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SKY, September 1988
Перевод на
русский язык
By Dan Yakir
RIVER’S EDGE
Life’s a serious business for River Phoenix. The son of
60s radicals, growing up through the sensitive boy hero roles in
Stand By Me and The Mosquito Coast, he’s now hoping
to save the world.
Dan Yakir reports.
“Becoming a character is a slow process,” says
River Phoenix. “I start off just by stripping myself from who I
am, by neutralising myself, and then I fantasise about what the
character would do and play a lot of mind games.”
Although the 18-year-old star of such movies as Stand By Me
and The Mosquito Coast is no stranger to ginning up for
new roles, there was nothing much to prepare him for the part he
plays in Little Nikita – an all-American boy who wakes
up one morning to discover that his parents are Russian spies. Directed
by Richard Benjamin, the movie stars Sidney Poitier as an FBI agent
who alerts Phoenix (as Jeff, i.e., Nikita) to his painful dilemma.
“The biggest difficulty, was selling myself the whole plot,” says
Phoenix. “Being the son of Russian spies is far-fetched for me,
but that’s because I’m me. It was hard to adjust to that. Another
challenge was the transition the character has to make from being
a kid with a really decent life, a kid who feels very secure and
dreams of becoming an air force pilot, into someone who has the
rug pulled right out from under him. I had to evolve from a real
happy-go-lucky guy into someone who's torn between his loyalty to
his family, his conscience and duty to his country."
Playing a young man who has to keep an eye on his parents -even
informing the authorities about some of their activities - was a
stretch for Phoenix, whose family is especially tight-knit. Ironically,
in Sidney Lumet's upcoming Running on Empty, he plays the
son of ex-1960s radicals who live in hiding from the police.
Phoenix's own parents, Arlyn and John, are 1960s-style free spirits,
who spent time doing missionary work for an organisation called
Children of God in South America before returning to Stateside.
It sounds eerily similar to the plot of The Mosquito Coast,
except that the Phoenix family unity was never disrupted, unlike
that of the movie's clan. "When you're born into that kind
of lifestyle, you just don't even question it," he says.
It also imbued him with ideals that he proudly upholds. "I'm
against the nuclear arms race and apartheid in South Africa and
cruelty to animals, which means that I'm a vegetarian. Diet is a
good place to start making a change, because it's something I can
do. I can't on my own change the regime in South Africa or teach
the Palestinians to live with the Israelis, but I can start with
me. I have strong opinions and people disagree with me, but there
are those who agree too."
His more ambitious dreams include buying parts of the Amazon jungle
in Brazil to preserve its wild life from the destruction brought
about by thoughtless industrialisation, and building shelters for
the homeless. And when he makes movies, he tries to keep the purity
of the message intact.
For example, he's had second thoughts about the soon-to-be-released
Jimmy Reardon, because he thinks the audience may interpret
his character -a 1960s Don Juan -as promoting promiscuity. "Morally,
I have problems with it. A lot of people entrust themselves to you
and look up to you, and I'm speaking about a lot of teenage girls,
who may see the movie. I'm the monogamous type and I believe romance
is important in sex, and Jimmy Reardon doesn't always present it
that way.
"Look, I could see a stage in my life where I'd be freer with
sex - there's nothing wrong with that, but I do believe the circumstance
is important in sex and how it's portrayed. Doing it just for the
sensation and the immediate gratification is selfish. We all have
these kind of urges and feelings inside us and we can't always suppress
them. But I'm not against erotic films. 9 1/2 Weeks and
The Unbearable Lightness of Being are great - they're a
whole different ball game."
Originally, the character of Jimmy Reardon was conceived as a poet
whose love for women matched his despair and poverty. "I don't
want to look down at that film - it's not at all that I'm too good
for it," Phoenix stresses. "I did it because I wanted
to do something lighter than Stand By Me, which was very
intense - a vehicle that could take me out of the boy thing. I figured
it could help me grow up. It wasn't meant to a teenage film."
While his father voted against the project "because of moral
problems - not that he's uptight that way at all" - his mother
was more "open to it," but it was the director's obvious
enchantment with Phoenix that finally enticed him to take on the
part. "When I entered the room, he [William Richert] said,
'That's it! You're Jimmy!' I was really flattered, says Phoenix."
One of the challenges of doing Jimmy Reardon were the love
scenes, including a fairly explicit one with an older woman (played
by Ann Magnuson). But River, like a real pro, was hardly fazed.
"I didn't even think of it," he says. "If I can give
myself credit in acting, it's that I can lose myself easily, forgetting
about the camera. Subconsciously, you always know it's there, and
sometimes your ego wants to act a certain way but you can't think,
'What will Tom think if he sees this movie? Will he think I'm cool
in this scene if I do this?' In Jimmy Reardon I'm sure I did some
posing here and there, but that was part of the character too; it
called for that."
But was there really no fear at all in his heart when he had to
jump into bed on camera? No, says he. "I was thinking from
Jimmy's perspective, and it was quite exciting and very entertaining
[laughs.] I mean, watching rushes was another thing altogether
- or seeing the movie, forget it! I feel self-conscious, like it's
not me."
Off screen, River's name has been linked with Martha Plimpton's,
who he met on The Mosquito Coast, and who plays his girlfriend
in Running on Empty. Are they an item? "Yeah, I guess
you could say that," he responds. "But I've always had
trouble with definitions of what boyfriend and girlfriend are meant
to be. It's not like that - things are very spontaneous and open
between us. We've kept in touch and we're good friends. She's a
really good person and a wonderful actress in my opinion."
The actor isn't being coy, just playing things his way. "I've
always had a fair start on a lot of those topics, like sex,"
he says. "Everyone goes through their own dilemmas in their
mind growing up." The turning point for Phoenix happened during
the filming of Stand By Me. "It was a very strange
time. Having all these hormones kicking about and not wanting just
a one night stand and also the anxiety and the fear about the first
time," he says. "And the peer pressure! We were talking
about it all the time. I got through that, thank God!"
When he was shooting Jimmy Reardon, his parents weren't
around - only his grandfather. "Which wasn't enough to keep
me seeing things in perspective," adds Phoenix. He actually
delved into his womanizing character so much that he realized he
was taking home with him some of his character's traits. "It
was weird," he says. By contrast, on Little Nikita
he didn't undergo such transformations. "I didn't really like
the way the Russians were portrayed --it was a bit stereotypical.
At the end, when Richard Bradford (as a KGB agent) says, 'You know,
Russians don't shoot their children , ' I felt it was a bit too
easy, an attempt to compensate for his previous ruthlessness. But
it's hard to be objective about it. I think it's a solid film."
The actor cites his collaboration with Sidney Poitier among the
high points of the experience. Did the veteran actor try to become
a father figure to him? "He didn't even try to," says
Phoenix. "It's just the way it was. I was so open to his advice
and suggestions. He's a wonderful person and a really bright man,
who gave me tips about life too, not just acting. He's very open-minded
and still a curious man, who's not afraid of learning. So many people
make everything concrete," he says. "Especially when they
get older."
Phoenix himself faces no such danger. Although currently living
in Florida, he's led a nomadic life and has therefore never been
in a position to allow routine to set in. He says his loyalty is
to "people and feelings and memories rather than to places.
"Some people find security in routine, but I could never live
that way. That's why I could never be on a television series; that
would call for routine, for getting up in the morning at a certain
time, going to work, going through the same thing, playing the same
character."
But the actor does feel that in both Little Nikita and
Running on Empty he plays a victim. "I've got to stop
doing that," he says. "I've been lucky, I haven't been
typecast. I went from Surviving (a TV movie about teen
suicide) to playing a nerdy, neurotic computer whizz-kid in Explorers,
to Stand By Me, where I played a kind of tragic hero, who
is cool in his own way - and then to The Mosquito Coast."
His luck extends far beyond the way he's been treated by casting
directors. "I feel blessed," says Phoenix. "I have
a solid good background. I grew up without strife in the family,
in an honest environment that had no manipulation, and with the
ability to express myself. In our family, parents and children are
equal. It's a pioneering effort and we concentrate on a common goal.
We want to contribute something to the world, not to take or abuse
the position we're lucky to be in.
"It really upsets me that we're trained from an early age to
aspire to be the ideal man or the ideal woman. It's prejudice, really.
Many people learn to accept themselves, but others are miserable
if they don't look like Robert Redford. And they shouldn't be. It's
oppressive. A lot of it has to do with show business. For example,
I would like to see more blacks in leading men's roles, to project
a more realistic picture of who we are as a people."
Phoenix feels as strongly about growing anti-gay sentiments. "It's
a touchy topic with a lot of people," he says. "But how
can you tell someone to stop if that's where their happiness is
or if that's how they feel? If that's who they are? There are many
gay relationships that I would much rather support as wholesome
than some of these people who are just abusing women. I'd say that
anything in the name of love is okay. I'm not saying me myself -
I feel quite confident with a female - but it's something I want
to stand up for.
"I'm quite in love with the human race and this planet that
we live on, and I see life as very fresh and beautiful. People say
to me, 'Oh you have the world in your hands' or 'You're young and
you have all these opportunities.' But that's not why I feel the
way I do. It's just my reality. I've felt that way before too. Still,
I get very frustrated with the pace of life - I want so badly for
people just to understand each other and communicate better! With
all this technology, that's the best we can do? Pride so often gets
in the way, in politics and everywhere else. It's depressing.
"But," he concludes, "there's the optimistic side
of me too, which believes that we live in an incredible time and
that if we all come together on the important issues and stand up
for our rights, as Bob Marley said, we could really accomplish a
lot. I guess I'm a perfectionist. In my mind, I have all these Utopias
and fantasies, but I believe they can work. I really do."
© 1988 Sky.
Thanks to My
River Phoenix Collection for this text.
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