Chris Cooper
Can you identify with your character, Phil? If so, how?
Well, I think sooner or later young, old, anybody is going to have this experience of losing someone near and dear to you. When I read the script, I had been approached over the years to deal with something like this, but I thought this was the time and this was the script. And I so sympathized with Phil, and I thought his behavior was that that I wanted to portray or put out there because I thought it was right.
You’ve worked with many, many directors, like John Sayles in Matewan back in 1987. How was working with Jean [Marc Vallée] different from working with other directors? He has a different process, from what we understand.
He does, but it’s a little adjustment. I understand some actors may really find it intrusive and upsetting to work that way, but it’s really not. What they don’t know is how much in the day that they will get accomplished, because this idea of working ‘French hours’—you just keep on the move and you grab a bite and you don’t break for lunch. The way he works with his DP, they are like attached at the hip and they can read each others’ minds. They’ve worked together so long. When they cover one angle of a scene, there’s no 15-minute break to relight. This is something technical I don’t understand, but they know light and they know how to work with it. Unbeknownst to the actors, they make a little adjustment and we’re right back to work. A 12-14 hour day is not unusual on a film shoot, but the great thing here is you get so much accomplished. He doesn’t storyboard. He feels out an area, a situation, a room. You get so much accomplished, and you go home early.
Does it help with the emotional part of the character, staying in character and staying in the scene without the big breaks?
I got to say that’s up to the actor. It’s up to the individual. I know in other shoots where I have that 15-minute break and I go back to the trailer, I have my way of staying in character and keeping in mind what’s going to come up to in a few minutes.
What was key in getting into that character? Did you get to keep those beautiful suits?
I have on occasion. Yeah, sometimes suits disappear from the shoot. Yeah, those were really nice. I spent a lot of time with the costumer and I’m very interested in the psychology of wardrobe and how it works. Sometimes I have my ideas and I’m very wrong. But it’s good to get an education from a good costumer about what color, what cut can say. But no I didn’t get those. You know, actually, I wouldn’t feel comfortable in those suits.
The chemistry between you and Jake [Gyllenhaal] was just intensive. What was that like?
It was like going back and running into your nephew. This is the third time we’ve worked together. I worked with Jake in one of his first films. He was sixteen when we did October Sky. I don’t know what year Jarhead came out but it was a handful of years later. He was a little, sweet, 16-year-old boy in October Sky and a young character in Jarhead called for something else and he was that. And now, he is a man, and a gentleman at that.
Is it easier to work with someone that you’ve worked with before, or multiple times even? Or does it make it harder because you know each other so well?
No, it doesn’t make it harder. I think, in this relationship with Jake, it does make it easier. I know his family. Everybody in his family is in the business. When we did October Sky he had to have a chaperone, so I spent a lot of time with his mother, Naomi. I’ve spent time at his home in Los Angeles, the family home, and have run into him at different events. It’s always nice. You have a little bit of history.
Have you ever demolished anything, and what?
My survival job. I lived in Manhattan for 17 years when I was going after the business, just starting out. Before I came here, I worked at the Kansas City Chiefs and Kansas City Royals football and baseball stadiums in 1970 and 1971. That paid for two years of college. Can you imagine, back then? But that gave me a craft as a carpenter. So I had a toolbox on wheels. I lived in Midtown, 48th and 8th, and I’d take the subway to the Upper East Side to some very wealthy people. And I’d knock down old maid’s quarters to enlarge their apartments. I’d put in a kitchen or tear out a kitchen. I could do everything. So I sledgehammered a number of walls.
So this hit close to home for you?
It’s right next door.
What’s more satisfying: putting the stuff up or knocking it down?
Putting it up. I think if I wasn’t an actor, I think I would have gone into architecture. I just love it. And I’m always tinkering with my house. I did a renovation of my house, we tore everything out to the studs six or seven years ago. My design was much more of a European feel for my downstairs and it was a joy. There was no rush. I spent a year and a half designing it and I chose the tiles and the fixtures and everything. It was great fun.
What I loved about this story is I feel like it wasn’t quite that predictable about where it was going with the characters. What did you love about the writing?
You said it. Even watching the film, I saw it once at the Toronto Film Festival, I thought “it makes sense to go this way, and it doesn’t”. It keeps you on your toes. You can’t anticipate the way it’s going. In the end, what I’m knocked out about is I think the audience got it. That this man, I think, was falling apart. When I saw the film, I didn’t see it in the script, I thought I saw there were periods where Davis was ashamed of himself because he realized he didn’t appreciate what he had. There were surprising moments even as close as I was to the film.
What did you think of the young actor in the film?
Pretty good, pretty good. In reality, a very sweet boy. Maybe he’s got a future.
You’re known to be very passionate about the research process. Is that more the exhausting piece of the work or the fun piece of the work?
I say it time and time again, it’s half the fun. It’s almost like going back to school. So many times, there’s stuff I need to know about a character’s livelihood or what he does or his background or the time he spent here or there. It is essential, it’s my comfort blanket. My security, that I do this research, this homework. It can sound really silly, for an actor it’s the building blocks. It’s what hopefully you buy as a character, you believe, and I’m trying to make you believe.
So are you doing research on Prohibition now, for the Ben Affleck movie?
Oh my god, yeah. What a time! I knew it, but it dawns on you—late 1920s, early 1930s, Prohibition, the Depression. And along with Prohibition is this strong religious quotient of the tent revivals, like Aimee Semple McPherson who was very popular at that time. My daughter, played by Elle Fanning, goes that way. So yeah there’s a lot of research. And then I asked Ben, ‘What do you suggest I take a look at?’ And he said take a look at Ken Burns’ Prohibition piece. That was a shortcut and hugely helpful. But I was also reading Studs Terkel at that time, a book that simply dealt with the ‘20s and ‘30s and every three years said ‘your daughter will be wearing this, her hairstyles will be like this,’ really in-depth stuff. It’s just an education, it’s just like going back to school.
You know, Chris, I don’t ever recall you seeing you in a frilly role like this one with a lavish lifestyle. Did you like playing that?
I coped with it. It’s not my cup of tea. I’ve had to spend time with people like that in many instances, but I don’t feel too comfortable.
Is it finished, the Ben Affleck movie?
Yes, sir, yeah it is. They shot a lot of it in Boston. The first half of the film deals with Boston. And then the second half, they went down to Savannah, Georgia and Savannah passed for Florida. My portion, where I play the chief of police in Tampa, you could shoot anywhere so we shot that in L.A. Then I got to work with Elle Fanning as my daughter. I was really impressed. It was a long shoot so there was a break time during the Christmas holidays. I started at the last quarter of the shoot, but Ben said, ‘You want to take a look at this sizzle reel that I put together for the cast and crew before we broke for Christmas holiday?’ So I said ‘Yeah let me see it’ and I was knocked out. I said ‘Okay I may have to look excited, Ben’s right over my shoulder, let me take a look at this stuff.’ But, man, what he had done was remarkable—way beyond my expectations.
Are you going to see him in Batman?
I’m guilty, you know, I did a little bit in those films. They’re just not for me.
So you’re not going to be at the premiere?
No, you know, I did a little piece in Spiderman 2 and I went to the premiere. I said, “The technology is remarkable, amazing, but give me a headache.”
Do you think that technology takes away from a form of acting, personally?
Yes. And I think directors are starting to talk now and the technologists are saying we’ve gone over the top too much. They’ve got to reign it in because it’s just too much.
What do you think about the preserving of film stock? Within probably ten years most of the filmmakers may be using digital film. But somebody like the Cohen brothers would still keep on shooting film.
I tell you, I’d have to take a class. I guess my eye is not that good. I don’t know if I could tell the difference, to be honest. And that’s what it would take. It would be great to set up ten screens and say ‘this is 70mm, this was 16, this was 32, this was digital.’ I’d love to see the difference because I can’t tell.
Are you more selective now that you’ve been working for as long as you have, and you’ve worked with as many people as you have?
I’ve always been selective. And my reputation is that “Cooper’s real picky” and I don’t mind that at all.
Was there ever a movie where you regretted that you turned it down?
Yeah, there was one that I just didn’t think it was going to turn out as good as it did and it was a film called The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Sam Shepard took my role. I saw that film and I liked it, I liked it a whole lot. But other than that, no great regrets and I’ve said no to so many films.
Do you have a favorite accomplishment out of all of your work?
Well a handful for different reasons. There’s a favorite aspect of Matewan and there’s a favorite aspect of the other film that I did with John [Sayles], particularly Lone Star, that touched on, crossed over so many boundaries, so many borders. Unfortunately, John is always six months, a year, ahead of his time because the subjects that he shoots or he works on, they come up to be real important, are talked about a year or two after.
He should make a movie; he hasn’t made one in a while.
Oh yes he has. But independent films, it’s so cutthroat. It’s so hard to get them out there. He did Go For Sisters and before that we did a piece in the Philippines about the American occupation of the Philippines at the turn of the century. It went nowhere, nobody saw it. Something I was talking about with all this friction about the Academy, nobody brought up the word of John Sayles who consistently cast African American, Native American, Philippine, men and women in his cast and crew. He gives people in crew, if they’re starting out, if they work on this film, they can rise a rung on the ladder. He’s a phenomenal granddaddy of independent film.
