Father to America's favorite distraction du jour, actress Angelina Jolie, Jon Voight would be a Hollywood phenomenon even if he wasn't also an Academy Award-winner and star of the only X-rated film to ever win "Best Picture" (Midnight Cowboy, 1969). Questions regarding all-things "Bradgelina" were declared out-of-bounds, leaving him more time to muse about his new film, The Legend of Simon Conjurer, a magical and mysterious indie thriller that's now in cinemas.
NYP: The Legend of Simon Conjurer was thought to be a hoax because the writer, director and co-star, Stuart Paul, was kept anonymous until just a few weeks ago.
Jon Voight: The reason he kept his name off it was he wanted to make a statement against the vanity that exists in so much Hollywood film. But it's a real film-and an incredibly original film-about a group of 10 dysfunctional people in a self-help class whose lives cross a murder investigation involving their teacher, Simon Conjurer, and my character, Dr. Crazx, a popular psychiatrist.
Some might say it was vanity to keep people in anticipation and draw attention to the film by withholding the director's name.
Yes, but I was the one that begged him to break the silence a little bit. I had to leverage the film's "Making Of" documentary. I said, "Stewie [Stuart Paul], it's all over the place, and your name's all over it."
"But I didn't make it," he says. "Exactly. You didn't 'make me,' either, so let me at least use your name." It's interesting, but it wasn't a ploy.
Yet IMDB's director listing for the film is still "Q. Mark."
We still had to have something once Stewie said he wasn't using his name, so we had some fun. We thought it would be a nice way to let people get excited. It actually ended up distracting from the fact that this film is not only original and humorous, but also very serious. It provokes a lot of serious questions. The poster says something like: "Will provoke the metaphysical mind and may tap into ones own healing process," so it suggests something not only unusual for filmfare, but just a pretty far-out idea of what the medium can be-a new genre almost. It says, let's do something else with film, with story and let's see if we can get to another level of audience interaction.
And how is that accomplished?
It's a fable, by which I mean something with a simple form, that's also quite complex. So, we are talking about very complex things, but in a simple fashion. Like my character's name in the picture is Dr. Crazx, my nemesis is named Simon Conjurer, others characters are Willow, Tears, Rebel. So, there is something else going on here poetically, and it indicates a lot of psychological aspects of life. The film provokes thoughts. We'll have questions-questions about the meaning of life, life's journey, healing; many different issues are brought up along the way.
The classroom of 10 misfits at the center of the story each have a specific, immediately familiar disorder. A large part of humanity's ills are represented in that room-anxiety, alcoholism, anger-it's almost like a petri dish.
I would say yes, and they're all after a last ditch effort to get some solace.
I should look up this Simon Conjurer.
[In the villainous, vaguely European voice of Dr. Crazx] Simon Conjurer is nothing less than a monster in disguise, and in horrid incubation. Let us not wait for him to reach his full maturity.
Speaking of which, you've worn a lot of nose putty in your career-to become Howard Cosell in Ali, President Roosevelt in Pearl Harbor and basketball coach Adolph Rupp in Glory Road. For your current role you wear a fat suit and basically a false face. Does this clinch you as the best "prosthetic method" actor in Hollywood?
[Laughing] I have fun with makeup.
I've read that you always wanted to be part of a John Cassavetes film, but you never got the chance in his lifetime. The Legend of Simon Conjurer could be a stand-in for that.
It's a little bit of a blessing, yes. They [Paul and Cassavetes] both use raw people; they both want to work outside the system a little bit. They both lack commercial considerations when putting together their pieces; they both have a lot to say, and they are both their own men. That's what's really unique about Stewie and John-when you're on the ship with them, you're going to take the ride as they see it.
But Stuart Paul is relatively unknown.
He's completely unknown in a certain way, but he's a person I've watched. He made a few small films that were very intriguing.
So, he's famous among five people, so to speak.
But this is his first mature personal statement. It's an exciting time. It's always exciting to welcome someone who has a vision.
People often make sense of their lives retrospectively. Can you make since of the projects chosen over the last four decades-from Anaconda and The Karate Dog to TV movies to lasting works like Deliverance and Coming Home?
Maybe I'm confused. [Affecting a falsetto Freudian dialect] Maybe I'm searching for my avocation and maybe my mind can't be made up.
OK, here's a better question. The word they often attached to your work is "versatile," but that sounds sort of euphemistic to me, like a nice way of saying uneven.
[Joking] Yes, yes, the hell with "them."
So, what's a better word? Do you want "versatile" to be your legacy?
I don't really think much about it. They'll find many words. I'm a little more related to Lon Chaney [nicknamed "The man with a thousand faces"] than my contemporaries.