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Authors: Sean Astin with Joe Layden
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the Rings, sometimes you have to have a little perspective. Dom, who played the part of Merry, wears his hardscrabble Manchester (England) roots on his sleeve, and more than once he rather wisely pointed out to me, âYou know what people earn in the real world, man? We are so fucking lucky!â
Absolutely right. We are lucky. But as with any line of work, itâs not what you earn that counts; itâs what you keep. I figure if Iâm going to take the time to write a book, I might as well be honest about aspects of the movie industry that arenât ordinarily discussed candidly, such as compensation and representation. The numbers Iâve mentioned are not insignificant; to most people, $125,000 sounds like a lot of moneyâand it is. But playing Rudy was now clearly not a decision about money. It was about my destiny. Thoughts flickered through my mind about old Hollywood screen tests and the building of stars from within the studio system. I envisioned my house in an earlier time, surrounded by orange groves, with crop dusters or biplanes flying overhead rather than private jets. I calculated that Marc Platt could rest comfortably knowing that if he didnât get his first choice, Chris, he would at least have saved the studio a pretty penny. I felt emboldened by knowing the creative auspices supported me, and so, the gauntlet having been thrown down, I accepted the challenge.
At a certain point, of course, it really doesnât matter. It all becomes Monopoly money. But at that stage of my career, I hadnât accomplished anything remotely close to this. Iâd never had this kind of opportunity. I was constantly trying to make enough money to carry me through the next six monthsâto bankroll a film I wanted to direct, or to put myself through college. And to simply pay the mortgage. In this case, though, there was no debating about whether to fight for the role, or to hold out for more money. This was a defining moment in my career. I felt like the universe was conspiring to make it happen. I was meant to play Rudyâit was as simple as that.
Accepting the financial terms of the deal was only part of the process. I also had to agree again to change my body for the part. I was simultaneously nervous and emboldened by this stipulation, since by my estimation I was pretty fit. Christine and I had gotten married, and Iâd run off all the weight Iâd gained during Encino Man so that Iâd look reasonably attractive while standing next to my beautiful wife in the wedding photos. When I did my screen test for Rudy , I weighed 135 pounds, and the studio executives were less than thrilled with my newly svelte appearance. They offered me the role on the condition that I gain ten to fifteen pounds of muscle before the start of principal photography. In their opinion I was too skinny, too waiflike, to ever be believable as a football player at Notre Dameâeven a famously small football player who made the team as a walk-on.
It seemed to me an ironic turn of events, since Iâd been so fat in Encino Man that Disney didnât even want to put me on the promotional poster. Talk about embarrassing! That movie cost six or seven million dollars to make and grossed forty million. But my focus wasnât on using the forty-million-dollar success story of Encino Man to get the next acting job. Instead, I had turned my focus to directing the short film Iâd been promised, and on building my own production company. Cashing in on the success of Encino Man , with all of the emotional baggage I carried from that movie, failed to appeal to me. So instead of hiring a personal trainer and trying to sculpt my body in the way that Hollywood demands, I was satisfied with just getting skinny in time for the wedding.
Now, though, I was ready and willing to do whatever was asked of me. I agreed to put on the weight, and pretty soon I was working out daily at the Sony gym, pounding weights,
Absolutely right. We are lucky. But as with any line of work, itâs not what you earn that counts; itâs what you keep. I figure if Iâm going to take the time to write a book, I might as well be honest about aspects of the movie industry that arenât ordinarily discussed candidly, such as compensation and representation. The numbers Iâve mentioned are not insignificant; to most people, $125,000 sounds like a lot of moneyâand it is. But playing Rudy was now clearly not a decision about money. It was about my destiny. Thoughts flickered through my mind about old Hollywood screen tests and the building of stars from within the studio system. I envisioned my house in an earlier time, surrounded by orange groves, with crop dusters or biplanes flying overhead rather than private jets. I calculated that Marc Platt could rest comfortably knowing that if he didnât get his first choice, Chris, he would at least have saved the studio a pretty penny. I felt emboldened by knowing the creative auspices supported me, and so, the gauntlet having been thrown down, I accepted the challenge.
At a certain point, of course, it really doesnât matter. It all becomes Monopoly money. But at that stage of my career, I hadnât accomplished anything remotely close to this. Iâd never had this kind of opportunity. I was constantly trying to make enough money to carry me through the next six monthsâto bankroll a film I wanted to direct, or to put myself through college. And to simply pay the mortgage. In this case, though, there was no debating about whether to fight for the role, or to hold out for more money. This was a defining moment in my career. I felt like the universe was conspiring to make it happen. I was meant to play Rudyâit was as simple as that.
Accepting the financial terms of the deal was only part of the process. I also had to agree again to change my body for the part. I was simultaneously nervous and emboldened by this stipulation, since by my estimation I was pretty fit. Christine and I had gotten married, and Iâd run off all the weight Iâd gained during Encino Man so that Iâd look reasonably attractive while standing next to my beautiful wife in the wedding photos. When I did my screen test for Rudy , I weighed 135 pounds, and the studio executives were less than thrilled with my newly svelte appearance. They offered me the role on the condition that I gain ten to fifteen pounds of muscle before the start of principal photography. In their opinion I was too skinny, too waiflike, to ever be believable as a football player at Notre Dameâeven a famously small football player who made the team as a walk-on.
It seemed to me an ironic turn of events, since Iâd been so fat in Encino Man that Disney didnât even want to put me on the promotional poster. Talk about embarrassing! That movie cost six or seven million dollars to make and grossed forty million. But my focus wasnât on using the forty-million-dollar success story of Encino Man to get the next acting job. Instead, I had turned my focus to directing the short film Iâd been promised, and on building my own production company. Cashing in on the success of Encino Man , with all of the emotional baggage I carried from that movie, failed to appeal to me. So instead of hiring a personal trainer and trying to sculpt my body in the way that Hollywood demands, I was satisfied with just getting skinny in time for the wedding.
Now, though, I was ready and willing to do whatever was asked of me. I agreed to put on the weight, and pretty soon I was working out daily at the Sony gym, pounding weights,
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