Dennis Quaid always considered himself a character actor, but he admits Hollywood had a different plan for him in the 1980s.
“Back in my 30s, I was the guy who was one movie away from being 30 percent of the box office,” Mr. Quaid tells The Washington Times.
The Houston-born actor never got that one movie, though he appeared in a number of potential breakout films, including “Great Balls of Fire!” (1989), “Innerspace” (1987) and “D.O.A.” (1988).
Instead, he had to settle for working nearly nonstop for the next two decades.
Today, the 54-year-old is essentially a character actor, although few of his peers sport his still-boyish good looks.
His latest film, “The Express,” charts the true story of Ernie Davis, the first black Heisman Trophy winner, who died of leukemia before his professional career even started. Mr. Quaid plays Coach Ben Schwartzwalder, who helped the young star achieve greatness on the gridiron.
Mr. Quaid got up to speed on the late coach by talking to one of his star graduates, Hall of Famer Jim Brown. The actor met Mr. Brown while shooting 1999’s “Any Given Sunday,” and the former football great filled in some blanks for Mr. Quaid.
“He was invaluable, a very straight talker,” Mr. Quaid says of Mr. Brown.
Mr. Schwartzwalder represented “the status quo of white America back in the 1950s,” Mr. Quaid says. “By today’s standards, he’d be judged a racist.” Yet the coach forged a deep bond with Mr. Davis.
“Ernie had this quiet grace about him,” he says. “He found Ben Schwartzwalder’s soft, creamy center. They had a relationship like father and son.”
Mr. Quaid’s long career — including celebrated turns in 2002’s “Far From Heaven” and 1994’s “Wyatt Earp” — has had one ugly side effect: It has left him vulnerable to the tabloid side of fame. His notorious breakup with ex-wife Meg Ryan fed countless headlines, as did more recent news concerning the accidental overdose of his young twins, both of whom are now in good health.
He has grown accustomed to seeing himself in print, but it wasn’t always easy.
“When it first started happening, it was extremely uncomfortable,” Mr. Quaid says, adding that strangers often cite his work in “Innerspace” when meeting him in person. “Eventually, you get immune to yourself,” he says, his signature grin expanding to fit a widescreen format. “I have a very vibrant private life.”
Besides, he’s getting more nuanced roles at this point in his career. This year alone, he played an action hero in the surprise hit “Vantage Point” as well as a pot-bellied professor in “Smart People.”
“I’m a late bloomer,” he says. “As I get older, the parts are just more interesting.”
The Art of the Deal
Remember the profanity-spewing uberproducer played by Tom Cruise in “Tropic Thunder”? A fat, powerful man, one who orders crew members to smack around a director whose film has fallen behind schedule? A schmoozer who talks tough to terrorists less out of principle than to save a buck?
Forget about that guy. According to Barry Levinson and Art Linson, the director and screenwriter, respectively, behind “What Just Happened?” - which opens Oct. 17 - that guy doesn’t exist.
“Power is elusive, and the cliche of people walking around with cigars and wielding a lot of power and punishing people is almost fantasy, one that I’ve never even witnessed,” Mr. Linson says.
“What Just Happened” is a more realistic look at the life of a producer. “What’s most interesting to me,” Mr. Levinson says about his film, “is to see a producer [as a] character, which I haven’t seen before. We keep thinking of the producer as this powerful figure, and in many ways this character is completely emasculated. And that’s where you exist; you don’t have any real power.”
The character in question is Ben (Robert De Niro), a world-weary, thrice-divorced producer who spends his days fighting with artistic talent and his nights fighting with studio executives who finance his pictures.
“I think most of us in Hollywood are the mayonnaise on the sandwich,” Mr. Linson says. “Even Harvey Weinstein, who may want to be the beef patty, is really the mayonnaise. You’re the lubricant just trying to get it to work.”
It’s a life that lends itself to stress.
“The movie is about a man in Hollywood and a group of other Hollywood people who are all hanging by a thread,” Mr. Linson says. “All snails on a pane of glass trying not to slip down.”
Mr. Levinson insists that “this isn’t satire, because you can’t really satirize Hollywood. It’s already as nutty as it’s going to get. So you can’t make it nuttier than it is.” It’s just a slice of life about a world not often seen by the rest of us.
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