Dennis Quaid puts his experiences to good use in his latest film At Any Price
There was a time, in the late 1980s, when each new film starring Dennis Quaid was The One. The one destined to make him not just an actor, not just an actor with guts and a wily, toothy joker's grin, but a huge box-office-reliable star. In the summer of 1987, The One was the adventure fantasy “Innerspace,” which turned out to be a medium hit. Two summers later it was the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic “Great Balls of Fire!” Again, not a disaster. But not The One.
Now 59, Quaid has grown into a different sort of star, tempered by ups and downs and in-betweens. Lately, the Quaid audiences first came to know in the lovely “Breaking Away” (1979), and later as astronaut Gordon Cooper in the grandly eccentric film version of “The Right Stuff” (1983), has pushed himself into challenging territory.
In the new independent drama “At Any Price,” written and directed by Ramin Bahrani of “Man Push Cart,” “Chop Shop” and “Goodbye Solo,” Quaid plays a third-generation Iowa farmer buckling under the pressures of expansion, competition, infidelity and a plot turn, involving the son played by Zac Efron, that leaves Quaid's character, Henry Whipple, with metaphorical and literal blood on his hands.
“At Any Price,” filmed in DeKalb County and made for an exceedingly thrifty $4 million, is no one's idea of a big summer movie. “I basically did it for free,” Quaid says, laughing. It's a film an actor chooses to make for reasons other than compensation or a percentage of the gross. Recently, Quaid spent a half-hour of his birthday talking about fame, success, acting and learning to act less.
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