Interview: Jackie Earle Haley

By Susan Thea Posnock

Hollywood loves comeback stories--real or
fictional--and perhaps no actor fits the bill better
this year than Jackie Earle Haley.

A child and teen star, he caught his first break at
age five as the voice of Dennis the Menace in cartoons
and Dairy Queen commercials. He went on to play
pivotal roles in two classic 1970s flicks: The Bad
News Bears as rebel slugger Kelly Leak and
Breaking Away as Moocher, the diminutive
friend with attitude, who famously (and literally)
“punched in” a clock at work.

But like so many who've tasted that kind of success at
an early age, Haley was unable to make a smooth
transition into successful adult actor. Instead, he
found himself relegated to the low-grade movie ghetto,
then out of work and doing bit jobs that included limo
driver to the stars and pizza delivery guy.

He says it took at least a decade to come to grips
with the curve ball life had thrown him. Ironically,
it was only after he'd achieved a kind of peace and
happiness with his non-acting life--in the form of a
commercial production company and a new wife--that
Hollywood called out of the blue. Director/writer
Steven Zaillian contacted Haley for his adaptation of
All the King's Men and the dream the actor
had given up for dead was resurrected.

Now that new life has more kick to it, as Haley's
acclaimed work as a sex offender of undetermined
crimes in Todd Field's satirical drama Little
Children is garnering best supporting actor kudos
with awards from various critic's groups (New York and
San Francisco among them), a Screen Actors Guild
nomination, and a possible Oscar nomination.

In what is looking to be the most contested major
category of the year, Haley gives a complicated and
disturbing performance that offers no pat answers or
insights into Ronnie’s behavior. He just is—a man only
a mother could love—and Haley presents him with
unapologetic creepiness.

I spoke to the actor about how this strange trip has
even more meaning the second time around and the
inspiration he took from his own life in bringing
Ronnie to the screen.

OscarWatch: What was it like to have early success as
an actor and have it taken away from you?

Jackie Earle Haley: It wasn’t so much taken away as
much as it just drifted away. It’s taken me a long
time to realize that Hollywood did not conspire
against me. That nobody had meetings and said, "Hey
this guy’s out."

It was during the transition from child actor to adult
actor where things started to get dicey and I think
that’s a difficult transition for anybody. That
transition is also the time where you leave the house,
you get out on your own and you find yourself faced
with monthly responsibilities. And when it started to
kind of drift and it just got a little quiet I found
myself being offered B movies or C or D movies--roles
that weren’t that great in movies that weren’t that
great. I think when I started to accept parts like
that the perception of me shifted and when you’re
doing D movies people don’t really want to put you in
A movies.

OW: What did you learn from the time away from acting
that you've brought to this second chance at it?

JEH: When it kept drifting away and when it kept
getting more and more difficult to make a living I was
faced with the decision: I either needed to start all
over as an actor, start from square one or take my
energies and try to focus somewhere else. And that
realization kind of came to me at about 30. I was so
used to opportunity seeking me out that it took me a
long time to realize that I need to seek opportunity.

My identity in a way was attached to show biz and
celebrity and things like that and it took me several
years to get real comfortable in my own skin and to
slowly learn how to not have my identity and my
self-esteem attached to that. And I think that’s been
really good for me over the years. This last decade
and a half has been a very maturing time of life.

I think what’s neat now is the contrast. It's really
awesome doing this at 45 and coming from a different
place in life. I think one of the biggest differences
now is it seems that the craft is more important to me
now than it was when I was 20. It was very important
then and I loved acting, but it holds a deeper meaning
for me somehow. I think it’s due to my place in life
and not taking it for granted.

OW: Before Hollywood came calling again, were you at
peace with a life that didn't include acting and
Hollywood?

JEH: I really did find a nice peaceful place. Actually
making a living and also making commercials, doing
what I love, making these little mini films. I also
met this great lady and yeah I think I really reached
this place in life where I finally started to feel
really good.

OW: So what was it like to have Hollywood call you
back to your old life at the point where you'd
accepted the new one?

JEH: There’s so many years of getting okay with it and
then finally getting completely okay with it and
liking where you are in life and then having the sky
open up and Steven Zaillian reaches his arm down and
says, "Hey man, you wanna do this again?" -- its just
absolutely gravy. And also I can’t tell you how
incredible it is for an actor that had to put the
craft away, put it on the shelf and let it sit there
and focus on this other area--I can’t tell you how
amazingly, wonderfully validating it is to be able to
after all these years pull that craft down and to
practice it again.

OW: How did you prepare for the role of Ronnie in
Little Children?

JEH: The first thing I needed to do was really just
look at the character, study the content and try to
figure out where he’s coming from. And then to really
examine my life and to look where things may somehow
parallel. Even though they may be completely different
there are always little parallels that one can
contemplate and try to hold those two realities and
two truths up to one another to see how they jive. For
Ronnie I had to look at a lot of different things, but
the most important aspect is his relationship with his
mom (played by Phyllis Somerville in the film) and so
I needed to look at my relationship with my mom and to
just focus on what a unique and special relationship
that is. I also focused on my brother’s relationship
with my mom. My brother Tru was a heroin addict and
even though that is a different obsession then what
Ronnie suffers with there just seemed to be some
parallels for me to look at and to examine.

Tru was a good guy and he knew he was in this grip of
this addiction, of this obsession and really wanted to
not want to use. During this time my mom was always
there for him. Whenever he needed it she would provide
a roof over his head. She would feed him and encourage
him. One day he took too much and got a bad batch and
it killed him. I remember during this whole process
that me and some of my siblings thought, "I wonder if
mom’s enabling him when he needs to go down further
and she’s kind of holding him up." After he died and
especially now when I think back I can’t tell you how
grateful I am that during all of that struggle that he
was never alone, that my mom was always there for him.
So you can see some of the parallels there.

OW: Ronnie really is someone who is deeply troubled,
but you make him human.

JEH: I think one of the best aspects of playing this
character was Todd Field’s vision and his
sensibilities. It really wasn’t a part where there’s
any sort of message. It’s a part of here he is, good
and bad, just all of him, you decide. The character
really is such a mystery; we really don’t even know
what he’s done.

One thing I do know about him is that he really knows
who he is. Of all the characters he’s the one guy that
isn’t trying to lie to himself or even find himself.
He's almost got a stoic acceptance of what his problem
is. As a result he loathes himself, he’s got
incredibly low self-esteem, he’s introverted and he’s
feeling all of these things to such a degree that he
needs to escape and for him his escape is in his
obsessions. And he’s definitely got impulses, he’s
definitely a creepy and horrible and confused
individual. But what’s interesting is that even though
he’s got these impulses we don’t know that he’s acted
on them in the way that he’s being accused of. The
other big thing about him is that he really, just like
my brother, he really doesn’t want to be this guy. He
would do anything to not be this guy and to not have
these compulsions and this miserable pathetic
introverted life. I mean the guy is all alone in this
world, he only has his mom. If you really stop and
think of what it would be like, it would be horrible.

*Originally posted on OscarWatch (now Awards Daily)