Chinese ingenue Zhang Zi-Yi puts her best roundhouse-kicking foot forward in director Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

By Brandon Judell

Zhang Zi-Yi simply can’t wait until our interview is over. We’re in Vivienne Tam’s New York showroom, and this 21-year-old Chinese actress knows that soon she’ll have her choice of garb as only upcoming stars do. “Let’s get it over with, please!” her posture seems to caterwaul to me and her translator. And just how much more can she say about Ang Lee’s acclaimed action romance Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that she hasn’t said before? And what about being internationally revered director Zhang Yimou’s replacement for his ex-lover and star Gong Li? Well, that’s rather personal, isn’t it?

Although in Crouching Tiger Zhang plays a gorgeous, love-making, death-wielding martial-arts expert who can fly through the air with the greatest of balletic ease—giving Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh a run for their money—in person, she comes off as a sweet Eastern edition of Britney Spears.

“Actually Ang hesitated quite a bit before he cast me,” she notes. “I think I am quite innocent-looking. So he was wondering if I had the wild quality that my character Jen You is supposed to have in the movie. I hope I didn’t disappoint him.”

“Of course, you didn’t,” I reply.

“Thank you very much,” she responds, in her only words of English, before rushing to the clothes.

TO BE FRANKEL

“To market, to market, to buy a fat pig, home again, home again, jiggety-jig.” – Anonymous
Well, finally there’s a piece of kosher pork that’s turned the tables around. Leon the Pig Farmer (directed by Vadim Jean and Gary Sinyor, and written by Sinyor and Michael Normand) has been popping up at film markets and festivals around the world, and being bought up like mad. And why not?
Just imagine a tale about a nice kosher chap, Leon Geller, who has nightmares about lobsters, ham sandwiches, and other things trayf. But before we go on, there are certain Yiddish terms you must be familiar with: a) ferblunjit (fer-BLUN-jit) means mixed up, b) fercockta (fer-KAHKT-uh) means fu**ed up, c) fermisht (fer-MISHT) means very mixed up, d) ferpachkit (fer-PAH-kit) means extremely mixed up and e) mit fremde hent iz gut feier tsu sharen, means it’s good to poke the fire with someone else’s hand. Anyway, Leon, who’s played by the gorgeous Mark Frankel, discovers one day that his mother was artificially inseminated because his father has a low sperm count. Then he discovers that the sperm bank made a mistake, and used a pig farmer’s spermatozoa instead of his dad’s to get his mom pregnant. So in fact, his dad is not really his dad, and the Gentile girl who’s dating him only because he’s Jewish might drop him if she finds out, and. . . Well, you get the idea, maybe. . .
Brandon Judell: Were you upset when Benny Hill died?
Mark Frankel: That was a shock. We were brought up on Benny Hill. It was like Benny Hill was Saturday Night Live. I’d sit with my dad, holding his hand, watching Benny Hill. That’s how I was brought up.
BJ: So Leon the Pig Farmer (Cinevista) is your first major feature film?
MF: Yes, my first feature — my first picture, period.
All the women I’ve talked to who’ve seen Leon were wild over you. You’re sort of a sex-symbol-on-the-make. I didn’t see that until about two-thirds into Leon, when you’re making love to Maryam d’Abo. Now, here in person, you’re stunning. But women saw your appeal, your charisma, right away. How does this work?
(In a sexy, Cary Grant delivery) I li-i-i-ke you. I don’t know. I think probably what it is, is more Leon than me. There is definitely a vulnerable quality to him, and I think that’s something women are tapping into. I don’t think they’re tapping into Mark Frankel.
Ondine (one of the film’s publicists): They’re tapping into you.
It’s very flattering to hear that. My mother loves the film. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes down with the general American public.
BJ: England is known for its anti-Semitism, and there’s another new British film out dealing with the same subject, called Century. I can’t think of many other Brit flicks dealing with Judaism. How did you feel when you read the script?
I first read it just as a comedy. It really takes a lot for me to laugh. I go to movies, and I think they’re funny, but I don’t actually, vocally, laugh. Leon made me laugh out loud off the page. That was very exciting. It’s definitely the first Jewish comedy in England — and that definitely makes it quite unique. You said there’s anti-Semitism in England. I don’t really think there is a great deal. I think we have so many other major problems and issues. . .
You mean the English now hate other people much more than the Jews?
(Laughs) Yes, that’s right.
Have any Jewish groups been upset with the film?
I personally have not met anyone who’s been upset by it, but I know that there are some people who apparently have been in England. A very few, but to me, the one thing that Jews have always been able to do is to laugh at themselves, and if we can’t crack a joke. . .I don’t think Gary and Michael wrote the script with any intention apart from making a very funny film. Even the scene on the cross, it was so mild. Anyone who takes that personally, Orthodox or Hasidic Jews, or whatever, I think that’s kind of ridiculous.
So no theater owners have been complaining about matzo ball stains on their screens?
No. No. No. No. No. The film went down very well in England. People love the film.
Has your star quality rating risen in England because of the film? Are you getting many more scripts?
Yes, definitely. My career has been very strange. Immediately after I came out of drama school, I went straight into a play. A play in a tiny pub which seated 40 people. Within three weeks of doing this, I was offered the role of Michelangelo in this 20 million dollar film shot in Italy. An American director had come over to England to try and find Michelangelo. He found me in this pub. I then went to Italy for five months to film. That was shown in a few countries, and on TNT in America. Then I came back for a few weeks, and I went off and did Young Catherine, also for TNT. So I was filming almost non-stop for a couple of years, and nothing had ever been seen in England. No one had even heard of me except people within the business. They knew exactly who I was, but they didn’t know if I could act, except from drama school, because we do lots of public performances. Then there was Leon. So suddenly, the people became almost instantly aware of who I was. Leon has just been bought by British TV, and it will be shown in a year and a half. And now they’re talking about buying Sisters, which is a series I do here. (Jokingly) Yeah, definitely now everyone [in England] knows who I am.
So now maybe some of the groupies of the Bros and U2 will start following you.
Yeah, I’d like to think so.
So far people haven’t been hanging around your hotel room?
No. No. It hasn’t gotten that bad. My dry cleaner told me the other day that she’d seen Leon and thought it was really funny. She had no idea that I was an actor.
Did you have to autograph your stub?
Yeah, I gave her an old pair of underpants.
How did you get cast in Sisters?
I finished filming Leon, and I thought maybe I should go to the States, and actually go to L.A., because I had never been to L.A. I filmed all these things abroad, and they’d been shown here, and I’d never been to that side. Well, I had just done my first lead in a movie. Maybe I should pitch up, so I did. My agents there. . .they’re very good agents, they just sent me around to all the studios. I walked into Warner Brothers, and they had this character that they wanted to develop. And that’s how it all came about. I met the producers, then I flew back to England, they made an offer, and I flew back out.
So did you rent a place in Los Angeles, or do you have an estate yet?
No, I rent a place. And estate? No, I got a 40-acre ranch in Bel Air. Maintenance is enourmous. No, I rent an apartment in L.A. when I’m there. I tend to rent the same one. I’m going back now.
So is it barren? What did you bring from England so you wouldn’t get homesick? Just a few books?
I brought quite a lot. I brought trunks. I came to L.A. for 10 days. I went back, and they said, “Can you come out in two weeks?” I said, “For how long?” They said, “Nine months.” So I said, “Oh boy!” I wasn’t sure about it. I was tired. I really wanted to do this role because this character was sort of like Bruce Wayne without the Batman side. So I basically took everything I could carry. I took a lot of books — everything that I needed.
Now with Sisters, you’re getting American wages, so even if you never act again, you’ll be getting residuals.
Um, yeah. (Whispers) You want to know how much I’m making, right? (Laughs)
I’d never ask. But this money must be a big change in your life.
Yeah, you definitely cannot compare American wages with British wages — at least not for television — although things are changing for me now. With Leon out, I’ve just done a three-hour murder mystery for British TV. It was sort of comparable, because my profile’s raised. So things have changed. It is very different, and obviously there are residuals from Sisters, which is very nice. But I certainly don’t do it for the money.
In Sisters, who do you play against most?
Most of the time — well, certainly for the first half a dozen episodes — I really had no contact with anybody apart from Sela Ward. She’s just done The Fugitive with Harrison Ford. Then I was kind of introduced to the rest of the family. But only really with the other sisters, because the character is this recluse who almost never goes out of his apartment. He works and lives there. He functions completely in isolation, apart from some servants. It’s quite intriguing.
Do you hang around with Sela?
Yeah, I socialize a little bit with the girls. We go out to dinner occasionally.
Swoozie Kurtz is known to be crazy and wild.
Swoozie is very funny. She’s great fun to be with, and a real professional. She never ceases to amaze me. Every week at the read-through, she can deliver a world-class performance.
Are you lonely in L.A.? Did you have to break up a relationship to come to America?
No, I managed to keep a serious long-distance relationship going. I use New York as a sort of meeting point, and we actually meet in a hotel in New York. We don’t speak sometimes for days, and we make arrangements to meet in this hotel. We don’t speak until we meet in the bar at this hotel. I do that in London, as well, which makes it real exciting. Sometimes I can’t come. . .even if I’ve got a week off, it’s just too impractical to go all the way back to London. I say, “You come half-way, and I’ll go half-way.” And so we meet here. I was doing that a lot last year, which is exciting.
Have you pursued any of Los Angeles’ crazy night life, or are you too tired after a day’s shooting?
I’ll be honest with you. I’m not big on night life. I tent to go to bed incredibly late. . .but I’m normally doing things by myself. Cooking at home. I really enjoy going out to eat a lot. I really enjoy good food and good restaurants, but I have experienced sort of the dangerous side of L.A. It’s not my cup of tea, to be honest with you.
So what will the future of England be? Will Prime Minister Major last much longer?
I don’t know. I’m not really a great fan of Major. I’m into people with charisma, dynamic people. He’s very gray. I don’t know. England’s in a bit of a state, but then there are not many countries that aren’t.
Well, maybe Britain will emulate your career, and be on an upswing.
Thanks very much.

No reservations

The eyes of Val Kilmer aren’t reflective doors to his soul. No unbelievable agonies have transformed into great artistic triumps at the expense of human happiness are surveyable in his twin orbs. It’s rather hard, in fact, to equate the image of this jauntly blond munching on a health salad with his portrayal of the hallucinating, girl-beating Jim Morrison of a few years back.

It’s also difficult to believe that within three hours Kilmer will be copulating very vividly with his sister (Jeanne Tripplehorn, BASIC INSTINCT’s shrink) live on the New York Shakespeare Festival Pubic Theatres stage in ‘TIS PITY SHE’S A WHORE. The two hour-fifty minute performance culminates with this star-on-the-rise butchering his pregnant sibling, marching around with her heart on a sword, causing his father to have a heart attack, and stabbing his brother-in-law, after which he deservedly gets shot.

The production, directed by the controversial Joanne Akalaitis, is, in the main, comedic- sort of like the Marx Brothers in A LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT.

Tongue-in-check agony, luckily, is not an unassailable challenge to Kilmer, who is married to Scandal’s Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, and father of her child. He’s known for his range that includes the Nazi-fighting, Elvis-inspired rock singer in TOP SECRET!, Tom Cruise’s foe in TO GUN, the self-absorbed hero in WILLOW, and the self-righteous lead in TNT’s GORE VIDAL’S BILLY THE KID. Kilmer has also been Scan Penn’s buddy in SLAB BOYS, starred as HAMLET, and most recently portrayed an FBI agent plopped on an Indian reservation against his will in THUNDERHEART.

Munching on a vegetable burger to achieve a kindred spirituality with the star, I began questioning him just as the Time Cafe’s management decided to blare the Carpenter’s Greatest hits (and then some) over their speakers. This woeful distraction, along with Kilmer’s need to get into an incestuous mental mode, no doubt set the mood for the following conversation.

Brandon Judell: THE DOORS made over thirty-two million dollars, yet it was considered at flop. Why?

Val Kilmer: “The same with WILLOW. It made seventy-eighty million … over a hundred million worldwide, and because [George] Lucas usually makes a hundred fifty … two hundred million dollars, they said it was bombing at the box office.”

Brandon: And then there’s the video dinero to add on. Do these naysayers bother you?

Val: “No, I knew from the first draft that Oliver [Stone] wasn’t ambitious to make a commercial success. He wanted to be successful, of course, but he could have made a lot of adjustments in the story’ to make it for a wider audience. Probably could have got one, but I don’t know. I don’t think about it.”

Brandon: Could he have made it more popular by not pursuing Morrison to his death?

Val: “Morrison lived an awfully fill life. I don’t know how Stone could have, but I know one way the story could have been told to make it approachable, simply by dealing with aspects other than his suicidal tendencies. He was a multifaceted guy so there was a lot of different angles.”

Brandon: You gave so many interviews for that film. Was there a point where you said to yourself, ‘Dear God, let there be no more Doors questions?’

Val: “Not really. Usually if I feel I got enough on the screen or on the stage to he proud of it, I don’t mind talking about it personally. I don’t do it well if I don’t like my work, but I’m more than obligated to fulfill my contract, to try to get people to see it. It’s kind of a strange dichotomy, especially if you know things are wrong with the script and there’s time to change and they don’t. Then the studio says, “Well, forget that. Just say it’s good anyway.”

Brandon: Was REAL GENIUS a hit?

Val: “All of my films have made money. It wasn’t a smash.”

Brandon: I was surprised at all the film buffs I’ve chatted will who have a soft spot for that flick.

Val: “The film’s strange. That one and TOP SECRET! … I get lots of feedback from people on the street..and they play them a lot on the cable stations. I’m always kind of surprised because it’s a long time ago already. It’s always kind of a shock to me, but it’s flattering that these movies are still vivid in all these people’s minds. Often times, people don’t remember movies, even if you like them.”

Brandon: Could an actor without a natural sense of humor have starred in your role in REAL GENIUS and gotten away with it?

Val: “I don’t think so because that’s what he’s about. Probably wouldn’t have been very funny, but I’m sure someone would have.”

Brandon: People say comedy is hard.

Val: “It is hard.”

Brandon: I’ve been trying to think of another actor who could have played that part, mixing the need intelligence with the humor, and I couldn’t think of anyone.

Val: “Thanks. . You know, I like the old films. Cukor probably did them better than anyone. Hawks and Lubitsch sometimes, too. You know where they used these actors like Jimmy Stewart that could do both drama and comedy. We just watched Mr. Deeds Goes To Town the other day, and you don’t think of Cooper as a comedian, but he has this lovely light stuff in his face, in his spirit. He’s just this guy from a small country town. I find it very appealing. I’d like to do that. I mean…I don’t know if you go to screenings and stuff for your work. How often do you have a catharsis? One thing Oliver said early on about THE DOORS is that we should at least try to go for some sort cartharis. If you go away and throw up like people did after STAR 80 that’s respectable. At least he’s trying. And against all odds, with the subject matter he keeps choosing, his very radical ideas, he’s making it in Hollywood, and that’s very hard to do. Scorcese wanted to do The Doors. That never happened for whatever reason. Coppola. Oliver likes a fight. Not that these guys don’t, but it’s quite respectable that he’s managed to do it. But I’d also like to find some roles in entertainment with more simple stories. I’d love to work with Horton Foote, a real simple story.”

Brandon: A Matthew Broderick role.

Val: “A Matthew Broderick role. (laughs) I don’t know. He’s a very smart actor.”

Brandon: Oh, he is.

Val: “I like the work that work does. He’s very unique, and he always makes it personal and is always interesting. He works a lot.”

Brandon: Do you have another film coming out or soon to be starting?

Val: “Besides THUNDERHEART?”

Brandon: Yes

Val: “No.”

Brandon: Is that because you’re taking a break?

Val: “No, I’ve just been looking for a good movie to do.”

Brandon: How come you chose THUNDERHEART?

Val: “Well, I grew up around Indians, so it’s always been a passion of mine. The role intrigued me. The principle of it is that you can’t escape your past, and believe that very strongly about the United States. Any crucial problems that we face now could have been prevented had we had greater consciousness during our history as it was forming, instead of being conscientious once we’re faced with them. Pick a subject: Ozone, AIDS … the information is always there. That’s what I find inspiring about Thunderheart. The story’s effective in that it’s not out of guilt. We murdered all these Indians and so we owe them something. But now out of respect for the land, the tremendous strength that they have, the Indians are natural in a very real sense of the word. They have a natural relationship to the spirit, things that are not matter-based. They have the kind of trust that gives them that strength. It’s not hokey. It’s very real and very necessary. So I chose the part for all those reasons.”

Brandon: You said in the past that you’re religious. Religious in the organized religion way or in a more spiritual sense?

Val: “As I’ve described I certainly would be dead…several times I’ve almost died…without having had a discipline of praying and searching for a sense of order that’s just not material. I used to read a lot about different religions. Well, anyway, with all my philosophers friends or agnostic or atheist friends, it always has gotten down to that I could not comprehend that if the world only relied on a sense of common humanity and respect, it wouldn’t work. Because [without a God] it really gets down to the survival of the fittest. If we’re not put in something other than preserving our own best interests, the ones of us that don’t have nightmares at night about murdering or screwing someone over in business or betraying a trust, if we don’t and a lot of us don’t, then we win. It’s impossible to beat someone who’s willing to kill you. Indeed, we’re facing that kind of showdown regularly in terms of business and politics.”

Brandon: I tend to believe we can behave well without some of these guidelines forces. Religion in the past has been used too much as a weapon, that destroys as much as it heals. I just heard two Indians on radio speak about how Columbus is a villain to their heritage. They did say though that they were glad that the missionaries brought them Christ. My jaws gaped.

Val: “What tribe were they?”

Brandon: You got me.

Val: “I expect one that’s fairly well off with oil or coal.”

Brandon: I found that so amazing.

Val: “I have met good Catholics. I think it’s very hard to be a good Catholic.”

Brandon: The rules keep changing.

Val: “I don’t find God has the human traits that I find in Catholicism, that wrath of God. I don’t find it really applies to what I understand. I think it has to go beyond that.”

Brandon: The Indian spiritual fantasies that pepper THUNDERHEART, do you believe these visions occur. (Silence) The film was based on real events? Does your F.B.I. character exist?

Val: “No, but I’ve had experiences that have given me a healthy respect for these visions. There are lots of theories how these things happen. At the turn of the century and just prior, they believed that they were caused by hypnotism, mesmerism they called it. First, they actually thought it was juice, an electrical fluid that under the right condition it somehow three-dimensionalized things. I think that the power of suggestion is strong. If you accept those terms, then a life can exist where a powerful human mind can be changed or healed by a divine mind, one with a power greater than yours. So I’ve always had a healthy respect [or the Indians’ rites], but I have not chosen to practice in that way. You know you can see God on acid, and it really is God. It’s not your imagination. I don’t advocate that. I think that was part of what the sixties taught.”

Brandon: In the early 70s, one night during my college days, I saw thousands of alligators in Central Park lake, but no God.

Val: “I got an friend who saw an angel on acid. She was seventeen, a hard-core hippie. She didn’t need the acid anymore after that, and most of the people I know from the 60s have found some way where they have reconciled that as well. The ones that didn’t are dead. (Laughs) For the most part, they’re not living anymore … I knew a pianist at Juilliard who dropped three or four times a week, a brilliant pianist and I just couldn’t comprehend.”

Brandon: Is he still around?

Val: “She – I’m going to use the rest room now.”

Brandon: Great

(Kilmer comes back 10 minutes later and says he has to get notes from his director about last night’s performance. He holds my recorder to his lips as we make our way to the Public Theatre.)

Brandon: We’re walking now in the rain. We are you living now? You said in the desert?

Val: “Yeah, I live in New Mexico.”

Brandon: Were you there before THE DOORS?

Val: “Uh-huh. Almost ten years now. I had a place here (in New York) and I ended up selling it a couple of years ago.”

Brandon: In one of your old interviews, you mentioned that you were raised by a strange nanny. Someone who just got back from Vietnam Did you ever reconnect with him?

Val: “Jan Dixon. Good ol’ Jan.”

Brandon: What kind of parents did you have that would leave their kids with the world’s strangest nanny?

Val: “Well, I don’t know if they knew what they were getting into, but he sure was a marvelous influence. He was an art student, so he’d decipher rock lyrics on the radio for us.”

Brandon: One would assume your parents were bright because of your apparent smarts.

Val: “Now that I’m a parent, I, of course, respect how they raised us much more. I really appreciate that they were encouraging for whatever we wanted to get into in a way that made us more open-minded.”

Brandon: Since you’re a poet yourself, is there any relationship to Mr. Joyce Kilmer?

Val: “Yeah, he’s a second cousin somewhere.”

Brandon: So are you getting royalties from TREES?

Val: “It’s a good poem, but the others aren’t very … I finally found a collection of his up in Santa Barbara one year, and TREES was his best one by far. Did you have to learn it in grammar school? We did. It was in the book. It was in the grammar book.”

Brandon: So he was long gone by the time you were born.

Val: “Oh, yeah. I think there is a Fort Kilmer down in the Carolinas, North or South, named after him.”

Brandon: Now are you going to switch constantly between theatre and movies?

Val: “I’d like to do more theatre. I’ve been working on a summer festival out in Santa Fe, a theatre festival that will hopefully happen sooner than later.”

(Doused, we chat some more as we enter the lobby of the theatre, I ask Kilmer whether he’d star in a film like BASIC INSTINCT, no knowing at the time that his costar is one of the film’s leads. He notes he’s turned down more than a few roles for moral reasons. But somewhere, somehow, Kilmer has accidentally turned off the tape recorder, so this and other replies are lost. This is discovered the following day.)

Smiling for a second, he heads off to hear his director’s notes about his previous nights performance. As Kilmer disappears behind a door, DETOUR, for some odd reason, remembers an anecdote the actor revealed in another publication: “I had a friend visit New York for the first time and said, ‘The thrill is you can see anything here. And the tragedy is that is becomes commonplace, and you become hardened to the joy of how insane people can be.’ Then we rounded the corner, and there was a man in convertible pink Cadillac. Naked. Doing a headstand. And I said, ‘See?’ This guy wasn’t asking for money, either, which I thought was to his credit. He was a purist.” And, no doubt, Val Kilmer is too.

Fly Girl Zhang Zi-Yi!

Chinese ingenue Zhang Zi-Yi puts her best roundhouse-kicking foot forward in director Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

By Brandon Judell

Zhang Zi-Yi simply can’t wait until our interview is over. We’re in Vivienne Tam’s New York showroom, and this 21-year-old Chinese actress knows that soon she’ll have her choice of garb as only upcoming stars do. “Let’s get it over with, please!” her posture seems to caterwaul to me and her translator. And just how much more can she say about Ang Lee’s acclaimed action romance Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that she hasn’t said before? And what about being internationally revered director Zhang Yimou’s replacement for his ex-lover and star Gong Li? Well, that’s rather personal, isn’t it?

Although in Crouching Tiger Zhang plays a gorgeous, love-making, death-wielding martial-arts expert who can fly through the air with the greatest of balletic ease—giving Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh a run for their money—in person, she comes off as a sweet Eastern edition of Britney Spears.

“Actually Ang hesitated quite a bit before he cast me,” she notes. “I think I am quite innocent-looking. So he was wondering if I had the wild quality that my character Jen You is supposed to have in the movie. I hope I didn’t disappoint him.”

“Of course, you didn’t,” I reply.

“Thank you very much,” she responds, in her only words of English, before rushing to the clothes.

Just call him the Thoreau of Hollywood.  How many other actors would postpone an interview because they had to repair a fence?  Barry Pepper, the praying sharpshooter of Saving Private Ryan, a guard in The Green Mile and the last hope for us humans in Battlefield Earth, wants the simple life.  Living on a farm outside Vancouver with his wife and daughter, Annaliese, this is one rising star you won’t find noshing on carpaccio in a trendy LA eatery, not when he has enough manure and a rifle at hand.

     “We have our own garden, and my family raises their own beef and lamb and chicken,” Pepper explains.  “And if I ever have the desire for a wild duck feast, I go out and shoot one.  For some people, it’s a very necessary way of life.  For us, it’s a choice.  A healthy choice.  It’s a way for us to get back to the land.”

      Considering that when Pepper was five, his family built a boat and sailed to Fiji, Tahiti and New Zealand before settling on an island populated by hippies, Barry’s current lifestyle is not totally unexpected; especially since his mother had him schooled in rugby, football, baseball, sculpture and ballet to boot.

     Ballet?
     “I was the only boy in the entire class, causing me to really identify with Billy Elliott.  That was a great movie, man.  Break dancing.  Jazz ballet.  Modern dance.  It was a great foundation.  It wasn’t until later on, in the teenage years, that I sort of got a little ribbing.  But when the guys saw all the beautiful young girls I was hanging out with, they let it ride.  Then when break dancing became popular in ’86, all the local neighborhood kids were like, ‘Hey, teach me how to do that!'”
     Now after they watch Pepper become Roger Maris in HBO’s 61*, directed by Billy Crystal, they might start begging for batting tips.  The year is 1961, and Mickey Mantle (Thomas Jane) is battling his teammate Maris to break Babe Rth’s 1927 single-season mark of 60 home runs.  Expect a bundle of Emmy nominations next year, including one for Pepper as Best Actor.
     “You know, Roger smoked three packs of non-filtered Camels a day.  So I started smoking.  It was just an actor’s choice.  They didn’t make me; but obviously, in every scene Roger’s smoking.  And one of my biggest pet peeves, besides listening to piss-poor accents in movies, is watching people smoke that don’t really smoke.  They never inhale, and it just sort of looks so tragically phony.  So, whenever a character that I’m playing has to smoke, I will insist on inhaling.  Fortunately, I’m not an addictive person, so I can give it up when I got home at night.  But yeah, those non-filters are just nasty, just absolutely foul on the lungs and they’d get all wrapped around and twisted in my head.  I’d be just completely dizzy.  Then, they would bring in the medic and oxygen, and I would be throwing up in the bushes, and Billy would yell, ‘Action!’ So I’d wipe my mouth on the back of my sleeve and away we’d go.  It was pretty rough, but at least it certainly added a lot of realism to the performance.”
     His new mob drama, Knockaround Guys, was slightly easier on his stomach.  In fact, co-stars Dennis Hopper and John Malkovich had him in stitches throughout.  “I saw it not long ago and it was a lot of fun.  A really well-balanced, unique sort of take on the whole ‘Oops! I lost the bag of money’ movie.  It’s really refreshing and cool.  It’s hip.  It’s young, and it’s fast.”
     “It was my first lead.  I had never sort of been at the helm of a picture before in that way.  I’m really pleased.  I learned so much from working with Dennis and John.  They really took me to school in a lot of ways.  We had a blast.  they were constantly cutting up and keeping everybody on their toes.  You know, it’s funny that they’re perceived as so bizarre.  They’re just two very brilliant men, very well-read, really interesting, with eclectic backgrounds.  You can’t ask for a better acting class than working with guys like that.”
     Of course, Pepper’s next pic, which stars Mel Gibson and Greg Kinnear, might teach him a few things too.  The working title of this epic about the first battle between the United States and the Viet Cong in 1965 is We Were Soldiers Once … And Young.  “I just came back from Georgia doing boot camp with the rest of the cast, getting acclimated.  I really enjoyed it.  This was very different than the Private Ryan boot camp, but equally amazing.  I’ll never forget it.  We were jumping in and out of hovering Huey helicopters with our M-16s and crawling through mud underneath barbed wire while they were shooting live M-60 rounds over our heads.  Live mortar explosions are going off, and it’s pitch black at night.  And the one thing they tell you is, whatever you do, don’t stand up because you’ll be dead.  And you have to sign a waiver.  You basically waive your life before you go through the course.”
     But for Pepper, surviving a barrage of enemy fire is nothing compared to staying married.  “You know five years ago, I would never have thought, ‘Oh, I want to get married.’ I was one of those kind of guys, a bit of a player.  Never thought I would make a good father.  Never thought I would want to get married.  Now I just can’t imagine life any other way.”      
 

After supporting roles in both Gus Van Sant’s To Die For and Barbet Schroeder’s Before and After, 18-year-old Alison Folland now garners her first lead in All Over Me, a new film by the Sichel Sisters.

This high school senior from Massachusetts portrays Claude, a young girl living in the Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan.

Besides having to cope with normal variety of teenage angst, Claude is finding she’s in love with her best friend Ellen (Tara Subkoff) who’s turning into a druggie.

Folland’s performance is tough, sensitive and quite promising of great things yet to come. Here’s the interview.

Q: I loved your performance. Of course, everyone knows you from your first film. How did you get the part in that?

A: The first one?

Q: To Die For.

A: I went to an open call in my school.

Q: Were you an actress before that–or did you just decide to try out?

A: I just decided to try out. I was in the school play that year, and the drama director told me and a bunch of kids about these open calls. That they were looking for a 15-year-old girl.

Q: Was this just a fantasy? Did you have any idea you were as talented as you are?

A: (Laughs.) No, I’m not as talented as people think I am. But I don’t know. I didn’t even really consider being in movies before this happened. It was just a spur of a moment decision to go on this audition. I hadn’t really thought about being in movies before this. I wasn’t expecting to get the role.
Q: Do you have another film set up after this?

A: No, I don’t.

Q: But you have a good agent?

A: Yeah. I do but I haven’t been looking for any work lately because I’m just basically trying to finish up high school. I’m planning on taking a period of time off at least and just trying to find work, I guess, for next year. I’m auditioning and stuff like that.

Q: In both To Die For and All Over Me, you have played a troubled youth. Do you get your inspiration from people around you or did you just have to look inside?

A: A little of both. From watching other kids around me. How they interact. How they present themselves. Mannerisms. And from myself, you know. From like parts of myself that I can see within the character.

Q: Surprisingly, though so many films nowadays have gay roles, and TV shows, too, we in the press keep telling the performers how brave they were to play a lesbian or homosexual.

A: Right.

Q: Did you think you had to be brave? Were you nervous about approaching this role?

A: No, not at all. I didn’t accept the role thinking I was playing a lesbian now. I don’t think that was what my character was primarily. Primarily, she was a teenage girl who was going through a lot of changes in her life, and she happened to be a lesbian. But it wasn’t in the front of my mind when I accepted the role. I wasn’t scared of playing a lesbian.

Q: I was just interviewing an actress from the film Ripe. She wasn’t even playing a gay role, and because she has a certain amount of fame, she said, “People are spreading these gay rumors about me,” and she was very upset. You’re two years older, but there might be people who see the film and think you might be like Claude. I think that’s happening less and less though.

A: I think that happens a lot though because people are always constantly looking for icons of some sort, and like when they see a young actress . . . You know, I try not to worry about people judging me from my performances.

Q: In a sense it’s a brave film. First of all, it’s dealing with adolescent sexuality which is seldom explored in a serious way. But also it’s addressing the problems of a young girl coming to terms with her lesbianism. This is sort of new for a film, and for many women who are lesbians,and of the right age, who are teenagers now, and All Over Me might save them from quite a bit of depression. There’s a higher rate of suicide among gay teenagers.

A: Right. Right. I hope so. A lot of older lesbians have watched this movie and been particularly moved or really tickled by it because there are tons of moments in it which are like moments that they go “I’ve done that.” Like really, really there are familiar scenarios to teenage lesbians. And even not necessarily lesbians but to teenage girls. I think almost anyone can watch this movie and identify with a situation that they’ve been in at some point of their life.