‘He was like my little brother': Billy Zane on Heath Ledger, Leonardo DiCaprio, and 40 years in Hollywood

Sydney Morning Herald

3 days ago

As Hansel (Owen Wilson) says in Zoolander: 'Listen to your friend Billy Zane. He's a cool dude.' Billy Zane, 59, is a cool dude. I know this firsthand now.
There he is on my laptop screen, sitting in his lounge room in Los Angeles, a guitar and a set of bongo drums along the wall behind him. Los Angeles' anti-ICE protests might be escalating outside his doors, but he's unflappably suave in black-rimmed glasses and a black shirt unbuttoned to his chest hair, as we discuss his 40-year acting career, ahead of his appearance at Sydney's Supanova pop culture festival this weekend.
I hear you're flying out to Europe today.
That's tomorrow.
What for?
The film festival in Taormina in Sicily. They're playing a film I directed called Int.Hallway/Night, an existentialist comedy set behind the scenes of a dysfunctional B-movie set. It's funny, quite European in its flair, a little bit Truffaut and Fellini but with a Curb Your Enthusiasm tone. We're screening it at this lovely festival, where apparently Martin Scorsese will be screening a 4K version of Taxi Driver in a 6000-seat amphitheatre or something.
Is this the first film you've directed?
Technically. It's the first I've directed to be released. I have one that was caught up in the French courts for a bit. It's a quagmire, this trade, I have to tell you. But we've resuscitated it and that will see the light of day. That project was something I made many years ago, so it's going to be like corking a bottle of wine when it comes out.
What was the issue with it?
We don't have the time.
Fair enough. You have a long relationship with Australia, going back to Dead Calm (1989), your breakout film with a young Nicole Kidman. Is it true your sister dated Heath Ledger for a while, too?
Yeah, they met on the set of Roar which they shot there for some years. Then he came back with her to LA and they were living together. There was a groovy kind of happening called The Masses that we all contributed to.
The Masses. Nice.
It was an art collective, young filmmakers and video directors and musicians feeding each other's interests. I'd give [Heath] my Super 8 camera to play with or introduce him to the wheels of steel, my ones and twos. He enjoyed DJing quite a bit. It was fun. He was like my little brother.
Wait, you used to DJ?
Not publicly, just for my own parties. I'd always come back from London with boxes of records. I liked mashing up the bpm of drum and bass against, like, anything – even spoken word and weird little stories. I remember finding a nice pocket with an early PJ Harvey track and some Metalheadz, which kind of bent your brain in the best way possible.
So Heath was basically part of your family for a while. Did he go over for, like, Greek family dinners?
(laughs) Well, we would always bust out the Greek if there was a meal to be had, but it was more my sister threw these great Steak + Cake parties, which was maybe Spartan in its minimalism, but they were very binary and quite efficient. Great wine, filet mignon, fabulous cake, and good music.
Your film career's been going 40 years now, ever since your first role in Back to the Future. What's the thing people mostly want to talk to you about?
The Phantom (1996) always comes up and Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995), which were two of my favourite films. I always liked the sweetness of The Phantom and the idea that he doesn't kill, which I think is an important message today in the spate of first-person body counts and movies that are just a series of bludgeonings. He's a white hat hero, which is hard to find today. There's so much trauma drama and origin stories supporting vengeance play.
I want to talk about my favourite show: Twin Peaks. In Season Two, you had a role as John Justice Wheeler, playboy love interest to Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn). It was a very short-lived storyline. Your character was suddenly rushed off to South America. It felt incomplete, then I read into it and it sounds like there was a whole other plan for it.
Tell me, I have no idea.
Sherilyn Fenn said you were supposed to whisk Audrey away from Twin Peaks and then she was gonna get her own spin-off set in LA.
What? Is this fan fiction?
No, this is Sherilyn Fenn speaking in an interview, like, a decade ago. [She also said Zane was only brought into the show because Lara Flynn Boyle, who was dating Kyle MacLachlan at the time, was getting jealous of the love story the show was spinning between Agent Cooper and Audrey.]
Oh God, if only. I would have loved that. That was a pinch-me moment when they called me up. Leave it to [David] Lynch to cast against type. At that time, I was known as 'bad boy on a boat'. Got a boat? I'm your guy, just add water. Then he goes, I know, I'll hire the most tweaked out psycho to be the Gary Cooper, straight-laced guy here. Those are the kind of roles I wanted to play.
What was David Lynch like at the time?
Generous. Cool. Sweet. Just like he always sounded, rest his lovely soul. Collaborative. Open. Brilliant. Kind. Inclusive. He was a bit of a DJ, too. His sound cart always had music playing; that was him creating a unifying field for his crew. I'd witnessed that while visiting the set of Lost Highway. He was filming in my neighbourhood and I knew some of the cast – Natasha Wagner, Balthazar Getty – and I was watching him just play this drone that wasn't so much music but more a soundscape. It brought people into a zone right before it was time to shoot. I thought that was really smart, and I kept it in my kit bag. It keeps everyone in the same mindset and tone of what you're trying to achieve, not looking for the next job or thinking about lunch.
Another movie I always loved is Only You (1994). You played the fake Damon Bradley. Everyone knows your cameo in Zoolander, but even back then you were taking the piss out of your pretty boy, suave persona.
Absolutely. Self-deprecation and a well-timed prat fall, that's the thing. I love Chaplin and Peter Sellers, the economy of a physical gag. I can't help but infuse that in my work, or at least a glimmer of it. You'll see it in Titanic even. If you watch Cal in terms of his reactions to information as it comes in, he doesn't really care. He knows he's getting off the boat. It's that confidence of like, sinking-schminking. The arrogance is hysterical. It feeds the narrative and the hubris of the age he carries, but there's such an absurdity that it would make [James] Cameron and I giggle. He'd yell 'Cut!' and we'd laugh our asses off because the character was such a tool.
Speaking of Titanic (1997), there's a famous New York Magazine article titled Leo, Prince of the City, written by Nancy Jo Sales and published back in 1998, right after Titanic blew up and Leonardo DiCaprio became the biggest star on the planet. Do you remember experiencing that phenomenon of Leo? You were like 10 years older than him. Were you concerned for him or excited?
Oh, excited. He was a lovely guy, still is. We were pals, but there was also a mutual appreciation for each other's work. We'd see each other socially before Titanic, so when we both got the gig, it was like, 'Oh, this is gonna be a hoot.' But watching that unfold… I remember when we were filming Titanic, we drove breakneck to the Chinese Theatre one night for the premiere of Romeo + Juliet (1996) and then drove back in the early hours to be on set again. And it was nice seeing him blowing up in real time, even before Titanic. Romeo + Juliet was really the start of it. We were like, 'Oh, so it begins. Just wait till they see you running around with your little suspenders!'
Were you partying with him at that time?
I mean, yeah, I was living in New York in the late '90s and we were like neighbours. I lived next door to The Mercer and I knew his crew, they were all young actors. But I was not part of... the pack.
The 'Pussy Posse'.
'Welcome elder statesman…' Like the old man who'd roll in with sage advice for the young bucks having their day. No. But it was fun to watch. He did just fine. That kid didn't need much help.
Your audition tape for Dirty Dancing (1987) that came to light a few years ago: is it true you were cast in that film, but then they saw you dance and changed their minds?
No, no. I auditioned for it, and I had made the short list. But there were two couples shortlisted in the end: Sarah Jessica Parker and I, and Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. I danced, but he was a trained dancer. I could move, but I wasn't a Broadway star.
He was born into a dancing family.
His mum was a choreographer! He was a perfect Johnny Castle. I was coming at it a little more like an Elvis movie.
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Do you ever go down the pathway of, like, what would have happened if you got that?
I tend to subscribe to the notion that everything is perfect, so I don't know. A whole different kind of vibe. I don't think I would have done Dead Calm. I probably would've ended up posing on movie posters with a gun and the word 'cop' in the title. Carwash Cop! Kickboxer Cop!