Independent American filmmaking in the 1970s features many showcases of distinctive actor-director relationships. One of them: Joan Micklin Silver and her many great actors, including Peter Riegert. Riegert went from losing a role in Silver’s Between the Lines, to a supporting role in Chilly Scenes of Winter, and by 1988 was the leading man in Crossing Delancey. An offbeat romantic comedy where Riegert completes a slightly unusual love triangle made of international cross-genre film stars, Delancey had some success at the time of release but has since developed a strong fanbase over the years and has been newly restored and released on home video by Criterion.
For the occasion, I spoke with Riegert about this film and how it fits nicely in his work as a veteran of independent filmmaking. Riegert performed in a notable string of memorable projects in the ’80s with Delancey, Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero, and the unofficially released Martha Coolidge film, The City Girl. His work is emblematic of independent film’s fraught various stages of release and the ways audiences can impact how a film is ultimately regarded versus the limited success it had upon first release. In our talk, we discussed the lasting themes and legacy of Delancey, Silver, and how audiences’ interest in his work have shown him “one of the residual, amazing benefits of making movies.”
Nel Dahl: How did you get involved with Silver for Chilly Scenes of Winter?
Peter Riegert: I had auditioned for her for Between the Lines. I was doing a David Mamet play at the Cherry Lane Theater in Manhattan in New York. I think it was his first play in New York City in 1976, Sexual Perversity in Chicago. So Joan had come to the play, I had found out, and I had got an audition. I was still pretty naïve about how all this worked, and I thought, “Well, she just saw me. Why doesn’t she just give me the job?” And my agent explained that that’s not exactly how it works. So I auditioned, I didn’t get it. I think it was Jeff Goldblum who got the part. And three years later , for Chilly Scenes of Winter, my friend John Heard said, “Why don’t you see Peter? He’d be perfect.” And she said, “well, I kind of see him as taller.” John said, “Who cares how tall he is? It’s movies. No one’s going to be able to tell.” Anyway, she finally saw me, and I did audition. I got the job. So that’s how I got into Chilly Scenes of Winter.
ND: Was there a lot of discussion between you and Silver for your performance in Chilly Scenes of Winter?
PR: I don’t remember a lot of conversation. John [Heard] and I were friends, so I didn’t have to work hard at [portraying] that. And she’s such a good screenwriter. She didn’t [write] Crossing Delancey, but [for] Chilly Scenes, she wrote the screenplay. And [Chilly Scenes’ author] Ann Beattie really liked what she did, she liked the movie. [I’m] not [saying this] because she cast me, but in general she’s very good at casting. My feeling is the better the cast, the easier it is for the actors. You just have to work off of what the other actors are giving you. Easy to say, but that’s how good a cast I think she had.
ND: Silver has said how Susan Sandler, the playwright and eventual screenwriter for Crossing Delancey, requested you.
PR: She offered me the play, probably three years earlier, probably ‘85, ‘86. I had a conflict, I couldn’t do it. So she sent me a very sweet postcard and basically said, “I hope you can do the movie,” which is pretty rare, but it worked out.
ND: Silver said that Sandler wanted you for the film version after seeing your performance in Chilly Scenes in Winter.
PR: That’s great. I didn’t know that.
ND: What do you think it was about you that Sandler thought would be great for Sam?
PR: That’s a good question. Maybe his wry sense of humor. The character I played in Chilly Scenes was kind of floating through life. He was, to me, seemingly the opposite of Sam in Crossing Delancey. Sam seems like a person who knows who he is. And the character I play in Chilly Scenes, he has an idea of how to play the world, but I think he’s kind of lost in terms of knowing who he is. But maybe it was the comedy or the humor that came out in Chilly Scenes. That’s always an attractive quality. And if you’re trying to create somebody who’s attractive to another person, humor is pretty good.
ND: Silver has been quoted saying that Sandler said her condition to Silver for Crossing Delancey’s film adaptation was that you play Sam.
PR: That’s new to me, but I know that Joan offered me the part in June of 1987, and I think we started shooting it in the fall of ‘87, because it came out in 1988. I would be surprised if it was a condition rather than a request. When you’re a screenwriter, you want your movie to be done. I think because I’d worked with Joan, that was probably an easy request to answer. I’m just flattered that both of them thought I was right.
ND: Ultimately, the cast that is assembled for the film version, it’s kind of an offbeat love triangle between Amy Irving, who is best known to audiences at that time for a horror film, Carrie, then the Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbé, known from Paul Verhoeven’s dark thrillers. And then you from Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero.
PR: Yeah, pretty wild group there…
ND: Amongst you three, lots of international films, independent films, genre films. What was that like for audiences at that time who had those associations for you three as actors?
PR: I don’t know, be honest with you. I only know that Crossing Delancey found an audience. I think it’s more that it’s such an archetypal story about: how do you make the right choice in relationships, let alone life? And that’s pretty universal. The fact that [Krabbé’s character] is successful and foreign gives him a cache for Amy. Something sparkly as opposed to pickles. That’s really the story: You have to see beyond what you think you are seeing.
ND: That’s one of Crossing Delancey‘s greatest strengths as a story: its championing of your character, an underdog amidst the flashier, more glamorous characters. The film challenges Isabelle’s assumptions and first impressions of Sam. So what resonated with you about Sam? Did you draw upon other performances or personal experiences?
PR: I tend to go off of the text. Every actor has a different method, approach, style, whatever. For me, it’s really more the spontaneous work off of the other actors. And if you have a script as good as Crossing Delancey… I was trained in improvisation, so I could do that, but when a script is well-written, it sounds improvised, if you know what I mean. I guess he’s what you’d call a mensch, a Yiddish word for human being. And the challenge of playing a mensch for me is that a mensch is probably unselfconsciously aware of his attractive qualities of being a mensch. So how do you do that? And I don’t have any secret sauce, but it was in the material. He was a good listener and he could stand up for himself. He had a little soup·çon of cynicism and questioning about how the world turns. I’d say a lot of my character is listening. The way she edited the film, she let me be on camera where I had nothing to say. Reactions add to the creating of the character. It’s not just the actor, especially in a movie. There are so many elements that go into it. So I’d say I was lucky that Joan had so much faith in me to be a good listener. As an actor, the theater is different. You have to learn where the pauses are and the silences are. Sometimes they’re written. David Mamet writes like that. Harold Pinter writes like that. But you have more control on stage. But in a movie, the editor and the director [who] obviously works with the editor, they’re the ones who control and shape your performance. So I feel really fortunate that they had patience with me as a good listener.
ND: It’s interesting how you’re the underdog in Crossing Delancey, but in Local Hero you’re the character who has their first impressions challenged.
PR: Yeah, they’re almost the opposite in a way. Mac is lost and Sam is found. None of us know what the future is, but Mac is really not controlling his destiny. Sam seems more aware of who he is. Mac is at the mercy of the culture, in a way.
ND: For Local Hero, you had been talking to Bill Forsyth about doing the movie.
PR: I got a call from my agent for a meeting with Bill. I started reading the Local Hero screenplay, and I was done two hours later and was so excited because it’s probably one of the best screenplays I’d ever read. So I met Bill at a bar at a hotel. And I remember talking a lot. Bill is not a big talker. But I was yakking my brains out because I wanted to get this job. He went back to Scotland. And when he got home, all of his friends who were going to be working crew from Scotland said, “who did you choose?” At the time it was going to be either Henry Winkler or Robin Williams. And Bill said, “I think I found somebody different.” And he mentioned my name. This was literally three days after I met him. And his friend said, “who the hell is he? You can hire the Fonz and you’re going to hire this guy?” You’d have to ask Bill what he saw. But that’s the impression that I made. I wasn’t doing anything other than being my typical, as you can tell, talkative self. And it must have matched up with his idea of the character.
ND: Another interesting low-budget film you did in the ’80s was Martha Coolidge’s The City Girl. Coolidge has said that it was because of its use of music that it never got a theatrical release. Notably, Peter Bogdanovich and Colleen Camp were producers. Their film, They All Laughed, is on the marquee in one of the ending scenes. Did you interact with Bogdanovich or Camp?
PR: I did, I met them while we were working. It was so long ago… I do remember meeting Peter Bogdanovich and Colleen. We’re not in touch anymore, but she was very nice. And he was nice, Bogdanovich, obviously a very talented guy. But, you know, if you’re lucky and you keep working, it’s amazing how many paths you cross.
ND: The current independent filmmaking successes happening right now are interesting to think about in terms of Crossing Delancey and your work and the films you were making in the ’80s. You are a veteran of independent filmmaking. All the variations of how these films get made and get seen, or in the case of Coolidge’s The City Girl, that infamously didn’t get seen.
PR: I did another movie called Utz, which is based on a Bruce Chatwin novel, with Paul Scofield, Brenda Fricker, and Armin Mueller-Stahl. I think the producers got into some kind of fight with each other and that’s never been released. Really interesting movie. Yeah, that’s a hidden away gem, that one. The director was a Dutch director named George Sluizer. And he’s since passed away, a wonderful, amazing director. Yeah, if you could ever see it, I think you’d find it very interesting. We shot it in Prague and in Hamburg and in Karlovy Vary.
ND: Did working with Silver influence your own work as a director?
PR: No, only in the sense that I knew how important actors were to the story. And you learn from everybody. So I did two films with her and I learned how not to cut away so quickly. Let the scenes breathe, as it were. The editing, as a metaphor, is really about creativity. Anybody in any discipline is in the process of editing from the beginning of the inspiration till its conclusion. Whether you’re a painter, a choreographer, a playwright — doesn’t matter. At some point, you have to be done. And in my experience, you are literally in a state of editing. Even when you’re directing a film, while you’re directing, you’re making choices. You may have thought, I want to shoot the scene this way. But based on how the actors are working, your imagination never stops. I learned that from my improvisational training, which I did for about eight years with a company called War Babies. We started the company in 1972, and I was probably with them until 1980, let’s say. And I really learned that there are no bad ideas, there are just choices and to be as open-minded as possible, to not know everything, as it were. So I was lucky, I was involved with very creative people who taught me to not know, to be open. When we’re younger, we all tend to think we know everything, but at least in my experience, you unlearn that rather quickly if you’re smart.
ND: Amy Irving has said that you have talked with her about how you two don’t think that Isabelle and Sam would stay together.
PR: I don’t know. The movie ends on a freeze. The story to me is so funny about the ending. It’s basically the story of a man and a woman who agree to go out on a date. The grandmother wants them to get married. But they haven’t figured that out yet. But yeah, I have no idea what their future is. I don’t know. I think that’s a question for the audience.
ND: The movie kind of gently criticizes Amy’s character because we see that, yes, she’s very intelligent, but… she gets very distracted by the author and she starts mistreating Sam. Amy said that she felt that Isabelle was too immature to stay with Sam.
PR: That’s very interesting. I might remember her mentioning that to me and us talking about it. That’s a really good thought because I could see that she would suddenly see that Sam was more interesting because she was misused by the writer. One is treating her better than the other. But that’s a good question. Sometimes you have to go through something or be more mature to make a choice on a relationship that lasts for a length of time.
ND: Was the script adapted in a way that you had expected when you had first read it?
PR: I don’t remember what the differences were, [but] I was so impressed with the screenplay. Once we started shooting, to me anyway, it seemed like it was gonna be better than the screenplay. I mean, a screenplay is just paper, that’s not the movie. That’s a blueprint for the movie, [but] watching the other actors working and in the work that I was doing, the scenes really came alive. There was always a dynamic to the scene, which is very hard to accomplish.
ND: Were there any scenes in particular for you that were a struggle to translate to the screen?
PR: I don’t remember any other than the challenge of not letting Reizl Bozyk steal every scene we were in. She was so incredible. That’s what I want out of my fellow actors is, you know, they’re picking your pocket, but I try to do that with them. I would say the scene that epitomizes that is when I’m getting my hair cut, and the grandmother shows up and sits in one of the chairs, three chairs over. And basically we’re just flirting with each other. There’s no dialogue. But she’s a character. She was a character. I wouldn’t say there was anything that stood out as difficult. I’ve certainly done scenes that we were having a hard time doing, but I don’t remember that in Crossing Delancey.
ND: The film was considered a “modest success” financially at the time, but has developed a strong fan base over the years.
PR: That’s what I’m learning.
ND: What was the reception at the time like for you?
PR: Let me put it in… terms that may seem a little offensive. I was never more propositioned in my life than when that movie came out. I was hit on by grandmothers, mothers and their daughters, sisters for their sisters and women in general. I had a girlfriend at the time and I was perfectly loyal, but if I were unattached, it would have been quite a time. Let me put it that way.
ND: The lasting success of Crossing Delancey and your other films like Local Hero that continue to have such a strong resonance…
PR: It’s a very rare experience to have people like what you do and tell you. Now, when I’m doing a play, and most of the theater work I did was in New York City, the only people who stop you are people who see the play. So it’s a very small amount of people. But when you do a movie that’s got national or international attention, it’s just mind-blowing to me to see the range of people. And, of course, the beauty of movies or television is while you and I are sitting here talking, somebody’s watching something that I made. That’s one of the residual, amazing benefits of making movies and television on occasion.
ND: It’s been such a pleasure to speak with you about your work in these thought-provoking, memorable films that have withstood the test of time.
PR: Can’t get a better compliment than that.
Comments are closed.