from MOVIELINE magazine,September 1992 ----------------------------- MOVIELINE, September 1992 by David Galligan Lenny Von Dohlen is a tall drink of Texas water, long-limbed, sharp-featured, his eyes as blue and icy as the heart of glacier. This year he's acting his way through a number of movies - among them Leaving Normal, the critically lambasted Christine Lahti/Meg Tilly concoction; Jennifer Eight, starring Uma Thurman and Andy Garcia; and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, in which he reprises his TV role as an agoraphobic hybrid-orchid fancier. TIME: The week after the Los Angeles riots. PLACE: A tiny tea shop in West Hollywood. David Galligan: Were you pleased with the outcome of Leaving Normal? Lenny Von Dohlen: It's funny, I've done quite a few movies but I've never done one that people were forbidden to go and see. It opened in L.A. last weekend - the weekend of riots. I almost cancelled this interview today because I could not get my brain to relax - I'm really on the edge about being here. Don't you feel like your way of life is being threatened? No. But what happened with Leaving Normal? [Minutes tick by as he ponders the question.] I um - I um - I um think the soul of the movies comes through. When I first read the script it was in its purest form. It was very sparse and that's what attracted me to it. What do you play in Jennifer Eight? A big fish in a small pond who smokes a lot of grass, fucks a lot of college girls and listens to lot of Dylan. The director is Bruce Robinson, who did Withnail & I. Didn't you do a cameo for Nicolas Roeg in his film Cold Heaven? I'd do anything for Nicolas Roeg...I'd been - what's the nice way to say this? - enamored of his wife, Theresa Russell. I did notice when they adjourned to their trailer, their Weinnebago literally rocked with mirth. That's the kind of life I wouldn't mind having. What's David Lynch like to work with? You pick up on his energy by osmosis - it inspires you to expose part of yourself, to walk the high wire and do an aesthetic striptease. Is it true your childhood dream, growing in Texas, was to become a jockey and win the Kentucky Derby? Yes, but I turned 15 and grew to 6'1"! Acting was the only other thing I enjoyed, but I decided I didn't want to be typecast as cowboy, so I sent off for some records of John Gielgud reading The Ages of Man, which I played over and over in my room till I lost my accent. The irony is that my first film as an actor was playing the leader of a country-western band in Tender Mercies. What was your most embarrassing moment as an actor? When I was 18 and playing in a college production of Romeo and Juliet - and every night while I was doing the balcony scene I got an erection. I did it three nights in a row. Actually, I was more popular in college than in high school. I don't know if it was a direct result of that. Hey! What? This could be the title of the interview: "Lenny Von Dohlen gets a hard-on for his work." ----------------------------- BACK