As Jim Caviezel told me quite a few times last week, Hollywood's got a short memory, and an actor tends to be offered nothing but variations on his last big part -- a tall order, if that role was playing Jesus Christ. Since acting in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ in 2004, Caviezel hasn't necessarily been an easy actor to cast, and some of his larger projects -- like the sci-fi adventure Outlander, which was shunted off by the Weinstein Company -- haven't provided the big bump he hoped for. AMC's miniseries remake of The Prisoner, however, falls right into his wheelhouse: Not only is it getting a splashy, three-night release beginning in the spot just vacated by Mad Men, but Caviezel's role plays to his strengths, casting him as a lone man in a world that doesn't understand him (save for a few acolytes convinced by his fervor).
Movieline talked to a game, slightly punchy Caviezel about The Prisoner's theme of paranoia, a motorcycle accident that left the actor better able to relate to his character, and his unlikely friendship with co-star Ian McKellen, which crosses political lines.
Hi, Jim.
Heyyyyy Kyle. Where's my money?
I...what? I don't have your money.
Movieline. Movieline.
Yeah, Movieline. But anyway, The Prisoner! You know, it's a pretty ambiguous piece of work, and you're never quite sure what's actually happening and what's imagined. Is that easy for you play as an actor?
I embraced it. It's kind of like waking up from a dream: It makes perfect sense when you're having the dream, and then you wake up and you try to explain the dream to people. Maybe someone can interpret it for you. With this process, people will watch it, and it'll be like they're all having the same dream. [Laughs] They won't understand it together, and they will understand it together.
Are you looking forward to people analyzing it online?
That's why I like Starbucks: You sit around and discuss ideas. It's like poetry. A good poet writes and there's a linear and a nonlinear line there. Everybody has a different interpretation of it. If they had a book where the poet then explained everything to you, then it really wouldn't be poetry at all.
Can you relate to that theme in The Prisoner of being under surveillance?
Yeah. You know, I've been acting for about twenty years now. In the last ten years, I've been famous, and I'm lucky that for thirty years of it, I was unknown. This is a business that can stunt your growth. It's surreal. You go to the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, or the grocery store, and it's like a safari on actors. Looking at all that and feeling that is quite surreal, and so is The Prisoner. I'm never quite used to it. I remember somewhere along the line when it used to be pretty normal. At least I had thirty years of normality.
Then things got crazy?
Oh, there's nothing like this summer! I was on a motorcycle, driving my Harley up where I grew up, and I got on the highway and a guy threw his bike into my path. I was at sixty miles an hour and I got thrown and had to go the hospital, and I was thinking, "OK, how do I keep this one out of the press?" When they asked me for my Social Security number, I didn't give it to them. I said, "I'm fine, I just have a scratch on my hand. I appreciate it, thank you." The next day, regardless, it was everywhere. That definitely reminded me of The Prisoner. It's just extraordinary that the next day I woke up and my phone had over fifty messages on it. You're already screening calls. You're really not alone anymore. You're always being watched.
It looks like it was a pretty tough shoot, but you're no stranger to arduous shoots. Do you ever think, "Man, I'd really like a script where I hang out on the beach and play Frisbee for the whole shoot?"
[Laughs] It'd be nice! If that's the film that makes you famous, then in all your films afterward, you'd be throwing Frisbees. Trust me, in this business, it's like that. I used to do comedies, and now I'm the last guy they'd ever think of for a comedy. Before, I did a Neil Simon play that I was the lead in, and I used to get seen for that kind of stuff. Then I got famous on The Thin Red Line, and I "wasn't funny" anymore.
Would you like to get back to comedies? I remember you did a viral video with Will Ferrell.
Yeah, I was pitching him softballs and he was whacking them out of the park. He had the real fun in that; I was just going along for the ride. Most projects that I get are going to be dramas, and you can find funny moments in them if you've got a good eye. But what you get offered is going to be based on what your previous success was. You have to fight for every role you go after or create a role. I've had comedies offered to me, but if I go and do it, it could be like, "See? He can't be funny." [Laughs] You really have to go where the greatest material is.
There are some darkly funny moments in your rapport with Ian's character. What was that acting relationship like?
He's so immediate. He's been doing this stuff for so long and he's so good at it that it would be outrageous to think that I... well, I look at myself as a student of the game of acting. I kind of picked my acting up off the street from teachers here and there, I was accepted to Julliard, and I got a deferment and that didn't work out. But anyway, Ian is highly professionally trained, and my gift is that I'm a mimic, and I can look at him and see what he's doing and immediately know that, "Wow, I'm gonna have to go to a deep place here to joust with this guy." It's like a fencing contest in the sand: It throws you off balance, and the sand also sucks everything out of you. You try to stay balanced and not lose your wits, but he's very playful and he keeps things extremely light.
You and Ian are fairly different people in real life, too.
I enjoyed that. I came from seventeen years of playing basketball and I wanted to play in college and go to the highest level, but I wasn't good enough and I had injuries here and there. I wasn't born to it, I was born to do this, and I have great respect for Ian. He couldn't be more to the left than I am to the right, but at the same time, we were very close. We both have a great appreciation and love for acting. He's a good person and such a gentleman, so helpful. It's such a pleasure to see someone at his level treat other people with great respect and character. Someone would come over and say, "Can I get you some tea, Sir Ian McKellen? Oh, I apologize...should I call you 'sir'?" And he goes, "I'm just Ian."
Finally, what happened with Outlander?
The distribution money was gone. The distribution that was supposed to be there, wasn't. It wasn't that anybody did something wrong, it's that everyone was caught in that change, so the marketing wasn't there. There's a big change going on with the films that studios release. I don't know how much longer it's going to go on, but it's affecting everything. I know of other A-listers and when their films came out, they'd just lost distribution.
All right, Jim. I know you have to go. I'll try to find your money.
OK, good.