Film Review, 1994

As hard-boiled as an overcooked Scotch Egg, as hard-nosed as a tungsten carbide "arrow" and a hard-man once more - with Sharon Stone and Sylvester Stallone - in next month's The Specialist. James Woods tells it like it is about life and groceries - the hard way ...

Film Review: In The Specialist you play yet another baddie.

James Woods: Rod Steiger says I have the best role in the picture. He said, "He's the most malicious, manipulative, avaricious, greedy, powerful, nasty Cary Grant I've ever seen."

Cary Grant - bless him - didn't have an IQ of over 150. Both you and Sharon Stone do. Does that help, to have a colleague in your general intellectual ball park?

To be honest with you, it does. I like to sing her and Sly's praises because - it's like we all do - you get battered in the tabloid press and then you work with them and they're great. I'll say, "Did you read that thing in Atlantic Monthly, you know, Robert Kaplan's article?" and she'll say, "Yes, I did." It's always nice when you talk to somebody and they've read the thing that you're talking about.

And no qualms about playing a killer?

Well, in the first three pages of this movie I kill an eight-year-old girl so I'm not looking for any redemption in the picture ... it's not even an issue. I'm just trying to make this guy as bad as I possibly can, but he's so charming. It's like in this day and age, as we know from the Menendez case, all you have to do is wear the right sweater and you can kill anybody.

What's you killer couture?

I have wonderful clothes. It's all Ralph Lauren, which happens to look great on me - everyone else is wearing Armani - but this character, he looks a very traditional guy from the 40s. He'd be June Allyson's favourite date, this guy - all double-breasted suits, tux, wing collars - as elegant as you could be. A man for an America of the 40s - no morals and lots of public image.

Just what are we saying here?

You know, I don't think there are any more bad guys - I'm tempted to make so many jokes about this issue. You know, these days you don't know how to define the bad guy. I mean, you look at the people who get acquitted these days and people who don't get indicted at all. I don't know how you can accuse anybody of being a bad guy.

Like who?

Have you got an hour? Have you read the papers lately? As far as movies go, they only play on a sort of a Jungian universal unconscious that we all share, and the good news is that enough reasonable people are still outraged with Henry Watson walking the streets or Lorena Bobbit walking the streets or the Menendez brothers walking the streets, which presumably they will at some point because it's Los Angeles and, you know, it's the most hopeless place on earth in terms of justice.

Why do you think it has become this way?

I think a lot has to do with the fact that courts are micro-managing their end of the checks and balances system. That is what made the American Constitution a great document and it is now being eroded by Politically Correct special interest groups. When people get sued for putting mistletoe up at the office party by some demented feminist rather than a positive feminist, it's crazy. I heard something the other day that astounded me. I thought, talk about a backlash. She was an employer and she said that she couldn't afford to hire a gay, a woman, a person of colour or a handicapped person, because the liability in litigation was so great that she was afraid of hiring the people that those laws in fact were designed rightfully to protect. I mean, it's amazing twist.

In this film you play a rogue weapons specialist. Modern American movie baddies seem to be rebels in search of a cause. There seems to be an identity crisis at the moment.

I think it always goes with whatever the Politically Correct tenet of the times may be. I mean, back in the 50s when we had a very rigid moral structure, that was part and parcel of the American experience in the 50s. The villain was, if you look at the classic films noirs of the past, a woman and you could tell she was bad because she smoked cigarettes like Jane Greer in Out Of the Past, and the bad guy usually wore a black shirt and white tie. In the 60s it was fear of communists so you had the great films noirs like Invasion Of the Bodysnatchers, and in the 30s industrialists were the bad guys. It just depends. Right now, I guess, white European males are always gonna be the bad guys, because it's male-bashing time in America.

Can you describe Political Correctness in one sentence?

Scratch a liberal and you'll find a fascist ... I'm not joking. You look at what's happening in this country now. Catherine McKinnon thinks that we should now limit free speech, anything that offends a woman should now no longer be allowed - no reasonable man or woman in this country would subscribe to that, it's just insanity.

You're not going to let this one lie, are you?

I just think people are outraged by this litigious craziness that goes on in this country over the most nonsensical things. How many women do you think disappeard in the world in the decade of the 80s? Take a guess ... 100 million ... 100 million - infanticide in China and India, rape and murder and wife slavery, all these abuses. One hundred million women disappeared in the 1980s and Americans are worried about bad jokes. Think about it.

You're saying then, logically, that moaning about violence in films is not really addressing that problem either.

It's nonsense to worry about that. That's like saying, you know, the way we're gonna get gun control is to let people turn in guns and we'll pay for them. Turn in 30 guns and the other 700 million guns will be out there ... It's a joke. It's like those bumper stickers, the ones they spent five billion dollars on, that say, "Say no to drugs." What kid is gonna say no? Who's gonna say, "Oh I saw a bumper sticker. Now I'm gonna stop selling crack"?

Changing the subject slightly - shopping's not at all women's work these days. So, er, do you do your own groceries?

Yes I do.

How much is a pint of milk?

Where?

In L.A.

A dollar 29.

Thank you very much ....

... But it depends what you buy. If you buy whole milk, if you buy skimmed milk, or if you buy half-skimmed, it changes the price ...

Interview: Jeff Dawson