What Happened to Movie Stars? | Dennis Quaid
Let me return to Hollywood, if you don't mind. Um, it seemed to me that Hollywood took a walloping blow with COVID and then the strike. And like, one of the things I've noticed about myself is I used to go to movies all the time. I loved going to theaters, and I've gone to very few movies since COVID. It's kind of like, I don't know if I got out of the habit or something like that. Partly, I used to know where to get reliable reviews for upcoming movies. I was in the stream; I knew what was coming out of Hollywood. I made plans to go see the movies; all that disappeared, and now I don’t know how to get back to that.
But I think, and you're wondering, is it because of my age? Must be, yeah. Well, that could be too. Although, see, I don’t know. Or is it just that way? Well, I also don’t know that. And, of course, the media landscape is fragmented too, so it's hard to figure out what sources you can rely on. Inform the way they advertise movies; nowhere near what it used to be. Used to be just like an ad in the newspaper, and that was enough. And then it became like TV ads, and audiences could smell a movie. Yeah, right. It was like so surprising. I remember, for me personally, when “Breaking Away” came out, it was hard. There was no advertising or anything like that.
We were driving to the theater, you know, to go for the opening of it on that Friday. And there's a line around the box office! It's like people are in the movie. Well, that's the thing. These things are very fragile, you know? We never know what makes a whole enterprise work. If people are movie fans, they're in the movie culture, they track it, and if you break that, it's like that's gone.
Yeah, well yes, okay, so you don’t see Roger Ebert on television anymore. There was the whole culture that went with it, and everybody watched what the new movies coming up and, like, you know, laying them out there, what they're about and all that. You knew months in advance, really; you know, great debates on what they were about. So, how do you view the current reality and the potential future of the film industry? Are there still stars? That's the thing. Who was the last movie star?
Well, from what I've been able to understand, the only star truly standing is Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise. That’s going too far back. Leonardo? Leo? I mean, last movie stars? They’re still out there; they do occur. Yeah, they're out there. But my sense too is that—and I don’t really know what to make of this—are they the last of a dying breed? Well, you know, the new has gone from... it's gone to social media. Yeah, that’s where the new movie stars are.
I mean, Justin Bieber is the first star totally created on YouTube. Yeah, you know, not anywhere near the traditional way of doing it. Actors now are the same way. They have their Instagram page. You know, self-advertising. Back then, true movie stars, like in the growing up era, until the '80s and '90s, you wouldn't do a talk show on TV. You would avoid TV like the plague. Jack Nicholson, you would never see him on a talk show. He'd do one interview in a prestigious magazine—whether it be Time, Playboy, or whatever it was. That's part of that protection of exclusivity.
You know, some guy would spend a couple of days with him or something, but you really wouldn't. It was a mystery to him. Yeah, yeah. So that when you went to the theater, really, what makes a movie star? As you go to the theater, they are a mystery. You don't know too much about their life, so you imprint your own life on them. Yeah, yeah. Definitely, that's what happens. You know, you see something inside you, and that’s what makes a movie star.
Well, you actually don't want to know much about the personal life of an actor. Now it's like you just do everything about everybody. Yeah, and that brings them down to earth, and that's not good if you're a star. Well, it doesn’t create mystery. Yeah, right. Put it that way. I wonder too how much of it is the fact that, like when you and I grew up, being on television was a remarkable and unlikely occurrence, to be personally on television, even to know someone who was on television. The bandwidth was so narrow, and then the movies were above that. It was easier to be on TV than in the movies, but now everyone is on TV all the time.
Yeah, right. So that’s another borderline between the public and the actor that’s disappeared. It's like everybody is videoed from the time they’re young. But there's no going back in this way, the world. And, you know, good things come out of it. Good things. What do you see that’s good coming out of it?
Well, for one thing, there's really a broad communication in the sense that people have taken over their own stories. Yeah, and like you could be like me and choose not to participate very much. You know, I have an Instagram page, I have a Facebook page, and I kind of—but I didn’t grow up with it, so it seems like a real chore to me. Yeah, and it's not your culture. Yeah, and I like face-to-face communication.
And I like this, you know, this is great because it's a real—I feel like I’m—this is one good thing about today, as opposed to then, is that you could do an interview like with a magazine, and you know somebody was about to do a job on you because they kind of feel like they build you up. You know, you have this fall and then you have the comeback — the thing. But like with this, it's unfettered. Yeah. And I get to represent myself.
Yeah, yeah. Well, YouTube's great for that. They're really great for that, and they reward unfettered communication. Like the people I've talked to on my YouTube channel, who politic or are false, they get slaughtered. Yeah, like if they say it, it comes out. Very quickly, you find out who people are. You can't hide so much.
Yeah, well that’s what Joe Rogan told me. He said, you know, you can tell if there’s anything to anyone after about 20 minutes. Yeah, because people who are hollow, they're exhausted. Especially in a podcast like Rogan, which is three hours long, it’s like there better be some depth to you to get through that conversation in an interesting manner for three bloody hours.
They're kind of like, you know, let’s see what happens like 30 years from now. But, you know, some of this stuff is going to come back to haunt people. You know, I mean some of the things that I did and thought or whatever, you know, back in my teens and 20s, man, I’m so glad it’s not on YouTube, that's for sure.
Exactly the same way! I can’t imagine, you know? I remember most of my adolescence and my adolescent friends as really a nonstop parade of stupid decisions. You should be able to make those stupid decisions in private, right? That’s for sure! Man, the last thing I would have wanted was video records of that! Right? For it to be distributed around the school— I can’t even imagine.
Like, it was a difficult enough enterprise trying to negotiate the weird social world of adolescence without having to be absolutely terrified that some goddamn stupid thing you did was going to be permanently instantiated in the minds of everyone in your town. God! I just can't imagine what that would be like— terrible, terrible. Yeah, and you can't just move away from it because it's eternal.
Well, that's right, that's right. It follows you! Well, one of the wonderful things about human memory is that we forget. Yeah! Right? Remembering? That's not exactly a miracle; like things happened, and so now, you know, it's like, well, can you forget? Can you put it behind you? Well, not if it’s permanently recorded.
Yeah, yeah. No, that’s just not good.