Jon Voight: Isn't it Romantic?

With Midnight Cowboy, Deliverance, and Coming Home to his credit, Jon Voight is one of the great acting heavies, but in real life he's sweetness and light. Our intrepid reporter chats with Voight about the good old days, and about the slew of movies he's done recently.

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In 1969, I was 21 years old and dedicated to breaking down the doors of repression by marching against the war, dancing half naked, popping the Pill in public and traveling with rock bands. Dylan had said that the "order" was "rapidly fading," and I couldn't have agreed more. Unless something was groundbreaking, I just wasn't interested. When John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy came out, I remember reeling with stunned relief that so much dangerous reality had hit the screen. Joe Buck, the naive, young Texas hustler who hawks his charms to wealthy, horny women in New York was shockingly, deliciously real--and I was shaken by the performance of the unknown actor who played him, Jon Voight. With Voight's tall blondness, I expected him to become a heartthrob, but he went on to play what were really high-profile character roles in brilliant films like Deliverance and Coming Home.

The Champ (1979) turned out to be Voight's last box-office hit for a decade and a half. He continued to show what had made him famous, notably in 1985's Runaway Train, but now his political activism seemed to become as important to him as his acting. At a massive march for the homeless in Washington, D.C., in 1989, Voight was the pep rally team captain of a group of showbizzers called Young Artists United that I was with. He was at least as involved in the cause of Native Americans.

Though he was no longer starring in big-budget features, I always took note of Voight's work. I saw him in the wonderful little movie Desert Bloom in 1986; I rented the odd film about reincarnation, Eternity, that he wrote in 1990; I watched him in Return to Lonesome Dove on TV; I adored the HBO movie The Last of His Tribe. Then in 1995 I saw him in Michael Mann's Heat, in which he played a supporting part to two actors who'd come of age when he had--Pacino and De Niro. Next I saw him in Mission: Impossible, in which he played the role Peter Graves had done on the TV show. After seeing that he was doing John Singleton's Rosewood and the jungle thriller Anaconda--there's some range for you--I decided to find out everything he had in the works. Here's what I discovered: he was making an unexpected foray into comedy as producer and star of the indie film Boys Will Be Boys; teaming up with Keenen Ivory Wayans in the action thriller Most Wanted; playing a smooth operator in Coppola's The Rainmaker; and doing a turn as a homeless man in Oliver Stone's U-Turn. I realized Voight was coming home to the big screen.

PAMELA DES BARRES: It seems that ever since I saw you in Heat, you're suddenly everywhere.

JON VOIGHT: Heat was a very big success for me, even though I had a small role. I have a larger role in Anaconda, in which I play a villain, very theatrical. I hope people won't be able to talk about my performance without smiling. The film my heart was really in was John Singleton's Rosewood, the true story of a massacre in the South, caused by a woman who lied about being raped.

Q: How did you come to make Heat?

A: Michael Mann and I had been friends for years, just seeing each other at various events. We have a similar sense of humor, and we like each other as people. We talked about doing something together, and then he sent me this script. I said to him, "Michael, there's a lot of guys who could do this part without having to put on all this makeup." And he said, "Yeah, but then I wouldn't get the chance to work with Jon Voight." It was such a sweet compliment.

Q: That was a brave move--to make yourself look that old.

A: When I walked on the set for my first day's work with the padding and the makeup, one of the drivers said to my makeup man, "I drove Jon seven years ago. What happened? Drugs?" I felt great that it was working, but what I didn't realize was that everybody was having the same reaction! Poor Jon Voight, let's give him a life achievement award before he goes! It's a good thing I didn't quit after that performance.

Q: Did Tom Cruise come to you with the offer for Mission: Impossible?

A: Yes, he and Brian [De Palma].

Q: How do you feel about the finished product?

A: It's a fun movie. I enjoyed working with Tom Cruise--I liked him very much. It was interesting for me because I took a character who was an icon of a certain stature and he became the disappointment, the horror. So what does that mean to me? It's a temper of the times that we've been disappointed by leadership.

Q: Aren't you working with Coppola right now?

A: I play a smooth, slick, dangerous character in The Rainmaker. I'm having fun working with Francis, who is one of the best.

Q: You're considered one of the best, too.

A: I'm older now and as you get older you pick up a bit of stature just for surviving.

Q: How did you come to do the new Keenen Ivory Wayans film, Most Wanted?

A: I'd been a fan of I_n Living Color_. You know the Frenchie character? I really loved him--in some ways he's the brother of Joe Buck. So I felt a kinship with Keenen. I also feel he's a natural leading man, a charming, graceful guy. I wanted to do the film in support of Keenen.

Q: It must make you feel good that you are seen in such different lights.

A: What's interesting is that I don't see myself in these roles. Where the hell did Keenen get the idea for me to do the part of a mad general? The same was true with Oliver Stone on U-Turn. He told me he was doing a picture with a homeless character who's also a bit of a seer, a small character, but a very strong one. When we started working on it, I found he was very open to different ideas. I mentioned that perhaps the guy could be part Indian--in the tradition that the Native people know "something else." So he changed the character, and I have no idea what it's going to be like--a blind, homeless Indian.

Q: There have been big spaces of time in your career when you decided not to work.

A: As in all things, there are tides. In the last several years of my life, my mom was very ill. I was very grateful to be able to spend time with her when I could. It was important that her three boys, Barry, Chip and I, were there for her. It was a blessing that I wasn't working as much as I am now.

Q: Are you ambitious?

A: My ambition is to contribute--to bring people some joy and comfort, to share insights. When I was a young man I saw great performers, and I wanted to be one of those cherished people who gives something.

Q: Do you consider yourself a "movie star"?

A: That phrase has a lovely ring to it. We're part of the legacy, from the '30s and '40s, when we really had our movie stars. We've lost a little of that romance. I don't even think it's wrong--in fact, it was my generation that did it. There were many different levels of revolution in the '60s, which had its good and bad aspects. We've had to get a little distance to see what happened there. I felt a plasticness about the movies that were made in the '50s and early '60s, a lack of reality, a lack of ethical strength.

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