Ray Pride

For better or worse, Richard Shepard's gritty, genially outlandish middle-aged-assassin-on-the-ropes "The Matador" tall tale is going to be known as the "Pierce Brosnan walks across a Mexico City hotel lobby in only a black Speedo and cowboy boots slurping a Modelo" movie. But it's also a movie that wound up getting the enthusiastic writer-director out of "movie jail."

What's the quick version of your career that you were ready to make something for a quarter-million dollars that's just flat-out, balls-out goofy like this?

I've had such an odd career. When I was very young I had an opportunity, when I was like 24, I made a $3 million movie, called "The Linguini Incident" (1991). Which was a romantic comedy, neither romantic nor funny. It's not good. I was in over my head, I didn't know what I was doing, the producer was MIA; it was a mess. It just stopped my career. It stopped it; it stopped it right when it should start. It's much easier to get a movie made if you've never directed anything than if you directed something that was bad. That movie was bad! I knew it was bad. It was so bad I couldn't even show it as a sample of my work. It's really terrifying. `Cause you don't get that many opportunities. David Bowie was in it, people knew about it in Hollywood. But I got sent to movie jail. I couldn't do any work. I got depressed. Finally, I was like, I'm gonna go back to New York, where I'm from, and make a little $50,000 movie. This script I'd written. I'm just going to make it on my own. I got a lot of my friends to give me 2,500 bucks each and I was able to go and make this movie called "Mercy," with Sam Rockwell. It was a little thriller, but finally I had something I was proud of. I'd actually made something which was good, good for me, at least! We sold it to HBO, we made our money back.

That was good.

That was also good. Then I made this little movie called "Oxygen," that Adrien Brody and Maura Tierney were in, a million-dollar thriller. I was managing a career, I produced a movie called "Scotland, PA" and I'd done some TV. Still, nobody knew who I was in the movie business but I was able to have my own life, live in New York and do what I want. And I really came to the belief that there's a lot of joy making a movie, whatever budget you have. Clearly, with a bigger budget you have a chance to reach a bigger audience, and that's incredibly important. But the process of making a movie is fun. When I wrote "The Matador," thinking that no actor would want to play this part, it was freeing, to not be worried about writing something that was going to sell. I had always envisioned we could get money. Having done it now for so many years, I was such the realist, well, no one's ever going to do this one. I was able to write it freely and there's nothing more empowering than the belief that you can do it yourself. Everyone tells you no in the movie business. It's so hard to get a movie made, especially a movie that's halfway interesting or halfway different. You know that the filmmaker, the group, the producer, everyone went through hell to get it made. It's hard!

There are a hundred lost John Ford short films from before he was anywhere. Nobody gets that luxury to be under the radar anymore.

I know, I know. It was perfect timing when "Matador" came around, because Pierce was able to look at "Oxygen," and see that I could direct. And I was mature enough at this time to figure out really what I needed to know, that I could do a good job, that I could fight for the things that are important and hold my ground.

Early references to the storyline of Greg Kinnear's nebbish and Brosnan's failing assassin have been to the murder-swap of "Strangers on a Train," but it has more of a continent-jumping, digressive feel like Wim Wenders' "The American Friend." And there's the great line in your movie, "Aren't we fuckin' cosmopolitan?"

I like "The American Friend." Y'know, I wrote the movie not knowing how it was going to end, I wrote the characters. That the movie makes you think of [those two films], or "Man on the Train," or "The In-Laws," I love all those movies. They're part of my DNA as a filmgoer. You're just influenced by the things you're influenced by. If anyone ever mentions the "In-Laws" to me, it is the funniest American comedy ever--flawed and a little dated, but hysterical.

"The Matador" opens Friday.

(2006-01-03)

Also by Ray Pride

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(2005-12-20)

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