Bronson Pinchot, whose career has been reduced to unknown straight-to-DVD releases, recently gave an interview in which let loose his unflattering opinions of former co-stars Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington and Bette Midler, while saving his compliments for Tom Hanks. Link at the bottom; here are the highlights:
Tom Cruise, his co-star in Risky Business:
We didn’t know it was going to be a big hit. We thought Tom [Cruise] was the biggest bore on the face of the Earth. He had spent some formative time with Sean Penn—we were all very young at the time, Tom was 20, I was 23. Tom had picked up this knack of calling everyone by their character names, because that would probably make your performance better, and I don’t agree with that. I think that acting is acting, and the rest of the time, you should be you, but he called us all by our character names. He was tense and made constant, constant unrelated homophobic comments, like, “You want some ice cream, in case there are no gay people there?” I mean, his lingo was larded with the most… There was no basis for it. It was like, “It’s a nice day, I’m glad there are no gay people standing here.” Very, very strange.
Years and years later when people started to torment him with that, I used to think “God, that’s really fitting, because he tormented a lot of people as a 20-year-old.” He made such a big deal about it.
(On whether it was because Cruise was insecure or just immature): I really don’t know. It is what it is; there’s nothing I can add to it. If someone’s 20 years old and every third line out of their mouth is anti-something specific, then draw your own conclusion. I thought it was very weird. Similarly, there’s a certain type of middle-aged woman that will tell you within 20 seconds of meeting you that she can’t find anyone to take her to bed. And that really strikes me as strange, too, like, “Why are you telling me that?” I don’t like any kind of conversational agenda; it makes me uncomfortable. I just think it’s weird. Unless you’re with your very best friends and you’re being silly. Then you can do whatever you want.
Denzel Washington, his co-star in Courage Under Fire:
...Denzel Washington was behind the incredibly cowardly bullshit of “This is my character, not me.” He was really abusive to me and everybody on that movie, and his official explanation was that his character didn’t like me, but it was a dreadful experience. I spent my salary on time with my shrink just for helping me get through it, and what that led to was the very next big movie that I did. I should have said to the producers, “You get that guy in line, or I’m out of here.” Life’s too short. But the next movie I did, the director was getting a lot of crap from his star, and he started to take it out on me one day, and just like a German shepherd—you know when a German shepherd stands up on its hind legs and puts its paws on your shoulders?
I put my hands on his shoulders and I very gently but firmly said, “I don’t do abuse, and if you say one more word of abuse to me, I’m on a plane, and you don’t have enough money to keep me here.” And that was the end of it, and I’ve never taken abuse again. And I wasn’t vile or anything, it just ripped out of me. Denzel Washington cured me forever of thinking that there is any amount of money or anything that could ever, ever make it okay to be abused. The script supervisor on that movie said it’s like watching somebody kick a puppy. He was so vile. And after that, I just would never endure it again.
Bette Midler, his co-star in The First Wives Club:
(Hugh Wilson was the director he mentioned in the discussion of Washington): Yes, because Bette Midler was such a bitch to him. While he was directing, she would be rolling her eyes, pantomiming with her favorite actors, and she made it very difficult. And he was at his wit’s end. He was actually a very nice man, but she was very unkind to him on that movie.
Tom Hanks:
I do know Tom, I did a play with his wife [Rita Wilson], and he is the complete antidote to what I just said. He is a wonderful and genuine and lovely and down-to-earth person. I don’t know how he does that. I first met him when he was doing his spate of not-successful movies. There was a period in the ’80s when he did The Man With One Red Shoe and Joe Versus The Volcano and all those movies that weren’t doing well, and that’s when I first met him, and I would run into him on and off over the years. Then two years ago, I did a play with his wife, and there he was at his absolute height. He’s always been a delightful person, so it’s not really true that big stars need to be driven and repulsive, because he’s anything but.
Link: http://www.avclub.com/articles/bronson-pinchot,34310/