{"id":44,"date":"2003-11-20T11:19:28","date_gmt":"2003-11-20T18:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/?p=44"},"modified":"2003-11-20T11:19:28","modified_gmt":"2003-11-20T18:19:28","slug":"pipe-dream-fresh-air-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/?p=44","title":{"rendered":"Pipe Dream – Fresh Air Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>SHOW:<\/strong> Fresh Air<\/a> (aired on NPR September 30, 2002)
\nHEADLINE:<\/strong> Martin Donovan discusses his acting career
\nANCHOR:<\/strong> TERRY GROSS<\/p>\n

Martin Donovan is a terrific actor whose work isn’t nearly as widely known as it deserves to be, because he’s starred in independent films that have not been that widely seen. He’s the star of several films written and directed by Hal Hartley, such as “Trust”, “Simple Men” and “Amateur”. In the comedy “The Opposite of Sex”, Donovan played a high school teacher whose devious half-sister, played by Christina Ricci, steals his gay boyfriend. Donovan won the National Society of Film Critics Award for best supporting actor for his role in Jane Campion’s adaptation of Henry James’ “Portrait of a Lady”.<\/p>\n

In the new romantic comedy “Pipe Dream”, Donovan plays a plumber who spends the night with the attractive woman whose pipes he just fixed. The woman, played by Mary-Louise Parker, is an aspiring screenwriter. After Donovan overhears her telling a friend that their relationship can’t go far because he’s only a plumber, he comes up with a scheme designed to boost his status with women. He proposes the scheme to one of his clients, whose owes him a lot of money, a client who happens to be an aspiring casting director.<\/p>\n

(Soundbite from “Pipe Dream”)<\/p>\n

Mr. MARTIN DONOVAN: You will set up a casting session for a movie of which I am the director. (Soundbite of laughter)<\/p>\n

“R.J.”: Oh, no wait, wait, wait. No, you’re serious.<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: You treat me like I’m the director, I get to meet a bunch of beautiful women.<\/p>\n

“R.J.”: What would make you think that I would bring in a bunch of hungry young aspiring actresses…<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Eleven hundred and fifty bucks, R.J.<\/p>\n

“R.J.”: No.<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: I’ll throw in the Peruvian steam jet.<\/p>\n

“R.J.”: The Duke of Kents? Oh, Nancy would flip. Oh, no, wait…<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: And everyone, R.J., will think that you are casting a movie. Much better perception category.<\/p>\n

GROSS: Martin Donovan, welcome to FRESH AIR. How do you think the people, like the casting directors in Hollywood, see you? What kind of type do you think you’d be perceived as in Hollywood?<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Yeah, I–it’s a really slippery slope to insanity to try to get inside the heads of the people, you know, in the business and what their perceptions of you are. It’s not to say I haven’t done it, but I haven’t come up with an answer. I mean, it depends on who you’re talking to. It depends on what my last film was and what they’ve just seen. I think from the Hollywood perspective, you know, I’m probably thought of as being–well, they’re convinced I can’t do comedy, for instance, and I’m probably too cerebral for their tastes.<\/p>\n

GROSS: But, I mean, you’re really funny in the new comedy you’re in.<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Well, thank you. I consider myself funny.<\/p>\n

GROSS: And what about “The Opposite of Sex”? That was very funny.<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Yeah, but see, you know, I sort of played the straight man around all the crazy characters. The straight gay man…<\/p>\n

GROSS: That’s right. That’s right. Now you’ve mostly worked in the world of independent cinema. Do you think that your idea, or, you know, filmgoers’ ideas of independent cinema has changed since you got started in it?<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Well, I think the economics have changed. I think, for instance, when I did my first Hal Hartley film, which was “Trust”–we shot that in 1990. I mean, there was definitely a different environment there at that time, although “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” had already been made and released and had, you know, been quite a splash. And that sort of had an impact, I think, on the economics of independent filmmaking. So that now if you’re doing, you know, a let’s say, under a $5 million budget, the pressures now to cast major stars in that are enormous, more so than 10 years ago. Hal Hartley has told me, when dealing with financial people, his tactic is when they want to make a change, when they want a different actor, or they want a different DP or whatever, his response is, ‘OK, how much less money do you want to give me so I can retain the person I want to use?’ And he seems to have a lot of luck in, you know–he wins doing that. He’ll just find a way to take less money from them in order to use the people he wants to use. But he’s a rare example of that.<\/p>\n

GROSS: He’ll really do that? He’ll take less money to give somebody else…<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Yeah. I mean, but, you know, he’s also very economical in his–he’s very precise about what he needs and he’s an exception, I think, to the rule.<\/p>\n

GROSS: You grew up in California. What part of California did you grow up in?<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Oh, I grew up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

GROSS: What are some of the movies or TV shows that you loved the most when you were young? Or the movies that you saw over and over or the TV shows that you wouldn’t miss?<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Well, there’s a range of films but, you know, the ones that I always think of that really had a huge impact on me were very hard, actually kind of very serious films. I was very young, there was a film called “Crime in the Streets”, which I later found out was a Don Siegel film and it starred John Cassavetes and I forgot who else. A young John Cassavetes; it was made in the ’50s. And it was set in, I think, New York City. It was very gritty, kitchen sink kind of drama, and John Cassavetes played this–which he does very well–extremely angry young man with such bile and bitterness and realism from what I could tell as a kid. It completely–I mean, it had a huge impact on me in terms of what the whole art form and what acting, you know–what was capable. You know, what you could do with the form and with–as an actor. I mean, it didn’t–it seemed to shatter my whole conception of what it was to be an actor and what, you know, you could do as an actor. That had a huge impact on me. It was on–it played like every day. It was one of those movies that–used to have what was called a million dollar movie.<\/p>\n

GROSS: Where it’d play over and over?<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Over and over again every day. And we’d watch that over and over again. I do remember–and then later on, I remember seeing John Cassavetes, “Woman Under the Influence”. When that came out, I saw that, like, three times, and I was like 14 years old. So I don’t know what that means. I was a very troubled child.<\/p>\n

GROSS: Gena Rowlands is having a nervous breakdown. She’s kind of like burning slowly through the movie.<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Yeah. Yes. And I saw it three times, so I don’t know. I don’t know what that means.<\/p>\n

GROSS: And you ended up going to New York.<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Yup.<\/p>\n

GROSS: What propelled you to get–or what was the moment where you decided to go and try your luck?<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: A friend called my future wife, who I was living with at the time, called and said he was gonna be out of town and we could stay in his apartment. So it was as simple as that. We jumped on it and went. We went for what we thought was gonna be three months and stayed for 18 years so far.<\/p>\n

GROSS: And I think you fell in with a theater group while you were there?<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Yeah, I started working with a company called Cucaracha, which is no longer around, but it was a great place at the time. This was back in the ’80s. It was downtown. It was really kind of what got me out of my sort of, at the time, seclusion. I’d been studying so long in Los Angeles, I really needed a break from studying and from the whole thing, and I just was really using the experience of New York City to further my education. And someone asked my wife and I to join this company and it was really a great thing because we were doing interesting pieces, sort of post-performance art kind of cabaret theater, and there was a period there where we had a derelict warehouse down on Greenwich Street, just about 10,000 square feet that was all ours and we performed in there. It’s now a luxury condominium, but at the time it was this dusty, asbestos-laden warehouse …(unintelligible). And it was great. It was a great experience. And it’s actually where Hal came and–Hartley–saw me in a production there and how I hooked up with him.<\/p>\n

GROSS: So the first movies you made were with Hal Hartley?<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Well, I did do one theatrical film when I first arrived in New York called “Hard Choices”, which was a pretty good film actually, written and directed by John–Rick King, excuse me. And John Sayles appeared in that film, among other people, and Gary McCLeary and John Seitz, a lot of New York actors. Interesting film. And then I didn’t really work for several years until I did “Trust”, yeah. I mean, I did bits and pieces on television here and there, and then I was working at Cucaracha and then Hal came along.<\/p>\n

GROSS: What was it like the first time you saw yourself on screen?<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Pretty awful. Pretty awful. I’m trying to remember the first time I saw myself. It was probably way back when I did a television show when I was still in LA, but certainly watching “Trust” was positively nauseating and, you know, I was cold sweats and, you know, I was–gut-wrenching. It was awful.<\/p>\n

GROSS: What was so awful about it? Why was it so horrible?<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Well, it’s just, you know, it’s everything that anyone experiences when they, you know, hear or see themselves if they’re not, you know, used to it, and I sort of really suffered with that for years. I’m better at it now. I don’t beat myself up like I used to, so I’m not as bad. I mean, I have friends who’ve been doing it for years and refuse–won’t see dailies and will not even see the films they’re in. I’m not that bad. I’m just trying to be more forgiving. I mean, I’ve spent most of my life beating myself up so badly that I just decided that I needed to give myself a break.<\/p>\n

GROSS: Most of the films you’ve done have been independent films, and one of your recent films, “Insomnia”, was–not sure if that was independent or studio, but it was made by the same person who made “Memento”. Al Pacino and Robin Williams were in…<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: Right.<\/p>\n

GROSS: …”Insomnia”, so you’ve got two really big-name, you know, Hollywood actors there. I guess Robin Williams was still making his comeback when he made that film. But does it change the nature of a set a lot to have somebody like, you know, Pacino on the set as opposed to doing an independent film where, you know, it’s all about the work and there isn’t that level of fame, you know, possibly intruding on the work?<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: No. You know, I tell you, I found that it’s the director who sets the tone of the set, and also in concert with the producers, and if they’re serious people who have intelligence and taste and, you know, have got their priorities straight, you know, it doesn’t matter who’s in the film. I found that there’s really no difference between a small-budget film and a large–you know, an independent film and a studio film other than, you know, the craft services, the food and the trailers, you know. I mean, obviously there’s that difference. And also with Chris Nolan, I mean, in “Memento”, you had a guy who comes out of, you know, his only–this was his first big-budgeted film. He’s a very smart guy. He’s very focused. He’s got a great head and Al Pacino, also, is a guy who’s very serious about the work, and it was actually one of the classier productions I’ve ever been associated with. I mean, I really enjoyed working on that film.<\/p>\n

I think the big misconception about independent movies is that people seem to equate independent movies with some sort of higher artistic standard, and I don’t think that’s necessarily the case at all. I mean, I’ve been on–or have seen “independent films,” quote-unquote, you know, made outside the studio system that were made for all the wrong reasons, and the people involved were more interested in making money than anything, you know, artistic. So it really depends who you’re working with. The money doesn’t necessarily have to corrupt the proceedings as far as I’m concerned. Although it’s very tempting.<\/p>\n

GROSS: Well, Martin Donovan, I want to thank you a lot for talking with us.<\/p>\n

Mr. DONOVAN: It’s been my pleasure. Thanks for having me.<\/p>\n

GROSS: Martin Donovan stars in the new romantic comedy “Pipe Dream”. It opens this weekend in New York and LA and opens in more cities later in the month.<\/p>\n

Coming up, rock critic Ken Tucker on the resurgence of guitar-based bands. This is FRESH AIR.<\/p>\n

LOAD-DATE: October 1, 2002<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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