PETER FONDA:
Someday somebody might want to publish some of my photographs, but I never pretend that I take excellent photographs. I just set up the camera well. At 24 frames per second going through it, I’ve got that one licked. [He checks out my tape recorder.] FONDA: I’m always into any kind of sound gear or camera gear. PCC: Not high-tech, I’m afraid. FONDA: It works, so it’s fine. Oh, damn! I left my flash upstairs. F-ck! Shit! That’s okay, I’m not going to take any pictures right now... and I‘ve got a high ASA rating. PCC: When you first read the “Nadja” script, did you see it as a fresh and relevant variation on the ancient legend? FONDA: Yes, especially as he used the names of the characters that are legendary, but put them them into a modern day situation, post-Drac. Because he starts, basically, with me killing Drac. And I’m also playing Drac. It keeps a continuity of accuracy to the original ‘Dracula.’ Okay, Dracula is dead. Now, he’s had children, had this wife, that he did love, and they had twins. The wife died. But these twins are out there, certainly as deadly as their father. And we’ve got to cut their heads off. So it’s about Dracula, but told through his twins. And it’s about duality of characters. For example, I’m playing Drac and Dr. Van Helsing. First of all, it’s terrific that I’d be offered that kind of role. People think of me as smoking joints and riding motorcycles, not playing that kind of role, which is something I love to do. In fact, comedy is my gig. PCC: So has that been a frustration? FONDA: Terrible frustration, yeah. And when I’ve had a chance to go comedic, I’ve always come off very well with it. I was recently being honored by the Roxy Cinema. And “The Hired Hand” played first, which is a beautiful picture, but the soundtrack was 16mm and it was shot in 1.85 [aspect ratio]. And I was just dying. Everybody said “That was so cool.” They didn’t bitch about the sound, which destroyed a lot of the movie, because there’s a music line so fine and delicate. The next film, they stayed around for it, was “Wanda Nevada,” where I get to do comedic stuff, not only as a director, but as an actor, too. And now, in this film, I can go for the gusto and the way I get there is by keeping it even flatter. Playing that character was so fun. It was the most fun I ever had making a motion picture. We worked hard, long hours, mostly nights. We shot 32 or more days. It was a dream. PCC: So how did it come about, your being offered this role? FONDA: Very beautifully. Eric Stolz, my daughter’s [Bridget Fonda] boyfriend, was to play the part that Martin Donovan ended up playing. He had met Michael, because an ex-girlfriend of Michael’s was working on a film with Eric. And Eric is very far out. So she said, “Do you want to meet my ex-boyfriend? He’s a director and writer.” And kind of, “Okay, yeah, I’ll do your next film.” So they’re in there talking about the next film and trying to figure out who’s to play Van Helsing. He’s got to be Eric’s character’s uncle. And then you find out, of course, he’s also his father, in a very far our scene. And so Eric Stolz says, “Well, Peter Fonda looks a lot like me.” As a matter of fact, if you think of it, if you put me, Suzy Amis, Eric Stolz and Bridget in the same room, you’d think you were looking at the same gene pool. It’s that far out. Suzy has to play my half-daughter, supposedly. Anyway, it was a great idea. Unfortunately, Eric couldn’t do the film. But fortunately I had a lot of frequent flyer miles, so I didn’t have to think I’m being taken. Although I don’t have to work and that makes it possible for me to do roles like this, I don’t want to bend over for people and get f-cked [laughs]. I’ve got a place to stay in New York, an apartment in New York. The frequent flyer miles got me in and out. So it didn’t cost me anything to get there. It only cost me something to prepare for the role, working it out with my coach. And it was just a blast. PCC: Your coach?
Yeah, my drama coach. He’s a director in New York from the theater. He coaches - or advises is a better way to say it, because he’s not on the set. His name is Harold Guskin. He’s awfully good. The only thing you have to consider, working with Harold, is that he doesn’t try to direct you. Because I’m a director, I can always sense when that’s coming. But he works with my sister. Jane and I got to him through Bridget, who was using him all the time. I mean, no matter what, it’s Harold. But she was the one who said, “Don’t let him direct you, Dad.” So fucking hip. And so cool. So I started working with Harold. And so I’d just landed the role. I go to Harold if I’ve got to read for a role. It really helps you get calm and stay flat. Because, if you’re reading in a room like this, not on a stage, not with direction, not with character movement, a lot of people listening to you, it’s not the best advantage for an actor. It’s a director’s medium, film. Anyway, I started working Harold and Kevin Kline, Robert DeNiro, lots of people you would know, use him a lot. He’s a very funny guy. He’s a good director on Broadway. And he has a class. He teaches there, too. PCC: So until a role that intrigues you pops up, are you happy staying in Montana, staying away from the business? FONDA: Oh, I couldn’t stand to stay away from the business. I’m born to do this stuff. And I feel very frustrated, as an independent filmmaker, most of us do. Because we’re always looking for money, begging for money, the money’s always just about there - and then not. I’m always heartened, when I see somebody say that “Alien” took eight years to get somebody to say, “Oh, yeah, I get it.” To see the concept behind what an incredible thriller that was - the first “Alien.” PCC: Are there projects right now that you’re dying to get on the screen, where it’s just a matter of getting the financing? FONDA: Yeah. PCC: What kind of stuff? FONDA: A whole broad spectrum. I just talked this morning with a writer friend of mine who is now publisher and editor of Sports Afield, named Terry McDonell. Very famous for having started Outside and Rocky Mountain and saving Rolling Stone and turning Newsweek around. And then going and turning Esquire totally around and making it a hit magazine. Then they put him into this other Hearst thing, Sports Afield. All the writers - Jim Harrison, Tom McGuane - everybody went with him to Sports Afield. Now it’s the magazine to read about young or middle-aged men and attitudes about what it is to be in a sport. Anyway, he’s a good screenwriter, Terry McDonell is. And he sent me this screenplay. It’s about kids. It’s A PG story, beautifully done, beautiful idea. That may get done. There’s somebody that’s very interested and that happens to be a “scratch my back.” I’ve already scratched somebody else’s back. Now this is how they can scratch mine. PCC: This is a comedy? FONDA: Yeah, it’s a modern day kind of Tom Sawyer-Huck Finn-Becky Thatcher. PCC: Would you act in it, as well? FONDA: I doubt it, unless there was some berserko character that I could play and people would say, “Oh, there he is!” Because I wouldn’t want to take away from the film. Maybe a, “Can we find Hitchcock in the shot?” PCC: “The Hired Hand” is an amazing film. Why not a lot of directorial efforts after that? There was “Wanda Nevada,” but not many films.
Well, there was “Idaho Transfer.” I made it with my own money. It was released in ‘73. “Wanda Nevada.” And, if I’m with a director who’s asleep at the wheel, I end up directing myself, basically. PCC: I guess that only works, if you’re discreet about it. FONDA: Yeah, you’ve got to be quiet. That only happens, if you’re working with a director who truly is asleep at the wheel and you want to keep things moving along and you know it’s a little better angle, if you just sneak it this way. Because I know the parlance. And I know all the stuff about the camera. I took a 35mm SLR and started banging the shots away until I learned how to frame everything with the meaning that I wanted. And then I learned to frame, when I was shooting movies as a director. I just have not been able to find the money for the type of movies I want to make. This one may happen, this thing called “All The Way Home,” with Terry McDonell. I have my hooks into a film called “Ginger Snaps.” It’s a film noir. It’s not so violent, but very personal, very different, a very big stretch. It pushes the envelope in a whole other way than “Natural Born Killers” did. But “Natural Born Killers,” people will think that I’m stealing from Stone. I’m not. Because, in fact, I’m stealing from homegrown Bruce Connor. He and Dennis Jakob (innovative editors) have taught me a lot about editorial concept in filming. Cutting back and forth and using all kinds of different raw stock on this thing. Even Super-8, Super-16. Having five cameras simultaneously rolling on one shot. Filming the same thing. So I could put them up in a kaleidoscopic way, intercut, do a blitz of editing beats. Then come back out to a shot that’s straight and standard and tells a story. And you go to the next one. Maybe it costs me a million-and-a-half to make. That’s if I lie, saying somebody else is directing, because I’m DGA. And it’s an expensive thing to have to go by DGA rules. I’m going to have to face it. I’m going to have to go in there and say, “Guys, you’re keeping me away from making these strange movies that I like to do for a million bucks. I can’t afford the DGA first and second [assistant directors], UPM [unit production manager] and PM. That’s already my budget. So let me make my films. Don’t stand in my way.” That’s the way I feel. So there’s “Ginger Snaps,” that I have Freddy Forrest and Dwight Yoakum attached to... maybe Hopper. PCC: “The Hired Hand” didn’t seem to be fully appreciated at the time of its release, but it has developed a cult following. Do you think it was not the right time? FONDA: Well, they expected me to come riding around the corner on a motorcycle, smoking a joint. It was a very, extraordinarily slow film... with lots overlay and stuff happening. It got people a little crazy. But Gene Shalit did say, at the time, “Twenty years from now, Peter Fonda will be able to say, ‘Yeah, I directed that.’” And so, in fact, it’s coming around, where I get letters saying, “I just saw ‘The Hired Hand.’ I just rented it. What a movie! How come I didn’t see it blah-blah-blah... the first time around?” It was not well loved by Universal or Hollywood in general. PCC: Was there a lot flak from the industry people at the time, saying, “Why don’t you do something people would expect?” FONDA: Yeah, they thought I should make a second “Wild Angels.” And I said, “No.” And then I came up with “Easy Rider.” I find, with that particular film [“Hired Hand”], I was given free rein and I did what I had to do. And the real star of that movie is Verna Bloom. Warren Oates is the vehicle, by way of which, she becomes a star. It wasn’t my character. But I just got to use myself, so I could get enough money to direct this film, with Vilmos Zsigmond shooting. I just had to do it. Had to do it. But I had some great reviews... and some awful reviews. Time Magazine said that it stunk. And Newsweek. One of them said, “Water freezes at 32 degrees. Air freezes at minus-431 degrees. Somewhere below there is where ‘The Hired Hand’ places. It was T.E.Kalem. He’s a f-ckin’ theatre critic! And you can’t have space in a f-ckin’ stage play! You know? They don’t like it. If you’re the director, doing a stage play - “You can drive a truck through that space there! Shorten it up! Get those cues tighter!” Movies are a whole other trip [laughs]. You can have a truck space in there - for reasons. At any rate, they just vilified the film. The New York Times gave it a great review. Post and some of those papers gave it fabulous reviews, saying “Even the space between the frames was crackling with something, with energy.” And I thought, “That’s pretty far out!” I pulled the gates, just to be sure you never saw a C-stand or a mic in any shot, because Vilmos told me, “When the rushes check out our films, they bolt the gates and watch it. So they see the soundtrack on the side, they also can tell, if we’ve said, ‘Ah, they’ll never see it, because it’ll be 1.85 or Academy.’” Full-frame, there’s no mics in there, no C-stands. It’s really clean. We really keep it clean. Got to keep it clean. And in Europe, a lot of people loved it, so I got my jollies off by being accepted, in a nice way. Except I was stung by the industry, in that, they put it out for two weeks, in 42 theaters. And then pulled it. Because those 42 theaters were open for two weeks. “Hired Hand” was booked. “Hired Hand” was out. That was the end of the “Hired Hand"s run. They didn’t give a shit about me. In fact, they probably wanted me to fall on my face. For Universal, I represented the enemy, because I didn’t need Business Affairs. I’d just proven it. Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson are hardly Business Affairs. And they gave me the money to make “Easy Rider.” Monkee money made “Easy Rider.” PCC: Do you find it ironic, having been at the forefront of the whole American indie film movement, that it’s now difficult for you to get the financing? FONDA: It was hard then. It was totally hard then. It’s perseverance - which happens to be my family motto, in the imperative - perseverati - which is not a suggestion. It means you must persevere. You must stick to it. They knew I was coming 885 years ago, back in Italy. You just have to stick to it. After the crest of the big success of “Easy Rider” and the somewhat success of “Hired Hand,” I was asked to go to different colleges and talk. And I’d talk. But I wanted to throw it open to Q&A as fast as I could, because that’s how I learned something, finding what the f-ck they wanted to know about. And I was at Royce Hall, UCLA, jam-packed, standing room only. They asked me questions and I answered the questions. Somebody said, “I want to write screenplays. I can’t get an agent to look at anything. The studios send my scripts back, because they’re not sent by an agent. What do I do?” I said, “This is the tough thing. You’ve got to just keep writing. And someday he’s going to read one of your screenplays and then they’ll find out that you’re good. You get to be a doctor, maybe. You get your rep until you get to write the screenplay. However you go about it, just don’t stop writing.” A few more questions went through. And this guy stood up and said, “I’m a musician. I’m a composer. But I don’t compose songs. I want to compose symphonies. But I can’t really get there. But what I’d do then is compose music for movies. How does someone like me get the shot, get that door open?” So I’m asking that same question. But I’m not telling them that. I said, “You’ve got to keep doing your music, find some little film that needs music scored.” A few questions later, a young woman rose up. She said, “I have my own Areoflex. And I want to be a DP, a Director of Photography. But I can’t get anyone to take me seriously, probably because I’m a woman.” I said, “Just a minute. Hold on. Wait a second now. Over here, we have somebody who’s writing a screenplay. We’ve got somebody over here who’s scoring them. You want to shoot them. I think we’ve got a couple of actors in here. Get together and make a movie. Whatever you do, don’t make your movie for the class. Don’t make your movie for your teacher. Make your movie for the market, whatever it is - make the movie for the market. Because that’s what you’re dealing in, regardless of what Jean Cocteau said. I know what he means by, “Until motion picture-making can become as accessible as a pencil on a piece of paper, it cannot be considered a true art form.” That’s a little bit severe [Laughs]. PCC: Do you find that still, people react to “Easy Rider,” wherever you go?
I can’t go anyplace without being recognized as an icon. This is a terrible thing to happen. I love the fact that, with Dr. Van Helsing, I’m totally away from the icon. In whatever country I’m in, I’m Captain America from “Easy Rider.” This is a millstone I didn’t expect. PCC: From the poster to the soundtrack to the film itself, it was such a reflection of the times. Has it become a burden to you, being so associated with it? FONDA: It was never a burden. It was always good. The downside, if if there were a downside, is the reaction the major Hollywood studios had to it as being against them. They thought it was trying to overthrow their system. Who gives a shit about overthrowing them? The government? Yeah. But not by blowing up buildings. [Laughs] We don’t need to blow those f-ckers up. The upside of it is, there’s such a recognized factor, when I am involved in that world, that it gives me a shot at some films. Some of them aren’t great. Some of them are pretty good. I got to work with Liv Ullman in a couple of films. I’m a happy man. I don’t have to do anything now. But I have to. It’s like a drug for me. I’m a trained stage actor and that’s what I really love the most. But it’s the toughest one. And I haven’t found a play yet. PCC: But you would like to get back on the stage? FONDA: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I want to do Thomas Jefferson. I want to do Thomas, when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, in two acts. The second act, after he’d been President, he was basically broken, retired, in exile at Monticello. He was writing all his diaries. At the end he says, “The Revolution has been betrayed. Democracy has been betrayed. And the government is being run by special interests.” So I’d like to take it out to all the small stages. F-ck New York. Because I can afford to do that. I won’t lose money, but I don’t have to maintain some big huge nut. PCC: Jefferson was a rebel. FONDA: Definitely. PCC: Do you still see yourself as being a rebel? FONDA: Oh, absolutely. More radical than I was before. PCC: How so? FONDA: Less of the outward accoutrements and more of the inner goal. More of the inner understandings. Less talk. More deed. PCC: And what are the goals? FONDA: Oh, man. In the late 60s and early 70s, when I was becoming very popular, through a couple of AIP films, and then “Easy Rider,” I’d go around and talk about these environmental things that were going down. Nobody wanted to hear about it. I was saying things like, “I want to know what are my children going to eat, going to drink, going to breathe?” There’s the first two primary fuels - O2 and H2O. A few minutes without O2, fall down and go boom. Maybe not get up. Or if you get up, maybe severe brain damage [laughs], depending how long there’s been no O2 feeding into the brain. And if you take too much O2, you can drown. It’s an unbelievable situation, just like water. But you have water. If you don’t have water for 10 days, you fall down, go boom, maybe die - forever. Those are the primary things. Oil doesn’t even enter into this program. Neither does caffeine. Or cocaine. I wanted to know, because I just extrapolated - there’s always so many more people being born on the planet. They’re all using up produce. They’re all using up oxygen. And they’re wasting water - five gallons every time you flush the toilet? Think about it. Nobody thinks about it. I was thinking about it in the late 60s, early 70s. Nobody wanted to hear about it then. Now everybody’s talking about it. And what’s happened? There’s a very good book coming out by Alston Chase and it’s quite critical, in the proper way, of the environmental movements. What’s happened is, everybody’s splintered off. In this divided way, the government and business can keep on f-cking up the atmosphere and everything, and our minds, and all. But if the environmental movement were as conscious and cohesive as the anti-war movement was, we could actually accomplish something. Knowing that, what is my grandchild, when I have them, going to drink or breathe? I’m not a fatalist. I’m not a doomsayer either. But I’ll tell you - we don’t have a lot of time. If you just extrapolate... Remember in math, when they’d show you the circle and you’d learn percentages of the pie? Well, think about the pie. This much of the time is O2. That’s what we need to breathe. We can’t breathe oxides. Fish can break down oxides in their gills. We can’t do that. So O2 - molecules of oxygen. Now, in a given year, a lot of fire, forest fires, volcanic eruptions, things that consume a lot of oxygen. Maybe a thermonuclear test or two. And more people getting born. It’s getting used and used and used until the use crosses over from the produced side and there’s more used than produced. And it’s a downhill run. The people that live at 10,000 feet above - those Peruvians with the great big chests, they’ll be running the stock market. We’ll have eaten each other like rats that have gone crazy. We’re supposed to be here as a race, probably another 30 or 40,000 years. But I think we’ll foul the nest and not make it. Nobody’s getting out of the parking lot alive anyway, so I’m not depressed about that. It just bothers me that we really missed the point. We all came through this two billion years of evolution on the planet. And what do we do now? Just shit on our own nest? This is what we’ve learned in millions of f-ckin’ years? It’s okay to take a poop in your own nest? Hold on, that doesn’t sound right. Why do we tell the dog, “Outside! Did you do that? Bad dog!” We should be saying that to ourselves - “Did you do that?” “Yeah.” “Bad people!” And you can do it blithely and not even know. And you can do it with the best intentions. And I get my mind softened at the end of pie days [laughs]. I watch Country Music Television and these ads come up about children starving all over the world. And I’m yelling back, “But they’re starving in America!” Why doesn’t anybody understand? Does it blow us away so much to know that we have people starving? Homeless people? You bet. People say, “Oh, they could get a job.” But starving children can’t do anything. They depend on somebody else to help. And we’re sending money to South America, Asia, Africa. I’m not saying that those people are bad people who are doing that. I’m saying, “Don’t we have anybody who watches over our own? Enough to take care of our nest?” On Country Music Television, they’ve got organizations like Feed America, run by country singers. PCC: You have three kids? FONDA: Yeah. The third one I picked up in my second marriage. I’ve been married 20 years. [Fonda married his third wife in 2011.] I have two sons, one’s a stepson, one’s a real son. PCC: Are they in the business?
Justin is a camera assistant operator on his way to being a DP. I said, “That’s fine. They work more often than actors.” When Daughter Dearest graduated from high school, I flew in from Germany to be there, because I insisted I would be at my children’s graduations. She said, “Dad, I’m going to be an actor.” I said, “Don’t you ever say that again.” “Dad!” I said, “It’s a verb, not a noun. Where are you going to study acting?” “UCLA.” I said, “Bull-f-cking shit. You’re not going to stay there. You’ve to go to Princeton or Yale or... oh, my God!” [sobbing sounds] “Dad!” “My daughter in Needle Park!” [more sobs] “Dad! Stop that, people are looking!’” “I know! I don’t care!” “ She said, “Why are you doing that?” I said, “Because you’re going to go to NYU. You’re going to be where you’re going to be exposed to the most avant garde theatre there is. You’ll be able to work in all these people’s class films. You’ll get to work in front of a camera, get used to it You’ll be involved with something like Strasberg.” So she studied with Anna Strasberg. You get this shit. You don’t get it in a cloistered Princeton Drama or Yale Drama. It’s an awfully good drama school, but very tight. Very buttoned-down. And acting isn’t that. In fact, she went to NY, graduated from NYU. PCC: It must be gratifying to have that kind of impact on your children. FONDA: At first, being an actor, moving around, doing the stuff I have to do for my work, being away so much. And then the break-up of my first marriage was the saddest moment of my life. I could not stand the thought of losing my family. I knew that my ex and I were no longer suited for each other, even if we were to try it again, it wouldn’t work. There it was. We had these two beautiful children. And I was going to lose them. My shrink kept telling me, “Don’t think about losing them. You’ll still be their father.” And I’m saying, “He has no idea. I have every idea.” But I tried to be a special father, when I was with them as a father. The gratification comes when my daughter now has been in this business long enough to know why I was away and why I was focused and why I seemed not to be around. And I would get away from them, so they wouldn’t wonder why I was not speaking. Because I always wondered - why would my father not speak to me? PCC: Were you able to help her with that whole situation of being daughter of...? FONDA: Oh, yeah. She said, “You think it’s heavier than it is.” I said, “No, I know exactly.” Anyway, she was smart enough that she didn’t have to climb Everest four times - once for Grandpa Henry, one for Aunt Jane, once for Father Peter, last for Bridget. She was clever. I told her she would only have to climb it once - for herself. And that’s what she did. That blasted us right out. Said when she was 25, in an interview -and I wish I’d have been that hip at 25 - when the person said, “Well, it’s in your genes.” Of course, she said, “You can’t say that. I work at this.” Right. Nothing genetic. Nothing is passed on genetically. Color of eyes, that kind of thing. Proximity to something may give you an interest. But you need things that only you can develop. Acting - you need presence. Without that, no matter how well you can do a part, if you don’t have presence, don’t matter. Then you need to know how to make that presence into another character. Those are things you learn, you study for, you work at. You dig in deep to find the answers to a particular question that a character you have is playing. And I thought, “I wish I’d been able to say that , when I was 25. I was still saying, “Yeah, I’m Henry Fonda’s son. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m here.” F-ck, I didn’t know who he was. How could I know who I was? Bridget just slides right through it. Says, “No, you can’t say that. I work at it.” PCC: Was there a period at the beginning, especially, when you were doing more leading man type of roles, when you thought you would be be able to escape that shadow? Finally you were able to establish a strong identity of your own... FONDA: I had to. I discovered that I was being prepped to be Disney’s Dean Jones. You know? I said, “No, no. I’m going to play Stephen Evshevsky in ’Lilith.’ I wanted to buy the book, found out that Rossen [producer/director Robert Rossen] had it. My agents wanted me to play the part that Warren Beatty played. I said, “No, no. I’m wrong for that part. I’m right for Evshevsky.” And they would not put me up for it. Seriously. Would not put me up for the part. So this was early ‘63. I f-ckin’ flew back to New York on my own. Went into Rossen’s office Waited till he could see me. I said, “I’d like an appointment.” “He’s very busy.” I just walked into the office and sat down in the waiting room. Finally, “Okay, come in here.” I sat down. I said, “I’m Stephen Evshevsky.” [In a rough voice] “No, you’re not.” Gruffy little guy. “No, you’re not.” Bulldoggy. Glasses. I said, “What do you mean?” “You don’t look Jewish.” I said, “In the book, he says, ‘Do you think I’m Jewish? My uncle’s a Catholic priest.” [harsh rasp] “Of course I know it’s in the book. I wrote the f-ckin’ screenplay!” And I don’t know where these things come from - I reached across his desk, took the glasses off his face, put them on my face and said, “Now am I Jewish enough?” And he was just like, “Where are you staying?” I’ve still got his glasses on. So it’s all distorted [laughs]. I said, “I’m in my father’s house and I’ll stay there till you say yes or no. Here’s the number.” I gave back his glasses. A few hours later, he called me, said, “You’ve got the part.” My agents were so pissed off. Pissed off that I went and got a part! I worked with this great director! I got to work in Gene Hackman’s first movie. I watched him work. It was amazing to watch him work. Just great. He was so cool. So f-cking cool doing nothing. So great. And Warren. And Jean Seberg. Hell, Jessica Walter. A whole bunch of people. And Kim Hunter. Actors and actresses. People of substance in the theatre, all together, making a film for a director who was very strong and very visual. My agents should be happy that I got this role. And I realized, there’s some huge bifurcation that’s going on here with what the companies who are my agents have in mind for me and the road I’m trying to travel. And I want to travel a different road. And I started buying books - Howard Fast’s “Conceived in Liberty.” Wanted to make it into a motion picture. Thought we should have a good one about our own revolution. I wanted to make that. I kept buying books, because I figured that’s the way you get in - you own the book and you can slowly work your way into getting to direct it. PCC: So, with that being your ambition. Was working with Roger Corman an education in filmmaking? FONDA: It came out of nowhere. I didn’t expect it at all. I was just told, “Go meet this guy.” I knew who he was. But, because I didn’t watch the “Beach Ball Blanket Bingo” movies, I didn’t have a backstory on it. However, I did watch “Targets.” I did see “The Raven.” [Laughs] Poor Jack [the low-budget 1963 movie that co-starred Nicholson with Peter Lorre, Vincent Price and Boris Karloff]. And Roger had an office at Fox. I went and met him. And I wore this funky leather jacket that I had made, to look exactly like a Levi jacket, only it had about that color of a suede, because it’s cool. And I had this gold star, a Naval Intelligence Office, Chicago branch. I had these glasses that Brian Jones had given me, with these little mirror, funny things on the top. That’s how I went in to my interview with Corman. He said, “I want to make a movie about the Hell’s Angels and the motorcycle gang. But I don’t want to make any statement.” And in the back of my head, I said, “That’s pretty far out, because when you make a movie about it, you’re making a statement [chuckles]. At any rate, yeah, I’m in for it.” The next year, I get a call, they’re sending me 30 pages, by the pouch. I read them. I play a guy who gets killed early on in the picture. And I’m a stiff for the rest of the picture and they’re trying to bury me. I said, “I’ll do it.” And I ended up playing the lead. And I backed into Corman. And I backed into watching how he works, how much it cost him to make this movie. The only thing Corman fails at is following through. PCC: In what way? FONDA: He backs himself into a corner by trying to make a movie in time for a certain release date. Take that out of the equation. Give yourself a chance to motion picture. Let the motion picture dictate what the release date should be. If you spent any time studying as a filmmaker, one should look at distribution and exhibition. It doesn’t take a lot to extrapolate the news out of what’s available from reference, from the books, even though they’re Chinese bookkeepers, they’re pretty open, to a degree. You can see how much a film costs, how much it costs to promote it , how much it makes actually at the theater, what that theater ticket costs, what percentage you get from it, the studio, the maker gets from it, how much they get from the f-ckin’ concession stands. It’s all part of the ticket. A percentage of concessions is as much a part of what you bargain for when you decide to go through a chain of theaters... or a single theater. It says you do have what percentage of a ticket. When you understand these things, the process of distribution, the process of exhibition, you know better about your making the film. But to try to fit it into a release date, before you put it together, that’s not right. So Roger would just do it and walk away from it. You’ve got to stay with it. It’s not just cut to this and cut to that. It’s so odd to walk away. Come back with a whole insane attitude of cut in cold blood. Everything you shot with full passion. Go in and just f-ckin’ cut in cold blood. Slash it down. Pretty soon you get down to where it’s not pretension. This is a core. And it moves. And it has momentum. And you’ve got to take it like a baby and go show it to everybody and say, “Look at my little baby.” And then somebody likes it and distributes it. And then it’s in the San Francisco Film Festival, where you hope to get more people interested in it to have it released and get you back the money you’ve invested. And, if you get anything on top of it, bravo! It’s a hell of an industry. Eight out of 10 don’t make it. It’s high, high risk. And you don’t just make a film and put it out there. Francis [Coppola] doesn’t just sit back, crank out a film and let it go. He goes out and sells hard. He wants all of his actors out there. He goes on shows. He sweats his way through it. All of us do. PCC: And now your brother-in-law [referring to Jane’s then husband, Ted Turner] is in the movie business. FONDA: Thank God, he’s not in the business. He owns the company. He’s smart enough to have people who produce. He lets the people who know what they’re doing, run the show. And that’s the way to do it. Ted Turner loves to sail. And I’m a hell of a sailor. Ted loves my sister. That looms large. He’s an outspoken man, speaks his mind. I like that. He’s opinionated as hell, but he can change his opinion, which is very important. And he does it while he’s talking. He’ll say something outrageous and then keep talking loud to hold the floor, and then say, “What I meant to say was...” He was called “the mouth of the South,” when he won America’s Cup. Everybody thought he was out of his mind, buying all those film libraries. He had already known that he would need product and he was going to have the product to put on this cable and satellite stuff. PCC: With the passion you have for the craft, for filmmaking, do you understand why your sister has stepped away from acting for so long? FONDA: I think, in a way, she might miss it. But in another way, I think that she’s relieved that she doesn’t have to think about acting anymore. I’ve actually seen it in her face. She looked like she was 10 years younger. Women unlike men, in motion pictures or theatre, it’s very difficult. There’s a time that dries up for them so dry, it’s hard for them, for the work. Men seem to be able to get their goods, gracefully move into character roles and sometimes get a leading role, because it calls for an older actor. Women, over time, worry about, do they look young still? Can they play a romantic lead? All that stuff taken away from her, my sister’s countenance just kind of relaxed. Although, it was hard for me to believe that she could stay away from it, because I’m so junked out on it. What else could I do? I can play the guitar well enough to put food on my table and sing songs. Starting out as a performer, I wanted to be a singer. PCC: You put out a record, didn’t you? FONDA: Oh, hell, I put out a record and then I did “Outlaw Blues,” where I sang. PCC: I love that movie. And the title tune. FONDA: I had a blast doing that film. Actually Hoyt’s [Axton] was the best song, “Water For My Horses.” “Need water for my horses is all I’m asking... You can tell the law, which way I’ve gone.” And it was a good script. Almost got there. Almost. PCC: Why hasn’t that one been released to video? FONDA: It should be. I think that I have to go back to all these people and get like 100 copies of “Hired Hand” [now available as a DVD Collector’s Edition], of all those films that we are talking about that are my films and go to one of those trade shows in Vegas and sell myself over again. Or get the rights. So I can do it. Fine, give me your one-inch masters. If I can push another 20,000 out to the rentals, that means that many more chances for people to see not only just the work that I’ve done, but the work that Laszlo Kovacs has done or Vilmos Zsigmond or Michael Butler or Bruce Logan. Those are the cinematographers. Or other actors or this musician or this sound technician. All of us make the movie, not just one person. If we’re all not making the movie, we ought to stop and regroup right away [laughs]. Being the company is the key. PCC: But you actually recorded an album, why was it not released? FONDA: I made an album and it was my right to say no. Hugh Masekela was the producer. Even had David Crosby and McGuinn playing on some of the cuts. It took me three days to cut 16 songs. PCC: And you didn’t want to release it? FONDA: Well, I released a single. And the single that I released, the A-side, for me, was Gram Parsons’ “November Night.” And the B-side, I covered Donovan’s “Colours.” And that’s what everybody played, which I sang at my sister’s wedding to Vadim, emphasizing the last verse - [sings] “Freedom is a word I rarely use without thinkin’, mmm mmm. Without thinkin’ mmm mmm. Of the time... of the time... when I been loved.” [Laughs]. Repeated it. And then repeated it again - “Freedom is a word I rarely use - Jane!” [Laughs]. At any rate, I loved doing that. I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to be The Everly Brothers with both voices coming out of my mouth, because I didn’t want the hang-up. I watched them recently. They did a little thing together. And I still watched the way they looked at each other intently as they’re singing. They never practice their harmonies. It’s all extemporaneous. It’s f-cking genius. They’re one of the few modern musical people that are allowed to be listened to in the Yale School of Opera, because they would do these wild harmonics. Or they would change places. Or sometimes they’d both be singing harmonies, in fifths. And the melody was what you heard from the two. The melodic line was not being sung. It was being hinted at by the two harmonics. I mean, genius shit. And arias, things that are done in arias, they were doing. What Roy Orbison wanted to do, they were doing. Roy Orbison wanted to do his kind of country-western music opera. No one took him seriously. Nobody took “Tommy” seriously for a long time. Think how long it took Universal to realize that Elton John was cool. One guy at that studio worked for a year-and-a-half, until he got somebody to listen. And as soon as we got to hear it -”Oh, yeah. Elton John’s cool.” PCC: Were you worried that there would be skepticism - another actor trying to make an album? FONDA: No, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about that. [Laughs]. I still sing and play. But my voice isn’t like Aaron Neville’s. I can’t do Dwight Yoakum. Those are people whose voices are so unique. Dwight’s a very good friend of mine. His next album is a live album. But the one he’s writing now - I’ve heard 12 songs - it blows my socks off. And I go back to “Buenos Noches From A Lonely Room.” Listening to that. “Guitar Cadillac.” He and Pete Anderson [producer/guitarist] made their own little thing, put it together as an extended play. And that got them the Warner-Reprise contract. He and Dwight just meshed so beautifully together. Dwight dances like nobody else. He moves a knee and a foot and the audiences screams, because he’s a minimalist. He understands that whole thing. He’s also a brilliant f-cking actor. I’ve directed him on stage. And I’ll continue to direct him in films and stuff. Brilliant. He’s a prodigy. I sent him to Harold Gustin. I said, “Dwight, don’t take what I’m saying as my not thinking you know what you’re doing. An actor should have as many tools for a character as possible. You never know.” And then I called Harold and said, “Harold, you’ve never worked with a prodigy before. The guy’s a bloody f-ckin genius. He’s a prodigy. Don’t try to direct him. But watch how fast he catches on.” Because Dwight’s like a big sponge, assimilating everything. He could build a house, as an architect now, because he’s just finished building a house. And everything that they’ve done, in building the house, he’s assimilated. He’s got here [tapping his head with his index finger]. Forty seconds into the play, called “Southern Rapture” - and L.A. critics are not nice to plays, at all - people were not watching a singer trying to be an actor. They were watching Tommy Jo Blaine. The first piece of film, film that he was in, “Red Rock West,” he plays a scene where he and Nic Cage are in the cab of a truck. And I watched Nicolas fighting to keep control of the scene. Dwight broke the f-cking scene. With John Dahl [director]. Thank God for the Roxy Cinema, because they showed it as a movie and then it got a chance to go out in the movie venue. Then he did something for Showtime called “Roswell, which was about the UFOs and he plays the farmer who owns the f-cking property where the UFO lands. And he does a beautiful job with it. I’d say, within 10 years, that guy’ll be nominated for Best Supporting, Best Acting, maybe Best Screenplay. The guy’s a genius. So it’s the converse of the actor wanting to be a singer. All the actors I know want to be singers. All the singers I know, want to be actors. It’s so far out. Right? Stephen Stills would give his right nut... or David Crosby, to get a great acting role. And I’d give my right nut, if I could sing and phrase like Stills. Just not doing the coke... [laughs], you know? Crosby had to have a new f-ckin’ liver, you know? Poor David. I mean, I love these guys. I was such a junkie for music, top-class groupie, man. The best class groups. In the Lear jet. On the stage. Working it out. PCC: Do you have another film near release? FONDA: Yeah. It’s hysterical. It’s not a big role. But once again, I don’t need to have big roles, just interesting things. I was in L.A, to do a voiceover narration for the last thing I shot. And two lines to do over again, because they were too low for the ambient noise. So I arrived to do that Tuesday morning. I flew down Sunday night from my ranch. Monday was the day I was going to arrange to have my motorcycle, to go up to Bakersfield to join 44 German motorcyclists and take them around Southern California. Then I go to Zurich and do a love ride for their Muscular Dystrophy fundraising thing. So this was my plan. I arrive in L.A. then at 12:30 Sunday evening, get to my hotel room, messages all over the place - “Call your agent, no matter what time it is.” “Listen, this is what happened, it was supposed to be this actor, this character, something’s happened, would you play this thing?” And they faxed me the lines. I looked at it. You couldn’t even read the lines, the fax was so bad. The character is Guru Dave. So suddenly, I didn’t put my motorcycle into a program, where it gets delivered up to Bakersfield. I’m in this movie that Eric’s in. It’s “Grace of My Heart.” And it’s directed by Allison Anders. She’s a good director. John Turturro’s in it. I say, “John just keep telling me who else is in it. I don’t know what this film is about, by the way. I’ve just come to play Guru Dave [laughs]. Illeana Douglas, who’s the lead in the picture, it’s hysterical, I do this thing about how her husband or old man, who’s committed suicide, and people who commit suicide, their souls can’t let go of this plane or the darkness and the doubt, the stuff that they haven’t faced up to in their real life. And the reason you can’t let go of his memory is because his spirit is still clinging to this plane, rather than embracing heaven. And while I’m doing this all different ways, talking to her, I’m doing this Buddha movement and, instead of reaching up for heaven, she puts a joint right in there and while I’m taking a hit, she says to me, “What should I do Guru Dave?” “I look at her and I say, “Questions are a good thing. Answers are relevant, if they’re inherent to the questions.” Now I’m free-forming. It’s not in the script. And now I get back to, “You should pray, meditate, and visual his release for him... And Denise, my child... “Yes, Guru Dave?” “Can you touch your elbows behind your back?” She goes, [moving elbows back, chest protruding] “Like this?” And I say, ‘Thank you, God.” [Laughs] I don’t know if Allison’s going to keep it in the film or not, but she didn’t say, “Cut.” She just looked at me and said, “Did you just do that?” I said, “Hell, yes, I just did that.” So, for one day, I made another movie. And, although I didn’t get to work with Eric and Bridget, it’s the second movie I’ve done with them. I was in “Bodies, Rest & Motion.” Bridget was in the shot. No one could see her, because she was behind the seat, on the floor, in the back of the car that Tim Roth was in. So you see me ride in, go up, “Phone work?” “Nope.” Ride away. And that’s it. [Laughs]. But Bridget wanted to be in the shot with me. I was so touched by that. PCC: Having been associated with drug experimentation and rebellion, how did you deal with your own kids, as they went through their teens? FONDA: I never kept any secrets from them. I never made it mysterious. I never made it mystical. I never made it a rite of passage. I’ve grown two hayseeds up in Montana, my two boys, who adore their sister and she worships them, is so good and generous to them. PCC: What does your stepson do? FONDA: He’s a craftsman. He makes knives, custom-made, handmade, no machine jigs out there cutting 15 blades at once. One blade at a time. This is the second one he made [pulls it out]. And I collect pocket folding knives, among other things. I encouraged him to be a knife-maker. I said, “Just don’t think about buying a Porsche till you have 2500 knives on back order. Then buy a used Porsche.” PCC: There have been rumors over the years about an “Easy Rider” sequel. Any possibility of that happening? FONDA: No. I don’t see how. It’d be like doing “Viridiana 2” [laughs] or “The Exterminating Angel 2” [both are Luis Bunuel classics]. |
