BOP Interview:
Dennis Quaid and Ramin Bahrani of At Any Price
By Ryan Mazie
May 6, 2013
Dennis, people are saying that this is one of the best performances of your career. Do you see that when watching this movie, like, “Wow! I gave such a great performance?”
DQ: I’m immune to myself, to tell you the truth. I don’t think I feel what the audience feels, because when I watch a movie that I am doing, I remember the day we are shooting it (laughs). I remember what was going on that day and so I have a totally different perspective.
RB: I will never understand it the way the audience does, but I watch all of my films a few times, just to get the audience reaction. Usually I will watch the movie in Europe once and once or twice in America to see the reaction it gets from a European, a rural, and a suburban audience.
A great thing about Dennis’ performance is that it doesn’t even feel like it is him on the screen.
DQ: I kind of felt like it wasn’t me, too (laughs). For me, although I took the role about eight months before shooting, I did two other movies. In fact, I finished a film the night before I came to Iowa. But I read the script so many times and just thought about this character and kind of looked around at a few people that were like [the character I play] Henry Whipple in a sense in my real life. So I basically started with his body, what’s going on in the inside of this guy, but how that relates to the outside. How he walked. How he held his body. How he talked. All that stuff. I had little time to do it, but Ramin tried to rehearse us (laughs). Ramin, tell that story.
RB: I usually work with non-actors so we rehearse for months. But Dennis and Zac just came from other films so I had just two days to work with them. I brought them to the location to work on the two father and son scenes so they could get a sense of what was going on and [the farmer owner] could show them how to use some of the equipment at the same time. Zac was gung-ho about it and couldn’t wait to get started. Dennis came from a night shoot and was tired and mumbling and uninterested, I couldn’t get his attention. I said, “This isn’t the guy I met in Austin. That guy was so friendly and so polite.” We spent three days talking about history and politics. Dennis is really smart. … I didn’t know what was going on and I came into a panic. The night before filming I drove to his hotel at 10:30 at night and I decided that I was going to confront him (laughs). I thought he was going to ruin my film and start mumbling.
I had doubt, because I never worked with movie stars before; only non-professional actors... I called Werner Herzog, one of my heroes and favorite filmmakers and a friend and mentor, and he answered the phone. I told him what was happening and Werner chastised me and said, “What’s wrong with you? It’s Dennis Quaid! He is a 30-year professional actor. He doesn’t need to rehearse. You are wasting his time. When you turn the camera on tomorrow he will deliever like a good professional will deliver. Stop annoying him.” (laughs). So Dennis asks me what I want at his hotel and I’m like, “Nothing! Would you like to have a drink?”
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