Interview with Oliver Platt about "The Ice Harvest"
Question: Do you see any parallel in this guy (Pete) and the guy you play in Huff?
Oliver Platt: They’re very different actually. I think the guy I played in Huff is much more like Charlie’s character. He drinks so much that it doesn’t really affect him. He has to really put a lot of chemicals into his body to get to the state that this guy is in. Charlie’s really experienced. (Pete) is in a forced crisis. The forced gaiety of Christmas has made him really focus in on how bankrupt his life is. He doesn’t have anything important, and he obviously can’t hold his liqueur. He’s not a really an alcoholic. I think he may be on his way, but I don’t think he drinks like this a lot. I think he’s absolutely flipping out.
Q: But isn’t it funny that everybody is casting you as a semi-drunkard loser?
O.Platt.: You get cast for something people see in you… I don’t know. I really don’t know. I can tell you this though; they’re certainly a lot of fun to play, especially when they’re layered. It’s very easy when you meet this guy to say, “Oh, there’s a happy drunk”, but we all know there’s no such thing really, but then we find out. I think the writing in this movie is so beautiful. The story reveals that he’s desperate.
Q: Playing a drunk person may sound simple, but there are so many little nuances, little details. Were those things that you brought yourself, and if so, how did you research?
O.Platt.: It’s a physical state more than anything else more than anything else. It’s a very relaxed state that I would get myself into. Very kind of loosey-goosey. It’s like I said, you figure it out, then you forget about it. I heard somewhere the way Meryl Streep works with an accent, she’ll totally immerse herself in it and she’ll be walking around her house and the set, until they say action, and then she completely forgets about it. And that’s why it’s just there. And it’s the same kind of thing, I think, when playing someone who’s that inebriated. Or I think in any kind of state. It’s gotta be something that informs what you’re doing, but you can’t be thinking about it when you’re doing it, or that’s what it’s going to look like.
Q: So, essentially you were drunk for a couple of months?
O.Platt.: When they said action, yeah.
Q: What’s your favorite drink?
O.Platt.: My favorite drink would have to be probably a tequila type of drink. Yeah, the members of the tequila family. Beer and tequila, I always thought were the excellent kind of rocket fuel kind of mixture, you got the upper and the downer in there somewhere, and in the middle was…
Q: Are you a happy drunk?
O.Platt.: Yeah, I think I’m pretty friendly.
Q: I watched Casanova also, and I would call you the comic relief. You are the funny guy in most films. Is this something you are looking for?
O.Platt.: You know, I take the best job I’m offered if I’m not working. Those were both great jobs in my mind. Again, because they’re layered. Both (Pete) and Papprizzio are actually incredibly well defined roles for supporting roles in terms of having a great story, a beginning, middle and end, and a lot of depth to them. I was only too happy to take both of those roles.
Q: Both of the films are also comedies around you. How do you play the comic relief in a film that is already a comedy around you? Is there a degree where you can go too over-the-top in a film that is already a comedy?
O.Platt.: In a way you can over think that kind of stuff, and it’s just your job to play the role the way you see fit. Certainly in terms of Pete, the deal that I made with myself was the only way I could screw up would be to be afraid to make an absolute idiot of myself. People that have that degree of blood alcohol level, their sense of inhibition is completely gone. They’re certainly not thinking about how they’re coming off. What the safety net was for all of this was the script. In my mind it’s a beautifully written role, and so it’s all about playing the scenes. That level of drunkenness is like playing an accent. You plug it in and forget about it.
Q: Can you tell us what Harold Ramis adds to the equation.
O.Platt.: Well, you know what he adds to the equation, he add to the equation… He’s simply there. It’s like, with one of the godfathers, the crazy uncles of American comedy sitting behind the camera you feel a lot more safe making a complete idiot of yourself in front of it. And you know this is also a man of great intelligence who’s going to keep his eye on the story, is going to tell you when you’re going too far, if you’re not going far enough. Harold sits behind the monitor and cackles a lot. That’s music to your ears. When he opens his mouth, you really pay close attention.
Director’s don’t really need to come talk to me, because I almost always go talk to them first. And I very much like to draw out what’s going on in their head, and tell them what’s going on in my head. I usually try and make a lot of contact with a director before we start shooting. I think you work really hard before you get to the set, so when you get to the set you can play and you can really surprise yourself.
Q: I assume you’re familiar with a lot of his movies?
O.Platt.: Yes.
Q: Have any favorite Ramis films?
O.Platt.: Definitely my favorite movie of his is Groundhog Day. Just because I think that it’s really… He would hate this pretentious term, but I think it’s actually kind of an important movie. I think it’s the first great existential modern American comedy. It’s a deceptively sophisticated movie. It’s about a whole lot of stuff. I just loved it. I love all the other stuff too. Caddyshack. I love Stripes. I love all that stuff.
Q: Had you known John before, and what were your impressions of him?
O.Platt.: You know, I didn’t really know him before. He had called me once because I had worked with a director he wanted to work with. I had always admired him. I’d always admired his intelligence as an actor, his subtlety. His taste too. I love not only things that he chose to do, but I think he’s an incredibly tasteful. Like effortlessly tasteful actor, someone who really understands the concept of less is more. He understands the power of the camera. If you look at this movie and when you first are meeting him and he brings the money out of the bank and puts in the car, and he has this conversation with Billy Bob, and he says two or three words, but you know so much about that character right away. There’s more from what he doesn’t say.
Q: Any stories from working with him?
O.Platt.: You know, I’m terrible at the funny stories questions. I just am.
Q: How was Billy Bob?
O.Platt.: I didn’t work with him. I didn’t even meet him.
Q: Where was this shot? Was it shot entirely on location?
O.Platt.: Well, yeah, but in Chicago.
Q: Which was cold, I imagine?
O.Platt.: It was spring, late spring, which is still cold, but it was nothing like the real winter in Chicago or Wichita Falls.
Q: How was Venice? (Where Cassanova was filmed)
O.Platt.: Venice the weather was much more pleasant.
Q: What do you think the Midwestern setting does for this noir film that distinguishes it from other things we have seen in this genre?
O.Platt.: I think that this movie is in a certain catalogue a sad, love song to the precarious state of the American male. So I think you really need to set it in America. And by America, I think we’re talking about middle America. Not New York, because even though it’s where I live and I think it’s the greatest city in the world, it’s also an international city. And LA is the same thing. It needs to be more nondescript, utterly American city. I think that’s what their going for. Also, if noir is the point of departure for this film at least in terms of genre, these are not glamorous mobsters. I think that that’s one of the most genuine modern aspects of it. These are not glamorous, very powerful people.
Q: How do you think the people in Kansas will react to this?
O.Platt.: I hope that they’ll understand that this is a poetic kind of imagining of the… every town has got strip clubs and losers. And I hear that Wichita is a beautiful place. Please quote me on that.
Kudos to Oliver Platt for spending some time with us and sharing his insights with our readers. The Ice Harvest is now playing everywhere.
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