There and Back Again (13 page)

I noticed my father chuckling.

“What?”

“I'm sorry, Sean.”

“Sorry about what?”

My father has always had a healthy sense of humor, and this was a practical joke he couldn't resist.

“The footage isn't real,” he said. “It's a hoax.”

You gotta be kidding me!

What I had seen, in fact, was a clip from
Forgotten Silver
. Ostensibly a short-form documentary made for New Zealand public television, the film's subject was a man named Colin McKenzie, a Kiwi filmmaker who, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, supposedly pioneered synchronized sound in 1908 and color film in 1911. According to the documentary, McKenzie was denied fame on any grand scale not only because he was working in New Zealand, an artistic outpost, but also because he committed a few, shall we say, tactical errors. His sound film featured Chinese dialogue (understood by no one who saw it), and the groundbreaking color film included scenes of topless natives on the island of Tahiti, and thus was deemed “obscene” and quickly pulled from circulation.

The story of Colin McKenzie and his work would be tragic as well as fascinating, if only it were true. In fact, Colin McKenzie is the product of Peter Jackson's wildly inventive imagination and devilish sense of humor. Codirected by Jackson and noted documentarian Costa Botes,
Forgotten Silver
has more in common with
This Is Spinal Tap
than
Hearts of Darkness
. It is a “mockumentary” rather than a documentary, a playful yet awesomely well-executed send-up of the genre, predicated on the simple yet stunning notion that Jackson has stumbled across a cache of cinematic classics. McKenzie is credited with any number of groundbreaking cinematic achievements, including the first tracking shot and the invention of the first trick camera, as well as the aforementioned footage of the first airplane flight, which, seen out of context, as it was presented to me, looked like one of the greatest discoveries in history.

Seen in its entirety,
Forgotten Silver
is easily identifiable as a parody, and a marvelous one at that. Or maybe not. When the film was broadcast on television in New Zealand, it was greeted not with the sort of gleeful approval that met
Spinal Tap,
but with something akin to the shock that resulted from the Halloween radio broadcast of Orson Welles's
War of the Worlds.
Which is to say, viewers took the bait—hook, line, and sinker. There was no disclaimer, no warning. Just a serious presentation of a decidedly unserious film. In the days and weeks that followed, New Zealanders embraced Colin McKenzie as a new national hero, and Peter Jackson was applauded for bringing his achievements to the public eye. All of which was a little more than the filmmakers had intended, and in the end Peter apologized to just about everyone who had been offended, including the prime minister. I felt incredibly stupid for falling so completely for the ruse, but I also felt tremendous admiration for Peter. The making of
Forgotten Silver
required creativity and ingenuity, but it also took guts.

So when the call came from my agent, it was Peter's name that got my attention.

Oh, my, it's the Peter Jackson my dad described to me; it's the Peter who had called me from his screening room to say how much he loved me in
Rudy.
It's Peter of “Peter and Fran”—Fran, who once told me that my work in
Where the Day Takes You
was what they were watching on video in their hospital room when she was giving birth to their son, Billy. That Peter.

Instantly, what was triggered in me when I heard his name was a heightened sensitivity, a feeling that something important was about to happen. An opportunity of the sort that didn't come along every day. “Trilogy” obviously meant three, as in three movies, as in three jobs, or one very long job, which was good news, and obviously I knew New Line was in the business of making movies, so right away I knew this was one of the more important phone calls I'd ever received. I knew Peter's career was growing, moving in a particular direction; even though
The Frighteners
hadn't been as successful as it could have been, it was still a big-budget Hollywood movie, and I knew that Peter was not going to be doing anything smaller than that. “Trilogy” sounded good. It sounded right.

Let me explain. I know I would not have been cast in
The Lord of the Rings
if not for my work in
Where the Day Takes You
and
Rudy.
Those two movies ingratiated me, demonstrated the caliber of my talent to Fran and Peter, two incredible artists who were open-minded and forward leaning when it came time to hear my name on the list, and so they invited me to audition.
Encino Man
didn't help me get the job, but neither did it hurt me—not in this case. Peter understands the arc of a career, the choices and compromises that are made, and he was willing to give me a chance based on the fact that at times I had done some pretty damn good work. I'm grateful for the way things have turned out, but I don't see it as mere serendipity. Tolkien's brilliance, the incredible mythology, the spectacular business success of those books, the quantum readership that's there, and the generational following the author has—well, I feel like there's a balance between me seeing that ship flying by and desperately throwing a lasso around it and sailing with it, and me kind of running alongside, keeping apace, so that I was able to step on board at just the right moment. It wasn't like I was watching opportunities go by, flailing helplessly away, and I finally grabbed that one, the
big one
! That makes me sound helpless. While I would be the first to acknowledge my great fortune in being a part of this project, I also think I deserve some credit for my own involvement.

Ignorance of the subject matter notwithstanding, I knew this was a big deal. I knew it from the names of some of the people involved, and from the excitement in Nikki's voice. The fact that it was New Line, which didn't throw money around casually, implied that there would be a relatively tight fist on the wallet, but that was all right. If Peter Jackson had signed on, then it had to be worthwhile. And I trusted Nikki. She was always very sweet with me. I liked her personality a lot, even though in some ways she was a stereotypical agent. She spoke in a lilting, reassuring way, yet didn't hesitate to let you know when you simply weren't going to get what you wanted. I got along well with Nikki and was happy to entrust my career to her straightforward, honest approach. The truth is, all agencies work in a conflict of interest, even smaller ones, because they have a roster of clients who often compete for the same jobs. The best you can hope for as an actor is that, when they're pitching you to the casting director or to the director or the producers, they're up to speed on your latest accomplishments. But as soon as they get an indication that it won't work, that you aren't first in line for the job, they switch gears.

“Hey, have you thought about Sean Astin for this?”

“No, not really.”

“Well, you know, he's gotten some great reviews lately.”

“Uh-huh … Who else you got?”

Boom! That's it. The agent immediately transitions to another client, because all he or she cares about—naturally—is keeping the commission in house.

I'd been through that sort of thing a lot. I didn't want it to happen again now. The stakes were too high. I was worried about my family and career. I knew that I was in a rut. Despite becoming better educated, better read, and more equipped to navigate the shark-infested waters of Hollywood, I hadn't made the progress I wanted to make. A lot of the movies I was doing went right under the radar—nobody saw them or would remember them—so I felt like I hadn't reached critical mass yet on having done schlock. But I was getting dangerously close, and that was the source of much of my anxiety: among the kind of smart, interesting, creative people who drive the movie business, I was afraid I wasn't perceived as someone who was really dedicated to his craft. Instead, I was perceived as the guy who was going to school and raising a family and struggling a bit after
Rudy.
And that's an accurate reading on it.

All of that contributed to my intensely acute reaction to Nikki's call. I tried to absorb everything while simultaneously asking the right questions and looking for a place to pull off the road and park the car.

“The Lord of the Rings?”
I asked, repeating the one piece of information that meant almost nothing to me.

“Yes, yes,” she said. “You know, Tolkien.
The Lord of the Rings.”

“No, I don't know.”

“The Lord of the Rings!”
she shouted. “They're the sequels to
The Hobbit.
You do know
The Hobbit?

I took a deep breath.
The Hobbit
. Okay, that I knew. Somewhere deep in the dark recesses of my memory, I thought I recognized
The Hobbit
as a book my mother had read to me when I was a kid. Upon further review, however, I must admit that I'm pretty sure I was confusing
The Hobbit
with
The Phantom Tollbooth.
Either way, it's fair to say that I was basically a blank slate on the subject of Tolkien. But there was no point in admitting that to Nikki. I wanted the job. I
needed
the job.

“A flawless British accent by Thursday, huh?” It was Tuesday afternoon. I laughed nervously. “Can't it be Friday?”

“No! They're faxing the pages to you right now, and Victoria Burrows will meet with you on Thursday. Take it or leave it.”

There was no leaving it, of course, and not merely because it was such an awesome opportunity. Victoria Burrows was an important person in my life and career. As the casting director on
The Frighteners,
she was responsible for bringing my father in to meet with Peter and Fran. I had met Victoria at a gathering at Universal Studios following the premiere of
The Frighteners
, and had found her to be enormously engaging and interesting. She knew about
Kangaroo Court
and the fact that it had been nominated for an Academy Award, and she seemed to genuinely admire my work. Whether she actually did, I'm not quite sure, but I do know that she was a smart, beautiful woman, with no small amount of power, and I was completely taken aback that she had any idea who I was. It was immensely flattering.

Victoria asked me if I was interested in any more directorial work, and I said that indeed I was. She then told me that Richard Donner was in the process of lining up directors for the television series
Perversions of Science,
which had been adapted from
Tales from the Crypt
. Well, that was a critical piece of information, for the next morning I went straight to my publicist's office and said, “You know what? Get me Dick Donner on the phone.” A few minutes later I had Dick cornered.

“Remember when you promised me an episode of
Tales from the Crypt
in the first season or, worst-case scenario, the second season?”

“Look, Sean…”

“And it went five seasons and I never got a shot? Well, now I hear you've got this new show, and you're looking for directors. I'm on the list, right?”

“It's not my money, kid.”

“Come on, Dick. I was nominated for an Academy Award.”

“I know.”

“It isn't rocket science. I'm overqualified to do this thing. So let's go! What are we waiting for?”

Eventually he got tired of my badgering him, and I got him to promise that if my name came up, he wouldn't reject me. So I hung up and started calling around to see what I could make happen. I worked closely with the rest of his team and landed the job. But the point is this: without Victoria Burrows, I wouldn't even have known the job existed. So she's on my list of angels who have helped me and given me insight at critical moments in my life and career.

Now, while on the phone with my agent, I learned that not only was I being considered for a role in what sounded like an important project, but the person charged with the task of casting the film was none other than Victoria Burrows. I couldn't help but smile.

“Nikki, was it your idea to put me up for this part—or Victoria's?”

The line went quiet for a moment.

“Honey … it was both of us.”

Which meant, of course, that it was Victoria's idea. But what the hell. This was no time to argue over loyalty. This was a time to argue over
time.
I needed more. Lots more. There was research to conduct, material to read, a dialect coach to be hired. How could I possibly develop a flawless British accent in two days, and still have time left over to figure out who the hell Tolkien was? It just wasn't possible.

I tried to make this case to Nikki as I steered the car back into traffic and began looking for the nearest bookstore. In desperation, I played what I thought was a trump card.

“Look, Peter Jackson is a friend of my dad's. I'm sure if he knows that I'm preparing an audition tape, he'll wait a couple more days.” (My dad later told me he had promoted me to Victoria before I got the call. Frankly, I'm grateful to all who played a hand in my future!)

Dead silence on the other end of the line.

“Nikki?”

“Thursday, Sean. Be ready.”

I hung up the phone and immediately called Christine, who somehow interpreted my breathless ranting and understood the importance of what was about to happen. She was familiar with Peter's work, but she also admired him for his ability to forge a seemingly perfect creative alliance with Fran. Christine, too, had met Peter at the premiere of
The Frighteners,
and she'd seen my father's scrapbook documenting the making of that film, with hundreds of pictures of the magnificent prosthetic work of Richard Taylor (which would also be a vital component in the making of
The Lord of the Rings).
In sum, she knew Peter was a master craftsman. Of equal importance to Christine, though, was the memory of one evening at our home in Sherman Oaks, sharing dinner with my father and his wife, Val (Valerie Sandobal), during which they waxed eloquent on the subject of marriage and work, and how, under the right circumstances, the two can be combined to form an almost perfect union. Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson had done precisely that, according to my father. They were a team in the purest sense of the word, utterly committed to a common goal in their professional lives, as well as to each other. They believed in making work part of their family, and family part of their work. And they did it beautifully. Christine and I came away from that evening longing for a similarly powerful creative relationship, so when she heard that I had a chance to work with Peter and Fran, she was almost as excited as I was.