INT: Biehn/Fahey

Between
Michael Biehn and Jeff Fahey, you have a great history of genre
characters. With Michael,
there is THE ABYSS, TERMINATOR, ALIENS and in the past few years,

CHERRY

FALLS

. As for Mr. Fahey, you
may remember him from BODY PARTS, PSYCHO 3 and of course, THE
LAWNMOWER MAN. Throughout the
years they have appeared in a number of films that seem to have
mostly found home on the video store shelves but as always, Quentin
Tarantino has a knack for putting the spotlight on guys who have
disappeared from the limelight. And
with GRINDHOUSE
and Robert Rodriguez’s segment, PLANET TERROR, he may have revived
these two genre favorites.

When
they stopped by the Four Seasons in

Beverly Hills

to talk about GRINDHOUSE, there was a whole lot to be excited for.
In the film, they play brothers separated by a high rent on a
diner and the secret ingredient for B-B-Q Sauce.
In the film, they are perfectly cast and share a wonderful
chemistry together. Well,
truth be told, the chemistry doesn’t stop there.
Both actors shared their excitement of working with
filmmakers “at the top of their game” and they both seemed
genuinely proud to be back. Although
Mr. Fahey’s life has changed considerably, he had for the most
part, retired from the industry. But
thankfully he came back and gives an awesome show as J.T…. the man
with the sauce. It was nice to
see a couple of dudes who, in my eyes, are two of the most
underrated actors out there and here’s to GRINDHOUSE showing the
world that more than your mother should love Michael Biehn… and
Jeff Fahey too.

Michael Biehn	Jeff Fahey

How
did you both get involved with “Grindhouse”?
Did you just get called and audition?

Jeff
Fahey: I got a phone call.
Mike, you wanna tell your story?

Michael
Biehn: I got a call from my
agent, he said Robert wanted to see me and have me read a couple of
pages of dialogue. He
didn’t have a script. He
was interested in me for a role so I came here, the Four Seasons, he
was casting out of here. So
I read a couple of scenes and I had worked on them a little bit and
I just didn’t get it very well.
I finally got it where it was kind of okay.
It was after like four or five different tries at it and I
thought the wind had kinda gone out of the room at that point so I
left.

I
was disappointed, I didn’t think I had gotten it or he’d be
interested. Then I heard
he was… and actually, when I was on the set I asked Robert about
it and he said that he asked the casting director – he was kind of
looking for a kinder, gentler Mickey Rourke – then she mentioned me
and he thought that was a good idea and he brought me in just to
meet me. And I said, I
didn’t think the readings had gone… and he was like,
‘Readings? No, dude,
you had that role before you even walked in the door.’
I was like, ‘Oh, God, I wish I would have known that.’
[Laughing]

Quentin
and Robert told us that they had always wanted to work with you
guys.

JF:
Thank God. [Laughing]

MB:
Well it was great. What
a great thing to have somebody like Quentin Tarantino say about you
as an actor. You know,
that’s just, Quentin and Robert, it’s really kind of a
validation when the guys that are cool, like the “hip”,
“cool” filmmakers think that like, you’re cool.
They wanna work with you so… It’s been really…

Well
you both have some great resumes.
You’ve done great work throughout your careers.
Do you find that Hollywood doesn’t recognize that all the
time?

JF:
They recognize it when you’re working.
It’s job to job. It’s
that old saying, when you’re hot, you’re hot, when you’re not,
you’re not. You
survive as best you can. I
don’t wanna say “survive” as such a tragedy but you do what
you can to move along.

Well
a lot of people don’t have careers that get to last ten, twenty or
thirty years…

JF:
Absolutely, they’re no complaints comin’ from these two.
I mean, it’s been great.

MB:
It has been great.

JF:
It really has been. And
some are better than others, but we’ve been working.

MB:
You know, I think the best think about working is the
opportunity to work in a situation like the one we just did; which
is like, with Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez or with Jim
Cameron or with Billy Friedkin, or a Michael Bay.
You’re around these guys and you’re around the process
and you are watching guys who are really, really good and really at
the top of their game. And
to be able to give them something that they want or they need to
make their movie… that to me is the most exciting thing and you
don’t… I hadn’t had that opportunity in awhile.

JF:
It is very easy when you walk into a situation like this with
these two guys who are at the top of their game.
And at this level, regardless of the film itself, you’re
job is just very easy. You
just show up and deliver and they are gonna take it somewhere else.

Is
it fun or is it work?

MB:
Oh, it’s fun.

JF:
It’s work. [Laughing]

The
chemistry on-screen between you guys is great but when you worked on
set, did it take a while to get into that?

MB:
You know what I like about what you just said though?
Is that basically, Jeff and I have – and we are at each
others throat throughout the movie until the last scene – [you
said], and it’s kind of nice that you say we have a nice chemistry
on-screen…

It’s
true…

MB:
Because it’s…

It’s
like a real ‘brother’ relationship.

MB:
It is like a real brother relationship.
But we grew up and we’re about the same age…

Did
you know each other before this at all?

MB:
We met…

JF:
Our paths have crossed a lot.

MB:
Yeah. Growing up
in this business at the same time, work with some of the same
directors.

From
the early Eighties?

MB:
Late Seventies. For
me…

JF:
We auditioned for a lot of the same roles..

MB:
Auditioned for the same roles, had mutual friends, directors.
He’d gotten roles that I wanted…
So when I met Jeff, I felt like I just knew him.
I just thought he was me; he was another side of me because
we’ve had our ups, we’ve had our downs, we’ve been in good
movies, and we’ve been in not so good movies…

JF:
And you know the other person can deliver.
When we heard each others name it was like…

MB:
Like putting on a really nice old pair of shoes.

JF:
We haven’t seen the film yet but we know so much stuff
that’s in it.

MB:
We’re the only two people that haven’t.

You’re
such a tough guy in it.

MB:
Am I?

Jeff,
you’ve been doing genre stuff forever now, has there ever been…

JF:
Since “Birth of a Nation”.

Yeah…
Has there been any other experience that has been on par with this
one?

JF:
Yeah, there has been a couple.
One, right at the beginning, was “Silverado” with
[Lawrence] Kasdan and the whole group.
And then, in the following years, they were all like that,
but it wasn’t all that high. And
then, “Body Parts” was one.
And then, the next was with Eastwood on “White Hunter,
Black Heart”, and that was this whole other place, and then, the
others outside the business, in theatre.
Then, there were a couple that happened, the last high like
this, on this level… Eastwood, and I think that was 89.
So this has really been a wonderful experience.

But
you’ve kept working haven’t you?

JF:
There’s work. But
there’s a number of things… but these guys [Tarantino and
Rodriguez] are at the top of their game right now, it’s a good
thing to be involved in just for the experience.

MB:
Joan Rivers said, “I’m happy… I’m not HAPPY!”
[Laughing]

Well
you guys and Kurt Russell are about the only actors in the movie old
enough to
remember grindhouse movies.

MB:
Yeah.

Did
you see a lot of shit n’ schlock and whatnot?

MB:
I was in Nebraska and we had Drive-in movies, not
“grindhouse” movies. It
was an expression I’d never heard before but I used to go to
drive-in movies and watch. You
know, a couple of the movies that Quentin screened at his house,
I’d seen. One was
“Pretty Maids all in a Row”.
I was like thirteen at the time and I was like, “whoa man,
this is interesting!” that was one that really affected me but, I
just remember… I don’t remember the names; I just remember like
the bikers and the horror movies and stuff like that.

There’s
a scene in the Tarantino segment where Kurt Russell was sitting
there and he’s talking at the bar about his past films [the
character of Stuntman Mike] and these four young women haven’t
heard of anything he has done. And
they look at him like they’re looking at the wall being painted…

JF:
We know what that looks like.

When
you’ve been working for so many years do you find people know who
you are?

MB:
I was in the make-up trailer recently, at seven o’ clock in
the morning, and I was doing a series.
And I sit down in the trailer and there’s this like, pretty
young girl. Twenty-one,
twenty-two, blonde… really pretty, kind of half dressed, getting
her make-up and stuff. And
I hadn’t met her yet and she looked over and she smiled at me and
I was like, ‘oh…’ I looked back and smiled and I was like,
‘dude… I still got it’ she must have recognized me from
“Terminator” or something like that, and I could just feel the
vibe. And finally she
said, “Are you Michael Biehn?” I’m like… yeah. [A
moment] “My mother just loves you.”
[Laughing] You know, once you hear a few of those…

What
was it like working with Savini?

MB:
Well, Tom… He was always really good in the movie.
You know, when I was working with him.
I’d never really known him.
I’d seen “From Dusk till Dawn” but I didn’t really
know him as an actor. And
when he came in, the very first thing he did with me was the thing
with the finger.

For
what happens with “the finger”, you’ll have to see the movie.
Let me know what you think. Send
questions and comments to [email protected].