It’s not a great idea for the director to get into a confrontational mode with an actor unless he absolutely has to, so I suggested the first thing we do is tell River he would not be driving the truck for the high angle we were preparing as the movie’s final shot—of the pickup truck (with River, Samantha and Dermot in the cab) going off into the darkened streets of Nashville. (Shooting the end of a film first is, unfortunately, not an uncommon scheduling practice.) If River asked why he couldn’t drive himself, I told the A.D. to say that Peter thought it was safer for a stunt driver to do it since the shot was from a good distance away—the audience would never be able to see who was at the wheel—and because the truck had to enter onto a main drag of moving traffic we couldn’t control. I told Samantha I would have a talk with River later, but that my hunch was he was perhaps into playing his role a little too heavily. “Well, I’m not going to put up with it,” Samantha said and went off, looking hurt but stoic. She and River hadn’t fallen for each other yet, but they did soon enough, and it would be the last passionate love of the actor’s life.
After a while, the A.D. came back and said River was very upset and didn’t see why he couldn’t drive the truck himself—he was a very good driver. Had he been told the shot was high and far away and no one could possibly know? “I would know” was River’s response, the A.D. reported. I said I’d now go talk with him myself.
River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves played drug addicts in the popular independent picture My Own Private Idaho (1991), written and directed by Gus Van Sant; River was brilliant as a narcoleptic, drug-addicted hustler.
Running into Dermot first, I asked him what he thought the matter might be with River. Dermot immediately came to River’s defense, explained that he had a rare eye problem that made him blink a lot sometimes but this had nothing to do with drugs (all true). Dermot didn’t think River was high, he was probably just “into his character”—it was how he worked. “He’s a real good guy, really,” Dermot said as I moved on.
River was wandering around the parking lot, looking forlorn and agitated. I put my arm around him and we walked to the back of the mall. I asked him if he was on drugs of some kind. He immediately said he’d taken a pain pill, then forgot and had one beer, and the two were not mixing well. He said he felt like he was being punished by not being allowed to drive the truck. I dismissed that as “an insurance thing,” and asked what had been the problem with Samantha. He looked sharply at me. Had she complained to me about him? Pretty much, I said, what happened? River shook his head, No, nothing, he said, it had nothing to do with her. It was all his fault—but he didn’t mean any of it. He was just trying “to find this character”—an edgy guy. Since the character was supposed to sing for an audition, “he’d be even edgier,” River concluded.
I told him Stella Adler’s advice about not playing the role all the time. He did that unconsciously, River said, didn’t quite realize what he was doing. I said neither the studio nor I wanted James to be a druggie. River nodded and said that the character had, however, definitely “been into drugs,” they’ve “made him edgy,” made him “a bit of a bastard.” I agreed in principle but since we didn’t have any drug-taking scenes, this would have to be a minor element. River said we didn’t need any scenes, but he had to know the kind of person he was dealing with. He himself didn’t have “a problem with drugs,” River told me lightly, he was just getting into the character, and felt the guy really was “pretty cool” with the stuff, too. I said he shouldn’t focus on that aspect of the guy; it might be there but should by no means dominate. River agreed and then said he was sorry about tonight. I said, it just shouldn’t happen again. He promised it wouldn’t. We hugged. To my knowledge, with the exception of one night back in Los Angeles a couple of months later, River kept his promise; he caused me not a single further problem on the entire picture.
However, the word on what had happened immediately got back to Hollywood and a guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude toward River started to take hold at the studio. The irony was that the more brilliantly convincing River was in playing a self-involved, occasionally self-destructive, sometimes poetic, troubled, drug-savvy, arrogant and very talented singer-songwriter, age twenty-seven, the more the perception became that River was acting strange, was on something, was being unsympathetic and weird. Of course, he had never played anything remotely like this—dangerous, oddball, both brainy and macho—and some people thought this was what River had become. On the contrary, he was consciously, and as organically as possible, acting a man five or six years older than himself, who had endured just that many more embittering or aging experiences. On the first night, he had for a few moments acted younger than his age—which was only twenty-two—while most of the time River seemed considerably older than his years. Back in Hollywood, the concern about River would increase to such a degree that Iris Burton was dispatched to see about her client. She arrived, stayed a day or two—long enough to observe that he was fine and that things were going well—and then left, somewhat perplexed as to why there were any worries.
Not long after, one of the worst things that can happen to a picture happened to The Thing Called Love: the administration at the studio changed. Out went Brandon Tartikoff, who had green-lighted our movie. In came Sherry Lansing, who knew nothing about it. Though Sherry was very friendly and an old pal of mine, and actually saved the movie at one point from being butchered, she still had no pride of parenthood with this now orphaned product. Tartikoff had pushed us into production as soon as possible because he wanted the film distributed around April 1993, at the time of the annual Country Music Awards. That was why we had begun with a script that wasn’t ready. After the change in regime, that plan would eventually change with it. But we were well past the point of no return, and so trying to stay on top of the script as we went along just became yet another given, though all the principal actors—River, Samantha, Dermot and Sandra Bullock—were deeply into it, and enjoying the process. The actors and I would meet after shooting or during breaks and work on upcoming scenes, altering many or all the lines and situations, coming up with good ideas—River more than anyone—and quite often his ideas were for the others. We found that Sandy Bullock—for whose casting we had to push the front office for a couple of months because Tartikoff hadn’t liked her in some TV pilot—was a brilliant comedienne, so we built up her role, and the resulting performance helped get her the part (that made her a star) in Speed (1994).
Realizing some of the pressures we were under, Stanley Jaffe, who was the top executive in New York, and also an old friend, called to ask if we’d like some help with the script. Our scenarist was a first-timer. I said, yes, if there was somebody good. He proposed Allan Moyle, who was a writer-director Samantha knew, since he had directed her in Pump Up the Volume (1990). I hadn’t seen that film, but Samantha thought he was excellent so we said to send him on down. And Allan, who couldn’t have been more self-effacing, anxious only “to help, not to interfere,” turned out to be of great assistance in pulling all our ideas together into scenes that could then be rewritten yet again. River took to riding Allan sometimes—as a kind of character-joke, I guessed, which seemed to me just good-natured kidding around—and Allan always looked amused. “No, Allan, not that line! Jesus!” Allan and I discussed it: River’s instincts were infallible in what would play and what wouldn’t.
As each scene approached, it would daily be revised or refined until all the actors and I were happy with it—which sometimes wasn’t until just before the camera turned. Certainly the actors had to be on their toes, their chops in good shape, to continue relearning lines, often getting them at the last moment. An added difficulty for them was that I felt a good number of the longish dialogue scenes should be played straight through without a cut, the camera either stationary or moving.
While River and I were alone one afternoon talking about an upcoming scene, I told him that my preference was to shoot the entire sequence in one shot, with no further angles.
“No coverage!?” River became very excited when I said, no, if we did the whole scene in one long piece that worked, there would be no reason to “cover” it with other shots. He said he thought that was great! I wasn’t surprised at his reaction, I said, because I’d found that “all real actors” prefer this technique: not only for the challenge of sustaining an entire scene (as onstage after the curtain’s up) but also for the far more easily achieved freshness. The film actor’s typical grind in shooting was to repeat every line numerous times, never knowing which angle would be used for which moment, trying to be fresh on every repeat—an impossible task.
River said that Sidney Lumet hadn’t shot coverage, and did numerous long takes in filming Running on Empty, though they had rehearsed for a while, a luxury we unfortunately never had. River became so fond of “one-ers,” as film crews call this sort of all-encompassing master shot, that he would ask me on every sequence if we could “do it all in one.” If I said, no, it wasn’t appropriate to the scene or was technically impossible, he would push for it anyway until I laughed and said I was just as sorry, but it wouldn’t work here. If I said yes he was ecstatic. Movie acting in this way requires considerable discipline and experience. River couldn’t have done sequence after sequence in that way if he’d been taking drugs. Yes, he was acting differently than anyone had ever seen, but it was the first time he was playing an adult romantic lead, and a character who’d been around a bit, certainly not a Southern hick. In fact, we added a number of intellectual comments from River, ones I suggested or River asked for, which helped to define his character as a reader and thinker, not simply an instinctual artist. Eventually a few of these moments wound up being eliminated, and River’s role was thereby diminished—one could not understand him as well. River loved any kind of arcane information—and when I would mention something of that sort, he would invariably want somehow to fit it into the movie. Often we did.
Our story was essentially a triangle in which the two guys—River and Dermot—were both in love with Samantha, and though she’s partial to River romantically, she feels more friendship with Dermot. This particular triangle (two men, one woman)—as Robert Graves has pointed out in his studies of mythology—is the most ancient story known. Discussing that with River, we decided to add a scene to help show his character’s achieved self-awareness and ability to observe his own situation with historical objectivity. It became a reconciliation scene between Dermot and River—they had fought verbally and physically over Samantha—in which River puts their relationship into perspective by describing how “the Green King and the Red King” killed each other yearly for “the affections of the Lady in White,” and that this year, for Samantha, they had both “kicked the bucket.” It was a scene River particularly liked and one which he and Dermot played with beautiful simplicity and grace.
River’s profound understanding of this episode mirrored his own often painful relationships with the women he loved and who loved him. Martha Plimpton still speaks of River with rare fondness, as River did of her. I didn’t know Suzanne Solgot, the young woman he had been going with just before we began preparing our picture. But I remember the initial evening River and I spent together, the same day we had first met face to face, and his telling me of the dismay he felt at having just heard from his girlfriend Sue that she had been unfaithful to him. Of course, he said, he had been unfaithful to her, and she had known it, but the other way around really bothered him. He went right on, however, to justify her behavior, to see it from the woman’s point of view, protecting herself from the pain of his acts. I didn’t say much, and River talked out his ambivalent feelings in a very mature way.
I had no idea until we were about to shoot River’s and Samantha’s first kiss in the film just how much River was actually attracted to Sam. It was a night scene, on location in Nashville, maybe our second or third week there. We were outside. River was to drive up in his truck, Samantha beside him, stop at her hotel, kiss her goodnight and, after she jumps out, drive off. While the first shot was being lit, River and I were talking about what sort of kiss it should be. River started out by saying he hoped I had a lot of film in the camera because it was going to be a very long kiss. He was grinning mischievously. “Oh, yes!” he said, he had been waiting for this scene! And then he went on—in James’ sophisticated country-boy accent—to list what else he would like to do with Samantha. Mostly he kept to all the places he’d like to kiss her. He was half James–half River as he said Samantha was driving him crazy. She had a boyfriend in New York—the actor John Leguizamo—and, though River felt Samantha liked him, she was always talking about John and he didn’t feel right imposing himself. But he certainly was going to kiss her tonight! And, by the way, he told me, he would be very happy to do as many takes as I wanted, and he hoped I wanted many.
I think we did about seven. I can’t remember for certain which kiss ended up in the picture but I have a feeling it was the first or second take. There was intense heat on all seven. Samantha managed a pretty impassive professional look between takes, while River just loudly asked for “… another one—we need another one, don’t you think, Peter?” Samantha would laugh. River and Samantha became closer and closer every hour after that. Not much later, John Leguizamo came to visit but stayed only one day. Samantha ended their relationship and she and River officially became an item. They were lovely together, and he treated her with the utmost respect, tenderness, humor and not one fragment of competitiveness. Most of their best scenes together—three to five pages of dialogue—were done in long continuous shots that require enormous coordination between the two players. Their closeness in life helped immeasurably to deepen their interactions in these scenes. It isn’t always that way. Both were considerate and generous to the other. Unlike many male stars, River was not threatened by the woman having equally good things to say and actually often trumping him at the conclusion. Indeed, River welcomed and encouraged this. When we did the picture, I’d been in show business for nearly forty years and in my experience, a star-actor like River Phoenix was rare.
After shooting, and on weekends, River was relentless in his pursuit of Nashville atmosphere, of what it was like to be there, strive there, fail there, win there. He went all over town searching for answers. And looking for songs. The Thing Called Love was, after all, a picture about singers and songwriters, and the reason we had pushed all the song numbers back to the very end of the schedule (no matter where they might fall in the story) was because we hadn’t set even one song. The actors, and everyone else, had been encouraged to look for new songs, or to write some for the movie. All four of the leads ended up singing a song they’d written, or co-written, for the picture during the shooting. We should have used at least one other of River’s songs—a tender, melancholy ballad—but politics and compromise would force that out.
One morning, River came to the set very excited. He’d found a song in someone’s office last night that he thought was “pretty damn good” for his character to perform as his first song—especially important in establishing that ambivalent character’s particular talent and state of mind. In my trailer on location, River played the demo tape for me. It was absolutely dead-on. His instinct here gave me an even higher regard for him than I already had: his ear for the right sound, not only for the character but for the audience, was uncanny. It was a very sympathetic, catchy tune, but also witty and hard-driving. To get the song into the picture we would have to fight legal hassles practically right up to the day we finally shot it back in Los Angeles at the end of the schedule. With another singer, the song (“Blame It on Your Heart”) would become a sizeable hit on country charts in advance of the movie’s release, confirming River’s popular touch.
Our shooting extended over the Christmas-New Year’s holidays—a time usually avoided like the plague by studios—but we had jumped in because of the (now irrelevant) country awards date. Everyone got ill. We had to take four days off because River caught a nasty cold. He called me, worried, s
aid he’d come in if I wanted. I said, Are you kidding, I could use a break, too. So could everybody. The studio would send a doctor to check him out, make sure he’s really sick, and insurance would cover the costs. River said, OK, if I was sure, because even with a fever he’d come in for me. I said, For me, stay home. We were shooting nights which is also especially exhausting, turning everyone’s body clock upside down. Worse, one of our primary locations was the Disney Ranch out in the wilds of L.A. where it was particularly cold at night.
River mentioned that he didn’t much like Los Angeles, that it was a bad influence on him, just the atmosphere of the town itself. A few times, some of his rock-musician friends came down to the set to visit, hang around his trailer for a while. On one of those occasions, I noticed River looked drawn and strangely quiet in his intensity. Of course, it was a difficult scene, at night outside a hospital, during which River and Samantha have their first heart-to-heart talk and she tells him of her beloved father’s death. As an actor, River’s preference was never to do any moment in any scene exactly the same way twice. If I would say, “That was terrific—do it again like that,” River would reply, “You’ve got it that way—let me try something different,” and he would. Many actors tend to stick to one approach on a scene or a line, so it wasn’t usual to see the often wildly different ways River might interpret a moment. This also fueled the drug-abuse suspicions: he’s erratic, he’s weird, he’s inconsistent.
Since we were writing this picture as we went along, shooting out of sequence, certain reactions had to be shot a number of ways so we could decide later, once the work was edited, which best suited the character. The point was that we could use only one of each. We wound up including the straightest takes, as it turned out, which is what I thought might happen, but both River and I had wanted choices to help refine his character.
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