Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
So what the hell was I thinking accepting an interview request for Harry Connick Jr.? Actually that's an easy question. Although I know virtually nothing about his long career as a New Orleans jazz pianist and crooner, I remember so distinctly hearing his voice for the first time on the WHEN HARRY MET SALLY… soundtrack. It was the perfect music to set a modern romance to, and the soundtrack album made him a superstar.
But that has nothing to do with why I agreed to talk to him. I actually like Connick as an actor. He has a natural ease and charm on screen when he needs to, and I was actually surprised to see when looking over his filmography that he's really on made a couple of romantic comedies, a genre that his looks and charisma would seem naturally suited to. As I tell him in our conversation, the role that really captivated me was as the psychopathic murderer in COPYCAT, but I thought he was terrific in supporting roles in such films as MEMPHIS BELLE, INDEPENDENCE DAY, LITTLE MAN TATE, BASIC, and most recently in BUG playing a scarily jealous man. Perhaps most importantly, the voice work he did in Brad Bird's THE IRON GIANT has leant him a great deal of respect in the geek community.
I'm not going to lie, I'm not a big fan of Connick's latest film, NEW IN TOWN, which opened last Friday. But as I said in my review (which I actually wrote before I'd gotten the invite to talk to Connick on a stop in Chicago), I think the guy is pretty good in the movie, even if the movie isn't much to brag about. So thanks in advance for indulging my personal tastes (I guess I should say that every week), but I'll think you'll find Connick quite refreshing as an artist, a man who has played an important role in rebuilding the post-Katrina New Orleans music scene, and as a guy who still gets excited about the chances he's been given to act. Enjoy…
Capone: So, on a whirlwind tour here?
Harry Connick, Jr.: Yeah. How’s it going? Pretty good?
Capone: Yeah, yeah…So, I’m not as familiar with you as a singer as I am an actor, but I didn’t realize you’ve been acting for 20 years.
HCJ: It’s been a long time.
Capone: That’s a career, man. That’s not just a singer that acts sometimes. That’s a career as an actor. You’ve been at a while now, and you average about a movie a year. How do you rate yourself as an actor?
HCJ: Well, I really love doing it, you know. And, the cool thing about being both is that I don’t have to do one to survive, which works well for me, because I don’t have the personality that…I have a short attention span. So, when I do a CD, and I go on the road for a few months, when I come off the road, and there’s a movie waiting, it’s a nice chance for me to remain creative without doing the same thing over and over again, you know?
Capone: Yeah. And, to the degree that you don’t even play someone who sings in the movies. You really separate the two.
HCJ: Right, yeah. I mean, singing and playing is really like…it’s just a way of expression, and the same thing with acting. Sometimes, you’re just trying to communicate certain ideas in music that you’re not necessarily feeling at the time. And, it’s the same thing with acting. You’re just using a much more concrete version of communication, as opposed to music, which is more abstract, you know what I’m saying? So, I think they’re similar in some ways.
Capone: Yeah. Do you feel like you’re good at it and that over the years you’ve gotten better?
HCJ: Well, yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of technique to it that I’ve…compared to the first movie I did, when I knew nothing, compared to now. Oh, yeah, I’ve gotten better at that. I’ve never really had a problem with expressing myself. But, there’s always something to improve. Like, I look back at every movie I’ve done, if you showed them to me, there would be things that I would do differently. But, that’s a good indication that, you there’s always a quest to improve.
Capone: Right. Just based on your reputation as a singer, but it seemed like in the beginning of your acting career there might have been more of a push, especially from casting agents, to have you do more of the romantic leading man roles. You did a couple of those. But, really, NEW IN TOWN is maybe the second outright romance film that you’ve done. You’ve actually done a lot of really great genre stuff over the years. Are you sort of a closet film geek that kind of likes those movies?
HCJ: Well, I’m an art geek, I mean, I like creativity. And, it’s easy to get pigeon-holed, especially when you have success. The other cool thing about not being a major, major movie star is that I’ve never had to follow up something. For example, let’s say this movie is number one for a month, then I’ll probably get calls to do some stuff like this, which would mean the pigeon-holing has begun. That’s not interesting to me, to do the same thing over and over again.
I like doing romantic comedies, but I also like doing some of the other things I’ve done, which are as far from romantic comedy as you can get. I like the variety of it, you know?
Capone: Yeah. Looking back over the films, I still think that the stuff you did in COPYCAT is some of the strongest work that I’ve seen you do. And, it was scary stuff.
HCJ: Oh, Thanks.
Capone: But, after I see something like HOPE FLOATS, I imagine there was that push to sort of pigeon-hole you in that type of role.
HCJ: Kind of, yes and no. It’s all about the communication you have with the people you work with. I mean, the agents that I have--I’ve had most of them since then. They say, “What do you want to do?” And, I say, “I really don’t care.” They say, “Well, do you want to do more romantic comedies, or do you want to be a superhero? Where should we go?” I said, “I don’t care. Just send me stuff that you think is quality.” And, then I read it. And, they send me the gamut, man, I mean, I read all kinds of stuff. I like that better than anything else.
Capone: Have you said ‘no’ to something that, once it got made, you’re, like, “Man, I should have signed on for that”?
HCJ: No, not too much, not too much. I’ve been pretty lucky, because just about everything I’ve done was something I wanted to do. And, I don’t really remember turning something down that ended up being something that I wanted to do.
Capone: Yeah. As I said, I was sort of looking over some of the genre stuff, like INDEPENDENCE DAY and, like I said, COPYCAT…and, of course, THE IRON GIANT. That has to be a movie that I’m sure still comes up among certain journalists that you talk to, because that thing’s this hidden little classic that I own, and most people that love good animation own that movie.
HCJ: Sure.
Capone:…And, just to see where [director] Brad Bird has gone on from that film, come on, I mean…
HCJ: That’s a freak show. [laughs]
Capone:…And, even BUG from a couple years ago, with now an Oscar-nominated Michael Shannon. That’s really good stuff, and that’s stuff I don’t think a lot of people early on would have thought you would have really attempted.
HCJ: Yeah, like, for example, I was in Las Vegas at a…A friend of mine was opening a casino out there. And, he had a huge party, hundreds of people, and I was there with my wife. And, I was sitting across the table from [director] William Friedkin, and I had never met him. Huge fan--I mean, SORCERER and THE FRENCH CONNECTION, and THE EXCORCIST, among others--and, I’m well aware of his status among his peers, I mean, those guys who came from that generation--Francis Ford Coppola and all those guys--he was, like, The Man.
And, I’m a huge of fan of his, and we talked about it. He asked my wife a question, and I looked at him, and I said something like, “You should stop hittin’ on my wife.” And, I didn’t laugh, I just kind of stayed with it. And then, he looked at me like I was serious, and then died laughing.
Well, two weeks later, he called and says, “I’m doing a movie [BUG], and I want you to play this role in the movie, because of that comment.” Now, I had no desire to--let’s rephrase that--I had no plans to work with William Friedkin. I would have jumped at it, which I did. But, things just happened, and that was a movie where I probably wouldn’t even have known about it other than that, but it was a great opportunity for me. I didn’t even care what the script was. I didn’t even care.
Capone: But, you sold him on the jealous lover routine.
HCJ: Well, he said, “You did something when you were expressing that [that] said, ‘I want to play this part’.” And, like I said, bro, I didn’t even need to read the script. I mean, just the chance to be in the same room with that guy was all I wanted.
Capone: You might not even know it, but the fact that you brought up SORCERER tells me something about you. That’s a movie that a lot of people thought was junk, but then there’s this little subsection that thinks it’s one of the greatest things he ever did.
HCJ: Oh, absolutely, unquestionably.
Capone: So, that tells me, yeah, you’re an enthusiast, more than just a categorical fan.
HCJ: I like art, man. I like great art. And, anybody who says that scene with…going over that bridge with Roy Scheider, and there’s, like, 10 minutes of no dialogue. Try shooting that, as a director. Try making somebody watch a movie for 10 minutes with nothing being said.
Capone: Try it today. Forget about it.
HCJ: Ah, it’s insane. And, that was right after THE EXORCIST when he said he had unlimited budget. I mean, I drilled him about it, question after question. It was amazing.
Capone: Wow. So, on NEW IN TOWN, you’re filming in Winnipeg, not Minnesota, but I can’t imagine that you, in particular, are used to that kind of weather.
HCJ: Well, I live in New York, and I’ve lived there since ’86, but even still, man, like, Winnipeg cold is not like Chicago or New York cold. It’s just…it’s sick. I mean, when you’re talking 40, 50 below, you have to stand out in it for a long time, it’s very trying.
Capone: Were parts of you freezing you didn’t know could freeze?
HCJ: You didn’t know it, man. Body parts are dropping off and stuff. [laughs]
Capone: And, a great assortment of these wonderful character actors that you get to play with, [J.K.] Simmons and Frances [Conroy] and Siobhan [Fallon]. Are you the kind of actor that learns from the people that you work with? Can you learn anything from people like that?
HCJ: Well, I observe them, and I’m fascinated with the different processes that they bring to it. But, yeah, I mean, there’s always something to learn. But, specifically, I didn’t learn anything on this movie. Everybody just kind of brought their own thing to it. But, if you think about the people I’ve worked with over the years, yeah, there’s always something to learn.
Capone: Do you remember someone in particular that most influenced you?
HCJ: Well, I did a movie once, and Gena Rowlands [HOPE FLOATS] was in it. And, I remember watching her, and being a fan of the stuff she did with [John] Cassavetes, just anyway. But, watching her on set and listening to her speak on set, it didn’t sound right to me, the gait of her speech, the rhythm, didn’t sound natural to me. And, I remember going home, thinking, like, ‘I thought she was a lot better than that’. But, then, when you watch the movie…
Or, another example was Pete Postlethwaite. I did a movie with him. And, there’s something…it’s not like being in the movie, and it’s not like us talking now. It’s a different type of being natural. And, it’s a heightened version of natural. I can’t really explain it, but watching them do that and knowing what it’s going to be like on film is really interesting. Really, really, really interesting.
One thing in particular, I remember Pete Postlethwaite having an argument with this guy on screen. It was the scene, and he was pawing at him like this, and I just remember saying, like, “That just seems so staged. It doesn’t seem…” You know, he’s done every Shakespeare play, ever. And, when you see it, because he knows how it’s lit, where the camera is, because he knows the technique of that, and how he thought they were going to cut it together, it was very, very powerful and very subtle. But, those are just things you just learn from experience.
Capone: Right. What movie were you in with him?
HCJ: Oh, it wasn’t even released. It was called WAYWARD SON. It never was released.
Capone: You mentioned you live in New York, but you uprooted yourself, like the character in this movie. You weren’t pulled somewhere else, you left voluntarily. Do you know, was this character always written as someone from the South, or did they change it for you?
HCJ: No, it was. Or, at least, by the time I got there, either they knew it was going to be me playing the part, so they did it--which is just one less thing I had to think about. I mean, as soon as you start screwing around with regional accents, it’s just another layer that, you know…it’s just easier.
Capone: I wondered about that, because it’s not something that comes into play later in the film, but I wondered, Was that just them not…was that you, maybe, not wanting to learn the access
HCJ: Nope, if he had been from Minnesota, I would have been fine. When I read the script, that’s the draft I saw.
Capone: Well, I guess it does come into play, because you and Renée are both non-natives. Was the fact that you were someone who, in reverse of what your character does, uprooted yourself and moved to the big city…was that something you could draw on?
HCJ: I didn’t draw on anything in my personal experience for this. Nothing. Because this guy is a lot of things that I wish I were, like, he’s very secure, he’s very strong, very patient, he’s sort of withholding of his emotions. I’m none of those things, I mean, I’m very emotive and spontaneous, and impulsive and judgmental, and responsive, you know? He’s not those things. So, I didn’t draw upon any of my own stuff, even the ‘new in town’ part. I just started with a clean slate, and I said, “Let me just figure this guy out on his own.”
Capone: When you moved to New York, did you kind of have that idea that you would conquer The Big Apple?
HCJ: Oh, yeah. I went up there saying, “I’m going to be like…I’m going to be The Man up here.” It so wasn’t like that. [laughs]
Capone: Yeah. They’re just waiting for me, and they don’t even know it.
HCJ: Yeah. It was far from it, man, far from it. But, I was really lucky, I mean, I didn’t have to too long. I waited a few years. I got a record deal, and I was on my way, so I was real lucky.
Capone: Well, there’s a pretty healthy jazz circuit, even just piano-bar circuit, in New York.
HCJ: Sure, lots of places to work and play. No, I was busy. I had a pretty good time.
Capone: You played for the pope last year. What the heck was that like?
HCJ: Yeah. Well, technically, I was supposed to play for him, but I didn’t, because he wasn’t there. We played…
Capone: What happened? That’s right, I remember reading about that.
HCJ: I was told I was going to be playing for the pope, so I played for…I thought the pope was there, and we finished, and then, the pope comes in. So, I was pretty bummed. But, we did meet him afterwards.
Capone: But, in your mind…So, you met the pope.
HCJ: Just the tradition alone, whether you’re Catholic or whatever, to meet somebody who’s held the position that goes back 2,000 years is pretty overwhelming. And, he’s an overwhelming guy, I mean, you know, again, you don’t have to be Catholic to appreciate his brilliance. I mean, the guy is a scholar’s scholar. He’s incredibly bright and, really, a nice, gentle man.
Capone: Yeah. All I could think about--I didn’t know he wasn’t actually there when you played--but, all I could think about was ‘He was in COPYCAT, and now he’s meeting the pope!’ I wonder if the pope saw COPYCAT.
I have family in New Orleans who lived through Katrina, were displaced and came back. So, I still get down there a lot. Can you talk a little bit about some of the efforts you’re still involved in, building up the music community, specifically, and just the community in general?
HCJ: Sure. Well, they’re basically one and the same in my experience. We have a project--we being me and Branford Marsalis--have a project with Habitat for Humanity called Musicians’ Village. And, our main idea was to build on the core site of the Musicians’ Village about 80 houses and in the thousands around the whole of New Orleans. But, we had about, I don’t know, about five or six blocks that Habitat owned prior to Katrina that we started building homes on.
The idea was to get as many musicians as we could that were evacuated back to New Orleans. Well, there was a federal mandate that said we were not allowed to discriminate against non-musicians, so we put it…It was open to everybody. Basically, anybody who would apply for low-income housing could apply, but we really wanted the musicians to come. So, about 80 percent of the people living there now are musicians and their families. And, in the center of that is a school for music that’s under construction called the Ellis Marsalis School for Music, which is a place where the people living in the community can go and teach…which is a formal transferral of information, whereas, when I was a kid, you’d just go down to a club or some venue where there were older musicians playing and learn the tradition that way. But, as time goes on, there’s less and less of that happening, both because of the musicians that have been displaced, and there’s less venues for them to play. So, this will actually double as a recording space, performance hall, and teaching facility for these older musicians to teach young ones.
Capone: Are things in the city in general now progressing? Is the rebuilding and pulling back in of citizens moving ahead? I mean, we’re still less than five years out…
HCJ: Yeah, it’s coming, but, I mean…
Capone: Is it happening fast enough for you?
HCJ: Well, I mean, you wish it would happen in a year, but…well, you know, man, I mean, the geographical devastation alone were huge, I mean, I don’t think people realize. It would be like if the main center of Chicago was pretty much okay, and then you go for 50 miles, I mean, it’s just wiped out.
But, people are coming back. Like, my old neighborhood, Lakeview, which is right where the levy broke, my house has since been torn down and rebuilt. And, you know, they’re coming along. It’s just going to take a while.
Capone: I remember seeing that footage of you in the boat. And, you went to look for your dad’s house, was that what it was?
HCJ: Yeah, ’cause I couldn’t reach my dad. So, I was basically going down there—as much as I…I mean, I selfishly used the NBC plane in my name to get down there to check on my family’s house, my friends’ houses, whatever I could do. I mean, that was a terrible time.
Capone: And, movies are coming back to the city, too, I think BENJAMIN BUTTON being the most visible.
HCJ: It’s great.
Capone: Denzel Washington’s been in a couple of them.
HCJ: That’s right.
Capone: Are you trying to do anything down there, acting-wise?
HCJ: Well, I try to get movies brought there. I did a movie called LIVING PROOF, which was for Lifetime, they produce. They were going to shoot it in Toronto, and I said, “Is there any way you can shoot it in New Orleans?” And, they said, “Yeah, okay, why not?” So, I got that shot there. As much as I can do. Sometimes, I ‘m not in a position to do that, but in this case, I was. So, that was good.
Capone: That’s the movie that Renée produced, right?
HCJ: Correct.
Capone: Did you do that first, or did you do NEW IN TOWN first?
HCJ: I did this first--that was in January--and then in June, we went to New Orleans to do LIVING PROOF. And then, that came out a month after we did it. It was really quick.
Capone: What are working on musically right now?
HCJ: Well, I got to get back in the studio, but I don’t know what it’s going to be for. I know in the next couple of months, I’ll be back in there. I just don’t know for what.
Capone: And, then, what movie-wise, do you have anything planned?
HCJ: I got stuff going on, but I can’t really tell you about it, because it’s in the beginning stages. But, one of them is a movie musical project that I’d love to do, because I’ve never done that, really. And, I’m just reading scripts and trying to figure out what I’m going to be doing.
Capone: Can I ask if it’s a musical of a known work, or a new musical?
HCJ: It would be something known, yeah.
Capone: Okay…’cause you did…was it SOUTH PACIFIC?
HCJ: Uh-huh.
Capone: Hey, musicals are happening right now.
HCJ: Yeah, let’s hope.
Capone: A friend of mine, when I mentioned I was coming down here, said, “Oh, yeah, I saw him play at the Christmas show in December, and his voice sounded like chocolate syrup. I like it.” I thought, I gotta tell him that.
HCJ: Oh, that’s sweet, that’s sweet. That’s nice.
Capone: So, do you like to sort of…you mentioned that you don’t have to rely on either for a living, but do you like the idea of going back and forth?
HCJ: I love it. Exactly. That’s why I alternate. I usually do a CD and a tour, and then a movie, and then I kind of flip-flop, I mean, not necessarily in that order. But, it keeps it exciting for me.
Capone: Well, I've enjoyed your acting work a great deal, especially the genre stuff especially. I got to admit between BUG and COPYCAT and MEMPHIS BELLE, I think those are great films.
HCJ: Oh, thanks, man. This was fun.
Capone: Yeah, thanks for talking to us.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com
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