Matthew Modine Talks Stanley Kubrick, Trump and Why He’ll be Voting for Kamala Harris
Matthew Modine, who famously portrayed Private Joker in Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam War classic Full Metal Jacket, spent months working with the director and became a close friend. Even back then, like Kubrick, he had clear views on war and peace. Today, those views are stronger than ever.
“If Stanley were alive today, with the state of the world, he’d make a black comedy,” Modine tells The Hollywood Reporter Roma at the Lucca Film Festival, where he is being honored with a lifetime achievement award. “Not many people know that Kubrick had a fantastic sense of irony and humor. If he were here, he’d be brilliant at creating a comedy about the grotesque absurdity of leaders like Putin and Donald Trump. He’d make a great comedy with those characters.”
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Modine is at Lucca to host the Italian premiere of his new fim, The Martini Shot, directed by Stephen Wallis. The independent film, shot in just 14 days between London and the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, stars Modine as a terminally ill director determined to film his final movie.
“It’s a reflection on life and on death”, says Modine of the film, which co-stars John Cleese and Derek Jacobi. “I’ve learned from Marcus Aurelius and from Cicero: We are born with death beside us. And rather than run from it, we should make it our friend. Learn to live in the moment, in the present. We don’t know what will happen in 10 minutes, so let’s live here and now, enjoying this conversation.”
Turning to the upcoming presidential election, the actor was not shy about sharing his frank thoughts on Trump.
“Even eight years ago, I was saying that Trump wasn’t the right person to lead the United States, and now I’m more convinced than ever,” he says, adding that Trump’s attitude toward women is “barbaric, uncivilized, ignorant and rude.” He also wholeheartedly endorsed Kamala Harris: “When we think of the U.S. president, we think of him as a father figure. Well, now it’s time for a mother: Kamala.”
He continued to make the case for Harris by pointing to Trump’s multiple felony convictions. “How many charges has Trump been convicted of? If someone gets out of prison for committing a crime, it’s hard for them to find a job, even at a bar. They say, ‘Sorry, we can’t hire you, your record’s tainted.’ So how can someone convicted of so many crimes be considered for president of the United States?”
In Netflix’s Zero Day, directed by Lesli Linka Glatter, Modine plays the White House press secretary alongside Robert De Niro as a former president. “Angela Bassett is the current president,” says the Stranger Things actor, “and the U.S. is under attack by a force that shuts down all computers and electronics. We don’t know who’s responsible. Zero Day is when every plane stops at the same moment, or when all computers freeze. It’s a halt in the flow, in the world’s breath. Something terrifying. That’s where the story begins.”
Among Modine’s most recent films is Christopher Nolan’s best picture Oscar winner Oppenheimer, a project that raised many questions about the consequences of nuclear power. “We’re living under the constant threat of nuclear catastrophe,” he warns. “What strikes me, though, is the hypocrisy of the U.S. in pointing fingers at countries with nuclear weapons when the U.S. was the first to use them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We can’t escape this situation with an ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’ mindset, without considering the pain we inflict. I want peaceful solutions to the world’s problems. We need to respect diversity, even diversity of thought. Otherwise, on this overcrowded planet, we’re 10 billion people destined for extinction.”
The actor wrapped up the interview by returning to Kubrick. “Once again, Stanley Kubrick was right,” Modine concludes. “Remember the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the ape uses a bone to strike another ape, and that bone-turned-weapon transforms into a spaceship? In just a few seconds, Kubrick condensed thousands of years of human history, the very nature of man: violence. But the message is clear: If we want to evolve, we must solve the problem of violence. That’s the thing we need to learn to free ourselves from.”
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