Grit and Glory

Jamie Painter

Few icons remain in Hollywood, but actor James Coburn is still around. Though he's never been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his striking work, that Oscar statistic may change after Academy members consider his current performance in "Affliction," a film based on Russell Banks' novel and directed by "Taxi Driver" scripter Paul Schrader.

In the role of Glen Whitehouse, Coburn offers one of his best performances to date as a wicked alcoholic whose violent tendencies are passed down to his adult son, played with equal bravado by Nick Nolte. Rumor has it that a number of high-profile actors, including Paul Newman, shied away from the edgy role. Thankfully, Coburn stepped up to the challenge.
A native of Compton, Calif., Coburn studied acting at Los Angeles City College, the University of Southern California, and with Stella Adler in New York before making his critically acclaimed debut at the La Jolla Playhouse in Billy Budd. After working in television, he established himself as a supporting player in such films as "Face of a Fugitive," "Ride Lonesome," "The Magnificent Seven," "Hell Is for Heroes," "Man From Galveston," "Charade," "The Great Escape," and "The Americanization of Emily." He attained stardom in two espionage spoofs, the 1966 film "Our Man Flint" and its follow-up "In Like Flint." He produced and starred in the 1967 satire "The President's Analyst," and his collaboration with legendary auteur Sam Peckinpah included such films as "Major Dundee," "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," "Convoy" (which Coburn second-unit directed), and "Cross of Iron," which he co-wrote with Peckinpah and starred in.

A fallow period followed, as Coburn explained in a recent interview, due to a debilitating illness that kept him down for nearly 15 years. After gaining control of his health, Coburn returned to more steady work in such recent films as "Maverick," "Sister Act 2," "Eraser," "The Nutty Professor," the HBO satire "The Second Civil War," and the upcoming "Payback." But his mesmerizing turn in Affliction marks a welcome comeback for this veteran actor, who deserves to be seen and heard from a lot more.


Back Stage West: I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I truly consider you a living legend.
James Coburn: Really? I just want to be considered a decent actor who makes a living at it and hopefully leaves a body of work that's interesting, exciting, and evocative. I also hope that good literature keeps coming in, like Affliction.

BSW: Glen Whitehouse, your character in Affliction is‹pardon my language‹a mean son of a bitch. It's a great part, but I imagine a difficult one to play ‹and one which many well-known actors would shy away from.

Coburn: A lot of actors weren't attracted to the role because they didn't want to play this kind of thing. It would diminish their image. But that's why we're actors ‹because we want to discover other aspects of ourselves and to get down and really, really nasty. I'm not that way at all in real life, but to discover that ‹that it's within all of us, and to find it in myself ‹was so exciting.

BSW: Is Glen the darkest character you've ever played?

Coburn: Oh, yeah. It was probably the darkest film I've ever been in. But when you're working with really good actors like Sissy [Spacek] or Nick, it's great, because you have to be right there, too. It's like playing ping pong with a really great ping pong player. You've really got to be present.

BSW: Is that most important to you? To be working opposite great actors?

Coburn: Well, a lot of actors work from different points of view. Some of them take‹they absorb all of the energy around them instead of giving anything off. They're personality actors; they're sucking it in all the time. But actors who give, who are right there and giving something all the time, you absorb that and give it back. Then it has that dynamic that's so effervescent. It just feeds you and it feeds them, and explosions happen. Oh, yeah, that's the joy of acting, when you're working with great actors.

BSW: Who are some of your favorite actors or directors you've worked with?

Coburn: Well, Nick and Sissy, of course. Jason Robards, Maximilian Schell, David Warner, James Mason, Sophia Loren, Albert Finney, Rod Steiger. Jeez, I've made so many films, I can't remember all the names of the people I've worked with! Let's see, who else? Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau. There was the whole bunch in The Great Escape‹Charlie Bronson, Richard Attenborough, Steve McQueen. Steve wasn't a great actor, but he was a great personality.
Sam Peckinpah was my favorite director. He made his films like a sculptor sculpts a piece of granite or marble‹ chipping away here, chipping away there, and finally revealing what is actually there. Wherever there was no conflict, he liked to make conflict, because that is the nature of film. You'd be playing a character and every now and then he'd tell you, "Say that line again." I had said it perfectly, but he'd say, "Say that goddamned line again!" So you'd say it again, and then he'd say, "Say it again, damn it!" He'd just jibe you and the camera's still rolling all of this time. He'd push you all the way. If it was too perfect, it was wrong for him. He wanted to make it edgy and tension-filled and ragged and jagged.

BSW: Did Peckinpah make you a better actor for pushing you all the way?

Coburn: Absolutely. It wasn't anything against you; he was looking for something in the character. He was looking for something that would make the film better. It was never you. I mean, you can't act with an ego. If you have an ego, you've got to leave that at home when you go off to the set. Leave it back in the shower, because if you act with an ego, then you're not really working. You're either denying something or you're not allowing something to happen. You've got to be open.

BSW: As an older actor, is it difficult to find good roles, like the one you played in Affliction?

Coburn: Oh, yeah. This is the best thing I've done in years. The problem is that most of the studios make films for juveniles, and therefore they don't want to see any gray-haired guys. It seems like the highest level of literature that most film executives have read are Marvel comic books. That's why we have so many comic strips on the big screen‹bigger explosions, bigger guns. It's all for a sensation. They try to arouse a sensation in you, instead of a thought or an emotion. There's no stories out there‹at least, very few stories that explore any kind of relationship, that are really about something.

BSW: How did you begin as an actor? Did you get training?

Coburn: A lot of training. I learned a lot of technique. What technique does is allow you to free yourself from all of the fears and all of that jazz. If you know what you're doing, then you can play. Then you can actually explore with your imagination. Acting is not just accident. It has to become a conscious, artistic effort that you're in control of. You've got to have a point of view. And your point of view is developed through your character and through your understanding of life.

BSW: What's the best advice you can offer a young actor starting out?

Coburn: Well, first you have to be serious about the work. If you're serious enough about the work itself, instead of wanting to be rich and famous, then maybe you can attain some level of wealth and a little fame. But you can't count on it unless you have the depth of understanding the process. The process comes with learning a technique.
I studied with Stella Adler. Stella was the grande dame of teachers. She was wonderful. She always had big classes and so students had to struggle to get onstage, to do anything. But you could learn just by listening to her criticism or how she praised somebody who got up there. She was interested in the work. Most of these kids out here in L.A. aren't interested in the work. They seem more interested in getting the part than playing it. That's the whole joy of acting‹finding out how to do it.

I mean, anybody can stand up on a stage and talk and say the lines and be macho or sweet and pretty and all of that stuff, but that's not the work. Stella would kick those people right off the stage if they weren't interested ‹if they weren't doing something. You could be bad at it, but at least you were doing something. She was especially tough on women, because she wanted them to be more. She wanted them to stand up and be strong. Those women that came through Stella were always really strong ladies and really standup people who went for the work, who did the work, who understood the work.

And that's what I would say to young people: If you're not interested in the work and don't submit to the work, be a model.

BSW: Do you have any fears as an actor?

Coburn: As long as you know what you're doing, there's no fear. If you don't know what you're doing or there's some doubt of what you're doing, then there's fear. There is a dream, however, that all actors have, including myself: You're standing in the wings and you're about to go on and you don't know what play it is, you don't know what the first line is, you don't know anything about it. And you walk on and then you wake up. All actors have that fear of being onstage and not knowing what to say.

That's the beauty of film ‹if you don't do it right, you can do it again. If you don't do it right that time, you know you can continue to play with it. Sometimes the words don't fit. Sometimes instead of saying the lines right, something else comes out and that plays better.
Always remember that the words are not the thing‹the action is the thing. You've got to play the action. If the words don't fit the action, make the words fit the action. Sometimes it's the elimination of the words that make the action play better. If you can do more with a look, don't say it.

But you can be too subtle. There's a tendency going around in acting nowadays where a lot of young actors don't have any voices to project. They whisper. If you can't hear them, what they're doing is hiding behind a facade of coolness. Have you noticed this? Next time when you watch a film, listen. Some of the people can't speak at all.

BSW: So, did you always have your distinctive speaking voice?

Coburn: No. I had to find it. I had to build in a whole upper register so that it kind of sang and rang a little bit. I wish they had more voices now. Broadway kids have some voices, but they're singers generally.

BSW: Do you continue to learn as an actor?

Coburn: Oh, every time. Oh, yeah. You never stop learning.

BSW: What did you learn from your experience of working on Affliction?

Coburn: I learned to deal with an emotion‹a rage that I've never expressed in real life. I've gotten angry in films and I have anger within myself, but I didn't know I had an emotional rage that is very deep-seated. And now I know it's there.
See this hand? That's the result of arthritis in both tendons. I have a twisted hand because I didn't let the negative emotion out that I was feeling when I was getting divorced. I was in oblivion. I would say no, "I'm just glad to be out of there," but inside was this rage that I was turning in. I'm Scotch-Irish, and because of my genes I'm prone to this disease, rheumatoid arthritis. My father was. My grandfather was and etc., on down the line. What triggered it off in me was this emotional rage that I was feeling inside me. I started trembling, and then for 10 years I could hardly stand. An actor has got to be able to move; I could move only in slow motion. I was extremely limited in what I could do. I gave up on all the doctors and finally started healing myself about 18 months ago when I started taking a drug called MSM.

BSW: Was that tough emotionally, not to be able to work?

Coburn: It was killing me. But fortunately I had a good voice agent, so I did a lot of voiceovers and that really saved my ass. Not being able to work was really a killer.

BSW: I have one last question for you. What do you love most about acting?

Coburn: Working with great actors is the biggest joy of all. I'll choose a film now‹even if the part isn't very good ‹if there are really good actors to play with or if there's a good director to work with. Then you at least have a chance to make the character something and you can play with it. Your genius is in your choice, as Stella always used to say ‹when you're choosing what to do, where to do it, how to walk through a door, and what you do on the other side of that door. Working with really good actors is the joy of walking through that door, and that's why I do it.