Is Bill Pullman a versatile leading man or a handsome character actor? It all depends on what the next role demands.
It’s that flexibility, and a consistency of craft, that led the Starz Denver Film Festival to give him the John Cassavetes award.
The actor has played the president (“Independence Day”), a Han Solo clone (“Spaceballs”) and the guy who got the girl (“While You Were Sleeping”) and lost the girl (“Sleepless in Seattle”).
Pullman’s latest film, “Surveillance,” casts him as a “just the facts, ma’am” FBI agent tracking down the killer behind a gruesome murder spree. He’s joined by fellow agent (Julia Ormond), and the two must interrogate a trio of witnesses who all have their own version of the crime.
In person, Pullman sure looks like a leading man, with his brown hair flopping just right over his all-American features. But Pullman started his career teaching others the fine art of acting. He left his role as a drama professor at Montana State University to try his luck in New York City.
“It wasn’t like I was recruited by anybody,” he says of his tentative first steps toward life as an actor. His boss was dumbstruck and asked what it would take to change his mind and stay on staff. The young professor was pulling down $15,000 a year, he recalls, and he figured he might squeeze another two thousand dollars a year if he stayed put.
“It was an insane move. It didn’t fit,” he says.
It did pay off, though. Today, there’s a good chances a Pullman movie is playing in a theater near you right now. And if not this weekend, then very soon.
“It’s a strange fluke having a number of movies that were held back, and then they’re all coming into this bottleneck,” Pullman says.
He recently starred in the warm-hearted drama “Bottle Shock,” and his thriller “Nobel Son” will be released Dec. 5.
And then there’s “Surveillance,” which recently played at the Starz Denver Film Festival, as well as “Phoebe in Wonderland” and “Your Name Here,” all indies with pending release dates. But the quirk does fill him with a sense of pride.
After all, the flood of films shows his impressive range, if not his box office clout. He seems a bit torn about having the kind of chops to pull off such a wide array of characters.
“Some actors are really good at doing a certain range,” he says. “I felt that in order to survive I needed to be as diversified as possible. It’s not really a winning scenario for an actor. If you do one thing really good and get cast over and over again, maybe that’s what longevity is based on.”
When this interviewer objects, pointing to Pullman’s own career as Exhibit A, he dismisses the retort gently. “They haven’t said that to Tom Cruise,” he says. “I push it more because I don’t mind doing small parts.”
Some actors, even ones like Pullman with a steady list of film credits, sweat it out if they don’t have their next film lined up. Pullman has learned how to deal with those dead spots.
It’s a lesson he’s trying to teach his daughter, an aspiring singer/songwriter.
“She‘s going through that period where she’s dry. She can’t write. She can’t concentrate,“ he says. “Those things are part of what it is to be an artist The real learning curve is what you do while you’re waiting for the next song. How do you live inside your skin without going crazy or have a plummeting self worth?”
Pullman wisely has enough of a nest egg where he can relax a bit if the next role doesn’t appear on his doorstep.
“I can do a play that doesn’t pay anything,” he adds.
But the actor admits to missing that gnawing feeling that comes with those down times.
“Maybe it’s a terrible thing, but I always like that hungry period, especially when I was auditioning a lot and your radar is right … on,” he says with authority.
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I really like Bill Pullman and will choose a movie based on his being in it. For this movie fan, he is a box office draw. I really like watching Independence Day because of him… and Will Smith…. and Jeff Goldblum.. and well a great cast. But Pullman brings me back to the film again and again.
Ever seen Brain Dead? Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton in the same movie! Beat that for star power…
That’s a blockbuster, JIC … need to catch up with that one! Too bad Jeff Daniels couldn’t get a cameo
Cool guy, just how he seems on screen. I always enjoy his performances. I will be looking forward to the Bill Pullman winter/spring film fest coming soon to every theater near you. Good interview!
He looks remarkably young for his age (mid 50s, if memory serves). Had that movie-star hair thing going … where it’s mid-length and falls in just the right way. Me … never happens. So now my hair is short.