Vince Vaughn: Detour

Invincible Vaughn
Detour Magazine, May 1998
By Stephen Saban
Photographed by David LaChapelle

Vince Vaughn downed cocktails in Swingers and dodged dinosaurs in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Now, after a respite from the spotlight, he's back on the scene in a trio of new films.

Vince Vaughn is somewhat obsessed with the sunbathers around the hotel pool this afternoon. "What do they do with their lives?" he wonders. "What brings them here?"

"Vacation?"

"Is that what it is? But this is not a resort. You don't come to Los Angeles to lay In the sun. Maybe that's part of it, but I don't buy it."

"Then what do you buy?"

"I don't know, brother. That's what I'm trying to put together."

We're at a table by the pool at The Argyle, the gray, gracefully art-deco hotel on Sunset Boulevard that one does not usually associate with celebrity encounters. One expects that sort of thing to occur at the nearby Mondrian or Chateau Marmont. But Vince's publicist had suggested The Argyle for its solitude and neither Vince nor I were motivated enough to come up with a better idea. The pool here is alarmingly small for a hotel (three-and-a-half feet at the deep end), but the view of Los Angeles is huge and we haven't brought our trunks anyway. A very large umbrella shields us from the sun, but gusts of hot wind relentlessly toss our cigarotte butts around the ashtray, scattering ashes across the white tablecloth. And at the rate we smoke, you can just imagine.

Less than a year ago, before Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were the Beatles and Leonardo DiCaprio was the king of the world, woo-woo, Vince Vaughn was the only Cover Boy. He achieved Emerging Star status with the one-two punch of Swingers, the $250,000 indie in which he played a lovable lounge lizard, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, the higher-priced spread in which he played a lizard's light lunch. In Swingers, his character, Trent, was based on his personality; in The Lost World, a Hasbro action figure was based on his character. In Swingers, Vince generated two phrases that entered the hip lexicon of the bar scene, "beautiful babies" and "you're money"; in The Lost World, Vince generated money. re wasn't a magazine or talk show that didn't clamor to feature him.

THINGS HAVE SINCE COOLED DOWN A bit. "I only want to be public when I have work coming out," he says, unconcerned with the lull. "I think there's a danger in letting the hype get ahead of the work." Now there's work. Make that works—three films about to be time-released dur-ing the summer and early fall. The first is Clay Pigeons, a comic noir with Janeane Garofalo, Joaquin Phoenix, and Georgina Cates, which Vince says is a "kick-ass film. I play a truck driver who's country. It's a signature character like Trent. There'll be things that people will proba-bly say from that." And there's A Cool, Dry Place, a drama with Monica Potter and Joey Lauren Adams, and the tentatively titled Force Majeure, in which Vince is detained in Malaysia on drug charges with Anne Heche, Joaquin Phoenix, and Jada Pinkett.

The actor had shown up 15 minutes late for our meeting, no problem, wearing olive-drab gabardine suit pants with perceptible grease stains down their front, a black-and-white micro-patterned shirt worn open over a black T-shirt, and black work boots he bought in Illinois that the store will replace free when they're worn out. He is striking nonetheless. At a lanky six-foot-five, he is all over his chair, which he has turned sideways so that his legs encroach into my space. Whatever the extent of his childhood hyperactiv-ity, its current manifestation is standard-issue restlessness: eyes darting, body shifting, hands waving. Despite the constant movement, he is fully present. And accounted for.

I tell him that I think he looks different in every photograph he takes, though mostly he resembles the young Brando, which right now, in person, he doesn't. "I like Brando a lot," he says. "He's from Libertyville, Illinois, the town right next to mine. I've been told I look like everybody. I look different every day. I'm one of those people. I've been told I look like the young Orson Welles. Kate Capshaw said I look like Sal Mineo. I've been compared to Tom Hanks. People have said Elvis." I tell him that most of those people got really fat, so he'd better watch it.

They say people with high foreheads are bright (thus the term "highbrow"), and this must be the case with Vince. ("My forehead's so big I call it a fivehead," he's been known to joke.) He talks rapidly and comprehensively. Every answer is a full disclosure—even when there has been no question. "I got some hives," he tells me out of nowhere. "This is actually sorta funny. Or maybe not. But truth. So maybe painful, too. Maybe all of it. Maybe like the kinda films I wanna make. What a great segue." It turns out to be a story about his recent acupuncture, and is neither funny nor painful, but it's time well spent just the same. He'll find a window of opportunity in the conversation to slip into a character, any charac-ter, usually a smarmy stereotype fueled with sar-casm. When I tell him that I'm blase about most things, but get a thrill in the presence of certain stars, he lights up. "Look, I appreciate it," he says
with unctuous sincerity. "That's so sweet of you to say but, honestly, I'm just a regular guy. Don't put me up there on that pedestal." Though he intends it to be facetious, it is, in fact, truth in jest. He actually is a regular guy, the kind you do take home to mother, that you'd want to come to your party, teach your little brother to drive, take your sister to the prom.... Well, maybe not your sister.

"Look, she's got her own thing," Vince says, pointing again to the bleached-blond Judi Dench type lying face-up on a chaise lounge. "With her hair color I think she's from L.A. And that's not judging, that's just being a detective. I think if I went up and tried to make conversation with her—and I'm pretty good at that kind of thing— she would not be into that."

"Who would?"

"None of them," he says, waving his Arsenio-length, nicotine-stained fingers ("I haven't washed my hands in a couple of days") at the trio of supine sun-worshippers. "They've got their vibes goin' on. And if they were into it, you wouldn't be, because they'd be desperate. It would mean they're not alone by choice. But what does she do?

"Go ask her."

"No. Then I'd be that guy.

And who would that guy be exactly?

WHEN VINCENT ANTHONY VAUGHN WAS born on March 28, 1970, to Vernon and Sharon Vaughn, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was their much-wanted third child. There were already Victoria and Valerie. Not to mention Viking, Vero, and Vladimir, the dogs. ("My mom liked the V," says Vince, shrugging. "That's the thing.") If it all seems sort of Mayberry, it was.

"My dad instilled a confidence that things are possible, and to be fair with people," Vince says when I ask what advice was the best his father ever gave him. "My dad's from a farm in Brewster, Ohio, where—and I didn't have to go through this—they'd bathe once a week. They'd go out to the creek to get the water, they'd boil it, his dad would take a bath first, then his older brother, then him. In the same water. His dad would work his ass off on the farm and then work the railroad so he could support the farm. My dad put himself through college. He'd come home in the summer and work in a factory. He'd work the night shift in an insane asylum, in the violent ward, putting them all to bed. So he had a work ethic." Vernon was the first-generation Vaughn to move off the farm.

Vince stayed only two weeks in Minneapolis. At the time, his dad was on the move, selling meats for Swift & Company. "I was raised in the suburbs," Vince says. "First in the Buffalo Grove suburb of Chicago, then we moved to Lake Forest, lived in an apartment, then a house. My dad was very successful." Vince likens his uprooted farm family to The Beverly Hillbillies. As a child, Vince spent a lot of time with his father watching Westerns, movies like Shane. "And we would laugh and share," he remembers.

But the House of Vaughn was no Norman Rockwell painting come to life. "It wasn't like we had family dinners," he cautions, lest I get misty. "And growing up, we didn't sit around and say nice things to each other. But it was very real. And my parents instilled in us that we were blood, no matter what, and we were always there for each other." Seven years ago his parents divorced. But Vince is still there for them.

"Did you always want to be an actor?"

"I liked acting. There was a local community theater"—he pronounces it thee-ay-ter—"a workshop for kids to put on musicals. But there was always a shortage of guys, so the guy playing Daddy Warbucks would be eight and Annie would be 13. So I got a lotta leads! I had no voice. I Yul Brynnered my way through every-thing—talked with conviction.

Around 12 or 13, he traded acting for sports, but at 17 he got into a car accident and hurt his back, spent two weeks in the hospital, and the doctors didn't know if he'd regain his mobility or be able to play sports again. So he went out for the high-school play, A Chorus Line, and landed a part. "And I loved it. Then I did another play in high school. Then I wanted to get an agent.

Vince Vaughn's Teenage Years

What would you most likely be arrested for? I've been arrested a few times.
What for?

Oh, stupid kid stuff: stealing street signs, being drunk in public, fist fights....

What was your worst hangover?

I've had a lot of those, but there's one I remem-ber most. One of my best friends, Jason, who's out here being an architect now, moved away during my junior year in high school and start-ed going to school in Texas. He came back to visit me over the summer. We were at that age, maybe 16, when everyone was getting into drinking real heavy. We were talking big about drinking, so I got a bottle of Smirnoff from my parents' cabinet and we played "Quarters." Usually you play with beer; we played with huge shots of Smirnoff. We just about went through the whole bottle in 15 minutes. I'd never been so drunk in my life; it's the closest I've come to passing out. We started joking— and he went down on the ground, unconscious, out cold on his back, throwing up. I had to roll him over onto his stomach. We had planned to go out. I looked at the clock and it was 10:30 or 11. I cleaned up the vomit. I dragged him from the kitchen to the family room and put him on the couch. By the time I got back to the kitchen it was, like, 1 o'clock in the morning. To me, it had seemed like no time at all. I was so ham-mered. The next morning I threw up like crazy. I had to drive him to the airport, but I was so miserable that I drove the car onto the lawn and had to ask my dad to drive. I smelled and tasted Smirnoff for five or six days afterward; you know, when it just sits with you like that?

"A FRIEND OF MINE WAS GOING DOWN FOR AN audition in Chicago," Vince tells me, "and I went with him to see what it was all about. The cast-ing director asked me to read. I read, and I got the part. From there, I had my door to the Chicago agencies. I starred auditioning, getting commercials, which gave me confidence to come out to Los Angeles."

He joined an improv group for three months, then, miraculously, got a part in a national Chevy commercial—The Heartbeat of America—that made him nor only a very big deal in the small Chicago market but also extremely large bucks.

"I figured, hell, I'm ready for Los Angeles. So I came out here, got an agent, and eight years later I did Swingers."

Secrets and Lies

Do you have a girlfriend?

Yes. But I don't ever talk about that.

What's the story with you and Anne Heche?

I love Anne to death. I think she's smart and funny and I enjoy and respect her. As far as I know, she's in love with Ellen. I've been over and had dinner with her and Ellen, and Ellen's been nothing but gracious to me. You know, you become friends with someone in a situation like that and people will say things.

Is Joey Lauren Adams your girlfriend?

I don't talk about who my girlfriend is. Just for everyone's sake. But Joey's a person I worked with on A Cool, Dry Place who I like very much and get along with. There've been lots of people I've worked with that.... Ashley Judd I like very much. Jeff Goldblum I still talk to and see. Janeane Garofalo's a good friend of mine—we've been rumored together. But we're just good friends.

Where could the Globe have gotten the idea that you and Anne Heche were dating?

Oh, you know that. Big, big, high-profile dating situation. It's high-school Hollywood.

Are you monogamous?

Yeah, if I'm committed.

Are you committed?

I don't talk about that. Nor that your intentions aren't genuine, but I've found that people's feel-ings get hurt. I've gotta respect that.

Do you have sex with your co-stars?

You're that guy! You're like Gossip Boy. (Laughs) On-screen.

I'm talking about off-screen.

Oh, now you're qualifying. It was a simple ques-tion I thought I answered.

Do you have romances with your leading ladies?

Do I? No.

Have you?

I take the Fifth.

That's as good as saying yes.

Have I messed around with girls I've worked with? Yes.

Messed around. I think the question was romance.

You're like the jealous boyfriend: "Was there penetration? I'm nor asking if you played the rip just for a second to see how it feels—just the rip, just for a second, to see how it feels! I'm talking straight-up penetration. There's no gray area here, Vince!"
What's the longest you've been with the same person?

I've only had three serious girlfriends in my life, and I'd say the longest was - I'm guessing -a couple of years.

Was the sex different every time?

Yes. Not like it was always differently great. Sometimes it was differently not great. Sometimes more physical, sometimes more spiritual, sometimes both, sometimes neither.

Sometimes cute.

Sometimes. (Laughs) Sometimes I'd cry and strangle them and call them Mom. Different things would come our.

Would you rather be smarter or have a bigger dick?

Smarter. Then I'd get a chance to use it.

SO YOUNG VINCE ARRIVED IN BABYLON FROM the Chicago suburbs and, right away, found a modest one-bedroom apartment. "My parents said, ‘OK, but you gotta take some community-college classes just in case, Vince.' So I signed up for Santa Monica Junior College, went to classes, and got an agent in one day. I had a quiz at the college, but I had an audition for Who's the Boss? I went in to read for the audition instead of going to the quiz—and I never went back."

In the eight years between that time and the tumult of Swingers, he, "like a lot of actors, was just sporadically doing stuff." Stuff like guest-star roles on Doogie Howser, MD., 21 Jump Street, and after-school specials, a couple of lines in For the Boys, and a very small part in 1993's Rudy, during which he met and befriended actor Jon Favreau, who would later write the screenplay for and co-star with Vince in the famous Swingers.

This and That

You must have been a bit awestruck when you first arrived here.

You know why it took me eight years? Coming from the midwest, farming background, I was always told when you go for job interviews to be humble, to be polite and considerate. But that's not conducive to showing yourself It stifles your personality. But I was very much that way. After a while, I realized, just gunsling.

Besides acting, what's your greatest talent?

Maybe that's why I became an actor—I don't have a lot of other talents! Acting never seemed like work; I could spend time on it and enjoy it.

Are you writing a screenplay?

What I really want to do is direct. (Laughs) All this has just been an avenue to that.

Why would someone want to direct?

Control issues. Mommy didn't hug him.

Do you collect your own press clippings?

Not really. Scrapbooks, pictures from my youth I don't collect things.

What about when you have kids? They're bound to want that stuff.

Yeah, you're probably right. But I've never been a planner.

Do your parents save them?

They were never big on it either. My dad's definitely not; my mom does a bit, but not really.

They're not proud of you?

Well, they're proud of me but they don't, you know, go overboard with it.

What do you drive?

A silver-and-black Ford Bronco.

What do you listen to when you're driving?

I really like old-time country and western, probably because it was the first music I ever heard. Of the new people, I like Dwight Yoakam tremendously.

Are you rich?

In friendship. And rich in love. When it comes to love, I'm Rockefeller. I don't know if I'm rich. I've got some bread.

Does someone manage your money?

Do you really want Daddy to tell you that? Will that get you motivated? My father helps me with money. He's bright.

He doesn't save your clippings but he takes care of your money.

(Sings) "Let me tell you a secret about a father's love/A secret that my daddy said was just between us/See, daddies don't just love their chil-dren every now and then/It's love without end, amen.

Is that Dwight?

I don't know who sings that one.

Invincibility

"I just try to stay present, Vince tells me. "Everything I've done until now has taken me to be sitting here talking with you. I think one of the biggest blessings I got was coming from a blue-collar background, from good people, and my dad making money and wanting better for his kids, moving to a more affluent neighbor-hood. I got to see a lot of different perspectives. I think that helped me not to be intimidated by anybody when I came out here. And it taught me the value of people. If you're gonna spend time, it's nice to have it be enjoyable. I'm just having fun, just trying to lay my thing down. I'm nor looking for validation as a person through my acting. For me it's make-believe and a chance to fulfill a childhood dream. I feel blessed."

THE SUNBATHING LADY WITH THE BLEACHED hair stands up to leave. Her back is a virtual mural of tattooing. Vince had her pegged after all: She's definitely from L.A. So what is she doing here? Vince and I call it a day. I tell him to say hello to Anne Heche for me. "I will," he says, then, "Am I bleeding? I feel like I just got hit in the mouth. Am I cut?" He dabs his mouth with a napkin. "Oh, I'm not. That's surprising, ‘cause I felt it."