Softening the edges of a hard-charging sect patriarch
THE first thing you notice about actor Harry Dean Stanton is that he seems like a sweet guy -- even when he’s just on the phone giving directions to his rustic Mulholland Drive cabin where he’s lived the last two decades.
Sensing panic in the voice of a visitor who is hopelessly lost on Mulholland, he peppers his instructions with words like “honey,” which he delivers in an old-school gentlemanly fashion.
No wonder young girls approach him all the time after seeing the 1986 Molly Ringwald Brat Pack movie “Pretty in Pink,” in which he played her kindhearted dad. “I think more people have seen that than anything I have ever done,” the 79-year-old actor says. “I play the father that none of them ever had.”
It was Stanton’s not-always-prominent sweetness that Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, the creators and executive producers of “Big Love” -- with Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman -- picked up on after they cast him as the corrupt and scary patriarch of a polygamist Utah family in the new HBO series. The drama kicks off March 12, directly following the return of “The Sopranos.”
“We didn’t write it with him in mind, but with the second episode we were writing for him,” Olsen says. “He is very gifted with dialogue and words. It’s a joy to put words in that man’s mouth because he savors them.
“There is a kind of sweetness to Harry Dean that we didn’t consider part of his character until Harry was saying the words,” Scheffer says.
“Big Love” revolves around Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton), a modern-day polygamist about to open his latest home improvement store. Bill’s life is a real balancing act because of his three wives (Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin), seven children and three houses.
Stanton plays Roman Grant, the father of Sevigny’s character and head of a fundamentalist compound who rules the congregation with an iron fist. He also is in dispute with Bill over money he lent for Bill’s first store. Roman treats his daughter and his new teenage bride -- she is his 11th wife -- with kindness and concern. But he quite literally puts the fear of God into Bill and anyone who doesn’t toe the line.
Stanton, who lives alone, hasn’t seen any episodes of “Big Love.” “How is it?” he asks, lighting up a cigarette. The ashtray on the sofa contains several that have been stubbed out and the small living room reeks of cigarette smoke.
The wood-paneled room is filled with tchotchkes. A couple of guitars -- Stanton’s an accomplished musician and singer -- also have found a home in the living room. The television is tuned to GSN -- the Game Show Network -- which is airing an old episode of “Family Feud.” GSN, he says, just happens to be his favorite network. “I watch it all the time,” he says, adding, “I hate the hosts.”
Stanton says he didn’t talk with any polygamists before he began the series.
“All organized religions are basically the same,” he says, with the hangdog expression that has graced more than 170 movies creeping across his craggy face.
“I grew up Southern Baptist. In the Bible Belt. I am not into any religions. I have been mostly influenced by Eastern religions -- Taoism, the essence of Hinduism and Buddhism. But my belief is not having any beliefs. I am an actor and this is holding the mirror up to nature, as it were.”
Roman Grant is an amalgam of two late polygamist patriarchs: Rulon Jeffs, leader of a Colorado City, Ariz.-area compound, and Owen Allred, leader of one of Utah’s largest sects. Jeffs, says Olsen, “was very authoritarian and a fairly frightening guy. Owen could not be more different than Rulon Jeffs. He is media savvy and pretty sly. Roman is a wonderful fusion of both.”
The Kentucky-born Stanton has been acting for more than 50 years, working with such directors as Ridley Scott (“Alien”), David Lynch (“The Straight Story”), Sean Penn (“The Pledge”), Martin Scorsese (“The Last Temptation of Christ”), John Huston (“Wise Blood”) and Frank Darabont (“The Green Mile”).
He was also a good friend of Marlon Brando and is still pals with Jack Nicholson, with whom he’s appeared in several movies. “We were at the ballgame last night,” he says, referring to a Laker game at Staples Center, where Nicholson has courtside seats.
Stanton, who turns 80 in July, has no plans to retire. “I have been very fortunate,” he says. “I still enjoy acting and singing. I am a performing artist.”
