Biography

Was almost murdered twice in one week in Hartford, Connecticut by different people. As he admitted, "That's unusual." The first instance occurred when he was in a pub with Beth Henley. After a brawl with a man who was attacking Henley, he was held at gunpoint at the pub. Later that week, when he and Henley went to a pizza parlor next to the pub, where he was stabbed. Fortunately, the knife only partly penetrated his belt buckle.

Has a form of ESP he calls "hearing tones". While working with David Byrne on his film "True Stories", he told Byrne about his gift, who was inspired to write the song "Radio Head" about him. The band Radiohead took its name from this song.

Broke his neck in five places while horseback riding in Iceland underneath an active volcano after the wind picked he and the horse up off the ground and blew them off the road. He was required to wear a neck brace for three and a half months and maintains that the experience has taught him to cherish every day.

To develop a plotline for the 1986 film True Stories (1986) he and rocker David Byrne once stared wordlessly for two hours at Byrne's wall. On the wall were hundreds of pencil drawings of ideas for the film by Byrne. That very night, he wrote a thirty-page treatment for the film and was soon hired as a writer.

Once held hostage at gunpoint at a supermarket in Snyder Plaza in Dallas.

There was a part on Broadway...wow still hurts to talk about it. I flew to New York on my own dime. I had no career. But there was this part. I knew the playwright. He told me the role was perfect for me. I worked on the audition like crazy...I went in and killed on the audition. It was great. I got congrats from a lot of people. I was told I would be called back for final auditions in three weeks. I said I would be there. It meant me buying another plane ticket but I believed in myself and the play. I worked on the part for the next three weeks...then four weeks...then five...no phone call. Finally someone saw me with the script and asked what I was doing. I explained with some pride that I was going back to New York for a final call back on a Broadway show. She broke the news to me that the show had been in rehearsal for the last two weeks...ouch. I guess if I didn't run into that girl I would still be working on that audition! [on losing an important role]

My first day on Groundhog Day (1993), Bill Murray shook hands with me and said, "Hello, nice to meet you - now show me what you're going to do". I jumped into a few enormously energetic moments of "Ned Ryerson" and Bill held up his hand. "Fine, fine, you can do that", he said. "It's funny". Bill walked away. I then asked the director, Harold Ramis, if I should play "Ned" a little more down to earth. Harold laughed and said: "No. Bill is the lead. He's the stew. When you are a supporting character, you are the spice in the stew. Have fun".

The very best character actors are made of equal parts discipline and madness, and the fact that our faces are more familiar than our names is not our curse, but our blessing. The character actor's goal, after all, is not to earn the adulation of the public; it is to give lives to a hundred nameless spirits who make us laugh or cry, who are both familiar and new, who show us that their journey is our journey, and who, like everyone in the audience, never get to kiss Renée Zellweger.

[2011] Swing Shift (1984) was the first movie where I had a make-up person start to draw in hair on my head because I looked too bald. I had no idea what she was doing, and she said, "Honey, I can see your skull". And that's when it dawned on me that I was going to end up being one of those bald character actors. But that was the first film where they started drawing hair. They still thought it was worth the effort to draw in the hair.

[2011, on landing Basic Instinct (1992)] I had auditioned for Paul Verhoeven three months before to play some different part in the movie. And Howard Feuer, the casting director who did Groundhog Day (1993) and cast me in In Country (1989). He was also the casting director of Basic Instinct (1992). Again, in terms of a crime of opportunity, Howard Feuer called me up at home and said, "Stephen, are you a fast study?" and I said, "I think so", and he said, "Well, we have this part that shoots tomorrow, and we have no one to play it. Mr. Verhoeven liked your original audition three months ago for some other part, and said it would be okay if you could play it. Can you come in and read this part for Paul Verhoeven, again, and see if he okays it?" So I drove over to the studio, and they threw the part at me, and it was a huge kind of expository speech, and whenever I get those things, I try to channel Robert Duvall, because he is the greatest expository actor that ever could be. I don't know how he's done it. He's done it for years, where he gets all of the speeches where he kind of explains to "Michael Corleone" about how the laws work and everything like this, and it's fascinating. And this was a speech that said basically nothing, as I recall. I think I say that the principal, Sharon Stone, was either a murderer pretending to be crazy, or that she was crazy pretending to be a murderer. The speech didn't make a ton of sense, but I think that's what it was, and I tried to channel Mr. Duvall. I don't remember a lot about that film. Except I was doing another film, and that was one of the few times I did two films in the same week. I did that movie on Monday, and then on Wednesday, I did Where the Day Takes You (1992).