STEPHEN BALDWIN

from One Tough Cop

Now playing

Who has starred opposite Cindy Crawford, married Kim Basinger and played a man pining for the affection of Lara Flynn Boyle? The answer--a Baldwin brother! Though the first two mighty accomplishments must be credited to older brothers William and Alec respectively, youngest member of the clan Stephen has had his share of successes--including starring with Boyle in the love-triangle movie Threesome. A jack-of-all-genres, Stephen has played a rider with the Pony Express on TV's Young Riders, an unwitting biosphere resident in the comedy Bio-Dome, and now a crimesolving New York City cop. In his new movie One Tough Cop, Stephen portrays Bo Dietl, a former NYPD officer who apprehended the men who viciously assaulted a New York City nun in 1981. Attired in slick black clothes and with even slicker hair, Stephen looked like a tough cop as he talked about his newest movie, and being one of the stars in the Baldwin constellation.

Q: What attracted you to the role of Bo Dietl in One Tough Cop?

Stephen Baldwin: I think it was the opportunity to be a part of one of those old-school, hard-core, New York City cop movies that they used to make but they don't make anymore; you know, in the vein of Serpico.

Q: Did you spend a great deal of time with actual police officers inpreparation for the role?

SB: No, not really. Actually, because of [producer Martin Bregman's] persistence of the fact that we were just fictionally telling a story about someone who really existed and [his] true-to-life experiences, everything you see in the movie happened, just names and places and sequences and realities, literally, have been altered. By no means would I want to try to do an imitation of Bo Dietl for the movie. So I was able to create for myself a lot of the character based on my vision. I spent a lot of time with Bo and talked to him about his life, about his methods and about his philosophies, and then incorporated what I wanted. To me, what was most important was capturing his spirit more than anything else, and perhaps his integrity and his honesty and his sensitivity and things like that; not necessarily the way he walked and the way he talked, although a lot of that was very similar.

Q: The real Bo Dietl had to approve you for the role of himself. What do you think convinced him that you were the right choice?

SB: I threatened him! No, I'm kidding. Actually, I'm not. I went up to Bo and I said, "Look, you know, I'm the guy to play this part and if you don't see that you're an idiot." That's literally what I said to him. I thought it might be kind of interesting to challenge him in that way, just to see how he'd react, and if I didn't get the part I guess that wasn't a good idea. But I think that Bo kind of saw a lot of himself in that remark, and it worked out pretty good.

Q: Why did you gain 35 pounds for the role?

SB: [I] Wanted to--any excuse to eat three plates of greasy Chinese food before bed, you know. The coolest thing about playing this part was, you know, I never envisioned myself--I'm the youngest of six, and my brother Danny is a big guy and, you know; my brothers always kicked my ass so, you know, at 200 pounds, when dudes would get out of my way, that was pretty cool, you know what I mean? The fact that I looked and felt like I could knock somebody out was kind of cool, when in reality I'm just a total wuss.

Q: What do you think of the finished product--One Tough Cop?

SB: Everybody was just really into the movie, and the final end result--I'm blown away by. It's the best movie I've done to date with the cast we had and the 28 days we had to shoot it and the $4 million we had to make it. This character is something that I can relate to. I knew guys like this growing up, and this character was pretty much dormant inside of me.

Q: Speaking of small budgets--do you prefer working in independent film projects or more mainstream productions?