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Arts

December 21, 2000

Paymer’s “State”

By Naomi Pfefferman

When David Paymer was 14, he used a fake ID to sneak into New York's Coronet Theater to see Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate."

"Hoffman showed me that a short Jewish guy with a big nose could prosper and even be seen as a leading man," the 46-year-old actor said during an interview at the Marmalade Cafe in Santa Monica.

Several decades later, Paymer has prospered as one of the busiest supporting actors in Hollywood, though seldom as a leading man. He's earned critical kudos as the scheming Jewish producer Dan Enright in "Quiz Show," the money-laundering Leo Devoe in "Get Shorty," the press secretary Ron Ziegler in "Nixon" and a shrink in Lawrence Kasdan's "Mumford." He earned an Academy Award nomination for his role as Stan Yankelman, Billy Crystal's long-suffering brother-manager in "Mr. Saturday Night." He's worked with Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Robert Redford, and now David Mamet in the Hollywood satire "State and Main," a pic about what happens when a movie company sets up production in a New England town.

Like 30 percent of Paymer's roles, the character of producer Marty Rossen is Jewish, though he's tougher and sleazier than the "rabbinical" Enright, the actor says. When Marty first arrives on the beleaguered set, the fictional director, played by Oscar nominee William H. Macy ("Fargo," "Magnolia"), greets him in Yiddish. Rossen promptly threatens the bimbo actress (Sarah Jessica Parker) who refuses to do her nude scene; he works damage control when his star (Alec Baldwin) demonstrates a fancy for underaged girls. He also exchanges insults with a blackmailing local anti-Semite (His favorite slur: "You speed-trap shaygetz.")

The funniest gag is when the fictional filmmakers stock every hotel room with Streit's matzah: "Can I have a cracker?" a local asks. The matzah "is a symbol of the intersection of Hollywood Jewish culture and small-town America," Paymer says, adding that teaching Macy Yiddish was no easy task. "Mamet and I worked on Bill," he says. "We had to work on Bill a lot."

Studio heads have sent Paymer fan letters about Rossen, which surprised some of his friends. "People have asked me, 'Aren't you worried you're biting the hand that feeds you?' " the actor recalls. "But Hollywood loves to skewer itself. Just look at 'The Player' and 'Wag the Dog.' "

And it's cathartic for an actor to play a producer, the guy who runs the show. "You feel so out of control as an actor," Paymer explains. "I've never had any producer be as nasty to me as Marty, but the fear is they're saying terrible things behind your back. You worry they're looking at dailies and yelling 'You stink!' at the screen."

Paymer loves "State and Main" because it skewers the vicissitudes and inflated egos of showbiz, something he knows firsthand.

He's wanted to act since he sat in the front row at his community theater in Oceanside, N.Y., and watched his parents perform in fundraising shows. Like the characters of Stan and Buddy in "Mr. Saturday Night," Paymer and his older brother, Steve, performed for the relatives in the living room; in high school, the theater department was a place the shy, unathletic teen felt he belonged. But he felt guilty about seeking the limelight. "In my neighborhood, you were expected to become a Jewish doctor or lawyer," explains Paymer, whose mother fled Nazi-occupied Belgium with her family. "I didn't want to let my parents down. I didn't want to be a 'bum.' "

Ironically, it was his father's decision to leave the scrap metal business and pursue a musical career that inspired the actor to follow his dream. As Paymer père went off to earn a doctorate in musicology, David juggled auditions with psychology studies and "miraculously" landed the role of Sonny in the national touring company of "Grease."

By 1982, he was cast as Dr. Wayne Fiscus on NBC's "St. Elsewhere" but was devastated when the producers gave him the boot several days into production and replaced him with Howie Mandel. A decade later, he ran into one of the producers after his Oscar nomination. "I gave him a big hug and thanked him for firing me," Paymer says, beaming. "I said, 'You got me out of TV!' "

While shooting his big-break role as ice cream guru Ira Shalowitz in "City Slickers," Paymer had no idea that star Billy Crystal was writing his next film, "Mr. Saturday Night," with him in mind. "It's a good thing I didn't, or I would have been nervous," admits wry, soft-spoken Paymer, who now keeps his Oscar nomination certificate in an obscure corner of his guest house.

Several years later, Paymer worried he blew his chance to work with David Mamet when the birth of his eldest child caused him to decline a role in Mamet's Jewish-themed play "The Old Neighborhood." But then the writer-director came calling with "State and Main." "I was insecure because Mamet has his own actors, and I didn't know how I'd fit in with the whole gang," concedes Paymer, who studied Mamet's acting books and meticulously practiced his rapid-fire dialogue. "And because David's language is so tough and bullying in many of his plays, I assumed maybe he'd be like that. But he was totally the opposite. He's a love, like a big teddy bear. He was an actor once, and he does anything to make an actor feel accepted." On the set, life imitated art as the Hollywood company descended on the town of Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass., and the actors were ensconced in a crummy Sheraton hotel with bad food and only four cars for eight people. "You'd go to the front desk, the keys would be gone and you'd go, 'Does Macy have the car? Does Baldwin?' " Paymer recalls. "We'd get that feeling of being stuck in a small town, which just added to the realism of the film."

In his private life, Paymer attends Reform High Holiday services and is planning to enroll his 6-year-old daughter, Emily, in Hebrew school. In his professional life, he avoids stereotypically Jewish roles. "I get offered a lot of attorneys named Epstein or Kleinman," he says. "I get a lot of nebbishes with glasses." Next up, he'll appear with Macy in the film "Focus," based on Arthur Miller's early novel about anti-Semitism in New York during World War II. His character, Finkelstein, is Jewish; Macy's character isn't, though his neighbors think he is. "It's great to work with Bill again," Paymer reveals. "We've got the shorthand down to make a scene work. We're like an old married couple."

"State and Main" opens today in L.A.

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