The Dark Side of Eric

WithPulp Fiction and Kiling Zoe, Eric Stoltz puts to rest the notion he's just another happy redhead.

by Merle Ginsberg

There are a lot of things Eric Stoltz doesn't like: getting up in the morning, television, a couple of actors, the government, and generally people mistaking him for a nice guy just because he's a redhead and sometimes resembles a certain religious figure-- long hair, long beard, and all.

There is also a certain sadness about Stoltz, a certain stillness and introspective air that could lead you to think Eric Stoltz isn't dangerous or menacing.

He doesn't like that observation, either.

"Don't call me optimistic!" he says. "Where did you get that observation? I'm completely capable of changing moods in minutes. From romantic and light to dark and ugly and violent. Actually, I prefer dark and ugly and violent."

That's apparant from the new round of movies he's just completed. Mostly known as the young thwarted hero of Mask and the paraplegic writer who triumphs in The Waterdance, he's bad to the bone in two new movies: Killing Zoe, directed by Roger Avary, and Pulp Fiction, written and directed by the neo-B movie king, Quentin Tarantino.

"Brutality is underrated," says the terminally droll Stoltz, and it's hard to tell if he means this or thinks it's incredibly humorous. "It's underrated and overcriticized. I think it serves a vital purpose. In the long history of storytelling, the darker side has always played an important role. And movies are just storytelling. If you can express the evil and the dark side in a symbolic way, it's a good thing for society. Sure, there's always the danger of someone taking it literally. There's always some psychotic out there who wants to slash a painting or hear violence in 'Helter Skelter.' I don't think that's a reason to homogenize everything and censor movies and TV shows."

Stoltz says he's embracing the new nihilism in movies-- put forth recently in everything from Naked to Natural Born Killers-- because it's unfortunately realistic.

"People think there's some sort of trend going on, like the dark early Seventies are back. It's not a trend; it's what's happening in the world. Two hundred thousand bodies washing down the river in Rwanda, or what's happening in Yugoslavia. Things are more and more brutal, in a way that hasn't been before."

In Killing Zoe, he's an American who comes to Paris to pull off a bank heist, and winds up in a heroin nightmare. In Pulp Fiction, Stoltz plays an L.A. hippie drug dealer who sells John Travolta some extremely high level heroin that Uma Thurman mistakenly snorts as coke.

"I've become the heroin poster boy," Stoltz says smiling, but not laughing. He never laughs, since everything he says is spiced with sarcasm.

"I don't know how that happened. But heroin, let's face it, is a staple of our national diet. And I think the government's largely responsible, I'm sure it's reaping a massive profit. Whenever there's an influx of drugs, someone high-up is making some money. You're naive if you think it's about anything but money in this country. But you know-- if you have a realistic view of the world, you're less surprised when you read about what's actually going on. There is corruption everywhere, and you just gotta accept it."

It sounds like this guy has been hanging around Quentin Tarantino a bit too much. Not so, he says.

"He's not so dark and twisted at all," claims Stoltz. "He's a delightful man-- bursting with energy and unique observations. I think he's just very much in tune with his shadow, his dark side, and he's able to express it cinematically. That leaves him free to be very healthy."

While it might leave Tarantino and Stoltz feeling upbeat, most people who catch Pulp Fiction will probably be appalled, mostly at one scene where an unsuspecting Uma Thurman ODs and John Travolta and Stoltz try to revive her. Realizing that she's beyond help and close to dead, they give her an adrenaline shot straight to the heart, and she comes back to life in what will undoubtedly be this year's version of Reservoir Dog's sadistic ear scene-- where Michael Madsen whittles off a cop's ear.

"I consider myself the hero of the movie because, while everyone's kiling everybody, I save a life," smirks Stoltz. "It was a hoot to shoot that. Working with Uma Thurman and John Travolta, come on, you couldn't have more fun. I haven't been happier in a long time. The thing with the adrenaline shot actually does happen. It's based on actual fact. They give it to people who are in dire need of a jump start. We had a nurse on the set, but people who use this just read the instructions on the kit. You can buy them almost anywhere."

Even though Uma emerges looking rather garish in that scene, Stoltz still can't help glamorizing her.

"Uma," he sighs. "I'm afraid Uma, even OD'ing on heroin in a black wig on the floor with blood all over her nose and clothes is absolutely beautiful--she can't help it. She's frighteningly attractive. More so because she was smarter than anyone else on the film. She's brilliant. She's smart as a whip, and that makes her twice as attractive."

Not your usual Hollywood criteria for attractiveness.

"That's a sexist remark!" he shoots back.

Stoltz obviously has pretty good taste in women.

For a long time he has dated Jennifer Jason Leigh; for the last four years he’s been involved with Bridget Fonda.

That might be because they hardly see each other. “It’s the easiest thing in the world to have a relationship with someone you don’t see. It’d be much harder if we were together all the time. That’s when relationships are tested. We see each other occasionally between jobs—and between countries.”

Stoltz is in New York briefly doing the things he likes to do: not getting up, talking on the phone, reading and laundry. He has an apartment in New York and a place in L.A., but for the last two years he has barely spent more than a month in either place. Tomorrow, he’ll go off to Scotland to do a 17th-century Scottish epic called Rob Roy with Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange.

In the meantime, he’s shot some lighter fare: Little Women, Columbia’s big Christmas Oscar gamble; Fluke, a romantic comedy about a man who’s reincarnated as a dog, and Sleep With Me, out in late September, a romantic comedy that Stoltz also produced.

”Sleep With Me” (with Meg Tilly and Craig Sheffer) is about what happens when two people are married, and one of their single friends lusts after the wife. It’s basically a relationship movie told from the guys’ point of view. Women never believe this, but guys actually do talk about relationships all the time—they just don’t do it in front of women.”

“But Little Women …!” he sighs. “Oh, those little women. I don’t really have much of a role in Little Women, I’m the token penis. I’m in that to prove that the little women are, in fact, heterosexual little women. But oh my God, that set! I was attracted to all of them. I just wanted to –be held—by all of them, each of them, at all times. I wanted all the women to myself—Winona Ryder, Samantha Mathis, Trini Alvarado and even the director Gillian Armstrong and the producer Denise Di Novi. I hope we do a sequel.”

While most actors will tell you they hate shooting sex scenes, Stoltz feels fairly comfortable about them.

“I think the crew on The Waterdance was more uptight about the sex scene Helen Hunt and I did than we were. You could tell they liked and respected us, and felt odd and uncomfortable. It’s worse for the people watching because they have to embrace their voyeurism. I don’t have a problem with nudity and sex scenes. If a role requires nudity and it’s part of the story and not exploitative, I’m not opposed to it. It’s not something I revel in or seek out, but it’s not something I avoid. I hate seeing a movie with a love scene where the actors are strategically covered. No one makes love like that. Then I know these are two actors that are uncomfortable with their bodies and then I’m out of the story.”

Stoltz has no explanation why his career has been so sporadic. “It’s so silly,” is all he can say to how many movies he’s in this year, and “I don’t know” is his stock response to why he showed up so rarely over the past few. Perhaps it has something to do with the red hair.

“When you’re a kid with red hair, you’re teased mercilessly. Then you start to look at it as something unique. A lot of directors prefer their actors to be their alter egos, and a lot of directors have dark hair. I’ve been asked to dye my hair so many times, I’m thinking of starting to just work with directors who look like me.”

--W Magazine, October 1994