It's My Party review
Human and imperfect - Eric Roberts captures the nuances of life and death with AIDS in the semi-improvisational It's My Party
By Dennis Vercher
Nick Stark, the lead character of It’s My Party, belies the term “suicide victim.” Although Nick chooses suicide rather than wasting away to a brain infection, he is anything but a victim. Part raconteur, part clown, part sensitive friend, Nick is the sort of person who can, with an impish smile, spring onto the deathbed of a friend and kiss the corpse goodbye.
As an actor assuming the role of Nick a very different role than any-thing he’s played before good-looking, self-assured Eric Roberts is a wonderful foil to the anxiety around him as he gathers friends and family for a two-day party, a party which will end with his suicide.
It’s a role Roberts cherishes and one which, he says, he had not the slightest hesitation about accepting.
“I’ve always wanted to portray a gay man with a proper approach to the role,” he says during a brief telephone interview, “not going over the top, not particularly campy, without all the cliches.” Something, he suggests, like the sensitive role William Hirt played in Kiss of the Spider Woman.
“My friends responded that it must be really hard for me to play this guy. But the fact of the matter is, it’s a part of life, and any actor who claims to have a good range should be able to play roles like this,” he insists. Ironically, he points out, no one questioned his ability to play, in an earlier film, an over-the-brink husband who blows his wife’s brains out with a shotgun.
He found technical aspects of the role fairly easy “I grew up in the theater, so I was always around gay men” - especially thanks to writer-director Randall Kleiser “Randall gave us all a lot of freedom,” Roberts recalls, “but he had set forth a strong blueprint for us to work from. Everyone was there, we were all doing our best, improvising and rear-ranging.” Much has been made of the film’s semi-improvisational nature, and Roberts confirms that “about 20 per-cent of any given character’s lines were improvised with Kleiser’s strong encouragement.
“Lee Grant’s role as it worked out was almost entirely improvisational,” Roberts points out, “and Marlee Matlin’s role was written for a hearing person. That role was totally reworked after production began; I had to learn sign language from Marlee.”
“And Randall was always in the driver’s seat, keeping us from getting too sentimental,” he comments.
Although not mired in detail, Kleiser’s “blueprint” was something the entire cast many of whom had formed friendships with the filmmaker during his two-decades-long career took quite seriously. The storyline of It’s My Party is based loosely on a similar situation Kleiser himself went though. In real life, Kleiser became estranged from his HIV-infected lover, reconciling and finding peace only near the end.
But how could Roberts’ character reconcile with the man who ultimately treated him so poorly?
“That’s a good question, and I can understand how audiences might react that way,” Roberts says. “But I think the answer is love. That’s all it is. With my character, with Nick, there’s a lot of anger. But with time comes a need for resolution and acceptance. I asked Randall that same thing many times, and his only answer was, ‘We all do things we live to regret.”
The buzz from the It’s My Party set had the cast, all working for scale, falling in with the action, creating new bonds among the actors.
For instance, Roberts says, “My mother and I haven’t spoken since I was 14. So I went though adolescence without a mother. But Lee [Grant] and I bonded so strongly that she has literally become my surrogate mother. I call her for advice about my daughter and wife, and we speak on the phone about three times a week, keeping up. Gregory Harrison] and I are best friends, and Marlee and I are like a brother and sister, honestly.”
Roberts says he believes the movie has real “crossover” potential, “just like the disease itself has.” He adds that he’s “gonna be pissed” if straight people stay away from the film. However, he’s been in the business long enough to hedge his bets.
“I made a movie in ‘82 and ‘83 called Star 80,” he remembers. “It was a great film by a great filmmaker. I had high hopes for that movie. But when it came out, nobody liked it. I was heralded by the critics as an up-and-coming young actor, but nobody saw the movie.
“So after being disappointed that time, I have not ever counted on any of my movies having a future,” he says pragmatically.
Roberts calls the role of Nick Stark “one of my three favorites,” but adds that the role is “the hardest character I ever captured, because I liked Nick and I wanted to take care with the portrayal. I wanted to show him as imperfect, as human just like we all are.”
“It’s My Party” is playing at the UA Cine.
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