by
Kevin Sessums
Of error, ignorance, and strife,
Where nothing is, but all things seem,
And we the shadows of the dream,
It is a modest creed, and yet
Pleasant if one considers it,
To own that death itself must be,
Like all the rest, a mockery.
And all sweet shapes and odours there,
In truth have never passed away:
‘Tis we, ‘tis ours, are changed, not they.
For love, and beauty, and delight,
There is no death nor change: their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.
*Interview Magazine Nov. 1988
- Late 20’s. - Drinks only bottled water
- Hair:
red.- Attended USC.
- Face:
freckled.- Fought with Sue Simmons on Live at Five:
“I was publicizing an Off-Broadway play I was in, Horton Foote’s The Widow Claire, and Sue and I had this heated argument right there on live television. When I got back to the theater later that night, there were two letters already waiting for me. One was a love letter praising me to high heaven for not simply jumping through the hoops. The other was a hate letter that practically said I should be shot for my rude behavior. I put them both up on the wall in my dressing room because that summed it up for me. It just reminded me that you can only do the work and not worry about whether people like you or not. I just want them to respond to what I do. If they hate it—fine with me. At least it’s a response.”
- Demeanor:
skittish.
- Keeps a journal
- A European’s idea of the all-American boy.
- Baby brother to two older sisters
- The kind of guy Godard would go after if he were turning The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn into a film.
- “I think it’s possible to be both innocent and knowing, evil and good. That’s what separates us humans from the rest of the species out there – complexity.”
- The kind Bob Zemekis fired from Back to the Future and replaced with Michael J. Fox.
- Upcoming film roles:
1. The postal clerk in Dušan Makavejev’s Manifesto
2. The human insect in The Fly II
3. Percy Bysshe Shelley in Ivan Passer’s Haunted Summer.
- The kind Gregory Mosher hired to play George in this month’s Lincoln Center Theater production of Our Town.
- Post-performance:
“The effects of the work linger—like malaria.”
- One of George Wilder’s lines:
“I do.”
- Reads from Conclusion of Shelley’s “The Sensitive Plant” at the end of Haunted Summer:
… in this life
That garden sweet, that lady fair,
- One of Eric’s:
“I have control over nothing.”
- “I am not a cynic.”
- Episcopalian
- “I thrive on insecurity.” - Past films:
Mask, Some Kind of Wonderful, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.- Ambidextrous.
- An uncle.
- Reasons he loves to act:
1. “A chance to reinvent myself.”
2. “I know what’s going to happen next.”
3. It’s migratory work – town to town, era to era.”
4. “I get to go screaming into the void.”
5. “It’s an assault.”
6. “There are epistles to be grasped.”
- Plays the guitar - Vegetarian - Parents:
Teachers- Nomadic childhood:
American Samoa, Paris, London, New York, Santa Barbara- Politics:
“I’m wrestling with the dilemma of whether it’s good for an artist to be known for his beliefs. I don’t want people to go see me in a play or a film and have their reactions colored by my politics. What I really like to do is stuff envelopes.”