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Q & A WITH... AIDAN QUINN
(From People Online) [Producer] Denise DiNovi and Griffin Dunne both said you have a Gary Cooper quality about you. Have you heard this before? AIDAN QUINN: No. I've never heard that one actually. I really don't know who Gary Cooper is. We were not allowed to watch television growing up. I've heard I've been compared to James Dean. No television in your household? It was one of those households where there was very little television. We went to the movies or when my parents went out, we would sneak on the television and then my dad would drive up the driveway, come in and put his hand on the back of the TV set and haul us all downstairs. What were you allowed to watch? Actually some weird things. I remember watching The Mod Squad because I think my dad liked it (laugh). It wasn't a dramatic arts upbringing I guess? My father was a teacher of English literature so there was actually stories of drama in our house. My mother is a good story-teller and they're both from Ireland so there were a lot of drinking, dancing and storytelling going on. Do you limit the TV watching at home? Well, I have two children -- nine years old and five months. I have to limit the nine-year-old's watching, but not like my dad did. So do you believe in magic? Yeh, I do. Your character supposedly had one blue and one green eye -- you don't? No, mine are both blue. I wore a green contact lens. It was very subtle, though. What appealed to you about taking the role of Gary Hallet? Kissing Sandra Bullock (laugh), getting paid a lot of money -- those are certainly two things -- besides, I loved the story. I knew Griffin a bit from my New York days and he always made me laugh when we'd be stuck at some god- awful premiere or party. I loved working with two good actresses like Sandy and Nicole. What's not to do? Was it as much fun as it looks? We had a lot of fun. Both Griffin and Sandy are so much fun -- between the two of them, you almost couldn't get the cameras to roll sometimes because they were so busy goofing around. Do you have a handle on the appeal of romances with magical elements in them -- every couple of years you get a Ghost that hits big. I think people are starved for a little magic in their lives. We are all so toxically busy that we don't see anything and just go through out day. If a movie can give us that adventure or take us on a journey -- that's why we go to movies. Anything specific about Practical Magic? When I met my wife, as corny as it sounds, I think we were meant to meet. I think a lot of people believe that. It's nice to see it played out in a dramatic context. What is this film you did with virtually everyone in your family? (laugh) It's called This Is My Father and it's just been bought by Sony Classics and we were thrilled, thrilled, thrilled. We just won the audience award in Halifax, we won the Best Feature Award at the Galway Film Festival and it's coming out in April or May. It's both a contemporary and flashback into 1939 -- it's a tragic love story. Me and my brothers were executive producers. It stars James Caan, Stephen Rea, John Cusack -- the cast is phenomenal. Did you like being a producer? It was very interesting because we were on a very low budget and an epic film to shoot. It was very hard work. It was constantly putting out fires. It's like going to war. You work for 14 hours, watch dailies for an hour, then eat during dailies and re-writing for the next day because we lost a location -- so it was a very intense experience when you're that responsible. As an actor who's produced, do you ever get frustrated when you're trying to make something really special on 5 million dollars and then you see 60 million being spent on something that should have been done for much less? Yeh, sure. But what's the point? That's the nature of the beast, but it can be frustrating. I think it's such a shame that we're into megahit-or-bust mode. It's just so awful. There's no room in theaters for smaller films. Is yours a closeknit family? I think we are very close. We are not without Irish tensions that have been written about and I think are in most Irish families. Can you tell us about In Dreams and Neil Jordan? We shot it in New England. I love working with him because Neil is an artist. He doesn't like to talk about things; he likes things to be created and they happen. Only when it goes off course a little bit and then you talk about the rhythm of it. Can you talk a little bit about In Dreams? Sure. It's both a horror and psychological thriller. I play Annette Bening's husband who is an airline pilot. They are having somewhat of a difficult time in their marriage but they have a deep love for each other. She is besotted with these psychic dreams that are coming through and she wants no part of these horrific events, but they end up coming true. She is losing her mind from this and she tries to tell the authorities who think she is a nut case. Then she thinks she is and then her husband does. It's this descent in this nightmare which I find myself caught up in. It's a brilliantly written script. Robert Downey, Jr. plays the killer. How different of a mind set as an actor are you in when you do something fantastical like Practical Magic and then a darker, deeper meaning like an In Dreams. What goes through your head? Well I'm the grounded person in each film. But I take my cue from the script and the director. Certainly where you can add to the lightness or humor of Practical Magic, I tried to get it without losing the reality. You don't really play it all that differently -- you just go with the rhythm of the scenes -- the rhythm of the music, if you will. How hard is it to tell if it can actually work? They can fly or tank very easily. Can you tell on paper which way they are going to go? I don't think you can tell on paper. I think you have a good idea when you're working on it, but it's nowhere near fullproof. I've worked on turkeys that I thought would last one week and saw the movie and it was a good one. We all laughed about it when we were working on it -- what a dog it was. Can you tell us which one? (long pause) Well, Desperately Seeking Susan. We all thought it was going to be a dog. They made a better movie in the editing room than we made on the set. There's an example. I've worked on plenty of films that went the other way whereas what happened in post-production ruined what I thought was a really, nice movie. How do you view the state of your career? It's OK. I need a hit (loud laugh). Would you trade some of the respect you get for a hit? At this point, yeah. -- BONNIE SIEGLER
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