Actor digs deep to direct

Tommy Lee Jones has had some of Hollywood's best directors teach him about what goes on behind the lens.

Tommy Lee Jones would prefer to do just about anything than discuss his work with a group of journalists.

Asked why the Oscar-winning actor chose to make his feature directing debut on the border drama The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Jones' answer is quick, sarcastic and probably a little bit true.

"Essentially it was lust for creative control."

He pauses, as if wondering how clarification could possibly be necessary.

"I don't direct movies for a living," Jones continues, eventually. "I don't have to. So I can be very demanding and it takes a long time to get the demands I make met.

"I want to be a director and I don't want to take direction from anybody. I want to control the script and the casting.

"I want to be in charge of what lens we use and where we put it. And then I want to be in charge of the editing and I want to do the sound mix, too."

If Jones truly brought autocracy to the set, the results are fairly impressive. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, Three Burials earned comparisons to the best of Sam Peckinpah.

The screenplay, about a Texas ranch hand (Jones) and a troubled border guard (Barry Pepper) journeying into Mexico accompanied by a corpse, won a prize at Cannes for writer Guillermo Arriaga (21 Grams). Jones was celebrated with a best-actor win.

"I'm smarter than most of the directors I work for," he cracks, explaining his affinity for working with himself. "Also, I can read my own mind. So it's a little bit easier."

He's kidding. Somewhat. In his 35-plus years of working as an actor in movies and television, Jones has won an Oscar, an Emmy and a Golden Globe. He's also worked with the best directors in Hollywood, from Oliver Stone to Ron Howard to Clint Eastwood to Robert Altman.

"That's been a significant part of my education as a director, is having worked with 50 others," he explains. "Whatever they did right, you try to do right. Whatever they did wrong, you try to avoid. That's pretty good."

He continues, picking up steam, "You make a study of [camera] lenses and art and architecture and the history of film and bear in mind your experience in acting companies, in theatres and around movie sets, pay careful attention to the rehearsal process and the process of shooting, how to manage it logistically and structurally in an efficient way. Those are things you can learn in part from other directors and in part you need to learn on your own."

After tackling an international shoot and a moderate budget on Burials, Jones is back to acting on his next film, Altman's A Prairie Home Companion, but he sounds as if he enjoyed directing enough to do it again.

"I'd like to go to work tomorrow if I could find a job I liked," he says.

Are there any genres he'd like to work on next?

"I'd like to explore a movie that actually defies the term 'genre' and even obviates the necessity to use it," he says.

LOWDOWN

* Who: Tommy Lee Jones, actor turned director

* Born: September 15 1946, San Saba, Texas

* Key roles: Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), Savage Islands (1983, made in NZ), Lonesome Dove (1989, TV mini-series), Wings of the Apache (1990), JFK (1991), Under Siege (1992), Heaven & Earth (1993), The Fugitive (1993), Blown Away (1994) The Client (1994), Natural Born Killers (1994), Blue Sky (1994), Cobb (1994), Batman Forever (1995), Volcano (1997), Men in Black x II (1997), US Marshals (1998), Double Jeopardy (1999), Rules of Engagement (2000), Space Cowboys (2000)

* Latest: His directorial debut, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, opens at cinemas, Thursday, September 7.

- NZPA