BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., March 16, 2000 — Just over 10 years ago, John Cusack was the sensitive, romance-challenged Lloyd Dobler, who held that boom box over his head to woo Ione Skye with Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.”
Now at age 33, Cusack is older and wiser, having racked up an impressive string of mainstream and offbeat films, including this year’s Oscar-nominated “Being John Malkovich.” But his latest effort, “High Fidelity,” opening March 31, shows he may not have escaped love troubles after all.
But while his “Say Anything” persona leapt on a plane bound for England to be with his true love, “High Fidelity’s” Rob Gordon, a record store owner who shares Lloyd’s fast-talking musings and could very well be his messed-up older brother, is commitment-phobic. He spends his days debating the Top Five best songs for any given occasion with employees Dick (Todd Louiso) and Barry (Jack Black). Finally, his longtime girlfriend Laura (Danish actress Iben Hjejle) leaves him, and Rob finds himself revisiting his top five worst breakups.
This takes him to everyone from the girl who hooked up with him while on the rebound (Lili Taylor) to the stunner he never thought he deserved (Catherine Zeta-Jones). While crossing paths with beauties such as a music columnist (Natasha Gregson Wagner) and a singer (Lisa Bonet), Rob seeks to realize his mistakes, his needs and, consequently, his own potential.
“There’s a lot of dudes who want to get into a relationship, but they can’t let go of the idea that they have to give up the rush of the first month you’re with a woman,” muses the soft-spoken Cusack, wearing jeans and a leather jacket. “And they just go back and they just chase that dragon’s tail, and they can’t put it through their mind that it’s gonna be something else than it was the first time you’re with someone.”
The movie is based on the best-selling novel by Nick Hornby, who originally set it in London. Cusack, who co-wrote the film with his “Grosse Pointe Blank” writing buddies D.V. DeVincentis and Steve Pink, found the book’s themes universal and decided to move it to Chicago, where he was born and raised.
“I wanted to do it in the States because when I read it, I knew that record store and I had gone through stuff that Rob’s gone through. I think a lot of guys have, that’s why it’s a best-seller,” Cusack says. “I knew Chicago, I thought I knew how to do it here … but I called him up and said, ‘We want to set it in Chicago. If that’s gonna make you sick, you gotta tell us.’ And he said, ‘No, that’s great. My book’s about more than geography.’ … So he gave us the blessing.”
The film then found a director in Stephen Frears, who helmed Cusack’s 1990 con drama “The Grifters” and a cast of relative newcomers such as Louiso, Black and Hjejle. Even Bruce Springsteen agreed to cameo in a hilarious scene where Rob solicits love advice from the Boss via inner dialogue.
But the icing on the cake, as always, was putting Cusack’s older sister Joan in a small role as a sympathetic friend. Joan and John have appeared together in “Grosse Pointe Blank,” “Say Anything,” “Sixteen Candles” and, most recently, “Cradle Will Rock” directed by Tim Robbins (who also appears in “High Fidelity”). John, who is four years younger than Joan, says it was only natural to cast her.
“She’s just a ringer, you know; it’s like bringing in Barry Bonds to play on your softball team,” Cusack says of his sister. “She’s just gonna knock it out of the park, whatever you tell her to do. It seems like it’d be so stupid not to ask her to do stuff.”
But Cusack’s no Little Leaguer himself, working steadily in one or more pictures per year since his debut in the 1983 Rob Lowe comedy “Class.” He’s been featured as part of an ensemble (“Bullets Over Broadway,” “The Thin Red Line”) and as leading man (“The Sure Thing,” “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”), transitioning from high school roles (“Sixteen Candles”) to adults-revisiting-high-school roles (“Grosse Pointe Blank”). Although he cites Wes Bentley and Tobey Maguire as the cream of the new crop of young actors, Cusack warns that an actor’s road into adulthood isn’t without its bumps.
“I think it’s good … if they take their knocks young, at least as far as a career goes,” Cusack says. “So they’ll become flavor of the month … take their place next to Spencer Tracy and the pantheon of great actors … [but] that’s not true, [because] they’ve only done two or three films. And then they’ll do a film that won’t work, and the hype machine will push someone else up.
“[But] if they notice that two or three times, they’ll realize ‘Oh, that stuff’s just all bull—-. What’s a good film?’ and they’ll really try and find out who’s a good filmmaker and what’s a good film. … But if the kids are talented, if they don’t destroy themselves … they’ll be good.”
