Hollywood.com lit up with Thank You For Smoking’s William H. Macy and Rob Lowe, two actors who refused to blow smoke up our skirt, and in our unfiltered conversation about their satirical new film we also got Macy’s take on his wife’s recent Oscar experience, as well as Rob’s thoughts on going back to the Oval Office on TV.
Hollywood.com: How did such a young, untried director like Jason Reitman attract so many actors of your caliber to this project?
Rob Lowe: Well, I was at an advantage because I’ve known Jason since he was very young. I know his mom and dad, they’re good friends of mine. I know the family. We live next to each other up in Santa Barbara. I knew Jason was smart, I knew he got it. I’d seen his short films, I knew he was ready. So, I knew going in he was ready to do this, and I loved the material. Jason turned me onto the book before he adapted it.
William Macy: It took a long time for this thing to come to the screen. They’ve been working on this for years.
HW: What’s the challenge in playing satire?
WM: To not try to be funny. I don’t know. That’s an excellent question. How do you play comedy? And I don’t know. I’ve taught a lot of classes for a lot of years, and I don’t think you can teach it. But I do know as a director, you’re in trouble if you get an actor who doesn’t know why it’s funny. Or where it’s funny. Then you’ve got walk them through it. Some people are good at comedy. And some are not. Generally speaking, comedy – you up the stakes a little bit. You take it far enough, you’ve got farce, if you bring it back, you’ve got satire. Just make things a little more important. Play it as real as you can, know where the jokes come, certainly on stage. Hold for your laugh, stupid. A lot of actors don’t know that. They’ll wander in on their own laughs.
RL: When I’m in the kimono [in the film], there’s absolutely nothing in it that makes it out of the ordinary. We don’t make a big deal – and it gets a huge laugh. There’s nothing different in the performance, nothing. That’s what’s funny about it.
HW: Rob, did you base your character on a particular agent?
RL: I didn’t really base it one particular person. Obviously the love of all things Japanese is clearly an homage to Mike Ovitz, the Ovitz Years, the Ovitz Dynasty in fact, I’d go so far to say. But the rest of it is various stuff I stole off a bunch of different people. I’m at CAA. My agent is actually a Marine, a former Marine. Brant Joel.
HW: Do either of you smoke?
WM: I used to. And I liked smoking a lot. But I’ve got two little kids, and I don’t smoke now. I’m one of those annoying people who can smoke for a part for a couple months and then just put it down and not miss it.
RL: A little bit, but not really. And I now smoke cigars occasionally. My kids, I have two, they love when I smoke cigars. They love it. They love the smell of it.
HW: This film has a very charismatic antihero in Aaron Eckhart’s character Nick Naylor – do you have an all-time favorite antihero?
RL: Anybody from the movie Network – that’s my favorite movie. There seemed to be a lot of them in that era. That was the golden age, really, the ’70s. Almost any movie you went to had an amazing antihero. Now, particularly on television, they talk a lot about antiheroes. But really, you can look at Tony Soprano, and that’s about it. This is sort of fake antihero stuff. The hero part, Hollywood knows that cold. We know all the mathematical equations. But the anti part is the hard part. You’ve got to be willing to have human, ugly flaws. Real ones. Not wink-wink, at-the-end-of-the-day-you-know-I’m-a-nice-guy flaws, I think, anyway.
WM: I don’t know the answer to that. But it might feed into what this film is about a little bit. Maybe it’s hard for us to have antiheroes in some of the films. Maybe those films don’t get made because those people who signed the checks to make the films are afraid because of political correctness. An antihero is someone who lives outside the law. Traditionally, they do some noble act at the end that brings redemption. Maybe in the political climate we’re in right now, it’s hard to make those kinds of films. I think this film is significant because the whole idea of spin is not funny, really. Washington is so good at it. The spin that we’re seeing now involves human life. But the reason Thank You for Smoking works is that they’re going after the tobacco industry, which is a paper giant. They lost when they were sued. From the time [novelist Christopher] Buckley wrote the book until now, they’ve been decimated. They’ve been sued and lost, and they’ve paid billions of dollars in reparations. Making fun of the tobacco industry is easy. We’re able to laugh at these spin doctors. I wonder how funny it would be if were the spin doctors for homeland security, for instance. I don’t know if you could find a wacky comedy in that.
HW: Any politically correct twinge of regret of satirizing senators who might just be trying to get people to stop smoking?
WM: I knew a senator one time – it was so funny. We were staying at the same house, a big house. I saw him in the morning, and I was sort of gobsmacked that here I was having coffee with a senator. We talked about fishing, motorcycles, guy stuff. Because it was in the news, I asked ‘What do you think about legalizing drugs?’ Well, an iron door just dropped right down. The guy couldn’t get out of the kitchen fast enough. He just even refused to discuss it. I don’t know, I find people who are afraid to call things by their right names, easy targets and delicious targets.
HW: Bill, the quote “Nobody becomes an actor because they have a happy childhood” has been attributed to you–
WM: I wish it were mine. David Mamet said it. I was quoting him, and now it’s my quote. But it’s genius, isn’t it?
HW: Agree with it?
WM: I think so.
RL: The converse is certainly true. Normal, well-adjusted people wouldn’t think of being an actor if their lives depended on it. It’s an insane, insane business. It’s crazy. It’s constant rejection, it’s constant judgment. Your every choice is out there for everybody to go, “I hate it. I like it. He looks fat. He’s really aging. He was really awful in that.” Obviously the other side of it is really great. But it’s not a normal choice.
WM: You’re betting the farm on a real long shot. Most actors live on the edge. A New York City actor, if he’s wildly successful, I mean wildly successful—in every play that comes along and the occasional commercial—is still going to make maybe 100 grand, 125 grand. I know that’s a lot of money. But not in New York City, not with a family of four, and we’re talking about the winners, the guys who really do it. A lot of the actors out there have two other jobs to support their habit. My daughters want to be actors. I’m for it. I just don’t want them to be dancers. That’s the one thing.
HW: Rob, do you encourage anyone from your family to act?
RL: I invoke what I call the Paltrow Rule: Bruce Paltrow, an old friend of mine, when Gwyneth was nominated – I’ve known Gwyn since she was 14 years old – I said, “How did you do it. She’s smart, well-adjusted, she gets it.” He said, “I didn’t let her act until she was 18. Just didn’t do it.” So, that’s the rule. Bruce gave it to me, that’s the rule.
HW: Rob, you’re doing The West Wing right now?
RL: I was filming last week. It was a little like going back to high school – but more like elementary school. You go, “Jesus, I remember this classroom being so much bigger.” It was really fun.
HW: I talked to Bradley Whitford the night before your first day back and he gave me the distinct impression he had some welcome-back hazing planned for you.
RL: Yeah, Brad wakes up in the middle of the night trying to figure out how to haze me, even when I’m not on the show anymore. It was just like old times. We picked up exactly where we left off.
HW: Bill, I saw you and your wife Felicity Huffman on the red carpet at the Oscars, and I’ve never seen an actor so excited to be there. How much fun was it to go on that ride with her?
WM: It’s a lot easier when somebody else is getting all the attention. It was a little bit more fun. I live up in the hills, so going through those arches – when they were building the Kodak Theater, I kept thinking, I wonder if I’ll ever get to go there. I must admit, I thought I wouldn’t. But as we walked through those arches, I said, “Hold on, check it out.”
HW: What’s life been like since the Oscars? Did Felicity feel like she needed me a pick-me-up after winning the awards?
WM: It’s astoundingly quiet Monday morning, I’ve got to tell you. But it’s back to its normal insanity. It was insane insanity before that, now it’s just normal insanity. She’s exhausted. She needs some time off. But of course she can’t do it because she’s stuck in a hit. We’ll get away this weekend. Was she disappointed? I think she was disappointed. Not as much as me. I was bitterly disappointed and said so. I think I was not gracious.
HW: Didn’t you say that you feel that the burden of the loss fell on the actors’ shoulders?
WM: Yeah, I said that, and it sounded a little harsh. The one thing about these award ceremonies, and let’s be honest, it’s to sell tickets. It’s all about marketing. The actors pay the price for that. They put us in a little contest. George Clooney said it: “How are you going to decide which of these five is the best unless all of us put on a Batsuit? Then you can decide.” It’s tough. You can’t campaign for something for six months and not grow to want it – that’s the most dangerous thing you can do. Although I was talking to Felicity afterwards, “Yada yada yada, your career has changed, you’ll never have to audition again.” I thought she was going to levitate. She said, “What? What?” I said, “Girlfriend, you’ll never have to audition again. You’re at the grown-ups’ table now. That’s it.” Her eyes were like saucers.
HW: Was it weird being together with her when she was playing a man?
WM: It was pretty weird. It was a road movie, so she was out of town. But she’d me call me up, and she found it was easier to get her voice [in lower octave] down here and keep it there all day. I had to put my foot down about that. I miss my wife. [In lower octave]: “Hi honey, it’s me.”
RL: It was not the sort of on-location phone sex you were looking for.
