With his handsome, rugged, everyman features, Tom Jane looks like a movie star. Yet beyond the appearance lies a pleasant demeanor that seems always to be lost in a profound train of thought. He even appears pensive while he slowly drags on his cigarette. Jane has starred in such eclectic films as “The Sweetest Thing,” “61*,” “Magnolia,” “The Thin Red Line,” and most recently “The Punisher.” His latest action-packed release is about a man’s redemption as he strives to avenge the murder of his family and his ultimate discovery that his strength and agility can be used for honorable means. Jane contemplated a few questions about the film and related matters.
GUARDIAN: What is it like working with all of the different kinds of weapons in “The Punisher?”
Tom Jane: It’s great to do these movies because you get this kind of training that you never get in real life. You get to hang out with these guys and get real intensive training and weapons training, edge weapons training [and] hand to hand combat. You learn how to kill a guy with one punch and shit like that, so it’s really cool. These guys, they want to teach you this stuff. They have a grasped amount of knowledge to give to you and it just becomes a real solid way into the character.
Creating a physical reality for myself is really key to bringing guys like this to life, so, you know, you can’t beat it. You really can’t beat it. I learned how to scuba dive on a movie. Everywhere I go in the world now, I try to find a place to do that. I learned how to play baseball, and I could play in softball matches around the country. Now I’m pretty good with a firearm, and I go out to shooting ranges and blow off some steam. I know how to handle a weapon safely and in a responsible manner and it’s really fun stuff.
G: How do you usually choose your roles, or what do you typically look for in a movie?
TJ: I look for two things. I look for two diametrically opposed, yet equal, forces that exist within the character, and then how they consolidate themselves, or work themselves out, and what happens to the person as these two forces are rubbing up inside them. That is key for me as an actor. With Mantle [from “61*”], it’s this amazing self-destructive streak coupled with this incredible ability to perform athletically. Neal Cassady [from “The Last Time I Committed Suicide]”” is living on the absolute outer boundaries of society, and yet, all Cassady ever wanted [was] a wife and two kids, a picket fence and a house — that’s his ultimate dream. Frank Castle [from “The Punisher”] the lawman, the special forces operative, the believer in America, the upholder of the law, the believer of justice — had the ultimate injustice done to him and had all of those things stripped away, and how does he reconcile those two diametrically opposed forces, wanting to do the right thing and yet wanting also to kill them all?
What I look for in a movie is how can I, how can we as filmmakers, define a genre and then subvert it somehow, push the boundaries of a genre. Operate within a genre and yet push the boundaries or break the rules or subvert the genre in some way. Like in “The Sweetest Thing” we reversed the roles. The women had the tradition man’s part in a romantic comedy and the men had the woman’s part, subverting the genre. The baseball movie [“61*”] becomes about the conflicting force of the media and the impact upon the game that it has and then it [also] becomes about friendship. So just subtly twisting and subverting the genre. At some point when you’re watching “The Punisher,” you realize that it is a movie about family, and yet you’re watching this revenge picture. This old-fashioned, throw back, 1970’s, hardnosed, punk rock, stripped down revenge movie is about family. Subverting the genre is important to me.
G: You did 90 percent of the stunts [in “The Punisher”]. How long did it take you to learn how to do all of that?
TJ: I had six months to prep for the film and in that way I trained with the [Navy] Seals. That allowed me the skills and the confidence to be able to do that, and it was important for me to do that going in. As much as I was influenced by Lee Marvin, [Charles] Bronson, and also hardnosed 70s characters, I was also influenced by Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, who brought a great sense of humor to their work and a real human three-dimensional, emotional sense of pathos and just a fantastic versatility in terms of the physicality of their roles. [It] was very strong, I mean, their roles were purely physical because they were operating in the silent medium, so I wanted to do “The Punisher” and turn him into a purely physical presence and speak as little as possible and try to tell the story with my actions. That’s challenging and it’s something I really am very fascinated by. It’s just something that I’ve always loved.
G: How was working with John Travolta in the movie, and who would you want to work with in the future?
TJ: John’s great, the whole cast is great, and it’s important in these kinds of movies to get a great cast together. John Pinette, Ben Foster, Rebecca [Romijn-Stamos], people you wouldn’t expect to come and bust out with these terrifically heartfelt performances. Samantha Manthis is a terrific actress. It’s a matter of surrounding yourself with the best people at all times. So I’d like to continue working with the best people, people that are better than me, people that have something to bring to the table that’s unexpected and that is human. So that’s the key, it’s constantly working with the best possible people you can find.
G: Were there any unforeseen problems that occurred during the shooting?
TJ: Well, yeah, there were some troubles. It’s inevitable in this kind of film. I kind of prepared for it like a professional sport. I fortunately came through it relatively unscathed. I stabbed my co-star Kevin Nash. I forgot to change out the real knife for the prop knife and when I went to stab him [during the shoot], it was a real knife. But he took it like a gentleman. It’s not a good day when you stab your co-star, and it was not my proudest moment. But [the injury] wasn’t bad, it was just a flesh wound and we went on with our day, but it didn’t feel good. It felt terrible.
G: Speaking of [professional wrestler] Kevin Nash, what was it like going up against him in that one scene?
TJ: We knew that we were making an impression with our size difference and we use it to our advantage. That fight scene is very much influenced by the James Bond fight scenes. There’s a great scene with Robert Shaw and Sean Connery. Those are the influences. Those fight scenes where they could be hardnosed and they could be bare-knuckle, knockdown, drag-out fights, but have a sense of humor to them. We just had fun, and I think it’s a memorable scene. I think it’s a scene that, well already it’s a scene that everybody’s talking about, and I hope they continue to talk about it for a long time because we had a lot of fun making that happen. And it’s due to Kevin’s [professionalism] and his abilities and his athleticism that we were able to do a lot of what we did, so it really worked out well.
G: What influenced your nonverbal physicality in the film?
TJ: Well as I said, I was really inspired by Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, and those guys who were so great at communicating nonverbally and so great at bringing this well-rounded, wonderful human characters to their movies. As much as I was influenced by those stars of the seventies, you know, Bronson, Eastwood, and Lee Marvin and those guys who didn’t have to talk a lot, I was influenced by [Keaton] and [Chaplin], which sounds a little funny for “The Punisher,” but those are my influences.
G: When you were filming this, did you try to stay away from what the other version of “The Punisher” with Dolph Lundgren was trying to do? Did you try to do it differently, or stick to the comic book?
TJ: Well, the Dolph Lundgren movie that shares the same name had absolutely no impact on us when we brought “The Punisher” to the screen. The 1989 movie is [“The Punisher” in name only] and it has nothing to do with the comic book. I think they borrowed the name and they borrowed the lead character’s name and then they went off and made their own movie that just has nothing to do with the comic book. So, although there is another movie called “The Punisher,” it’s certainly not a Marvel character.
G: Would you say that this was your hardest role to prepare for other than maybe Mickey Mantle [from “61*”] and having to actually learn how to hit a baseball?
TJ: Oh fuck, you can’t beat how hard that is, but there’s a certain skill set that you need to learn and a certain physicality that I needed to adapt to to play this guy that was very challenging. Mantle was very challenging. I like to challenge myself physically in these parts. It’s part of what turns me on. Definitely.
G: You starred as Mickey Mantle in “61*” and you made a reference in [“”The Punisher””] that you get upset when the Yankees win. What was behind that?
TJ: Frank Castle is a Mets fan. Castle is an underdog. He’s been beaten down by the system and everything has been taken away from him, so he’s much more of a Mets fan than he was a Yankees fan, so I thought that would be fun.
G: For the Mantle role, did you have any prior experience playing baseball?
TJ: No, I had no prior experience. I played football as a kid, but no baseball, so Reggie Smith from the Boston Red Sox taught me everything. He taught me how to switch hit, fly ball, field the ball, be tough in the game, be tough inside and out. Reggie said to me when I showed up at practice the first day, he says, “You don’t have any bad habits,” and that was true and it worked to my advantage, so I was able to come out with a fresh slate, a clean slate. So that was a great experience for me, just one of the best experiences. Mantle and “The Punisher” are two of my favorite experiences.
G: Do you have any more roles coming out as cool as “The Punisher?”
TJ: I played a pretty cool part last summer. I played a guy, a South African policeman during the 1976 apartheid. He’s living under the regime where he is asked by his government to kill people during these riots and he deals with that by robbing banks during his lunch hour. It was a true story about a real guy who lived named Andre Stander. The film is called “Stander.” It comes out June 11. Bob Berney [President of Distribution] at Newmarket who did “The Passion of the Christ” and “Monster” picked up the film and I’m really proud to be a part of that movie. It’s a terrific story, it’s an action drama, it’s an anti-hero, [and] it subverts the genre in a way. It’s another guy who has diametrically opposed forces operating inside of him.
G: Will there be a sequel to “The Punisher?”
TJ: Yeah, we have one in the works, there’s one in the pipeline, so look forward to seeing what [the screenwriter] does. We’re hoping to bring Jigsaw into it, the great Punisher nemesis named Jigsaw whose face has been butchered, cut-up and stitched back together. It looks like a jigsaw puzzle. It’s a great character.
G: Will this be the next franchise in the Marvel comic movie era? Do you plan on making more than the two, kind of like “Spider-man?”
TJ: I don’t know. I think we’re taking it on a case by case basis. There’s certainly room for one more and geez, I can’t think beyond that. It’s just a hell of a lot of work. If we squeeze two out of this, it will be great, but who knows about the third.
You can see Tom Jane in action as the Punisher on April 16. Also, look for his other film “Stander” in theatres on June 11. Shooting for the sequel tof the “The Punisher” could begin as early as November 2004.
