TOM NOONAN: You recording me or keeping notes?
CHRIS NEUMER: I’m recording you. Are you okay with that?
TOM NOONAN: Yeah sure.
CHRIS NEUMER: Honestly, I think you’re the first person I’ve ever interviewed over the phone that’s asked that.
TOM NOONAN: Yeah, well, I’ve done this a lot, so…
CHRIS NEUMER: I’ve got to say, you’re also one of the first people I’ve interviewed in a long time where I don’t necessarily want to talk to you about any one given project or something new where you’re on a publicity tour or something.
TOM NOONAN: I’m not doing any new stuff.
CHRIS NEUMER: I’d actually been watching some of the X-Files. I think Season 4 came out on DVD and so we got it at the magazine and I think this is the season where you of course guest star as another pedophile who likes to collect little cloth hearts.
TOM NOONAN: What do you mean another pedophile? Like, yet another one? You say ‘another pedophile’, like saying it’s a regular thing for me.
CHRIS NEUMER: Didn’t you play one in The Pledge too?
TOM NOONAN: Uh-huh. Oh you know, I shouldn’t say this. In The Pledge—and I shouldn’t say this—I’m not the killer in that movie. I’m not the pedophile. The whole gag in that movie is that I’m the nice guy. The whole reason I did it is because that’s what the script reads as. How they cut it together is another story.
CHRIS NEUMER: So it was more of a creation of Jack Nicholson’s mind?
TOM NOONAN: Yeah exactly. There’s another guy who’s in a Mercedes that gets burned at the end. And people tell me I look like the guy in the Mercedes but that’s not me. I’m the nice guy in that movie. At least in the script I am.
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s interesting how they put that together. But as I was watching you in The X Files, you were shooting hoops in that one and I thought, “He’s got a very natural stroke.” I wasn’t sure whether or not you played basketball previously or you learned it for the part, but you looked like you played very well.
TOM NOONAN: Well, I know this is kind of minutiae again, but, in fact it’s not part of the… I can play pretty good. I can dunk. I can still play even though I’m getting older according to people. And they said, “Don’t play so good.” They wanted me to downplay how well I could actually shoot... I’m not sure why they felt that.
CHRIS NEUMER: Maybe you made David Duchovny look bad.
TOM NOONAN: Well, Duchovny was the backup point guard for Princeton. He can shoot. He shot that shot on camera, he actually made like five of them with a gun and a holster.
CHRIS NEUMER: All propped out.
TOM NOONAN: He can play. But I can play too and I thought it’d been more fun if there’d been more made of that, but for some reason they chose not to which is fine with me.
CHRIS NEUMER: I’m not sure they’d want to see Mulder getting dunked on.
TOM NOONAN: That’s all I wanted to do basically. Playing basketball is how I learned to perform in a lot of ways. It’s how I got interested in performing.
CHRIS NEUMER: Could you expand on that a little bit?
TOM NOONAN: I never acted as a kid. I never did school plays. I never acted until I was 27.
CHRIS NEUMER: And this is when you saw yourself in that documentary.
TOM NOONAN: Yeah. Did I already tell you that or you read that?
CHRIS NEUMER: I’ve done some research on you.
TOM NOONAN: Yeah. That’s kind of what… I always thought I was kind of interesting; we used to laugh a lot growing up. Playing basketball is the most stressful performance thing one could do in high school, at least in my opinion. But I learned a lot doing that. Playing for your girlfriend when you’re 16 is a lot more nerve racking than anything you could ever do acting.
CHRIS NEUMER: This is true. Yes.
TOM NOONAN: I learned a lot playing. And that’s what I wanted to do.
CHRIS NEUMER: Did you play after high school at all?
TOM NOONAN: No. I was recruited by a number of real teams, but I decided to go to Yale which doesn’t allow scholarships. I think it didn’t hurt when I went there. And when I got there I didn’t feel like playing any more. And after I dropped out, or left college, I played in the Rucker Park league, with is the Harlem pro league, summer pro league, which is really intense competition, much more intense than any college, or at least at that point it was. Pros would play there during the summer and all the rookies that had been drafted would play in that league.
CHRIS NEUMER: Was this the league that got some attention by Sports Illustrated in the 90s when Booger Smith made it to the cover?
TOM NOONAN: Is he like the greatest playground basketball player ever? Helicopter? There’s all these legendary guys who played playground New York ball who could never handle college or pro.
CHRIS NEUMER: And even Lloyd Daniels when he made it didn’t seem to handle it very well.
TOM NOONAN: I think now the LA pro-league is the place that pros play, but up until ’80-’85 a lot of the pros played in New York and I played there and it was really intense. There were NBA refs and it was on television. So it was a great basketball life.
CHRIS NEUMER: And so this kind of performance was very similar to the acting performance?
TOM NOONAN: Well, no, but you learn a lot when you’re in front of people and you’ve got a crowd going and you’re doing something that you love to do. A lot of the skills that you would need for acting come through that. I think a lot of—I guess not a lot of actors got that from sports. It’s like a life and death struggle in front of people that you hope to impress.
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s true. Being able to block out the crowd, focus on what you need to, remember the plays. Now it all makes sense.
TOM NOONAN: I learned a lot. And after that nothing really makes you nervous. I never had too many nerves about acting. I get nervous a little bit on certain takes.
CHRIS NEUMER: Certain takes or certain plays?
TOM NOONAN: No, mostly takes. Plays… once in a while I’ll get nervous. Like opening night until you get the play down. But it’s mostly movies, like where you know you have to do something and there’s a lot of pressure on you where you have to perform.
CHRIS NEUMER: Are there any specific examples of that you have on the top of your head?
TOM NOONAN: In Manhunter when I have to say to that guy, “Before me, you were a slug in the sun,” or whatever I say to him, the guy tied to the chair, you know you have to really be there. Do that. And Michael Mann is very demanding and does not accept people bullshitting. So it’s times like that where you want to make sure that you’re really there. And I don’t know if nerves is really the word, but you feel a lot of stuff.
CHRIS NEUMER: You know you have to get it right.
TOM NOONAN: Yeah. In some ways yeah.
CHRIS NEUMER: Getting back to what I was saying. Just watching you in the X-Files I realized that even though throughout your career you’ve been known as, primarily in feature films, not counting the ones you’ve made yourself, you’ve been known as sort of a bad guy. I realized that every bad guy you’ve played I can easily differentiate in my mind. Like, “Oh he wouldn’t do this, but he would do this.” And after reading the article you had written for The New York Press I realized that you have this genuine passion for acting. When I started doing research on you I realized that you were probably as a big a renaissance man in the film world, as far as scoring, editing, directing, as anyone else out there.
TOM NOONAN: I try to—my stock answer to that is that I grew up in the ‘60s and when people made an album they didn’t hire singers. You did everything. And to me, making a movie, anything you can do to make the film work the way you want it to work, you do. I don’t think of myself as a composer and a writer, it’s all the same thing. Bob Dylan, The Beatles, I’m not going to compare myself to them. I’m sure I don’t think of it as different. It’s all one thing.
CHRIS NEUMER: You don’t ever find it difficult to switch gears from composing to acting to writing something?
TOM NOONAN: Not too much. When I first started directing my own stuff that I wrote I had—when I acted in it myself, it was a little trickier directing people that were acting in scenes with me. I’ve gotten a little better and a little more comfortable with that but at times I think it threw people. I think it’s, I don’t know what the word is, intimidating or challenging to act with someone who wrote the script and is directing the scene. And you want to make people feel really comfortable and not make them feel that way. But from my side of it it’s a lot easier. Acting’s not that hard to do. When you get to it it’s pretty intense, but I find that being distracted by having to do a lot of other things on the film makes it easier to act.
CHRIS NEUMER: When you say distracted?
TOM NOONAN: Like having to set up the shot or making sure people are in costumes and dealing with the wardrobe. All that stuff. Then they say, “It’s time for you to do your scene.” And I go, “Oh okay.” Then I sit down and do the scene. But when I sit in my trailer and wait and wait and wait. I find that much harder than actually being involved in the whole process.
CHRIS NEUMER: Is there any process or mindset that you try to get into to give your characters this added depth that they have or is it just going in and doing it?
TOM NOONAN: (laughs) I think most of that is just God-given whatever. I also think what I attempt to do when I act, since I’ve done it awhile now, is just attempt to be there, and just be as present as I can. To feel myself and think about, “Why am I here, what is this about for me?” and deal with the here and now in the scene and not try to think about what is the scene and what is the character doing and all that stuff that sometimes they teach in acting. Like I did a part—and I hate when people talk like this, but I don’t care—I did a part a year or two ago in a TV thing where I played a police captain. And I have to say that I’ve always had a lot of difficulty with authority and I had to be the guy that ran the precinct. But all I had to do to feel the scene was just stand up straight. Because I’m tall and I think I have a lot of issues with standing up tall. But a lot comes up for me when I stand up. So, a lot of times what I would do to prepare for a take, I just knew the words and knew where I was supposed to go and I would just stand up and see what it felt like to stand up and be in command.
CHRIS NEUMER: How tall are you? 6’4”? 6’5”?
TOM NOONAN: Like 6’6” or taller.
CHRIS NEUMER: No wonder you can dunk.
TOM NOONAN: So you know I kind of deal with that kind of thing. Or in The Pledge I just thought about where I was and walked in and started talking to those kids and thought about my father talking to me and just think about things like where I am. And having acted for a while a lot of the skill stuff just takes care of itself. I try to think about my relationship to the people for real in the scene that I’m acting with. How do I feel about these people for real? Do I like them, do I not like them? Do I want to know them better? When you watch Seinfield, the reason that show works is because those people love each other.
CHRIS NEUMER: Sort of like off-screen chemistry permeates onscreen as well.
TOM NOONAN: There is only one chemistry. And you see it. When you see George Costanza start to do one of his things, you can look at Jerry and you can see his face and see that he loves this guy. And it makes it funny. It makes it fun to watch. He’s not acting that. It’s fun to watch those guys because it’s fun to watch those people. I teach acting now and I think the reason people go to a movie or a play is to be reminded of what it is to be a human being. If you watch a movie or a play where there are people that are human beings it’s very moving. So I try to be a person if I can.
CHRIS NEUMER: A realistic, three-dimensional person.
TOM NOONAN: Whatever the circumstances permit. You can’t do something in a vacuum, but you try.
CHRIS NEUMER: And I’m sure films like The Last Action Hero wouldn’t allow for that as much as something like Manhunter.
TOM NOONAN: It depends what kind of person you are and what kind of stuff that you enjoy doing. Whatever makes you feel really alive, if they give you a chance to do that in a movie it usually comes through.
CHRIS NEUMER: True. Now, since you have, at least in everything up to The Pledge, you seem to gravitate towards the slightly macabre…
TOM NOONAN: People see that in me and I’m sure there’s some element in me that has that. I’m sure even in The Pledge, the idea of casting me in that part is to cast a guy where the audience is going to go, “Oh God, this is the guy who did this,” and then play against it. Although in the end they edited with it, I’m sure that the idea that I had that [quality] in me was why they hired me to some degree.
CHRIS NEUMER: And you think that’s something that’s within you?
TOM NOONAN: Sure. The kinds of behaviors that people associate with people that are intensely involved with something, I may be able to get in touch with or have about me. People may find me creepy in some way. Or might find me threatening. Or inscrutable in some way. I mean, that’s why they hire you. When you walk into the room, they look at you and go, “Yeah I could see him doing this part,” and there must be something about me that has that…
CHRIS NEUMER: It almost works for you because you are creepy precisely because you’re not creepy in a lot of your roles. You’re very even-keeled, very temperamental and it’s just sort of an ironic twist where there’s this guy that comes off as creepy just because he’s well-spoken and talks very softly.
TOM NOONAN: You think those people are out there doing that stuff?
CHRIS NEUMER: No, no. They’re the people who meet the murderers and say, “He was very quiet. He’s lived here for 20 years.”
TOM NOONAN: “He washed his car and never bothered me.” You know people like that, that’s not why I do it that way, but I also think you play somebody who— To think that there are people you meet on the street or that you have in your life that are capable of doing something horrific is a scary proposition. To create a character that seems like someone you can relate to and seems like a normal person can be really scary. It’s real easy to think, “Oh, I know who the bad guys are and I know who the creeps are because they act like this, and there’s nobody in my life like that.” It’s really not too true.
CHRIS NEUMER: Sure. I think the writer/director Neil LaBute’s films were precisely on that level because he’s created these realistic people who do these, I’ll say “immoral” to put it very nicely, things and treat human beings with no regard and it shocks people simply because the characters are very identifiable.
TOM NOONAN: Everybody does that stuff. Everybody’s been cruel in life and violent, well most people at some point. Pretty often. It’s hard not to be when you’re a person.
CHRIS NEUMER: Have you ever had any reaction to you in the public for the roles that you’ve chosen? Just people crossing the street to get away from you or that kind of stuff?
TOM NOONAN: Did you read the interview where the woman ran away from me in the supermarket?
CHRIS NEUMER: No, I did not.
TOM NOONAN: I was in a supermarket in LA and somebody saw me and ran away.
CHRIS NEUMER: (laughs) I shouldn’t be laughing but it is funny.
TOM NOONAN: (laughs) The thing that happens for me is since I’m not a well-known person but you’ve seen me a lot, when people meet me they often don’t remember that they saw me in a movie. So, they remember me but they don’t remember how they remember me, but they remember that…
CHRIS NEUMER: That you’re bad.
TOM NOONAN: They know that there’s trouble here. I’ve had instances where I have a feeling that somebody, maybe I’m just a dislikable person in general, but I could tell something was happening.
CHRIS NEUMER: I was just going to say you sound like a miserable son of a bitch, but…
TOM NOONAN: What do you mean?
CHRIS NEUMER: I say that facetiously.
TOM NOONAN: But you know I’m big and I think people sometime—I’ll be riding the subway and I’ll get a weird vibe from people and I’ll realize one of my movies must be playing on cable now.
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s got to be an interesting light bulb that goes off when you can make that connection.
TOM NOONAN: Yeah. What’s also interesting is the kinds of people that like the movies that you do and I’ve also had some interesting—a lot of law enforcement people recognize me because they either remember the stuff I do. A lot of cops—I dig cops—and a lot of cops will stop me and talk to me.
