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By: BILL THOMPSON
Originally Published on: 12/21/97
Page: F1
Will Patton never expected he'd be
wallowing in oil again.
As a 19-year-old vagabond cruising the
country and picking up odd jobs along the way, the fledgling actor wound
up in New Orleans scooping petroleum out of the Mississippi River.
Saturation in goo was the order of the day.
Now here he was, a quarter-century later,
shooting the film ``Armageddon'' on a Los Angeles sound stage - awash in
the viscous stuff.
``In the story, Earth is threatened by
this asteroid. I'm one of a team of demolition experts who lands in this
huge pit on the asteroid - me and Bruce Willis and Steve Buscemi. Steve
has a line in there where he says, `This is like Dr. Seuss' worst
nightmare.' Which is what the set looks like.
``We're lugging this heavy equipment
around wearing these heavy space suits. And I'm covered in oil again. You
know, it does bring back memories.''
After studying at the North Carolina
School of the Arts, and just before leaving for New York in 1975, the
Charleston-born Patton, son of Laura M. Logan of Mount Pleasant, found
himself in the Big Easy, broke and in need of an infusion of cash.
``I went to work mopping oil out of the
Mississippi and made enough to go to New York on a train,'' recalls
Patton, who stars opposite Kevin Costner in the Christmas Day release of
``The Postman.'' ``I remember that all my clothes were covered in oil. No
matter how much I washed them this kind of gray sheen would remain.''
On ``Armageddon,'' he invited it.
``I told the director, Michael Bay (``The
Rock''), that this was the first time in a film I haven't been as
interested in the dialogue sequences. I said, `Why don't you just put me
into as much of the action as you can because that's where it seems to be
at on this movie. Blow that fire over my head and let me fall down in the
hole and get that oil sprayed all over me.'
``That's the fun of this movie. I think
I've been sort of half stunt man half actor lately.'' Familiar face
One of the most familiar and welcome
faces in film over the past 15 years, the stage-trained Patton, 44, is a
veteran of more than 30 features. Although he has won praise for his work
in a number of noted independent and small-budget pictures, he is perhaps
best known to audiences for his roles in ``Desperately Seeking Susan,''
``After Hours,'' ``The Rapture,'' ``The Spitfire Grill,'' ``Copycat'' and
``Fled.''
The last afforded him a rare opportunity
to play a wholly sympathetic character. But it's back to villainy - with
shadings - in ``The Postman.''
The movie marks a reunion with director
and co-star Costner, who worked with Patton in Roger Donaldson's ``No Way
Out.'' Patton's performance in that 1987 thriller remains one of his most
impressive and skilled.
In ``The Postman,'' which is set in 2013
in the aftermath of a devastating war, Patton plays the character of Gen.
Bethlehem, militaristic ruler of a shabby enclave in the American
Northwest. Into this anarchic scene comes a stranger (Costner) who poses
not merely as a mailman, but as the representative of an allegedly
restored U.S. government.
Bethlehem is not receptive.
Neither was Patton, when first approached
to play the part.
``When Kevin first called me about this
role I really didn't know if I wanted to do it. I couldn't figure out how
to make him more than one-dimensional. It was an amazing part, yes, but I
wasn't sure it was an amazing part for me. I kept looking at it, though.
Here was a powerful man who enjoyed speaking in front of a crowd and
enjoyed controlling them. In order to play the character wholeheartedly, I
wanted to find what it was in myself that was like that - to the point of
an extreme, passionate wish to be more. Some central philosophy or
religious idea I might get ahold of to suit a new world that needed a new
code.''
Patton says it's always been rather
difficult for him to discuss what he does to flesh out a character
portrait. For the most part, the mechanism is a private thing, which makes
understandable the actor's long-standing reluctance to attend premieres or
do interviews. The prospect of an upcoming ``Postman'' publicity junket -
which will be attended by scores of press - is cause for some unease.
So, in the beginning, was a new Web site
devoted to his career. It was flattering but also eerie to wake up one
morning and discover that the Will Patton Web site was on-line.
``It spooked me at first, but the person
doing the page (Julia Thompson) seemed to be doing it for fun, so I've
been feeling not too paranoid about it.''
Personal details are scant. His father,
Bill Patton, who currently lives in Beaufort, was a serviceman based in
Charleston when his son was born. Patton attended elementary schools in
North Carolina, living for a time in Durham, where the senior Patton
taught at Duke University. High school years were spent at the
experimental Hampton Day School on Long Island, and summers meant visiting
both sets of grandparents in the Charleston area.
The N.C. School of the Arts proved to be
a pivotal experience, setting the course for an actor who has come to
distinguish himself in a broad array of roles.
Neither rain, nor ...
At first blush, ``The Postman'' would
seem to be a variant of Costner's ``Waterworld,'' yet another chapter in
Hollywood's cherished run of post-apocalyptic films. Patton suggests
otherwise.
``I think that it's extremely unique,
this movie. I watched it and it was what I hoped it might be: a sort of
wild, beautiful fantasy which at first seems completely absurd. Yet
there's something about it that ... well, I've never seen anything quite
like it.
``One begins to believe in this imaginary
world, which for me didn't have anything to do with the apocalypse,
necessarily. It felt more like some dream you might have. The thing that
is familiar about it is that it's got a certain kind of formula, as most
big Hollywood movies do. But based on the films I've seen, it's not a
standard post-apocalyptic story.''
``Armageddon'' has proven even more
grueling, something to be expected on a film by Bay, and with a producer
like Jerry Bruckheimer, purveyor of ``Con Air.'' The emphasis is on
nonstop action and pyrotechnics.
``The writer is basically a nonexistent
entity on `Armageddon.' There were something like five names on the script
when I first got it, and now I don't think there's any name on it at all.
We sort of make it up each day as we go along, based around whatever
explosive device is operating that day.''
And Patton admits to being a little
``strung out'' from his exertions, which for ``The Postman'' included
trooping about on horseback with a corps of battle re-enactors.
``These guys were really into it. There
were days I'd go out there tired and beat up and wondering how I was going
to make it through the day and they'd treat me like I was the best general
they'd ever had. They would give me this fuel to finish. It was like being
a general (as befits his name) in some imaginary Quantrill's Raiders or
something.
```Armageddon'' isn't necessarily the
sort of thing I thought I'd be doing right after Kevin's picture. But
there's good people in it, and the character is a real simple,
kind-hearted guy. After playing Bethlehem in `The Postman,' I sort of need
something like that for my mental health, something not quite so savage.
Sometimes with these characters you live in their skins so much. The anger
and loneliness inside of Bethlehem wore me down after a while.''
Footlights
Patton studied under Lee Strasberg at the
Actor's Studio and with Joseph Chaikin at the Open Theatre during his
early days in New York. He has enjoyed featured roles in more than 40
Off-Broadway plays, capturing Obie Awards for the Circle Repertory
production of Sam Shepard's ``Fool for Love'' and for the Public Theatre
production of ``What Did He See?'' He shared a third Obie as a cast member
of the experimental Winter Project theater group's ``Tourist and Refugees
#2.''
Patton also won a trio of Villager Awards
for the plays ``Goose,'' ``Dark Ride'' and ``Tomtom.''
``For a long time, a lot of people would
have called me a method actor, whatever that means. Joe Chaikin, whose
approach was sort of the opposite of The Method, really was my main
teacher, although I use both. After taking a workshop with him, he asked
me to become a member of his theater company. We did pieces together for
three or four years, and I really learned on my feet with him. Sam Shepard
was involved with that, too.''
Unfortunately, it's been almost a decade
since Patton has found a play sufficiently compelling to win his interest.
``I have much more powerful feelings
about my work on stage. It means so much to me that whatever it is would
have to be something that was exactly what I was looking for at the time
and corresponded to something that was going on real deep in my life. And
I haven't found anything that anyone was writing that came up to that for
me, since working with Sam and Richard Foreman. I guess I got kind of
spoiled by those guys.
``It's very disappointing because I want
to do it. Film can be very exciting and challenging, and there are times
when I really love doing it. But there also are times when I feel I'm
missing something, knowing what the theater experience is like.''
New ventures
By contrast, Patton is very enthusiastic
about ``I Woke Up Early the Day I Died,'' a film he recently completed.
Based on the final script by the late Ed Wood, it has elements of a silent
movie. Patton says the picture was fun on several levels, not least in
giving support ``to a strange alien outcast like Wood, even
posthumously.''
He says it was among his more enjoyable
experiences in film, along with his roles in Nicholas Roeg's ``Cold
Heaven'' and Martin Scorsese's ``After Hours.''
What remains to be decided is when Patton
will try his hand at directing or invest more time in his writing.
``I was never sure if I wanted to be a
writer or an actor, and sometimes I'm still not sure,'' says Patton, who
is unmarried. ``My writing has never been connected with the theater or
with film. A friend and I put together some of my stuff with music, and
there have been strange magazines that have published some of my writing,
as well as friends who support my writing. But it's not something I've
tried very hard to put out there.''
Like many a veteran actor, Patton would
like to have a bit more power over the final cut of a film - which means
directing. He has been thinking about it a lot of late. The next best
thing, meantime, is working with a director - such as Roeg - with whom he
is on the same wave length. Earlier this year, the actor had that
opportunity with Gary Hawkins, a filmmaker at Patton's alma mater.
``Gary is a really talented guy who did
an outstanding documentary on the writer Harry Crews. He wrote me a letter
after finding out I went to the N.C. School of the Arts, and I went and
did a little 11-minute movie for him called ``Samaritans,'' with Natalie
Canerday, who played the mother in `Slingblade.' The movie is based on a
story by Larry Brown.
``Gary's trying, with a few other people,
to assemble those who want to make movies about the South with really good
Southern writers in a way Hollywood hasn't been doing. Gary's really on to
that. I've been very excited about the idea of working with Gary again. I
like him. I like his taste.''
No explosives. No oil. Bill Thompson
covers books and movies. Contact him at 937-5707. d up in New Orleans
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