Picture this: Peter Weller was sitting on the set of ”Robocop 2” in his clunky Robocop regalia a couple of years ago when he addressed a question to Mark Irwin, the director of photography:
”What`s your friend Cronenberg up to?”
As Weller recalled it, Irwin replied, ”He`s writing the movie of the book `Naked Lunch.` ”
With that, the actor said, Irwin started to walk away.
”And I got up out of the chair with my Robo stuff on and kind of waddled after him.”
Weller has been a fan of the hallucinatory 1959 William S. Burroughs novel since he was a teenager. ”It`s a great novel of irreverence and satire on hypocrisy and the foibles of society, which is essentially power and control and addiction,” he says.
”Its imagery is profoundly disturbing, and it`s written in a style, a lingo, that was very accessible to the `60s generation, even though it was written in the `50s street jazz drug vernacular intermixed with King James English.”
So not long after he stalked Irwin as Robocop, Weller went after David Cronenberg as an actor. He sent the filmmaker a letter that said, essentially: ”I love this book. I love your work, and I really want to do this movie.”
Eight months later, Cronenberg replied. Weller recalled, ”He called me up and said, `The script is ready.` ”
In preparing to play the role of Bill Lee in the film inspired by the book, Weller met with Burroughs, and while making clear that he never killed anyone, as Burroughs did, Weller said, ”The emotional ride the character takes is fairly close to several things that happened to me in my own life.” ”Naked Lunch” is now playing in Chicago.
Looking ahead, Weller is preparing for another film role, expecting the release of another movie and planning his debut as a director. At the end of February, he expects to begin working in a thriller for New Line called
”Sunset Grill,” set in the barrios of Los Angeles. He`ll play Ryder Hart, an alcoholic snoop for corporations, whose wife is murdered.
”It`s a tale of revenge,” Weller said.
Weller has just completed ”Road to Ruin,” a comedy, filmed in Paris, about a billionaire who fakes his own financial demise to test the love of a woman he fears wants to marry him for his money.
At the same time, he is developing two projects he hopes to direct:
”Just Married,” a comedy about divorce, and ”The Valve,” a thriller.
Looking forward to directing, Weller said, ”It`s time to be dad instead of a kid and time to execute my own vision of things.”
