Film Review, 1989

Film Review turns left at ' schizophrenia' and carries on past 'serial killer' in a bid to explore the psyche of top screen 'sleazebag' James Woods, whose new movie, The Boost, is out his month

James Woods has brown eyes that shift about the room, burning a trail behind them, as he fast-talks his way through our interview. Fifteen minutes with Woods is like 45 with Mel Gibson and an hour-and-a-half with Al Pacino.
We meet while he is finishing filming on Immediate Family, out soon on video. In it, he plays the nice, right-wing, pleasantly-handsome husband of Glenn Close. It is a film essentially about adoption, and it is interesting to see Woods' new clean screen look after 20 years of playing psychos, scumbags, villains and cranks. In the clear light of another perfect Californian day, even his traditionally-scarred comlexion seems smooth as a baby's bottom. And the hollowed cheeks have softened. But I am momentarily misled about the reformed version of James Woods. He's edgy as ants and sour as hell when his private life, namely a collapsed second marriage, is brought up. Naturally, I am fascinated to hear about the alleged $2 million out-of-court settlement of the lawsuit he filed against actress Sean Young for emotional harassment during the filming of his latest film, The Boost, UK-released on July 27. Focussing on a couple who become involved in drugs, it's "a story about two people with black holes in their souls." On set, rumours flew of an affair between Woods, then engaged to his outgoing wife, Sarah Owen, and his co-star Sean Young. They both denied it. Then came stories about Ms Young pestering Sarah with latenight phonecalls, Fatal Attraction-style. She also, it seems, arranged for a disfigured baby doll to be left on the doorstep of the home of Woods and Owen. That was when Woods slapped a lawsuit on Young. To put it mildly, The Boost was not the sort of boost he needed at the time. I ask him how it had been resolved. He pauses for a split-second, every muscle in his face tightening. "I can't and won't talk about it. It's a forbidden subject, so next question please." Disappointed, I breathe a sigh of relief and ask him what he'd have done with his life if it hadn't been acting for a living. "I originally wanted to be an eye surgeon but, at 17, I had an accident when I ran through a plate-glass door. It ruined my right hand." He shows me the scars.
Woods leans back in his chair, and I ask him for his feelings about two decades playing psychos, scumbags, villains and cranks. "Oh, that! It's you journalists who labelled me a sleaze," he says. "Journalists are lazy. They drag out a clip and say: 'Ah, he was a killer five years ago, let's talk about his sleazy, tough guy image.' And you just keep perpetuating it. I don't know how you can say I'm generally cast as a sleaze, I've always just been a regular guy."
James Woods is 42. Generally dubbed as the most unsung actor in films today, he's actually had an Oscar nomination (Best Actor for Salvador), and loads of awards, including an Emmy for the TV film My Name is Bill W., about the Alcoholics Anonymous movement. He isn't exactly what one could describe as a cute leading man. He's apparently known to be difficult on set, an uncompromising Arien. Inevitably scary on screen (except for Immediate Family), he's patently a Very Bright Guy. But one doesn't particularly want to mess with him. Generally speaking, Woods has been mercilessly typecast. He says he's seen cast lists that call for a 'James Woods type'. And that just about says it all. He was a violent cop killer in Joseph Wambaugh's The Onion Field, the bitter Jewish artist, husband to Meryl Streep, in the mini-series Holocaust, the unpleasant journalist in Salvador, and Max, the brutal gangster brother of Robert de Niro, in Once Upon a Time in America. As lawyer Eddie Dodd in soon-to-be-released True Believer, he is near-demonic. Dozens of other unsavoury roles dot his track record.
Jimmy Woods was born an army child, and grew up on the move from base to base. His father died when he was 12, and Mrs Woods and her two boys, both ex-altar boys, settled on Rhode Island. He describes his background as "simple-going Irish Catholic" on his schoolteacher mother's side, and talks warmly about his video-store owning brother Mike, ten years his junior, whom he always felt father to. From school, he moved on to a scholarship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, America's top science college, majoring in political science and involving himself in defence analysis. Woods started acting in the college's drama shop for relaxation. On graduation, he worked in rep, and made his film debut in 1970 in Elia Kazan's The Visitors. "That year I also auditioned for Casualties of War - for what is now the Michael J. Fox role. He was hardly even born! Anyway, the project fell through. I'm glad now. It would have been difficult to make a movie about Vietnam while we were still actually bombing Hanoi. Especially for me, as I'd been working in defence subjects at college in the Sixties when the American government was blasting away at Vietnam. Anyway, now I'm signed up to play opposite Fox in The Hard Way for director John Badham. Life has its ways!"
"Of the films I'll always love, really love, Salvador is the top of the list. The Onion Field was my break-through movie. I'll never forget that one. I could never forget auditioning with de Niro for Once Upon a Time."
But will the public allow him to leave the psycho-sociopathic screen territory he has made uniquely his? "What psycho-sociopathic territory," he asks with feigned incredulity. "How do you get there? Turn left at schizophrenia and carry on past serial killer?"

by Marianne Gray