Esquire Magazine Article

September 2002

PORTRAIT OF THE ACTOR AS 2 MEN
A Profile In The Form Of 2 Interviews, From Which The Interviewer Has Drawn Certain Conclusions About 2 Male Performers, Named Edward And...Uh, Ralph
By Bill Zehme

HERE IS WHO WE ARE:

We are men at work who know life and also know each other because we have now worked together, playing good and evil. We are men who act because we must. We are American and British, thirty-three and thirty-nine, lean and intense and acclaimed and humble. We are not pretty but women do not mind at all. We are shy, thus perceived as aloof and serious. We are particular about how we are addressed: It is Edward, never Ed; it is Rafe, never Ralph. (We favor the Old English pronunciation, if you please, since that is how the family intended it to be.) So don't even think about calling us Eddie or Ralphy, if it's not too much to ask. Our work together was executed during the year's first four months, but rarely were we in the same place at the same time, since the point of the exercise was for one of us to appear in desperate pursuit of the other and vice versa. We were, for cinematic purposes, a haunted FBI agent named Will Graham and his elusive quarry, a monstrous serial killer named Francis Dolarhyde, who prefers to be addressed as Red Dragon, which is also the name of the production at hand and of the Thomas Harris novel upon which it is based. (It should be noted that the 1996 Michael Mann film Manhunter was also based on Red Dragon, except this time around the role of Dr. Hannibal Lecter will be played by Sir Anthony Hopkins - although since this is a prequel, he will appear to be twenty years younger than when we last saw him do this.)

You may wonder if there is a particular memory we share from our experience together. There is. It happened one day when we were pretending to maim and/or murder each other in a climactic and very brutal showdown scene. It was between takes, with crew members swarming around the set, and we sat on opposite ends of a hallway, covered in the fake blood that had been exploding from squibs planted on our bodies. We were at this moment waiting an eternity to resume shooting the scene when the very same thought entered both of our minds. It was the British one of us, he of the classical-stagecraft pedigree, who called over to the American one of us and said it first: "You know, next time let's just find a play with two people in a room." And the American one of us laughed and called back: "My feeling exactly. When I envisioned working with you, this is not what I imagined it would be." To that end, let us point out that Thomas Harris concluded his novel (which we both admire immensely, by the way) with the following passage from Ecclesiates: "And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly; I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit."

This, it turns out, perfectly explains how we go about the business of our lives as men who act. Months have passed since our collaborative experience, but we now find ourselves in New York, working seperately on new projects, vexing our spirits in new and different ways. For you, however, we have agreed to seperately share things we know about ourselves, about madness and folly and life, by submitting to the exercise that follows. The British one of us will tell you things in a stark white room rented solely for this endeavor; the American one of us will hold forth in a trailer in Brooklyn, during a break on the Spike Lee film The 25th Hour. Anyway, here is who we are and what we know for sure.

WHAT ARE OUR EARLIEST MEMORIES?

They are fuzzy, but tactile and odd. As actors, we like to draw on our memories while working. The following haven't really helped much so far.
E:[perched on a couch in the rear of a nondescript trailer, wearing formidable film wardrobe - white tank top, black pants, black boots, big belt buckle (he's playing a drug dealer) - and fidgeting with a silver watchband] I have a very clear memory of going to visit my grandfather and stepping on a tack in my little desert boots. I kept clicking it on the ground. I was just short of three at the time.
R:[ leaning forward across a high table, hair tousled, wearing a green T-shirt and running shoes] We lived on a farm in east England, in a house built during the late eighteenth century. A happy memory is being taken out to watch a crop-dusting plane. But more unsettling would be that I always thought there was some monster on the landing outside on the roof. I always had a night-light on. I even have a memory of hearing some groaning, awful noise. My mother said it was an uncle snoring. But there was this dreaded, terrible presence outside the door.

WHAT SCARES THE SHIT OUT OF US?

By the way, if we have done our jobs, Red Dragon should scare the shit out of you. Talk about a terrible presence just outside the door! How about a serial killer who bites the lips off Phillip Seymour Hoffman? Hello?
R: I am scared of real life. By being an actor, I suppose I'm running away.
E: I am not immune to fear, but nothing leaps to mind.

OUR FAVORITE/LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT EACH OTHER?

Frankly, we don't see where this is going. It's not like we're dating here. We did get paid to enter each other's lives. How much we got paid you don't need to know. Keep in mind, though, that we were paid to pretend to ferociously dislike each other.
R: In the makeup room one day, he walked in and gave me two books of material written by serial killers, which were really valuable to me. I was very touched. On the negative side, we have similarities, but I think he's a little more analytical. He would want to break things down and discuss them, and I like to just try things. I sometimes like it better when you don't talk about it. It's just a different way of working.
E: My least favorite thing is that he's got that incredibly rich, mellifluous British vocal instrument. And every time I hear him speak, I realize how flat my own voice sounds. Maybe that's both a favorite and a least favorite.

OUR BIGGEST FASHION MISTAKES EVER?

By the way, per that last question, we are most fond of each other, so don't start looking for tabloid fodder. We mean it. This one, on the other hand, unsubtly smacks of pimping for your Style issue. Did we tell you that one of us wears a kimono in the movie? We look damn smart in it too - in a creepy sort of way.
R: It was, naturally, the mid-seventies and I was a teenager, going to my first disco with two girls whom I liked. I had received some hand-me-down clothes from a friend - obviously his rejects. A bad sign. My mother thought that one shirt was great: cream and orange with puffy, billowy sleeves and little white polka dots everywhere. The collar, meanwhile, became a tie. The chic thing was to wear these secondhand gentlemen's waistcoats over your shirt. Such was my disco ensemble. It didn't go over so great. I felt like a dick.
E: I once wore a yellow leather coat to a boxing match in Las Vegas. I probably knew it was a bad idea; I carried it over my arm. I was in a Las Vegas when I bought it.

DO WE HAVE A FAVORITE ITEM OF CLOTHING?

Is this getting kind of transparent?
E: I love a good paid of boots. I always find that clothes, and especially shoes, are a good way into the characters you play. Shoes affect your posture and your carriage so much.
R: I tend to wear comfortable stuff. But, then, I am in control now.

WHAT IS THE SEXIEST THING IN THE WORLD TO US?

More like it.
R: It's always the journey towards something sexy that is really sexy. It's possibility, or the expectation, of it more than the act itself. Once you come to closure, it's sort of like, Well, we know what that's like.
E: Enthusiasm. Being game, someone who is up for anything, who is up for life. I tend to find myself pulling people into things, but sometimes when someone comes along and pulls you in? When someone grabs your hand and says, "I'm gonna show you something!" That's fun stuff.

WHO WOULD YOU RATHER BE FOR A DAY: SCHWARZENEGGER OR STALLONE?

You probably don't want to know the looks on our faces right now. We mean no disrespect in any way.
R: Can I be one in the mornng and one in the afternoon? I really admire Sylvester Stallone's performance in Cop Land. I think I'd be him in the morning and Arnie in the afternoon. If I am going to smoke a cigar, I'd have to smoke it later in the day.
E: Um, I'd be very close to a coronary trauma if I were either for a day. In either pair of shoes, I'd stay next to a good heart doctor. Let's just leave it at that.

ROBERT MITCHUM OR WILLIAM HOLDEN?

If it is possible for a pair of men to melt or swoon at the mention of another pair of men - in a deeply professional manner - that is what's happening now. Also, our eyes dance.
R: Ah, a great question! William Holden intrigues me. I'd like to be Holden in Sunset Boulevard. He was great.
E: Ah! That would really depend on the film. Bill is a great leading guy, but I'd probably go with Mitchum because he affects a laconic cool that isn't easy for me.

GEORGE BUSH OR DICK CHENEY?

Joke, right?
R: [eyes roll] No idea.
E: [after much thought] Either - as long as we engage in a suicide pact.

DO WE HAVE ANY RECURRING DREAMS OR NIGHTMARES?

Plumb our subconscious and find anxiety of ineptitude. Like you're any different.
E: I've had dreams of suddenly being onstage with a band and realizing that I don't know the chords. Dreams in which I am attempting something and am ineffectual. I've had dreams of having to fire a gun and pulling the trigger, but the gun won't go. God knows, some psychologist is going to write to the editor, analyzing that for me.
R: I used to have a dream, again, related to this thing outside my childhood bedroom. Some terrible, oppressive, malevolent force coming in on top of you and pressing you down and you can't get up. You can't fully awaken, and then suddenly you do wake up. I think it's a common dream, maybe because we are surrounded by so much to be afraid of.

HAVE LIVES EVER BEEN IN DANGER?

Certainly in character, in the presence of movie equipment - but never quite like in this particular film, unless maybe you count the prison-rape scene in American History X and the plane crash in The English Patient
R: I remember once, long ago, bicycling home from drawing school and going through a green light when a stolen car of joyriders came barrelling at me. I skewed my bike instinctively to avoid them, but the weight of the car at high speed brushed against my leg and carried me up into the air. I had no time to be scared. A policeman saw it and said, "I can't believe you aren't dead. Somebody or something was looking after you."
E: A very near miss of Fifty-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue late last summer. I was strolling along, going to get my watch fixed, and had one of those New York moments where the light was beautiful and I was checking out the street scenes. As I approached the corner, I thought that I saw someone that I knew. In that split second of distraction, I stepped off the curb while a bus was roaring by. I was looking beyond a guy a few feet away, and there was a sudden change on his face, an alarm, that made me lean back when the bus's huge side-view mirror passed do fast that I felt dirt from it clip me in the face. I thought, I almost just got decapitated by that bus mirror. And: You've gotta enjoy this city but not get killed doing it.

WHAT IS OUR FAVORITE JOKE?

We are not comedians. We are actors. Um, maybe you can tell.
R: Noel Coward dies and goes to heaven. As he walks about, he recognizes someone. "Excuse me," he says, "but you're Will Shakespeare, aren't you?" The reply: "Yes, I am." Coward says, "Well, when I was alive, I was a lot like you. I wrote a few plays and a few songs and acted a bit." Shakespeare: "Oh, really? Well, I wonder if you can help me, because I am writing a poem and I want to describe, in verse form, that bandy-legged man standing over there underneath the chestnut tree, and I don't know how to put it." Coward: "How about this? Neath the budding chestnut tree, a bandy-legged man I see." Shakespeare: "Hmm, not bad." Coward: "How would you put it?" Shakespeare: "Well, I was thinking of Forsooth! What man is this? Whose balls are in parenthesis?"
E: There's always the one about how many actors it would take to screw in a lightbulb. One hundred. One to do it, and ninety-nine to say: "I could have done that so much better."

IF WE COULD CHOOSE OUR LAST MEAL, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

We have detected a preponderance of death-related material here. Just so you know.
E: A tough one. My mind keeps going to pizza because I am craving it now. I'd probably eat ice cream, which I don't really eat much of these days. It's tougher to eat dairy as you get older.
R: If it were before my execution, I would have no appetite at all. I would reject it one way or another. But if it were a blissful last meal before a passing away without fear, I would eat something very simple. Parma ham. Or beautiful pasta. Probably some really great cheese, some really great wine, maybe a nice cut of meat.

IF FORCED TO EAT PART OF THE HUMAN BODY, WHICH PART WOULD WE CHOOSE?

An homage to Dr. Lecter, yes? He, by the way, does no serious gustatory work this time out. One of us did chew lips, however. But you knew that.
R: What would be the most meaty, succulent part? A muscle? Thigh or bottocks? Then, butt steak might be a bit stringy. Maybe a fillet from the lower back. I would follow the cattle-cut-of-meat mode.
E: What are sweetbreads in a cow? That's not the brains, is it? [Pancreas, actually.] There's a culinary subculture of people who eat only organ meat. I think I would go that way, with the liver or something inside of animals.

WHAT SHOULD NO MAN EVER SAY TO A WOMAN?

Where to begin on this one? Let us just say that we all walk a universal minefield - including those of us with rich, mellifluous British vocal instruments.
R: All the cliches are true. Tell her she looks great, that her figure's great. Unless she says, "Honestly, tell me, is it not?" Then, if you are going to be critical, be constructive. Lay it down in a way that gives confidence. Be supportive.
E: No man should ever say, "Don't you love the idea of seperate houses?" Diego Rivera did that - built his dream home for himself and his wife, Frida Kahlo, as two houses with a bridge between them. I can't fathom how that went over.

WHAT ARE WE SUCKERS FOR?

To be an actor is to seduce and be seduced. We are seduced by beauty and brilliance and integrity. And then there are these other things against which we cannot defend ourselves. Life is life, man.
R: I am afraid that, like most people, I am addicted to the mobile phone. It is crazy. But I am a wreck without it. And I hate myself for it. My girlfriend, Francesca, gets pissed off and says, "What are you doing? Turn that off." Also I like having massages, but that comes with a sort of English guilt.
E: I am a sucker for a crying woman. Or a woman in boots. A crying woman in boots and you've got me.