Dec. 1996
excerpt
Now Eric's lying down!" his publicist exclaims as I approach Eric Stoltz's suite. How was he before? "Sitting up!" she squeaks. It's been a long day, and it's only noon. Stoltz has a high giggle and a light blue shirt that matches his eyes. I sit in a chair by the couch, feeling like a psychiatrist. He plays with his ears the entire time -- what would a shrink say about that? - but he's the most relaxed man I've ever met.
So when he tells me he didn't learn to tie his shoes until he was eight, I believe him. Stoltz grew up (in flip - flops) in American Samoa, an island in the South Pacific, with his teacher parents and two older sisters. One day a hurricane struck, filling their cement and screen house with enough water to set afloat the mattress Stoltz and his sisters were sitting on. "I was thrilled!" Stoltz says. "It was an adventure."
Further adventures followed: when he and his roommate Anthony Edwards (now famous as Dr. Mark Green on ER) drove their other roommate Ally Sheedy to her audition for Fast Times at Ridgemont High, they were spotted by the casting director and promptly landed their first jobs -- as Sean Penn's surf buddies. Sheedy didn't get hired, but she forgave them.
Stoltz starred opposite Cher in Mask, then went on to make dozens of small films (and a few big ones); show me a hip independent film, I'll show you the Eric Stoltz cameo. (His latest: a party - giver in Tom Cruise's Jerry Maguire.) Why is Stoltz a small film's best friend? "Hollywood movies are in the cookie cutter mode: White cop, black cop, will they get along? Something's gonna explode!" he says. "Whenever I see something out of that norm, I want to be involved with it."
--Johanna Schneller