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Ben Foster Catches the 3:10 to Yuma

Posted on 01. Sep, 2007 by Administrator in Profiles, hCovers

words by Jason Dean, Photography by Robert Todd Williamson

Ben Foster advances toward me as I sit at a tiny sidewalk table at Abbot’s Habit in Venice. It’s just past noon and the sun is laying its customary beat-down on the casually hip neighborhood that Foster calls home. Straight away, he offers to buy me a drink. Caught off guard, I accept.

As Foster disappears inside, this charitable gesture seems ominous. Somewhere in the distance, a rickety saloon door flops back and forth in the wind. Are those vultures circling in the sky? Why does the theme from Rawhide keep repeating in my head? Charlie Prince, Foster’s deliciously unpredictable character in the new Western, 3:10 to Yuma, would likewise display genteel warmth to a stranger, only to return and, without warning, smash a bottle over that same hapless stranger’s head.

Foster turns what was essentially a fringe character in the original 1957 film into a central, riveting force in the remake, opening September 7, and also starring Russell Crowe, Christian Bale and Peter Fonda. Throughout his career, from androgynous artist to tweaked-out meth-head to flying mutant with wings, the young actor has distinguished himself with his versatility and depth.

Returning to the table, cold beverages in hand, it’s abundantly clear that he is perfectly cast in this laid-back environment. There is a calm intensity to Foster’s demeanor that is both approachable and enigmatic. Meditating twice a day since the age of four will do that to you.Foster’s parents developed an interest in Transcendental Meditation (TM) in the 1970s. In fact, they became such ardent believers in its benefits they moved the family from Boston to Fairfield, Iowa, where a TM community was thriving. To a young Ben Foster, meditating was just part of growing up; it didn’t suppress his irrepressible nature. “Everyone comes into the world with a certain predisposition,” he said. “I can’t say I wasn’t restless.”

Restless enough that he dropped out of school at 16 and moved to Los Angeles with his girlfriend. “There were a lot of circumstances that made it clear I wasn’t going to finish high school,” he recalls. “I was not surviving in Iowa. I was an avid reader, I enjoyed English, but I got terrible grades.”

A few years earlier, Ben and younger brother Jon, also an actor, were able to meet with an agent, through a favor owed to their dad “from a friend of a friend of a friend… of a friend.” They read for him for no more than a couple minutes. “They said, ‘Here’s some papers, sign these, you have an agent.’ We didn’t realize the bizarre luck at the time.”

His first big break was landing a supporting role in the 1999 feature Liberty Heights. The film didn’t make a dent at the box office, but it was a critical darling that put Foster, then 18, on the radar as a newcomer to watch. And he got to work with director Barry Levinson. “Barry was very influential in how he approached his work,” Foster recalls. “I was just raw. He would ask questions, not tell you what to do. And that’s a terrifying thing for a young person.”

Early on, Foster became aware that he was able to access a place of calm when he was being someone else. Seeing his name in lights did not figure into the equation. “[Acting] is an antidote to a lot of internal dysfunction,” he says, adding, “People in the arts are pursuing a subconscious expression—it’s easy to get lost. I’m one of the lucky ones.”

A pivotal moment in his fascination with performance was seeing a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” when he was 7-years-old. “It was life-changing watching Puck. I went backstage and asked him if he would be my babysitter.” Sure enough, Puck did become Foster’s babysitter and thus added another voice of encouragement for young Ben to pursue the arts. He would soon write a play of his own, which won 2nd place in an international youth competition.

His unconventional upbringing undoubtedly helped him make the transition from teenager to adult under the klieg lights of Hollywood scrutiny. He’s very close to his parents, who live in L.A., and he shares an apartment with brother Jon. He was instrumental in helping Jon land his first major film role. Ben had been cast in the 2004 film, The Door in the Floor with Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger, but felt he had physically outgrown the part by the time shooting was to begin. “If I didn’t believe in him,” says Ben, “I wouldn’t have said anything. He earned it.” Foster looks forward to the day when the two will share the screen. “One day it’ll definitely happen, but it’s got to be a one-off thing.”
The past four years have been a whirlwind of activity. He joined the cast of Six Feet Under for seasons three and four as Russell Corwin, Claire’s sexually ambiguous art-school friend. In 2006, he played an unhinged meth-head (is there any other kind?) in Nick Cassavetes’ Alpha Dog.
To prepare physically for the role, the cast worked out together four hours a day, six days a week, for three months. Then at night, Foster would hang with the crystal meth underground community. “It’s a very dark world,” he says. “There are very few movies for young people that deal with teens and feel authentic. Nick captured that subculture. And, I get to bust down a door with an axe.”

Was there a temptation to expand his character study into experimenting with the drug? “When you put yourself in that environment, and you’re playing such an extreme character,” Foster says, “You have to decide how far you want to go. I never got to that point, because that chemical doesn’t serve any development. Drugs can be an amazing tool. The problem is once you have that different perspective, it’s easy to fall into the feeling of needing it for creativity.”

After the intensity of Alpha Dog, Foster took the part of Angel in X-Men:  The Last Stand as “a vacation.” He saw the character as a great opportunity. “Just to consider flight as something to play with was great. The cast ain’t so bad either.”

Foster says he approaches every role with no preconceptions. “I never come in knowing exactly who a character is. That would take away the pleasure of discovery. You learn to have faith, trust that the inspiration will show up, and make room for it.”

And when the inspiration shows up, you don’t just walk away clean at the end of the day. “When I’m working on a job, it’s like playing in the mud all day. You’re moving through the swamp, and you’re not exactly sure where you’re going. You don’t want to bring the swamp home, but you still track in some mud,” he says. When the cameras are off, Foster settles into typical human existence. “I still come home every night, watch Planet Earth—or Cartoon Network—and go to bed.”

For Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, the screenwriters of 3:10 to Yuma, Foster completely obliterated their vision of who Charlie Prince was. “We thought, ‘That’s an odd bit of casting,’” said Haas. “We imagined Charlie Prince as this bad-ass, burly gunslinger who would strike awe and terror in you as soon as you saw him.” “I just knew [Foster] from his Six Feet Under character,” offered Brandt. But they both agree Foster’s slight-framed Charlie Prince humanizes the personification of an evil force. “When we saw the first dailies, we knew one hundred percent that Ben was the right guy,” said Haas. “There’s not a lot of dialogue,” he continued, “but you’re just waiting for lightning to strike. You can see the wheels turning behind his eyes.”

Foster counts James Mangold as one of the favorite directors with whom he has worked. “He’s extraordinarily supportive in getting a take.” Brandt agrees. “James puts actors in a position to succeed.”

The biggest challenge for Foster in this role was learning to ride a horse. “It was a rewarding, terrifying experience.” Co-star Russell Crowe was a big help. “He went out of his way, he gave me a lot of confidence,” Foster recalls. “He has his own ranch, and he ain’t kiddin’ around.”

When he left small-town Iowa, essentially trading cornfields for palm trees, Foster didn’t abandon his pursuit of a peaceful mind. Whenever he has the chance, he drives to Northern California to hang with the redwoods. “It’s good to hear your own voice. It clarifies things for me,” he says.
Los Angeles, he says, has a magnetic force all its own. “It’s a remarkable city—it’s like an open-ended cult. There are a lot of true seekers, a lot of lost souls, and you will come into collision with yourself very quickly out here. You either look for experiences or you hide and delude.”

In the future, Foster says he’d like to work with Mike Figgis and David Lynch. “I like what they’re after. Both of them are pursuing truthful communication in a hyper-real world.” Foster points to what he calls “cup in mouth action,” a style of acting in which “everything is mumbled into a cup, it’s subtle and under the table.” Figgis and Lynch are 180 degrees from that. “People are not that collected or introverted,” Foster says. “People are haunted. People are ridiculous. Lynch’s frequency, he says, resonates with him, although “I couldn’t begin to articulate why.”

Maybe it’s got something to do with small towns, big trees and cornfields.

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Tags: 3:10 to Yuma, Ben Foster, Liberty Heights, X-Men: The Last Stand