DIE HARD.

It would be really tough for me to land a good part these days. No one needs a tough guy with no muscles these days. Verbal agility has been displaced by the talent to use a weapon, or a fist, convincingly. To get work I’d really have to hit the gym, or land a role in a slapstick comedy like Robert De Niro did. Clint Eastwood is the one tough guy hold-out, but underneath it all he must have feelings -- after all, he directs his own films. Another alternative would be to play a superhero in some comic book adapted for the big screen, but I can’t see myself acting in a full-body lycra suit.

To wit: these days, I would probably not have even been cast in Casablanca. The studio would have picked others. Rick would be played by Vin Diesel and Sam would be played by Wesley Snipes. They’d form an improbable duo of antagonistic personalities. I can just see it: the party is rocking in Rick’s Café. Sam (Wesley) is spinning. “As Time Goes By”, dance remix version. As, as, as, time, time, time goooooooes by, woo-hoo! Rick (Vin) enters looking pissed off and walks toward Sam. Then, he glances over and locks eyes with Ilsa, played by some undiscovered cutie. Have you noticed how action films never feature famous actresses? Rick says to Ilsa:

What are you doing here in my café, in Casablanca? You abandoned me in Paris, for no apparent reason. We were in love! I came to Casablanca to try to forget you. I became a hardened man so I wouldn’t have to show my feelings. And you go on and show up here again?

In today’s films, everything needs to be fully explained by the characters. To offset such a moment of verbal dramaturgy, a bomb then explodes in the café. The Nazis burst forth from the smoke clouds, the Nazis surge forth, spraying machine gun fire. Customers hit the floor. Rick shields Ilsa and yells over at Sam.

Rick:

Play that shit again, Sam.

From behind the turntables, Sam pulls out an enormous weapon and says

“Of all the gin joints of all the towns in all the world, they walk into ours. Now they’ll pay!”

While they battle the Germans, Rick and Ilsa discuss their relationship as if they weren’t fighting for their lives, paying little attention to the bullets they’re taking. It’s the film’s most comedic moment.

I’d be left with roles of insecure, sensitive men, who send flowers and show weakness. A guy that women’s magazines so exalt that they become successes in festivals like Sundance. You know what I’m talking about. The kind of guys that even let women choose a restaurant. Collaborators in the self-destruction of the male identity. If the only option were to play these kinds of characters, I prefer to stay the way I am now. Dead.