How do you follow up playing larger-than-life baseball icon Mickey Mantle in 61*? Well, if you're Thomas Jane, you slaughter a lot of evil dudes with reckless abandon in the latest comic hero turned big screen action star in "The Punisher".
When dealing with "The Punisher," simple rule to note: Don't start none, won't be none.
While he puts bad guys in body bags onscreen, Jane has a calm energy and charisma with a hint of rebellion that's reminiscent of the cool uncle that used to slip you a beer when the parents weren't watching. Now the cool uncle has turned into the cool father, as he beams with pride when talking about his one-year-old daughter Meadow, whom he had with fiancé Patricia Arquette, 36.
Page 3 caught up with Jane munching on a turkey club in his Four Seasons suite, as he and his publicist were watching his latest obsession: NASCAR. "The Punisher" had sponsored Brendan Gaughan's car at the Food City 500 in Bristol, TN, and Jane was shown first-hand the inner-workings of racing. "That was some of the best fun I ever had in my life," says the 35 year-old. In fact, Jane is a last-minute entry into the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race, and with his "Iceman" demeanor, all the celeb wannabe racers better watch out!
Naturally with Opening Day still fresh in our minds, baseball dominated the conversation before turning to "The Punisher", which hits theaters this Friday.
1. What did you take out of playing a larger-than-life sports hero like Mickey Mantle?
Jane: I learned that the press was a lot more respectful of athletes' private lives at that time, and people made a lot more allowances for your character defects. I learned how to switch hit. I learned what an incredible man Mickey Mantle was, and I learned a great respect for the talent and athleticism of these guys who operate on the highest level.
Do you think the media, both in the entertainment world and sports world, care too much now about people's private lives?
I think they can go too far now with the paparazzi following people everywhere. There used to be rules. Now there seems to be no rules, and that makes people even more guarded.
Did Mickey's widow and children feel like you did him justice?
Oh yeah, absolutely. There were tears. They just loved it. I love them too. They're a great group of people, and I really had a deep connection with those folks. It was really rewarding and really sweet from Mickey's wife to his kids and grandkids. It was incredibly rewarding the whole experience, I think for both of us, and it was great we were allowed to show Mickey warts and all. He had his faults, and the family was very supportive in allowing those faults to be portrayed onscreen. That's who Mickey was. It's probably the most rewarding experience I've had acting so far.
2. Is there any other larger-than-life sports figure out there that you would like to portray?
Yeah, John Sullivan, one of the original bare-knuckle boxers has a great story. He was an alcoholic who lived a rough life and he was boxing in the days of no gloves. I think it's a fantastic story if we could figure out how to bring it to the big screen. It was in the late 1800s, and nobody could beat this guy, even with his self-destructive behavior. He was an incredible boxer, fights would last forever, and he was a hardcore drinker. It's a great, great story.
Sports figures with flaws could be your specialty.
Well speaking of that, I don't know how they made "The Longest Yard" into a comedy. I would have loved to do that. It remains to be seen what Adam (Sandler) does with it. That certainly was one of my favorites growing up, and I would have loved to have re-made that one. I can't imagine "The Longest Yard" as a comedy. I guess they just turned it into something else entirely. I mean "The Longest Yard" was funny, but it had a great story and some real grit to it.
"I learned what an incredible man Mickey Mantle was," says Jane of his "61*" role.
I'm a Yankees fan, but "The Punisher" is a Mets fan. That was tough to say that line, but you have to tip your hat to the guys who have teams that are lesser than the Yanks.
4. You have a one-year-old daughter named Meadow with your fiance Patricia Arquette. Is there a sport that you want to teach her when she gets older?
I definitely want to teach her baseball. I think it's a great sport. Men, women, it doesn't matter. It's a wonderful game. It's almost like a religion to me. You can get closer to God learning to play baseball. That's something I certainly gained from learning how to play ball preparing to play The Mick, and I'd love to pass that onto my daughter.
Were you always a baseball fan?
"61*" definitely enhanced my appreciation of baseball by a longshot. Of course I went to some games before and enjoyed them, but it was really getting into playing the sport. I played football as a kid. I didn't play much baseball. We played stickball, but that was it. I played tight end/defensive end. As much high school as I went to, I played football. I'm more of a baseball guy now.
That's interesting. In most cases it's the other way around.
Well the team swapping and all that stuff turned me off to football a little bit. I still pick up some games, but I'm not as interested anymore. The loyalties change so fast. That's what really drew me into the sport in the first place. You had a team and it was with the city, and when I was a kid, they didn't swap around. That was the team that was in the city, and now you can buy a team and move it around, and that turns me off.
5. As "The Punisher," you have a very menacing stare. Did you practice that stare in the mirror?
That's a good question. No, I didn't practice in front of the mirror, but I probably picked it up from Reggie Smith (his hitting instructor for "61*"). When I wouldn't be picking up something as fast as he'd like me to, Reggie would give me the eye. When I'd screw up at the house growing up, that was the look my dad would give me when I did something wrong. Maybe it's my inner-dad.
Would that stare work on your daughter?
(Laughing) I tried it out a couple of times on my daughter, but she just laughs at me. I guess it can't be that threatening.
6. Everybody is talking about how jacked you are in this movie. What went into getting so buff?
It was awful. I went on a professional body builder's schedule. I worked out twice a day. I did one body part a day. I hit it once in the morning and then hit it once at night. Then I was on this special Opus-One diet. It's horrible. It's a horrible diet. I could basically eat nothing. It was a lot of protein and not a lot of anything else. Opus-One diet is where you take out all carbs. All of them, even vegetables. Everything. I hated it.
If you're a "punisher," smiling is totally out, right?
Krispy Creme donuts and beer. It's a great combination, and boy did I enjoy it.
7. There's some really crazy death scenes in this movie. Was there ever a time when you thought this movie was pushing the envelope too much?
It was hard. We had a lot of other great ideas, but we knew that we would have ended up with an NC-17 if we did them, but that's part of the fun coming up with these wonderfully creative ways of killing people. It's really fun.
8. You get thrown all over in this movie. Did you ever get hurt?
I went into it figuring I'd probably get pretty banged up, and so I wanted to do most of my own stunts. I ended up doing like 90 percent of my own stunts. That's something that I really wanted to do, and so I had to condition myself, to get prepared for that. I prepared for it like I would a professional sport. You go into it knowing that you're going to take some cuts and bruises and get banged up, and you just know that going in, and it's part of the fun I guess.
But was there a time when you thought to yourself, "What the hell is going on?"
I got pretty banged up when I went through the wall in the tenement apartment. They threw me through the wall, and I hit the hallway wall on the other side. The whole fighting, the Russian sequence, really beat the (expletive) out of me. That's when I almost hit the breaking point. I was bruised and battered after that.
9. There is a lot of death and destruction in this movie, but there isn't a lot of gore and blood. Was that on purpose?
Yeah, it's kind of a tradeoff because when you find such horribly brutal ways to kill people, then we knew we had to pull back on the blood, otherwise we would have had to cut the whole sequence out of the film. We were consciously aware, and plus if you watch the movie, there's little or no blood in the beginning, then it gets bloodier and bloodier as the film goes on. We wanted to kind of ease the audience into that kind of violence without alienating them right off the bat. By getting just too brutal and too violent and too gory right off the bat would have been really horrible. Otherwise we'd lose everybody.
What's the worst punishment you ever experienced?
I went to Catholic school for a little while, so I had a lot of bad experiences with some cold-hearted nuns. The nuns with the rulers used to scare the hell out of me. That was cold. I still have nightmares about it.
10. And what about working with Urban Cowboy John Travolta?
It was a real honor. He's a gentleman, and a great collaborator. He's gregarious and very gracious, and it was a wonderful experience all-around. It's great to work with guys that have been around and have a lot to offer, because I learn a lot that way.
Did you feel guilty that you had to kill him?
(Laughing) Yeah I kept apologizing to him. "I'm sorry John. This will be over soon." Then I blew him up.
Matthew Graham is a disgruntled Eagles fan who writes for FHM and Cosmo. He can be reached at matthewgraham17@hotmail.com.
