John C. Reilly, the Chicago actor who so convincingly plays the big guy “Murph” in the thunderously powerful new summer hit “The Perfect Storm,” didn’t really have to go out to sea with actual Gloucester, Mass., fishermen to prepare for the role.
He did that, of course, and is glad he did. In researching the part, he serendipitously discovered he had an ancestor who worked as a fisherman on the North Atlantic a century ago. Reilly otherwise readied himself for the film by growing a scrubby beard, working out to increase his upper body strength and eating a lot to increase the rest of him.
“I wanted to be big enough so I didn’t get pulled overboard by one of those fish,” the 6-foot-1 Reilly said.
But he was no stranger to risking the whims and angers of nature going after fish in a small vessel on the open water. His training ground was the Great Lakes, including the waters of Lake Michigan off Chicago, and his teacher, his father.
“My dad was a big fisherman, on the Great Lakes and off Florida,” Reilly said. “I have a brother-in-law who’s a commercial fishing captain. My dad would take us on vacation, and eventually I figured out, `Hey, everywhere we’re going has a fishing port.’ He’d say, `We’re going camping,’ but then we’d be off St. Joseph [Mich.] harbor.”
Reilly was also thoroughly steeped in another aspect and subtext of the movie. The characters, all based on real people, are rough-knuckle, working-class Americans. They go out to sea desperate for the wherewithal to repair wrecked lives or start new ones or simply survive. They’re looking for a second chance but most haven’t had much of a first one.
“My family didn’t fish for a living,” said Reilly, who lived the first 22 years of his life on Chicago’s Southwest Side. “But Marquette Park is pretty working class. It’s not the worst place in the world to live but it’s not exactly the fertile crescent, either. My dad did all right for himself, but he came from one of the poorest families in his neighborhood.”
Reilly’s father succeeded by operating his own industrial laundry. “Murph,” “Sully,” “Bugsy” and the other guys in Captain Billy Tyne’s Andrea Gail crew have no place to turn but the sea.
“The story takes place in [the recession of] 1991, but I think it applies today for most of the guys who do that for a living,” Reilly said. “Anyone can go on a fishing boat, if you’re willing to take the risk and you have the basic skills required. It doesn’t matter what your past is. You’re welcome on a fishing boat.”
Reilly, one of six children, set course on his future as an actor when he was only 8, taking advantage of those working-class neighborhood amenities that some politicians like to deride as a frill: the local park field house.
Marquette Park had one with a dramatics program, and, on the advice of a school friend, he signed up.
“I really took to it,” he said. “It wasn’t like I said, I’m going to be the world’s greatest actor.’ I just knew I enjoyed doing it and kept at it and it turned into a career.”
The Goodman School of Drama and DePaul University followed his graduation from Brother Rice High School, as did a start at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. He left only to take his first of 22 movie roles in 1989’s “Casualties of War.”
Since then, the 35-year-old Reilly has added “We’re No Angels,” “Days of Thunder,” “Georgia,” “Boogie Nights,” “The Thin Red Line” and last year’s “Magnolia.”
On stage, he played Mitch to Gary Sinise’s Stanley in Steppenwolf’s critically acclaimed revival of “Streetcar Named Desire,” and this year, he and co-star Philip Seymour Hoffman were nominated for Tony Awards for a new Broadway production of Sam Shepard’s classic “True West,” in which they alternated the lead roles.
“We were relieved that one of us wasn’t neglected,” he said. “We were kind of happy we didn’t win, because for all the good things that would have brought one of us, it would also have made the show kind of difficult to do.
“We were a little disappointed, though, that the play or the director didn’t win something, because we felt we really brought something to Broadway. We had the youngest audiences by far on Broadway. I can’t tell you how many young people came up to me afterwards and would say, “I’ve never seen a play before; I didn’t think I would like plays.”
Reilly’s holding off any new projects as negotiations unfold over taking “True West” to the London stage and making it into a movie.
His interest in “Perfect Storm” was first piqued listening to his wife, producer Alison Dickey, exclaim about the best-selling Sebastian Junger book on which the film is based, as she read it.
A colleague later told him about the movie version getting underway, suggesting, “there may be something in there for you.” Director/producer Wolfgang Petersen quickly agreed.
The project gave Reilly a chance to work with another Chicago-area star, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, who plays real-life female swordboat skipper Linda Greenlaw.
“We spent a little time together when we were shooting in Gloucester,” he said. “She’s such a gentle, gracious person.”
The real Greenlaw is held by some to be the best swordboat skipper in this most dangerous of all businesses.
“It actually is the most dangerous occupation per capita in the country,” Reilly said. “There are certain things that weren’t talked about in the movie. You’re so far out, like 2,000 miles out at sea, and you get a serious injury like a big cut or something, that normally you would just go to the emergency room for, and you’d be fine. If that happens to you at sea, a minor thing could easily turn into a life or death situation . . . a lot of times, if these guys get injured really badly, the Coast Guard, if it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to make it in time, they just won’t waste the resources. They’ll just say, come back as soon as you can. Good luck.”
Having sailed and fished with these men (and women), Reilly said he understands now why they do it.
“Talking to these guys — why do they do it when it’s so dangerous and back-breaking? — I thought it must be like huge money. So I asked, `What kind of money do you make in a month?’ And this guy I talked to says, `Oh, man, one time I made 10 grand in one month.’ It was incredible. I just looked at him. That’s not a lot of money. But for someone who has no other prospects, the fact that you can get 10 grand cash in a month, that means a lot to those guys.
“But the more I talked to them, I started to realize that it’s more than money. Even the most desperate person is not necessarily going to put his life on the line for 10 grand. What you realize with these guys is that it’s like this primal kind of hunter mentality. It’s almost like life on shore is a little too complicated. You’re out there. You’re alone with your thoughts and you just have this job to do. And there’s a real thrill to hunting an animal like that, a huge fish. And then, when they start to come in, the rush they get is like a gambler gets.”
