East Valley Life |
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| From child star to director | ||
| By Craig Outhier, Tribune | ||
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September 26, 2004 The artist formerly known as Ricky Schroder surveys the sundrenched half-acre of north Scottsdale calls his own and intones the words repeated by so many Arizona family before him, so many times. |
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| "The pool�s been giving us trouble,�� Schroder laments, peering into the dancing blue water. ��We�re gonna have to get someone to look into that.�� Fame and upbringing may distinguish the blond, boyishly handsome actorfilmmaker from his neighbors, but household maintenance, apparently, does not. Schroder�s sprawling ranch-style home in a gated community near the DC Ranch area bears other clues attesting to his toned-down, family-oriented lifestyle. A hockey net in the driveway. An SUV parked nearby, dutifully prepared for what Schroder calls ��shuttle service.�� Absent from the Schroder home are the prominently displayed mementos, autographs and vanity props that one might expect from a 25-year TV and film career. Affectations are clearly not his thing, and his mannerisms similarly belie his celebrity background. He is cordial and plainspoken. Like the characters he played as a child, he seems wise beyond his years. The house itself is also "against type": It�s large, tasteful, but hardly extravagant. From the inside, the home appears about a tenth the size of the mongo-mansion in which little Ricky Stratton, the precocious hero of Schroder�s long-running TV hit "Silver Spoons" (1982-87) spent his formative years. You�ll hear no complaints from Schroder. This is the life he chose when he quit the TV police drama ��NYPD Blue�� three years ago to invest more time in his family. Schroder and his Canadian-born wife, Andrea � whom he met 14 years ago in Calgary, Alberta, while filming the cable TV movie ��Blood River�� � also maintain a residence in Colorado, but Arizona is now the family�s year-round home of record. ��I thought it was important to move back here,�� says Schroder, who in years past twice made his home in Arizona. ��My parents live here, and I wanted my kids to be around their grandparents.�� ��And I don�t miss the traffic on the 405,�� he adds, referring to the Sisyphean gridlock on Los Angeles-area freeways. Still, Schroder hasn�t exactly gone native. On this hot September day, the 34-year-old father of four wears a black button-down with corduroy slacks and sandals, and he still has ambitions in the movie industry. Friday, Schroder�s directorial debut, ��Black Cloud,�� opens in theaters nationwide. Based on Schroder�s original script, the movie stars 22-year-old American Indian actor Eddie Spears as Black Cloud, an angry, alienated Navajo youth who goes toe-to-toe with his demons while training for the U.S. Olympic boxing team. Schroder � who changed his stage name to Rick after leaving ��Silver Spoons�� � credits his move to Arizona with spawning the idea for ��Black Cloud.� � ��I didn�t know a lot about Indian people before (the movie),�� Schroder admits. ��I wrote it from the perspective of people I met and listened to. I read an article about this boxing coach in northern Arizona who was teaching kids to overcome their problems through sports, and thought that was an interesting basis for a story.�� In a somewhat ��Citizen Kane��-ish stroke of selfcasting, Schroder plays his own villain, a bigoted and deeply jealous rodeo cowboy who attempts to pry Black Cloud�s girlfriend away from him. When that fails, Schroder�s character becomes increasingly violent and calculating. Schroder swears that he never envisioned himself in the role while writing the script. ��I originally had an actor lined up to play that role, but it didn�t work out,�� he recalls, a bit ruefully. ��He wasn�t even an actor, really. He was a cowboy. I thought it would be authentic, but he just froze when the cameras rolled. Got all tense. I thought: �This guy�s confident, he can do it. Just be yourself.� But that confidence didn�t translate.�� Film buffs will remember that an 8-year-old Schroder broke onto the acting scene as a plucky prizefighter�s son in ��The Champ�� opposite Jon Voight. When asked if ��Black Cloud�� and its boxing milieu was a conscious attempt to revisit his roots, Schroder demurs: ��No, it just worked out that way. I wanted to make a movie that was commercial. I understand the realities of the business of movies. If you want to make more movies, you�ve got to make movies that make money. And so I thought this was an idea that was commercial, yet at the same time unique and interesting. An underdog story involving characters that are underrepresented in movies.�� Financing ��Black Cloud�� � filmed on location on the vast Navajo Nation in the northeastern part of the state � proved to be an adventure in itself for Schroder, who says he hasn�t ��found many receptive people in Arizona�� interested in joining the ranks of film producers. Ultimately, he funded the production through the Tonto Apache tribe in Payson. To be sure, it paints a sympathic portait of the American Indian struggle. There are slithery federal housing officials and arrogant white lawmen and other establishment types who traditionally have had a lessthan-harmonious relationship with Indian tribes. Nevertheless, audiences would be wrong to peg Schroder as a dewy-eyed liberal. He grew up watching John Wayne movies and is one of the few out-of-the-closet conservatives in the entertainment industry, having delivered a speech at the 2000 Republican National Convention in support of George W. Bush. Schroder is also a religious man; four years ago, he converted to Mormonism, joining his wife, who was already a member. Schroder�s enthusiastic devotion to family values stands in almost comic contrast to many of his child TV star contemporaries. That Schroder emerged from his 20s without having posed for a mug shot seems oddly astonishing, considering the dubious collective fate of the ��Diff�rent Strokes�� cast. Sticking with his affinity for Westerns, Schroder wants his next directorial project to be about Mormon pioneers during their westward diaspora in the 1800s. Told from the perspective of a woman joined in a polygamous marriage, the movie would ��show why polygamy existed and why it stopped.�� Schroder already has a script. All he needs now is the ever-elusive filthy lucre. He�d prefer to find it locally and, in the process, jump-start an independent local cinema industry. ��People are scared by things they don�t know,�� Schroder says of the scarcity of Arizona film investors. ��You�ve got to educate them. Sit them down, explain to them how you make a movie, how you keep it on budget and how you get your money back. ��I think with success of �Black Cloud,� it will open some doors.�� |
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| Contact Craig Outhier by email, or phone (480) 898-5683 |
