Having been in Nolte's presence for only a short while, I can understand why he is somewhat taken aback by the question. Though his on-screen persona is, as described above, somewhat volatile, his off-screen demeanor is almost Zen-like. True, he has had some much-publicized run-ins with the law, including his infamous mug shot, but the Nolte that I meet and the Nolte that was on the set of The Beautiful Country is a man far removed from this tabloid fodder. Thoughtful, introspective, jovial and concerned, Nolte twice extends a hand out to touch my knee as he asks me if I understand what he’s saying.
"Oh, yeah…" Nguyen laughs as we talk about Nolte’s reputation. "I’ll be honest with you," he says, "Even though I’d worked with Tim Roth, I was really nervous about working with [a star like] Nick." Not helping Nguyen were the rumors about Nolte that abounded on set prior to his arrival. Some rumors had him spending countless hours talking to Vietnam vets to get a better grasp on his part as a Vietnam vet. Others had him creating his own contact lenses, while still others had him pretending to be blind to understand the mindset of his character. The one that scared Nguyen the most was the rumor that Nolte had spent three straight days in a cramped trailer, much like the one in which his character lives, to get into the proper mindset to play the role (only the first rumor turned out to be true). "I thought, ‘Oh my God,’" Nguyen recalls, "’This guy has gone to really extended lengths to get prepared for this role and he’s only going to be shooting for a week.’" Nguyen exhales deeply and says, "For me, he could’ve been anything. I had all of these ideas of what he might be like, but he caught me really off guard because he’s really laid back and really funny."
The one thing that Nguyen doesn’t initially mention is how apologetic Nolte is. When I bring this up later, Nguyen instantly jumps in. "Oh, yeah!" he concurs, "He’s very apologetic. If anything went wrong on set, he’s the first one to apologize, whether it had anything to do with him or not."
Nolte not only apologizes to me about having to conclude our conversation (after already having shooed his publicist away in order to give the two of us more time to talk), but relates the following story. Declares Nolte, "When I told the story about my [character’s] wife on camera, I tried to do it fairly straight ahead." He sighs and says, "Every time I did it with my co-star, I just couldn’t contain myself. I broke down [and cried]. I kept apologizing to Hans. I said, ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t break it.’ And he said, "No, no, it’s good.’"
The situation sounds surprisingly like one of the situations that director Robert Altman has deemed a happy accident. Nolte likes the term and says, "Yeah, happy accident, happy work situation, happy problem, and happy preparation."
At ‘happy preparation’, Nolte’s eyes light up and he turns his head to look directly at me. "But, you understand, it was the right kind of preparation," he near whispers. I’m not sure exactly what Nolte means by this, but know, if history is any indication, that I am about to find out in the rollicking, tangential manner of conversation of which he is so fond.
Within seconds, we are back talking about peace and the deep yearning that humans have to be peaceful. This resonates with him because of the dichotomy between the supremely blissful life his character managed to create for himself while in Vietnam and the bloody war itself.
"I’ve been searching my whole life for peace," Nolte begins. "I’ve strived my entire life to be peaceful. We start out our lives as babies, perfectly content and perfectly fulfilled. Somewhere along the line, we forget that we have the capability of being happy anytime we want. It becomes, ‘You will be happy if you buy this or get this,’ or ‘You will be happy if you achieve this.’" Nolte grimaces at the thought. "When we’re babies, everything is a religious revelation. There are thoughts that intoxication is related to trying to recreate that state." In a statement that shows, again, how much time and energy Nolte has put in to researching his part and his theories, Nolte says, "There is a whole group of scientists who think that. They think that intoxication is an attempt to do that." He clasps his hands together in front of his body and concludes, "When you think about that, it makes sense to try and recreate that."
It’s an interesting theory to be sure, but seemingly has little to do with preparing to play the role of a blind Vietnam veteran. This is the beauty of Nolte. Though I’m not sure what he’s driving at, I know his next sentence will clear up the confusion. It makes me realize that few people are better at tying up loose metaphorical ends than Nolte. "So peace comes from the heart," he asserts, "but first of all, you’ve got to have a thirst to want to be at peace. There is a war going on and it’s inside ourselves."
The phrase sounds familiar and I’m trying to place it. That’s when I realize that it sounds familiar because Moland used it earlier when describing Nolte’s character. Steve is a man who is tormented by his inner demons. He is at war with himself. I’m not sure whether this is a practiced talking point for the men or whether Moland and Nolte are still on the same page, but either way, it’s no wonder that both men talk so highly of one another. Great minds think alike.
[ENDINGS AND THE BADDEST ENGLISH]
Nguyen is describing the people that he encountered while shooting The Beautiful Country in Vietnam. I am smiling at his choice of words. "Just seeing the village people walk miles and miles to town to sell their produce helped me understand the character of Binh," he says. There is a pause in our conversation as Nguyen realizes that he should probably use a different term to describe the Vietnamese locals than ‘the village people’; the flamboyant seventies group of the same name is not anywhere close to what he is attempting to describe. He laughs as I images pop into his mind of a cop, a sailor and an Indian in full headdress wandering about the backwoods of Vietnam. "Better rephrase, huh?" he asks. I nod. "The, uh, people who live in the villages would walk miles and miles to bring their produce to town to sell," he says. "Just seeing that helped me develop an understanding of where Binh is from. Seeing the trials and tribulations of the locals really helped me make the part more of my own and bring it alive on the screen."
Playing the role of a Vietnamese national, Nguyen faced a considerable challenge with the role that lands well outside the norm: he was forced to de-learn English.
"Oh, it was a concern of mine," Nguyen states of the language barrier and the worrisome stereotypes that can accompany a faux Asian accent. "I didn’t want it to seem like I was using a stereotypical Asian voice." Fortunately for Nguyen (and Moland), the response from Vietnamese people has been quite complimentary. Nguyen quickly credits this to two people in his life, his mother and father.
He chuckles when I ask if they are acting coaches. "No," Nguyen says, still smiling. "My parents speak very little English and it helped me just being around them." He rubs the palm of his hand against the bottom of his chin and says, "Communicating with my parents is kind of schizophrenic conversation because it keeps jumping between English, Vietnamese and these weird hand gestures that [we use] to convey messages." He sighs and states, "My Vietnamese isn’t that stellar and their English certainly isn’t that stellar, so we have to find this common ground when we talk... there’s always give-and-take. So I used how my parents speak to kind of come up with [Binh’s] very rigid, limited English."
While Nguyen spent a sizable chunk of time talking with his parents trying to get into character on set (and benefited greatly from "being on location and seeing everything come together"), Nolte dealt with his character on location in a slightly different and decidedly less taxing fashion. "I just didn’t put in my contacts," he grins.
When Moland hears this he shakes his head at Nolte, ever humble, ever the statesman. "He’s a gracious human being," the director says about his A-list star, "but we rehearsed for a really long time and then shot. We worked out the details of his character; we talked about different aspects of it and fantasized about things that may have had some regard to his life." He shrugs. "It was just a way to get to know each other, but that’s what made Nick so fun to play with." He nods again, finished with this thought strand for time being. After another second of silence, Moland pipes up again and says more pointedly, "I’ve found that very often achieving quality is hard work. Nick has a certain humility that only the excellent people have. He has what directors like in their actors; he was going to make this good."
As our interview winds down, Moland thanks me for my interest in The Beautiful Country. "We worked pretty hard on it to make it live on its own terms and the fact that you see certain qualities in it is really gratifying to me," he says. I shake his hand and exit his hotel suite and realize that this is one case where you won’t hear the director complaining about needing more time, money or control over the project. I think back to some of his earlier comments while on the elevator going down to the ground floor.
"Oh, sure, it might have been different with a fifty million dollar budget," he says, "but I don’t know if that would have made it any better." He pauses and then says, "This story doesn’t stick out in a crowd, yet it has a certain finer quality that human beings can have." He takes a sip from his bottle of water and continues, "This story came to me and impressed me. There were limitations there from the start. Either I accepted this and thought that I could make the movie for this money or I didn’t."
Moland, Nolte and Nguyen all realized that they would be giving up the significant amenities that are present on big-budget studio projects in order to work on The Beautiful Country and chose to tackle the project anyway. It is precisely this unique belief the three have about the importance of the quality of their work rather than the amount of their paychecks that helps shape the core of this film. And that is rather beautiful indeed.
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE OF STUMPED?
Director Fernando Meirelles
Actress Alison Lohman
Writer/actor Paul Reiser
Director Brian Herzlinger
Director Morgan Spurlock
Actress Bai Ling
Shrek 2 director Conrad Vernon
The Diary of Hollywood Starlet, Rachael Huntley
Hollywood Then (1985) and Now (2005)
Location Scouting in Manhattan
Don't miss writer/director Robert Rodriguez's sumptuous Sin City, writer/director Dan Harris' debut Imaginary Heroes or the rerelease of director Michael Curtiz's epic The Sea Hawk.
Back issues of this magazine are available for purchase.
