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Barry Pepper Takes Aim
Tidning: GQ Magazine
Years he's been at it: Three. When he's not shooting: The Vancouver native, who made his film debut as Private Roy Jackson, the religious sharpshooter in Saving Private Ryan (ahem, why did they not include Firestorm or Urban Safari?? Whoops! - Jayne), appears next month in The Knockaround Guys, with John Malkovich, and in April as Yankee slugger Roger Maris in HBO's 61*. When was the first time you fired a shotgun? "I was 12, and I was with my uncle and two cousins at a sporting-clays range in the interior of British Columbia. I think I busted four out of five clays on my first try, and I was just so juiced and excited about it. But mostly I remember the impact of the gun on my shoulder; you really feel it. It just about knocked my little female cousin over. I think that was the last time she ever tried it." Got any sporting-clay pointers for beginners? "It's like throwing a football to someone who's running -- you have to throw it in front of him. If you just aim at the clay disk, by the time your shot reaches it, the disk has already sailed on. Also, I once had an old-timer tell me to hold my gun like I was dancing with Catherine Zeta-Jones. Real gentle."
Ever speak to Charlton Heston? "Uh, no. I can respect where he's coming from on certain issues, but he also tends to have some pretty radical ideas on how to quell the fear of gun control. I don't know that he is the calmest voice of reason." Won any competitions? "At the range near me, there's what we call a turkey shoot. If you win, you get a locally raised frozen turkey. I've won two beautiful organic smoked hams and two frozen turkeys." What would your grandparents think about all this shooting? "Well, it's in my blood. We're definitely rural people. My grandmother is 75, and she still scares raccoons away with her .22; she still climbs her fir tree to collect grapes off vines. To be honest, I'd be a big disappointment to my ancestors if they knew I shot clay disks for frozen turkeys."
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Hobby: Shooting skeet, trap, and sporting clays.
Do you hunt? "Yeah, but for me, the sport of hunting ends on the sporting-clay range. If you don't need the food, there's no point in being out there. I prefer to eat organic meat, to know where my food is coming from. That's the way I was raised, and that's the way I want to raise my daughter."
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