THE REASON SOME PEOPLE CAN’T ARTICULATE WHY THEY LIKE INDEPENDENT films as opposed to commercial films is that in the independent film it’s about the people who are involved in it, not just Handsome Actor X. If you watch these standard $100 million action movies, more often than not Handsome Actor X is there to kill all the bad guys and ends up doing the thing he’s set out to do, get out of the pickle he’s in, save whatever it is he’s supposed to save, get the dope, get the money, or whatever it is. The bad guys are nameless, faceless characters who you know goddamn well are just going to get killed by Handsome Actor X. It’s not important who they are or where they came from, so as a result you’re not afraid of the bad guy, and the feeling you get from the commercial movie is not profound.
But if you see a mobster in a movie sitting down to dinner with his family, playing with his son, giving him a toy—a little rabbit or some shit—talking to his wife about how the power’s out in the garage, all of a sudden you got a real guy. If you got three scenes of a real guy playing with his kids, fixing the garage door opener, watching Lucy and Desi on TV, and laughing at it because Lucy got into another mess and Ricky ain’t going to let her sing, and then getting in his Cadillac to drive across town where he goes to a building and waits around the corner for a woman in a red dress who comes walking out and he comes up behind her and puts a .22 caliber hollow-point in the back of her head, then fixes his briefcase and gets back into his car, you’re scared of that motherfucker—all because he gave the kid the rabbit. If you never saw him give the kid the rabbit, you’re not afraid of him because he ain’t real.
There are things that they market the shit out of that make a lot of money. There are things that aren’t marketed that sometimes do well and sometimes don’t. We rely on critics and awards for these kinds of movies to take off because they’re not going to put big money toward marketing them. But you can’t really rely on marketing anyway. When I did Sling Blade, I thought the critics would love it, but I thought maybe my mom, a few family members, and friends would see it. I thought it was going to be one of those little movies that a handful of people saw and liked. It turned out to be hugely successful. Because then critics weren’t snot-sucking guys on the Internet and it got good word of mouth.
I’ve got a couple of things so far that have become iconic in some way, and that’s been a great thing. Especially since I’m alive to see it. But I was lucky that I became a legitimate movie star. Most people become movie stars because of the way they look—they’re twenty-three and look like models—but I became a movie star by playing extreme characters from the beginning, which allowed me a lot of freedom. It gave me longevity, because while an audience might accept me as a leading man, I can go back and play an extreme character again because that’s the way audiences first came to know me. They’ll buy me doing a guy in Monster’s Ball and The Man Who Wasn’t There, but they’ll also buy me as a character actor in A Simple Plan or Sling Blade.
I think everybody has at some point done movies for money. When you watch an actor do a movie that’s obviously not their bag, you’ll see them use the same tricks in that movie as they did in that other movie they did for money because their heart and soul aren’t in it.
I honestly feel bad for the top leading actors who want to explore other characters and do independent films when the audience only wants to see them be the handsome hero. The audience just won’t buy them doing other stuff.
But the reason actors want to do independent films is that an independent film—and this is the artistic part of it—is usually more narrowed down to a singular vision. It’s more pure, and it’s going to tell the best story. And when you’re doing an independent film, you can cast the best actors for parts. In a commercial film, because of the money they’re spending, they want the guy who was just in that $500 million movie. The movie that you’re making for $4 million, they don’t give a shit as much, though even that is changing.
INDEPENDENT FILM HAS CHANGED IN THE LAST TEN OR TWELVE YEARS. When I started out in it, it was completely pure. It got soiled when actors saw they were making these great films that used to be called “B movies,” and all of a sudden they’re called “independent” and have a cachet. The studios say, “Well, we can’t pay you.” And the actor says, “That’s okay, I’ll do it for nothing because I want to be in a good film. The last movie I was in, I was playing a dog that turns into a Martian, and I don’t want to do that shit anymore.”
So they’re now going to do an independent film because they want to use their acting chops and be in a great film that tells a real story. Then the independent film studios say, “Look, we don’t have to go get the big actor for $10 million anymore. We can make a $3 million movie, and because he or she wants to make a good movie, they’ll come do it for nothing.” All of a sudden, instead of the $5 million independent film having a bunch of unknowns and maybe a couple of guys you’ve heard of before, even the hatcheck girl is being played by a big movie star. I’m not saying independent film is completely ruined. I’m just saying it’s gone down the wrong path. If you’re going to make the independent film the same way you make the commercial movie, then what’s the point?
MY BEST ADVICE FOR A YOUNG FILMMAKER OR ACTOR, MUSICIAN, OR writer who doesn’t give a shit—the guy who just wants to go out there and make a movie with a bunch of toys and shit like that—is to spend your life doing the physics of it. Find out what button it is that you push out here that makes you a star.
I’ve always admired William Goldman, who wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, A Bridge Too Far, and many other movies. He wrote a book called Adventures in the Screen Trade, so if you want to be a screenwriter, read that book. He’ll tell you what it’s like dealing with people. It was something that was invaluable to me and to Tom Epperson when we were coming up. It’s kind of the bible for screenwriters in a lot of ways. The book doesn’t tell you how to write a screenplay, it tells you what it’s like once you do start going down that path.
Right now, they’re making 3-D vampire movies, or they’re making CGI movies where they give a guy a six-pack abdomen with a computer. They’re making movies that are basically from video games and directing them at fourteen-year-olds. Well, if that’s what you want, if you could give a shit about art, and if all you want is to make a movie that’s going to make a gajillion dollars and make you the biggest director of horseshit in the world, then sit down and figure out the science of it. Go see the worst fucking shit you’ve ever seen in your life—watch all the horseshit that’s out there—and copy down that formula. It won’t take you long. Just know that whereas a commercial film is trying to appeal to a broad audience, an independent film usually does not appeal to the lowest common denominator.
But I would tell young filmmakers who love movies that independent film is still the best way to break in. That’s where you’ll do your best work. People may not like it, they may like it and not like you in it, but one way or the other, it’s honest. That’s why people do independent film, because you can be honest. Even though I said these days they’ve been ruined some because they’re becoming commercialized, independent film still allows you to start out as an expert in what you’re doing—to direct or write or act in the vein you grew up in. As I said, your best work is going to be what you know. If you’re a writer, just sit down and write a short story about something that happened to you when you were twelve, I don’t care what it is. Like, if you’re a guy who grew up on a farm in Georgia, write about a farm in Georgia. You’ll be an expert in that.
The Coen brothers, until recently, haven’t really done their movies in a studio system. Their movies are generally financed outside the box by people who get them, and they’ve had financial successes doing movies that became bigger movies than what the concept might’ve been. In other words, the Coen brothers don’t set out to make a big commercial movie, though now they have with True Grit and the Cormac McCarthy thing. They did set about to make bigger movies there.