Dead Men Don't Wear Smocks

Steve Martin plays doctor in the quasi-thriller NOVOCAINE

By Pamela Harland     November 19, 2001

Steve Martin has more or less left his wild and crazy comedic roots for a more dramatic and quirky career of late. In his most recent film NOVOCAINE, Martin plays dentist Frank Sangster who is living a successful yet mundane life until a beautiful and sexy woman (Helena Bonham Carter) seduces him into prescribing her drugs. This incident causes his whole life to be turned upside down. And consequently, he finds himself pulled into a world of sex, drugs and murder.

Smug and demure, Martin rarely does interviews. His private life is private. Still, Martin is a character actor with a talent for comedy. He is that rare Hollywood commodity: an actor who can take on a comedic role as easily as a dramatic one. But for Martin, it's never about what kind of role it is; it's always about the story.

"I thought this film was a psychological thriller with a lot of twists and turns, and as an audience member I like to go see those movies, always," says Martin about his decision to do NOVOCAINE. "I always liked THE USUAL SUSPECTS and when I did THE SPANISH PRISONER by David Mamet... I like to watch them as well. So I thought, 'Gee, I would love to be in one too.'"

The actor has never had

a desire to actually be a dentist in real life. Martin says, "A mouth to me should only be explored by a tongue and not by anything else." Despite this, he did play a dentist once before, 15 years earlier in the theatrical version of THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. But Martin says the films are very different.

"Well, the dentist in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS gets killed and in this one I don't," laughs Martin. "But I like the idea of a pretty straight guy who makes an erotic mistake and then starts to cover it up and then starts spiraling downward and then things get worse and worse and worse and worse. But, of course, at the bottom of it that sexual mistake was really intentional to mix his life up a bit."

Preferring to do films that mess with the mind more than the body, Martin says NOVOCAINE is not a bloody, gory film. The actor is intrigued by what tricks the mind can play on itself and the control others have over you if you let them. The ending of the film, he says, is one of those scenes where one's imagination can be scarier and creepier than the reality of what you see.

"The ending scene, it's interesting because it's the kind of scene where most people will have to look away," says Martin, "but it's remarkable in the sense that it is not graphic, it's not bloody. It's completely psychological and all the action happens, really, below frame. But people are really wincing."

The role did require a lot

of physical acting for the 56-year-old who in his earlier film days - THE JERK, PENNIES FROM HEAVEN and ALL OF ME - became a pro at the physical aspect of his craft. Older and wiser, Martin still recognizes non-verbal creativity as an important part of filmmaking. In NOVOCAINE he took his share of falls and flips with stride.

"There's something that when you are shooting it at the time you're thinking, 'Oh, I have to wear a bruise or I have to have a dirt thing or I have to have my hair wet.' It's kind of a pain," says Martin. "But really I love that in the movie where... remember when in CHINATOWN Jack Nicholson has a cut with a band aid on his nose for 90 percent of the movie? That's a choice most actors won't make. 'I don't want to wear a band aid on my nose for 90 minutes.' I kind of liked that. [On set] I was like, 'Oh yeah, I remember my hair was messed up this way and I've got a scratch over here where I fell.'"

Martin, who just finished writing a screenplay for his novel SHOPGIRL, says translating the humor from the script to the screen is all about the physicality of how you play it.

"Being funny on the page is all about the language," says Martin. "It's about periods and commas and surprise words. It's just a completely different experience and being on stage is so much about your body and the pauses. One is mental and one is physical."

Impressed with NOVOCAINE's director David Atkins, who made his directorial feature debut with this film, Martin says Atkins was able to beautifully incorporate into the picture things he had learned in film school and from being on other film sets. Martin was "stunned" at the precision Atkins took in his directing as well as the unpredictability of the script, scribed by Atkins. As a writer of nine screenplays himself, Martin can appreciate good writing.

"When I read the

script what excited me about it was that I didn't know what was going to happen next," says Martin. "And you know if you read a lot of scripts by page 15 you go, 'Oh, they're going to not like each other for a while and then they're going to fall in love at the end.' So you know, it's pretty dull reading the rest of it. But with this movie I didn't know and I don't think the audience knows as they watch it what's going to happen next."

What's happening next in the career of Steve Martin also isn't so clear. In fact, he isn't sure whether he is a writer who acts or an actor who writes. It's a matter of what came first, the chicken or the egg. From day one in the business he has been writing as well as acting.

"You know, I lay awake at night wondering what I really am," laughs Martin. "I'm involved in both. It just varies on what the emphasis is at the moment. I mean, if I am doing a movie certainly that's what I'm thinking about. I am just a mixed-up creature. If I'm doing a movie I will go back and write between set-ups, little things, but I've always written what I've done. I co-wrote THE JERK which was sort of the beginning of my film career."

Thinking of his auspicious debut in THE JERK reminds him of a chance encounter with a fan - who had her own recognition problem with Martin - a few years back.

"A girl came up to me who was like 25 or something and said, 'You were in that movie THE JERK.' And I said, 'Yes.' And she said, 'Are you going to do another movie?'"