Lou Diamond Phillips: No Diamond in the Rough

"...I'd like to be thought of as one of those actors that can do both. Usually part of why I'm cast is because I can look Asian or Mexican or ethnic. But in Courage Under Fire, my character's ethnicity is of no interest, and that was a pleasure. It's an incredibly emotional film, even though it's a war movie. If you look at Glory or Legends of the Fall (which Ed Zwick also directed), there's always something very human and very costly in how he views war. In this film, you know from the beginning that Meg Ryan is dead. She is going to be awarded--posthumously-- the Medal of Honor. Denzel Washington is a disgraced tank commander who's put in charge of the investigation into Ryan's case. The government wants to give her this medal because she would be the first woman to get it, and Denzel has to interview the survivors--me, Tim Guinee, Matt Damon and Seth Gilliam. I'm the fly in the ointment, in that I had trouble taking orders from Ryan; my character thinks she crumbled when the pressure got to be too much. When Denzel starts to talk to all of us, it becomes like Rashomon: everyone has a different story to tell about how she behaved in battle. Some of the differences are minor, and some are major. And Denzel has to decide what's the truth, who's lying and what's the right thing to do."

"Have you made any war movies before? Because actors are always telling me what a rush they are."

"Well, this is my first war movie. I've done a lot of cop movies, and I thought this would be the same, but it's not. First of all, it's not hard to get into it. I think even Meg would say the same thing, and Meg is probably the most anti-militant person you could ever put in this position. Running around with the guns and jumping into helicopters and all the war toys... it's unbelievable. The whole time you're saying to yourself, 'this is a blast'--you're dodging mortars, blanks are flying past you, and there's dust up your nose and in your eyes and up your butt... it makes you very gung-ho."

"You've written a couple of movies, directed a couple of movies..."

"I've written more than a couple," Phillips says. "I must have a dozen in some stage or another. I love to write, and I think I have something to say. And it's something I can do when I'm not working on a film. Directing is something I love, too. I directed Dangerous Touch for HBO, and Sioux City, which was a very sweet little movie. I wrote Ambition, and starred in it, but I didn't direct it, and I think from now on I'm going to direct all the movies I write, if at all possible. You know, there are movies that I did that were really good, but people didn't get to see them in the theaters because they weren't in the theaters long enough."

"Which ones?" I ask, scanning his résumé".

"Things like The Dark Wind, Shadow of the Wolf and Ambition. They were very good movies, and I fell terrible when they came and went, because I had worked so hard on them. And I swear, at least once a week someone will stop me and say, 'I saw Shadow of the Wolf on cable last night and I really liked it.'"

"Isn't The Dark Wind from one of Tony Hillerman's novels?"

"Yes."

"Didn't Robert Redford option all those books and you were going to do them all? They were going to be your franchise..."

"Well, I'm not sure about that, but the film was very good, and for some reason they let it die."

"Lou, one of the reasons some of these films died is because they're bad. Admit it--you've made some bad films."

The look on his face says it all: nobody has ever said this to him before. How is that possible?

"Do you know they're bad while you're making them?"

"No, of course not. Maybe that's why actors fall in love so much and get married so much, because you tend to love the process. You find something to love about what you're involved with at the time, and if your intentions are right, you just get carried along with it. But beyond that, many times it is not your doing; in the final analysis you're not responsible for a lot of what goes up there. Just because your name is above the title or because you are the reason that it got made... well, you wind up taking the responsibility for it. You know, I have a certain presence overseas, and certainly in the cable and video market. And that's enough to underwrite a certain budget level film, no matter what the script is. 'Does he have a gun? Does he have a girlfriend? Great. OK. We're in.' And the film will get made, usually for less than $4 million. And that's terrific. Maybe after Courage Under Fire, the studio people will also see me as a good commodity.

"But I'll tell you, I don't think I could have written this last year better if I had written it myself," he says, smiling. "Kelly and I are trying to start a family. Courage Under Fire was an unbelievable experience, and, well, I'm the King in The King and I on Broadway. Could it get any better? I don't think so."

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Martha Frankel interviewed Bill Pullman for the July '96 issue of Movieline.

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