In anticipation of this career upswing, Movieline sat down with the affable actor/producer last week to discuss paying dues in Hollywood (including the ones Fincher literally paid for Stephenson), his days on Michael Bay's Transformers battlefield and the time that Cary Grant took him to a Dodgers game.
Congratulations on Larry Crowne! I need to know, is Tom Hanks really the nicest guy in Hollywood?
Yes! He's so great.
I imagine him as cartoonish-ly nice.
Definitely. We met at a party and we weren't even introduced. He was behind the bar, pouring himself a beer. I was waiting there and he came up to me and said, "I know you. I see your work all the time." All I could say was, Bosom Buddies! That was the only thing that came out of my mouth. I grew up with that show, and I don't know why I couldn't think of anything better to say. But I ended up introducing him to my wife and we talked for about 45 minutes.
Previously, you've worked with everyone from David Fincher and Spike Jonze to Nicole Holofcener and first-timer Lorene Scafaria. What are the differences you've experienced between working with male and female directors?
The female directors I've been lucky enough to work with have been very in tune with the emotions of the characters, but that could also be because Nicole and Lorene wrote both of their scripts. They are a little less rigid and open to your ideas. They are very well-respected on set because they know what they are doing as opposed to demanding a militant respect.
Which Michael Bay has a reputation for doing, at least according to a few of his former cast members. What was your experience like working with him on Transformers?
[Laughs] Yeah, that's the other end of the spectrum. I've known Michael for a while though. I was a production assistant for years, right when I got out of college, at Propaganda Films. He was like that back then. He runs around and screams, but what's crazy is that it all gets done. You look at the film after and realize that it is fantastic-looking but during production, you're like, "There's no way this is happening, right?" There's no lunch. Lunch is brought to you while you're working. Michael's got the megaphone going, things are blowing up, he's shouting. He's like a general.
That sounds stressful.
For him it's probably fun! It's like a battlefield, literally. Things are exploding, people are moving constantly. I think the people that work for him like it though because the day goes by pretty quick. I remember, one of the days I was there, he was shouting, "I need Tyrese! Get on an apple box! Get the camera over here! Boom! We're shooting up! Bring in the choppers!" Then you hear him yell into his walkie and these two black Blackhawks come zooming over downtown L.A. Then he's like, "OK, great! We're moving on!" Then, a bus blows up a hundred feet in the air and we move over and shoot something new. The Blackhawks are still circling overhead -- they're not allowed to land in case he needs them for something else. I didn't want to go in a trailer just because I wanted to watch it all happen.
You mentioned that you were a P.A. How long did you do that before acting?
Five years. I was a production assistant and I started writing treatments for commercials and music videos, helping directors get their ideas down on paper so that they could hand them into agencies and win the job. I wrote for David Kellogg [Inspector Gadget], Simon West [Con Air, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider], and I ended up writing for David Fincher for a Michael Jackson video. And once you write for David Fincher, everything changes.
How did it change for you?
There have been like three times in my life where I have gotten literally down to my last can of beans. I was P.A.-ing up until that point and work got really slow. I had two cans of soup in my apartment and I remember that I got a phone call to write for Fincher and things just blew up. I started working with all kinds of directors. The next year, I think I made six figures for the first time in my life. I went from like $30,000 to like $100,000.
And you got to work with Michael Jackson. How was that experience?
It was a five-day shoot [for "Who Is It"] and Michael showed up like three hours one day, a few hours another day and then that was it. [Fincher] had to shoot from the back with a double most of the time, and Michael hated the music video. It ended up only playing in Europe.
How did you make the transition from writer/P.A. to acting for David Fincher?
I acted in a commercial for Spike Jonze because I was writing all of Spike's commercial and video stuff at the time. I went back to working as a P.A. on a Budweiser campaign with Fincher and he said, "I want you to be in this spot. Just sit in this corner." At that time, I couldn't though because I was a SAG must-join, which means I couldn't act in another job until I paid the Screen Actors Guild initiation fee, which was almost $1,300. I told David that I just couldn't afford it and he just said, "Goddammit," went into the office, made a call, came back out and said, "OK, now sit in the fucking chair" and walked away.
That's amazing.
Yeah, I'll never forget it. [Laughs] He paid for me to be in SAG.
You still do a lot of commercial work. Has the audition process changed at all since you first started acting?
Not so much. I will say that there is a big difference between the commercial auditions and TV and film. I think in TV and film, the auditions have a smaller number of people reading and the directors in casting are more confidant in what they are doing. They aren't just cocky. There are a lot of commercial directors that are new that don't really know how to work with actors and are seeing so many in a day without really knowing how to talk to them. If you're not the right guy, they don't care and they don't care if you know they don't care.
Do commercial casting directors treat you any better now that you've spent so many years in the business and scored some major film roles?
I don't think so. [Laughs] But there have been a couple commercial breakdowns for commercials that I can't go out for that say, "Looking for a Bob Stephenson type." My agent will call and say, "Hey, they're looking for you." It's kind of weird when you meet the people that are your type.
What is the Bob Stephenson type?
I don't know. One guy was blonde and really big. I don't want to think about it.
You've written all of these commercial treatments, you associate produced the movie Thumbsucker. Are you looking to get back into writing and producing?
I'm trying to put together a movie now where I would play the lead. It's hard because money has tightened up a lot so producing has been a lot more difficult. I've been trying to focus on acting so hopefully, if I can get a little more cachet, I can put that project into motion.
Are you writing the script for this project?
No. It's a script that's been around for a while called Analog, and I really love it. I met with people a few years ago about it, and just recently the idea came up again. Mike Million, who directed this movie called Tenure with Luke Wilson, wrote it and the script is great. It's really cool. [Leans into microphone] Don't anyone else take it. I'm excited about it, so I'm trying to finagle it. Because it's pretty hard for someone like me to play the lead.
Do you get recognized a lot?
I walked out of this restaurant once and these two big guys in uniforms, one African American and one Latino, come up to me and were like, "Hey man, how've you been?" These are two people I clearly don't know and they are wearing the same polo shirts but I'm not really looking. They're saying, "Where do we know you from, man?" This happens sometimes, and you don't want to say, "Oh, I'm in commercials" so I just said, "I don't know." And they keep saying, "No, we know you." Then the big, black guy says, "You come into the clinic?" And I look down at their shirts finally, and the shirts say, "Clinic For Spousal Abuse." I shout "No! No! I've never been there!" That encounter went on and on, they were asking what high school I went to, if I hung out in Chino.
Have you had any great encounters with fellow actors?
I went to a Dodger game with Cary Grant in high school that was probably the highlight of my life.
How did that happen?
I went to a boarding school up north, and there was a girls' boarding school up north that [Cary's daughter] Jennifer Grant went to. She was going out with my best friend at the time. Anyway, I came [to Los Angeles] and stayed with my friend, who said, "Hey, we're going to a Dodgers game with Jennifer." We drive up to Bel Air and were talking in her room and I say, "Hey Jen --" and from way down the hall, you hear [does a Cary Grant impression], "Her name's Jennifer. It's not Jen, it's not Jenny, it's Jennifer!"
I was so tickled, I couldn't believe it. I love Cary Grant. He didn't come out to introduce himself, that's all he said. Then, we got into the car with his wife Barbara and we drove all the way down Sunset Boulevard and he's saying, "That's where me and Dino used to hang out," and "Over there was the Brown Derby. It's not the Brown Derby anymore." So we got a tour of Los Angeles with Cary Grant.
How was it watching the actual baseball game with him?
We got to the game and they went to sit with [former Dodgers owner] Pete O'Malley but there were some extra seats. So I ended up sitting with the owner of Dodgers while watching this game with Cary Grant. There were all of these guys, black-tie waiters, standing there to get whatever we need. Vin Scully's right next door announcing the game. That was the best time ever.
Did Cary get excited about the Dodgers?
A little bit. It was interesting because on his license plate it said "Brut 5," and I don't know if you remember that cologne called Brut Faberge? They had these little green bottles with medallions on them. It was sad and kind of interesting but Cary did all of those movies and made a lot of money but didn't make the kind of money movie stars make today so on his license plate, it said Brut 5. And toward the end of the game, he had these little sample bottles of Brut and he handed everyone a bottle of Brut Faberge. So he was obviously being paid by Brut. I was like, "You don't need to do that, Cary. I'll help you out. What do you need?"
That's a little devastating.
I was in high school at the time so I didn't really understand the financial aspects. I just thought, "You're Cary Grant. You must be loaded! You live in Bel Air!" And maybe he did, but just wanted more money.
Maybe he just really believed in the product.
Right, maybe he loved Brut 5 and was behind it 100 percent. You look at it these days and every big actor is hawking something.
Would you like to get to the celebrity endorsement arena? What is your long-term acting goal?
[Joking] I just want to be famous. I have a sex tape, it's about to come out. It might get known as being the sex tape with the least hits ever. No, I'm just super excited about working for a long time. My heroes are Gene Hackman and Gene Wilder, guys that can do a lot of work and work for a long time. That's what I want to do.
You can follow Bob Stephenson on Twitter @bobstephenson.