Matthew Modine: ‘It’s fascinating watching the sack of flesh I live in showing signs of wear’

Born in California, Matthew Modine, 63, made his film debut in the 80s, sharing the best actor award at the 1983 Venice film festival for Robert Altman’s Streamers. In 1984, he played the title role in Alan Parker’s Birdy, and in 1987 he starred in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. Modine is Dr Martin Brenner in the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, and is currently playing Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird in the West End of London. He is married with two children and lives in New York.

What is your greatest fear?
Having a great fear.

What is your earliest memory?
We were having dinner and my cousin said we were eating my pet chicken, Susie. We adopted my mother’s sister’s children five days before I was born, after my aunt’s husband came home and shot her and then shot himself in front of the children. Gun violence in the US is not new.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I would deplore feeling deplorable about myself.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
The inability to negotiate peace and truly forgive.

Describe yourself in three words
Doing my best.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?
It’s fascinating watching the sack of flesh I live in showing signs of wear. But I am grateful, each morning, to wake up in it.

What is your most unappealing habit?
Procrastinating.

What scares you about getting older?
Nothing. Better than the alternative.

Which book are you ashamed not to have read?
Dante’s Inferno (in Italian).

What is the worst thing anyone’s said to you?
“You can’t.”

What does love feel like?
Like falling – endlessly – and then discovering you have wings.

Have you ever said “I love you” without meaning it?
Of course I have. But it wasn’t because I didn’t want to actually make that person feel loved and appreciated.

Which living person do you most despise, and why?
Trump/Putin. Same person. Egotistical, bombastic, selfish shites.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Stay positive.

What has been your biggest disappointment?
My biggest disappointment would be living with disappointment. What a burden to be shackled to. I would be truly disappointed if I didn’t (as the song says) pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.

How often do you have sex?
Who’s counting?

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Stretching.

Would you rather have more sex, money or fame?
Well, I guess I won the lottery. Lucky me.

How would you like to be remembered?
As a kind person who cared for others.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
That we are all no more and no less than a single thread in a gigantic web of life. What we do and how we behave has repercussions for the entire web.

What happens when we die?
Only dying will tell.

Tell us a joke
Two peanuts were walking down the road. One was assaulted.