Samantha Mathis is not related to Johhny Mathis, but the kids love her anyway
7-11 HOE DOWN
Got an actress on the cusp of a John Woo violence fest and I wanna go personality road test. Push the envelope, get loose, be wrong. We'll meet at midnight, shoot guns at Angelyne billboards, she'll give me a quick bikini wax, off to MacArthur Park to score crack, rob a 7-11, drink L.A. tap water. Yeah. I'll abuse, spin, twist the interview with injections of sordid profanity and ungodliness. This piece will scream expletives amongst a pack of prozac-laden press releases. Best of all (I'm gooey tickley like nacho cheese sauce) I got this feeling, a gut type comfort that Samantha, she'll go with it.... She's in.
CLOSED FOR FLOOR WAX
So I try to get to Sam. My fingers trembling as I dial up the Beverly Hills publicist. I make my pitch, foaming, soaping, waxing poetic. The publicist... her job? Make sure none of this shit happens. Ever. Miz No. Professional control freak. A spin-control wet towel. No talkee to Samantha. No crack. No guns. No wax. No gooey. The upshot: Tea at Paddingtons. I spiral into an incomprehensible darkness.
$5 SCRATCHER
Don't get me wrong, Samantha's not to blame. Nothing against her. She's a winning scratcher, cool as a coke Slurpee. But I gotta shuck resentment against this nay-saying phone jockey. Get over it and head off for tea and scones. I burn grape incense, sacrifice a chicken and hop in the car.
I learn something every day. I get to Paddington's and the ire is gone. Today I know that tea and scones ain't bad if you're hanging with a charmer. Samantha's a charmer. Think it may be a trade secret. No hocus pocus, just a gentle sleight of hand. Maybe it's those eyes, bright feathered devils that they are, all snake charmer and secrets. Tea and hypnosis. Ain't so bad. I'm actually at ease. We get tea and scones, we talk.
JOHN WOO, SLATER, TRAVOLTA... AND THE CHARMER
Jonathan Craven: Tell me about Broken Arrow. No... John Woo. Had you seen his movies before you landed the gig?
Samantha Mathis: No. I had heard of them, read about them. Tarantino's always talking about John, Robert Rodriguez talks about him... but I'd never actually seen the movies. So after the meeting I went out and saw Hard Boiled and The Killer. I realized... I mean, then I knew what I was getting into. I was clearly auditioning for a cult master of action films.
JC: Was there ever a point in the movie where you held two guns in your hands and fired them simultaneously while flying through the air?
SM: No, but Christian (Slater) got to do that. Of course. But we had some pretty genius Woo-ian moments. The first scene, we beat the crap out of each other because we don't know to trust each other. So there's the great moment where he's go the gun to my head and I've for the knife to his throat... you know, classic Woo stuff.
DR. STRANGELOVE MEETS SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER
JC: So your character's like a park ranger who meets Christian Slater who's chasing John Travolta who's trying to blow up the world?
SM: Exactly, in a nutshell. John and Christian play Air Force pilots. They're partners flying this bomber. John turns out to be a bad guy, ejects Christian from the plane at night in this national park. I'm on my night patrol and I see this plane go over my head and the pilot eject and...
JC: It's Christian Slater and you get pretty excited about it.
SM: Uh... yeah. He tries to get me to help him, even though he's not going to explain why. We beat the crap out of each other, I decide I'm gonna try to help him, he tries to get rid of me but I won't leave 'cause I feel he needs my help. (Deep breath) It's basically a series of us saving the other's butt and then trying to get rid of each other.
JC: And falling in love in the end...?
SM: (Coyly) Do you think?
JC: Any communication problems with John Woo?
SM: He's really sweet, but shy about speaking English. After about the first week of rehearsal, I decided the way to get in with John was just to tease him incessantly... and we just ended up having this really nice banter, gave each other a little bit of a hard time. I got him to laugh. I always wanted to tickle him, though. I just wanna jump on him and tickle him because he's so cute and sweet and quiet and shy.
JC: But you never know with these Hong Kong guys, when they're going to whip out two guns and start firing.
SM: That's the weird thing about John Woo: he hates guns. He's never shot a gun before. Isn't that strange? Every once in a while he'd surprise me. In this scene where John Travolta captures me at the end of the movie... he's got a gun to my head and he's holding me hostage. Woo was trying to explain to Travolta how to use the gun on me, but Woo couldn't quite say what he wanted. I kept saying, "John, just do it... show us. (She teases) Show it to me, Woo!" So he comes over and puts the gun to my head... next thing I know he's dragging it down the side of my face, around my neck and down the side of my breast... "Oh, really, Mr. Woo!" You just don't expect it from the man. But he's really sweet. He had his family there which was really cute, his wife and his three kids and, um, he's a really good chef.
JC: Chinese?
SM: Yeah, we had a feast one day in Montana. Some people had a dinner party in a house they'd rented and John Woo helped cook up the most incredible feast. We sat out on a porch in the middle of this beautiful field and got really fat. He's a master chef.
JC: Do you cook?
SM: I'm learning. I have the itch to cook, but I'm never home. So it's like I buy groceries, then I leave town and they rot in my refrigerator.
JC: The itch is everything.
SM: It's all about the itch. I did Thanksgiving; I did it by myself, with a little help from Mrs. Gooches, I had ten people over.
JC: Did you cook the turkey? (She smiles, cat with canary)
SM: Well... I got about 12 hours of help from Mrs. Gooch. But I dressed the turkey very well, lots of grilled vegetables, did the stuffing, salad... Pulled it off, nobody got food poisoning or anything. I was doing a Martha Stewart thing.
JC: Big Martha fan?
SM: Yeah, I mean I think it's great that she's been able to turn what she does (cooking/decorating?) into an industry, have her own magazine and be on talk shows and all that.
JC: Does your house have a lot of plates and....?
SM: I have a couple french plates.
JC: ...Partially paint-stripped pine furniture, candles, and gilt frames?
SM: Yeah, yeah. Not a lot of gilt frames, but basically you got it down. Cozy-homey feeling. I'm still in the process of doing it. I've not been in the house more than a week and a half at a time. I keep trying to do things, but I don't have time to follow through. I'm looking forward to a month now of being home. I'm not going anywhere until Christmas... committed to staying here. I wanna read a book and get bored and just like... pot some plants and stuff like that.
JC: Do you like to go out?
SM: Sometimes. I tend to go to one place. I know the people that run the club, I get in, I get a table, and all my friends go. It's a safe situation.
2001 DISCO. BAY RIDGE, BROOKLYN. (DON'T TELL HER I TOLD YOU)
SM: I have this great little incestuous group of friends... we spend a lot of time together. More often than not, we end up at one of our houses playing music 'til three or four in the morning, building a fire, hanging out, making our own party.
JC: Good way to go in Hollywood. (Bingo, anyone?)
SM: I don't know, the whole club scene out there gets to be a bit much. It seems like so many places are so about the show - men and women checking each other out, girls in tight pants and short dresses. I just want to hang out and have a good time.
JC: Clubs are for the kids.
SM: It's for the kids.
I grab for more chamomile tea. It's making me feel funny. Like a soupy, "Homes and Gardens" fuzziness. Suddenly, I want children, a dog, a work bench, a lawn caddy, a mortgage. I snap out of it. We both light cigarettes.
BA BA BA, BA BA BARINO.
JC: So you were pretty excited about working with Travolta.
SM: Yeah, I was so in awe of the fact that I was going to be working with him... completely star-struck. I was really shy around him the first few days. I knew I was going to have my nerd moment of just gushing all over him and telling him how much of a fan I was of his, and that I saw Grease 23 times the summer it came out. And he was completely sweet. Willing to go down that road in a heartbeat, share all his stories. It was a dream come true.
Her eyes light up like she's gonna tell me I won money or something.
SM: There was this party. We rented a karaoke machine, got a DJ and did the disco thing. They put on "You're the One That I Want" and I turn around and John was on his knees singing to me, (she sings) "I got chills, their mulitplyin'..." and the next thing I knew I was going with it. We did the whole thing in front of the crew. He picked me up and swung me around... the whole dance. It was like truly... a life moment. I'm a happy girl now. I completed a childhood fantasy.
GIVE A HOOT!
She starts to try and figure out what to do with a cigarette butt... I force her to put it out on the ground. "But we're in LA," she jokingly protests. Sometimes you just got to live that way, I insist. Maybe she wouldn't have gone for the gun thing, but she may have come to 7-11 for a quick shoplift.
JC: How do you make those tough career decisions? Does mom (actress Bebe Besch) give you pointers?
SM: My mom's never tried to push me into acting. In fact, she tried to discourage me. But I grew up in it. My parents were divorced when I was two. I grew up with my mom on location, in theaters, in acting classes. I just knew. I've made mistakes along the way and learned that I have to trust my instincts. There were things that I did that I didn't really think I should do, but that I was sort of convinced to.
JC: Like what?
SM: Like Super Mario Brothers... was like a... pretty bad choice.
JC: Do you have people, actors whose careers you emulate?
SM: Not really, I mean there are actresses that I really admire... like I always really admired Gena Rowland's work. I loved Cassavettes work for a long time. More obscure, not obvious people. I mean, Susan Sarandon is like a great actress and a great woman and I think her life is just exactly where I want to be. She manages to juggle a great career with being a mother and being an activist pretty well. I really admire that.
HOW DO YOU LIKE MY LEEETTLE FRIEND?
SM: Want to know what was the first film that had a profound effect on me? When I was really first fascinated with an actor... was Dog Day Afternoon. When I was 13 years old they played it on HBO over and over and over again, and I'd just sit there and watch Pacino over and over... and then Scarface was on, as well, I was like obsessed with Pacino's work.
I ask her what she would be if she could be anything but an actress. I stumble through the question feeling like I'm reading questions out of a freshman college "Getting to know your roommates" pamphlet, but I'm getting at something. It's cliche, and I run with it.
SM: This is going to sound really hokey, but I think I would somehow be involved with politics, although I hate the machinations. I've always been really interested in the idea of helping people. I grew up with a mother who was an actress and a father who's been involved in public service and politics.
JC: Is that what he does now?
SM: Yeah, I mean now he's working as an administrator for a medical company, but he worked in the Kennedy administration and the Johnson administration, in the justice department for the civil rights movement.
JC: Really?
SM: Yeah, so that's a big part of me. I grew up talking about politics and what's the matter with society. In fact I just came back from spending one of those weekends with my dad where we just sit down and spend an evening drinking beers and talking about the state of the world. Sound really hokey.
DEPENDS ON THE BEER YUR DRINKIN'
No it doesn't. But Hollywood's a very profit-driven industry town. I always wonder how actors reconcile that, because many are politically inclined... but it's a business.. (I pause...) What am I doing? This is getting way too serious.
SM: Way too serious.
JC: I was gonna try to be flip, and there I went and got too serious.
SM: Yeah, well, you're with the wrong girl, 'cause I'll tend to go down that serious road much more easily than the flip road.
I'M REALLY TOO OLD TO BE WRITING FOR BIKINI
JC: We've got to get a lot more superficial here. What's your favorite color?
SM: Black. (laughs)
JC: Nothing like black for travel, simple and appropriate for any event, hides spills well. But then you probably don't spill things on yourself.
SM: Well you'd be surprised, you'd be surprised.
BACK TO THE BIZ... QUICK.
JC: Tell me about your other upcoming movie Jack and Sarah. Richard Grant is brilliant.
Her face goes blank, she pauses.
SM: It's a different kind of movie for him. He's very much the straight romantic lead. It starts out as a tragic story, and turns to more of a romantic comedy. He's a man who's lost his wife and who's raising a child on his own so it's more of a straight character for him.
JC: What about your role?
SM: I play the kooky American girl. He's raising a child on his own and his in-laws are meddling in his life. They encourage him to hire a proper English nanny, but he doesn't want a "stuffed shirt" raising his kid. He goes to this cafe, meets this American girl: "Don't worry I'll watch the baby." He decides to hire her (me) as the nanny, but I have absolutely no clue - "Diaper what?" I just like the baby... it's cute.
JC: Love story?
SM: Of course.
JC: Can Richard Grant kiss with the best of them?
SM: He was pretty damn good. We had one smooch. You know, the classic one smooch. He was good.
JC: Any heat between you two?
SM: That would be a No.
I"LL TAKE... STUPID QUESTIONS, FOR $300
JC: What do you do when you need to get crazy? You life sounds incredibly well balanced. DO you ever go get drunk, pick up young boys and take them to Splash? (kind of a motel with hot tubs instead of beds.)
SM: I used to be much more wild. My wild years were from 13 to 19, that's when I was getting into trouble. I was getting into clubs underage and having my frivolous days. I've always been more adult than my age, so I suppose I'm hitting that domesticity a little earlier than my peers. My roommate just looks at me and says, "You're sick, you're so domestic." Like I said, I like the fireplace and loud music.
JC: What kind of music? Are we talking Dogg Pound here?
SM: Oh, god.
JC: What's the last album you bought?
SM: Oh, um, Oasis, Smashing Pumpkins...
I tell her that Smashing Pumpkins are the official band of Bikini magazine as per Ryan "Big Chief" Ayanian.
SM: Yeah, I think the new album is amazing and it's the first time I've listened to Billy Corgan and said, 'Wow, he's sexy!' Strange looking cat, but the way he sings id just... sexy. I like to hear my friends play music. R.E.M. I went to see them a bunch on the tour this year.
JC: Friends with Michael Stipe?
SM: Yeah, met Mike four years ago at the Sundance Film Institute. We've been friends ever since.
JC: Mike's a political guy... you are a political girl.
SM: There you go. I don't know... I sound really square. My life is really square and quiet, pretty much. There's no intense drama. I've mellowed in my old age.
JC: When you grow up in L.A. or NYC you tend to be wild pretty young, you get burned out.
SM: Exactly, I mean the girls I grew up with are getting married and having babies now. I'm not quite at that stage yet.
JC: Ready to have babies?
SM: I could see it in the next couple a' four-five years. I'm at this point where... I don't want to go back. I was so invested in trying to be cool, hardcore... at a certain point I realized that I'm a total nerd and I want to just be myself. I'm having a lot more fun now then I ever was then.
JC: Pump Up The Volume was your first film role. What were you doing before that?
SM: TV. My first job was a commercial for "Always Slender Pads - Just For Teens."
JC: Nice... I just saw you in The Music Of Chance on cable. You played a young prostitute.
SM: Yeah, I had a lot of fun doing that part. I was on a break from Super Mario Brothers, which was quickly becoming a nightmare, so I was really excited to leave for a few days and go and work on a real character for a few days. I loved playing her.
WHAT DO YOU GIVE THE GAL WHO'S GOT IT ALL?
JC: Are there roles you want to do that you haven't done?
SM: I've always been attracted to darker roles, that's nothing new. When I was younger, I think it had to do with not being comfortable with my sexuality. I tended to play the nebbish, awkward, riddled-with-insecurities-type of girl more naturally than the vixen. That's something I'd really like to do now.
JC: So there's a vixen emerging?
SM: It's a part of me I really haven't explored as an actress yet... a part of myself that I've gotten more in touch with.
EPILOGUE
We pause for a moment, drink the last of the tea. I light my last heater. Dusk has drawn her velvet cloak as the last of my tape winds through the mini-deck. Miller time. I look over at Samantha, quietly contemplative, bathed in Paddington's rouge neon sign light, beautifully serene... and I think, "It still would have been cool with guns..." She smiles, turns back to me.
SM: I feel like my career has been a series of stops and starts. I've gone through phases where I've sort of dropped out, had things I've had to figure out, personal time that I needed to take. But it's really gone the way I had wanted it to... so far. Fame is just such a weird thing to reconcile, to grow up with. So many people get led astray, burnt out, get really fucked up. I'm really grateful that I've had this sort of slow, steady build. I'm not in any big hurry cause I'm in this for the long haul.
