Greeks of Hollywood by Anastasia Rubis / ODYSSEY MAGAZINE / January 8, 2003 Alexander Payne is known for "dark comedies," but he has occasion for all-out celebrating this holiday season. His third feature, About Schmidt, starring Jack Nicholson, is being released two weeks before Christmas. It earned the honor of opening the New York Film Festival in September and has been touted as one of Nicholson's best performances. In addition, Payne, 41, is getting married New Year's Day to Sandra Oh, a film and television actress on the HBO show Arliss. The Greek-American writer-director sidesteps the notion that he may be on the brink of wider acclaim. "Is there a lot of attention on the film?" he asks. "It's so funny, because I've sort of moved on." He and writing partner Jim Taylor are crafting two screenplays simultaneously. "We're writing the next film that I will direct and the first that Jim will direct." Many in Hollywood, including Fox's Jim Gianopulos, consider 1999's Election to be Payne's breakout film. The satire about student council politics made a star out of Reese Witherspoon and was nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay. After its release, David Denby wrote in the New York Times that Payne and Taylor were "perhaps the only true social satirists now working in American movies." More recently, Richard Pena, chairman of the New York Film Festival selections committee, described Payne as "one of the finest new American directors to have emerged in recent years." In fact, industry trades have reported that young A-list talents, led by Steven Soderbergh, Spike Jonze, and Sam Mendes, may band together to form a company, F-64, through which they'll make their next movies. "I don't know the current status. We were thinking of doing it," says Payne. About Schmidt follows a 66-year-old Midwesterner on his journey of self-discovery (literally a journey, in a motor home) after retirement and the sudden death of his wife. It's a hybrid, Payne explains, of the novel by Louis Begley and a script Payne wrote just after film school, The Coward. He was interested in the idea of a guy retiring, and treating him similarly to Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate. "You catch someone at a crossroads and rather than feeling pride and accomplishment, he feels loneliness and alienation and emptiness. And you make a comedy about it." A comedy? "I know that Jim and I feel very acutely the pathetic side of our own lives, and we try to turn it into the stuff of comedy," Payne is quoted in the production notes for the film. From Modern Marvels, the History Channel Life must be growing less "pathetic" with the success of his filmmaking career, one would assume. "One's pathetic quotient is completely unrelated to success in the exterior world," Payne notes dryly, "And it often increases." Was he nervous about directing a Hollywood icon like Nicholson? "I'm nervous about directing anybody," Payne says. "Are they going to do it right? What great idea will I think of only as I'm leaving the set that day?" He goes on to explain that it wasn't just about measuring up to Nicholson, who was "excellent to work with," but measuring up to the directors he admires. "When I look at him, I think 'Oh God, I'm telling Jack Nicholson what to do', but already Michelangelo Antonioni, Stanley Kubrick, Milos Forman, and Roman Polanski have told him what to do," Payne says. Thoughts like that are a luxury, he continues, "Because then the moment comes when the clock is ticking, and they're all looking at you, and you have to figure out where to put the camera and what the actor should do. All the actor is thinking about is how can I do a good job, not look like a fool. So quickly any intimidation turns into just having to work. And he [Nicholson] made it very easy." All three of Payne's features, including his debut film, Citizen Ruth with Laura Dern, have been shot in Omaha, Nebraska, his hometown. Constantine Alexander Payne (his grandfather changed the name from Papadopoulos) was born there in 1961, the youngest of three sons. His parents, Peggy and George Payne, both born in the US, spoke English at home but sent their sons to Greek afternoon school. Payne's immigrant grandfathers were both-"I'll give you one guess," he says-restaurant owners. Payne's father ran the family's Virginia Cafe, a 24-hour, 80-employee operation in downtown Omaha, until it burned down in 1969, a month shy of its 50th anniversary, after which he began a career with the Department of Commerce. Payne was only eight, but he was already interested in moving pictures. "My obsession with film came very early, under the age of 10," he recalls. Payne earned a masters in filmmaking at UCLA and his award-winning thesis film, The Passion of Martin, screened at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival and at more than 20 other festivals. Even so, after graduation his dad offered to help pay for law school, if he wanted to go. So there was no cheerleading for a film career? "No parents are like that," Payne states. He is steadfast in the belief that the best movies come from inside oneself. Harry Gittes, the producer of About Schmidt, says, "Alexander wants to make movies that make you think." As Payne puts it, he wants to get away from "very beautiful movie stars doing very fantastic things, and always a happy ending." Payne sees himself and other filmmakers of his generation as recapturing the great tradition of American cinema: wonderful entertainment that's also thought-provoking and touches on larger themes. He's committed to cinema that is "more related to genuine life in our country and in our hearts, not just big formula movies where the message is we need your money to keep the stock price of our corporation up." Otherwise, Payne feels, the price we pay is fewer and fewer American films, "And by that I mean films about how we live or think or feel." One of the reasons for the astounding success of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, he believes, is not so much that it's Greek but that it's American. "It's sincere and heartfelt and people have a hunger to see some version of themselves on screen." He adds: "My Korean future in-laws went to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding to do research on me."