This film is an adaptation of an actual group therapy session from 1968, which was itself filmed (over 16 hours) and edited down into a documentary (which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 1969). Facilitated by psychologists Carl Rogers and Richard Farson, the original session brought together a cross-section of eight Americans, none of whom had met prior to the session. Several of the participants had significant breakthroughs, including the person I play, Gerry.

But you can see for yourself in this 50-minute adaptation of the iconic Rogerian group therapy session. Here it is in full, Jesse Jones’ The Selfish Act of Community:

Not only did we film the session, we also staged it for the Whitstable Biennale, a festival of contemporary visual art. Under the direction of Jesse Jones, our group therapy session was presented as theatre-in-the-round, with a packed house completely surrounding our group therapy circle. Wow. As an actor, I will never forget the intimacy and energy in that room.

In reference to me, one audience member was astounded at seeing “a grown man cry.” Of course I was taught long ago that “it’s alright to cry” by football player and needlepoint master Rosey Grier (on the legendary Free To Be… You and Me record album). Hit it Rosey!

Related posts:

• The Island have posted some photos on their Facebook page, including this profile shot of me as (not so) well-adjusted businessman Gerry.

When a Western is great it can be transcendent, and when it’s bad it can be downright offensive. Shane is one of the greats. And it’s more timely than ever — a story of guns and non-violent resistance in a world where government-sanctioned settlements are displacing ranchers, who in turn had displaced native tribes. When the ranchers feel the squeeze, they resort to violence and terror, leading gunslinger-turned-farmer Shane to take up arms again.

When Shane kills, though beneficial to the homesteaders in the short term, there isn’t resolution to the larger issue of whether the homesteaders are really in the right and whether there’s a place for gun violence in otherwise civilized communities. Shane desperately wanted to live without his gun, giving it up for weeks and turning the other cheek. But after he chooses to use it again, he goes into self-exile, riding off into the sunset. It’s as if he can’t reconcile gunslinging and remaining in a community. And yet, when it comes to protecting your property — albeit in a community — the threat of violence is not uncommon.

Of course the gun debate rages more than ever in America today. And guns are still ubiquitous in our storytelling, even if Westerns aren’t as prevalent these days. Wait…who was that masked man…with the water pistol?

Yeah, that’s me. Cute? Harmless? Debatable? Some storytelling truly wrestles with the role of guns (as Shane does) and some of it is just crap. As an actor, it’s no surprise that I’ve wielded a gun in a number of films — always as the bad guy interestingly — where I’ve been driven by greed, jealousy, and unbridled corporate control. Power and property — not today’s bugaboo of mental illness — are at the root of so much gun violence. Sadly, that violence seems to reflect human nature in a society where status and ownership are so contentious. Should we just accept the role of guns in that violence? Do we not value human life more than that? Will the Wild West paradigm of “justice” live on in America and elsewhere?

Photo by April Choi

What if Shane had not used his gun? Would the homesteading Starrett family have been run out or worse? Yes, the claim these homesteaders made on the land was encouraged and approved by the U.S. government — and the rule of law is important — but on any frontier or border, there isn’t just one law. As much as I try to imagine a world without borders, there will always be at least two sides to every story, with a lot of gray area in between. What would a re-telling of Shane look like from the perspective of Fletcher the rancher? Rather than sympathizing with the homesteaders, I bet we’d sympathize with Fletcher’s actions to defend his land against the unfair, though lawful, incursion of homesteaders.

At the end of the day, no matter what side you’re on, we share some stories in common, and protecting what’s yours is just one of them. That’s the genius of this BBC radio production of Shane. Unlike the film or the original novel, the radio version is told from Marian’s perspective, making it a touching and refreshingly human tale of a family — and a marriage — struggling to survive, no matter what side of the gun or land debate you stand on.

I’ve always felt especially drawn to Westerns because some of my ancestors lived the non-Hollywood version of it. Here’s my great-grandfather, Delmar Mash, driving his team of horses from Utah to Colorado for his freighting business. If I’m getting this right, Delmar remembers, as a young boy, looking out the back of a covered wagon as his family made its way west to Colorado.

Below are Delmar’s three sons (from left to right): Clarence, Lawrence (who ranched all his life on Grand Mesa), and my grandfather, Cecil Mash.

And here’s the woman Cecil married, my grandmother, Florence Milly, the teacher at a one-room schoolhouse. Florence and Cecil weren’t married yet when this picture was taken, but Cecil was the older brother of two of her students.

Getting nostalgic and doing a Western for the radio might have taken me way back in time, but after recording Shane, I attended a post-wrap dinner at the Mondrian and that brought me right back to reality — or at least the ersatz reality of the Sunset Strip. As the valet retrieved my rented two-door lime-green Ford Fiesta, a Lamborghini roared up just in front of it. “Tonto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Colorado anymore.”

Whether it’s Los Angeles or London (where I’ve staked my claim), it ain’t exactly the Wild West. But hey, the UK does actually have wild ponies, which some friends and I “bravely” approached on Dartmoor.

And believe it or not, I’ve seen people ride off into the sunset in the UK, as I did recently on Rhossili Bay beach in Wales.

See how I did that, moving from guns to grandparents to horses? Now that’s a much happier ending. Yeehaw!

(Un)related posts:

• My Flickr sets for Washington State (where I grew up), Colorado, New York, Devon, and Wales.

Photo by The Telegraph

I was deeply affected by his feature films Hunger and Shame, and felt incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to do voice-over work for McQueen as part of his multimedia art installation End Credits.

Paul Robeson

For End Credits, I read several hours worth of declassified FBI documents on Paul Robeson, the legendary singer and actor who was a groundbreaking and prodigious activist for civil rights, the rights of workers, and anti-colonialist freedom movements. The FBI documents were mostly wiretap transcripts, surveillance accounts, and some wildly paranoid letters from “concerned” citizens — all in support of the suspicion that the outspoken and freedom-loving Robeson was un-American, pro-Soviet, and Communist.

Robeson was extensively persecuted by the U.S. government and press. After appearing before McCarthy’s HUAC, Robeson’s passport was revoked for eight years. As an artist who was internationally popular but under a cloud of suspicion in “Red Scare” America, being confined to the U.S. effectively decimated his career. Even when he got his passport back, he was grossly mistreated. After suffering strange psychological distress (which some suspect was due to chemicals administered by the CIA as part of their infamous Project MKUltra), Robeson was subjected to extensive electroconvulsive therapy and barbiturates at The Priory Hospital in London (also consistent with Project MKUltra techniques).

Though forced to retire from ill health at the age of 65, Robeson’s courage and persistence despite all the persecution is truly astounding. The persecution of such artists and activists by the paranoid and powerful is certainly not a thing of the past. McQueen’s End Credits stands as both a tribute and a warning.

Photo by Tom Bisig, Basel

“End Credits” Credits

End Credits debuted in a major Steve McQueen exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago on October 21, 2012.

Its second showing kicked off at Schaulager in Basel, Switzerland on March 16, 2013 as part of the same exhibition.

The London-born Steve McQueen is based in Amsterdam.

(Un)related posts:

• My Flickr sets for Chicago, Switzerland, and Holland.
• My voice-over demo reels.
• Sean Bobbitt, the amazing cinematographer on Steve McQueen’s Hunger and Shame, was also the cinematographer on Neil Jordan’s Byzantium, which I worked on.

Those who know my love of statistics won’t be surprised to hear me talking probabilities in the trailer (“60%” at 1:34) or to see my dumbfounded look down the table (at 1:49) in response to Jessica Chastain’s non-statistical “100%” data analysis. I know, I know, she was right… But it was an important debate in the story — so much so that I actually appeared in the clips shown at the Oscars. Crazy. I hope my virtual doppelgänger looked good in a tux and hit all the best after-parties.

Loose lips sink ships

Security was tight on Zero Dark Thirty and I was contractually obligated not to disclose anything about it. But I was used to that. My first job out of high school had serious security. I worked for the U.S. Department of Defense at a local military base. This base was where my dad worked and was one of three in my county, so it was a familiar environment. It was my summer job before college — as it was for other high school grads in our DoD dominated local economy.

One of these grads, who sat next to me, was obsessed with the Tears for Fears song Everybody Wants to Rule the World and played it incessantly (I know, I’m dating myself here!). As a result, the song still gives me the gastrointestinal equivalent of an eye twitch. Throughout that summer, I was always looking for an excuse to get away from my desk. So one day when my boss asked if someone would deliver some classified documents to the burn bag, I quickly volunteered.

So there I was, a kid just out of high school, all by myself depositing classified documents into a secure basement receptacle labeled “Burn.” I can understand how that might have looked a little fishy. And I really shouldn’t have been startled when a much higher grade civil servant vociferously asked me what the hell I thought I was doing and dragged me — literally by the ear at first! — up to see my boss. Thankfully my boss quickly set him straight (I had the proper clearance) and (ahem) told him whose son I was. But hey, no harm done and better safe than sorry! So, the situation no longer tense, he and I were then properly and more calmly introduced. Turns out the guy’s name was Dusty Rhodes…

Dusty Rhodes! Just when I thought the incident was over, now I’m desperately trying to suppress laughter and not have my cracked smile mistaken for any disrespect for Dusty or the serious business of national security. Sure, “Dusty Rhodes” is quaint and mildly amusing. But what got me was that Dusty Rhodes was also the name of my favorite pro wrestler!

Cagey match!

Now don’t laugh. Wrestlers like Dusty “The American Dream” Rhodes really are looking out for national security. Case in point: Jesse “The Body” Ventura, a pro wrestler, state governor, and Navy SEAL. The Body has actually declared that he won’t go see Zero Dark Thirty!

Mr. Ventura wasn’t the only one raising national security concerns about the film — because, you know, you got to watch out for Hollywood’s propagandistic European-style Socialists, right? Funny enough, the person I play in the film, Michael Morell, has issued a statement objecting to aspects of the film. I get why the C.I.A and politicians have to defend America’s reputation and say that despite the impression the film might give, America does not support the practice of torture. But why some people feel the film is pro-torture is baffling to me. If you find Zero Dark Thirty‘s protracted torture scenes hard to watch, then surely the effect of the film is anti-torture. If the film had glossed over torture — sorry, “enhanced interrogation” — or made it cartoon-like (as do many other films and TV shows), then there might be an argument to say the film has the effect of making torture appear to be unobjectionable, something that only exists in the movies. And yet, the film clearly and controversially takes great pains to convey the opposite.

When I heard the news about the killing of Osama bin Laden, I was in Austin, Texas. The next morning, this signboard expressed appreciation for those who risked their lives carrying out the raid. But what did that day really mean? The news certainly triggered some catharsis — I know I cried — after a decade of the unfathomable pain that many still endure from 9/11. And, as the film so deftly shows, there are unsung heroes who, despite Washington’s whims, never gave up the hunt. Still, there’s no way to know whether the OBL killing will ultimately help or hurt in the “fight against terrorism.” And what about the larger questions about America’s long and ongoing entanglement in Middle East affairs and the related rise and escalation of terrorism and counter-terrorism? There are many stories still to tell and many lessons still to learn not only from those involved in the fight but also from the untold numbers of victims (and scarred survivors) from 9/11 and all the fighting since. Perhaps now more of those stories will be told on the big screen — and hopefully as intelligently and compellingly as Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal have done.

Or perhaps we’ll get a more Hollywood approach…

Tag team beat-down!

*sigh*

Everybody wants to rule the world.

(Un)related posts:

• My Flickr set for the Seattle area, where I grew up.
• My Flickr set for Austin.

Blood-Sucking Red Riding Hood

In this first clip from Neil Jordan’s Byzantium, I’m the guy in the flannel shirt who, as usual for me, has no clue about what’s really going on, in this case with Saoirse Ronan and her little blood-red riding hood.

And here’s the trailer:

Vampires vs. Tricky Dick

Byzantium features vampires. For those of you keeping score at home, I’ve now had two gigs in vampire films in the past year (the other being Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows). By itself that’s fairly unremarkable given that vampires keep trending. But what’s up with me being cast in two shows featuring Richard Nixon (namely Nixon’s the One and a Doctor Who episode)? Well, for me anyway, vampires and Nixon are trending equally. Will there be a convergence of the two on my horizon, a politico-horror thriller called Dracula vs. Tricky Dick? Cast me, I’ve got experience! And speaking of Byzantium, the Nixon White House must stand as one of the most byzantine administrations in history. The horror, the horror…

Flying to Byzantium

To shoot my bits for Byzantium, I flew to Ireland, which seemed fitting since I primarily associate “Byzantium” with the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. This association is more than a passing one I think. After rereading Yeats’ Byzantium poems with vampires on my brain, I can see that vampires and Yeats share a focus on immortality. Obvious? Sure. But interestingly they share a very similar concept of immortality. It’s not the immortality of artists who long for their works to live on. It’s an immortality of corporeality. Think I’m reaching? Check out the second stanza of Yeats’ “Byzantium” and tell me his “superhuman” isn’t a vampire.

Before me floats an image, man or shade,
Shade more than man, more image than a shade;
For Hades’ bobbin bound in mummy-cloth
May unwind the winding path;
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.

“Do you like being food for the immortals? Do you like dying?”

…says Louis (aka Brad Pitt) in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles directed by Neil Jordan.

Yeats clearly doesn’t want to die, and is, I think, looking for some kind of supernatural, vampire-like salvation. In “Sailing to Byzantium,” Yeats pleads for a personal transfiguration:

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Mistaken

No, I don’t think I am mistaken, not about vampires and Yeats. Check it:

• In Mistaken, a novel published by Neil Jordan in 2011, a boy grows up next door to Bram Stoker’s house in Dublin and is haunted by both a vampire and doppelgänger.
• Yes, Bram Stoker is Irish, and yes, fellow Dubliner Yeats, only 18 years younger than Stoker, knew Stoker and read Dracula.
• Yeats, Aleister Crowley, and allegedly Stoker were members of the occult Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
• Besides Dracula, Yeats also read about vampires in Joseph Ennomoser’s The History of Magic and supposedly had plans to visit Dracula’s original castle.
• The Yeats poem “Oil and Blood” could be read as a warning, and perhaps wish fulfilment, that those trampled on and forgotten by the chosen still have life in those lips (poetic or otherwise) and might come back to bite someone.

In tombs of gold and lapis lazuli
Bodies of holy men and women exude
Miraculous oil, odour of violet.

But under heavy loads of trampled clay
Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood;
Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.

That’s Show Byz!

Okay maybe I am stretching the truth a bit in search of a story, but that’s show biz.

And since the film version of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is out in 2012 (produced by Tim Burton), I have to ask whether Yeats the vampire ever encountered Lincoln (who, in the story, apparently became a vampire after his assassination). According to my family tree, Lincoln is my seventh cousin… Cousin Abe, make me a vampire!

Istanbul Was Constantinople…
Constantinople Was Byzantium.

The infectious and oft-covered song Istanbul (Not Constantinople) doesn’t tell the whole story. The city was also once called Byzantium. That was over 1,500 years ago. So if you’ve got a date in Byzantium, she’ll be waiting in Istanbul. And if she’s still alive after all this time, she’s a vampire.

ByzanTeen Wolf

You think I’m just making a pun, but as if all this talk of vampires wasn’t enough, the werewolf (or lycanthrope) actually was a subject of Byzantine mythology and medicine. And that brings us full circle back to Neil Jordan and The Company of Wolves.

But I’m no American werewolf in London — though I am an American actor in London. Scared?

Okay, enough!

This blog post has gotten byzantine in itself! Time to escape the labyrinth and ground myself back in the ancient city that started it all…

Ground myself? The byzantine web beckons me no matter where I go…

(Un)related posts:

• My Flickr photo sets where some of these photos (those taken by me) can be found: Istanbul, Dublin, and Florence.

Resident Evil: First Hour was just the undead unction I needed. But will I be undone? This four episode web series aired on the Machinima.com YouTube channel, third most viewed on YouTube. The series was directed by Ross Peacock and April Choi — April also wrote the script — and stars James Whitwell, Kevin Millington and myself. Here are all four episodes, starting with the first episode here:

The Bluest Blood You’ve Ever Seen Is in Seattle… and in Brazil

I’m from Seattle where we love our zombies. Seattle hosts the world’s first zombie convention, ZomBcon. And ZomBcon organizes the annual “Red, White and Dead” Zombie Walk, which is an undead spectacle that’s always in the running for the world record. But look out Seattle! Look south and check out this dubbed version from Brazil. Apparently I’ve learned Portuguese in my sleep…

Exactly what sort of Resident is Evil?

• Chief Resident Evil M.D. at the Amityville Hospital?
• Resident and Non-Resident Evil statuses for Transylvanian tax purposes?
• The long-term patient known only as “Resident Evil” at the Elm Street Sanatorium?

Exactly what sort of Evil is Resident?

I think every part of the world has its own type of evil resident. I grew up near Seattle and was petrified of bigfoot (aka Sasquatch). One dark and unstormy night I mistook a sonic boom for a Sasquatch banging on my window. Using all my training from Peter Sellers movies, I stealthily slid out of bed to escape the notice of the beckoning bigfoot and crawled to the safety of my bemused babysitter.

At least now there are street signs warning of Bigfoot Crossings…

And then there are trolls, which I also encountered growing up. The neighboring town to my home town is the Norwegian-American town of Poulsbo, where trolls – or at least chainsaw sculptures thereof — are quite prevalent. Of course Norway is the source of this evil menace…

Feel welcome?

But back to the subject at hand — the evil residents in Resident Evil — the undead…

Scary. But hey, we were born this way, right?

Time to make like the Raccoon City Police and motor… [this is indeed the Dodge Charger we used in the shoot].

Related posts:

• My Tumblr posts on bigfoot crossing and playground troll.
• My Flickr photos on the same bigfoot and troll, plus the bleach bum, the welcome committee, Gaga, and the Beckhams.
• My brother-in-law’s blog post on the Seattle zombie walk.

Stache fever… Catch it!

And as you can see from this photo, my co-anchor and I take our jobs very seriously. The public depends on us.

See the resemblance?

(Un)related posts:

• My actor photos and stills where the co-anchor pic can be found.
• My Flickr set of Istanbul photos including the macho man jewellery ad.

Bill Murray plays FDR. FDR’s iconic presence imbued the production, including our name cards at the read-through:

Speaking of Hyde Park…

I used to live in Hyde Park — Chicago’s Hyde Park that is — when attending the University of Chicago for grad school. Though Chicago’s Hyde Park was good to me (I met my wife there), it didn’t exactly have a hip and happening reputation. At the time, the U of C was ranked at the very bottom of The Princeton Review’s ratings for party schools, declaring the U of C more sober and anti-social than even the military academies. So perhaps a more appropriate name for Chicago’s Hyde Park would be “Park ‘n’ Hide.”

“I’ve parked and now I must hide!”

I’ve since moved from Chicago to London, home of another Hyde Park of course. But I’d argue that London’s Hyde Park is also a misnomer, being more Jekyll than Hyde. The park has been utterly calm and uneventful for every stroll I’ve ever taken. Of course the park does play host to some massive concerts, including over 250,000 to see The Rolling Stones in 1969, showing it does have some sympathy for the Devil and the impulse-driven Hyde. So, to be fair, perhaps the park should be renamed to “Jekyll and Hyde Park.”

See, Sister Jekyll and Mafia wife Hyde can co-exist on the same park bench.

(Un)related posts:

• My Flickr photo sets from Whistler and Florence, where these ersatz Hyde Park pictures can also be found.

“I’ll be in my trailer” (little did I know…)

…I’d be in the trailer!

At :05, that’s me in the hard hat — 1 night shoot without an injury! — saying ”What the hell is this?” I also recorded a “What the heck is this?” version, apparently for places where hell doesn’t exist.

And in another version, that’s me, shovel in hand, at :01 saying “We hit something.” Can you dig it?

Onesiphorus Mash? My Brush with Chairness?

The answers to these and other questions are revealed in Matt J. Horn’s interview with me.

Dark Shadows of Meaning: Post-Structuralism in the Films and Wrap Parties of Tim Burton

At the Dark Shadows wrap party, all of the venue’s bathrooms strangely had quotation marks: “Male,” “Female” and “Disabled” — plus a door marked “Private”.

Putting “Private” in quotation marks I get. Sure, we might call that room “Private” but we all know that nothing is truly private anymore.

But the other doors confused me.

Were those of us using the “Male” bathroom having our manhood questioned? Or was the message actually not cynical at all but a gender bending invitation to use the bathroom most closely matching our own fluid senses of identity? Oh “boy”… Down the rabbit hole I go!

But wait, what’s up with “Disabled”?!

Qu’est-ce que c’est le deal? Was the “Disabled” bathroom begrudgingly provided for the so-called “Disabled”? Or, to the contrary, was this sign a statement about how no one should be pigeonholed as “Disabled”? Or maybe…? Or maybe…? Enough!! Tim Burton is messing with my “sanity!” Screw semiotics. There is nothing going on here, nothing except the improper use of quotation marks. Isn’t that right, “Johnny Depp,” if that is your real name? (Oh, it is actually your real name? Oh, right, sorry.)

The Play of Light and Dark Shadows

Alas, I remain haunted no matter where I go.

Whether it’s the dark shadows under my eyes from a blood red night in Dublin…

My fear of that blood-sucking stick figure, Mort, in the Alps…

A shiver up my spine from fresh blood splatter…

Or that one-way street of nightmares…

But enough of that. It’s time for some positive thinking. Indeed I shall unleash my Super Powers of Positive Thinking. The world shall henceforth know me as Stormin’ Norman Vincent Peale!

(Un)related posts:

• The Dark Shadows trailers are also posted as a playlist on my YouTube channel.
• The photos are ones I’ve taken and are not from the film. They are also posted in my Flickr sets for London, Dublin, Chamonix Mont-Blanc, and New York.
• The street of nightmares was my very first post on Tumblr.

The dialogue in Nixon’s the One is taken verbatim from the infamous audio tapes. The show’s title is taken from the highly effective, but oft parodied, campaign slogan that helped Nixon win the Presidency in 1968. But let’s get real here: Harry Shearer is the one!

Nixon’s the One is first broadcast on Sky Arts 1 HD on April 26th, 2012, at 9 pm in the UK.

Deja Nixon

Doctor Who fans will note my Nixon deja vu. To be in two different shows with Nixon in the last year? Are the Fates trying to tell me something? Perhaps. Whereas some meet their Waterloo, will I be meeting my Watergate?

NIXON’S THE ONE who said…

“People react to fear, not love — they don’t teach that in Sunday School, but it’s true.”

“I’m glad I’m not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone’s tape recording what you say.”

“Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.”

“I’m not a crook.”

“When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.”

“You must pursue this investigation of Watergate even if it leads to the President. I’m innocent. You’ve got to believe I’m innocent. If you don’t, take my job.”

“The Cold War isn’t thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn’t sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.”

“Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.”

Words to live by indeed.

(Un)related posts:

• My Flickr photo sets from Vienna, Prague, and Cinque Terre where these photos of winking, anarchist graffiti, and commie/papal bottles can be found.