Gary Sinise: Gary After Gump

He's much honored for Forrest Gump and much anticipated in Apollo 13. Here Gary Sinise reminisces about slacker days gone by, sets the record straight on his relationship with John Malkovich, describes his small-screen kiss with Molly Ringwald, and--big surprise--praises Tom Hanks.

________________________________________

Up until 1994, anyone who knew Gary Sinise--and there were not legions of these people--associated him with the Chicago theater group Steppenwolf, which he created at age 18 and guided to artistic and commercial success, spinning off stars like John Malkovich and Laurie Metcalf in the process. Despite his involvement in Steppenwolf's off-Broadway success with True West (which he directed and starred in with Malkovich), Orphans (which he directed) and Balm in Gilead (which he starred in), and the success, on Broadway, of The Grapes of Wrath (which he starred in), Sinise did not "happen" like the other Steppenwolf vets. His intense, but seamless, naturalistic style of acting was less easy to lionize than his friend Malkovich's showy mannerisms. Writ¬ers have described him as "America's answer to Gary Oldman" (do we want one?) and "a more volatile Gary Cooper" (an oxymoron). He acted in a few films, and, notably, starred in and directed Of Mice and Men, but he remained "that guy from Steppenwolf." Then in one big year he starred as the romantic lead in the top-rated TV miniseries The Stand and created his indelible character Lt. Dan in the preposterously successful Forrest Gump. With all this, he radiates none of the weird light of celebrity. But Hollywood knows it can use Sinise. and Sinise has had a good, long time to think about how to use Hollywood.

VIRGINIA CAMPBELL: You've just lived through a pretty amazing year.

GARY SINISE: The Stand came out in May of '94 and was seen by 60 million people a night for four nights, and then two months later Forrest Gump opened. So within a very short time, I went from being depressed about not getting any work to being in two of the most popular shows of the year.

Q: When you're depressed do you go, "Oh well, I'm depressed, but it's going to change"?

A: [Laughs] No, I just go, "Well, I'm depressed now."

Q: How was The Stand presented to you as a project?

A: I'd just done Of Mice and Men, and at the Cannes Film Festival in May it got a 15--not 10, not 5, a 15-minute standing ovation. We were just blown away. And I thought, boy, the studio's going to get behind this movie and we're off and running. But I didn't work again till March. Between May and March, I was auditioning and not getting work and I didn't have anything to direct and I was distraught. And along came The Stand.

Q: Were you the first choice for the role?

A: This is the first time I didn't have to audition or have an interview. Stephen King and Mick Garris had seen Of Mice and Men and called with the offer. The money was good, and I liked what it offered me as an actor, because I got to be chased by monsters and play a romantic character, which I'd never done.

Q: Have you ever read Stephen King?

A: No.

Q: Was your kiss with Molly Ringwald in The Stand your first screen kiss?

A: Yeah. Not her first. It's an odd thing to kiss somebody in front of a bunch of people.

Q: Well, that was a good one. What went into it?

A: Well, ah, lips and arms and faces and body--and some tension. We worked on it. What angle we wanted, how long we wanted it to be. Molly was relaxed about it. I was a little tense that day, maybe because it was so unusual for me. Most of my work is with guys.

Q: Dumb guys.

A: Dumb guys, smart guys, hoodlums, brothers, whatever. I knew the kiss was a big moment in the miniseries because they're two central characters who come together.

Q: An important thing for you to do as an actor, too.

A: The chance to play a romantic character who kisses somebody onscreen was one of the elements that made me want to do The Stand. The more you can do, the better, and I've been known as a character actor.

Q: What were you doing in that tiny cameo playing Sharon Stone's dad in The Quick and the Dead?

A: Gump wasn't out yet. No one had seen The Stand yet. Out of the blue I got a call and I went there for a few days, had a little fun, made a little money, which I needed, and got to spend some time talking to Gene Hackman.

Q: Are you more of a director or an actor?

A: Right now I lean more into acting. I started as an actor. I started directing because Steppenwolf needed another strong director. The plays [I directed] became respected and fairly popular-- True West, Orphans--and Hollywood people saw these things and then I was tempted to do films as a director.

Q: What was your first brush with Hollywood like?

A: Sam Cohn became my agent in 1984 and he was instrumental in introducing me to a lot of people. He introduced me to the playwright John Guare, whom he represented, and we went to Paramount with an idea, and suddenly we were going to do it, an original idea.

Q: What was it?

A: I'm tempted to dig it out and do it--it was ahead of its time--so I'm not going to tell you what it is. It was delivered to Dawn Steel when she was at Paramount and she promptly threw it into turnaround. [Laughs] And we were, like, so you don't get it, huh? It was so out there. Jim Carrey has perhaps made the world ready for this script [laughs]. I couldn't say I was shocked and hurt that they threw it into turnaround as fast as they did... [laughs]. What did they think they were going to get from me and John Guare? That's how the directing thing started and why my acting career was put on hold.

Q: And how did the acting get restarted?

A: After The Grapes of Wrath on Broadway, I decided that I was going to go with Of Mice and Men as a directing and acting project, and after that I didn't have anything to direct, so I said, I'm going to focus on acting.

Q: That turns out to have been an excellent decision.

A: I can honestly say that I've done everything I've wanted to do, always. Not without difficulty. But every time I wanted to do something, I just did it, from the age of 18 when I started my own theater with my friends. When I decided I wanted to act. I just bit the bullet. It's terribly difficult out here. There were plenty of times when I wasn't working.

Q: How did Miles From Home, the first film you directed, come about in 1988?

A: Fred Zollo, who was until that time a theater producer, and the writer, Chris Gerolmo, came to me with it, and I read it and thought this could be my first movie. And it was. Richard Gere had already had conversations about doing it.

Pages: 1 2 3