John Cusack

There may be a dozen or so A-list Hollywood megastars more bankable or more prominent than John Cusack, but it s very doubtful whether any of them are as universally well-loved. Taking a glance at the guy s awesome list of credits (The Grifters, Eight Men Out, Con Air, Bullets Over Broadway, Being John Malkovich and many more), it suddenly strikes you that although he s been making movies for sixteen years and has a mammoth 41 credits to his name, Cusack looks barely a day older at 33 than when he first burst onto our screens as the fresh-faced romantic lead in such nondescript teen fluff as Say Anything and The Sure Thing.

The only one of the doomed eighties Bratpack crop to mature into a seriously credible actor (unless you re daft enough to include Demi Moore), Cusack can vary his screen persona to whatever pitch the role requires, as witnessed by his startling departure from type as a scruffy, straggly-haired loser in the recent Being John Malkovich.
But his most memorable movies have tended to cast him as a thoroughly likeable, faintly disreputable, roguishly-charming, nervous-yet-cocky, slick sort of everyman figure, the only constant being his irrepressibly lively and mischievous facial expression.
From humble teen-pic beginnings, Cusack has matured remarkably as an actor over the course of the last decade-and-a-half, earning a place of huge respect in left-field cinematic circles and he has now reached that rarefied state that very few actors ever attain, whereby his mere involvement can and does single-handedly turn mediocre films into damn good ones (check last year s Pushing Tin for proof, or if you really must, dig out your copy of Con Air).
Of late, he has expended more and more of his energies in script-writing and co-production: 1997 s wondrous Grosse Pointe Blank (in which Cusack absolutely shone as a mercenary hit-man who hooks up with an old flame on the eve of a high-school reunion party) was entirely scripted and co-produced by its leading man, and turned out to be one of the major landmarks of the year. It may not have reaped the box-office rewards it deserved, but few who saw it will forget it in a hurry.
One of Grosse Pointe s many notable features was its magnificent use of music, in spite of the fact that said soundtrack consisted almost entirely of ropey eighties British synth-pop: a brutal slaughtering carried out with a ballpoint pen to the strains of Nena s 99 Red Balloons might well rank as the single most inspirational piece of soundtracking in cinema history, and the film s Cusack-penned script betrayed more than a few hints of musical obsessiveness.
Appropriate it is, then, that Cusack gets to sink his teeth into one of the most heaven-sent roles the last few years could have had to offer. High Fidelity, the godlike Nick Hornby novel about a depressive vinyl-junkie and his various romantic entanglements, has now been given the full silver-screen makeover, and yes, it s been well worth the wait.
While Hornby s previous work, the football-freak confessional Fever Pitch, was rendered an embarrassing mess on the big-screen, High Fidelity handles the transition to celluloid with massive style, warmth, wit, humour and heart, and winds up as easily the standout must-see picture in a summer otherwise notable for its total barrenness.
Though the book s London setting has been transplanted to Chicago, the film is faithful in every other way to the spirit of its source, and begs to be seen by both Hornby aficionados and non-fanatics alike. If the film s Stateside reception is anything to go by, we re looking at one of the year s major hits, and anybody with even the faintest trace of love for music coursing through their veins is duty-bound to go and see it as soon as humanly possible.

You probably know the drill by now: High Fidelity s central character, Rob (Cusack), is a musically-obsessed (if otherwise relatively normal) man in his mid-thirties, whose girlfriend (portrayed by Danish ice-blonde Iben Hjelje) has just walked out on him, and who whiles away his days working at a low-rent record store named Championship Vinyl with his employees-cum-mates Dick and Barry, two of the most nerdish and musically-anal types you could ever encounter.
The break-up sends Rob scurrying to that safest of post-heartbreak sanctuaries, his record collection and over the course of two enjoyable hours, his voice-overs and straight-to-camera confessionals provide a plethora of astute insights into the male psyche. Cusack, it almost goes without saying, handles the role as if he was born to play it and while sterling support is provided by Hjelje, Lisa Bonet, Tim Robbins, Lili Taylor and even Catherine Zeta-Jones, it s Cusack who walks away with the movie for the umpteenth time.
The John Cusack who sits in mid-day conversation is surprisingly removed from the silver-tongued devil we know and love on screen: he won t bother using five words if one will do, and while unfailingly courteous and charming throughout, it s apparent that he doesn t exactly thrill to the company of the press.
Had he any reservations about the film s trans-Atlantic shift of setting?
None at all, it s a universal story. I think it is very faithful to the book there s maybe a few differences. The film is a bit more upbeat and maybe more feelgood. I had no problem transporting it to Chicago I know the place, I ve lived there most of my life, and I d instinctively know what bars they d go to and that kinda stuff.
Once I was satisfied that Nick Hornby had no problem with it, I was happy, but I had to make sure first. He was totally in favour of setting it in the States, as it turned out. He doesn t see any big deal about it he d point out that the book wasn t about any particular geographical location, there s no reason it should be seen as a British subject.
It s a movie about men and their obsession with women and their obsession with records that stuff is universal, right? Cusack continues. It keys in on something common to a lot of men in their thirties they re ready for a relationship, but they still cling to the idea that they could do better, that there s a perfect woman just around the corner, and they miss the rush that comes with first falling in love and sleeping together for the first few times, and it kind of compels them to act like a 25-year-old all the time.
Rob is a more extreme version of that sort of guy, more extreme because he s so into his records that it interferes with his ability to interact with society. I can t personally relate to that sort of isolation, but the brooding, I can identify with. The way he screws around with his own head, the way he relates to women I can identify with all that, I m sure most guys can. I m not a collector at all in relation to music, I don t catalogue stuff, but I know a few guys who are. Nick Hornby, in fact, is a lot like Rob in the movie in that way he has about fifty million CDs and they re all perfectly ordered.
Cusack s own taste in music is impressively diverse. He was eleven when punk exploded, and his first allegiances were to The Clash and Sex Pistols (one of his greatest regrets is never seeing The Clash live, but he s befriended Joe Strummer by way of compensation). Bruce Springsteen, another acquaintance of the actor s, makes a brief appearance in High Fidelity, portraying a huge hero of Rob who appears in the latter s daydreams to provide advice on his love-life: it s a heartwarming if unduly brief cameo, and if not quite as intoxicating as the Elvis silent mentor in Tarantino s True Romance, it s entirely suited to Springsteen s on-your-side persona.
Bruce knew about the book, liked it a lot, and I d met him before, we d become friendly and kept in contact so it just seemed like a good idea, says Cusack. We felt that that part of the movie, when he s going on this insane mission to look for his old girlfriends, could do with something to kick it into second gear. We didn t really expect to get him, but it all worked out.
What records does Cusack find himself reaching for in the event of a relationship break-up?
That varies, depending on who it was and how I felt. If she really dogged me and I was real low, maybe something angry like Elvis Costello s Blood & Chocolate, or maybe a little Dylan depends on the girl, right?
Much of the movie consists of Cusack s Rob confiding directly to the camera, a dramatic device which massively heightens the film s warmth and immediacy.
Making Rob a fuck-up loser was the easy part: Nick s characters are all kind of everyman fuck-ups, which is maybe why so many people relate to them, he observes. The tricky thing was how to get his insights into what he s thinking and what he s feeling, so confessing to camera seemed to be the best option it can either work really well or you can screw it up. I wrote most of them, so obviously it worked, he smiles. But it had to be confessional it doesn t arrest the audience unless you re saying stuff that you wouldn t dare admit to anyone else.
The product of a left-wing, Irish-American Chicago upbringing (his parents warned him at an early age that the family telephone was tapped), Cusack is reticent about expounding too freely on his political beliefs, but they re certainly detectable: he views many of his credits (Being John Malkovich, Grosse Pointe Blank and even The Grifters) as partly-political statements, and is particularly proud of Grosse Pointe s indictment of mercenary morals.
It s a really subversive movie, all cloaked in a superficially commercial action-movie sheen which is easy to market, with guns and explosions and a gorgeous girl, he smiles. But it makes points about corporate ethics and the mercenary mentality, while being really funny. Almost all films have a political angle, if you look hard enough.

At this point, the room practically swoons to the entrance of his High Fidelity co-star Lisa Bonet, whom you will most likely remember as the girl from The Cosby Show. Bonet has taken a protracted break from the movie scene since her role opposite Mickey Rourke in Alan Parker s Angel Heart, but she now returns with a bang in one of High Fidelity s most sweetly-scripted roles, playing an exotic nightclub-band singer who engages the hero in a night of fleeting passion. She apologises to viewers for her lengthy absence, before explaining the attraction of this particular role:
I was really excited about the opportunity to sing it was something I d never done before, so that felt like a challenge. I mean, music s been a huge part of my life, and there are musical moments from my life that are still very inspiring. It s not like I m about to turn around and pursue a singing career all of a sudden if all the elements fell into place it would be something I d enjoy, but I think I m better off with what I m doing.
Where have you been, anyway?
Well, I ve been raising my daughter and just taking care of myself, doing lots of yoga. Probably right around the time I became fairly prominent, I got pregnant, so my priorities just changed and my focus became daughter, family and self, in that order. She s eleven, and she s now becoming pretty aware of what I do and it seems like it might be in the blood she s talented, she sings and she has a tremendous pitch and she s a great songwriter, so I m sure her time will come.
Bonet was eleven when she first became a publicly-recognisable face: has she ever wished she hadn t commenced her career at such a young age?
(Hesitantly) It provided a change for me that I needed at the time I think it worked for me, but it s unnecessary for my child. I was looking for a shift... my dream was to move to New York anyway, and it just happened, and I was extremely bored with school, so I had no regrets at all at the time, and still don t. Of course there were certain aspects of it that I was slightly uncomfortable with 'cause I m actually quite quiet and kinda shy, so becoming a performer and becoming publicly recognised was a pretty unusual experience for me.
Bonet opposes capital punishment, practises yoga, eats carefully, and would like to have another child.
But my ultimate dream, she reveals, would be to get a huge piece of land somewhere and be able to take some of these kids who are locked up and provide a situation that allows them to just re-connect with the Earth and themselves, and to see that there s a bigger world than the ghetto or the barrio or jail, and I imagine they d be like my adopted children. I ve had some great teachers, and I think of my therapist as my mentor.
My mom just died a year ago and that was a huge blow, she got ovarian cancer and it developed really fast, it was diagnosed and she died within a month of the diagnosis, she died from the chemotherapy. It was so unexpected and it changed my whole relationship with myself and with God and my family. It definitely took any myth out of the idea that celebrities are special.
You sound almost too spiritual to survive in Hollywood
It s my constitution. It s what I was born with. I feel very lucky, actually, cause I ve seen what fame can do to so many people. I chose love over self-advancement, and the rest just fell into place. It hasn t always been easy, I haven t always remained in my centre, I think that s part of the journey.
However, I have always been connected to God, even though both of my parents were pronounced atheists it s something I grew up with, it s something I just knew. It was always my solace, it was always where I turned cause it wasn t really easy growing up being black and Jewish in the seventies which was right after the sixties. But I had a personal relationship with God, and that was where I drew my strength from.
Is she still in contact with ex-husband Lenny Kravitz?
He has a very separate life, and I feel very uninvolved in what he s doing I don t listen to the radio and I don t watch television and I don t read newspapers, so I m not exposed to him and I don t think about him, except every once in a while I m driving along Sunset and I see this giant picture getting bigger that I can t get away from.
I don t feel at all influential in his life, creatively. I see him every so often, he pops into town -he s quite a busy guy. We share a child, so in picking her up and dropping her off, we see each other. She s very proud, and she s fortunate, she s been provided a life that is much more comfortable and lavish than mine was, and I think that s a good thing for her.

As Bonet bids a reasonably fond farewell, the film s director, Stephen Frears, bounds into the room. Though no household name, Frears is one of the most prolific and reliable directors in the business, having helmed a variety of projects that include The Grifters and Dangerous Liaisons.
Had Nick Hornby any input into the movie version of High Fidelity, or was he consulted at key stages?
I would show him things he s such a generous and sweet man that he s of limited value as an advisor. I was always trying to get him to be critical, and he wouldn t really say a word. He genuinely seemed pleased with what we were doing, and I don t think he ever thought we were going to sabotage the book or anything like that.
And the fact that it was based here in America as opposed to the UK: was that a big concern?
Yes, it was. Well, it isn t quite the way you imagine it I read the book three or four years ago, when it came out, and I enjoyed it, and that was the end of it. And then I was asked to make the film, and John explained that it was set in Chicago, I thought that s very odd then I read the script and I guess I thought oh, that s not a problem. Then I went back and read the book and thought, actually, this is a really good idea.
Filming in Britain is a much lonelier business. Over here (the US) there s a genuine film industry and it s part of people s lives in some way you talk to English people about films and it s sort of unreal to them. And the awful thing about most English films is they re usually about England, which is an inherently boring country where life is very insular. I grew up in Leicester, which is a terrible place. So I had to go through all this process. You must understand, it wasn t something I passionately wanted to make, music means extremely little to me. It s just something that occasionally comes on the radio. I have no interest in listening to it in my spare time, and it plays no part in my life. I find it hard to understand this idea whereby I am feeling sad so I will listen to this . So I wasn t fanatical about the book, I read the thing once and thought it was pretty good and that was that.
While the little-known Iben Hjele was, perhaps, an unlikely candidate for the lead female role, Cusack was a more obvious choice for the Rob role, in Frears opinion: I thought, the minute I read it, that it would be a very good part for John. He s a very likeable presence, but he plays the good side of people without avoiding the bad side, so he expresses the complexity of people. He is, inarguably, a lot like Rob was in the book I think he's a man full of doubt, and I like that, I think most people have their fair share of it, even in Hollywood, whether they admit it or not, and he admits it and conveys it very well.
Lisa Bonet s was the hardest part to cast, because in the book, this English guy meets an American singer and I guess to most English men that would be rather exotic and you'd think Blimey, I've got this American singer , it would be rather a startling idea. And then I realised that setting it in America removed that sense, so I then had to find a way of re-producing what I thought was the most important thing.
I talked to several British singers, including Posh Spice and I couldn't find what I was looking for. I remember I loved a woman called Neneh Cherry, she was a terrific woman, but at the same time they have to be able to act. I had to find that particular exotic quality, and the role couldn't have been filled by anyone who was at all unremarkable. Then one day Lisa appeared, and she looked (pause) I was gobsmacked. And she wanted to sing, very much, that was one of the reasons she took the job. She worked very, very hard at it and was extremely nervous about it.
Where does Frears stand on the eternal art-versus-entertainment debate?
I've generally found that giving pleasure to people is a very satisfying thing, and a thing I entirely support. Of course you make films that never find an audeince The Hi-Lo Country would be a case in point but that's just sad, it seems to me to be a good film. I don't separate art from entertainment, it seems to me you should make films that are intelligent and entertaining and I hope I ve always done that. I ve never made a film in high-minded pursuit of art but I like to think they ve all had an intelligent view of the world.

High Fidelity opens nationwide on July 21st.