with Asun Ortega in the upcoming grindhouse thriller NUDE NUNS WITH BIG GUNS. Asun is beautiful and sweet and spiritual. I shoved her face into a mirror.
I love women.
I respect them.
I admire them.
Yet onscreen, I terrorize them.
Why? The easy answer is that I get paid to do it. It's not me, it's pretend. It's my job. Yet there are many things I could get paid to do that I could not, as a man and a follower of Christ, in good conscience do. So when I bring Mr. Creepy (as I call the various incarnations of that particular screen persona) to the set, I spent a lot of time thinking about whether it is all OK; whether it is in some way harmful to immortalize forever these endless scenes of violence and domination.
with the talented Capel Kane in DISMAL
manhandling Dakota Fanning in THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES. Me: "Wanna practice the yank?" She: "I'm good." I think I bruised her arm.
I talk about it with the actresses I play opposite. They are unconcerned; texting away between takes, checking their lip gloss and preserving their screaming voices. "Don't worry," they say, "I'm fine...but next time keep my hair out of my face, OK?"
Creepy Hand: Bill Oberst Jr. and Elizabeth DiPrinzio in THE DEVIL WITHIN
But I do worry. I do think. And here is what I have concluded:
Men fear women. Somewhere deep down. We fear them because women have power. Women have, in fact, the ultimate power in the universe. Only women can bring forth life.
So men (and women) have devised a cathartic psychic drama that gets played out over and over again in our storytelling...Beauty And The Beast...in which the power of The Beast is pitted against that of Beauty. It always ends badly for The Beast. He cannot win. He can only rage against what he cannot conquer.
as the monstrous Victor with Elle Labadie in Kane Sene's FORFEIT OF GRACE.
When played out in real life, the drama can have tragic consequences. But this isn't real life. And I'm not a social worker. I'm an actor. I'm a storyteller. And I have come to believe that to show the darkness inherent in the human soul can be a helpful thing. Even a cleansing thing.
The characters I play as Mr. Creepy are misogynistic, misanthropic and frequently monosyllabic. They are The Beast. And though they rage, they are slain. Justice is done. And I get paid.
