The horror stories are everywhere. Actor Nick Nolte is supposed to be many things, but not kind, focused and gentle. Co-starring in director Hans Petter Moland's film, The Beautiful Country, the real Nolte isn't anything like you'd imagine... unless you were expecting him to travel around the country with Moland and fellow actor Damien Nguyen talking about a very small film that he really believes in. [THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE SINKING LANTERN]
Damien Nguyen and I are sitting in the bedroom of director Hans Petter Moland’s hotel suite. Moland, who directed Nguyen in The Beautiful Country, is in the living room sprawled out on his couch watching television. Nguyen and I have plopped down in the only two chairs that the adjoining room has to offer. "This will work," Nguyen muses softly, glancing around the room, settling himself into his overstuffed seat, knowing full well that when I spoke to Moland earlier, there was only one chair present… that Moland quickly lay claim to. "Lie down on the bed, make yourself comfortable" Moland bade me with a mischievous smile and a flourish of his hand. Fortunately, the area Nguyen and I have is much more conducive to conversation. For one thing, I am no longer lying down.
Previously, while traipsing throughout the hotel looking for a place to talk, Nguyen and I had been joking around about the idea of including outtakes at the end of incredibly serious and depressing movies like Schindler’s List. The concept is funny because it’s very wrong; doing so would cast an extremely light-hearted glow onto the otherwise heavy proceedings and effectively ruin the tone of the film. From there we move on to discussing how most people find it supremely unusual to learn that actors and directors can have a very good time while making a dark, depressing movie. After an elevator ride up several floors, I turn to Nguyen and ask him what the mood was on the set of The Beautiful Country. Though the film is nowhere as downtrodden as Schindler’s List, it still would be considered a very dramatic project.
"The mood on our set was very light," Nguyen says quickly. "Everybody had a really great sense of humor and we were laughing all the time." A smile crosses his face and he says, "There was this one instance where we were supposed to have these lanterns float into the sky out over this pond. Hans had this shot in mind and it was special to him for some reason." We exit the elevator and Nguyen says, "The lanterns were powered by the heat of the candles in them, but for some reason, they would only go up into the sky about fifteen feet before they’d go crashing to the water." This was a distinct problem for the production because, once wet, the lanterns were rendered useless. Nguyen shakes his head, grinning widely while recalling the scene. "At the end, we were down to one lantern and Hans really wanted a good shot of it. So, the lantern was going out across the water and, of course, it starts floating downward. Some of the prop guys are trying to get out there on their boat to catch the lantern before it hits the water." He pauses for dramatic effect and then says, "One prop guy makes it out and gets the lantern in this little boat and, at this point, the boat started to take in water. It’s sinking and the guy is trying to hold up this last lantern and Hans jumps into the water to save it, but by then it was completely destroyed."
We enter Moland’s bedroom and Nguyen adjusts his suit coat in front of his chair while completing his story. "Hans was upset about that incident," he says in conclusion, obviously amused. "This was one of those movies that was on a very tight budget and where time was really of the essence." He sighs and finally says, "At those times, it’s really nice to have a light set with people that you get along with phenomenally."
When I see Nguyen several weeks later in Beverly Hills, I ask him for the details of "The Sinking Lantern story". "Did I tell you that already?" Nguyen questions me. I nod in the affirmative and then point out that I didn’t get it on tape. It was in the elevator. "Ah, yes" Nguyen sighs. He rubs his hands together and begins. "Well, there was this one instance where we were supposed to have these lanterns float into the sky out over this pond…"
[THE RULES OF ATTRACTION] 
The Beautiful Country has been making waves on the festival circuit for the better part of a year. Critics and audiences alike have taken notice of the film’s uniquely human story and the quiet, respectful tone of the project. Written by Sabina Murray from the story she and Lingard Jervey concocted, The Beautiful Country focuses on the struggles of a twenty-something man, Binh (Nguyen), who was born to a Vietnamese mother and an American G.I. father (Nick Nolte), whom Binh has never met. As such, he is considered ‘bin-duh’ by his fellow villagers, a term which, translated literally, means ‘less than dust’. And Binh is treated accordingly. Murray’s script follows Binh as he travels the world, from the most backwater villages Vietnam has to offer, through Malaysia, New York City and Texas, enduring a series of harsh and unforgiving conditions trying to connect with his father.
The trouble with discussing the film’s simple, yet large scoped story is that eventually terms like "humanistic", "socially conscious" and "enlightening" begin to creep into the lexicon. On one hand these are positive traits, but mostly they make the film sound a little too heavy-handed to be appreciated by mainstream film audiences. Nguyen nods in agreement when I bring the matter up with him. He holds up his hands and says, "Most movies [that] try to portray human tragedy tend to fall into that hokey arena. People tend to think the movie is hokey and laden with melodrama and it pushes the film into the realm of unbelievability." He stops for a brief second, purses his lips and then says, "I think, to a certain degree, that’s to be expected. However…." Nguyen holds that word, while thinking about his next statement. "However," he repeats, "we avoided those pitfalls by having a story that is reflective of real life. The things that happen in this movie continually happen in reality."
For his part, Moland shrugs when I mention this concept of sentimentality to him, pretty much ignoring the topic; in retrospect, this is an ideal way to deal with it because The Beautiful Country, as Nguyen pointed out, does not fall into either the ‘hokey’ or ‘melodramatic’ categories. Moland will not be dragged into any ‘he said/she said’ on the matter and states, "People have been responding to the film. We worked pretty hard on it to make it work on its own terms and that response has been gratifying." And you can’t really argue with that.
Getting a movie to resonate with audiences is a tall order for a big-budget, Hollywood production that has time and money to spare, but achieving this end on a small five million dollar movie that boasts numerous shooting locations on two different continents, an international crew and a large contingent of scenes involving animals, water and children is a small miracle.
"I think it’s probably safe to say that this film has a lot of don’ts [surrounding it]," Moland laughs, thinking about the inherent degree of difficulty of The Beautiful Country. "But," he adds quickly, "As a director you pretty much have to choose the limitations that you want to work with." In this case, The Beautiful Country’s story struck such a nerve with Moland, it convinced him to ignore the more lucrative amenities he could have had working on a bigger and more commercial product.
While the story itself seems simple, the overarching theme of optimism and triumph at the core of the material is like catnip for The Beautiful Country’s actors and behind-the-camera talent. Consider: it took me several minutes to get Moland to stop talking in detail about his love for Murray’s script–I sidetracked him with a series of questions about water buffalos–and Nolte almost looks insulted when I ask him what the appeal of the project is to him.
He is staring daggers at me with his piercing blue eyes and finally says in his low, gravelly, raspy voice, "Malick had mentioned the script to me through the years." That would be acclaimed director Terrance Malick, of whom Nolte speaks. Nolte tugs at his ear while he tries to remember the exact timing of the matter. "I don’t know if it was on The Thin Red Line or not," he finally says, realizing that it’s not a particularly pressing matter. "Malick told me of a female student whom he had been teaching in a Harvard screenwriting class and he told me that she had come up with a really good theme and described a little bit of it to me."
The theme Nolte is referring to is the reconciliatory nature of the relationships between the Vietnamese and American characters. Ultimately, Binh and Nolte’s character, Steve, aim to bridge the gap that has been formed between them through a series of blameless miscommunications and tragedies. This is an especially important issue to Nolte and a topic that he returns to time and again during our conversation. Though we discuss acting, author Ernest Hemingway, ozone therapy and Nolte’s own Midwestern roots ("I am from Iowa," Nolte later says proudly), he remains fascinated by the psychology and ethics issues at the heart of what he called "the Vietnam saga".
Nolte shifts his weight in his chair and moves both of his legs so that his knees are pointing at me, his white and black striped socks barely visible beneath the cuffs of his black pants. Leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, Nolte cocks his head and says of the Vietnam War, "This was the moral dilemma that my generation had to face. As such, it had a lot to do with forming who we were and what we believed." With this in mind, it is quite easy to understand Nolte’s attraction to the role of Steve, a soldier in Vietnam who managed to find true love there and start a family before an improvised bomb sent him back to the States on a forced medical leave, minus his wife and child.
A lot of people tend to assume that Nolte’s entrance to the Vietnam saga and the awful choices that faced the draftees began with his participation in the 1978 film, Who’ll Stop the Rain. So many people assume this that he feels the need to correct me in advance; his entrance to this saga came about while the war was actually occurring, when he was first exposed to the inequities and plight of the conflict in Southeast Asia during the late ‘60s. "The guys who fought in Vietnam were like you and me," Nolte starts, jutting a finger at me for further emphasis. "They went to high school and then got drafted. I don’t think that I’ve ever had thoughts in my mind that I would have to kill someone in my lifetime." He stops himself and clarifies, "I’ve been angry and I’ve had thoughts, but I’d never act out." Nolte pauses to let that thought sink in and continues a few beats later, "And that’s who these vets are. They are regular people who ended up in that war and legally killed some people."
This does not sit well with Nolte. Though the beginning of the United States’ involvement in Vietnam occurred more than 40 years ago, it’s obvious that Nolte is still giving the matter thought and that the legalized murder he’s described weighs heavily on him. In the ‘70s, Nolte was so bothered by the situation that he took the unusual path of speaking out professionally, landing the lead role in the anti-Vietnam film, Who’ll Stop the Rain. "I had told the story in that movie about the disillusioned soldier who doesn’t want to be in Vietnam and then acts out," Nolte sighs. "I haven’t made any kind of reconciliation [with the matter] since then."
Nolte continues talking about the Vietnam War, about poetry groups he’d attended, dissidents with whom he has spoken and about those Americans who were forced to spy on their fellow countrymen during the height of the war. The one thing he doesn’t talk about is why he is interested in the reconciliation. After a lengthy monologue, where he touches on all the aforementioned points and many others, Nolte says summarily, "This [experience] bookends it for me."
He takes a deep breath and says with a certain reluctant acceptance, there needs to be "reconciliation with the Vietnamese national and the American national. ‘I didn’t hate you, you didn’t rape my sister, and it was the government that asked me to shoot at you.’" He pauses and then says, "In that way, [The Beautiful Country] is the reconciliation of one war… That has never happened [before]."
It isn’t until later that I realize how truly moved Nolte is by this saga that he speaks of so passionately. Taking a cab to my hotel after our interview, it hits me: though Nolte was barely on The Beautiful Country’s set for a week, he has flown three thousand miles across the country, away from his home and family, in order to spend a number of days promoting a small, five million dollar film that will open in only six theaters. I can’t think of many other A-list actors who would have chosen to do the same thing.
[PUBLICISTS, HOMEWORK AND POETRY]
Nguyen is pushing back in his chair slightly and worrying that that he is going to come off as "high and mighty". He has used the phrase twice in a minute long time span. When I ask him about this, he says, "I really don’t want to get on my soap box and preach to anyone. "That’s the last thing I want to [do]." I raise a curious eyebrow at Nguyen. He has been one of the most accommodating interview subjects I’ve had. Not only does he ask if his answers are good enough for me, but at one point in a later conversation he mentions off-handedly that while attempting to deal with the overwhelming nature of his press tour, his main concern was that he not "rob the journalist of any emotions, feelings or personal insight" that he could have offered; hardly the norm for an actor who is headlining a critically lauded film opposite such big names like Nolte and Tim Roth.
Nguyen notices my quizzical expression and says sheepishly, "Well, I haven’t done much press prior to this interview." He qualifies that statement, "I did some at Berlin for the film festival there and I did some for the Norwegian press (as The Beautiful Country’s director Hans Petter Moland is from Norway), but that’s it." Nguyen smiles a warm smile and says, "This press tour is a surreal experience. Having people ask me personal questions about myself is weird. Day-to-day, I don’t go around telling random people, ‘When I was four I came to the States with my parents,’ and personal information like that."
When I ask him about the press tour some weeks later, his story remains unchanged. "Sometimes journalists would cross the line," he says, "They’d expect me to volunteer something negative about my co-stars." Nguyen bites his lip and, imitating the envelope-pushing journalists in a mocking voice, asks, "Certain actors have reputations of being this way, or wild. Did you see anything that might have been wild or fitting with that?" He furls his brow, partially amused by the situation and partially insulted. "I don’t know if they thought I was so naïve that I’d start bad-mouthing the people I worked with, but it caught me off guard the first couple times."
Nguyen holds that thought for a moment and then lets out a peal of laughter. Sometimes the publicists he encountered were just as interesting a study as the journalists. "I wasn’t necessarily coached by the film’s publicists or my managers," he says, "but last night I was supposed to go to a party and they took me aside and told me, "Just don’t come in tomorrow hung over.’" He looks at me and nods. "I’m like, ‘Okay, I can do that. I’ll show up and do the interview sober.’"
On the flip side of the coin is Nolte. A veteran of more than fifty feature films in his illustrious career, Nolte is the epitome of the smooth and consummate professional both on set and while interacting with the press. Halfway through our chat, Nolte cuts himself off mid-sentence and begins rummaging through a tote bag he has with him. In the bag are a series of manila folders marked ‘Next Day’s Work’, ‘Today’s Work’ etc. After rifling his fingers through the folders, he finds the one he is looking for, opens it and hands me a set of Xeroxed papers he has taken from it. Curious, I peruse the reading material Nolte has handed me. To my surprise, it’s poetry by a writer named Chuck Patterson. Nolte allows me to scan Patterson’s work and when I’ve finished, I hand the papers back to him. Nolte frowns and tells me that the poems are mine to keep. "I made the copies for you," he says, chuckling. "I have the book."
Coming on the heels of The Thin Red Line, Hulk and Hotel Rwanda, Nolte is riding a crest of loud, in-your-face and confrontational roles. He laughs at this observation and says, "In general, most people think the characters I play are highly intense, highly angry and highly driven." He waves his hand and scoffs. "I’m doing a picture called The Peaceful Warrior," Nolte begins, "and the first thing the director [Victor Salva], asked me was, ‘Can you be peaceful?’" He chortles to himself, the sound of his laughter hoarse, deep and inimitable, and then shakes his head. The idea is patently absurd to him.
