weekly medical drama.
By Jamie Painter
While Peter Berg is best known as an actor, playing Dr. William Kronk on the television series Chicago Hope, he is about to add a new vocation to his resum ‹that of feature filmmaker.
As the writer/director of the brutal black comedy Very Bad Things, Berg has proven that he is more than just a handsome face on the small screen.
"I've always worked really hard to keep the other aspects of my career going, so that I don't just become a doctor on a medical drama," said Berg in a recent interview. "I've reached a point where I'm looking forward to other things, but Chicago Hope has been a really great family to me. It's been like getting paid to go to film school. I've worked with 85 different directors, and every 10 days another director comes in with a whole other approach to directing."
In the midst of finishing up his fourth and last season on Chicago Hope, Berg is also grateful to the show's producers for giving him the opportunity to direct an episode of the program last year. (He's also written two episodes.) "That was like having a million dollar student film your first time out," said Berg of his successful directing debut.
Berg told Back Stage West/Drama-Logue that his time spent directing has improved his attitude as an actor. He now greater appreciates the collaborative process and his own responsibility to a project.
"I'm a better actor now, from a production standpoint," said Berg. "I'm there on time. I'm very respectful of the process. In general, directing a movie has made me a better observer. I've learned that I have to listen to other people. I'm not going to get everything I want, and that's OK. Directing a film is all about compromise and trying to figure out what people need to do their best job."
Indeed, Berg brought out the best in the actors performing in Very Bad Things, which explores everything that could possibly go wrong with a bachelor party and wedding. Christian Slater, who also served as one of the film's producers, offers one of his best performances to date as a slimy real estate agent-turned-murderer. Cameron Diaz and Jeanne Tripplehorn further debunk their images as mere celluloid beauties. Likewise, Jeremy Piven (Ellen), Jon Favreau (Swingers), Leland Orser (Saving Private Ryan), and Daniel Stern offer their finest to audiences.
Added Berg of his talented cast, "Jeremy Piven represents my favorite kind of actor, one who is completely unpredictable, fearless, and explosive. He's a thousand percent committed to finding complications and contrast in his character and he'll try anything. All of the actors in Very Bad Things have a real fearlessness. I like actors who are willing go the distance and who are more concerned with the craft of acting than the process of becoming a star."
Like the performers he admires, Berg has also focused his career on developing his craft. A native of New York City, Berg studied drama at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., before moving to Los Angeles. Discouraged by what he saw in L.A., he initially contemplated a life outside of acting.
"When I moved to L.A., I had no connections in this business whatsoever," recalled Berg. "I just assumed that acting was something for other people. I thought maybe I'd go to film school. I started working as a P.A. on movies and took a lot of production jobs, but I missed acting."
He decided to audition for a play and landed a role in the Odyssey Theatre's acclaimed production of Boys and Girls/Men and Women in 1987. His exposure in the play led to an agent signing him, followed by his first screen role as a high school bully on 21 Jump Street. Since then, he's racked up credits in such films as The Great White Hype, Girl 6, The Last Seduction, A Midnight Clear, Aspen Extreme, and more recently Copland. He's also appeared in the TV movies Fallen Angel, Rise and Walk: The Dennis Byrd Story, and A Case for Murder, and starred with Noah Wyle in the 1996 L.A. stage production of The 24th Day.
While Berg contemplated casting himself in Very Bad Things, he ultimately chose to remain behind the camera. "Everybody told me not to‹that it would be too much work," said Berg of acting in his own film. "And I tend to think that they were right. I have tremendous respect for Mel Gibson doing Braveheart or Kevin Costner doing Dances With Wolves or Vincent Gallo doing Buffalo 66, but I just couldn't do it. For my first film, I really wanted to focus on directing."
As for advice for aspiring filmmakers, Berg opined that you must be passionate about your project, especially if it's going to be made in the low-budget independent realm, as Very Bad Things was.
"Don't make something just to make something," advised Berg, who is currently finishing his next script, a story about corrupt New York firemen, which he plans to direct. "Wait until you find something that you really connect with internally. So when it's four in the morning and everyone's cold and wants to go home and is looking for a shortcut, you know what it is you're doing and why you're doing it. You'll have the vision to get you through." BSW/D-L