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Features
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Working in a Company Town
One is the next big thing and the other is tired of hearing the word ‘comeback.’ Taken together, Topher Grace and Dennis Quaid tell you everything you need to know about Hollywood.
Monday, January 10, 2005
By Larry Carroll
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Steve Granitz/Wireimage.com
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The new Tom Hanks?
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Topher Grace has had a pretty decent 2004. He established himself as a romantic leading man in Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, garnered critical praise with Laura Linney in P.S. and continued apace with In Good Company, which opened recently in limited release, all the while starring in the still-strong FOX sitcom That 70’s Show.
The 26-year-old seems to have a good head on his shoulders, and he insists during a recent interview with FilmStew that every movie opposite someone like Dennis Quaid just brings with it more career wisdom. “I think our relationship is the opposite of our characters,” suggests Grace. “I’m really open about talking about how green I am and how I want learn. I want to be the least good person in any project I do.”
After watching Grace’s charismatic turn as Carter Duryea in In Good Company, critics might find the fresh-faced New York native has failed miserably. But Grace, ever the modest sort, admits he still has a lot to learn. “A big part for me was to just shut up and observe. I think the best thing to do is just watch how [Quaid] talks to the director, how he relates to the crew.”
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Steve Granitz/Wireimage.com
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The new Dennis Quaid?
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Quaid of course knows a thing or two about the fickle nature of Hollywood stardom. The actor, on the comeback trail since the one-two 2002 punch of The Rookie and Far From Heaven, sees great parallels between the lot of an ageing male lead – he is now 50 – and the rivalry of In Good Company's two main characters. But he chuckles at tabloid rumors of a real-life on-set discord.
“I’ve been around so long, I’ve had it all,” he admits. “I’ve been from the bottom to the top. I’ve been treated like a dishrag, like yesterday’s news. [But] the idea of there being some sort of competition going on between the new hot guy and the old veteran, that might make a good story somewhere, but that is not the way it is on the set. I think it is best to just pull for everybody.”
“If you don’t really love this, I don’t see how you’re going to last,” adds Quaid, giving a window into the type of fatherly advice he passed on to his co-star. “It’s too frustrating. To get into this career, number one, is almost impossible. Some people do fall into it, but if you don’t love it, you’re not going to sustain it. There is just too much there.”
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Steve Granitz/Wireimage.com
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Writer-director-producer Weitz
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As Quaid throws that statement out there with an emphasis on the word ‘fall’, Grace cracks a smile. Typical of their friendship, it’s a compliment with a bit of sarcasm aimed towards the fortunate young star, who was discovered by That 70’s Show producers Bonnie and Terry Turner while acting in a high school play. “I did fall into it, as Dennis was alluding to,” Grace confesses. “At the beginning I was excited to be on a sitcom, I like sitcoms.”
“But Traffic was my first film and once I was in a situation that was that good, all of a sudden I started to realize, uh oh, I’m really going to fall in love with this job and I need to replicate this experience.”
Quaid, flashing that world-famous grin, can’t help but think of his own early struggles as an aspiring actor. “I was a clown at [Houston-area amusement park] AstroWorld, [and] I was fired from that. Some kid kicked me in the shins. That wasn’t it alone, though; there were many, many things - the case is still pending so I really can’t talk about it,” he laughs.
“I was also once fired as a waiter,” he continues. “I think the last straw was me dropping sour cream on some woman’s head. So, I’m clumsy and you get fired for being clumsy.”
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Steve Granitz/Wireimage.com
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Co-star David Paymer
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Writer-director Paul Weitz (About a Boy, American Pie) remembers the first time Quaid seemed to realize that his excessively hyped young co-star Grace could actually act. “It was the first long dialogue scene; we did Dennis’ close-ups and then we did Topher’s,” he remembers. “Dennis said, ‘Okay Topher, good to meet you’ and he left,” Weitz laughs at the rookie initiation gag. “Topher didn’t know whether he was going to come back and do more of the scene.”
“I’m mortified by practical jokes, so after a little bit Topher was sitting there sweating and I told him, ‘No, he’s only kidding,’” he continues. “But, I do remember Dennis coming up to me later and saying, ‘This is like doing push-ups, I’m actually going to have to work here with this kid.”
Overall, Weitz says he was amazed at how willingly Quaid skewered his age in In Good Company and embraced the film’s messages of working alongside the young. “This is to some degree a multi-dimensional father-son and mentor relationship,” suggests Weitz of what happened both on and off camera. “The mentor relationship is something that is not overly valued, as it is not in vogue.”
“One side effect of how most jobs work now is that you don’t have any sort of mentorship situation,” he continues. “As a director, that has struck me, because I have people that I’ve been fans of, but not someone that I have been able to observe and see them work, I think because it’s felt to be such a competitive field. In [an apprenticing] situation, how are these people going to react with grace and dignity? Are they going to become humanized? Also, it has to be funny.”
Funny In Good Company is, thanks to Weitz’s script and the interplay of the two leads, whose humor and appreciation of each other was established before they even set foot on the set. “There were a lot more famous people who wanted to play my role,” says Grace. “But Dennis, before the film, was kind enough to put in his two cents. And I don’t think I would have had this role if Dennis hadn’t stepped forward and said that I could. So, I’m grateful for that.”
Quaid, who appeared in his first film at age nineteen – he played a bellhop in the early 1975 Jonathan Demme effort Crazy Mama - knows that the two have a lot in common. “It is such a gift to realize at an early age what you want to do with your life. It is really a great gift.”
Grace, hearing his co-star’s inspirational words, doesn’t miss a beat. “I stayed at a hotel last night,” he begins. “I was watching [motivational speaker and infomercial king] Tony Robbins and he had some interesting points about how when some things are going well in one part of your life, things aren’t necessarily going well in another part of your life. So, I’m going to get those tapes.”
Until Dennis Quaid decides to either put out his own line of inspirational tapes or one-up the motivational master’s cameo in Shallow Hal by playing Robbins in a Hollywood movie, that piece of mail order business by Grace will have to suffice.
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