Time Out New York
Issue No. 246 June 8-15, 2000
HIGHER POWERS
Billy Crudup scores big with two divine roles: as a drug-addicted drifter in Jesus' Son and a
guitar-wielding rock god in Cameron Crowe's new film
BY NICOLE KEETER PHOTOGRAPH BY JESSE FROHMAN
Billy Crudup has spent six years losing himself in the complex, shades-of-gray roles he loves: Since appearing in the ultralow-budget Grind in 1994, the actor has played a troubled poor boy in 1997's Inventing the Abbotts; a doomed world-class runner in Without Limits and a quiet cowpoke in The Hi-Lo Country (both from 1998); and a
haunted politico earlier this year in Waking the Dead. Although he's received excellent notices, the commercial performance of his projects has been uniformly underwhelming--not, Crudup insists, that he could care less about box-office numbers.
Of course, the media's assumption has been that because 31-year-old Crudup possesses leading-man good looks and a potent screen presence (plus tremendous talent, though that may just be totally irrelevant), he's also burning to be a superstar. Given his illustrious entrance on the public stage, he certainly seemed destined for Hollywood's stratosphere. Shortly after completing NYU's Graduate Acting Program in 1995, Crudup won an Outer Critics Circle award for his debut performance in the breathtakingly intricate play Arcadia, written by Tom Stoppard and directed by Trevor Nunn. One year later, Crudup costarred in his first feature film, alongside Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Brad Pitt in Barry Levinson's Sleepers. Since then, the celebrity machine has
fired up at the approach of each new Crudup project, anxious to claim the actor as the next big thing.
The hitch is that this perpetual it-boy-in-the-making has a penchant for fame-retardant career decisions. Regarding his audition for Titanic, Crudup has said, "I didn't show any enthusiasm. It's not the kind of film I want to be involved in." He lives in hipster lower Manhattan, but he's conspicuously absent from the Leo DiCaprio self-promotion scene. And it's unlikely that Crudup, who was raised in Texas and Florida with two brothers
(he's the middle one), will ever be linked on "Page Six" with the latest modeling sensation: He's been steadily dating actress Mary-Louise Parker ever since the two costarred in a 1996 production of Bus Stop.
"Show me any perks from [celebrity]. It's all a dog-and-pony show," growls Crudup, who is otherwise remarkably amiable and easygoing during a lunchtime interview at Katz's Delicatessen. He's eager to talk about his upcoming films. Alison Maclean's Jesus' Son, based on Denis Johnson's devastating 1992 collection of vignettes, is charged by Crudup's aching performance as an endearingly messed-up junkie nicknamed Fuck Head. One of the year's most anticipated indies, Son also features Jack Black, Dennis Hopper and Holly Hunter, and costars the excellent Samantha Morton.
This fall, Crudup will hit bigger screens in a semiautobiographical film by Cameron Crowe (Say Anything, Jerry Maguire), which is as yet untitled. Set in 1973, the movie spotlights Crudup as a guitarist in an about-to-be-huge rock group (think early Led Zeppelin--one of the bands the director covered when he was a teenager reporting for Rolling Stone). Says Crowe: "Billy is one of those great actors who completely disappears into his part. He's
like a great band you have to discover on your own."
Time Out New York: This interview is for our Lower East Side issue. Do you ever hang out down here?
Billy Crudup: All the time. I live downtown, and I recently went for a long walk over here--do you know the big garden on Avenue B, where this guy has built a statue of junk? It's just garbage piled about 30-, 40-feet high. It's beautiful--absolutely beautiful. You can just stare at it for hours.
TONY: Sounds almost like a spiritual experience....
BC: [Chuckling] Which brings us to the spiritual Jesus' Son?
TONY: That works. What attracted you to the project?
BC: So many things interested me, not the least of which was its unconventional storytelling and poetic sensibility. [The book] was suggestive, something that provoked thought rather than describing, religiously, the way the world was. I appreciate that a lot about art.
TONY: Your character could easily come off as a cliché--another druggie loser. How did you conceive of him?
BC: I've seen those big works in which some dynamic and charismatic person's breakdown through drugs and alcohol and [subsequent] slow rise to success provides this bravura role for an actor. Fuck Head is the guy sitting next to that character at the bar. I like characters who are screwed up in different ways--who make big mistakes, but keep trying.
TONY: How did you research that part? Are you an actor who'll live on the streets of the Bowery for a role?
BC: I didn't need to necessarily trail a junkie: If I watch people and I'm curious, I'll get all the information I need. But there were certainly things I didn't know. Thankfully, I didn't know how to shoot up or shoot somebody up. But we had a guy there who was fantastic. He is now a narc for the Philadelphia [where much of Jesus' Son was shot] police department. He's a former junkie and has a unique understanding of why you do it. And Fuck Head...you know, it's so fun to say Fuck Head over and over again.
TONY: Do you have a nickname?
BC: Yeah, it's carried over: It's Fuck Head now. Just Fuck Head. I think the other nicknames I've had are as unprintable as Fuck Head is.
TONY: Try us.
BC: "Dick Head." But--I keep saying, it's pronounced "CREW-dup." I don't know how people keep getting it wrong.
TONY: You noted earlier how things just happen to Fuck Head. A lot has happened to you fairly quickly. At any point, have you stopped to assess your own course in life?
BC: I do that too much. I've always wanted to be able to look back at my résumé when I'm 70 and be okay with my decisions. It's been somewhat traumatic--it's much easier to just be an actor for hire, to say, "This was just for money." But when I say, "This is what I'm going to pour my heart into," and it's not received as I want it to be, I take it to heart. Being able to take that kind of stuff in and maintain the direction I want to maintain is a new experience for me.
TONY: How does all the clucking over your ever-impending stardom affect you?
BC: I've been there for six years. I understand that there's a great benefit for the media in manufacturing more celebrities to write about. But I keep trying to say I think it's a futile effort as far as I'm concerned. Not that I'm working hard to keep [stardom] at bay, but I haven't felt that I make the kind of choices, or that I'm the kind of actor who'll generate that kind of attention. You get a little tired of it.
TONY: You've done a lot of stage work: Arcadia, Bus Stop, Three Sisters, Oedipus. Did you ever consider staying in the theater?
BC: I love theater, but unfortunately, even if you worked year round, you couldn't live in New York and only do theater. I can live on little money, but I was paid $200 a week for [the 1998 production of] Oedipus.
TONY: Is there any chance that Arcadia will be brought to the screen?
BC: God, I wish. The problem is, I'm a little old now. Not that they would come to me anyway.
TONY: Why not?
BC: It's [about] who's making the most money now. Not many people have seen the movies I've been in, and the more that continues, the more the opportunities for big-budget projects begin to dwindle.
TONY: But you're starring in Cameron Crowe's follow-up to Jerry Maguire!
BC: And I'm not sure that [DreamWorks] didn't need a good amount of convincing from him.
TONY: Do you play Jimmy Page in the movie?
BC: [He perks up, flashing the Led Zeppelin T-shirt he's wearing under his jacket.] A little Jimmy Page, a little Duane Allman, a little Bruce Springsteen. And Peter Frampton and Nancy Wilson [who is Crowe's wife and the film's music supervisor] were my guitar teachers. It was awesome.
TONY: So, you got off on being a rock god?
BC: We were at the Paladium in L.A. with 1,700 people, and even though they were extras, and even though they knew we were playing to playback, if I went to the front of the stage for a solo and made guitar face, they went fucking berserk. Berserk! I'd never experienced it before. But then during band practice [the actors] would actually play and we sounded horrible.
TONY: You talked music with Crowe?
BC: Constantly, [though] doing so is sort of silly. I'd go, "Houses of the Holy, man, Zeppelin rocks!" And Cameron would tell me why it rocked, what was happening during it, how he was on tour with them, what Jimmy Page was up to at the moment and what was going on between Page and Robert Plant. [For the record, Crowe says that Crudup's "long hair and complete knowledge of Led Zeppelin" were among the pleasantly surprising aspects of the
actor's involvement.]
TONY: It's nice to hear you talk about having fun. I figured you couldn't be that sober of a person because as an undergrad you attended the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill....
BC: Yeah.
TONY: I went to Duke.
BC: A Blue Devil! I have great affection for [Duke head coach] Mike Krzyzewski--but if you put that in print , I'll be lynched. [Leaning into the tape recorder] THIS INTERVIEW IS OVER.
