Rickman and Pullman -- wine and stage

Two gentlemen who have trod the boards more than a few times in their careers are part of the ensemble of the wine themed film "Bottle Shock" opening today. The movie's just so-so (my review's on LA.com), and neither Alan Rickman nor Bill Pullman have to work especially hard.

I interviewed both men separately during the "BS" press junket, and, as I tend to do when the situation warrants, I asked them a number of stage related questions. Which, I suspect, neither of them were expecting.

Both men are kept rather busy with film (Rickman especially, who, between indies and Harry Potter ain't available much), but they keep their respective toes in. After finishing the "Bottle Shock" publicity duties, Rickman returns to his native London to direct the August Strindberg three-hander "Creditors" at the Donmar Warehouse.

Know the play? I don't, but Rickman says attention should be paid (and given that he's directing it, what else would he say?)

"Strindberg calls it a tragic comedy," he told me. "I can't promise, but I think it's probably very funny. We'll have to wait and see as to whether that comes out of it. It's incredibly relevant in terms of control and who has the power in a relationship and how does it get exercised and who's manipulating whom."

About the Donmar Warehouse: "It's a great space and weirdly, what's extraordinary is reading Strindberg's introduction, I think it's to 'Miss Julie,' and he talks about in such kind of long terms. He says, 'One day, there will be a theater in a small room and it will be dark and we won't have to have painted bookshelves and the audience will be looking at the actors above the level of their knees and actors won't wear makeup and they'll turn sideways, not act everything out front.' I was thinking, 'You poor sod! The Donmar Warehouse came too late for you.'"

Most of us know Alan Rickman as cinema's Serverus Snape or the villain of the first "Die Hard," but the guy has had a pretty amazing career. He was the first Vicomte de Valmont in "Les Liasons Dangereuses" and lit up both the West End and Broadway in a revival of Noel Coward's "Private Lives." Filmwise, folks should check out, in no particular order, "Galaxy Quest," "Truly, Madly, Deeply" and "Snow Cake."

Bill Pullman, meanwhile, is another one of those everyguy looking actors who has had a long and pretty decent career. Back in my younger days, I saw him in three or four playsat the old Los Angeles Theatre Center. He went on to score some acclaim in a pair of Edward Albee plays, "The Goat: or Who is Sylvia?" and, more recently, "Peter and Jerry."

Pullman's nothing if not plain spoken, somewhat dissing both the Geffen Playhouse ("It feels weird, like a 1920s tourist theater") and the Mark Taper Forum. He almost didn't do "Bottle Shock" because he was in the middle of directing his own play "Expedition 6" at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco during the shooting. The "Bottle Shock" team was savvy enough to get someone to drive him between Sonoma and the Bay area so he could fit in both projects.

Had to ask him about "The Goat," one of the weirder and more disturbing plays you'll ever see. He didn't see the production at the Taper, but called it one of the tougher experiences of his career. Apparently, Pullman's understudy in "The Goat" got to play the role three times in three theaters, after three actors "cracked up" and couldn't do the role.

"It's hard to be the goat-(expletive)," Pullman said.

"I think the play is amazing," he continued. "I'll never have another experience like that, and I ache because I think, 'Oh maybe I'll never get another one that will test me so completely as a person and as an actor. Theater's always hard and humiliating and humbling, but that was some white knuckle stuff, not knowing if you're going to come through it or not."

When you ask people theater questions at a movie junket, BTW, sometimes people are thrown. I complimented Chris Pine on his work in "Fat Pig" at that same Geffen Playhouse, and Pullman later asked me if I had really seen the production. I could have shown him my review.