The worst way to coax Dennis Quaid’s cocky grin from him is to ask him about himself, his charitable work or the films of which he’s most proud.
He’d much rather talk golf, or even how his new sports movie, “The Express” is geared toward non-sports fans.
The film, out Jan. 20 on DVD, is based on the remarkable life of the first black Heisman Trophy winner.
Ernie Davis electrified Syracuse University and helped bring about racial progress during his tragically short life.
Quaid plays Coach Ben Schwartzwalder, the man who helped shape Davis’s college career. It’s typical of roles Quaid takes on these days – complex and not so easy to love. Think of his broken down professor in this year’s “Smart People.”
“As I’m getting older, the parts are just more interesting,” he says. His take on Coach Schwartzwalder epitomizes that assessment. He’s not the star of the movie – that honor goes to Rob Brown who excels as the late Davis. But it’s the coach we care about the most.
He’s a fascinating figure, a man who in real life was one of the U.S. soldiers who stormed the beaches at Normandy, and he brought a similar militaristic style to his coaching.
He clashed often with Davis, in part because he was part of a society unwilling to embrace a successful black athlete. The coach saw the budding civil rights movement as “an annoyance. He didn’t want it coming onto his field,“ Quaid says.
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Quaid previously starred in sports movies like “Any Given Sunday” and “Everybody’s All American.” That didn’t put him off from tackling “The Express.” He says reading scripts is the only time he feels like an audience member.
“’The Express’ script hit me in the heart and the gut,” he says.
Quaid says the folks behind the film made sure the football sequences echoed the style of the day. “They really went for the authentic, 1950s old-school football,” Quaid says. “They rehearsed for months before we started shooting in that 1950s way of how to hit.”
Like Davis, Quaid also found his life’s purpose in college, although he had a little help from his older brother, Randy Quaid.
“He inspired me about acting as a craft,” Quaid says. “I knew what I wanted to do with my life. That’s a great gift. “[Randy] has always been a great example for me.”
The actor got another mentor when he began shooting the 1981 feature “All Night Long.”
“Gene Hackman played my dad,” Quaid remembers. “He really took me under his wing. Just the way he opened up to me, like a father figure.”
Hackman also teased him on set. One day, Quaid found his personal on-set chair had been vandalized. Instead of saying his name across the back, Hackman had crossed it out with marker and written “Randy” in its place. Quaid chuckles at the memory.
Today, Quaid is likely to be the on-set veteran, the one younger actors seek out for advice or Hollywood wisdom.
Quaid is happy to oblige, as long as it’s on a first-name basis.
“I get really uncomfortable when they call me Mr. Quaid,” he says.
(Photo: Dennis Quaid co-stars in “The Express,” the true story of the first black Heisman Trophy winner out now on DVD)
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