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Friday, October 27, 2006

By Michael Joshua Rowin

This has been a watershed year for Will Oldham. Best known for the seminal folk, blues, and country music he’s created since the early Nineties under various names — the Palace Brothers, Palace Music, Bonnie “Prince” Billy — Oldham has lately been garnering praise for an artistic endeavor for which he is less associated — acting. After scoring her 1999 film, Ode, director Kelly Reichardt asked Oldham to star in Old Joy, which was released to critical praise in August. In the film, Oldham plays Kurt, a still untamed quasi-bohemian who convinces his married friend Mark (Daniel London) to join him on a camping trip in an Oregon forest. There, Kurt reveals a vulnerability that tests the nature of his bond with Mark. The honesty and intensity Oldham brings to his performance is practically a revelation, although it won’t come as a surprise to those who have seen his previous roles (most notably in John Sayles’s 1987 film Matewan) or followed his diverse career as a musician. I spoke to Oldham by phone in August about his experience making Old Joy and the inherent differences between music and film.

Stop Smiling: When Kelly Reichardt sent you the story by Jonathan Raymond upon which Old Joy is based, what attracted you to it?

Will Oldham: First of all, that it came from Kelly, and then the fact that it was published as a story with photos by Justine Kurland — that helped create an exciting picture of what was potentially at hand for us. The story didn’t involve a lot of characters or locations, and in terms of acting, that’s the best. The best or most exciting kind of acting is when it’s no-frills, actor-to-actor interaction. That’s my favorite kind of acting to watch and my favorite kind of acting to do.

SS: According to Reichardt’s director’s statement, she was drawn to Raymond’s story because it “captured all the feeling of loss and alienation” and because it’s “a great metaphor for the self-satisfied ineffectualness of the Left.” Did you also relate to the story on those levels?

WO: No, I don’t think I share a political viewpoint with many people on this planet, but I’m totally happy to participate in a project with a political agenda, because I feel estranged from all of that, and it doesn’t really involve me. I remember watching the completed movie for the first time and there was the radio playing the whole time. There was a Q&A afterward and somebody brought up whatever radio station it was. I just thought it was talk radio — if anything, it sounded right-wing to me, it just sounded idiotic. But then it turned out it was left-wing idiots. In one ear, out the other.

SS: Apparently you were interested in both the Kurt and Mark roles. What made you decide on playing Kurt?

WO: When Kelly approached me, she wanted me to play the Mark role. So I said I would if she wanted me to. Then, over the course of a few months of trying to cast Kurt, she seemed to run into obstacle after obstacle. Eventually we agreed it would be easier to cast Mark and that I would just play Kurt.

SS: Did you relate personally to Kurt's character?

WO: I relate to both characters, but I have more active interaction in my work life with Kurt characters, or at least more dynamic interactions with Kurts. I guess I fear both characters equally, but one is safer and one is more dangerous, or more fearsome.

SS: The forests of the Pacific Northwest are as much a character in the film as Kurt and Mark. What influence did filming in this environment have on you?

WO: That comes with the feelings of Jon’s story and the accompanying photos — it felt like everyone wanted to distribute the burden among things human and inhuman. That not to take away from the human plight in any way, but to hopefully make it more essential and more important by putting it in relation to things that move at a different pace and have different priorities. That means the trees, the forests and the water. But the people are important, too, and equally a representation of God.

SS: The film is about the frailty and insecurity of male friendships. What was it like working with Daniel London to create that dynamic?

WO: We lived together about half the time during shooting, and about half the time I lived with [director of photography] Peter Sillen. In terms of chemistry and in terms of the characters, I think Kelly did a good job of putting the two of us together, because we definitely had a naturally chemistry that paralleled what was going on between Mark and Kurt. I got a kick out of it, because we were always questioning reality and questioning which terms we were communicating on. That was a thrill.

SS: What did you learn about your character?

WO: It was just learning what the combination of Mark and Daniel was as opposed to the conception of Mark in my head. It had to do with inflection and mannerism and line reading, and then discovering why Kurt and Mark had a bond at all, which I couldn’t do without Daniel there.

SS: What do you think is their bond?

WO: I’m against vocalizing interpretations of work beyond the text that’s in the work, whether it’s music or film or anything. So I think their bond is what it is.

SS: The scene at the campfire, when Kurt relates his theory of a "tear-shaped universe" and then forlornly tells Mark that he misses him and that there's something between them — this is the most emotional moment of the film to me, and one of the most emotional moments I've seen in a film in some time. How did you prepare to get to the energy of that scene?

WO: [Long pause] That’s a very difficult question. It had to do with taking in energy from where we were, and taking in energy from everybody who was there working. Also, all the people who weren’t there, like Jon Raymond. And then I took in as much as I knew about myself and humankind and Kurt to just funnel through the text and blocking I’d been given. I haven’t thought of this in years, but in acting classes there would be an exercise where someone would say, “Here are your words: soapbox, oak tree, vagina. Those are the only words you can use and you have to go this person’s house, tell them their mother has died, and also ask to borrow three dollars from them.” Of course that’s pretty challenging to do, but on one level that’s what every scene is about, about taking everything that you know and then you have been given words and blocking and a costume and a way to sit and lighting and a certain small amount of time to convey everything you feel should be conveyed within all these limitations. It was a very difficult couple of nights, but there was good feeling that came from where we were and everybody who was there and working on it, and knowing that ultimately everybody wants this thing to come forth and wants some sort of idea to be communicated. It’s a community of faith and support, knowing that whatever the hard part is, there’s a common goal.

SS: Did you find the hot tubs scene a challenge because of the intimacy involved?

WO: When I was a kid, long before I saw the movie, I heard the Zorba the Greek soundtrack, with Anthony Quinn saying Zorba’s lines in between the songs. And one of the lines he says is “Life is trouble, only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and look for trouble.” And I was like, “Yeah, that sounds good.” On some level there’s a degree of comfort in the most intimate or most challenging or most demanding situations because I can almost relax — I know it’s not going to get worse or stronger or more intense than that. So it has that quality of being exactly as you describe, and at the same time being one of the only places where you can relax certain parts of your psyche.

SS: Many people who are familiar with your music don’t know about your acting career. How did you get into acting?

WO: I think it came by when I was very young, just feeling a relationship to movies and plays, and feeling like that there were ideas and conflicts inside that could be worked out. Ideas and conflicts meaning the ideas aren’t always conflicting, some of them are completely rewarding. When I was really little and saw Singin’ in the Rain for the first time, knowing that that doesn’t really happen in real life, that you can put music together with lyrics and a plot and a rainstorm — it just doesn’t seem to happen every day. Well, if I want that to happen I have to be involved in these fabricated existences that aren’t fabricated because they’re real while you’re watching them. I found classes near where I lived and I did more and more and more of it. I did some TV things and lots of plays. Eventually, when I left home and started to examine what the true life of a professional union actor was, I realized it seemed to be not living far enough away from the disgustingness of our pettiness. So I stopped doing it for a long time.

SS: So you thought of performance as an escape?

WO: Yeah. At the same time, there’s an accompanying sense of responsibility. I knew it wouldn’t work to just do drugs, for example, because that’s an escape only for you, whereas somehow you can escape into one of these movies or plays or texts or songs, then there’s a communication that goes on. It’s like being linked to somebody else. Some people have difficulty communicating, especially when they’re young, and that was definitely something I had a hard time with. I had zero difficulty communicating with myself, but how do you communicate an idea to somebody else? You can translate it through a constructed and written text.

SS: The communication you look for in acting, is that a challenge that’s different than when creating music?

WO: It’s a challenge to look for in the same way. I look for the same thing in both of them, which is using this predetermined set of words and/or rhythms and/or scenarios to convey something, to communicate with somebody else who’s not involved directly with the making of that thing — the audience. And ideally to make the text both familiar and foreign enough to provide. A lot of people like to watch movies or read books where they know what’s going on, but I like the opposite. I don’t like to know what’s going on, not to the point where reality is obliterated. I like a strange situation where you don’t know what’s going to happen, but there are one or two parts that are familiar to you. Because to me that’s what the course of any given day is like. There’s no predetermination that my tiny brain can comprehend. It’s dealing with conflict in conjunction with time. Time has always been an obsession, because time is involved with everything. The idea of the journey implies a seeking, a drive, but most people don’t have the privilege of being driven. At the same time everybody’s forced to move through time, to move. It’s important to me to relate with people who are not driven.

Most music I’m involved with is music where I come up with the words, whereas I haven’t and I don’t think I will come up with the words in an acting situation. It’s like doing a cover song and working with a record producer, where you don’t have to worry about certain parts of the communication task and only have to think about interpretation, using voice and body and interaction with others to interpret words.

SS: I’m reminded of Greatest Palace Music, where you cover the early Palace songs as Bonnie “Prince” Billy.

WO: Totally. Acting is like covering a song, in a lot of ways. It has a lot to do with yielding and trying to accept a lot of what’s already there. There’s not as much forward energy or striving that has to go on because somebody else has already done that. With Greatest Palace Music, the idea was that Bonnie could sing these songs because they already had their own lives and he didn’t have to worry about creating new ones for them. All the musicians who played on that record — whether they were session players, Nashville guys or all the friends and family from all over the country — everybody worked with confidence that there was already something there and that there wasn’t fear of discovery — only the joy of discovery, none of the fear of discovery.

SS: Could that be then called a cinematic experience, the making of that album?

WO: Yeah, all the records I think of as cinematic experiences both in their construction and ideally in the listening.

SS: Was there any point where you considered contributing music to Old Joy?

WO: No. Early on it was agreed that was not going to be part of this project.

SS: In the past, as with Ode, what did you look for in creating music for movies?

WO: I like the idea of making music to go in movies that I like. All it takes is an agreement that the resources available are sufficient and that there’s mutual trust. I like the idea of making music for movies partly because I love movies, partly because I’ve been so often affected by music in movies, and partly because I love music and making music — all of those combined. Like with Ode, there wasn’t a lot to be talked about, Kelly would say, “Here’s this scene, here’s the set music I used for it and why I used that,” and then I figured she knew why she was asking me to do it. We both knew time and money was and issue, in terms of the lack of both. There was no miscommunication — it was a good job to be given. I felt it was redeeming to be asked to do that.

SS: Do you plan on becoming more involved with acting in the future?

WO: I like it a lot. But I don’t really value the way most people approach putting a record or movie together. One of the principal problems I find with movies is the lack of accountability. Everybody has to talk to somebody in order to talk to somebody else. That’s why I don’t really want to continue to act. It just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know how to do something if somebody can’t ask me directly for it. Even with making music for movies, there’ll be a music supervisor who calls you and I’m just like, “What the fuck do you want?” Leave me alone. They can’t speak directly for the person they’re claiming to represent. It ends up creating heartache for everybody, and worst of all it creates subliminal heartache for the poor audience who have to suffer through a disjointed music selection. There’s a lot of bureaucracy. There’s an industry, there’s agents and managers and casting directors and assistant directors and production managers and production designers and music supervisors and all these set producers, rock producers. If I can wake up today and have a direct relationship with somebody I’m working with, there’s no reason why I would choose to have an indirect relationship with someone else. That’s what most acting is and what a lot of people turn music into as well. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I have such difficulty communicating with my fellow man that I can’t even do it. I have to be able to talk to somebody directly.

SS: Which performers do you admire?

WO: It’s so varied. You can see how an actor manipulated by a director or by a writer or by a cinematographer can sometimes convey a character more successfully than an actor who’s allowed free reign, no matter how competent that person is. It depends on the task at hand.

The only person who comes to mind right now is Humphrey Bogart, but that’s only because I was talking to my brother about him yesterday — he just watched In a Lonely Place. It’s such a great movie, because it’s somebody who at that point in his life had worked in so many different kinds of productions. at that point he created a production company to put together productions he saw value in. He chose to work with Nicholas Ray a couple times. From what I’ve read, Nicholas Ray was bringing in his own emotional dynamic, which hadto do with his personal and professional life. You notice that in how Humphrey Bogart is allowed to relate to this character — and then the character existing within the realm of Hollywood, which is what Humphrey Bogart had been doing for however many years at that point — 40 or 50 years. That’s one his most — if not the most — multi-dimensional characters. It’s so many great things at once. You think that’s the greatest acting, but it’s acting that’s brought about by so many incredible circumstances. Then you try to value that. I value an actor like Warren Beatty who, for most of his career, seemed to be able to spend most his energy putting together magical circumstances to make unique and unprecedented movies.

Bogart could choose what he could do — he took risks with his character, he took risks with his abilities and with his public persona. It was understood in Hollywood at that point that working with Nicholas Ray was no walk in the park. But Bogart felt, “Well, here are the things I know about my life and about my work, and I have confidence in all these things. I can use those as my pillars and step outside everything, because I can make something of greater value not by playing to those strengths, but by using those strengths.”

SS: When you talk about taking risks in such ways, is that why you go under different monikers and embody different characters — in order to express various facets of your personality?

WO: Maybe the main part with that has to do with resembling a work life like Humphrey Bogart’s work life, where there’s no substantial reason to identify a person like him with anything his characters have done. I don’t think there’s any direct relation, necessarily, between his characterizations and who he was outside his work. It’s harder in music for audiences to make that kind of association. There’s always this idea that the person is what the person seems to represent. Because of my inability to work through liaisons most of the time — and also because of my low-maintenance way, especially in the first 10 years of making records, where there was a lot of direct contact with people — I didn’t want to feel I was accountable every moment of every day for the content of the songs, as much as for making them available or interpreting them. People will take content first and foremost. When you make a song or a movie or a piece of art, the idea is to put forward something that does not have the process completely visible, to make something someone can have a clean emotional experience with. But then people don’t know how to get from what they see through the art to the life of the person on the other side — that’s too many steps for a human being to have to make.