Another "Sideways" piece that ran in some Westchester paper
With “Sideways,” Church clips his “Wings”
By Jon Chattman
Call it whatever you want: a breakthrough, a comeback, or another television star leaping onto the big screen. Thomas Haden Church doesn’t care really. “I’ve had a fulfilling career and life,” he says firmly. Anyway one looks at it, however, it’s clear the 43-year-old best known for his dimwit television roles on “Wings” and the short-lived “Ned & Stacey” is becoming somewhat of an overnight sensation even though his career spans 15 years.
With his new film, “Sideways,” Alexander Payne’s acclaimed adaptation of Rex Pickett’s novel about how four lives change in some form or another by a trip to California “wine country,” the actor is generating Oscar buzz and chewing up more than his share of scenes as a washed up 40-something actor named Jack. Payne could’ve chosen any actor really to star in the film given the acclaim from his last film, “About Schmidt.” The filmmaker said he chose Church and co-star Paul Giamattti because they were the best fit hands-down.
As Payne himself explained, “I’m hoping now we can begin to enter an era where, like in the ‘70s, it wasn’t just the same big famous movie stars anymore . You could have a Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church like you had an Elliot Gould or an Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman leading more like everyman. We need more and more cinema which is a mirror of our society and not ridiculous movie star fraudgalent projections. Our culture needs it desperately.
In the film, Church’s character goes on a weeklong trip with best friend Miles (Giamatti), a recently divorced would-be novelist and wine enthusiast, to enjoy his last days of single-hood. For the egotist Jack, it’s a chance to reclaim his glory days of boozing and womanizing. Within hours of the trip, he literally wines and dines Stephanie, a feisty bartender and single mom unbeknownst he’s about to become a married man.
Throughout it all, the El Paso, Texas native makes an unlikable character completely likable. We recently chatted with Church on how he accomplished that feat, and how he prepared for his role--- one in which George Clooney lobbied for.
Q. Did you draw on your own experience as an actor to play Jack?
A. I didn’t really. I certainly in 15 years of being in and out of Los Angeles certainly know a lot of people [like Jack], and not to come off self-aggrandizing, but I think I’ve had considerably more success than Jack ever did as a performer. I know a lot of guys [from] the very first thing I did. I moved to Los Angeles in January of ‘89 and almost immediately I got a lead in a TV movie called ‘To Protect and Surf.’ We were cops on the beach with like cool hair and guns. There were six of us. It was an ensemble and this one guy and I were like the two squad leaders. Then we had our team.
I was the new guy in town. We were shooting like five weeks, which was standard for TV movies in those days. Every one of these actors that I worked with had been in L.A. for a while and the whole time we were shooting they’re like ‘when I hit man, I’m not going to ever lose touch with the little people. I’m going to stay pretty organic to my roots.’ Everybody was so convinced TV was just a platform for movie stardom. I still know all their names, and none of them had any real success beyond like doing jobs like bad TV movies. I took a note from that early on: don’t work too far outside what your boundaries are that you came to L.A. with. You come into this business [with] kind of forced self confidence because the competition, and it’s even more so now, is so intensive that you kind of have to fabricate this superego or this super confidence just so you can get out of bed in the morning and not feel like an asshole and a loser and a failure. LA is overwhelming and it was in ‘89 and it damn sure is in 2004. My point is Jack is one of those guys that works completely outside of his boundaries--- A guy so convinced of his imminent success at 25, at 30, at 35, at 40, and even though he’s getting no closer to it, and it’s actually in retrograde, he still lives with that superego and that’s kind of what I informed it with. There’s got to be a maturation process with actors in Los Angeles. If it is diminishing, you do have to start looking around for something else to do and it’s probably a good idea if it’s not in Los Angeles.
Q. How did you prepare for Jack - wine-related or not wine-related?
A. I was a waiter in college. I had a standard understanding [of wine]. I’ve never really been a wine guy. We had several months to prepare [for the movie], but I purposely didn’t want to learn anything. I wanted to go into the scene where Miles is teaching Jack about the wine, and I really wanted to be as naïve about it. That was my preparation --- to know nothing.
Q. Having made the film, what’s your take on wine now? Do you have a better understanding of what it means to be a wine lover?
A. We shot for three and a half months. You’re so steep in the wine culture. They’re very proud of it, and aggressive in teaching people about it. It’s a real crash course. By osmosis, you’re going to absorb quite a bit. I had a simplistic appreciation for good wine. You can’t help but by atmospheric pressure to have some kind of descent on you. I do like Pinot. I really have an appreciation why Pinot is everything that they discuss.
Q. In the film, Sandra Oh kicks your ass after learning you’re going to be married and that your character was playing her. It looks like you took a pretty bad shot to the face with that motorcycle helmet…
A. Sandra and I spent a lot of time together practicing riding the motorcycle. She had never been on a motorcycle before, and I have ridden for at least 25 years. It was just like we spent a lot of time together. It was a natural sequence to then work on what we called ‘the hit’ and the pummeling. It was not difficult. I was definitely down on the ground getting hit, [but] they made a stunt helmet that was pretty soft rubber. The lower edge of the helmet was a harder rubber. The strap loops… all of that was steel. It definitely hurt. I had bruises all over my shoulder and my arm. When she hit me, I went down on a mat, and then she just started pounding me.
Q. I’m sure filming a sex scene was a lot more grueling considering Oh is married to Payne…
A. It can’t be anything but a daunting experience. Sandra and I, probably out of our own discomfort, immediately set upon to try to find out how to make it funny. When we were shooting it, Alexander was like ‘make it more real! make it more real!’ --- even to where I think he even got a little frustrated with it. ‘You’re trying to be funny! Act like you’re really having sex with her!’ [For the scene], if it was funny it would’ve totally been wrong.
Q. How would you describe Miles and Jack’s friendship. This really is the thinking man’s buddy comedy…
A. I think Miles has been forced into this isolation, because of his misery and resignation to failure. Anyone that has been in his life for the last 20 years as Jack has been. Jack represents the worst kind of pastiche of failures and rejection and very little success. On Jack’s side, he’s just a fairly emotionally innocent guy. Miles is so much more intelligent and intellectual. I think Miles is the much more worldly of the two. Even though Jack has been an actor and he’s [marrying] this rich girl. Miles clings to this foe elitist – his appreciation of wine, it’s a giant misleed. It’s almost a misnomer in his life. Jack, I think, is more honest but in a very simplistic way.
Q. Lastly, what’s your hope for this film. A film about wine doesn’t exactly translate to big bucks at the box office…
A. I hope that it finds a vast audience, because I think good movies deserve that. I mean explosions and car chases and movie star driven films are great and it’s all part of industry. Ultimately, when you go back 95 years to the dawn of cinema, it didn’t start with movie stars. It started out with character-driven dramas and comedies --- little tiny stories that found an audience because they were good. They were quality driven. Alexander has clearly demonstrated in his body of work. He’s about quality. He’s not about movie stars.
By Jon Chattman
Call it whatever you want: a breakthrough, a comeback, or another television star leaping onto the big screen. Thomas Haden Church doesn’t care really. “I’ve had a fulfilling career and life,” he says firmly. Anyway one looks at it, however, it’s clear the 43-year-old best known for his dimwit television roles on “Wings” and the short-lived “Ned & Stacey” is becoming somewhat of an overnight sensation even though his career spans 15 years.
With his new film, “Sideways,” Alexander Payne’s acclaimed adaptation of Rex Pickett’s novel about how four lives change in some form or another by a trip to California “wine country,” the actor is generating Oscar buzz and chewing up more than his share of scenes as a washed up 40-something actor named Jack. Payne could’ve chosen any actor really to star in the film given the acclaim from his last film, “About Schmidt.” The filmmaker said he chose Church and co-star Paul Giamattti because they were the best fit hands-down.
As Payne himself explained, “I’m hoping now we can begin to enter an era where, like in the ‘70s, it wasn’t just the same big famous movie stars anymore . You could have a Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church like you had an Elliot Gould or an Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman leading more like everyman. We need more and more cinema which is a mirror of our society and not ridiculous movie star fraudgalent projections. Our culture needs it desperately.
In the film, Church’s character goes on a weeklong trip with best friend Miles (Giamatti), a recently divorced would-be novelist and wine enthusiast, to enjoy his last days of single-hood. For the egotist Jack, it’s a chance to reclaim his glory days of boozing and womanizing. Within hours of the trip, he literally wines and dines Stephanie, a feisty bartender and single mom unbeknownst he’s about to become a married man.
Throughout it all, the El Paso, Texas native makes an unlikable character completely likable. We recently chatted with Church on how he accomplished that feat, and how he prepared for his role--- one in which George Clooney lobbied for.
Q. Did you draw on your own experience as an actor to play Jack?
A. I didn’t really. I certainly in 15 years of being in and out of Los Angeles certainly know a lot of people [like Jack], and not to come off self-aggrandizing, but I think I’ve had considerably more success than Jack ever did as a performer. I know a lot of guys [from] the very first thing I did. I moved to Los Angeles in January of ‘89 and almost immediately I got a lead in a TV movie called ‘To Protect and Surf.’ We were cops on the beach with like cool hair and guns. There were six of us. It was an ensemble and this one guy and I were like the two squad leaders. Then we had our team.
I was the new guy in town. We were shooting like five weeks, which was standard for TV movies in those days. Every one of these actors that I worked with had been in L.A. for a while and the whole time we were shooting they’re like ‘when I hit man, I’m not going to ever lose touch with the little people. I’m going to stay pretty organic to my roots.’ Everybody was so convinced TV was just a platform for movie stardom. I still know all their names, and none of them had any real success beyond like doing jobs like bad TV movies. I took a note from that early on: don’t work too far outside what your boundaries are that you came to L.A. with. You come into this business [with] kind of forced self confidence because the competition, and it’s even more so now, is so intensive that you kind of have to fabricate this superego or this super confidence just so you can get out of bed in the morning and not feel like an asshole and a loser and a failure. LA is overwhelming and it was in ‘89 and it damn sure is in 2004. My point is Jack is one of those guys that works completely outside of his boundaries--- A guy so convinced of his imminent success at 25, at 30, at 35, at 40, and even though he’s getting no closer to it, and it’s actually in retrograde, he still lives with that superego and that’s kind of what I informed it with. There’s got to be a maturation process with actors in Los Angeles. If it is diminishing, you do have to start looking around for something else to do and it’s probably a good idea if it’s not in Los Angeles.
Q. How did you prepare for Jack - wine-related or not wine-related?
A. I was a waiter in college. I had a standard understanding [of wine]. I’ve never really been a wine guy. We had several months to prepare [for the movie], but I purposely didn’t want to learn anything. I wanted to go into the scene where Miles is teaching Jack about the wine, and I really wanted to be as naïve about it. That was my preparation --- to know nothing.
Q. Having made the film, what’s your take on wine now? Do you have a better understanding of what it means to be a wine lover?
A. We shot for three and a half months. You’re so steep in the wine culture. They’re very proud of it, and aggressive in teaching people about it. It’s a real crash course. By osmosis, you’re going to absorb quite a bit. I had a simplistic appreciation for good wine. You can’t help but by atmospheric pressure to have some kind of descent on you. I do like Pinot. I really have an appreciation why Pinot is everything that they discuss.
Q. In the film, Sandra Oh kicks your ass after learning you’re going to be married and that your character was playing her. It looks like you took a pretty bad shot to the face with that motorcycle helmet…
A. Sandra and I spent a lot of time together practicing riding the motorcycle. She had never been on a motorcycle before, and I have ridden for at least 25 years. It was just like we spent a lot of time together. It was a natural sequence to then work on what we called ‘the hit’ and the pummeling. It was not difficult. I was definitely down on the ground getting hit, [but] they made a stunt helmet that was pretty soft rubber. The lower edge of the helmet was a harder rubber. The strap loops… all of that was steel. It definitely hurt. I had bruises all over my shoulder and my arm. When she hit me, I went down on a mat, and then she just started pounding me.
Q. I’m sure filming a sex scene was a lot more grueling considering Oh is married to Payne…
A. It can’t be anything but a daunting experience. Sandra and I, probably out of our own discomfort, immediately set upon to try to find out how to make it funny. When we were shooting it, Alexander was like ‘make it more real! make it more real!’ --- even to where I think he even got a little frustrated with it. ‘You’re trying to be funny! Act like you’re really having sex with her!’ [For the scene], if it was funny it would’ve totally been wrong.
Q. How would you describe Miles and Jack’s friendship. This really is the thinking man’s buddy comedy…
A. I think Miles has been forced into this isolation, because of his misery and resignation to failure. Anyone that has been in his life for the last 20 years as Jack has been. Jack represents the worst kind of pastiche of failures and rejection and very little success. On Jack’s side, he’s just a fairly emotionally innocent guy. Miles is so much more intelligent and intellectual. I think Miles is the much more worldly of the two. Even though Jack has been an actor and he’s [marrying] this rich girl. Miles clings to this foe elitist – his appreciation of wine, it’s a giant misleed. It’s almost a misnomer in his life. Jack, I think, is more honest but in a very simplistic way.
Q. Lastly, what’s your hope for this film. A film about wine doesn’t exactly translate to big bucks at the box office…
A. I hope that it finds a vast audience, because I think good movies deserve that. I mean explosions and car chases and movie star driven films are great and it’s all part of industry. Ultimately, when you go back 95 years to the dawn of cinema, it didn’t start with movie stars. It started out with character-driven dramas and comedies --- little tiny stories that found an audience because they were good. They were quality driven. Alexander has clearly demonstrated in his body of work. He’s about quality. He’s not about movie stars.
1 comment:
This is a nice picture he is very very happy and very impress how so lovely boy .
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