Shrouds of secrecy surround the sacred plot line to The Dark
Knight Rises, the long-awaited conclusion to the Batman
trilogy, due out this month. Matthew Modine has a pivotal role in
the film, and yet mum is still the word. That is, as mum as one can
get in the digital age.
“It requires a lot of effort for a film to remain private until it
is ready to be seen,” Modine tells me. “Everybody has cell phone
cameras to take pictures. It’s so easy today.”
Despite the rapidly changing film business and how its product is
now created, produced and distributed, Modine remains a busily
working actor in great demand. In addition to Knight, he is
featured in Girl in Progress opposite Eva Mendes and he
appears in the Edward Zwick-produced film Family Weekend. We
remember him, of course, from Birdy, Married to the Mob and
Vision Quest, among many others (don’t worry, more about
Full Metal Jacket later). His career choices seem to be based on
a certain type of character’s character.
“Growing up, I really loved Sean Connery,” he says. “Actors like
that were people who solved problems. And they always got the most
beautiful girls to follow them. As a young boy, I was attracted to
that kind of problem solver who women are attracted to.”
Born the youngest of seven children in Loma Linda, California,
Modine’s career started practically right out of the gate. A small
role in Baby, It’s You got him noticed big-time, and his name
was written on the A list ever since.
“The thing that is wonderful about being an actor is that it gives
you entrée to so many different professions,” he says. “During the
course of my career, I’ve played everyone from a brain surgeon to
the captain of an America’s Cup yacht. All of these characters have
given me the opportunity to learn things that I feel so privileged
to have learned
—
to travel around the world, to meet these people. And generally,
when you are working on a film, you are working with the people who
are most proficient at those roles you are about to portray.”
Which leads us, of course, to his upcoming role as John Sculley, the
former head of Pepsi who comes on board
—
for one brief, shining decade
—
as Steve Jobs’ partner at Apple (Jobs will be played by Ashton
Kutcher).
“Sculley worked with somebody who changed the world,” Modine says,
“but people are people. And you never really understand a person
until you get inside of his skin, to imagine what it is like to walk
around in their shoes. The desire that we share as humans is very
simple: we want to be appreciated. We want to be loved. We want
people to think we are attractive. These are characteristics that we
all share.”
Perhaps Modine’s best known role is Private Joker in the Stanley
Kubrick modern masterpiece Full Metal Jacket. Does the
film’s enduring success and enormous following surprise him?
“No, because it’s a Stanley Kubrick film,” he says. “It’s a
reflection of the genius that was and is Stanley Kubrick. He said
that films should be like a great piece of music: something that you
can listen to over and over again. Each time you listen to it, you
experience the song differently. You’ll find something that you
didn’t hear in the song before. I think that he, with Full Metal
Jacket, really mastered that. It’s music you can listen to over
and over and over again.”
He was so inspired by his experience with the film, which occurred
over 25 years ago, that he created a book, Full Metal Jacket
Diary, to be devoured by a generation of rabid fans. Along with
that: an upcoming iPad app, which includes Modine’s diary and
photographs, memorabilia, and never-before-seen images and content.
The project is a labor of love, seen through by the app’s producer,
Adam Rackoff and aided by Modine himself.
“[My purpose is] to create a deep immersion experience of what it
was like to work with Stanley Kubrick on Full Metal Jacket,”
he says. “It’s been a tremendous amount of work, but the reward for
the person who adds the app to the iPad is going to be really worth
it.”
Modine continues his life journey in a career that has spanned three
decades and counting. His engine continues to rev, and his phone
continues to ring.
He says, “My motivation to be an actor is that I am
desperate to learn as much about life as I can for the brief time we
all have here. I am hungry for experience and information so that
when my time is up, I feel like I used my time on this
planet.”
For more
information on Full Metal Jacket Diary, click here:
http://fullmetaljacketdiary.com/
To find out
more about the Full Metal Jacket app, click here:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/fmjd/matthew-modines-full-metal-jacket-diary-ipad-app
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