Close Up

Eric Stoltz is an actor. That’s how he describes himself. And “it’s a very good time to be a young actor,” he says. The twenty-seven year old Stoltz is best known for his brilliant performance as Rocky Dennis, a teenager suffering from a severe bone disease, in Peter Bogdonavich’s 1985 Mask. Under heavy makeup, Stoltz put Rocky’s soul on the screen, evoking honest, unabashed empathy.

This month, Stoltz stars in two films: Manifesto, which he describes as being about “political and sexual anarchy in a small European village” and also a comedy; and Haunted Summer, in which he portrays nineteenth-century poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Stoltz says playing Shelley was both “a challenge” and “fun” – an actor’s dream.

“With Rocky and Shelley I felt an extreme sense of responsibility not to trivialize their lives for the sake of the film,” Stoltz says.

Stoltz was born in Whittier, California, and at the age of five moved with his parents to American Samoa. The family relocated to Santa Barbara when Stoltz was eight. He studied both the trumpet and the piano, proving, like his parents, to be musically gifted. After two years at USC he landed roles on television and stage, appearing in, among other productions, Horton Foote’s The Widow Claire, off Broadway.

His film debut came in 1982 as Sean Penn’s buddy in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. After his triumph in Mask, Stoltz gave considerable depth to Keith, a teenage artist with dating problems, in the John Hughes- produced Some Kind of Wonderful and breathed new life into a familiar Hughes character. He said he did the film for the opportunity to act with Mary Stuart Masterson, an actress he holds in high regard.

Stoltz likens his acting to having a child. “Once the work is done, it’s gone,” he says. “It takes on a life of its own.”

Currently, Stoltz is working on the sequel to David Cronenberg’s The Fly. The role requires him to once again act under heavy makeup. But Stoltz has put his performance into perspective: “How often does an actor get to play an insect?”

- Anthony P. Montesano

*American Film, September 1988