Painstaking
Hurt
If he's
demanding, it's because he cares about his craft, actor says
BRENDAN KELLY
Montreal Gazette
Monday, June 10, 2002
William Hurt has heard the William Hurt
stories and he's not too happy about them. There are those who say Hurt,
who won a best-actor Oscar for Kiss of the Spider Woman, is too
demanding. That's he's hard to work with. That he has a huge ego and
lets you know it.
The seasoned American actor - who's been
directed by everyone from Ken Russell to Woody Allen to Steven Spielberg
- has heard the grumbling and he says his reputation as a "difficult
actor" is simply a by-product of his quest to do the best work possible.
If he has to fight to make sure the end product is high quality, he's
willing to take a stand, even if it means making a few enemies along the
way.
"There are times when you can handle it
and times when you can't," said Hurt, on the set of The Blue Butterfly,
a film directed by Léa Pool which wrapped shooting here last week.
"There are times when I just can't take another battle. Then there are
times when I say: 'OK, today I'll fight the good fight.' But there are
times when it's so tiring. Because you know you'll get the rap. If
you're difficult on a set, you know you're going to get your
comeuppance. And it's not going to be on the day and it might not even
be that week or that month. It'll be in some (article) way down the
line. With some anonymous producer calling you a Narcissus in an article
in Premiere magazine. I'm going, 'Like, my name's in the article, why
isn't his name there?' After all, he's the pundit who's the authority on
my narcissistic state and he won't even name himself. That happened.
It's a pain in the neck."
But Hurt says if he keeps battling
away, it's not because he's a born trouble-maker. It's just that he
cares deeply about his craft.
So is he demanding?
"I hope so," said Hurt, whose impressive list of film credits
includes roles in A.I., Altered States, Body Heat, The Big Chill, Gorky
Park, and The Accidental Tourist, and Oscar nominations for Broadcast
News and Children of a Lesser God.
"We're not supposed to be tepid water. You want to try to do things
better. You want to try to make things stronger. My goal isn't to be
tough or difficult. My goal is to try to do better work."
He said there were few battles during the shooting of The Blue
Butterfly in Costa Rica and Montreal. He has nothing but the highest
praise for Pool and for the experience of shooting the $12.5-million
indie flick produced by Montreal's Galafilm.
"I'd never seen such a combination of goodwill, esprit de corps and
hard work. It's my kind of thing."
The film is based on a true story about a 10-year-old Montreal boy
with brain cancer and Georges Brossard, the founder of the Montreal
Insectarium.
The boy, played by Toronto actor Marc Donato, is intent on fulfilling
his one last dream in life - to find the rare Blue Morpho butterfly that
lives in the tropical rain forests of Central America.
His mother (Pascale Bussières) convinces Alan Osborne (Hurt), the
character based on Brossard, to accompany them to Central America to try
to catch a glimpse of the mythical butterfly.
This is the fourth project Hurt has shot in Montreal over the past
couple of years. Two years ago, he starred in Varian's War, a World War
II film made here in which he played a well-to-do American who rescued
many prominent European artists from Nazi persecution.
Last year, he co-starred in the Canadian-French co-production Au Plus
Près du Paradis, opposite Catherine Deneuve, and had a supporting role
in the Radio-Canada drama series La Rivière des Jérémie. He speaks
fluent French, has always spent a lot of time in France and is the first
to admit he has a thing for Gallic culture. And he's a big fan of
Montreal.
"It's the most independent city in the Western hemisphere. Also,
there's something about the directness, the humour, the insouciance.
It's probably something to do with the French influence. It's fun."
"Fun" might not be the first word that comes to mind when thinking of
Hurt, who has specialized in playing often-troubled, above-average-IQ
characters in films like The Accidental Tourist and Kiss of the Spider
Woman.
"Fun is very good. Some people don't think I have a lot of fun, but I
beg to differ. I have that reputation because I get fed up with people
who trivialize things in sophomoric ways. Then I'll try to give the
subject the seriousness I think it deserves and I get the rap for being
the serious one rather than them getting the rap for being ignorant."
That demanding approach to life and work has led Hurt to gravitate
toward making the kind of not-obviously-commercial fare that many of his
Hollywood-actor colleagues shy away from.
The quest for intriguing material is one of the reasons he keeps
working with Canadians on off-the-beaten-track indie projects. He was in
the Hungarian epic Sunshine, produced by former Montrealer Robert
Lantos, and more recently starred in the Newfoundland-set Rare Birds, a
worthy small picture that played all too briefly here a couple of weeks
back.
"Rare Birds, Second Best, Spider Woman, this film. They're small,
crafted films where you can go out and not spend a lot of time being
bugged by people.
"You can really savour the place and the spirit. I love to do that.
I'm with real people and in a place where every gesture isn't crafted to
play for a phalanx of cameras or opinions.
"I prefer what they call independent work because it's a chance to
get into your imagination."
