with Ving Rhames Starring in Bringing Out The Dead with Nicolas Cage

A number of years ago there was a forgettable flick called Bound By Honor, most notable for its cast of soon to be stars, including Billy Bob Thornton, Benjamin Bratt and Ving Rhames. Across the last five years Cranky has never failed to note that, regardless of how good or how bad a flick is, Rhames is always good. We jumped at the chance to talk with the man, and covered a tremendous amount of interesting ground, talking Race, Film Directors, Tom Cruise, next year's Impossible flick, and the one after that (the Sonny Liston Story). We began, of course, with Bringing Out the Dead and Rhames' reason for taking the part of Marcus, an EMS Driver who steals the show by invoking Jesus in a gospel rave above the body of an OD'd New York clubgoer. Trust us, that part of the flick just rocks solid . . .

CrankyCritic: Tell us what interested you about Bringing Out The Dead.
Ving Rhames: Working with Martin Scorsese. Even before I got a script. I really respect him as a director and he let me flesh out the character. I grew up on 126th Street in Harlem and I used to go to the barber shops there. There were the old guys with the processed hair that had all these stories. I thought Marcus kind of fits that. I brought in the religious element based on my dad. My dad was a guy who would drink and get his high on and start talking about God. I tried to blend those elements in this character.
CrankyCritic: Any heavy duty research for this role?
Ving Rhames: I had one incident; two weeks before filming my girlfriend had an allergic reaction to an antibiotic. I called 911 and they got there within 4 minutes and went to the hospital. That was when they told me she almost died. Then I started talking to them about their work. But about this film, there's something Martin Scorsese said, it's focussed on the relationships of the people. These folks could be policemen, whatever, but my character, quite honestly, doesn't do that much paramedically. I focussed on the relationship between myself and Nic. I'd worked with Nic before. I know Nic. There's a natural chemistry and we kind of stayed in character a lot between takes. It just worked. It didn't feel like work.
CrankyCritic: So there was no medical prep stuff to carry over from your days on e.r.?
Ving Rhames: No. Scorsese sets up what I call a structured freedom. He says "Look. We need to get from A to Z. Here's the map I'm drawing out for you." He allowed us to improvise. He gave us a lot of freedom but we knew we had to get from Point A to Point Z. It was a real natural organic process of working. He allowed me to put in all that religious stuff. He allowed me to just go. And some nights he'd say "Ving's in a zone. Leave him alone." [laghs] I look at acting as an examination of the human experience. I've been fortunate that the people I've worked with don't have any limitations. Scorsese would say if I could find something more organic than anything he's thought, he'll allow you to go there. It was one of the quote unquote best experiences I've had as an actor.

CrankyCritic: [original BOTD novel writer] Joe Connelly told us he thought Marcus was "fatalistic".
Ving Rhames: I didn't think so. This character deals with life and death everyday. When I was growing up in Harlem I dealt with life and death everyday. One of the things I dealt with, subconsciously, was how to desensitize myself to things. Hearing a gunshot. Seeing a junkie OD or nodding off in the hallway. I didn't feel fatalistic about it. In that environment, that was how life was. With Marcus I had to find what the hope was in his life. The hope is dealing with his spiritual point of view. [Marcus' view was:] All of us are going to die one day. When it's my turn, it's my turn. I'll be there with Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior. I'm secure in that so I can have my little sip of gin and look at my women and know there's a better life after this. That's how Marcus dealt with it.

CrankyCritic: When people work in life and death situations they learn to make fun of it.
Ving Rhames: My girlfriend just retired after ten years as a LAPD Homicide Detective. Some of the stories she could tell you! I met some of the characters she worked with. Someone should do a film on those guys because, the kind of stories these guys would tell me and show me pictures and laugh about it. Like "see this guy here? He tried to blow his brains out and missed!" I realized that, in order for them to do this job day in and day out, they had to in some way desensitize themselves to whatever was the norm. That's how I feel about these paramedics. I grew up in New York. I used to hang out at a club called The Garage, which opened up at midnight and closed at like twelve the next day. So, seeing things on 42nd Street at three or four in the morning while we were filming, it was no big deal to me.

NEXT: The History of Ving Rhames, and Liston, Cruise and Woo >>>