|
A
HERO BY ANY OTHER AGE
|
| Magazine
& Date: |
Starlog,
circa 1989 |
| Written
by: |
Dan
Yakir |
| Provided
by: |
robt.com |
[This interview was actually
transcribed from scanned photos taken from robt.com - some
words were not decipherable!]
  
DUSTY
AND DISHEVELED, RIVER PHOENIX TELLS HOW AS INDIANA JONES,
HE SET FORTH ON A LIFETIME ADVENTURE
How would you describe your
role in Last Crusade?
It's all non stop action:
running and jumping, twisting and turning, fumbling, picking,
finding, keeping, saving from the bad guys - that kind of
stuff. It's a small part - only 30 minutes in the movies
beginning - but I really enjoyed it.
What was the special challenge
of doing this movie?
I did a lot of the stunts
because I felt so much of the character and what he had
to do was physical. It would have been lying to have someone
else do the stunts.
How do you get into a role?
Do you play yourself and lend your own characteristics to
the part and then go with the script? Or do you actually
try to transform yourself into someone else and feel his
feelings?
You can't just wake up the
next morning and be the character, so it's a slow process.
I start off by myself of who I am, by thinking more neutral.
You have to surrialize yourself before you can become another
character. I become non-opinionated(?), refusing to think
from River's perspective, and then, slowly, I add characteristics
and start thinking the way the character would. I fantasize
about being the character and I play mind games with myself
until the transition takes place.
How did you go about playing
Young Indy?
I would just look at Harrison.
He would do stuff and I would not mimic it but interpret
it younger. Mimicking is a terrible mistake that many people
do when they play someone younger, or with an age difference.
Mimicking doesn't interpret true, because you can't just
edit it around.
What was it like working with
Spielberg for the first time and Harrison for the second?
It was great to see Harrison
again and Steven is a pleasure, a great guy to work with.
Was Harrison Ford as friendly
as he was on The Mosquito Coast?
Oh yeah, he was there to help
me. He has been there playing Indiana Jones for so long.
What kind of relationship
did you have with him on Mosquito Coast?
Harrison was down to earth.
I read that he was cold, but he was actually very warm,
it's just that in his position you have so many phony people
trying to dig at you that you've got to have a shield up.
He's a very, very nice man, wise and practical. His ideals
are very practical, logical. I learned a lot from him. The
biggest thing about Harrison is that he makes acting look
so easy, he's so casual and so sturdy. I had a great time
[working with him]. We dealt with each other on a very honest
level. I understood where he was coming from and I think
he understood where I was coming from. I don't think I nagged
him. I didn't ask him all the time how Indiana Jones was.
Do you feel you might step
in Ford's shoes at some point?
I don't think that anyone
[but him] could ever do justice to the character of Indiana
Jones. A production without Harrison would never be that
good. I think it should remain the way he does it.
You've won an Oscar Nomination
for Running on Empty..
I think that in a way I'm
being challenged, that there are great minds up there who
would like to see what they can do with an Oscar nomination.
I guess many people would change after a nomination in the
way they see things. In my case, it's really irrelevant
in terms of what I do. Still, it was and incredible experience
which I will put in my memories, like everyone does.
It seems that you keep challenging
yourself. After Little Nikita and Running On Empty, you
said you were going to stop playing victims for a while
and then you did Last Crusade and I Love You To Death.
I Love You To Death is about
a pizzeria owner who runs around with women, until his wife,
with the help of his cooks, tries to kill him. They try
five times but he survives and they get together again.
It's kind of 'how to try and kill your husband and save
your marriage', but it's based on a true story. I play Devo,
a cook who's very mystical, into Eastern philosophy. I'm
the middleman who helps arrange the extreme that happen
in the movie.
What's the purpose of all
this plotting? Greed? Mischief?
Just sheer, simple minded,
tunnel visioned people who find it hard to make a distinction
between reality and fantasy.
It's very different from what
you've done before. What's the special challenge here?
As we speak, Devo is bouncing
off the walls wherever I go and it's very hard to let myself
out and open my eyes.
Is this the most a character
has taken control of you?
No, it's not that sensational.
It's more in the vain of doing exactly what the character
should do: having a gray area between reality and fantasy.
You don't really know where you're in and you act upon instinct
or impulse and find that maybe what the character in the
movie did is more extreme than what they're p---ing. You
see, Devo is overly taken by the details in life, to the
point where he can't see the overall picture.
By contrast you seem very
much aware of the world around you.
I'm quite in love with the
human race and this planet that we live on and I see life
as fresh and beautiful, not because 'I have the world in
my hands' but because it's just my reality. I also get very
frustrated with the pace of life and the way the world goes.
I want so badly for people to communicate with each other,
with all this technology is this the best we can do? It's
depressing. But there's also an optimistic side of me that
believes that we live in an incredible time and that if
we all come together on the important issues and stand up
for our rights, as Bob Marley said, we could really accomplish
a lot.
What would that be for you?
One thing I would like to
do when I have the money is buy thousands of acres in the
Brazilian Rain Forest and make a national park, so that
no-one can bulldoze it [in order] to put a McDonald's there.
I guess people find security in a Big Mac, but that's our
oxygen! And the mass slaughtering of animals is a chickenshit
approach. I can understand the farmer who raises his cow
and then ?cuts it's throat and eats it.
You offer a positive role
model for young people, not only by virtue of the ideals
you expose, but on a different level, by the very characters
you play. This will probably be more so than before because
of Indiana Jones.
Yes, but it angers me that
in this society we're trained from a very young age; watching
television to swallow preconceived ideas of what is the
ideal man or ideal women. It's prejudice, really. Many people
overcome it, but so many remain oppressed if they're not
happy with their looks, if they don't look like Robert Redford.
It's a shame, because they shouldn't be. When I was younger,
I was worried about how others viewed me and if I was good
enough. I realize now that you can't mould an image or try
to be something that you're not. As far as being an actor
is concerned, your work really speaks for itself.
END OF INTERVIEW
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