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What's up, Ryan? >> In Montreal to shoot The List, Ryan O'Neal discusses Kubrick, Cher and the tabloid press by MATTHEW HAYS
O'Neal plays a duplicitous judge in the $5-million film, a man of justice who's placed in a precarious position when a high-class prostitute is caught and charged for selling sex. The madame then threatens to make public a list of officials, all of whom have used her services. Trouble is, that list includes the names of many of O'Neal's well-established and influential friends. He's caught between seeing justice through and protecting his friends, who are guilty. The script may be new to O'Neal, but Quebec filmgoers will recognize the plotline: The List is the English-language remake of Jean Marc Vallée's 1995 box-office hit Liste Noire, which garnered nine Genie nominations. The script has been updated and reset (from Montreal to Boston) with Sylvain Guy (who wrote both the original and the remake) assuming the direcitor's chair for the first time. For O'Neal, the film presented his first opportunity to work in Montreal. "Though I did come up here for a few days in '76 to see a girl," he recalls. It's also giving O'Neal a chance to play a pretty conflicted character. "As an actor, it's great to have to be able to really peel back the layers of skin, to get to what's inside." O'Neal has certainly had the chance to pull back some layers over the years, having what is surely one of the most varied and intriguing careers in Hollywood in the last 40 years. After trying a variety of jobs (including lifeguard and boxer), O'Neal began working as an actor, first doing some stunt work and then as a regular on Peyton Place (196469). Not long after that, an audition led to his casting as the lead in the ultrasentimental Love Story in 1970. The film did breakaway business, O'Neal was nominated for an Oscar, and his heydays began as one of the main box-office draws of the '70s.
The visions of Kubrick
"There would be a shot where he would use the dolly and zoom at once. But he would want it to look simply like a dolly, without anyone knowing anything about the zoom. He was so precise." When asked which lead he feels he's had the best chemistry with, O'Neal doesn't pause. "Streisand. She really is amazing at comedy. When Bogdanovich was rehearsing with us [for What's Up, Doc?], he'd ask how long a take took. If we said two minutes, he'd say great, do it in a minute and a half. That's what made the pace of that film so good. If you look at it, you can really tell we were speeding everything up. I had a cut of the box office for that film--it was my first real paycheque."
Personal best But O'Neal's personal favourite isn't much of a surprise. Paper Moon, the depression-era comedy-drama about a scam artist and his equally underhanded daughter, won kudos for O'Neal and daughter Tatum, who ended up taking the Oscar for best supporting actress. "That was a real challenge. Tatum was not an actress, she was a little girl. But we turned her into one. O'Neal's career began to falter in the late '70s. A sequel to Love Story, Oliver's Story--which teamed O'Neal with Candice Bergen--proved a box-office failure. Even his reteaming with Streisand, a seemingly unbeatable team, failed to strike gold in The Main Event. In the '80s, O'Neal made a series of strange films which have attained cult status, including Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance and Partners, in which O'Neal played a homophobic cop paired up with a flamboyant gay officer (John Hurt). Another disappointment came in 1996 with Faithful, a comedy in which he costarred with Cher and Chazz Palminteri. The Paul Mazursky film was funny, but O'Neal said it "was doomed from the start. Cher began saying nasty things about it before it was released. That doesn't help. Robert De Niro, who produced the film, phoned me and said Cher wanted to take over and asked if I would be willing to go into the studio and redub my part. I could barely tolerate her on the set! Then Mazursky threatened to have his name taken off it. Cher has another hit now in pop music, which is probably where she should stay. Though I must admit, she can be a fine actress."
Life before the cameras But despite the setbacks, O'Neal has continued to work, making everything from made-for-TV movies, like Small Sacrifices, and even a failed sitcom (both of which he made with then-squeeze Farrah Fawcett). While not the box-office draw he once was, O'Neal has gained a certain notoriety in another, less welcome place: the tabloids. Whether it be his weight, the substance-abuse problems of various offspring or the breakup of daughter Tatum's marriage to feisty tennis pro John McEnroe, O'Neal and family have been featured prominently in the pages of the tabloid press everywhere. (For the record, O'Neal does carry more weight on his frame, but the 58-year-old actor remains strikingly handsome.) The tabloid coverage reached a new height two years ago, when O'Neal and Fawcett's celebrated decade-plus relationship began to fizzle very, very publicly. Does O'Neal think the tabloid press is out of control? "Yes," he res-ponds, before I can finish uttering the question. "Certainly they have been with me and Farrah. They got most of that wrong. They have huge legal teams, ready to go to court at any time. They claim it's just news. Rarely are they correct in their reporting, but you know, they don't care. In fact, they take pride in it. Unfortunately, the tabloids were faltering, but O.J. gave them a new lease on life." |
"We started with the final scene," Ryan O'Neal says of the shooting schedule for The List, which wrapped last week in Montreal. "So the actor's arc was reversed. We began by filming the scene where I beat up the hooker and get shot."
Though O'Neal's oeuvre includes lighter fare such as Love Story and What's Up, Doc?, Peter Bogdanovich's loving ode to '30s screwball comedies, he also starred in Barry Lyndon, the late Stanley Kubrick's three-hour take on Thackeray's flawed 18th-century character. "Stanley had a wonderful eye for the visual," recalls O'Neal. "He was adamant about his vision, and he would get it whatever the cost. Barry Lyndon was over a year of shooting. Sometimes there would be as many as 100 takes. The average was about 40 or 50. Coming from a TV background, this was a bit much. But I couldn't let it make me crazy.