illiam Forsythe is one of those actors you see in anything and everything. He can turn up in mainstream Hollywood films or indie features or on TV, in action flicks or comedies, drama or comedy. He'll play the good guy, the baddie or the guy you think is one thing but turns out to be the other. He's amassed a credits list that spans from Once Upon a Time in America, Dick Tracy and The Waterdance to the TV update of The Untouchables, Virtuosity and The Rock, and from Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo to the series John Doe to the SCI FI Channel movie Larva. Forsythe has several projects in the can at the moment, too, including Rob Zombie's upcoming frightfest The Devil's Rejects, Joe Roth's drama-thriller Freedomland, opposite Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore, and the SCI FI Channel movie Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy.
Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy debuted last Saturday and will repeat on June 23 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on SCI FI. Jeffrey Combs plays a bitter scientist who's "saved" his dying son by splicing together human and shark DNA and transforming him into a shark-man creature. Out for revenge, Combs lures his enemies—among them Forsythe, who becomes the group's leader—to a secluded island, where the shark-man hunts them down one by one.
Forsythe recently talked to Science Fiction Weekly about Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy, his other upcoming projects and his career.
William Forsythe, how did this project come together for you? Did your agent call and say "Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy" and you, er, bit?
Forsythe: Well, this film came together faster than anything else I think I've ever done. I literally got a phone call at something like 10 o'clock in the morning. I was in New York and I was asleep. My agent said, "I don't know how to say this, but pack your bag. You may be leaving for Bulgaria today. I'm going to get the script over to you right now." So it was a very quick, strange thing. I got the script within the hour and read it. I really like doing SF. I really like it, and it's only in the past couple of years that I've done it. So I said, "OK, Bulgaria. Let's go." That was the quickest decision I've ever made in my life.
Whenever people hear the word Bulgaria, they think of cold weather. Yet, in the film, we're looking at a tropical paradise.
Forsythe: Let me tell you, all those scenes in the water were shot in what I'd call the winter-spring season. So it definitely had that going on, even though we were all doing up the tropics there.
When you read a script about splicing shark DNA with human DNA, and when you've got a story about a man-shark running amok, what runs through your head? Camp it up? Play it straight? Just have fun?
Forsythe: Just have fun. That's all you can do. At some point in the game, you give it a quick read. The guy has some balls. He's an interesting guy. And from that point on you're fighting a dude wearing a shark outfit. All you can do with a piece like this is, each scene, just commit, like it's really happening. You just go out and do it, not a lot of thought process. To me, it's the same as any part. The circumstances seem absurd. I did a scene one day, and it was the first time I'd seen the shark on land. We were hiding behind a bush and suddenly I saw the shark. It was like it was out of the Saturday Night Live sketch. "Landshark!" He was suddenly walking through the bushes. It was absurd, but you just have to play it like it's really happening.
You did another movie for SCI FI last year, Larva. What did you make of how that one came together?
Forsythe: I thought it turned out great. I was really proud of that one. I thought it really came together as a film. I wasn't sure how Hammerhead would turn out. I know we had good moments and good scenes, but I haven't seen it yet. And by the time I got there we were well on our way to being done.
You're due next in The Devil's Rejects. How was that as an experience?
Forsythe: Oh, it was great. I loved it. I had a tremendous working relationship with Rob Zombie. We got along great. We love the same kinds of things in film. I think he's created his own genre with this film. But I just had a spectacular experience with Rob. We met on the phone, and within five minutes we were talking about Robert Shaw and Lee Marvin and all these kinds of guys. That's the kind of character my guy in the movie is, this bigger-than-life sheriff. The movie is going to be outrageous. It's a rock-and-roll slasher movie, with a lot of dark humor.
You've also just wrapped Freedomland. Give us a sense of that.
Forsythe: That was probably one of the most phenomenal, if not the most phenomenal experience I've had in a long, long time. First of all, the script, by Richard Price, was fantastic. The minute I read it, it felt to me like a '70s film, a real film about real people and a real tragedy (the disappearance of Julianne Moore's daughter). I had great relationships with Samuel L. Jackson and (director) Joe Roth. I think Freedomland is going to be overwhelming. I've only seen eight minutes of it put together, but it's really powerful material.
You co-starred on a very cool but very short-lived series called John Doe. It ended, obviously, before we learned the truth about John [Dominic Purcell] and the truth about your character, the mysterious bartender Digger. Had [creator-producers] Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson given you any feeling for where things were headed?
Forsythe: It was just getting interesting when it was canceled. When I agreed to do John Doe, they told me about all these great things they had planned. And, to be honest, the first eight, nine, 10 episodes go by and I'm back tending bar like I did in the '70s. It was really weird for me. I was working one day an episode, and I'm a workaholic. I like to really do it, but I started to think, "Wow, am I the highest-paid extra in history?" And then, just at the moment they got to the halfway point in the season, it got very interesting. And then, near the end, it got really interesting. There's no telling where it was going to go. But I ended up having a good experience on it.
So they never told you what Digger was up to? Whether he was a good guy or a bad guy?
Forsythe: It was so secretive. I always laugh about these kinds of things, but they were so secretive. Everything was a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time. And believe me, I worked on them. I'd be in there saying, "Give me something, give me something, give me something." And they held back real strong in that area. I only know one thing, that the ending was going to be very different from what it appeared to be. It was definitely not going to be that I was the villain of the piece. That much I knew, or that I was able to find out with some Mr. Moto detective work.
What else is on tap for you?
Forsythe: I really just finished Freedomland. So I'm kind of kicking back for a minute, and I'm about to go and start dealing with what I'll do for the summer. I haven't committed to anything yet, but there are a few things we're dealing with. But right now I'm free and unemployed.
You're not a big fan of the term character actor, which has been used to describe you. Take us through your thoughts on that.
Forsythe: The true definition of what that is is a wonderful thing. In Hollywood's eye, what that is is a limitation. It's like "You're not the guy to play ..." Look, I've struggled in this business for a long time. I've done a lot of movies, over 80. Out of that I've gotten to play the lead in maybe nine or 10. That's, of course, something I want to do. Always. So when the label hits you, and it's all over me, it's hard. There was some awful thing about me on the IMDB. I don't think it's on there anymore. And also John Forsythe is my dad, apparently. I'm reading that off IMDB for years, and they're using the C-word [character actor]. I don't know; there's just something about it. I love what I do. And in the true sense, from my training, I try to create a character each time. It is something I do. But I don't want that term to limit what I can do. I prefer people to say to me, "You're one of my favorite actors," rather than "You're one of my favorite character actors." It sounds like a slam. At least it sounds that way to me.
Well, you're one of our favorite actors.
Forsythe: God bless you. I appreciate it, man. That's a good thing.
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Also in this issue:
The cast and crew of Batman Begins
and
The cast and crew of Herbie: Fully Loaded
