Virtuous reality Hollywood

I T'S TOUGH being an actor. There's all that time to kill between movies.

What do you do with it? Take drugs or be virtuous? Joaquin Phoenix, like most actors, has chosen to be virtuous. Virtue is an addiction in Hollywood.

Phoenix, who starred opposite Nicole Kidman in To Die For, has made an ad for Peta (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) begging people not to eat turkey at Christmas (download it on www.peta- online.org). Bake cheery tofu log instead, he pleads. Peta is now one of the causes supported by actors who want to show how virtuous they are off-screen - how amazingly unfilled-up with Tinseltown delusion and fame they remain (otherwise they'd be a monster, right?). Good causes, religion, politics. An actor must show they're like you and me. Yet half the time they end up doing just the opposite. Think about it. Your average movie star usually makes two or three films a year. That's a maximum possible total of 18 weeks of work (assuming Stanley Kubrick hasn't hired you for an open-ended endurance shoot) with 34 weeks left to kill. Naturally, a good deal of this spare time is spent looking for that difficult next project. But after a while, the lonely shuffling of photocopied scripts from your agent just gets too much. What can an actor do to remain sane (and in the public eye, too)? Answer: be publicly virtuous. Religion is always one solution. Take Richard Gere, devoted Tibetan Buddhist. Never mind that it is one of the most illiberal, repressive forms of Buddhism there is. He takes it very seriously. Indeed, he is rumoured to want to give up acting and become a monk, but has been advised otherwise by the Dalai Lama, who values his influence. Indeed, Gere recently used this influence to pressure his buddy Bill Clinton over China's abysmal human rights record on Tibet. Scientologist John Travolta tried the same stunt this year, urging Clinton to condemn the German government's banning of Scientology in parts of the German civil service. Also this year, Charlton Heston used his influence on Capitol Hill to press the case of the pro-gun lobby via his presidency of the National Rifle Association. SO WHO are the proselytisers? Who goes that one step beyond being a serial charity luncher and becomes a living ad for a cherished cause? Not only John Travolta peddles Scientology. Several cartoons have recently become apologists for this shady new religion. Chef, from South Park, otherwise veteran funkateer Isaac Hayes, and Bart Simpson, or rather his voice, Nancy Cartwright, are fulsome praise-singers of the cult. Cartwright recently signed a letter that was part of a vast mail- out to 300,000 LA addresses, pushing the eccentric Scientology line on psychiatric practice - that it's the spawn of the devil. You'll never find Scientologists like Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Juliette Lewis, Kirstie Alley or Jenna Elfman (the kooky one in Dharma and Greg) agreeing to act in a film that's in any way pro-psychiatry. Scientology's late founder L Ron Hubbard just wouldn't have approved. Then there is politics. That's always meshed well with acting. Actors are still getting elected in the US, but most prefer merely to lobby. Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, Barbra Streisand and Robert De Niro - they've all been active in the defence of Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair (oops, a little wavering at the end from Tom Hanks). Jane Fonda is still the actress-politician supreme, the firebrand Hanoi Jane of the Sixties. She now keeps fit campaigning on issues of contraception and abortion. Her natural heir is surely Susan Sarandon - an Amnesty International enthusiast banned from the Oscars in 1991 after using the podium to complain about the status of Haitian refugees. Pierce Brosnan has never let the French forget about their Pacific nuclear tests, and Paul Newman and Robert Redford reunited this year to campaign against a golf course being built in Connecticut. Meanwhile, Newman's brand of pasta sauces continues to pour money into his children's cancer charity The Hole in the Wall Gang. Newman's sauce now earns more than he does. But Peta remains the biggest showcase for actors on a virtue trip. Kim Basinger helps circus elephants, Tippi Hedren locks herself away in an animal sanctuary, Cindy Crawford hates fur, Janet Leigh hates fishing, Tony Curtis weeps in public at evidence of animal cruelty. Former Exorcist wild-child Linda Blair claims that animal experiments make her "head spin" and criticised paraplegic actor Christopher Reeve for campaigning for research on spine injuries to be performed on animals. There's a clash of virtues here, but no matter. At least insecure actors feel valued between movies. And at least the ever-hungry, star-struck public get to hear about them and see them to their hearts content, and everyone goes away happy (or sobbing or ranting, depending on the actor). Without that wonderful Hollywood weakness for virtue, we'd see much less of the stars than we currently do. And no one wants that.

Copyright 1998
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.