Category Archives: Acting

Acting, Baylor University, Film

Baylor at the Movies

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I once wrote an article that identified more than 140 people with Baylor ties working in the film and television industries … and more have joined those 140 since that article first appeared. Some Baylor grads are better known that others, such as directors John Lee Hancock and Kevin “Hal” Reynolds, and screenwriters Derek Haas and Mike Brandt. But there are many more, including Mark Olsen, LouAnn Gideon, Clu Gulager, and many more, including lots of folks on the technical side of things.

With that in mind, Alan Nelson and I got to talking one day and tried to determine if the university itself is featured in any movies.

First and foremost, Alan came up with the dark comedy Viva Max! (1969), about an abortive takeover of the Alamo. Peter Ustinov’s co-stars include Jonathan Winters and the underrated Pamela Tiffin, who plays a Baylor co-ed. Alan remembers that her kid brother wears a Baylor t-shirt in one scene. Alas, neither of us have been able to confirm that little tidbit.

Some others:

Baylor is name-checked in The Social Media by the actor playing Mark Zuckerberg as an early adopter of Facebook.

In Peter Weir’s brillaint Witness, as the Kelly McGillis character (playing an Amish widow) and her young son travel on a train for the first time, they see a green and gold 18-wheeler with the word “Baylor” emblazoned on the side.

Thomas Harris, who once wrote for the Waco Tribune-Herald, identifies one of the psychiatrists in his Hannibal Lecter/Silence of the Lambs films as having a Ph.D. from Baylor. (Incidentally, novelist Connie Willis gives one of her characters a Baylor Ph.D. in her excellent Bellweather. It would make a great movie itself, BTW.)

Baylor substitutes for a college in Maine in the romantic comedy Where the Heart Is, starring Natalie Portman. If you squint real hard, you can see the Trib’s Carl Hoover, looking very professorial, in the background.

Brandt and Haas have named characters after various folks at Baylor (including me) in their films 2 Fast 2 Furious, Catch That Kid, 3:10 to Yuma, Wanted, and The Double, as well as their new hit TV series, Chicago Fire.

Reynold’s first film, Fandango, is based on his misadventures as a fraternity member at Baylor during his undergraduate days, though the film is ostensibly set at UT.

Both Tree of Life by Terence Malick (who was born in Waco) and Sironia by Brandon Dickerson (who attended Baylor) have scenes shot in Waco, though not necessarily at Baylor. Damon Crump’s zombie thriller Risen is shot almost completely in Waco. In fact, several low-budget and independent films have been shot in and around Waco through the years, including Chris Hansen’s Endings.

Speaking of Waco, did you know actors Steve Martin, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ashlee Simpson (well, she appeared in a movie once), Peri Gilpin, Anne Gwynne, Shannon Elizabeth and – believe it or not – Texas Guinan were all born in Waco? (Actually, I don’t have any trouble believing Texas Guinan was born here, what I have trouble believing is that she was featured in a movie.)

So, here’s our list. If you know of any other Hollywood/Baylor or Hollywood/Waco connections, I’d love to hear ‘em!

Acting, Teaching, Traffic

Til We Have Faces

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I’m looking for a girl who has no face
She has no name, or number
And so I search within his lonely place
Knowing that I won’t find her

— Traffic, “No Face, No Name, No Number” (Winwood/Capaldi)

Patricia Wilson in the Baylor Law School asked me to be the client for the finals of the ABA’s National Client Counseling Competition last week. And since I have trouble telling someone as giving and generous as Pat “no,” I agreed.

I was given a couple of pages of description, both about me and my problem, which I was to more-or-less memorize. And then, over 40-minute intervals, I would be interviewed by three teams of two young lawyers, while a number of Waco lawyers watched and listened and eventually judged. I had to stay in character, so if one team asked something not on my sheet — I had to improvise. But I then had to remember what I’d said so in case the next team asked something similar, I’d give the same answer. Consistency is important.

It was nerve-wracking, but fun. The three collegiate teams were all excellent. All three put me through the wringer. My “role” was to be a basically nice guy who had done something really, really stupid. And, because of it, I was being blackmailed by a former employee.

I wasn’t to volunteer anything that wasn’t asked … and their job was to ferret out the real story from all of my rationalizations, dissemblings, evasions, and self-serving proclamations. It gave me the chance to be an actor, without having to memorize hundreds of lines.

The winning team, by the way, went on to the International Client Counseling Competition in Hong Kong.

I’ve been told that all lawyers (out of a sense of self-preservation) have to assume that virtually all of their potential clients are lying to them. You need to discover as much as you can as soon as you can about your client. It’s not a good thing when a client suddenly “remembers” something damaging while on the witness stand under intense questioning by the opposing attorney.

But what I realized on the way home was that even when we’re not in court, we wear a variety of faces. We’re all actors, in a way. We want the world to think well of us. That’s why we smile in photos. We have all faces or masks. Very, very rarely do we ever allow someone to see the “real” us behind that cheery mask. It’s a scary prospect to let someone see us as we really are (or believe we really are).

I present a certain persona to my classes. I think I need to project an air of confidence. In the class with 280 students in particular, I think need to project a presence of being in control. (Meanwhile while it is about 35 years too late for them to think I’m cool, I don’t want to be seen as a someone who is desperately “uncool,” either!)

We do it in our jobs, within our churches, even to those who love us.

My question is this: Is that what other people, other students, other Christians REALLY want? Do they really want this fake, smiley, confident face? Or are they searching, waiting, hoping for the REAL me?

Would I be a more effective teacher if I were more honest, more open, more vulnerable, more transparent?

Or would it be a feeding frenzy — with the sharks smelling the blood (and weakness) in the water?

Teaching is such an odd thing anyhow. Standing before dozens (sometimes hundreds) of young faces, most of whom whose names I don’t know, nonchalantly sharing my wisdom. Some are eager, some are indifferent, and some are absorbed in text-messaging friends and never once look up.

Would I reach those text-messagers better if I were more real?