Quinn sees red

By Karen Butler

Ask Aidan Quinn what about his latest film, “Stolen Summer,” and the actor will praise the finished product, his co-stars and first-time Irish-American director Pete Jones. However, press him to comment on “Project Greenlight,” the HBO series that “documents” the making of the film, and you just might catch a glimpse of an Irish temper.

“It was not a documentary. . . . It was a mockumentary,” Quinn said recently, noting that the emotion of the series bares a slight resemblance to that seen on the reality TV show “Survivor.” “It did not accurately reflect the experiences of those that were there. It was fabricated.

“You have three bad days out of 25. All 13 episodes [of ‘Project Greenlight’] were about those three days. [Producer] Chris Moore was on the set for two days — two days. That’s it and he has a lead role in the series and those were two of the three bad days.

“So, is there an appetite in America for a compelling, truthful retelling of an experience where a crew and the actors and the director really get along and have a lot of laughs and are up late at night, drinking with each other and sharing ideas about tomorrow’s work and having a wonderful time? I don’t know. I think there is. Obviously, the people editing this did not. There is a lot of fabrication. I thought it didn’t accurately match the good time that we had making it.”

“[‘Project Greenlight’] made Aidan out to be Richard III,” piped in Quinn’s co-star, Kevin Pollak (“The Usual Suspects,” “A Few Good Men”), making clear that he greatly enjoyed working with all of his co-stars, including Quinn, Brian Dennehy and Bonnie Hunt, as well as Jones and Moore, despite how their relationships may have been portrayed on the series.

“[‘Project Greenlight’] is riveting to watch, but it was very manipulative,” Pollak said.

Meanwhile, Jones protested that the series made him seem ungrateful and the movie appear as though it would be a “train wreck.” Quinn, Pollak and Jones admitted, however, that the publicity generated by the series — fabricated or not — will probably mean a lot more people will see their movie.

“[The ‘Project Greenlight’ angle] was the only thing that almost made me not do it because I knew it would make making the film more difficult for Pete [Jones],” the 43-year-old Quinn, a Chicago native, said. “I wasn’t worried about us, the actors, so much as Pete, not having come from film school or anything. Making a film is hard. It’s like going to war slightly — especially a low-budget film, so that was my concern. But it was such a good part and such a good script that I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ ”

Jones was the winner of a scriptwriting contest dreamed up by actors/screenwriters Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and sponsored by Miramax and HBO. After beating out thousands of other entrants, Jones was given nearly $2 million to direct his first film for Miramax. The catch was that the entire filmmaking process was filmed and select footage shown on HBO.

Quinn, Jones and Pollak have all complained that the footage aired was edited to show only the infrequent, tense, dramatic moments they experienced on the set, not the passion and joy they felt in making a terrific movie and the genuine camaraderie they felt in working together to get the job done.

Indeed, Quinn recalled his delight at seeing the final cut of the film.

“Very rarely that when you are reading a script for the first time and visualizing it and loving it, that you then see the film and it matches your visualization and your expectations,” Quinn said. “I was ecstatic when I saw it because I had seen an earlier rough cut that had miles to go before it slept.”

Billed as a “touching tale about life, families and the extraordinary power of a child’s faith,” “Stolen Summer” chronicles the friendship of two third-graders — Pete O’Malley (Adi Stein) and Danny Jacobsen (Mike Weinberg) — on a quest to change the world at the tender age of 8. Quinn plays Joe O’Malley, a fireman and loving patriarch of a 10-member family.

“I was stressed that we did this before Sept. 11,” Quinn said. “I think there’s an awful lot of riding the bandwagon [now.] Firefighters in commercials and everything that I find really crass and onerous, so we did this before Sept. 11. But, in light of that, hanging out with the guys that I got to in Chicago on the West Side and riding the trucks and everything and getting to know that, without a doubt, what everyone knows now, that they didn’t know before Sept. 11, these men are really, truly heroes and they love their job and they love being of service to us when we need them.

“So, I felt very blessed for my time I got to spend with those guys and I hope they have a rousing good time at the premiere in Chicago.”

Quinn said there were many aspects of Joe that he could relate to.

“I come from an Irish-Catholic family,” he said. “We lived in Chicago in the 1970s. I connect with the generations of Irish temper that Joe O’Malley had and as my wife said, after seeing the movie, ‘I’m glad the rest of the world got to see some of the real Aidan, not the sensitive, charming one that’s cast in all those roles.’ It was definitely a part of me that was fun to explore.”

Quinn also recently finished filming “Evelyn,” which he described as “a beautiful, loving period piece” with Pierce Brosnan, Stephen Rea and Julianna Margulies in Ireland and he plans to return to Dublin next month to star as Benedict Arnold in an A&E production.

Asked what it was like to work with his old friend Rea on yet another film, Quinn quipped: “Great! I think this is our fourth film together. I’ve never worked with anyone as much as Stephen. . . . Brendan [Gleeson’s] in just about every Irish film, but he wasn’t in ‘Evelyn.’ But, Stephen, I think, the Irish film board says you can’t make a film without him.”

Being on Hollywood’s A-list certainly is a far cry from where he was less than 20 years ago. Quinn recalled the day he decided to give up his job as a roofer and join the celebrated and close-knit Chicago acting community.

“I was looking out over Lake Michigan from the 27th floor with my feet hanging over the coping with two other roofers at 7:30 in the morning being passed a joint by one guy and a pint of whiskey by the other and I got them both at the same time and this was like the second or third morning in a row and I just looked out at the lake and I said, ‘No! [to the joint and] No! [to the pint.] I’ve gotta do something.’ And I had an epiphany. A voice in my head said: ‘I want to be an actor. I’m going to be an actor.”

Quinn has amassed more than 40 TV and film credits since 1984. He can be seen later this year in the dramas “Evelyn” and “Ocean Warrior.”