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BRION JAMES
Interview by Craig Edwards
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Brion James has been a reliable character actor for 20 years now. Although recognized by most for roles in BLADE RUNNER and 48 HOURS, he's been in dozens of interesting movies, usually playing villains (sometimes very funny ones) and nobody could mistake his face for anybody else. He works now more than ever, but ft seems like James is lucky to be alive at all. Edwards interviewed him when he came to Wilmingham to play a role in the recent George Lucas production RADIOLAND MURDERS. James tells it from the beginning.
'My early life ... strange. Grew up in a big family. Five kids. I was born just at the end of WWII. My folks were both working. My dad was running the post office in Beaumont, California, a little farm town out in Southern California. My dad built the Beaumont Theatre in 1939. He wanted to volunteer for the war, but the government to didn't want him to go into the army, they wanted him keep the show open, and keep people entertains they didn't go crazy. So I was at the show every night of my life from the time I was two years old. 1947 is my first recollection of being at the theatre, and I was two years old then... saw THE RED SHOES. It was like the film CINEMA PARADISO, I was at the show every night of my life. I stayed with my dad at the projector, and by the age of five I was changing reels. I worked the snack bar and all that stuff. So I grew up with the movies. In the 40s and 50s going to the show was really an event. On Saturdays they had giveaways and prizes and I'd get up on stage with my dad and do the drawings, and my brothers and I would get up and do little talent shows. I loved ft all and I know that's why I'm an actor today.'
'I went to college, San Diego State, and took drama and then I took off and traveled for a while ... made some money, went to Europe ... that was all part of my education. I came back and I always wanted to act. I tried pre-law in college and that was a big mistake. I lasted about a half a year. Wrong! I guess my image was being a trial lawyer, which in a way is being an actor. But seeing some of these guys on TV now, they're not very good actors (laughs), so I went to San Francisco. I had come back to L.A., but I couldn't find an acting teacher, so I went to San Francisco and Wnda checked out for a year, became a sorta hippie outlaw. During the psychedelic revolution of the 60s, you know, drop in, drop out, or be in ... one of those things. I did all those things.
And then my buddy Tim Thomerson, who's a film actor (Ed: they were cooks in the Army together), he and I decided to go to New York Years before, Anthony Zerbe, who is a great character actor, told us if you want to be an actor you have to go to New York In those days all the teachers were in New York: Strasberg, Stella Adler, Uta Hagen. All the great teachers were in New York. Nobody was really on the West Coast. So I hopped on a plane with a hundred bucks and took off.
'Got to New York and ended up being Stella Adler's servant, along with Tim. Tim, his wife and myself were her slaves basically, in exchange for free acting lessons, which were very expensive in those days, this was 1970-71. Four or five thousand a year, which was like cartoon money to me in those days because I didn't have a dime! (laughs). That's when I started doing stand up comedy. Tim and I would go down to the Improvisation, the original one in New York, with Freddie Prinze, and all those guys were getting started. I spent two years studying there. I did off Broadway, off-off Broadway, whatever I could, you know. I got my craft with Stella. She was the best. She was the only person in this country who brought the Stanislavski technique from Russia to here because she went to Europe and studied with him. Nobody else did that Strasberg, all those other guys took a bastardized version of that. Stella taught the pure Method, where Brando learned ft initially and everybody else, she taught everybody from him down. I got the craft, came back to L.A. and did a play with Tim and got noticed from that and started working. And you know, I started out with the one day jobs, 'he went thataway' stuff. The old series, GUNSMOKE, THE F.B.I., GET CHRISTIE LOVE, some of those are back now! And I worked my way up. Just hung in there. Now ft's 20 years later, I've got about 70 movies under my belt, about 100 television shows ... I feel I'm just getting started!
"I love westerns. I'm really glad westerns are back I basically came to L.A. to be in westerns. It was like a childhood dream when I got to be on one of the last GUNSMOKE episodes. It was one of my first jobs, a day's work in the Long Branch saloon, with Doc and Miss Kitty. It was