Timeless Love

By: Christina Radish
October 2, 2000
FilmStew.com

Marisa Tomei and Vincent D’Onofrio star in director Brad Anderson’s Happy Accidents, a romantic comedy that pays tribute to the science fiction genre. In this interview the two stars discuss the movie and their careers.

Lovelorn, recovering co-dependent Ruby Weaver (Marisa Tomei) has just about given up on finding the right man when she bumps into Sam Deed (Vincent D'Onofrio), a sweet newcomer from Dubuque, Iowa. They quickly fall for each other, but almost as fast, their relationship takes a mysterious turn. Just as Ruby is beginning to relish her first ever "healthy" relationship, Sam begins explaining to her that he's a time traveler from the year 2470.

With the advice of her therapist (Holland Taylor) and her best friend (Nadia Dajani), Ruby must decide if she and Sam have a future together. Is he truly Mr. Right or simply a charming lunatic with an overactive imagination? With little time to spare, the two must discover if love can change their destiny.

This is the story that plays out in Happy Accidents, a comedy that pays tribute to the science fiction genre - specifically, the concept of time travel - while exploring the universal ideas of trust, commitment and love. "For me, the film is about the final step you have to take when you've fallen for somebody - to give yourself up," explains actor Vincent D'Onofrio. "That's the hardest thing to do and that's why it's always the last thing to do - to totally give yourself up, to totally trust and to be confident that the other person can totally trust you. That's what the film is about to me. It just happens to be set in this really absurd context with this lunatic character that I play, but in the end, that's what it's about."

While talking about what drew her to Happy Accidents, Academy Award winning actress Marisa Tomei reveals, "I liked what the movie was saying. I liked that there was the element of her being attracted to off-beat guys - weirdoes basically - but she likes the eccentric. Somehow, she lets that love for the eccentric take her to her true love instead of trying to crush that within her. I liked what it was talking about. I also had a lot of friends working on it and I really wanted to work with my friends."

Aside from the brilliantly clever script (written by the film's director and editor Brad Anderson, best known for his film Next Stop Wonderland), Happy Accidents works due to the chemistry between D'Onofrio and his leading lady, Tomei. "She's a great actress," says D'Onofrio, of his co-star. "We had never met before this, but I've been watching her in films and in theater my whole career. She's awesome. To work with somebody like her makes your job easier. We had an instant familiarity with each other and got along great. Sometimes you just get what you want and you can't ask for more."

"He's an actor's actor," says Tomei, returning D'Onofrio's compliment. "His range and his dedication just really inspired me every day. Sometimes you feel really vulnerable on the set and it's difficult to expose your emotions a lot of times, and he's someone who's right there with you. He's really your partner in the scenes and he's watching out for you."

In Happy Accidents, the character Sam Deed makes reference to the fact that good things always seem to go by quickly in life while bad things always seem to go by so slow. D'Onofrio confesses that he feels that things are the same in his own life. "I think all of us can relate to that," he says. "The worst times in my life seem like they last forever. The kind of person that I am, I have to actually work hard to think of the great times. In my past, it's hard to think of the great times. It's much easier to remember the worse times because they seem like they lasted so long. These days, it's different. These days, it's easy to remember the good times because they're so in my face every day. I have finally met the right woman and have two kids and they remind me of the great things every day. Before my wife and before my kids, it was rough going."

Over the course of his extensive career, D'Onofrio has become known for his vast array of memorable characters in such films as The Cell, The 13th Floor, Men in Black, Full Metal Jacket and Mystic Pizza, among many others. Even though his role in Happy Accidents is that of of a leading man, the actor still sees himself as a character actor. "That's what I've done for 20 years," D'Onofrio states. "I'm not changing anything. The leading man thing has never been my idea of what I wanted to do in this business. I'm an actor that can breech the severe character stuff sometimes and do leading type stuff, but only stuff that's going to keep me awake. Most of the leading stuff out there is so terribly boring."

After various offers over the last couple of years, D'Onofrio has taken a role on the new series, Law & Order: Criminal Intent. "I was offered a really good deal and I can spend nine months at home [with my family]," admits D'Onofrio, when explaining what finally convinced him to make the move to the small screen. "Anybody that's offered me television before, the stuff was too soapy and I didn't like it. It's too much of a risk for it to be on every week and not get really silly, whereas [show creator] Dick Wolf offered me this thing, which is straight out storytelling. I'm a detective in the major case squad in New York. He's a Sherlock Holmes type of character who manipulates people and he's a bit obsessive and he lies and goes beyond the call of duty because of his arrogance and obsessiveness, and he manipulates the hell out of these criminals."

When asked if he was trepidatious at all about being on a television series because of the fact that so many TV actors have trouble being taken seriously in film, D'Onofrio responds by saying, "This business is so wide open to do anything that you'd like. If you work hard and you do good work, the only one that can stop your career is you. We are allowed to do anything we like these days. We're completely wide open. My friends think I've always set out to sabotage my career with the choices that I make, but it's not that at all. It's interesting to me to take a shot, face my fears, and it's going to come out okay because it's not rocket science. Any artist in any type of business is only going to get a couple of shots at making a classic in their whole career, until the day they die, and the rest is all fluff."

Tomei reveals that, underneath it all, she is a romantic, but unlike her character, she thinks of herself as more resistant to the charms of a man. "I'm much more hard-boiled on the surface than Ruby is," she says. "I'm not all gooey-eyed and patient and weepy. I'm more cut and dry and a little bit more protective of myself. I like that she likes these unusual men. I like that she likes these freaks. I like that she's willing to go there, even in the face of people saying, 'Just leave him. He's not good enough. He's too odd.' But, that's the thing that she loves."

Although Tomei believes in love at first sight, she said that she feels the concept is different for everyone. "I don't believe that it happens to everybody," proclaims Tomei. "I think it's different for different people, like with monogamy. Some people are built for it and some people aren't. Everybody's chemistry is different."

"I also don't believe there's one person [out there for you]," adds the actress, "but I believe there's a very select, small number. Maybe some people will connect with more of those soul mates in one lifetime and maybe others will just connect with one. We all want to make a rule and try to understand it for everybody, but I think it's different for each person."

Admittedly, winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Joe Pesci's hilariously foul-mouthed girlfriend in the 1992 film My Cousin Vinny changed the course of Tomei's career. "[Your criteria] changes a little," says Tomei, "because, in the beginning, you're like, 'I just want to work. I just want to test the waters and prove myself and improve myself.' Now, I don't want to do just anything. I want to work with some really great, really world-class directors. That's every actor's goal in film."

The charming and talented Brooklyn-born actress was one year into her college education at Boston University when she was tapped for a co-starring role on the CBS daytime drama As the World Turns. Her role on that show, as well as work on another soap, One Life To Live, paved the way for her entrance into film. "Thank god I was written off [As The World Turns]," Tomei exlaims. "I was so miserable because I hated that job. It was good because it was a job, but beyond that, it wasn't really the right atmosphere for me. For me, just having the same story repeating every single day wasn't what I was looking for, creatively. At the time, I didn't know what I was looking for creatively. I couldn't articulate something like that or make a decision from that place. I still am grateful for having the job and having the experience, but I think it was natural that I would not want to be there since we had to work inside all day long in what was almost an office building with no daylight."

Even though she is a tried and true New Yorker, Tomei has also learned how to keep herself balanced when she's in Los Angeles. "I just try to take control of my day and, in a way, flow with the way the day is going, but I also have certain disciplines that help me fell an internal, slow pace when the world gets so fast," she explains. "When I'm in L.A., if I go hike or do yoga, it keeps a nice rhythm inside."

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