Playboy's 20Q: Edward Burns

His first film, The Brothers McMullen (1995), portrayed Irish American siblings--and their tangled relationships--on suburban Long Island. It caught the attention of Robert Redford and won the grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, earning Edward Burns a place among the top independent filmmakers. It also did more than $10 million at the box office, at a cost of $18,000.

Burns followed up his McMullen success in the larger-budget film She's the One, with Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz. His third film, No Looking Back, a dark study of working-class life, made it into video stores a bit too quickly for Burns' taste.

Burns is a control freak. He writes, produces, directs and stars in his own movies. He displayed no early inclination toward a career in film, though. Burns first set his sights on writing, but an undistinguished stint as an English major motivated him to enroll in easier film courses.

As the son of a New York City police officer, Burns is a pure New York guy's guy, good company whether sharing a foxhole or a pitcher of beer. His style impressed Steven Spielberg enough to cast him as Private Richard Reiben in Saving Private Ryan. No audition was required. This past spring he appeared as a New York City arson investigator opposite Robert De Niro's police detective in Fifteen Minutes. With his current film, Sidewalks of New York, Burns regains his usual three screen credits: writer, director and star, and returns to a favorite haunt.

Contributing Editor Warren Kalbacker trailed Burns along the sidewalks of lower Manhattan. He reports: "We sat on a park bench and talked for a couple of hours. Burns loves to describe New Yorkers as blasé types who are unfazed by the celebrities in their midst. He may be right. Two women waited until we'd finished taping before they walked over and introduced themselves as his fans."

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[Q] Playboy: You made your bones with romantic comedies, The Brothers McMullen and She's the One. Isn't this genre a cruel hoax on those of us who get dumped or divorced or otherwise head toward a rocky relationship after that passionate kiss on a street corner?

[A] Burns: There are two reasons I started with romantic comedies. Everyone can relate to them. We've all been in relationships, and for most of us they don't turn out well. They can be heartbreaking, but as time passes you tend to laugh about them, or at least laugh at yourself. Also, romantic comedy is the least expensive genre you can do. It's just people sitting around talking. There are no car chases, no explosions and no special effects. If you do a mystery or a crime drama, you're dealing with gunplay. You need to rent weapons. You need stuntpeople. And you need special permits to bring a gun onto the streets of New York. Making a film like The Brothers McMullen--and even one like She's the One, which cost only $3 million--was related to the modest finances.

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[Q] Playboy: The Brothers McMullen has been described as dark and out of focus. Didn't you pay attention in film school?

[A] Burns: It better have been out of focus. It was made for $18,000. We used recanned film stock. It's stock that maybe was bought for a music video and wasn't used but was loaded into a magazine. You then take it out of the magazine, put it back into the can. The stuff can be a couple years old. It's pretty crappy. Lots of times we'd do a day's shooting, and because we couldn't afford to process anything until the end, we had to keep it in the can. When we did have it developed, we would get stuff that was too dark or there would be no image. We couldn't afford to go back and reshoot, so those scenes just got cut. But I pride myself on McMullen, a 16-millimeter film--out of focus, dark, the camera doesn't move much--that was shot in my mom's house. Yet it made $10 million at the box office with actors no one had ever heard of. The only reason I became a filmmaker is because I was writing screenplays and didn't want to surrender control of what I had written to somebody else. The technical aspect was the second or third thing down the list. If you tell an engaging story, people will come.

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[Q] Playboy: You filmed scenes of The Brothers McMullen on New York City's number seven subway line and the Long Island Railroad without permits. Are you on more professional terms with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority these days?

[A] Burns: I'm sure if I tried to do it again, I could. The reason we did it without permits was that they were so expensive and we were such a little crew. We hid the camera under a jacket and snuck on board. We pride ourselves on going in stealth-bomber style, but we're probably too well known now, so we'll have to go for the permits and pay the fee. It could take a big chunk out of our budget--a couple of grand.

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[Q] Playboy: You're the son of a New York City policeman. For years you've promised to film a police story. Will we ever get to see an Ed Burns treatment of the NYPD?

[A] Burns: I have written the script and I'm trying to get it made. It's called On the Job, and it's a story of two generations of an Irish American family set against the police department, from 1966 to 1972. It's about that side of police life you never see in a film, which is growing up in a cop family. There's always that weird vibe, knowing that when your dad goes to work, he may not come back. I remember when I was a kid hearing on the radio about two cops shot in Brooklyn. One was named Ed Burn. We found out he was a different guy, a rookie cop.

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[Q] Playboy: Were you well served and protected by having a father on the force?

[A] Burns: When we were kids, he would drive my brother--he's a year younger--and me into the city. He would dump us in Washington Square Park, tell a cop on duty to keep an eye on his kids. He'd give us two hours in the park by ourselves. He wanted us to get a vibe for what was going on in the real world. It was like, "Hey, the world is not just Long Island. Look at all these different people, all the different things going on." When he worked up in Harlem, he'd take us around and show us. "Hey, you want to be an asshole, do drugs? Look at these guys hanging out on the street. Is that what you want?" He'd take us into a cell, show us tough guys who were locked up. "Want to be a tough guy?" He'd say, "This is one of your options." We got a dose of reality very early on.

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[Q] Playboy: You played a fire department arson investigator opposite police detective Robert De Niro in Fifteen Minutes. Was this a stretch, considering you're a policeman's son and there's a rivalry between the police and fire departments in New York City?

[A] Burns: Yeah. My dad's a retired cop, my uncle's a retired cop. I have two cousins currently on the job and another cousin who's retired. They like to break my balls about it, that I went over to the other side. A lot of the police and fire guys grew up together. It's like rival high schools.

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[Q] Playboy: Just what does Edward Burns see through those Irish eyes?

[A] Burns: I was brought up in a neighborhood that was half Irish and half Italian. You always wore the fact that you were Irish like a badge of honor. I grew up with friends whose moms and dads were off the boat from Ireland. They spoke with brogues. They loved corned beef and cabbage and soda bread and the Clancy Brothers, and they forced their daughters to take Irish jig classes. But we were American kids. We loved the Mets and the Yankees and rock and roll. Then, as you got older, you started to identify with being Irish a little more. Paddy's Day is a huge deal. Rooting for Notre Dame is a really big part of being New York Irish. Who knows what that's about, but it's big. The majority of Irish immigrants came here during the famine. They were the utter dregs of society. They couldn't get work: "Irish need not apply." A hundred years later, JFK is in the White House. There's that pride factor. There's the clannish thing, the cultural thing, and there's the Catholic thing as well. And there's that gift of the gab. That I'm a writer probably comes from the blood pumping through my veins.

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[Q] Playboy: How has Entertainment Tonight managed to stay on the air despite losing your services as a gofer?

[A] Burns: I figured after I left it would fold. Nobody could get coffee like I could. I was the low man on the totem pole, fetching coffee, lugging the lights from shoot to shoot, driving the company van through the city. Every block is a battle against cabs, and it was so much fun. We got into a couple of fender benders. They didn't want to deal with the insurance and we didn't either, so you'd have a minor collision and both look the other way and keep on going. I miss that part of the job.

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[Q] Playboy: You put in several years working odd jobs and living in a run-down New York apartment. Is paying dues vastly overrated?

[A] Burns: I am totally nostalgic about those lean years. You can't help romanticizing walking up four flights to a one-room apartment with no hot water, sitting at your old computer, banging away at that screenplay, keeping your fingers crossed. You've got so much hope and so much anger because nobody is giving you the break you deserve. My girlfriend at the time worked in a bakery, but at the end of the day there weren't chicken sandwiches or lasagna left over. The only things left were tiramisu and brownies. Those are the things she would bring home, and since we had no money, that's what we would eat. I put on a good 15, 20 pounds. I was a very bitter guy.

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[Q] Playboy: Once and for all, explain New York attitude to the rest of the country.

[A] Burns: When you walk down the street in New York, you're going to run into the whole world. Everyone is represented here, and whether you love them or hate them, I don't think anybody would have it any other way. Because of that we have a totally different perspective on things. You go to most cities and there are a lot of white people. New York has always been a big immigrant city. My grandparents came over from Ireland. You pride yourself on the fact that we--and when I say we, I mean everybody, first generation, second or fourth--came over here with nothing, figured it out and now are kicking ass. There's a pride that comes with that. We are New Yorkers. We're tougher than the rest of you.

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[Q] Playboy: Sundance. Is it less pure than it used to be?

[A] Burns: People who concern themselves with that horseshit are focusing on the wrong thing. I know some people knock Sundance as just a showcase for filmmakers who want to break into Hollywood. But Redford and that festival give so many people an opportunity to show their work when all the other festivals turn them away. They can screen that film for all those chic Hollywood assholes everyone despises. But, hey, they're the ones who are going to give you your career and the opportunity to make another film. You need them, so stop bitching about them. I hope guys with no connections will continue to get in there. Audiences ought to be thankful they're getting to see these films. Do we really need any more TV commercial directors directing features? Granted, visually, they're beautiful. Storywise? You know.

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[Q] Playboy: Robert Redford served as a producer on two of your films. Do you stay in touch?

[A] Burns: Once a year we'll touch base, but that's about it. I don't know exactly how much Redford himself had to do with it, but McMullen was rejected by over 25 film festivals and accepted into Sundance. He came to see the film twice at the festival. When I got home to New York, there was a message on my machine from him congratulating us on winning the grand jury prize. He gave me his home number and said if I ever had any problems or questions on anything, I should feel free to give him a call and he'd see if he could guide me down the right path. At that time in my career I needed a mentor, and he filled that role. I'm sure he's now doing the same thing for someone who was at Sundance last year.

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[Q] Playboy: What's a decent interval between a film's theatrical run and its appearance at the video store? Are you aiming for a Burns shelf at the local Blockbuster?

[A] Burns: It's not so much how fast you go to video, it's how long you were in the theaters. We nicknamed No Looking Back "Nobody Saw It." It was in theaters for, I think, six hours. Two showings. (concluded on page 182)Edward Burns(continued from page 138) That hurt. Sometimes they're turning films around quickly--even big movies that are successful. We held on to one screen in New York with McMullen for almost six months. It would be pretty cool to get a shelf one day. I just hope that 25 years from now there will be somebody saying that this guy had a point of view, that he told stories and had he not been here, we would not have heard about or seen these people.

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[Q] Playboy: As a former Hamptons landscaper, do you give Spielberg advice on which plants and shrubs flourish in eastern Long Island's salt air?

[A] Burns: I was a landscaper for three summers, and all I did was mow lawns. Unfortunately, Spielberg never asked me to mow his. I didn't meet him until the day before we were shooting Private Ryan. My agent called and said, "Eddie wants to play Reiben." I had been getting pretty consistent acting offers since McMullen, but I had no interest in being an actor. We'd had such a tough time raising money for No Looking Back, everybody was telling me I should take some acting gigs, because then my star would rise, my name would mean more, especially overseas, and it would be easier to raise money for the next smaller, more personal film I wanted to direct. I told Spielberg I had this dream to make something of the Irish American Godfather set against the police department. He pushed me to write that cop movie script, telling me that's the film I had to make. He's another guy who has been great to me. He gave me a deal at DreamWorks.

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[Q] Playboy: The Hamptons have always been a favorite haunt of the wealthy, and summer residents such as Steven Spielberg and Alec Baldwin--plus those occasional visits from Bill and Hillary--have raised the area's profile even more. Isn't the traffic murder out on eastern Long Island these days?

[A] Burns: I've never complained about that crowd. If you know the back roads and you're not into the chichi crowd, you'll never run into those people. I spent every summer of my life out there. We did two weeks in Montauk every summer, whether it was the State Park or Shepherd's Neck or the Briney Breezes on Old Montauk Highway, a big cop vacation hotel. In college you'd rent a place with four of your buddies. You'd all live in one room and sleep on the floor, get a job busing tables or landscaping. I bused tables for two summers in a restaurant up on Three Mile Harbor Road. There are no beaches as beautiful as those in the Hamptons. It's got great fishing. So go to the beach, go fishing and stop complaining.

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[Q] Playboy: Compare the fishing in Jamaica Bay off Kennedy Airport with the deep blue Atlantic off Montauk, Long Island.

[A] Burns: No difference if you go for flounder. A couple summers ago I started going out of Montauk for stripers and blue-fish. The last weekend in August, we'd go out for midnight blues on big party boats. Now me and my dad and my brother go out with a smaller charter. We get a little sun, take a couple cases of beer, catch a couple of fish, bring them home and throw them on the barbeque. We're not serious anglers. We're serious drinkers. I can clean fish, but I'd rather have the mate do it. I'm a little sloppy.

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[Q] Playboy: What's with Ed Burns and Detroit iron?

[A] Burns: I'm into American muscle cars. I've got a 1968 Cutlass with a 454-cu-bic-inch engine. I garage it in Jersey. In the summer, the roof never goes up. In my neighborhood, when I was in grammar school, all the cool older guys had cool cars, so that's what you wanted. In high school I bought a Skylark convertible with a 350 for $750. But it was a total piece of crap. I love those old cars, but I'm not a gearhead at all. I can change the spark plugs, but I put in a carburetor once and that was a disaster.

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[Q] Playboy: We understand Edd "Kookie" Byrnes made a complaint to the Screen Actors' Guild about your using the name Ed Burns. Did he really feel he'd be mistaken for the writer and director of The Brothers McMullen?

[A] Burns: Yeah. He made the complaint. There's some question of residuals, so even though we spell our names differently, I officially have to be Edward. Which makes my mother very happy. I met Edd last year for the first time. He looks good. He still needs a comb.

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[Q] Playboy: Commitment has been a major theme in your films, yet you've dodged the bullet so far. Are you a beacon of independence?

[A] Burns: There's a great quote from Dawn Powell: "The greatest regret in life is to reach old age and never have found a love great enough to command fidelity." So that is what I strive for.

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[Q] Playboy: Discovering the "hairy ass"--as you've put it--of another guy in the sack with one's wife or girlfriend is sure to be disconcerting. Can you offer advice on how to behave should any of us be so brazenly cuckolded?

[A] Burns: That would be a tough one. Fortunately, I have never in my life come across the hairy ass. Depending upon whether I'd come from a bar or not, you could have two outcomes. One, I leave. The other, he's out the window.