In HBO’s newest comedy, Hung, Thomas Jane (The Punisher) stars as Ray Drecker, a well-endowed high-school legend turned underpaid, uninsured, embittered high-school basketball coach who markets his best asset (reference the title of the show) in an attempt to piece his life back together.
As you can expect, that doesn’t always go as planned. Jane, who is always a colorful and candid interview, recently talked to us about his role and life in general.
Jane’s introduction to the series and the premise of Hung …
Thomas Jane: I think Alexander Payne called me up and said, “I’m doing a show about a guy with a big @#$% — you want to do it? Interested?”
He’s serious, too …
Well, yeah, I mean there’s no other way. This isn’t necessarily a subject matter you want to be delicate about. There’s no other way to kind of present the idea of the story, than to kind of just say it. That’s what the show is about. [Payne told me] it’s kind of funny, and that he’d be directing it. Alexander and I have wanted to work together for a long time. He’s a friend and this seemed like the perfect material. The guys who wrote it [husband and wife team Dmitry Lipkin (The Riches) and Colette Burson], I heard later, had actually had me in mind from the beginning while they were putting it together. So I think it’s one of those things where the part was kind of written for me … [laughing] which is very flattering. You get a lot of people writing stuff, as an actor, with you in mind but very rarely is that stuff any good or something that is actually attractive to the guy they’re writing for. Somebody writes a story about me having an extra large @#$%, I guess that’s just one way of getting my attention. I certainly said I’d take a look at it.
The series really isn’t all about his you-know-what …
It’s not your slap-your-knee, every-other-line-a-@#$%-joke type of show. The title and premise implies that, and when I was first told about it, the only thing that made me interested to read the thing was that it was being directed by Alexander Payne. I thought, “This guy’s a deep thinker. His movies are not The Waterboy, so I will give this a shot.” I think when you see the pilot you are pleasantly pleased to see that it’s not a series of male-enhancement jokes.
What’s there to like about Ray Drecker …
[with sarcasm] I loved his charming personality. His good looks [laughing]. I don’t know. I thought the story was funny.
He’s a likable guy, even though he’s kind of crabby and irascible — he’s been beaten up by life a few times so he’s a little bit jaded. He’s less likely to give the people the benefit of the doubt.
On his character’s moral compass …
He’s got a very strong moral compass. I think Ray wants to live the American dream. You were given promises in the American dream that you will have a house, two kids and a wife and a job, and that’s the American dream — that we can independently live. Huey Long said, “Every man is a king and his home is his castle.” That is part of the American dream, and to not be able to fulfill that in these times is extremely frustrating, so, yeah, Ray has an extremely strong moral compass that’s reflective of everyone’s standard values in America. I think Ray would rather be doing anything else on the planet rather than selling himself — that’s the last thing he would think of to do. Yet, it becomes the only thing he can see as a way out. He just doesn’t have an alternative.
On obstacles his character runs into as a gigolo …
I’m not going to share anything. Watch the damn show.
When I tell him I watched the damn show, and that I really liked it …
Not every woman is your blond, blue-eyed, pretty little 5-foot-2, eyes of blue girl — they’re real women, real people, real women, in the real world, and that’s what we’re going for. We’re not doing the television thing. We’re going for the real people thing — that’s very exciting. No you’re not going to turn the show on each week and watch Ray bang some pretty little blonde — what the hell — what kind of pretty busty blonde would be hiring a goddamn gigolo anyways? Never.
On the series’ relevance to today’s current financial crisis …
When we shot the pilot, and when I read the script, the country had not taken its financial downturn, although there were signs in the air and things were looking like they were gonna get bad, they hadn’t actually gotten bad yet. So when we did shoot the pilot, this is about a guy who is divorced and with two kids, has a big hole from a house fire in his roof, and, he’s a teacher, so he’s not making a whole lot of money. He’s trying to make ends meet so he decides to go for this idea of selling himself to women to make ends meet and to hang on to his house, so that he can have a place for his kids to live. It’s a guy trying to take care of his family. In the midst of the financial downturn that the country then went through, the material became all the more timely and made even more sense to desperate measures. One of the lines from the film is “desperate times call for desperate measures,” and I think that’s kind of the premise of the film; however, mixed into there is some wonderful human relationship stuff.
Jane’s take on the female psyche …
[My character] is kind of a fallen hero in the world of men. He’s divorced with two kids and he really has no understanding of the human psyche as most men do, I believe. I’m speaking for myself. I have no understanding of the female psyche. I don’t know what makes them tick; they’re a complete and utter mystery to me. As for Ray, he is sent on a journey into the female mind by working with Tanya [Jane Adams], who is his pimp and who is this wonderful poet. My ex-wife is played by Anne Heche, who loved him and he can’t figure out why she left him.
On men and how they communicate …
Men — we have problems communicating. We don’t know how to express our feelings and we don’t really know what the hell women want. That’s really the heart of the story and that’s what keeps me engaged as an actor, and hopefully you as a viewer. How a man’s man behaves when he’s faced with a series of different women who bring their own complications to the table, because for one reason or another they decided to hire Ray as a gigolo. They all have a certain amount of problems they are going through, and these are normal women — they’re not kooky birds — they are normal girls going through a hard time in their life for one reason or another, so these kind of lost souls meet in various places, mostly cheap hotel rooms, and they try to work out some of their problems. That’s fascinating — it’s very rich material for comedy and drama and pathos.
On marriage …
Ray’s in love with his wife, of course he’s in love with his wife — it’s his wife for God’s sake. Most people who have gotten married and have had children together, the only reason they’re not together is because of themselves — not the other person. We tend to blame the other person but that’s not it. You find as you get into other relationships, you find you have the same exact problems you had in the first relationship, you know, and they are YOU. Right? Come on. We’re trying to be honest about this, but we can’t because it’s so much easier to blame someone else. That’s part of our journey as human beings is to try to come to a sense of peace with yourself, acceptance of yourself and then, hey, this is it, this is me, I get one life. Am I going to spend my life resenting women I professed and watched them have my children? It’s a real journey.
His accolades to HBO …
HBO is always a cut above — and frankly a cut above films. They are allowed to explore stuff where films don’t have the time or they don’t feel like it’s worth spending the money on intimate personal portrayals of human life. It seems like that area of what used to be film is now regulated to television, which is fine, which is great. As an actor today I get to go where the good work is and not have to worry about being stuck in television or stuck in independent films or stuck in studio films as an action star. I feel lucky as an actor to be able to float between genre films.
On one of his latest films, The Mist …
I just got off a film called The Mist — I play a guy in a supermarket surrounded by supernatural beings from another dimension. And then they hand me a script about a high-school teacher with a giant penis and I thought to myself, “Oh great, more science fiction.”
On Alexander Payne’s attention to detail …
I don’t worry about that, that’s not my job. I just memorize my lines and hit my mark. We’ve got the easiest job and we tend to try and make it as difficult and complicated as possible, and tell everybody what hard work we did by stuffing cotton balls into our mouths or gaining 25 pounds or losing 50 pounds. It’s all horse shit. Horse shit. Our job is to get out of the way, say your lines, and hit your marks. “Hit your lines and say your mark” — it’s a spin on the Cagney quote. It’s the Jane quote.
And Jane does just that in HBO’s Hung, airing Sundays — a must-see this summer.
All photos: © 2008 HOME BOX OFFICE Credit: Chuck Hodes