In May of last year, I found myself sitting alone in the stands of a race track with Sean Astin. He was filming an independent movie about horse racing, and I was invited to visit the production at Hollywood Park in Los Angeles. When Astin had a break in shooting, we walked into the stands to sit for an interview. You may not think of them as a whole, but several of Astins movies have become seminal films for more than one generation. I grew up with The Goonies, where a teen Astin led his friends on a quest for pirate treasure. A young adult Astin portrayed college football legend Rudy Ruettiger in the football classic Rudy. To todays kids, hes perhaps best known as Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Astin was happy to stroll down movie memory lane with me. His recollections of even the earliest film are as vivid as his descriptions of the film he was shooting. And Theyre Off cast Astin as Dusty, a disgraced jockey who gets another chance with an underdog racehorse. Its a comedy in mockumentary style. The independent film played the Hollywood Film Festival and is now open in select cities, including racing centers like Kentucky.
SuicideGirls: Ive always wanted to ask you, on the DVD commentary for The Goonies, you keep trying to say a message for Cyndi Lauper and all theo ther Goonies keep interrupting you. What were you going to say to her?
Sean Astin: I was going to apologize to her, because we were so tired. The whole cast, everyone was tired. She was the only person not tired because she hadnt been doing the movie with us. She came in to do the video. I just remember we were all up at the pirate ship set and we were shooting the music video and we were all trying to not be tired. This was Cyndi Lauper, the great Cyndi Lauper, doing this wonderful performance to a song we loved. The first time we heard the song we were in Hawaii actually, where Steven Spielberg sent us to play a prank on [director] Dick Donner, and he played her Good Enough song for us and we flipped out. We just loved it. We all listened to it over and over and over again. Then some period of time later, we were all on the boat and she was really bummed. Millions of people would come and pay tickets to scream and yell at her concerts and we were there trying to not be devoid of energy. So I was going to apologize to her and I know if the guys wouldve let me get that out, they would have totally said, Oh my God, we had so much fun doing that. They wouldve been excited about it.
SG: What was the prank?
SA: Just going there. Dick had said to us throughout the movie, I cant wait to get away from you brat kids. One day Jeff Cohen, who played Chunk, shows up with his mom and his sister Edie, and theyre all wearing Midwestern tourist with the hats and camera and flower print shirts and theyre like, Dick, were going to Hawaii with you! He kept saying he wanted to get to his house in Maui, get away from us brat kids. Theyre like, Dick, were coming with you. He was on the floor laughing because it just was so cute. It was so funny. The next thing you know, they were like, Lets tell Steven. Maybe we really will trick him, well surprise him. So he sent us, somebody brought Dick out to the supermarket and we came back, all the Goonies and our family and friends had all trashed his place and we were hanging out there. It was pretty funny. I thought he was going to have a coronary. He looked really funny.
SG: Do you think kids today still have Goonie like adventures, in the age of Facebook and Twitter?
SA: Yeah, I think its different but Im sure they have adventures. They have to. Its just the nature of being a kid. Now with the technology, gosh, what we wouldnt have done to be able to iChat or some of the walkie talkies. Itd just be fun. That thing that people love about The Goonies, that sense of adventure, is something thats intrinsic to kids. I think some elements of our culture kind of work against it. The world is dangerous. Kids have to be careful where they go. Theres bad people out there so people have to be careful. That kind of stops you but one kid flew around the world in a Cessna who was 10. Their dad orchestrated that, made it work out for them. Thats an adventure. Thats as cool as finding pirate treasure. I flew myself around the planet when I was 10. Pirates always have an allure. You have the Pirates of the Caribbean movies that come out. Yeah, it changes, it grows, gets better. Its all good. Im blown away that a movie like Goonies has such staying power. Thats a pretty amazing thing.
SG: Its been 10 years since Lord of the Rings. Do you have a different perspective on it now than when you were in the middle of it?
SA: We just did a photo shoot for Entertainment Weekly. Elijah, Dominic and I were in the photo shoot together and theyre going to do a lot of other cast and composite it together for the 10 year anniversary of when we started filming. It only took about an 18th of a second being together where it felt like wed just been doing these photo shoots and making the movie together. In a weird way, I think my thoughts and feelings continually grow and change and in some ways, its really the same.
SG: When you hear about The Hobbit does that seem like something some other guys are doing, or is it still the same family?
SA: Both. It feels like both. It seems like the same family because I know them but its been a lot of years now and their production apparatus has changed a lot down there. Theyve grown. Theyre making lots of movies all the time so theres probably a lot of different crew and a lot of different people down there than I know. There are some people that I know but my character Sam does not appear in The Hobbit to the best of my knowledge. They could do whatever they want so Ive heard different things about what they might want to do, but it feels like a cousin that you grew up with that maybe when the next person gets married, youll all see each other again. But there is a little bit of distance there.
SG: Is there anything we dont know about those films yet?
SA: Of course. Im sure most of the really fun stuff thats publishable has been mined, but youre talking about two years of peoples lives. It was a pretty unbelievable experience. A lot of times when stories are told, theres usually an angle on it, so I dont know what other angles there are out there. Im sure there are a lot. I feel like even with the total wealth of stuff thats been put out there, that kind of stuff only reflects part of what my experience was. But I dont know that what my experience was is going to be entertaining for readers to hear about. What kind of vegetables we had in New Zealand that were in season that time of year.
SG: Do you remember that?
SA: Well, I could never keep up with it then. The one thing they always have in New Zealand, its kind of like a squash. I cant remember the name of it now. Yeah, put that in there. A signed autographed poster by the cast of Lord of the Rings if anyone can name the vegetable that was the predominant vegetable.
SG: I remember when Rudy came out, it was compared to a Rocky type story. Now do you find movies are compared to a Rudy type story?
SA: Absolutely. Absolutely. A lot. Its sort of a classic underdog tone that the movie put out there. You see journalists wholl write about movies. This movie is a horse racing movie so youve got Seabiscuit, but thereve been so many movies, every sport now it seems like. We havent done a curling movie, but that feeling, that idea. What I love about Rudy, one of the many things I love about it, is that its an upwardly mobile social treatise, that if you work hard and you get an education and you believe in yourself and you get a little bit lucky, you can raise your station in this world. Thats a quintessential American narrative. People love dreamers. Its ripe for satire too. Its easy to make fun of that but when Im walking through the airport and a group of guys sees me, theyll just go, Rudy! Rudy! Theyll start the chant. I mostly hear it when people say, Well, its like that. Its like a Rudy or its like a Hoosiers or Rocky. Theres a group of them and theres usually lists that come out. Rudy has found its way onto some of those lists.
SG: You must get attention from sports fans and fantasy buffs.
SA: I do. Its a good thing. Now hopefully horse racing fans. Hopefully they dont hate me for being such an idiot. Theres good idiot and bad idiot. I hope Im a good idiot in this.
SG: One thing that annoyed me when Rudy came out, my local newspaper critic complained that it wasnt a Rocky story because he didnt help win the game. He only made it to the final plays. I wanted to write in and remind him how Rocky 1 ended.
SA: No, but Hoosiers was made by David Anspaugh and Angelo Pizzo, the director and writer. It was the story of the unbelievably wild success story of an Indiana basketball team that came from nowhere, a small town team to go on and win the national title against teams with guys who went right to the NBA. And they did that. They won the championship. It was a buzzer beater. Dennis Hoppers character was an alcoholic who was on the bench, all this amazing stuff and it was about a winner. The guys wanted to do a story about the last guy on the bench. They liked that for him, winning was relative. It was specific to him and his life. You think of Patton, at the beginning of Patton he goes, America loves a winner! Nobody ever won a war dying for their country. They won a war by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. You look at Rudy and hes exactly right on the one hand. He doesnt help win the game. The game is over. Even if theyd have been run back for an opposing touchdown, they still had a three touchdown lead. It was what it meant to him and what it meant to his family, what it meant to the people that knew them. Youve got to be a pretty coldhearted son of a bitch if you hear about somebodys life story and they tell you a moment that was a signature moment in their life and that their family responded to, and youre like, Oh well, whatever. Should every familys moment be made a movie? I dont know, but when you factor in Notre Dame, its the first time since Knute Rockne, All American with Ronald Reagan playing George Gipp that they had let the movie be shot on the University campus.
SG: But Rocky 1 isnt about winning in the end either. Its just about making it, so I think that critic missed the comparison. He was thinking of the Rocky sequels.
SA: No, but Im getting at whats underneath that. Yeah, arguably the Rocky movies, when he goes back and wins in the second one and goes to Russia, each of those movies, Seabiscuit, Tin Cup. Did he not like Tin Cup because Tin Cup didnt win? Tin Cup fails so spectacularly that it becomes a signature thing.
SG: Weve seen you play characters from dramatic to outrageous comedy. What kind of guy is Dusty?
SA: Dusty is an eternal optimist and he is a guy who didnt come from much. He didnt have a background in money or anything. Hes earnest and hes fun and hes a little dumb, flat out. The director would probably be very upset. Hes not dumb. Hes just so confident when he shouldnt be. He makes lots of mistakes but he perseveres. I think the fact that I portrayed Rudy, I think Rudy and Doug from 50 First Dates, if you could combine their DNA and just plop them into the horse racing world, youve got Dusty.
SG: Are there great sports clich training montages?
SA: Theres a lot of clichd moments in this movie. They should have called it Clich. We should have had a horse named Clich. Thats Clich coming around the outside. Like Rocky, maybe theres a couple. Those arent the moments that jump out the most to me about this movie. This movies about little personal moments that you see and happen in little steps along the way. A lot of people dont know anything about horse racing but a lot of people who do know about horse racing dont really know anything about what goes into it. Even the fact that people who own the horses hire people called trainers, they go and train the horses and hire the grooms, get all the feed right and the medical stuff and make decisions about what races to enter them in. They talk to the jockeys agents and have to deal with all the rules. Theres that kind of stuff.
SG: With this knowledge youve gained from the film, would you feel comfortable making a bet?
SA: See, heres the thing. I bet my house on Friday night and my children are homeless now. No, I got very excited about having a particular system of betting. Alex Rocco who plays and owner that I work for who fires me in the movie, everyone was talking about, Oh, Seans got a system, Seans got a system. So I sat down and described the system and he said, Dont ever tell anybody what you just told me. You cant do that. And went on to explain what it was. So I bet, I had fun one night, actually for a day and a half of racing here at Hollywood Park. I bet a bunch and I pretty much lost everything I bet. When it was over, I thought thats not the most fun part. And my brother won everything. He won three exactas, three trifectas in a row and one two long shots. Exacta is two, first and second, trifecta is first, second and third. You can box them, which means you click the box and you play three times as much. Then if those three horses come across the finish line in any order, first, second and third, you win. He won three of those right off the bat, three trifectas which is really, really rare for that to happen. So with two dollars, he turned it into $300. I took $200 and turned it into nothing.
SG: What was your faulty system?
SA: The way I wanted to look at it was just look at their most recent six races and say, Okay, whod won the most races, whod come in first and second the most in their last six races. Then I would group them together and then come up with little combinations of how to bet on those people so that if even most of the bets didnt pay off, one or two of those front runners should come in at least third and then that third would pay it off. It certainly made a lot of sense to me but the odds are tricky, because if its a front runner, the better chance it has to win, the less its going to pay if you win. Thats the guy Im looking for to pay off my downside if I dont win everything else or some of the other things. You cant bet on every horse in the race. Youve got to pick a horse. It doesnt matter how good they are. Part of the problem with that system is the horses are in different classes, so this one horse couldve won or come in second in four of its last six races. But now its running a longer race against a different class of horse. Itd be lucky if it comes in third or fourth. Theres the newspapers you get and the betting guides, theres so much detail and so many different factors that you can choose to focus on when youre placing your bet. Then youve got handicappers whod tell you things. Theres all different kinds to think about but your little girl can walk in and say, Daddy, I like Runs Like a Rose so you bet on Runs Like a Rose with 50 to 1 odds and Runs Like a Rose wins and you just won a ton of money because your daughter picked one.
SuicideGirls: Ive always wanted to ask you, on the DVD commentary for The Goonies, you keep trying to say a message for Cyndi Lauper and all theo ther Goonies keep interrupting you. What were you going to say to her?
Sean Astin: I was going to apologize to her, because we were so tired. The whole cast, everyone was tired. She was the only person not tired because she hadnt been doing the movie with us. She came in to do the video. I just remember we were all up at the pirate ship set and we were shooting the music video and we were all trying to not be tired. This was Cyndi Lauper, the great Cyndi Lauper, doing this wonderful performance to a song we loved. The first time we heard the song we were in Hawaii actually, where Steven Spielberg sent us to play a prank on [director] Dick Donner, and he played her Good Enough song for us and we flipped out. We just loved it. We all listened to it over and over and over again. Then some period of time later, we were all on the boat and she was really bummed. Millions of people would come and pay tickets to scream and yell at her concerts and we were there trying to not be devoid of energy. So I was going to apologize to her and I know if the guys wouldve let me get that out, they would have totally said, Oh my God, we had so much fun doing that. They wouldve been excited about it.
SG: What was the prank?
SA: Just going there. Dick had said to us throughout the movie, I cant wait to get away from you brat kids. One day Jeff Cohen, who played Chunk, shows up with his mom and his sister Edie, and theyre all wearing Midwestern tourist with the hats and camera and flower print shirts and theyre like, Dick, were going to Hawaii with you! He kept saying he wanted to get to his house in Maui, get away from us brat kids. Theyre like, Dick, were coming with you. He was on the floor laughing because it just was so cute. It was so funny. The next thing you know, they were like, Lets tell Steven. Maybe we really will trick him, well surprise him. So he sent us, somebody brought Dick out to the supermarket and we came back, all the Goonies and our family and friends had all trashed his place and we were hanging out there. It was pretty funny. I thought he was going to have a coronary. He looked really funny.
SG: Do you think kids today still have Goonie like adventures, in the age of Facebook and Twitter?
SA: Yeah, I think its different but Im sure they have adventures. They have to. Its just the nature of being a kid. Now with the technology, gosh, what we wouldnt have done to be able to iChat or some of the walkie talkies. Itd just be fun. That thing that people love about The Goonies, that sense of adventure, is something thats intrinsic to kids. I think some elements of our culture kind of work against it. The world is dangerous. Kids have to be careful where they go. Theres bad people out there so people have to be careful. That kind of stops you but one kid flew around the world in a Cessna who was 10. Their dad orchestrated that, made it work out for them. Thats an adventure. Thats as cool as finding pirate treasure. I flew myself around the planet when I was 10. Pirates always have an allure. You have the Pirates of the Caribbean movies that come out. Yeah, it changes, it grows, gets better. Its all good. Im blown away that a movie like Goonies has such staying power. Thats a pretty amazing thing.
SG: Its been 10 years since Lord of the Rings. Do you have a different perspective on it now than when you were in the middle of it?
SA: We just did a photo shoot for Entertainment Weekly. Elijah, Dominic and I were in the photo shoot together and theyre going to do a lot of other cast and composite it together for the 10 year anniversary of when we started filming. It only took about an 18th of a second being together where it felt like wed just been doing these photo shoots and making the movie together. In a weird way, I think my thoughts and feelings continually grow and change and in some ways, its really the same.
SG: When you hear about The Hobbit does that seem like something some other guys are doing, or is it still the same family?
SA: Both. It feels like both. It seems like the same family because I know them but its been a lot of years now and their production apparatus has changed a lot down there. Theyve grown. Theyre making lots of movies all the time so theres probably a lot of different crew and a lot of different people down there than I know. There are some people that I know but my character Sam does not appear in The Hobbit to the best of my knowledge. They could do whatever they want so Ive heard different things about what they might want to do, but it feels like a cousin that you grew up with that maybe when the next person gets married, youll all see each other again. But there is a little bit of distance there.
SG: Is there anything we dont know about those films yet?
SA: Of course. Im sure most of the really fun stuff thats publishable has been mined, but youre talking about two years of peoples lives. It was a pretty unbelievable experience. A lot of times when stories are told, theres usually an angle on it, so I dont know what other angles there are out there. Im sure there are a lot. I feel like even with the total wealth of stuff thats been put out there, that kind of stuff only reflects part of what my experience was. But I dont know that what my experience was is going to be entertaining for readers to hear about. What kind of vegetables we had in New Zealand that were in season that time of year.
SG: Do you remember that?
SA: Well, I could never keep up with it then. The one thing they always have in New Zealand, its kind of like a squash. I cant remember the name of it now. Yeah, put that in there. A signed autographed poster by the cast of Lord of the Rings if anyone can name the vegetable that was the predominant vegetable.
SG: I remember when Rudy came out, it was compared to a Rocky type story. Now do you find movies are compared to a Rudy type story?
SA: Absolutely. Absolutely. A lot. Its sort of a classic underdog tone that the movie put out there. You see journalists wholl write about movies. This movie is a horse racing movie so youve got Seabiscuit, but thereve been so many movies, every sport now it seems like. We havent done a curling movie, but that feeling, that idea. What I love about Rudy, one of the many things I love about it, is that its an upwardly mobile social treatise, that if you work hard and you get an education and you believe in yourself and you get a little bit lucky, you can raise your station in this world. Thats a quintessential American narrative. People love dreamers. Its ripe for satire too. Its easy to make fun of that but when Im walking through the airport and a group of guys sees me, theyll just go, Rudy! Rudy! Theyll start the chant. I mostly hear it when people say, Well, its like that. Its like a Rudy or its like a Hoosiers or Rocky. Theres a group of them and theres usually lists that come out. Rudy has found its way onto some of those lists.
SG: You must get attention from sports fans and fantasy buffs.
SA: I do. Its a good thing. Now hopefully horse racing fans. Hopefully they dont hate me for being such an idiot. Theres good idiot and bad idiot. I hope Im a good idiot in this.
SG: One thing that annoyed me when Rudy came out, my local newspaper critic complained that it wasnt a Rocky story because he didnt help win the game. He only made it to the final plays. I wanted to write in and remind him how Rocky 1 ended.
SA: No, but Hoosiers was made by David Anspaugh and Angelo Pizzo, the director and writer. It was the story of the unbelievably wild success story of an Indiana basketball team that came from nowhere, a small town team to go on and win the national title against teams with guys who went right to the NBA. And they did that. They won the championship. It was a buzzer beater. Dennis Hoppers character was an alcoholic who was on the bench, all this amazing stuff and it was about a winner. The guys wanted to do a story about the last guy on the bench. They liked that for him, winning was relative. It was specific to him and his life. You think of Patton, at the beginning of Patton he goes, America loves a winner! Nobody ever won a war dying for their country. They won a war by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. You look at Rudy and hes exactly right on the one hand. He doesnt help win the game. The game is over. Even if theyd have been run back for an opposing touchdown, they still had a three touchdown lead. It was what it meant to him and what it meant to his family, what it meant to the people that knew them. Youve got to be a pretty coldhearted son of a bitch if you hear about somebodys life story and they tell you a moment that was a signature moment in their life and that their family responded to, and youre like, Oh well, whatever. Should every familys moment be made a movie? I dont know, but when you factor in Notre Dame, its the first time since Knute Rockne, All American with Ronald Reagan playing George Gipp that they had let the movie be shot on the University campus.
SG: But Rocky 1 isnt about winning in the end either. Its just about making it, so I think that critic missed the comparison. He was thinking of the Rocky sequels.
SA: No, but Im getting at whats underneath that. Yeah, arguably the Rocky movies, when he goes back and wins in the second one and goes to Russia, each of those movies, Seabiscuit, Tin Cup. Did he not like Tin Cup because Tin Cup didnt win? Tin Cup fails so spectacularly that it becomes a signature thing.
SG: Weve seen you play characters from dramatic to outrageous comedy. What kind of guy is Dusty?
SA: Dusty is an eternal optimist and he is a guy who didnt come from much. He didnt have a background in money or anything. Hes earnest and hes fun and hes a little dumb, flat out. The director would probably be very upset. Hes not dumb. Hes just so confident when he shouldnt be. He makes lots of mistakes but he perseveres. I think the fact that I portrayed Rudy, I think Rudy and Doug from 50 First Dates, if you could combine their DNA and just plop them into the horse racing world, youve got Dusty.
SG: Are there great sports clich training montages?
SA: Theres a lot of clichd moments in this movie. They should have called it Clich. We should have had a horse named Clich. Thats Clich coming around the outside. Like Rocky, maybe theres a couple. Those arent the moments that jump out the most to me about this movie. This movies about little personal moments that you see and happen in little steps along the way. A lot of people dont know anything about horse racing but a lot of people who do know about horse racing dont really know anything about what goes into it. Even the fact that people who own the horses hire people called trainers, they go and train the horses and hire the grooms, get all the feed right and the medical stuff and make decisions about what races to enter them in. They talk to the jockeys agents and have to deal with all the rules. Theres that kind of stuff.
SG: With this knowledge youve gained from the film, would you feel comfortable making a bet?
SA: See, heres the thing. I bet my house on Friday night and my children are homeless now. No, I got very excited about having a particular system of betting. Alex Rocco who plays and owner that I work for who fires me in the movie, everyone was talking about, Oh, Seans got a system, Seans got a system. So I sat down and described the system and he said, Dont ever tell anybody what you just told me. You cant do that. And went on to explain what it was. So I bet, I had fun one night, actually for a day and a half of racing here at Hollywood Park. I bet a bunch and I pretty much lost everything I bet. When it was over, I thought thats not the most fun part. And my brother won everything. He won three exactas, three trifectas in a row and one two long shots. Exacta is two, first and second, trifecta is first, second and third. You can box them, which means you click the box and you play three times as much. Then if those three horses come across the finish line in any order, first, second and third, you win. He won three of those right off the bat, three trifectas which is really, really rare for that to happen. So with two dollars, he turned it into $300. I took $200 and turned it into nothing.
SG: What was your faulty system?
SA: The way I wanted to look at it was just look at their most recent six races and say, Okay, whod won the most races, whod come in first and second the most in their last six races. Then I would group them together and then come up with little combinations of how to bet on those people so that if even most of the bets didnt pay off, one or two of those front runners should come in at least third and then that third would pay it off. It certainly made a lot of sense to me but the odds are tricky, because if its a front runner, the better chance it has to win, the less its going to pay if you win. Thats the guy Im looking for to pay off my downside if I dont win everything else or some of the other things. You cant bet on every horse in the race. Youve got to pick a horse. It doesnt matter how good they are. Part of the problem with that system is the horses are in different classes, so this one horse couldve won or come in second in four of its last six races. But now its running a longer race against a different class of horse. Itd be lucky if it comes in third or fourth. Theres the newspapers you get and the betting guides, theres so much detail and so many different factors that you can choose to focus on when youre placing your bet. Then youve got handicappers whod tell you things. Theres all different kinds to think about but your little girl can walk in and say, Daddy, I like Runs Like a Rose so you bet on Runs Like a Rose with 50 to 1 odds and Runs Like a Rose wins and you just won a ton of money because your daughter picked one.