a film, it's a healthy outlet. I think if you start censoring movies and coming out against violence, all you're gonna have is a bunch of airline movies. Or TV shows."

Or anything on Bravo. "Have you seen Speed?"

"Yes I have," he says. "I'm friends with the woman who's in it."

"Do you mean Sandra Bullock, or some minor, cowering bus passenger?"

"Sandy Bullock. She's more than a friend; she is someone I'm forever indebted to. She searched for and found my dog--who had been mistakenly let out--while I was on location for Little Women. I'm unsure how I can ever repay her. I was a mess and she really came through for me. Add her to my list of actresses."

"Any dope on your role in Little Women?"

"To be honest," he says, "in Little Women, I'm really just a token male. I sorta stand around with facial hair to prove that the little women are, in fact, heterosexual. And I had a vivid and active fantasy life involving almost every one of those little women. How could I not? Every one of them smart, kind and beautiful. Every one of them in corsets everyday. Every one of them unattainable. It was heaven just stepping onto the set."

Yes? And?

Stoltz senses I want more. "If you think for a minute that I'm going to go into detail about my fantasy life," he says with a cruel smile, "you are truly out of your mind. I have too much respect for all the actresses involved."

"Will the film have an NC-17 rating for the '90s?"

"I wish," Stoltz says. "I wish it were a bodice-ripper. But no--unless the studio decides to recut it." A moment later, he adds, "Fluke will be coming out around the same time as Little Women and this interview. It's a film where Matthew Modine dies and is reborn as a puppy and I get involved with his widow, Nancy Travis. We all had to act with dogs of every breed. One day, I'll tell you all about my rich and vivid fantasy life involving almost every one of those dogs. And their trainers."

"It's amazing, the talent you've worked with. And are working with."

"I've been kicking around for a long time," he says. "Almost as long as you have."

"Is there a director you'd like to work with?"

"I'd like to work with Alan Smithee."

"Who?"

"He is one of the most underrated and yet prolific directors in the DGA. He's directed more films than anyone else. Look him up."

Later, I did. And, in fact, Stoltz was correct. But I doubt that at this point in his career he will ever realize his dream of working with the legendary director--at least on purpose. Smithee is the name that's put on a movie's credits when the real director refuses to shoulder the blame. Still, that's not to say Stoltz won't ever appear in a Smithee classic, since he's sure to be acting till he's old and gray.

In fact, he's not fearful about getting older. "I'm looking forward to going white. I had a dream that I became very fat and bald and grew a long beard and all my friends were very concerned. They said, 'Eric, you're fat and bald and you have a beard and you look so unattractive.' And I said, 'Yes, but I'm really happy.'"

Little Eric, happy at last?

"Don't you get sick of seeing actors who are in shape?" he says. "I must say I get a little bored seeing actors who have really great bodies, and actresses with perfect measurements. I'm becoming more interested in odd shapes and imperfections."

"Funny you should say that," I say. "Aidan Quinn recently told me he feels that perfectly muscled bodies on actors are inappropriate in some roles--migrant fanners, for example. But he thinks getting in shape is a good career move, which is probably why he doesn't do it."

Stoltz laughs. "He and I are similar in that way. And we're both talking to you!"

"Talking to me is a bad career move?" I say. "Speaking of career moves, can you get me a small part in one of your films?"

"I could," he says. "Why? Can you act?"

"I once had a line on 'All My Children.'"

"You're avoiding my question," he says. "Can you act?"

"No comment."

"There are many actors who are hard-working and need jobs," he says.

"So, no?"

"The answer is no."

And the interview is over, or so I thought until I got another fax from Stoltz on location in Scotland: "As I was walking down the street [after our interview], one of the girls who had skated over to us came up to me and said, 'Are you an actor?' and I said, rather pleased with myself, 'Yes I am.' She said, 'Can I have your autograph?' and I graciously said, 'Of course you can.' And just as I was about to sign her piece of paper, she said, 'I really loved you in Reservoir Dogs.' So I thanked her and signed Tim Roth's name."

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Stephen Saban interviewed Aidan Quinn for the October Movieline.

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