GOD'S HANDS: An interview with Frailty director/star Bill Paxton By Warren Curry 4/7/02 Part 2 of 2

What was it about the script that made you want to get involved?

It was original, very disturbing and very suspenseful. Because I invested so much in the older boy (Fenton), who was this incredible protagonist, I was afraid of it. I was approached to play Dad and produce the film by David Kirshner, who controlled the script. I initially tried to send it out to a few directors then I started thinking, "Why am I going to just give this great script to somebody else?" I knew the milieu of this world, I knew the landscape, I knew the characters from other movies I had done, as well as from being from Texas. This was a role that was really in my tenor. I'm a father myself, I can relate to these boys and I love the fraternal aspect of the film. Weirdly enough, looking back, that's been a running theme through my own work. Whether playing Billy Bob Thornton's brother or being Chet in Weird Science or playing one of the Earp brothers. I've done a lot of these kinds of roles. I've always liked familial dramas; I've always seen this film as a familial tragedy. Again, this wasn't some political agenda for me, although the movie kind of plays like it's pro-vigilantism and capital punishment on a surface level, but to me you just see this nice family and they're just destroyed by this whole thing. It's more like The Fall of the House of Usher, so to me it belies the folly of man's ego when he ordains himself to be God's executioner, whatever that is. It seems like man uses religion a lot of times to promote his own political or personal agenda.

Why were you so adamant about having the screenwriter, Brent Hanley, on the set?

It was a very tricky piece. The original script was about 130 pages; we knew because of our shooting schedule -- you figure you're going to get about 3 pages a day, and I knew that I could only get about a 35 day schedule, so I had to take pages out. This script is like a house of cards; you pull one card out and it's tied to this other card. It looks like a simple movie, but it's very complicated in terms of how the information is given out. Once you know the story and all the twists and flips, watching it a second time is kind of fun, because there are a lot of clues laid out, but they're very cleverly written out.

What made you want to play this character?

He was a father, who thought he was doing right by his sons and he loved his children. I just liked the story. I've always had a taste for the bizarre, the macabre, the unexplained tales of mystery and suspense. I was weaned on this stuff -- I watched The Twilight Zone religiously, I read Stephen King until my eyeballs were falling out of my head. I remember my father took me to movies like Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte when I was a kid. I didn't have a normal background -- I was completely demented from a very early age! This is a love letter to those early films; all that paranoia of being a kid and no one listening to you and all these crazy adults. I took my son to New York last summer and I really laid on the trip. I took him on the dream trip that my dad had taken me on as a boy. We stayed at the Plaza Hotel, we went to a Yankees game, we saw The Lion King and went all over the city. His favorite place was McSorley's Old Ale House, and the reason it was his favorite place -- he made me take him there a second time -- he said was because, "You can spill your drink and nobody cares, and you can belch without having to say excuse me." I realized, of course, what a sanctuary (this is) for a child. We don't understand how much we indoctrinate our children, and we mean well by it.

You always come across as this happy person, but when you look at the films you've had real personal involvement in, including Frailty, they've been so dark.

Thank you! Part of the reason I made this movie is because I kind of want people to re-evaluate me. I started out doing bizarre character parts in films like Near Dark, but most people know me from the bigger, blockbuster type of films where they think I'm the affable, light-hearted, happy-go-lucky mindless idiot. Even in the town (L.A.), I wanted people to reconsider where I'm coming from, and I thought Frailty was the perfect story to get that across. I don't know what I expect from this movie. I'm very proud of the film; I think it's a classic of its kind. I hope people will see the film and enjoy it and not get too deep with it. I hope to have more opportunities. The next thing I want to direct is a British romantic comedy, but it's dependent on the cast. I have my sights set very high on the cast.

What is it like directing a film you are acting in?

Again, the character was a father, so I could relate to the character. I'm very close to my dad and I have two kids, so that part was pretty easy. Remember, I'm playing a guy who has complete conviction. The audience thinks I'm crazy, but is he crazy? Who knows? He's more like Joan of Arc or something; just a weird version of Joan of Arc. I had an acting coach, who I've worked with for 20 years named Vincent Chase on the set. He plays the guy we kidnap at the convenience store. I had him work with the boys. Matt O'Leary is actually from Chicago -- because all of us our Texans, we had real regional accents -- he had to affect an accent. I kept Vince on the set to watch the boys and to watch me. It was more the task of directing this army of craftsmen and keeping on schedule and on budget. It's quite an effort to make a film. I had a great editor too named Arnold Glassman; a documentary editor that's been around forever making great documentaries like Visions of Light. He had never cut a feature, but a good editor is hard to come by and he was very close to the film. I hired a painter to be my storyboard artist and he was really much more than that. His name is David Ivie -- a great southern painter, who paints these very kind of bleak pictures.

The "making of" documentary shows his storyboards -- they are amazing.

That's a great piece. The "making of" is a little bit of a campaign piece for me too; I want people to re-evaluate me. My dream would be to make films like Clint Eastwood did. He'd make Dirty Harry, but then he'd make The Beguiled or Play Misty For Me or Bird. Even The Unforgiven is such a dark, but classic western. You have to be a self-starter out here at a certain point. It's important to take the reigns or, otherwise, you can be regaled to obscurity so quickly.

Click on for an interview with Frailty screenwriter Brent Hanley

Click here to go to Ryan Kugler's review of Frailty

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