British Film Actor Pete Postlethwaite

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: MAY 22, 1997
Time: 12:00
Tran: 052201np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Pete Postlethwaite
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:06

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest, Pete Postlethwaite was virtually unknown in America until the movie "In the Name of the Father." He was nominated for an Academy Award for his moving and understated performance as Guiseppe Conlon, father of Gerry Conlon who was unjustly accused of an IRA bombing.

More recently, Postlethwaite played a mysterious and sinister figure in "The Usual Suspects" and he co-starred in the production of "Martin Chizzlewig" recently shown on PBS.

Now he's playing a scientist in "The Lost World," one of the first of the summer blockbusters, and he's starring in the new British film "Brassed Off."

Brassed Off is set in Yorkshire in 1992, when a wave of mine closings is leaving men unemployed. The miners in Yorkshire have their own brass band, led by a retired miner named Danny, played by Postlethwaite. Music is his passion, and his goal is to win a national band competition.

But when the miners are facing unemployment, they know they'll have no money to pay their band dues, and no enthusiasm for playing. They try to tell Danny it's time to break up the band.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "BRASSED OFF")

PETE POSTLETHWAITE, ACTOR: What is up with you lads?

SECOND ACTOR: Got our minds on other things, Danny.

POSTLETHWAITE: Like what?

THIRD ACTOR: Blymie, Danny. You been on holiday or what?

POSTLETHWAITE: How do you mean?

THIRD ACTOR: Well, it may have escaped your notice, (unintelligible), but pits under threat.

POSTLETHWAITE: Aye -- what's that got to do with us?

THIRD ACTOR: Oh, aye. You're right. Not a lot.

POSTLETHWAITE: Listen to me, all of you. These are worrying times, I know that. Well, look what it says here, eh? 1881 -- over a hundred years, this band's been going -- two world wars, three disasters, seven strikes, one bloody big depression -- and band played on every flaming time.

GROSS: I asked Pete Postlethwaite if he felt any connection to the miners in the film.

POSTLETHWAITE: Yeah, I did -- I did, indeed. Yeah, I did. We've had, over the last 18 years, up until the last couple of weeks, when May the first happened in England -- we've had a government which has systematically destroyed most of the beneficial arrangements that we tried to set up for the majority of the people in the country.

But I did -- I mean, I'd fight -- I've fought for the miner's right to strike and anybody else's right to strike when conditions were unbearable and intolerable in the same way that I would campaign to get the release of the Guilford -- the Guilford people in In the Name of the Father.

They're all tied in. It's all how you believe about things -- and what you think about things, whether you have any compassion for people or whether you just think people should be factotums in order to make a buck.

GROSS: The band that your character conducts in Brassed Off is a brass band...

POSTLETHWAITE: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: ... that plays things from the William Tell Overture to pop tunes. Are brass bands really popular in England?

POSTLETHWAITE: They are -- they are -- specifically in the north of England, I think, more than in the south. Although it is a world-wide movement. I mean, the Grimefelt Color (ph) band do travel all around the world playing, well, it's not so much traditional stuff now, I mean, their -- we play I think in the -- the opening thing we play in the film is the choral dance, I think, or the floral dance, as it's called.

They would not necessarily choose to play that now. They play most extraordinary thing -- like Rimsky-Korsakov (ph) and atonal stuff that goes on forever. I mean, unbelievable stuff. They're very, very adventurous, and it is a tradition in England. It's a northern tradition, particularly, I think. And it's part of that wonderful tapestry that is the culture of that part of the world.

GROSS: Did you have to learn to conduct for the film?

POSTLETHWAITE: I did. Yes, I did, with a lot of help from three extraordinary conductors, 'cause the band itself had three different conductors. Each spring they have -- they have a conductor who does rehearsals with them -- in other words, he trains them. He's a very sergeant-major kind of person -- very straight and very fast, and does all sorts of things.

And then they have a conductor -- professional conductor that comes in and conducts them when they do competition. And then they have another conductor who conducts them when they're doing concerts, which are more flamboyant and more showy. I mean, they even do river dance, now, which is great -- it's a wonderful version of river dance.

So I was able to be alongside these three particular people and observe their particular styles -- and just mucked in with the band, really, and found out how they thought and what they felt. And with their encouragement, it was possible eventually to stand up in front of them and pretend to lead them.

GROSS: How would you describe the style of conducting that you do in the movie?

POSTLETHWAITE: Dogmatic authoritative.

LAUGHTER

GROSS: Right.

POSTLETHWAITE: Yeah. I spotted at one point, (Unintelligible) interest as an actor and not as a musician, 'cause I don't read music, so I had to learn it all by heart, really, by ear -- by just playing and playing and playing the tunes over and over again in my head -- listening to that particular band play those particular pieces.

And one particular night, I don't know why it was, I just suddenly realized that actually each piece of music was a story -- a completely separate story to whatever else was -- I mean, like, if it was the March of the Cobblers, that was a very specific tune to do with the March of the Cobblers, and it became a story, as opposed to a piece of music to me.

So as an actor, that was interesting, and a nice way in, really, 'cause I was able to relate to that, and say, well, that's the story I'm telling at the moment, so I can tell that story and feel that kind of emotion.

GROSS: My guest is Pete Postlethwaite and he's starring in the new film Brassed Off. You're also going to be co-starring in Jurassic Park's sequel. Tell us about your character in The Lost World?

POSTLETHWAITE: My character, Roland Tembo (ph), well, you see, he's the sort of -- the last of the philosopher hunters, really, the great warrior hunters who played by the book and tracked by the book and would never dream of using a jeep to go on safari.

And he's, in fact, quite disillusioned where -- when you first meet him in the film, I think he's had enough. He's shot everything there is to shoot in the world, really. He's not very interested until his faithful tracker, RJ, tracks him down in a bar in Mombassa and suggests it might be interesting to bag a T-rex, and that rather large carrot dangled in front of him means that he does succumb, and they do go on to the adventure, which takes them to the island of Noobah (ph).

GROSS: Were there any things standing in for the dinosaurs, since I -- I imagine the dinosaurs are added after the fact they're special effects.

POSTLETHWAITE: Well, not so much in this, because I'm -- you're working with geniuses like Stan Winston (ph), you know, who creates these extraordinary animatronic -- these creatures, these models which, you have to keep pinching yourself every now and then, to say, yes, they are models -- they're extraordinary, but they're models.

I remember actually pinning down the small T-rex -- the baby T-rex -- as a lure for the buck -- the father of the baby T-rex. You know, you do -- I kept keeping a weather eye on its jaws, because it would turn 'round and look at you, and they're organizing this from, you know, in between bushes and things like this -- these extraordinary people who manipulate these things.

And they are incredibly real. They are -- you need no imagination to work with them. They're fantastic, unbelievable things. I think you will be surprised, I think.

GROSS: You really made your mark in America with the movie In the Name of the Father, in which you played the father of a young man who's unjustly accused of an IRA bombing of a British pub. In a sense, family is held as co-conspirators, so you are imprisoned with your son, played by Daniel Day-Lewis.

POSTLETHWAITE: Yeah.

GROSS: And it's a great role, you know, you start off in the movie looking like a real spineless guy, you know, a father who'd never stand up for himself or for his son or for anybody; someone who'd let people walk over him.

But in the jail scenes, you show this surprising inner strength, and watching the dynamics change between the father and the son in jail are just a really fascinating -- very subtle performance. Tell me your take on this character -- what your profile of him was when you were figuring out how you should perform in the role?

POSTLETHWAITE: Well, he was my dad, really. He was exactly my dad, who died in 1988 -- who was northern, working class Catholic. But there is a breed of them, of these people, that have this extraordinary inner strength. They appear to be spineless.

They appear to be easy meat, but in fact when the pressure is on, they resort to their inner strength, this resilience that they have which is based on their values and their beliefs and what they think.

And my dad and Guiseppe were very similar, except Guiseppe was northern Irish, whereas my father was northern English. But they were -- they -- exactly the same kind of background. And there's a whole breed of these kind of men and women. I mean, look at Sarah -- Sarah Conlon, what she went through. Unbelievable.

And that's the kind of profile you get. You think, well, you've got to do justice to these people. You've got to, you know, make sure that at least when Sarah, for instance, would see the film, she would think, well, yes, that's all right. I'm proud of that, and that's OK.

It's very easy playing characters that don't exist, but when you play characters that did exist and whose relations still exist, I think you have to be doubly careful.

GROSS: What do you think is the turning point in the movie, when viewers start to see the strength that this character actually has?

POSTLETHWAITE: I think when he -- we were criticized and pulverized for actually making a pro-IRA movie, even before the film was finished. And it's patently obvious, eventually, that we're not. There's a point in the film where the actual bomber -- the actual person who did do the bombing in the Gopher Pub (ph) is arrested and brought in from the Balkon Street Seat (ph), and brought into prison.

And he actually did, and this is truthful, he actually did say to everybody in the prison, look, you've got the wrong people here. We did it. We'll tell you how we did it and what we did.

Gerry, in the film, gets very involved with this man, and the father decides that he shouldn't be in there -- I think there's a point where he says, look, leave us alone. We don't want anything to do with that. We don't want anything to do with your violence. We don't want anything to do with that.

And I think that's the turning point for Guiseppe, certainly, when Guiseppe suddenly realizes that any kind of violence, any kind of attack on human dignity and human life is not going to change things, and he sticks to his guns and says to his son: go and play with your mates if you like, but don't bring that kind of thing to me.

I think that was a big turning point, and it takes Gerry a little bit longer to spot that. I think he does spot it, eventually, in the torching of the guards scene, when he suddenly realizes that violence is not the best way to change things.

GROSS: My guest is actor Pete Postlethwaite. We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

My guest is actor Pete Postlethwaite. Your character, Guiseppe, dies in In the Name of the Father. What was it like for you to die in that role? Were -- was that a really kind of a moving moment for you?

POSTLETHWAITE: Yes, yes it was. Yeah, they're tough, those kind of things. I think, they're tough -- they do take it out of you, if you want to give it; if you're prepared to give it, it will take it out of you. So, I mean, the scene just prior to that actually. The actual death scene wasn't too bad, because that was like physical.

The scene, really, prior to it, in the cell with Dan -- the wonderful Dan -- playing Gerry, where he's putting vick on my chest, I think. I think that was one of the hardest ones, and he just tells him what he -- every night he's tried to get out of that prison by going back in his head and his memory, walking down to Falls Road with his wife.

And they are hard scenes. They do take it out of you, but you know, you get it back, eventually, you get it all back.

GROSS: You're playing a very different kind of character in an earlier movie called "Distant Voices, Still Lives" and in this ...

POSTLETHWAITE: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: ... movie you're an abusive father and husband. And I know when I saw the movie, every time you appeared on screen, my whole body would tighten. I mean, it's like uh-oh, here it comes again.

POSTLETHWAITE: Yeah.

GROSS: So it's interesting how you were able to embody two such different kinds of fathers and husbands. And I wonder what the difference is in how you carried your own body -- how you presented your own self physically in both roles, in In the Name of the Father and Distant Voices, Still Lives.

POSTLETHWAITE: Mm. I've never thought about it like that, really, but looking at it now, you're obviously right. Yeah, there was a difference. Strange, really, because maybe the father in Distant Voice, Still Lives was inherently weak, whether it was because of his lack of unemployment or his migraine or his drinking problem, I don't know, but he was inherently weak.

Whereas in a way, Guiseppe Conlon was inherently strong, and outwardly weak. I mean, he had -- he did -- he was ill. Whereas the father in Distant Voices, Still Lives wasn't. And it's strange that I don't identify that father with my father, isn't it? I don't. I mean, he wasn't like that.

GROSS: Good.

POSTLETHWAITE: Yes. But that was actually from a very autobiographical -- Terrence Davis (ph) film, yeah?

GROSS: Yes.

POSTLETHWAITE: And directed by Terry Davis -- it was completely autobiographical, I believe. Well, I know, because that's what he said -- that's what he used to do. That's what it was like. And I don't know, I hope...

GROSS: Would he critique your performance by saying no, no, no -- my father was more like this.

POSTLETHWAITE: Oh, yeah. Very much, yeah. Oh, no -- he would do that. Yeah, I remember in one particular scene where I think the daughter, it was in the cellar, cleaning up the cellar, I think, and the daughter asked for some money to go to a dance.

And I think I hit her with a brush -- with a yard brush. And I sort of whacked her a couple of times with the brush, and Gerry said no, no -- he didn't do it like that. And he got hold of this brush, and he turned it the other way 'round, where the end of the broom was, and wham -- we had this metal cage around the camera, so that the brush whacks would go into the -- directly into the camera -- and he bent this metal with this brush.

I said oh, Gerry, come on -- don't be silly. No father could do that. Nobody would do that to a child. He said no, that's what he did. That's what he doesn't know.

Do you mean that that's how it appeared to your sister as a child? I mean, with this massive thing coming at her. No, he said, that's how hard he hit. I said, well, he'd kill her. And he said, no it didn't kill her, and that's what he did. And you just think blymie. Where do you go from there. So, I don't know. I mean, he had a lot to feel angry about his father -- about.

GROSS: So tell me some more if you can about how, as an actor, you try to physically embody inner strength or inner weakness or outer strength or brutality.

POSTLETHWAITE: I don't know. Sometimes, I don't know how you do these things. I mean, it's a bit like asking a centipede which leg it sets off with. Do you know what I mean? I mean I don't know. A centipede just walks, doesn't it. You know, it just goes, sometimes.

I think you read the script and you read into what that character's about, and you look at what the character does; what the character says; what other people say about him.

I mean, what other people said about Guiseppe Conlon was amazing -- more people said things about him than he would ever say about himself. He was always, you know, he was an incredibly popular man around North Belfast and West Belfast where he lived. You know, if anybody had trouble with their income tax return or something like that, they would go to Guiseppe, you know, and he would sort it out, you know?

He never bought a drink in his life, because wherever he went, you know, somebody saying (Unintelligible), I've got a pint for Guiseppe. So you get little incidences; you get little things from that. And also I was privileged enough to read -- through the kindness of Sarah -- the letters that he wrote to her from when he was inside the jail. And they're an extraordinary insight into that man's character.

And that's from that -- I think you start to get to know how the man physically was. I mean, I think he was a taller man than me. I think he was a thinner and taller man than me, but there was -- I think we use an image, don't you think -- well, the man was ill. The man was sick -- I mean, much sicker, in a way, than we played him in the film 'cause you wouldn't be able play him quite as ill as he was.

So, I suppose all these little details and colors and shapes all start to come to you, and eventually you find a walk, really, you find how his feet function.

GROSS: In The Usual Suspects you played Kobyashi, the right-hand man of the real heavy ...

POSTLETHWAITE: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: ... in the movie. Did you understand the script when you read it?

POSTLETHWAITE: No, not a word.

GROSS: Did that bother you?

POSTLETHWAITE: No, it didn't. It thrilled me. No, I really think it was a very, very, complex, rich, intricate, intriguing piece of writing -- a wonderful bit of the young writing -- Chris McCorry (ph), 24 years old -- blymie. What a piece of writing.

And I didn't understand it completely, no I didn't. But it drew me and it made me think this has got to be done; it's got to be made -- a wonderful, clever bit of writing. And wonderfully-drawn characters -- that's what I like, you know, like in Kobyashi. The thing that drew me to Kobyashi was -- there's one scene where I think where he's in the lift with the two heavies, and they get blown away completely.

And it says in the script: Kobyashi deigns not to blink.

LAUGHTER

POSTLETHWAITE: And you think, well, that tells you a lot about that chap, doesn't it? 'Cause he's got nothing to fear. A wonderful bit of writing -- I remember meeting Brian -- sitting there, talking about the script. And he said: What are you gonna play, Pete? What are you gonna play? And I said, well, what do you mean? He said: well, you can play any of them. They're all Kaiser Sose (ph).

Which, indeed, they're not. There's only one Kaiser Sose.

GROSS: Does that mean he didn't want you to know who Kaiser Sose really is?

POSTLETHWAITE: I don't think any of us really knew, except Kevin Spacey -- he had an idea. No, of course, we did. We knew the script and we knew it backwards by the time we were doing it. Had a great deal of fun making it. Fabulous, fabulous piece of work.

GROSS: There are a lot of really interesting actors in that movie, and probably a lot of -- quite a mix of acting styles.

POSTLETHWAITE: Yep, yeah, yeah -- different way yeah from Baldwin through Gabriel Byrne to Kevin Spacey to myself to Palmientiere (ph) -- Charles Palmientiere...

SOUND OF POSTLETHWAITE IMITATING CHARACTER FROM THE USUAL SUSPECTS

I think, blymie, if you're going to do it like that, Benezio? Are you actually going to do it like that? And he said, yeah, I'm going to do it like that. And he did. And it's brilliant, you know. It's great, because you don't half understand what he's saying, but you know exactly what he means. I think that's brilliant.

Reminds me of when my mum and dad came to see a Jacobean play we were doing in Manchester, the Royal Exchange Theater in Manchester, "Duchess of Malfi." It's a very complex, rich Jacobean play, and -- with Helen Murrin (ph) and Bob Hoskins were in it -- and they said said -- well, what did you think, Mum. And I'd say, oh, I thought it was marvelous. My mum said: I thought it was marvelous. I said, well, did you understand it? Well, no, I didn't understand what you were saying, but I knew what you meant.

LAUGHTER

POSTLETHWAITE: And I think that's great. And, if you can do that -- you can tell a story like that, and if the stories are understood, then that's great.

GROSS: Pete Postlethwaite stars in the new British film Brassed Off and he plays a scientist in The Lost World. He'll be back with us in the second half of our show.

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

Here's Postlethwaite as a sinister and mysterious figure in The Usual Suspects.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "THE USUAL SUSPECTS")

POSTLETHWAITE: Mr. Hoppe (ph)? Tuesday. Mr. Keaton? Mr. Fenster I recognize from his mug shot, as well as Mr. McManus. I can only assume that you are Mr. Kent, the gentleman who disposed of Saul Berg (ph) -- my employer sends his gratitude, a most unexpected benefit.

I am Mr. Kobyashi. I have been asked by my employer to bring a proposal to you gentlemen.

ACTOR: What do you want?

POSTLETHWAITE: My employer requires your services, gentlemen. One job. One day's work. Very dangerous. He does not expect all of you to live, but those of you who do will have $91 million to divide between you in any way you see fit.

ACTOR: Who's your boss?

POSTLETHWAITE: I work for Kaiser Sose.

BREAK

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Back with Pete Postlethwaite. He stars in the new British film Brassed Off and co-stars in the Jurassic Park sequel The Lost World. He also co-starred in "In the Name of the Father" and "The Usual Suspects."

You're from a working class family, I believe, in the north of England. How were you exposed to acting? Was it mostly through movies or did you actually see a lot of theater where you lived?

POSTLETHWAITE: No, I didn't see a lot of theater to start with. I suppose it was pictures, really -- Saturday morning cinema and things like that. We used to go and see Tom Mix and Hopalong Cassidy and things like that.

But I suppose in terms -- I don't know, maybe it's something that's in the Catholic background and, you know, being an altar boy, you know, being on that altar, you know. It's a bit like being on stage, you know. Maybe it was something in that.

I don't know. And then at grammar school, I started to do a couple of plays. We did "The Importance of Being Earnest," I remember, and "A Man for All Seasons." I quite enjoyed that -- doing those kind of things. Then I went to college, and read drama and P.E. -- a strange mixture, physical education and drama. And drama eventually took over.

And it was at the times, the late '60s, when there was some extraordinary writing coming out of England -- plays by Pinter and Becket and all these guys were all writing these extraordinary plays, like "Waiting for Godot" and "Look Back in Anger" and stuff like that -- all happening at the same time. And I thought, blymie, this is extraordinary stuff.

So, I really enjoyed all that. But then thought, well, you've can't be now. You still can't go an be an actor. I mean, people from Worrington (ph) don't go and be actors, really. So I decided to carry on -- I'd teach for a couple of years and then see what happened after that, and if I still fancied it after that, I'd follow -- I'd go and do it.

GROSS: So you taught physical education?

POSTLETHWAITE: No, I taught -- in the first year, actually, when I left, I didn't -- I taught, really, it was hardly teaching. It was in what we call an "approved" school in England, which is for naughty kids, really. It's for children who find it very difficult to fit into the system and rebel against it, and generally the schools can't cope with them, so they send them to approved schools, which they were then.

So that was more like social work than teaching, even though I was, you know, employed as a teacher. I did that for a year. And then, went -- changed and went to a girls convent grammar school, would you believe, in Manchester, and taught 1,000 girls a week drama, that was -- I was a member of the English Department to start with -- as an English teacher on the staff.

And the staff was massive. There was 77 on this staff. It was a big school, then I realized there wasn't a drama department so I -- I thought, well, I'll create a drama department, and then I can be head of it, really. So that's what basically I did.

So I taught drama there. But then even after that, after a year of that, I thought -- still, not really what I want to do. So, I went back to school. I applied back to drama school and went back to school, went back to basics, at the (Unintelligible), and left there in 1970, and now find myself in a studio in New York talking to you about it, in 1997.

GROSS: What did you parents...

POSTLETHWAITE: ... and you're in Philadelphia.

GROSS: What did your parents say when you left teaching? Did they think you were being unrealistic?

POSTLETHWAITE: Yes they did. Yeah, yeah -- it took about 10 or 11 years before my mum stopped saying, well, eventually you'll get a proper job. I think that basically came, as well -- these sound terrible stories against my mother, and they're not meant to be, but I think she realized when the Royal Shakespeare Company -- which is a massive, wonderful company in England, or can be wonderful -- they can also do some awful stuff now and again -- but we opened a new theater there, the Swan Theater, and Queen Elizabeth, our queen, came to open it.

And my mother, who's my queen, I suppose, came as well to there -- to watch it, and when she was me being introduced to the queen on the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Company, I think then she thought, well, now that's -- yes, it's a serious job now. That's all right. That's perfectly all right for him to do.

And I think -- well, it was strange. Yeah, I think they did -- they did think, oh well, he'll grow out of that or whatever. It was a strange choice for somebody from my background.

GROSS: Who were your acting heroes when you started acting? And did you end up working with any of them?

POSTLETHWAITE: You know, I didn't -- I've never -- I've never really had any heroes, to be quite honest, other than maybe my dad and my mum -- people like that -- local heroes. I've never -- no, I didn't because I wasn't -- I wasn't part of a tradition of film or theater, in a way, so I didn't -- I mean, I didn't really -- I supposed in retrospect, and question it now, you can say, well, who did influence?

I suppose I was influenced by people like Albert -- Albert Finney in "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" and those kind of films that were coming out, and then he did "Tom Jones." Or Tom Courtenay (ph) and "Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" and things like that.

But I'm -- I never actually did have any hero. I never had any people to model myself on or base myself on anybody. I don't know. I've always plowed a lonely furrow in that respect, really. Consciously, not to say, well, I'm going to do it my way. I just -- I've never thought of. That David Bowie thing about "no more heroes" -- I think I agree with him a bit.

GROSS: I have one last question for you.

POSTLETHWAITE: Go on.

GROSS: Now, I understand when you were co-starring on Broadway in Cyrano -- "Cyrano de Bergerac" -- that Derek Jacoby (ph) who played Cyrano tossed his nose to you at the curtain call of the last performance.

LAUGHTER

GROSS: That was...

POSTLETHWAITE: It's absolutely true.

GROSS: Yeah, well, that must have been quite an honor.

POSTLETHWAITE: Absolutely true. I still have it. I still have it in a little tin box at home. It's still there.

GROSS: Did you know that...

POSTLETHWAITE: That's true.

GROSS: ... did you know that was coming?

POSTLETHWAITE: No, not really. No, I didn't. No. Are you making tall references to kind of, you know, catching the bouquet of the....

GROSS: Right. Right. Right.

POSTLETHWAITE: ... of the, when the bride throws her bouquet and I'm the bridesmaid. No, that did happen. That did happen on the last night -- terrific last night in New York. Wonderful.

GROSS: And so, where is the nose being stored now?

POSTLETHWAITE: It's in a little tin on the shelf with all my other memorabilia that are about -- mainly from films, as well as plays, but I even have the rosette that was on my right shoe from that show. Lots of little things -- keepsakes, lots of little memories. They're all good. They all remind.

GROSS: What other memorabilia have you kept from your shows and movies?

POSTLETHWAITE: Well, I have the baton from Brassed Off. I have the belt that I wore as Roman Tembo (ph). I have the plaque from the coffin of Guiseppe Conlon. I have the rosette I wore on my shoe for Cyrano de Bergerac -- the nose-catching incident one. I have lots of things. There's always something. You all take a little bit back, I think, just to say, well, that's mine.

GROSS: I want to thank you so much for talking with us.

POSTLETHWAITE: No problem.

GROSS: Pete Postlethwaite stars in the new British film Brassed Off. You can also see him The Lost World.

Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: Pete Postlethwaite
High: British actor Pete Postlethwaite. He played the incarcerated father of Gerry Conlon in "In the Name of the Father." Currently he can be seen in the new film "The Lost World," Steven Speilberg's sequel to "Jurassic Park," and "Brassed Off" a film about how members of a brass band respond to the economic decline of a small mining community in Yorkshire, England.
Spec: Movie Industry; In the Name of the Father; The Lost World; Brassed Off; Jurassic Park; People Peter Postlethwaite
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End-Story: Pete Postlethwaite
Show: FRESH AIR
Date: MAY 22, 1997
Time: 12:00
Tran: 052202np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Frank Capra's American Dream
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:40

TERRY GROSS, HOST: One of America's most beloved directors was born 100 years ago. Frank Capra's movies include "It's a Wonderful Life," "Meet John Doe," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Lost Horizons," and "It Happened One Night."

Capra died in 1991. To celebrate his centennial, his sons Tom and Frank, Jr. have produced a documentary called "Frank Capra's American Dream." It was shown as part of a tribute series called "Capra 100" at the film forum in New York. The theater is running a Capra retrospective through June 12.

Both of the Capra sons have made their careers in media. Tom has worked in TV and is the former executive producer of the Today Show. Frank, Jr. is a film producer who formerly headed AVCO (ph) Pictures.

Here's a clip from Frank Capra's 1941 film Meet John Doe. Barbara Stanwyck played a newspaper columnist who creates a cynical publicity stunt. She chooses a down-and-out guy played by Gary Cooper and transforms him into John Doe, a spokesperson for the common man.

In this scene, he's at a bar listening to the managing editor of the newspaper, played by James Gleason.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "MEET JOHN DOE")

JAMES GLEASON, ACTOR: Yup, I'm a sucker for this country. I'm a sucker for "The Star Spangled Banner," and I'm a sucker for this country. I like what we've got here. I like it.

Americans say what he wants and do what he wants, without having a bayonet shoved through his belly. That's all right. And we don't want anybody coming around changing it, do we?

GARY COOPER, ACTOR: No sir.

GLEASON: No sir. And when they do, I get mad. I get boiling mad. And right now, John, I'm sizzling. I get mad for a lot of other guys besides myself. I get mad for a guy named Washington, and a guy named Jefferson, and Lincoln -- lighthouses, John, lighthouses in a foggy world.

GROSS: I spoke with Tom Capra and Frank Capra, Jr. about their father and his films.

In your father's autobiography, all the family events in his life are set against what film he was making at the time. So, Tom, I know you were born during the ending of one of his most famous films, Meet John Doe -- oh, when I say during the ending, they were filming alternative endings at the time you were born.

TOM CAPRA, FILM MAKER: That's true.

GROSS: Yeah. What -- why were they shooting different ending to Meet...

T. CAPRA: Well, the story is so difficult to deal with, that -- here you have a guy threatening to commit suicide, and he becomes a hero because he threatened to commit suicide, and because he spoke out for the little man. And then the bad guys expose him as a fake, which he is, and there's really no other ending except that he commit suicide.

But then, you can't have him commit suicide because no one would go see the film. So they did shoot an ending where he jumps off, and they shot several other endings, and finally -- and then they put them in the theaters. And they were all unsatisfactory, basically, and especially the one where he committed suicide.

So, my dad tells a story that he got a note from somebody who had seen one of the endings, and said why don't you just have the people change their minds, and realize that he really is a good man and that he represents something good, and end it that way?

And that's what he finally did. And, you know, that ending actually works. I mean, it's a pretty good ending. I can't imagine that what it would have been like if they'd have left it with him committing suicide. It would have been a very strange and bizarre film.

GROSS: Some of your father's films, particularly It's a Wonderful Life, celebrated a certain kind of "normal" middle class, middle American family life. And it's a life, in a way, that I could argue you probably never had, because your father was in Hollywood, you know, making movies. His best friends were movie stars and screenwriters.

I'm wondering what you made of that life when you saw it in movies?

FRANK CAPRA JR., FILM MAKER: Well, I don't know that that was a whole lot different than we experienced. We lived part of the time in Los Angeles and then my father and mother bought a ranch in Fallbrook (ph), and it was a very small town, and we were down there, and Tom, you grew up there a lot...

T. CAPRA: Yeah, I went to high school there.

GROSS: You're, I believe, about 10 years apart in age? Seven years?

T. CAPRA: Seven.

GROSS: Seven years. So I'm wondering if you grew up during different periods of your father's career, and if you felt you were exposed to different parts of your father's life during your formative years, if you saw different parts of him.

F. CAPRA: Well, when I was young, my father was gone quite a bit, especially during the Second World War.

T. CAPRA: Yeah, that was my experience, too.

F. CAPRA: Yeah.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

T. CAPRA: I mean, I can remember him coming home from Hawaii with a crate of pineapples. Remember that, Frank?

F. CAPRA: Yeah, yeah.

LAUGHTER

F. CAPRA: You know what I remember, though, something that's kind of interesting -- I remember the -- when he brought those men in that had been on the Bataan march.

T. CAPRA: Yeah, the death march.

GROSS: Your father had been making the "Why We Fight" series, which was a series of training and inspirational films for American soldiers in the war, that was also shown abroad. So, what happened when he brought home men who survived the Bataan death march?

F. CAPRA: Well, it just made a big impression on me. It brought the war really, really home. You know, what we were, in Los Angeles area anyway, there was gas rationing and things like that, but of course, there was no real war. But when you saw these men and heard their stories, to me it made a hell of a big impression.

GROSS: Do you each have a favorite film -- a film that you -- that has the most sentimental value for you?

T. CAPRA: Yeah.

LAUGHTER

F. CAPRA: Yeah.

T. CAPRA: My favorite is Lost Horizon. I love Lost Horizon. I think in the documentary we made, John Milius (ph) calls it a "primal human myth." And I agree with that. I think that's the best description I've ever heard of that film. I just love that film.

GROSS: Expand on that for me. What's the mythical quality of it that you...

T. CAPRA: Well, that there can be a place somewhere in the world where humanity saves what is best about humanity from the forces outside -- from the forces of whatever -- Fascism, communism -- whatever is growing in the world, and that in this place humankind can, you know, keep its best and hold on to it, while the world outside -- war rages or whatever happens. And then finally, humanity can come back to this place, to this treasure house, and understand the values of what has gone on before.

GROSS: Frank, what's your favorite? What has the most sentimental value for you?

F. CAPRA: I still think the most sentimental to me is It's a Wonderful Life. I was just struck by some of the things that you were saying, Tom, about Lost Horizon, and in a funny way, Wonderful Life mirrors that. It's again, a myth about a man who can see the world as if it had been -- if he had never been born, and how the forces of evil might have taken over a small town.

I think that's kind of interesting -- like a precursor of what some of the things that have actually happened in cities today.

T. CAPRA: Yeah.

GROSS: It's a Wonderful Life was made in 1946, and I think your father loved the film as he was making it. But it didn't do well, commercially -- it didn't do well at the box office, which is really surprising, looking back, because it's one of the most beloved films that we have.

T. CAPRA: You know, that's, that's...

F. CAPRA: That's not entirely true.

T. CAPRA: That's not entirely true. It actually did pretty well. It didn't come and go. It wasn't a flop. It actually did pretty well in its first theatrical release. The problem with it was the way they had structured Liberty Films was that it really had to be a huge hit in order to save the company.

GROSS: Liberty Films was your father's company?

T. CAPRA: Yeah, with Wyler and George Stevens, and it was the very first company ever organized by independent directors who wanted to be producers, as well. And the studios were pretty determined that it wouldn't work.

And the way they structured it, it was probably doomed to failure, but It's a Wonderful Life would have had to have been an enormous hit in order to save the company, and it wasn't. It was a pretty good hit, but it wasn't a, you know, giant. So it didn't save the company.

But the film has an interesting history.

GROSS: How did it become a TV Christmas-time movie? It's shown on TV every Christmas.

T. CAPRA: Mm-hmm. It was originally sold -- when they sold Liberty Films to Paramount, Paramount then sold the film -- the copyright -- to a company called National Telephone Associates. NTA was the syndication arm of Republic Pictures, and NTA, by mistake, allowed the copyright to lapse, and they had distributed the film to a lot of TV stations already.

And what happened was that the managers of the TV stations found that they had a print of It's a Wonderful Life and they didn't have to pay to put it on. So they put it on, and they put it on a lot. And it was on all over the place.

And the public was re-exposed to it, and it became this icon. And, you know, my dad used to say: it's a good thing it went in the public domain, you know, nobody ever would have seen it again.

GROSS: Did he always feel that way? Did he ever wish that it hadn't gone into public domain because theoretically, he was losing money, right?

F. CAPRA: Yeah, the only thing that he didn't like about the public domain was the fact that Republic could colorize the film.

GROSS: Oh, boy. All right.

T. CAPRA: Finally, it was colorized by Hal Roach.

F. CAPRA: Hal Roach Company, but that was because Republic was in -- had a deal with him. But you know, that was the only thing that he was very disappointed about, and he went to Washington to speak to...

T. CAPRA: The copyright tribunal...

F. CAPRA: ... the Library of Congress about copyright -- about copyrights in general, but as specifically in the right of a company to change the work of a director against his will. That's not available to -- in Europe. It's only in the United States where that could be done.

GROSS: My guests are Frank Capra's sons Tom and Frank, Jr. They've made a documentary about their father called "Capra 100." It will be out on video in June. We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

BREAK

GROSS: My guests are Frank Capra, Jr. and Tom Capra. They've made a documentary about their late father, film director Frank Capra.

There are at least two suicide attempts in your father's films -- in Meet John Doe and It's a Wonderful Life.

F. CAPRA: And "Lady for a Day."

GROSS: Oh, OK.

T. CAPRA: Lady for a Day. Right.

GROSS: Yeah, haven't seen that one. And I'm wondering if your father was given to dark moods -- if he, if that's the kind of thing that would have ever crossed his mind. It's just, you know, interesting to have that as a recurrent theme in a body of work.

F. CAPRA: You know, even in Lost Horizon, that's almost a suicide.

T. CAPRA: That is.

F. CAPRA: There is a suicide -- not Ronald Colman, but his brother commits suicide.

T. CAPRA: Yeah, well, I mean, he suffered from, you know, depression. He had a really bad bout with it in the mid-'30s, and he also was very -- physically very sick at the time.

He had a burst appendix and I think they didn't get it all out when they went in to -- because they had to -- he had three operations in a row, exploratory operations, inside the abdominal cavity. And he was very sick, and he was also very depressed, and I think he was feeling guilty because he'd been so successful and the country was going, you know, down the tubes around him.

GROSS: Oh yeah, his Depression movies were some of his best...

T. CAPRA: They're the best.

GROSS: ... yeah.

T. CAPRA: Yeah.

GROSS: So, he felt guilty about the success he had during the Depression?

T. CAPRA: I think so.

F. CAPRA: He also had this bout with these cluster headaches.

T. CAPRA: Yeah, that was...

F. CAPRA: Which were really terrible.

T. CAPRA: ... later.

GROSS: Those are really bad migraines.

F. CAPRA: Yeah, and it was about the same time as he was filming (unintelligible).

T. CAPRA: Yeah, that's right. You know, he used to rub -- actually rub his forehead until it was raw, you know, because the headaches were so bad. And he was afraid, you know, they would give him drugs for them, but he was afraid they would, you know, he couldn't direct if he would take the pills, so he didn't take the pills.

GROSS: In your father's autobiography, published in the '70s, he wrote that the bitterest and most humiliating experience of his career was when he was asked to serve on the government commission on psychological warfare in 1951 and he couldn't get security clearance. What was in his files that was so upsetting to him?

T. CAPRA: Oh, I don't think there was anything in his files. I think there were just -- he had just made "State of the Union" and you know, they didn't -- it was the era of McCarthyism and they didn't like movies that were critical of the United States process -- actually, it was critical of the process of electing a president.

And I think that -- the mood was, you know, we're not going to give a security clearance to a guy who doesn't like the government.

GROSS: He was very upset...

T. CAPRA: Yeah, he was.

GROSS: ... by this, and by the implication that he had some communist leanings. And he wrote in his book that he told his children immediately, so that they wouldn't hear about it first in the press.

T. CAPRA: He did.

GROSS: And he said, Frank, that you were 17 at the time and Tom, you were 10. What did he tell you and what impact did it have on you?

F. CAPRA: Well, he was -- he was concerned that it would be, you know, be some kind of big news because it seemed to be so unlikely that this champion of the United States and America and the American system would suddenly be, you know, called to have communist -- some kind of communist background.

And some of it came -- unfortunately, some of the people that he used during the war that were writing for him on Why We Fight turned out to be later members of communism or communist parties in Hollywood. And I think, as you said, State of the Union was looked upon as being a little bit leftist.

And, so he didn't want us to think that that -- you know, the negativism of that -- and when he told me, you know, we knew perfectly well that couldn't be true, you know.

T. CAPRA: Well, they actually took away his security clearance and told him not to leave the country.

F. CAPRA: Yeah, then he...

T. CAPRA: And he basically...

F. CAPRA: ... any of the conferences or anything like that...

T. CAPRA: They basically pulled his passport.

GROSS: What did he do to try to clear his name?

T. CAPRA: He wrote a letter to them.

F. CAPRA: Yeah.

GROSS: Wrote a letter to who?

T. CAPRA: I think to the State Department, saying, you know, how could you possibly do this? And their response was basically to do nothing, and finally, you know, some months later, they asked him to go to India to a film festival to represent the government, and he said, you know, you gotta give me my security clearance or I'm not doing it. And they acquiesced.

But it just went -- you know, he was never vindicated.

F. CAPRA: No.

T. CAPRA: But you know, that -- that never happens in those cases, you know.

GROSS: When you were looking for people to speak about your father's work and the influence of that work on their careers, were you surprised by any of the people who were very influenced by your father's work?

T. CAPRA: I frankly, personally, was surprised by Oliver Stone.

F. CAPRA: Yeah.

T. CAPRA: I didn't realize -- I'd never met him before, and I didn't realize how much he'd been affected by my dad's work, and how much, really -- we included him in the documentary to talk about criticizing the government and what that was like and to talk about the experience of the war.

And he did talk about both those things, but he went way beyond that. You know, he understood what it was like -- he understands what it's like to believe you're telling the truth and have other people believe you're not.

And I think -- I was just -- I was surprised. He has -- he ends up having the last word in the film, which is pretty amazing.

GROSS: A lot of Americans watch It's a Wonderful Life every Christmas. Did you used to watch it with your family every Christmas?

T. CAPRA: Yes. We used to invite friends in, have dinner, like in Italian tradition, so it's -- the Christmas eve you ate fish. And then we'd show the movie, and then we'd go to midnight mass.

GROSS: This was when your father was alive?

T. CAPRA: Oh, yeah.

F. CAPRA: Oh, yeah.

T. CAPRA: From the time the movie was made.

GROSS: So, do you keep up that tradition in your own homes?

T. CAPRA: Yes. I do.

F. CAPRA: Yeah, I try to see it every Christmas. Absolutely.

T. CAPRA: Well, I want to thank you both very much for talking with us, and good luck with your new documentary.

F. CAPRA: Thank you, Terry.

T. CAPRA: Thank you.

GROSS: Frank Capra, Jr. and Tom Capra produced a documentary about their father and his films called "Frank Capra's American Dream." It will be out on video next month.

A retrospective of Capra's films is running at the Film Forum in New York through June 12.

Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: Frank Capra Jr.; Tom Capra
High: Frank Capra Jr., and Tom Capra, the sons of film director Frank Capra, whose films include "It Happened One Night," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," and "It's a Wonderful Life." The two have produced a new documentary about their famous father, "Frank Capra's American Dream."
Spec: Movie Industry; People; Frank Capra; History

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