Five
Favorite Films with Michael Biehn
(By Ryan Fujitani, Rotten Tomatoes, January11 2012)
It's one of life's great mysteries why Michael Biehn isn't a household name, considering he starred in some of the most iconic action films of the 1980s. If the picture doesn't trigger any memories for you, perhaps the name Kyle Reese will, as Biehn portrayed the original time traveler who helped to thwart a robot apocalypse in The Terminator. In fact, Biehn was a favorite of James Cameron, who tapped him twice more for the roles of Corporal Dwayne Hicks in Aliens and Lieutenant Coffey in The Abyss. But Biehn's accomplishments don't end there, as the underappreciated actor went on to work with William Friedkin, Michael Bay, and Robert Rodriguez and featured in films like Tombstone, Planet Terror, and The Rock, not to mention his extensive work on television.
This
week, Biehn appears in The Divide, a bleak, post-apocalyptic psychological
thriller helmed by Xavier Gens (Frontier(s)) and starring Lauren German, Milo
Ventimiglia, and Rosanna Arquette. RT was fortunate enough to sit and chat with
him, and we were spontaneously joined by his lovely wife, actress Jennifer
Blanc-Biehn, who also has a brief cameo in the film. Biehn gave us his Five
Favorite Films, then went on to talk about the mounting tensions on set, Xavier
Gens's fluid, anything-goes directorial style, and his own first outing in the
director's chair (The Victim, which was, in fact, picked up by Anchor Bay on
the day of this interview). So, without further ado, here are Michael Biehn's
Five Favorite Films!
1) Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976; 98% Tomatometer):
The
first film that really inspired me... When I came out to L.A. to be an actor, I
wasn't really taking anything very seriously. I thought, maybe I'll be a model,
I could do some modeling, or maybe some commercial acting or whatever, and I
thought that would be a career. Then I saw Taxi Driver. Taxi Driver is a movie
that changed my life and made me a serious actor. Scorsese and De Niro. I give
credit for anything that I've ever done as an actor.
Were you impressed more by Scorsese's direction or De Niro's performance?
I think they go hand in hand. The whole movie, really. Harvey Keitel, even Scorsese in the back of the car. The whole thing is fantastic.
2) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman, 1975; 96% Tomatometer)
One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a movie that I just find flawless. Jack
Nicholson... I just saw The Shining again the other day; he's so brilliant.
He's such a brilliant actor, just unbelievable.
3) The
Godfather/The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972/1974; 100%/98%
Tomatometer):
The
Godfather. The Godfather Part II, mostly, but the two Godfathers. There's just
something about those movies that I just find I can watch over and over again.
4)
The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder, 1945; 100% Tomatometer):
There's
a movie called The Lost Weekend, which is about an alcoholic, and that's
another favorite movie.
5)
Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992; 96% Tomatometer) : If I had to throw one more into the mix, I
mean, there's so many great movies. Unforgiven. There's my last one right
there. Unforgiven, I think, is the best Western ever.
Biehn continued on to
mention a few other choices he could have gone with:
Michael Biehn: Now, having said that, too, I would also say the
greatest horror movie -- we were talking about all these horror movies earlier
-- is William Friedkin and The
Exorcist. I also think he did the best buddy cop movie ever in The French Connection and,
you know, the best car chase, and so on. And I got to work with Billy so that's
kind of my group of films that I can watch over and over again. And funny
enough, on the lighter side, on the fun side -- I call it the "bubblegum
side" -- I like to watch The
Buddy Holly Story. I love The
Buddy Holly Story because Gary Busey is so brilliant in that movie.
You know, he does all his own singing and all his own music and everything, and
the rest of the movie is kind of thin, but his performance, I think, is
brilliant.
I read somewhere that you were a big fan of Sean Penn...
MB: Sean Penn is, I think, maybe the greatest actor... Jack Lemmon is another great one. It's hard to say who's the best, but yeah, he's right up there in the top five actors of all time in my book. When he goes from playing Milk, and he plays that very thin, kind of light kind of character, you know, Harvey Milk, gay, the whole number, and plays him brilliantly, wins the Academy Award, and then you see him in Fair Game. All of a sudden you see this guy, he's got a f***in' gut, he's got three chins, glasses are down, the hair is out like this, and "Just because you yell louder than me, does that make you right?!" It's f***ing brilliant! Just incredible. I have so much respect for him.
I wanted to mention
that because it seems like a lot of your favorite films are very much
actor-driven and benefit a lot from really outstanding performances.
MB: Yeah, absolutely.
Well, let's talk about The Divide. Just to start at square one, can you tell us a little about how you came to be a part of this project?
Well, Xavier [Gens] called me up and wanted
to know if I'd be interested in it. He sent the script, I read it. The script
was okay, the character was okay.
So he called you specifically for the role of Mickey, the landlord.
MB: Yes, for Mickey. I asked him if I could make some
changes. He was like, "Well, you can make any changes you want. You can do
anything you want with the movie." So I said,"Okay, I'll do it."
So I got involved with the movie, and then
I realized once I got up to Canada to shoot the movie that we were, as actors,
able to do anything we wanted. Rewrite characters, rewrite scenes. So the
Mickey that is in the script that I originally read bears no resemblance to
this Mickey that we ended up putting on film. I wrote Mickey with Eron Sheean,
and Eron was basically a writer who was on the set to help all the actors
rewrite scenes that they weren't happy with or rewrite dialogue that they
weren't happy with. I worked with Eron for a week or two; I would send him
stuff, he would send it back, I would send it to him again. He finally said,
"Michael, you just write it." So I basically created that character
and wrote him and created the backstory of 9/11 and all that kind of stuff.
It was a very exhilarating movie shoot
because it's like nothing I've ever done before. It was completely like, you
can do anything you want, you can improv anything you want, you can write
anything you want, you can say anything you want in a scene. And the movie is the
only movie I've done... In 35 years as an actor, I've never shot anything
consecutively, day one, day two, day three, day four. So the script started out
here, but all of a sudden, Michael Eklund's improvising, so now we're over here
someplace. Then it went over here, and it just got crazy. Nobody kind of knew
where they were headed or where their characters were headed; we were writing
them as we went. I mean, Mickey was the antagonist in the script; he was the
bad guy, he got it in the end. That was the original script. And Michael Eklund
created his character out of nothing. There was no character there; there were
four or five lines in the script, and Michael Eklund made that character come
alive by improvising things and writing stuff and doing such interesting stuff.
Jennifer Blanc-Biehn: Xavier just couldn't handle it. Xavier was in love with
it. He was like, "My God! More, more!" And Milo [Ventimiglia] too.
MB: Milo was so committed, and Rosanna [Arquette] was so
committed, and Lauren [German]...
JBB: Lauren, and Ashton [Holmes], and Ivan. Ivan Gonzalez
doesn't get mentioned but he's a ridiculously talented actor that lives in
France. And Michael said it best when he said it takes a very talented actor to
play a weak man.
I want to come back to
that collaborative experience in just a bit, because I know you have a history
of working with your directors in that way. But it's interesting that you
essentially rewrote your character, and that he was originally intended to be
the antagonist, because at first, you sort of hate Mickey because he's such a
jerk. But as the film continues, you begin to sympathize with this plight; he's
providing food and shelter for these ungrateful strangers who have invaded his private
space and they're just...
MB: B****ing and moaning, yeah, and not listening to me when
I tell them not to leave.
Well, it's interesting
because by the end of the film, your character, Mickey, and maybe Lauren
German's character to a degree, are the only ones who -- I don't want to say
you remain unchanged, but you two are the only ones who don't go completely
insane.
Well, I wanted the audience to think that I
had changed, you know. The backstory on Mickey, which we created, was that he
was a 9/11 survivor. He went into one of those buildings and when it came down
on him and his team, and he was the only one left standing. So he ended up with
PTSD, you know; his life falls apart and he starts drinking, loses his family,
loses his job, gets paranoid, and turns into what he turns into, and that's who
he is at the beginning of the movie. But because of what transpires during the
movie, he ends up kind of finding his humanity again. So, towards the end of
the movie, you know, you see him put that coat on Ivan's character, right, and
when he goes out, he goes out kind of like... I tried to play him like he goes
out with a kind of smile on his face, like, "This is the way my guys went
out, and this is the way I want to go out, looking at the woman that I love."
And that character transformed from being a prick, a selfish guy --
understandably so.
And that backstory is revealed pretty
economically through just a short series of photos that Mickey keeps around...
JBB: Xavier felt that was
enough to soften the character.
MB: Yeah, I mean, we shot
the whole scene where it was all explained and everything. I shot a whole scene
like that in The Terminator that was cut out, too, that I thought was
going to be my big scene. And Sigourney [Weaver] shot a big scene in Aliens,
too, that was her backstory with her daughter; that got cut out. That stuff
gets cut out, but still there's remnants of that, and that stays with you. You
don't need to be told every single detail.
Going back to the collaborative filmmaking
process, I have a multi-tiered question for you. I'll start by asking what the
filming conditions were like, in terms of the physicality of the set. Were you
all really stuffed into a basement?
MB: Yes.
The reason I ask is because some of those
scenes felt eerily real, and I have to wonder if the cramped space and the
freedom to improvise made for some touchy situations. Was there a lot of
tension on the set?
MB: Yes, there was a lot of
tension. Yeah, yes, yes. People hated each other so much that the producers had
to be called down constantly because actors were fighting because they thought
other actors were trying to steal scenes from them. There was a lot of physicality
on the scene, and some actors thought there was too much. Yeah, they hated each
other. They hated each other.
I've worked with Friedkin, I've worked with
Jim Cameron, I've worked with Michael Bay... I've worked with these guys, and
there was more tension on this set than any other set that I've ever worked on
in my life. And Xavier set it up that way, where he would bring an actor in --
it was going to be their big day -- and all of a sudden, he would start
shooting something else, and that would piss off that actor, and he'd be mad at
that actress, and this actress would be mad, etc. It was crazy. I thought it
was going to get violent at times. It was really close.
That really comes through in the movie,
because there are a couple of scenes when, as I was watching them, I pictured
what it must have been like to be there as they were being filmed, and I think
I would have been frightened. There's that scene when you're being tortured,
and you guys are spitting at each other, and I remember thinking, "This
anger feels genuine."
JBB: That was a genuine day.
[laughs]
MB: [laughs] That was a
genuine day. What's not even in there is, the way Michael was holding me, he
was holding me like that because originally, he was standing behind me and I
was hitting him like this [whips his head back repeatedly]. I hit him a couple
times like that. He got a bloody nose, and you know... That was me and Michael.
Me, Michael, and Milo would do anything.
You look at that movie, and you watch them
try to bring Rosanna Arquette down those stairs. You watch that, and that's her
fighting, biting, clawing, doing everything she can, and they shot that three
or four times. Those are some committed actors. [laughs]
So what was it like working under that sort
of directing style?
MB: Well, that directing
style is something that will never happen to us again, because here in America,
if you’re doing a TV show or something like that, and you go, "Listen, can
I change this 'a' to a 'the?'" And it's, "Oh, we've got to check with
the line producer." This was the most amazing, open, fun experience for an
actor that I've ever been involved in.
You've worked with some legendary directors
like William Friedkin and James Cameron, but you've also worked with newer
talent like Robert Rodriguez and, with The Divide, Xavier Gens. Do you
sense a noticeable difference between the two generations of filmmakers,
between how things are done now and how they were done 30 years ago?
MB: I think every director's
different. Every director's got his own style. I mean, when I directed, I
basically just screamed for eight hours a day, twelve hours a day. "We
gotta f***ing go, we gotta move! We gotta move! Shut the f*** up! We're shooting,
we're shooting!" And other people like Ron Howard can just make a
brilliant movie and be just as nice as can be. I think everybody's different.
You look at Eastwood, you know; supposedly he's just as calm as a cucumber. You
look at Cameron, and he's, you know, he's an intense guy, and Friedkin's an
intense guy. Everybody's different.
You're actually one step ahead of me,
because I was going to ask you about your directorial debut, The Victim,
next.
MB: Yeah, I'm like a madman.
[laughs] I was described by somebody who was on that set as a cross between a
raging lunatic and something else.
Was it Robert Rodriguez who sort of gave
you that extra push you needed to go ahead and move into directing?
MB: I guess it was... You
know, Jim Cameron has always told me that I should try and be a director, or
try directing. And Jim has said to me about Robert Rodriguez, "One of the
brilliant things about Robert is that Robert just doesn't realize that he can't
do something, and he just does it." He just goes for it, you kow? He
doesn't care. He just goes for it; he doesn't care about anything. And when I
worked with Robert, I got that from him. He just doesn't care what people
think, you know? I do, but he doesn't, and I got that from him. And then, when
I was shooting The Divide with Xavier, I saw a guy reading [Robert
Rodriguez's book] Rebel Without a Crew, and I said to myself, "You
know? F*** it, man, I'm just going to go do this." So that was kind of the
genesis of me saying "I'm going to make a movie," and then boom, it
was three weeks preproduction and twelve days shooting.
JBB: It was an original story
by Reed Lackey; we wrote [the film] in three weeks. Lorna [Paul] and I and Ryan
Honey put everybody together and we shot it in twelve days. It was a lot of
fun.
What were your takeaways from working with
the various directors you've collaborated with over the years?
MB: You know, truth, man.
Story. You have to have a good story to tell; that's the most important thing.
That's what Cameron always has. That's what Friedkin always has, or usually
has. It's having a good story to tell, and telling it honestly, trying to be as
honest as you can. That's really the best way I can describe it.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_divide_2012/news/1924298/3/five_favorite_films_with_michael_biehn/
