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Bob Balaban doesn't look like Hollywood royalty. A small, dapper, bespectacled figure with the permanent air of someone who has misplaced his newspaper, the sixty-two-year-old character actor (and former Screengrab That Guy!) has spent much of his five-decade film career playing unassuming nebbishes who seem to feel mildly embarrassed that someone has shooed them in front of a movie camera. But if anyone was born to be a star, it's Balaban: his family owned and operated an impressive empire of movie studios, including a number of legendary cinemas in his native Chicago, and his uncle Barney was the president of Paramount Pictures for almost thirty years.

But there's much more to Balaban's success, as quirky as it may be, than just fortunate family ties. He's a versatile character actor with a heavy-duty resume: his very first appearance on the big screen was in the Oscar-nominated Midnight Cowboy, and along the way, he's delivered key performances in films ranging from Altered States to Cradle Will Rock to Capote. He's also played the president of NBC not once but twice (most memorably in a handful of Seinfeld episodes), and he finally nabbed an Oscar nomination of his own in 2001 for Gosford Park, a film that he produced and nursed into existence with the late Robert Altman.

On the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary re-release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which he appeared as the cartographer David Laughlin, Balaban was kind enough to talk to us about his experiences making that film, his unusual career arc, and the state of the industry today. — Leonard Pierce

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You wrote a book, Spielberg, Truffaut & Me: An Actor's Journey, about the process of filming Close Encounters.
I did indeed. It was originally called Close Encounters of the Third Kind Diary, and it sold a few hundred-thousand copies. I think you can find the originals out there on the internet for some ridiculous amount of money, but it's in print under the new title, and it's very gratifying to know that there's still so much interest in it.

It's one of my favorite behind-the-scenes film books. Have you been tempted to write another one, about any of the other movies you've done?
No, not at all. It would seem exploitative. And, really, the circumstances of writing the book were very different than on any movie I've ever worked on. When you're making a movie, a lot of them are over in two to three months, and even then it's a very tedious process, especially in a movie with a lot of special effects. There's lots of waiting, lots of inactivity, and often, I can't remember a thing that happened during the whole period. But with Close Encounters, I remembered everything that happened all the time.

We really didn't have any conception at first of how popular the movie was going to be. We knew that we'd made a great movie, but nobody knew how significant it was going to be. But when it came out and became such a cultural event — I mean, Johnny Carson was making jokes about it on the Tonight Show. And at some point, word got out, I think it was through [gossip columnist] Liz Smith, that I had taken very elaborate notes during the filming, so I was contacted by several literary agents, and I decided to get the book together.

So it was a strictly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
Absolutely. We didn't know the reaction to the book would be so nice, but I can't see it ever happening again. How often do you get the opportunity to stand next to Stephen Spielberg and Francois Truffaut for nine months, chatting away? Also, at the time the book came out — there wasn't as much 'backstage' then. Part of the reason I think it was received so well is that at the time, there was still a great deal of interest in that behind-the-scenes view of filmmaking. Now you have the E! Network and all kinds of things that take you backstage, and if you want to find out what happened in the filming of a movie, it's very easy to do.

You were nominated for an Oscar as one of the producers of Gosford Park, but beyond that, the whole idea of the film was yours, correct?
That's correct. It was an idea that I'd had for many years, and I worked very closely with my friend Robert Altman in developing it.

Did you have a hand in writing it, as well?
When it finally came time to make the film, the actual screenplay was given to a wonderful, brilliant writer named Julian Fellowes, who actually hadn't done any film writing up to that point. But I helped develop the movie throughout the entire process, and — well, obviously, once Robert started filming, I wasn't going to sit there and tell him, "All right, I think we should do it this way instead," but he was my friend and my partner in making the movie from the very beginning.

A whole new generation of fans has grown to love you for your roles in Christopher Guest's comedies.
Yes. People do seem to like them, don't they?

You're working there as part of an ensemble cast that's made up of a lot of people with improv backgrounds. Is that intimidating?
No. It's exhilarating. All of those films are almost totally improvised, and it's almost every actor's dream to be surprised by how a role develops. With that cast, you're constantly surprised in pleasant ways, and it's thrilling to have your mind switch off at a certain level and just react to the way a scene is going. It's truly fantastic to work with that cast.

Your family was deeply involved in the motion picture industry, and your uncle headed Paramount during the blacklist days. How did that shape your career?
That's true. My uncle was the head of Paramount at the start of the blacklist, but I don't believe that going along with the blacklist was something he agreed with, or that he supported. It was just the reality of the times — there was no way he would have been allowed to stay in business if he hadn't gone along with it. He had a responsibility to his stockholders, and regardless of his own feelings, he just wouldn't have been able to operate the studio unless he complied with that.

As far as my career, of course, it was thrilling to grow up in that environment. A lot of people in my family sort of had flirtations with show business before becoming doctors or housewives or whatever they became in the course of their lives, but I always knew that I would somehow be involved in the movie business. My family didn't necessarily help me in building my career or getting me parts or anything like that, but it certainly helped set the hook more quickly for what I wanted to do with my life. I love my family history, I love my genetic code — but I've really made my own way in movies.

Do you feel that we're again entering an era where fimmaking is highly politicized?
I do think that there's a great deal of government influence in the media — I think that's especially true of television, and of television news, where the message is very much managed by the people in office. I don't really think that politics is going to affect the movie industry, though — the studios will keep making movies based on what people want to see and what's going to make money.

What's your next acting project?
I'll be appearing in Recount, a film about the 2000 U.S. presidential election, which will be airing on HBO next summer.

And who are you playing in that?
I will be playing Benjamin Ginsberg, the counsel for the Bush-Cheney campaign. See, sometimes it pays to be a Republican.

You've also directed a number of films, a few of which are built around the theme of cannibalism.
That's true. I directed My Boyfriend's Back, in which a teenage boy becomes a zombie and eats some of his classmates, and Parents, in which Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt cannibalize people for meat. I don't know as I'd really call it a theme, though.

You've just directed a new film, though, called Bernard and Doris.
That's correct. It stars Ralph Fiennes and Susan Sarandon as the tobacco heiress Doris Duke, and it's about her last days and her relationship with her butler.

Any cannibalism?
Well, a little. We don't like to talk about it too much.


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©2007 Leonard Pierce & Nerve.com


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