Reader, I'm not sure how your 2009 has been going, but you certainly can't have had a better year than Stephen Lang. The Tony-nominated character actor has had one plum part after another, beginning the year in Michael Mann's Public Enemies, then kick-starting The Men Who Stare at Goats by running full-force into a wall. Still, each of those parts was a mere prelude to his role as the fearsome Quaritch in James Cameron's Avatar, who wreaks vengeance on the Na'vi forest with little more than a coffee mug and a smile.
As much fun as Lang has been on-screen this year, he's even more fun off it. I talked to the buff 57-year-old about his remarkable run of roles and the two things James Cameron can't do, and the erudite Lang was happy to oblige.
So tell me how you got the part of Quaritch in Avatar.
I was about to open a solo show in New York called Beyond Glory, which I wrote and acted in -- I portrayed three Medal of Honor winners from three different wars, so it was a military piece. Cameron saw a photo from it and remembered a meeting we had a long time ago and thought maybe it was a good match between myself and Quaritch. So I got a call and read the script and was kind of blown away from it, and on my day off, I went out and saw Jim and had some conversations. At one point, he slung a camera on his shoulder and he said to me, "You know, I see through the lens," and we just started doing some character work and improv. We wrapped that up and shook hands, I went to the airport, and I had gotten the part before I got to the airport. In a way, it wasn't difficult. It only took me 35 years to get here!
You said you'd met with Cameron a long time ago -- on what project?
I went in for one of the marines on Aliens. It was a really good meeting, which he remembered and brought up in our phone conversation right away. Of course, I remembered having met him, but he has a very specific memory for the details of the meeting and remembers the audition very well. I just remember I didn't get the part. [Laughs]
You've played a lot of military men in your career. Were there any of those roles that struck you as similar to Quaritch?
You know, I was the original Col. Jessup in A Few Good Men [on stage], and you could make a few parallels. What they have in common is an extreme sense of duty to the mission, and a vanity, in a way. To some extent, they're blinded by that vanity. I think the parallels end there, though, and I can't say I drew on Jessup in any conscious way when I was working on Quaritch, any more than I usually do. It definitely helps to have a familiar with the life, with the language, with the cadence, with the military bearing. There's a commonality there in that sense, but hopefully they're quite distinct.
Obviously, Cameron is an extraordinary tech-head, but how is he at coaxing a performance out of you?
To me, Jim is kind of a Leonardo of our time, which is to say that there's a very interesting, reciprocal marriage between artistic vision and engineering/scientific knowhow. The two things exist in him simultaneously, and I believe they feed each other as well. Within all the technological expertise, he has a very, very strong sense of story -- I mean, you only have to look at his films in the most cursory way to see how important story is to him. This is a roundabout way of answering, but I think he's every bit as in touch with the acting side as he is with the technological side.
I'll say also -- and this is just my impression of him -- that there's no job on a film set that Jim doesn't have total confidence that he can do as well as anyone, with two exceptions. One is catering. [Laughs] The other is acting. When somebody does do something well that you can't do, I guess there are a number of ways one can feel about that -- one can be envious and resentful, or one can be full of wonder. I think Jim is the latter. He appreciates what actors do and he works with them in a very free way.
You've also worked with Michael Mann twice. Do the two men resemble each other at all?
There are common characteristics between the two of them that have to do with vision, ferocity, and placing tremendous demands on themselves, which create an atmosphere of intense focus on a set. Having said that, there are immense differences that almost emerge from the different worldviews that they have, and by that I mean that if you look at Michael's work, there is a huge amount of moral ambiguity in his films, whether it's Heat, The Insider, Crime Story, certainly Public Enemies. The people on the right side of the law have elements of corruption, just as the people on the wrong side of the law have elements of dignity and goodness. In Jim's view, though, when there's a villain, you know he's a villain. Look at Billy Zane's character in Titanic, right? There's really nothing redeeming about that guy, it seems to me. Look at Bobby Patrick in T2. It's a much more classical view of storytelling, I think, than maybe Michael has. Of course, there are variations on that -- in my own case, I don't think I'm giving anything away to say that Quaritch is the "villain" of the piece.
Do you see him as a villain, or as something more complicated?
I don't know that the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. I think he would recognize himself as the spoiler in the Na'vi situation and doesn't really give a damn what you call him. From his perspective, the reason that he's hired to be there is to make the real estate under his jurisdiction a secure area, and to keep his people alive. From our perspective, we understand what a complex and worthwhile world it is on Pandora, and clearly Quaritch doesn't see that at all. His vision is limited by his experiences, and however twisted or stunted his vision is, it comes from his experience fighting on Earth. What he's left behind there is a series of dirty little wars, and when he entered the Marines -- and I think this is implicit in the way he carries himself -- he did it for the right reasons. Somewhere along the line, the rules of engagement changed.
You've had a great year of showy parts coming your way. In fact, I heard that your great opening scene in Men Who Stare at Goats originally belonged to another actor.
Originally, my character Hopgood appeared 15 to 20 pages into the script, and it was another character who did that opening scene. I think that it was kind of redundant in a way -- it made more sense for Hopgood to do it, and I was happy to do it when they asked me, because I think it was a hilarious scene.
Was it a surreal thing to shoot, running into this wall over and over?
No more bizarre than anything else I've done. [Laughs] Listen, I was standing there thinking, "This is a metaphor for my entire carer."
Do you feel like the theater community sees you in a different way than Hollywood does -- or has?
I'm not sure that they do, actually. In the theater, I tend to get approached for very hard guy roles, and there's an awful lot of things I can do. I don't really know how I'm viewed by almost any community, to tell you the truth. My criteria for doing theater has always been slightly different than my criteria with movies, in that there are a lot of reasons to do films, having to do with location, money, and first and foremost having to do with script and role and director. Theater, because of the commitment, it has to be a great role and a great play to me. It takes a lot out of you.
Did each of your big roles this year help you get the next one, or was it just serendipity?
I don't know...I think one thing leads to another. Since I spend the bulk of my time on the East Coast, I feel a little bit displaced from the buzz, and I'm just sort of taking it as it comes. I've been around for a long time, so I temper expectations, you know? I certainly feel like I caught a good wave. My philosophy is, "Show up, shut up, and do your job," and if you do it to the satisfaction of your director and the public, you're likely to be able to do it again.