DepressedBergman@DannyDrinksWine
RIP Tom Noonan (1951-2026)
Manhunter (1986)
Director: Michael Mann
Tom Noonan on how he got cast for the role of Francis Dollarhyde by Michael Mann in "Manhunter" (1986):
"I went up to this casting place, and I saw they're bring in all these people from Steppenwolf - the theater company in Chicago that we all love so much. I had an appointment at 10:00 and then it got pushed to 10:30, 11, 11:30. I was starting to get really unhappy, and all these people are going in - I think from Steppenwolf, that's probably just my paranoia. Finally they brought me in and I was really fu**ing pissed off.
That's all I knew: I was going to get in there and I was going to read the fu**ing scene, and just leave. So I was really mad, I didn't have a plan about how to do this thing. I go in and Michael Mann's there. Michael's sort of a scary guy, even though he's not huge, and I learned over time that you really don't talk back to him or give him shit, ever. He's like Napoleon. I walked up and I said, "Listen, I'm gonna read and then I'm gonna leave, OK?" He said, "OK." I sat down.
There was a woman reading with me, who apparently was a casting assistant but now she was the casting person and was going to read with me. They put her opposite me, and I don't know...I didn't do anything, but she started to get really frightened of me, which made me feel really excited and full of myself. Michael got real excited and started wandering around the room. I could feel that he was really into what I was doing too, and I thought, "I got this job." Then I finished, and he started to talk to me. I said, "I told you. I'm reading and now I'm leaving." I just walked out.
I called my agent, and he said, "What do you mean, you walked out when he wanted to talk to you?" I said, "No, he kept me waiting an hour and a half and f**k him." He said, "He wants to talk to you. If he doesn't talk to you, you're not going to get the job." I said, "Well, let's just let him think about it for a while." I did go back in and talk to him for like a minute. He said, "I have one question." I said, "Good." He said, "You're really scary. How do you do that?" I said, "Michael, the secret to being scary is to be really scared. Because when you're really scared, people are really scared of you." He said, "Wow," I said, "OK," and I left.
I got the job. Now, I'd not worked much. I was making a little bit from my acting, but I was really poor and desperate, and this is a real part. I proceeded then to turn it down about five times. I just wanted to get paid more than they were willing to pay me. They wanted to pay me like $35,000 to do this whole movie. That was money back in 1985, but I said, "I'm not doing it for under $100,000." My agent said, "You're crazy." Somehow, they ended up giving me that amount of money."
[Quote taken from IMDb]
