IF THE world were a fair place, “Ned and Stacey” would have been as big a success as “Will & Grace.” That mid-’90s sitcom also starred Debra Messing – alongside a hilarious, gravel-voiced actor named Thomas Haden Church, at the time best known as the eccentric mechanic from “Wings.” Church played Ned for two seasons, to dwindling audiences, then eventually chucked the acting thing and moved back to his native Texas, where he became a full-time cattle rancher.
He re-emerged in 2004, drawl intact, when Alexander Payne called and asked him to audition for “Sideways,” and then landed a blockbuster role as Sandman in “Spider-Man 3.” Church brings a lackadaisical quality to his new role in “Smart People,” out Friday, in which he co-stars with Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker and Ellen Page.
In the movie, you play the slacker uncle to Ellen Page’s uptight high schooler. What was your relationship with her like offscreen?
I was immediately intimidated by her. [Laughs] Something in the dynamic of that relationship, I think, was applicable off-camera. She chastised me a little for being silly, you know, for trying to distract her. She is remarkably professional for 20 or 21. One day I asked her, “What did you do last night?” And she said, “I slept.” I said, “That’s all you did?” She said, “And dreamt of you.” She was totally making fun of me. She has this subtle, Canadian, acerbic wit.
This is Noam Murro’s first time directing – how did he get you all to sign on?
Noam’s not your run-of-the-mill debuting filmmaker. He’s a widely critically praised commercial maker and director. He’s in his 40s, very literate. One of the things I liked about him is he’s an Israeli-born Jew, and I think English is like his fifth language. He just has this kind of great worldview of characters. And culturally I think this is a very specific movie – it addresses with great specificity a dysfunction in an American family.
So how did his worldview translate to these characters?
Noam would be like [switches to Israeli accent] “I have this fond memory of my uncle in Tel Aviv, in 1980. He told me: You must have this one experience before you go into the military, and this involves going into the countryside and smoking a great deal of hashish.” Noam’s completely transplanted his experience with his uncle into this very American story. The world isn’t that big. It’s really not.
How much time do you spend in LA these days?
I have lived exclusively in Texas for almost seven years. It’s ironic – I’m a commercial cattle rancher, but I don’t eat red meat all that much.
And how has life been since you moved out there?
I just recently eclipsed the 19th anniversary of moving to LA and pursuing the industry as a profession. I’ve lived in Texas for the last six years, and those years have been pretty damn good compared to the previous 12 in LA, when I was so kind of trenchantly obsessed with everything about the business. I remember this interview with Nora Ephron, who quoted her father as saying, “If you’re not working, LA’s the last place you want to be.” That was from 1935! I mean, it’s not better in 2008.
PICKING hIS BRAIN
“I’m a full-time rancher. We run four ranches – 500 head of cattle.”
In Marie Claire, they said I had gorgeously muscled buttocks. I would like to know what their benchmark for “gorgeous,” “muscled” and “buttock” is.
I’m reading this biography, “Charlatan,” by Pope Brock. It’s about this man, J.R. Brinkley, who was a quack doctor. In the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s, largely in the Midwest, he became famous and ridiculously wealthy for his virility therapy. He would implant goat testicles into men. And, to some extent, it worked. One of his pamphlets read, “How would you like your withered bow to be a green sapling again?”
“Alien” came out the year I graduated high school. I was on my way to the beach to go surfing, and the waves were flat but supposed to come up later that afternoon. “Alien” was playing, and I was mildly interested in it, so I went in. I was the only person in the theater for a 1 p.m. showing. And it scared me – that movie scared me. I was like, “Someone come in here, please! I need you!” I was so riveted. By the character study, by the special effects, by just how terrifying the alien was – and it’s only onscreen two seconds at a time.
Creatine is an invaluable muscle-builder. I cycle it – I know that sounds like steroids, but it’s not, it’s completely legal – and it’s predigested, broken down in a lab, so it’ll be more soluble. It’s a good thing if you’re a big workout person or trying to get into it. It gives you what they call “explosive strength.”
I don’t drink wine, but if I did [“Sideways” fans take note], I would be fine with pinot noirs. Sea Smoke, which is a very small vineyard in Santa Barbara County – they make an excellent pinot.