Bill Paxton Creates "The Greatest Game Ever Played

In Theaters Sept 30

Best known for playing the straight man to special effects like tornadoes, aliens and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Paxton began his path as a director only a few years ago with Frailty. Disney’s The Greatest Game Ever Played is his sophomore film, and already the credit reads “A Bill Paxton Film.”

The filmmaker fought for that title, because Writer’s Guild regulations make it nearly impossible for a director who did not also write the script to claim “a film by.” However, it was important to him as the film was a culmination of his Hollywood experience.

“This movie is to me represents my incredible love affair with motion pictures,” Paxton said. “Since I was a boy, my father took me and my brother to see movies and we’d come out of a film, my dad would start talking about the art direction or the lighting. From a very early age, I was made aware of the artifice and the illusion of motion pictures and fell in love with that illusion. I still would go to movies and be completely subjective as an audience member, but also because of my dad, this awareness he created in me and my brother, I started noticing whether the art direction is good or the acting is particularly good or the lighting or the cutting. The music, the pacing. So I had a great education from my father, even though he was in the lumber business.”

The film tells the true story of Francis Ouimet, an amateur golfer who beat champion Harry Vardon in the U.S. Open in the early 1900s. Paxton agrees that there has not been a great golf drama. The only great golf films have been comedies, so he set out to get right what too many filmmakers got wrong.

“People get caught up in the pastoral nature of the sport. It’s played on a golf course, it’s beautiful and I think that’s a real trap you can fall into. But championship golf, the basic thing about this sport is I can be standing this close to Tiger Woods while he’s making a shot that might make or break him in a tournament. And like Harry Vardon, he has to just make those people just kind of go away. It just becomes about he hole. I just thought this is inherently cinematic. This is inherently dramatic.”

To help capture that drama, Paxton employed some visual effects tricks to create what he calls The House of Flying Golf Balls. “I’ve played enough golf to know when you hit a good shot, there is kind of a sense that you are astral projecting. So I thought, ‘Well, let’s see a camera do that.’ So we had this helicopter. Oh, it was crazy. Helicopter about as big as this table that could be remotely operated, could hold 200 feet of magazine film. We had this technocrane too that was amazing to do all those like that putting sequence and some of the other things.”

Star Shia Labeouf did not even hit a real ball. “Without the golf ball, all it was was about the form of the swing. I put all the balls in later. And you’ve got to hit it 300 yards down the fairway. A lot of times I didn’t show where the ball goes. You just know from the audience reaction he hit a good shot, the sound of a club. I cut all that crap that on TV is so boring.”

Another key to the film for Paxton was that it was not about good guys and bad guys. Even the opponents treat each other with class. “What’s cool about the movie is in most sports films, the opponent or the opposing team are vilified to make the underdog a bigger hero just like in a movie where a guy’s got to catch a killer or in a gunfight where the guy is going to have to take on. But in this you have great empathy for Harry Vardon. You realize he came from abject poverty.”

After Frailty, a film in which children assist their father in murdering people he claims are demons, Paxton did not seek to shy away from controversy. He was just looking for another great story. “I’m a builder. I’m looking for architectural plans that will make a beautiful building or a beautiful bridge. That’s what you look for. You look for the bones. That movie had great architectural bones. It was well designed, it was well engineered and I carried that out. I knew when you make your first film, you better make something that’s original and has got a little weight to it. So I wasn’t afraid of that. The thing that scared people about Frailty is what gave it its je ne sais quois. That was these children in this situation. So I went for it, I embraced it.”

These days, Paxton entertains both acting and directing projects, but it takes a lot more for him to commit to directing a film. “Directing a movie is such a Herculean effort. Everyone has to leave a little blood on the floor if they make a film but you have to pick a story that’s going to keep you inspired for almost two years. This movie had a fast track. I had my meeting for this movie this time two years ago. So that’s the key thing, whereas as an actor, I can get in and out. What is it, six week commitment? Yeah, that works. How much? Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m in. But you don’t have the same commitment because you're in and out. I can make three or four films as an actor in a year.”

Next time you’ll see Paxton in front of the camera will be in HBO’s upcoming series Big Love. Paxton plays a polygamist with three wives (Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwyn.) “We live next door. And my wives keep my schedule so it’s Tuesday, ‘Where am I staying tonight, Jeanne?’ ‘Oh, you’re with Chloe.’ ‘Okay, thanks. See you in the morning.’ It’s set in Salt Lake and it’s not what you think. It’s really original and funny and clever and probably controversial, but I got so sated as an actor on that show. I’ve never gotten to play a recurring role. It was like going and making a 12 hour movie.”

The Greatest Game Ever Played opens September 30.