Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (4)

The Invasion of Veronica Cartwright

August 27, 2007

I briefly spoke with actress Veronica Cartwright a couple of weeks ago regarding her work on the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers--which was issued as a Special Edition DVD last week by

Warner--Philip Kaufman’s outstanding remake of the 1956 thriller. (Abel Ferrara also did a version, 1993’s Body Snatchers, and a poorly reviewed fourth version, The Invasion starring Nicole Kidman, was just released theatrically last week.)

 

Ms. Cartwright only had fine things to say about the film and its director.

 

“Phil is a wonderful actor’s director. He brings all of the essence out and he loves you to have questions and to try things,” she said. ‘He created a calmness at the beginning of the film. Later on, once everybody began becoming a pod person, then it became more frenetic during the production. Things got a little crazy.”

 

Her affection for Donald Sutherland, Body Snatchers’ leading man, was also apparent, if a bit more irreverent.

 

“Donald is one of the great whack-jobs of all time,” she laughed. “He was so hysterical – he insisted on wearing pink perma-rods in his hair to get that wet, curly look.”

 

Before we wrapped up our phone chat, I pried Ms. Cartwright for some behind-the-scenes dirt on another movie she appeared in back in the Seventies, 1978’s Goin’ South, directed by and starring Jack Nicholson

and featuring Christopher Lloyd, Mary Steenburgen, Danny DeVito and John Belushi. It’s not one of the great one, but it’s one of my guiltier pleasure whenever I bump into it on the tube.

 

“Oh my, Goin’ South was one big party,” she recalled. “It was shot in Durango, Mexico and that big party scene, well, we shot that after we had several days off and had been partying ourselves. It never ended.”

 

And her memories of working with Belushi rival those of collaborating with Kaufman and Sutherland.

 

“I loved John Belushi--he was great. Yes, he was a bit of an emotional roller-coaster,” she admitted. “I had lunch with John before I did The Right Stuff and then, three days later, he was dead. He could be so fabulous and wonderful, but a bit of a wreck.”

 

.

Posted by Laurence Lerman on August 27, 2007 | Comments (4)