By James Mottram
It’s a great role and great movie. How did Guillermo approach you? Did he write it specifically for you?
“Yes he did. He sent me an email and said ‘I want you to do this part’ and he sent me the script. I immediately said yes. I knew him. I had seen Pan’s Labyrinth. I started watching his other things, and I just love it, and I thought to myself, ‘how is he going to do this?’”
What about your character’s pie fascination? You are always eating pie. What does it mean?
“I’m in love with the guy that sells the pies. And I hate pies. That shot when he opens the refrigerator…. all the pies; I can never finish the pie.”
You have referred to Guillermo as an old master, what do you mean?
“There’s a lot of Frank Capra about Guillermo. Guillermo is Guillermo; he’s not Frank Capra. I mean that he looks at the world like Frank Capra. He sees innocence and beauty, and he doesn’t judge which is what I think a lot of Frank Capra stuff is. When I got out of school, I thought everything was going to be like The Shape of Water. That’s what I thought, and this was a film that I grew up watching. Making it was an incredible experience and that’s why I’m doing the press because I mean I’m doing this for Guillermo. I think this is his great movie.”
Does Guillermo give you advice in the process?
“Oh sure. Absolutely. You know if somebody is watching it and they say “try something else’ it means there’s something they’re not buying or not believing. You can’t ignore that. You have to say ‘okay, what’s wrong here? What is it?’ But it was a joyous process. You try to give them many different ways and do things differently and sees which one he picks and put it together.
Although the film is set in early 1960s, it is also clearly about today. Is it something you discussed with Guillermo?
“Yeah, I think it is time for a movie like this. It is the time for love without judgement and something pure; you know something beautiful.”
Do you often get scripts written specifically written for you?
“Well, they say it… but it depends. Tom McCarthy with The Visitor called me up and said ‘I wrote this script for you; I want you to read it.’ What am I supposed to say if I don’t like it? But when I read it I said ‘Tom, nobody is going to give you the money to do this with me in this part’ and he said ‘That wasn’t my question. My question is, do you want to do it? You let me worry about the money.’ So I knew he wrote it for me. I know that Fran McDormand always had me in mind for Olive Kitteridge. Bone Tomahawk as well..
Did The Visitor change your career?
“Yes it did. James Cromwell once said ‘once you’re nominated for an Academy Award, directors will listen to your opinions after that. You had the same opinions all the time, but now they start to listen.’ That’s good advice.”
So, you feel you are in a good place in your career?
“I’m 70 now, and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve been a very fortunate man, incredibly fortunate. To get a chance this time in my life to do something like this with him is just…yep I’m very grateful.”
Looking back, what has acting given you?
“It’s given me my voice. I couldn’t paint, couldn’t write. I couldn’t do those things I always envied in others. I was not good with the camera, couldn’t photograph, but I found acting. I found that was my way to share with people what I am, who I am.”
How old were you when that happened?
“By eight. I remember after I was nominated for The Visitor, they did an article in my hometown newspaper. I was from a very small town in Illinois, DeKalb. Great place to grow up but very small, and I come home when I was about 12. I had done a play in junior high school and I came home and told my mother and father I wanted to be an actor. I was an only child; my father was an only child. He was a dentist, and I didn’t know this happened, it was in the article, so my mother called up the drama teacher and said you have to talk to my husband. He’s being unreasonable. My son came home and said he wanted to be an actor and my husband said to me ‘This is not going to happen. I will not allow this. This is not a way for a person to make a living. He will starve to death. I am not going have it? He is not going to do it. He’s going to dental school or medical school.’ So the acting teacher said put him on the phone. So my dad gone on the phone and he said ‘I will not allow this’, and she said, ‘Okay, fine but you have to be able to accept the fact that he will never forgive you for the rest of his life. And if you’re willing to do that, go ahead.’ And my father… I thought he was my biggest fan my whole life. Always just ‘What are you doing next?’ I never knew. I never got to thank him because I never knew till after he died.”
What was the kick that gave you this idea of acting?
“I would go to the movies every weekend and just get lost in them. It didn’t matter what it was; I just want to be in them. It’s like the opening song in La La Land for me. The young girl sings about life will go down, and she’s 17. There it is. She goes to LA. That’s kind of how I felt. That’s corny, but it’s true.”
Was there a reality check when you did start to try and get into movies?
“I was an actor in a theatre because there was no way to get into movies. I went to LA once for nine or ten months to break in; it didn’t work out well.
What tipped the scale finally in terms of getting movie roles?
“I didn’t have an agent or a manager or anybody. I was doing a play at The Long Wharf Theatre, and my theatrical manager Bill Tresh was in the audience with Sandy Dennis. Remember Sandy Dennis? Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She said to him ‘Sign him.’ And he came backstage and said I want to sign you. I was like 36, and I said ‘Really?’ and he said ‘Yeah. Okay. What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I want to be in movies.’ He said ‘Okay.’ That’s how it started. He got me The Witches of Eastwick which changed everything for me.”
What’s your most favourite memory about that?
“Not to being able to get on the set. The first day, they wouldn’t let me on because they didn’t believe I was in it. I lived about 68 miles from where they were shooting the movie. I drove my first day, and I try to get on, security guy wouldn’t let me in. I said ‘I’m in the movie’, and a grip was walking by, and he said: ‘Come here, is this guy in the movie?’ He said, ‘Never seen him before.’ I said ‘You got to let me in man cause if you don’t you’re going to lose your job. I’m not going to be ready to shoot, and so finally he got somebody who came over, and they let me in.”
Were you a bit starstruck with the cast from that movie, which was huge?
“It was terrifying, but you know who was really sweet to me was Michelle Pfeiffer. She was great. Jack was great. I saw the dailies, he was great. He was just really great. They all were but I worked with mostly Michelle of that group, but Veronica Cartwright was my wife, and she was fabulous. Movie sets are great. Movie people are great.”
What makes them great?
“They know how hard it is. They know the struggle. They’re kind; they haven’t forgotten that it takes a long time for a lot of work to make; just get past the security guard… I thought Jack was so supportive. He just came by two or three times after doing a scene and just give you a little… ‘great’.”
The Shape of Water is in cinemas now.
