Who knew my life lesson of the day would come from Balkie of Perfect Strangers? Go Bronson Pinchot. You’re still touching people’s lives. Ha ha. You can read the rest of his entertaining commentary on his personal film resume on this link. (What he says about Tom Cruise is particularly amusing. Pretty douche bag-y stuff.) Below is the interview excerpt that yields the balls I would love to exhibit in my own life:
Courage Under Fire (1996)—“Brunoâ€
BP: That was a low point, because Denzel Washington was behind the incredibly cowardly bullshit of “This is my character, not me.†He was really abusive to me and everybody on that movie, and his official explanation was that his character didn’t like me, but it was a dreadful experience. I spent my salary on time with my shrink just for helping me get through it, and what that led to was the very next big movie that I did. I should have said to the producers, “You get that guy in line, or I’m out of here.†Life’s too short. But the next movie I did, the director was getting a lot of crap from his star, and he started to take it out on me one day, and just like a German shepherd—you know when a German shepherd stands up on its hind legs and puts its paws on your shoulders?
I put my hands on his shoulders and I very gently but firmly said, “I don’t do abuse, and if you say one more word of abuse to me, I’m on a plane, and you don’t have enough money to keep me here.†And that was the end of it, and I’ve never taken abuse again. And I wasn’t vile or anything, it just ripped out of me. Denzel Washington cured me forever of thinking that there is any amount of money or anything that could ever, ever make it okay to be abused. The script supervisor on that movie said it’s like watching somebody kick a puppy. He was so vile. And after that, I just would never endure it again.
Balkie doesn’t take cr*p.
Bronson Pincot made movies?
Yeah, I had no idea. He played “Serge” in Beverly Hills Cop, “Courage Under the Fire” and worked with Martin Scorsese on something. Who knew.