Epic departure for ‘enigmatic’ Patric

SAN ANTONIO — John Lee Hancock had someone specific in mind for the role of Jim Bowie in “The Alamo.” He wanted a guy who spends as much time in pasture as he does on movie sets: angry young man Jason Patric.

It was a long shot.

Mr. Patric’s agent was upfront about it: A big-budget, safely PG-13-rated epic? Great for the agency, but a no-no for the client, ever since that “Speed 2: Cruise Control” debacle. Their guy was done with the studio game.

“I said, ’Send him the script,’” says Mr. Hancock, who co-wrote and directed “The Alamo.” “’If he says no, he says no.’”

Surprisingly, he said yes.

“I normally wouldn’t do a $100 million Disney movie,” Mr. Patric says in an interview here at a hotel just blocks from the Alamo mission itself.

Mr. Patric saw promise in the part. The scantily detailed Bowie legend was pliable. It had a tragic, heroic arc.

“It’s just a little guest star in a big movie, and I thought that maybe I could do something interesting with it,” he says.

A barroom rapport with Mr. Hancock was a factor, too.

“I met John; we had a beer — or a couple — and I liked him as a person,” he says. “And I was available, as usual.”

Mr. Patric is nearly always available. Not like young, hungry Hollywood restaurant waiters are available — for TV commercials or soap operas or reality shows — but like those who are fed up with the industry are available.

He is available on the condition that your movie is any good.

Chances are, your movie isn’t any good.

If you’re Neil LaBute, with just one print of “In the Company of Men,” Mr. Patric might fly you to Hollywood and produce your next movie.

If you’re first-time director Lili Fini Zanuck with a great story to tell (“Rush”), he’ll agree to work with you.

“I’ve really made a point of trying to find new people,” he says. “I like bringing my experience to a guy like LaBute — protect him from all the crap and let his own talent flourish.”

But the LaButes and Zanucks are tough to find in Jason Patric’s Hollywood.

Mr. Patric, 38 in June, had a leg up in the movie business, it’s true: Son of actor-playwright Jason Miller (the priest in “The Exorcist”). Grandson, on his mother’s side, of comic legend Jackie Gleason. Good-looking, too, with a strong jaw and flinty eyes. They never hurt, either.

His first couple of projects in the mid-’80s were unremarkable stuff: a maudlin, made-for-TV drug-addict movie (“Toughlove”) and a low-budget sci-fi flick (“Solarbabies”).

Mr. Patric’s breakthrough came in 1987 with Joel Schumacher’s “The Lost Boys,” a vampire comedy that’s still a cult favorite. There, he co-starred with his pal Kiefer Sutherland, whose arms Julia Roberts left for Mr. Patric’s, a tabloid-splashy romance that had him in the papers far too frequently for his comfort zone.

“I never wanted to have obvious fame in a way that robs me of a good life experience,” he says. “I can go out with my friends; I can go places. Trust me, you can do all that without being noticed.”

“It’s helpful if you’re not that successful,” he adds, wryly. “But more successful people could do it as well. They curry that kind of attention.”

Days after our interview, Mr. Patric got himself in a scrape with local police in Austin, Texas. Publicly drunk with some other street revelers, according to the arresting officer, he was ordered to move away from an intersection. He refused. So he got tackled to the ground.

It’s doubtful Mr. Patric was trying deliberately to “curry” this kind of attention. In a way, though, it adds to the aura. A drunken brawl with cops — a very Jim Bowie thing to do.

“There’s an air of danger to Jason,” Mr. Hancock says. “He’s enigmatic.”

The Jason Patric enigma, as attractive as it sounds, hasn’t helped him score coveted roles, however. Mel Gibson wanted him for “Braveheart.” The studio wanted Mel Gibson.

(Contrary to rumor, Mr. Patric did not turn down the role of Jesus in Mr. Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” He says he never was offered it.)

So he doesn’t work very often. He acts, on average, once every two years, and sometimes even less. The interval between Mr. LaBute’s “Your Friends & Neighbors” — which he produced, handpicking actors such as Aaron Eckhart and Catherine Keener — and 2002’s critically acclaimed indie cop thriller “Narc” was four years.

“In today’s business,” he says, a lack of steady work is “detrimental.” An actor today can’t cherry-pick movies and expect healthy paydays; he must keep his name in plentiful currency.

“It’s really more important to have stuff on the video shelf now,” he says.

“Narc” director Joe Carnahan is entangled in the third “Mission: Impossible” project with Tom Cruise, a move Mr. Patric questions but doesn’t necessarily oppose.

For his part, he chose Broadway as a follow-up to “Narc,” a production last fall of Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

Even Broadway didn’t satisfy completely: too much “elitist backbiting,” he explains. By that point, he’d already wrapped his small role in “The Alamo,” which was supposed to premiere last Christmas.

“I’m not against big movies. I’m not against fame. I’m not against money,” he says. “I’m against doing [big movies] just for fame and money.”

The one time, he admits, he did a movie just for the paycheck — the notoriously bad “Speed” sequel — he was miserable. “I was very unhappy during it and very unhappy afterwards,” he says.

“To me, it wasn’t worth it.”

There is an element of condescension in Mr. Patric’s wariness of the mainstream. He picks up a copy of that day’s USA Today newspaper. It has a picture of Tobey Maguire’s “Spider-Man 2,” this summer’s surest bet for a blockbuster.

“It’s this guy right here,” he says. “That’s what it is.”

He means: The problem. The reason good movies don’t get made, or don’t get funded.

“If you had a monkey sitting at this table, and you gave him a colorful computer that made noise and you gave him ’A Tale of Two Cities,’ he’s gonna go to the computer.”

So everyone who enjoyed “Spider-Man” is a monkey?

Not so fast.

Yes, he hates comic-book movies; hasn’t seen one he’s liked yet, not even Tim Burton’s “Batmans.” But Mr. Patric will also tell you he hates prestige movies, too.

Denzel Washington’s “Training Day,” a movie not unlike “Narc”?

“Terrible movie,” he says.

Mr. Patric’s beef isn’t necessarily with moviegoers; it’s with moviemakers.

“We’re not making movies and selling them; we’re making things we can sell. There’s a big difference,” he says.

He points to his late father’s hit movie of 1973. “They opened ’The Exorcist’ in 13 theaters, and that was considered a blockbuster. Today, it would open in about 4,500. You have to make your money on Friday.

“I find it very difficult to keep motivated,” he says.

Mr. Patric has ambitions of directing, but only if no one better is available.

In his downtime, of which there’s much, he tries to stay disciplined, working out and playing sports. Come this summer, he’ll have been in the business 20 years.

The next 20 won’t likely be any more active than the first.

“I’ve been doing it my way for so long,” Mr. Patric says, “it would be really hard now to go the other route.”