Bahrani describes Whipple as “Willy Loman in a cornfield,” a monstrously conflicted soul with elements of playwright Arthur Miller's “Death of a Salesman” protagonist, as well as the morally compromised father in Miller's “All My Sons.”
“He's kind of broken,” Quaid says. The film, he says, courts expectations of “one of those traditional save-the-farm films, the inspiring music, the family desperately trying to hang onto things. But the story starts to turn into dark corners you don't expect.”
Quaid's agent proposed the idea of the actor putting his showboater's wiles to work on a tricky, potentially unsympathetic role. The backslapping farmer and seller of genetically modified seed is hiding an awful lot behind an all-American, can-do facade.
Bahrani: “He's played sleazy characters, but mainly we remember Dennis from ‘The Right Stuff' and ‘The Rookie.' I'd always liked him as an actor. And I thought he'd been underutilized.”
Bahrani and Quaid spent three days together at Quaid's place in Austin, Texas, “talking history, politics and cinema,” the writer-director says. Then Quaid said yes, he'd like to do the film. He joined the DeKalb, Ill., set of “At Any Price” straight from a night shoot on Quaid's “Vegas” TV series (currently awaiting word of either renewal or cancellation).
Bahrani says things got off to a wary start. “He wasn't in a good mood; he didn't really want to rehearse. I got very nervous.” The director called his pal Werner Herzog and asked him a few questions about making movies with movie stars. Herzog, according to Bahrani, told him: “Ramin, don't waste his time. He's a 30-year professional. He'll deliver when you turn the camera on.”
When he was co-star Efron's age, Quaid was signed to do a movie with Lee Majors, a father/son tale about construction workers. Then the young actor met with “Breaking Away” director Peter Yates, who persuaded him to drop that project and join Yates' cast.
“That was my first big break,” Quaid says. “That's where I went from going from job to job to getting offers.” Yates, he says, taught him how to act for the camera. Even today, Quaid acknowledges, “I need to be scaled back sometimes, to do it smaller. Sometimes when I think I'm doing nothing, that's the one, that's the take they use. It's about being still, just being in the frame.”
Quaid followed his brother, Randy, out to Hollywood in the early '70s. Randy got lucky early on with a choice role in “The Last Detail.”
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