Bill Pullman was 32 years old when he starred in his first film, Ruthless People in 1986. This, he points out, is at least a decade later than most movie stars get their big chance. “The term‘ late flower ’sounds terribly like loser, but I guess that’s who I am,” he says. “It seems like a politically correct term for, ‘You’re stupid. Why did you take so long? ‘”
The reason it took so long is the theater. Before Pullman’s Hollywood career, from black films (Lost Highway) and children’s films (Casper) to horror (Lake Placid, The Grudge), romantic comedies (Sleepless in Seattle, While You Were Sleeping) and a triumphant blockbuster. (Independence Day), spent much of his time directing and acting in plays. Even a catastrophic fall during a student production of Ibsen’s Brand, which caused a cerebral hemorrhage and put him in a coma for two and a half days, did not discourage him. At that time he was 21 years old and played the titular pastor who, at one point, went up to an ice church, which in this production was built with the bodies of the other actors. “I was climbing on people’s shoulders, someone moved and then: bum! I went down, “he recalls.” After that I never went back to Ibsen. “
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Pullman, 68, speaks from New York, where he is rehearsing for Theresa Rebeck’s new play Mad House, a black comedy about family dysfunction set in rural Pennsylvania. It is his first theatrical role since the pandemic and the weather outside has made the process much sweeter. As an actor, he says, “You want me to be excited, you want to hear ideas that you haven’t heard in the community for a long time. You want to feel this energy loaded with easy inputs and outputs. “
Pullman speaks in a low, laconic voice, but his eyes are bright and full of mischief. He looks like a man silently enjoying a joke he doesn’t share with the class. When not traveling for work, Pullman and his wife, dancer Tamara Hurwitz, split their time between Beachwood Canyon, Los Angeles, and a Montana ranch that he co-owns with his brother for 30 years. He is currently in charge of the infrastructure (repair of fences, irrigation, etc.), although when his three children were small they spent long summers there, during which Pullman was tangled up and sinking. drugs in the ass of some beast, many other things seem very manageable, “he says.
Oval Officer … Bill Pullman (center) on Independence Day. Photography: Everett / Alamy
In Mad House, she plays Patriarch Daniel, who has advanced emphysema and is being cared for by her son Michael, played by David Harbor (Jim Hopper of Stranger Things). “Daniel is flipping down the drain,” Pullman says. “The only child available for care is the child with whom you feel the most need to work. There are two more children who are eager to talk about what will happen to the inheritance, even though my character is cautious about it, choosing to torment them. ” As the play progresses, Daniel becomes more and more fragile until he is confined to a hospital bed, although he continues his campaign of cruelty. “You can still make war from a horizontal position,” Pullman says.
The scene of a family gathered around a bed resonates with the actor. “My dad died in my arms,” he says. “I was not there when my mother died. But I have three brothers and three sisters and we are all in this precarious age now where there are illnesses. A friend of mine calls this scenario “the alley of the shooter.” Pullman, who grew up in Hornell, Steuben County, New York, comes from a family of doctors. Both his parents and his grandfather worked in medicine, “so they had this ability to speak objectively about illness and death. Even when I was close to home, they were interested in the data and miracles of medicine and the body. “
I always felt that there was something useful about being a little chameleon or cipher
Pullman was never tempted to follow his parents in medicine, but it took him a while to find his passion. After high school, he studied construction, imagining that he would end up restoring old houses for a living. But then he got involved with the university drama department where one of the professors encouraged him to act. Pullman graduated in theater, followed by a master’s degree in directing. At the age of 20, he became a professor at Montana State University. In the end, it was money, or lack thereof, that brought him back to acting. “I loved Montana and had a good life there, but my salary was poor and there was this itch that hadn’t been scratched.”
So Pullman and Hurwitz moved to New York, where he appeared in several plays, including Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class, alongside Kathy Bates. In 1985 he moved to Los Angeles, where he starred in Ruthless People, starring Bette Midler and Danny DeVito, and Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs. Pullman was often found as “the boy who loses the girl” (see While You Were Sleeping, A League of Their Own and Sleepless in Seattle, where he is abandoned by Meg Ryan), but was able to show greater scope in the the end. The 1990s as troubled saxophonist Fred Madison on David Lynch’s Lost Highway and as President of the United States on Independence Day. For years, strangers approached him and asked him to recite his famous defiant Independence Day speech: “We will not go silent at night! We will not disappear without a fight!” – although, he says with a false threat: “I learned to beat them.”
Police force … Bill Pullman as Harry Ambrose in The Sinner. Photo: USA Network / NBCU / Getty
The last few years have been mostly about The Sinner, the detective series in which he plays a gray-haired cop who struggles with past trauma. After the success of the first season, it was re-commissioned as an anthology series, with Pullman’s character as the only constant. “I was very scared to sign up,” he admits. “I admire the actors who find joy in doing eight or nine seasons of it, but my mind is too crazy. I thought I would wither in the vineyard. But showrunner Derek Simonds was great and before each season we talked about where the story would go. So I never got bored. “
For years, Pullman was in the strange position of being a household name that was forever confused with the late Bill Paxton, star of Apollo 13, Twister and A Simple Plan. Even now, Pullman’s Wikipedia page has a slightly impertinent note at the top: “Not to be confused with Bill Paxton.” Pullman blames the confusion on the occlusions of his names, though I suspect it has more to do with his human characters. In 1998, at the height of Pullman’s fame, critic Greil Marcus was thrilled to write American Berserk: Bill Pullman’s Face, a high-profile treatise that traces the evolution of America through the film’s roles. actor, in which he denounced his daily life and ubiquity. When I mention it, Pullman exclaims, “My God, have you read it?” but stops saying more. When I asked him what it was like to be examined so closely, he replied, “I always felt that there was something useful about being a little chameleon or cipher. And so I thought, ‘Wow, I was wrong! I thought that should be the idea. But of course, it’s not always about making money. If you have a brand just to feel like a star, it’s a little easier to create wealth. “
Pullman adds that he has always liked the fact that when strangers approach him to say “I really like …”, he can never predict which movie they will say. “I have no idea if they’ll say Casper or Spaceballs or The Sinner. Having that variety in my job makes me feel lucky. I’ve always wanted to be the ship where I could own myself for something.”
In his article on Pullman, Marcus also quotes Lynch as researching Pullman’s later catalog while casting for Lost Highway, saying: “I always saw something in his eyes … I saw the possibility of anger, madness. ” That sounds true, I wonder? “If you’re talking about rage, that brings me back to this play,” Pullman replies, clearly pleased with the opportunity to complete our conversation. “In the past, I have been angry with the conditions and angry with the injustices. But this guy, Daniel, needs to inflict rage, incite rage. But, you know, I forgot [Lynch] said that. I think he was probably into something. “
Mad House is at the Ambassadors Theater in London until 4 September.