Jim Belushi Talks ‘Katie Says Goodbye,’ ‘About Last Night,’ And Getting Fired By Brian DePalma

Given his distinctive last name and the success of his older brother, John, it was only be expected that it would take Jim Belushi a little bit of time to find his own identity as an actor, but to look back at his wide and varied filmography, it’s arguable that he’s been too busy playing different roles to actually find his own identity. If you think of Belushi simply as a comic actor, then you haven’t been paying nearly enough attention; he’s spent the last 40 years carving out a niche for himself that allows for comedy, drama, action, and even the occasional musical.

With the arrival of his new film Katie Says Goodbye on VOD, Belushi took some time to chat with Decider about his role and how he was able to successfully turn a truck driver sleeping with a teenage prostitute into a likable character. Thankfully, he also took some time to reminisce about a few other TV shows and movies from his back catalog, including his stints on a couple of late ’70s sitcoms, working with John Ritter and Dana Delaney, being directed by Oliver Stone, Michael Mann, and – to a decidedly lesser extent – Brian DePalma, and the importance of About Last Night.

DECIDER: Your character in Katie Says Goodbye should come across as skeevy, but you managed to imbue him with an unexpected degree of likability.

JIM BELUSHI: Well, I played him with love. He loved the girl, he cared for her. She just represented so many things for him, and she needed love. It was a nice relationship. It’s a unique, odd world out there in the desert. But he wasn’t evil, and he wasn’t harmful.

How did you find your way into this film in the first place? Did [writer/director] Wayne Roberts come to you personally?

Yeah, I think it was a package at ICM, and I think my agent mentioned me to him. I think he might’ve seen some footage of me. I don’t know. But I got a FaceTime call with him, and we talked for a long time. He loved the way I looked at the character, and I guess it kind of coincided with how he was looking at it, and…that was it! But Wayne and I hit it off right away.

Well, you’ve got a solid history in ensemble films like this, where your character isn’t necessarily a big role, but they’re formidable in terms of their overall importance. 

Yeah, you know, I read a lot of scripts, and I just turn down a lot of ’em, but when you find one that’s unique and you connect to it, that’s the joy and the magic of acting. I’m a magic chaser. I want to chase the magic, so it doesn’t matter the size of the role, it just matters what the character is and what the relationship is. And I fell in love with that relationship in Katie Says Goodbye. And I fell in love with Wayne! He’s just a massive talent.

I like to ask actors about the earliest projects in their careers, but with your filmography, I can’t quite tell which came first: The Fury or Who’s Watching the Kids?

The Fury?! [Explodes into laughter.] I can’t believe you pulled that out of your ass!

I do enjoy my research. 

Well, The Fury… Basically, I was a pushy extra, and I got fired.

Oh, really? That I did not know. 

Yeah, I was so young and naive. [Laughs.] We thought we were gonna be movie stars! The whole time we were there, we were, like, “Look, there’s a camera there!” And we’d walk in front of it. We were so bad! The assistant director told me, “I was at the dailies, and we looking at them, and there you were over and over and over again. Brian said, ‘Who’s that guy?! Get rid of him!” But ironically, he then came with Amy Irving to Second City and saw an improv show, and John Cassavetes came, too, and it was all okay…or at least it wasn’t too bad! But anyway, my first real film was Thief.

Which is not a bad way to officially start your film career. 

No, Michael Mann was the coolest! By the way, as far as getting fired from The Fury, when I did the Letterman show, they got the film, and we counted how many times you could see me on camera. It was, like, four times within a minute clip! [Laughs.]

And the gag that we didn’t end up doing was that we were going to call Brian DePalma on the show, and I was going to apologize to him! Oh, boy, the pure nerve and bravado of the young actor…

Well, as long as we’re in this era, I have to at least take a moment to touch on the series I mentioned a minute ago: Who’s Watching The Kids, if only to have an excuse to show the opening credits. 

Oh, my God… Well, that was the first time I was ever in Hollywood! Garry Marshall saw me at Second City, and when they were casting that show… When was that? ’78? ’79?

’78.

’78, okay. Well, they were auditioning people, and they couldn’t find the right guy for that role, and Garry goes… [Delivers a solid Garry Marshall impression.] “How ’bout Belushi?” And they went, “Well, he’d probably be very good, but he, uh, just finished Animal House, so I think it might be a little tough to get him for a sitcom.” “No, no, there’s another Belushi!” So they flew me out – it was the first time I flew first class – and a teamster picked me up in a station wagon and took me to Paramount. You know that Bob Seger song, “Hollywood Nights”? I was a kid from the Midwest. That was me! “The Hollywood hills / The Hollywood nights,” that whole thing. Anyway, I walk in, I audition, and two hours later I’m at the Sunset Marquee with $4,000 in my pocket, and I started shooting that series. It was wild.

I was about to say that that’s not a bad gig to get early in your career, but it’s really not a bad gig at any point in your career.

No, it was great! It was fun!

Those opening credits kill me, though.

Oh, yeah. They’re just as goofy as they can be.

They are the ’70s sitcom in its purest essence. 

Right? [Laughs.] And then I turned around and did another one: Working Stiffs, with Michael Keaton. Penny Marshall, that was the first pilot she directed, and she sold it, man. She made that pilot work.

You and Keaton had good chemistry on that show. 

Oh, yeah, we had a nice thing together.

Speaking of comedic pairings, I’ve always thought that Real Men was an underrated film. A weird film, but an underrated one. 

I loved John Ritter.

I think everyone loved John Ritter.

Oh, but there’s two men in my life who I’ve just loved to the deepest core of my heart and my body, and that’s John Ritter and John Candy. Those two were just… [Sighs.] It was just a joy to be with them. I called them “The Joy Boys,” because just to be in their circle of energy in a scene… You just get swept away. It was very hard to concentrate with them, because they were just so fucking funny. I was just a little minion next to those guys, trying to hold my own. Oh, they were so funny…

If memory serves, that movie didn’t get a huge release. In fact, I think it was out on video before I even knew it existed.

Yeah, it was a weird release. It was a Paramount release, too, and if it was a Paramount movie, it was a big deal. But the problem was that the director was not so great. He was also the guy who wrote it, but he was a first-time director. He’d just written The Golden Child, so Paramount was hot to get his next script. But he said, “I’ve got it right here, but I’ve got to direct it.” And they went… [Loud exhale.] “Okay.” And then when we met with the director, me and Ritter, on our first break Ritter was going… [Loud exhale.] “It’s you and me, Jimmy. There’s a lot of words. We’re skating on thin ice. So skate fast!” So if you ever watch that movie again, you’ll see how fast we talk! We were whipping through that movie, because the guy wouldn’t cut any of the dialogue, and it was so long.

I remember it was pretty dialogue-heavy.

Yeah, well, he loved his words, because he was a writer, so he wouldn’t cut ’em. So John and I were, like, “Oh, my God!” But there were some funny gags there. “Bob, sometimes they’re just thirsty. Give ’em a drink of water.” [Laughs.]

Of course, when you talk about first-time directors, Michael Mann had never directed a movie before Thief.

Yeah, but he’d done a TV movie called The Jericho Mile, which was quite good. But, yeah, Thief was his first feature. I remember I was complaining one time – I think it was at a roast of some kind, because I was sitting next to Harvey Keitel – but I was complaining about first-time directors, because I’d had a series of first-time directors where their movies didn’t work. And he said, “Oh, I always gamble on first-time directors.” I went, “Oh, geez, that takes a lot of nerve…” But then I thought, “First time director Martin Scorsese, first time director Quentin Tarantino, first time director Jane Campion… Well, okay, Harvey!” [Laughs.]

When I interviewed James Caan, he said, “I found Michael Mann,” and told this story about Michael literally waiting outside Caan’s trailer when he was doing Chapter Two, script in hand.

Well… [Hesitates.] I don’t know, I believe about half of what James says. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I loved the guy, and he was wonderful to work with. I thought he deserved an Academy Award nomination for Thief. And I thought Robert Prosky deserved a nomination, too. That’s the best bad guy I’ve ever seen in a movie. The only other one that came close was Gene Hackman in Unforgiven. Prosky was just brilliant as a bad guy. He’s one of those actors who worked at the Arena Stage there in DC. He was a rep guy for years and years, and I think… Maybe he taught acting, too? I can’t remember for sure. But, boy, he was good.

How was the experience of doing Wild Palms? 

That was trippy. It was a trippy experience, because as you play that character, you kind of take on that character’s attributes, and that character was just lost and being manipulated and was…trippy. [Laughs.] So it was a trippy experience! But Dana Delaney… There are three actors I’ve worked with in my career – Dana Delaney, Michael Keaton, and Robert Loggia, who played by my father in Wild Palms – who, when they said, “Cut,” I felt like I’d been woken up in the middle of the night by having a pitcher of water thrown on me. Because looking in their eyes during those scenes, they were so highly focused that they would just pull you into this world, and you were that character and you were in that relationship. So when they said, “Cut,” it was so jarring! And Dana, acting with her and looking into her eyes, that’s one of the most beautiful experiences an actor can have.

Having met her in person, I can believe that 100% percent. She’s disconcertingly beautiful.

Right?! [Laughs.] I mean, she’s just… [Sighs.] Beautiful. And when I say that, she’s a beautiful woman, of course, but she’s also a beautiful artist, so to be able to be in touch with that, too… It’s gorgeous.

You’ve done some theater work over the years, but I didn’t realize until recently that you’d done a stint in The Pirates of Penzance. 

Oh, yeah! I did that for a year! That was another one of the great experiences of my career. I mean, singing and dancing across the United States with a sword and a bunch of pirates… I mean, come on! [Laughs.]

And am I right that you did that with Peter Noone?

Peter Noone, yeah! [Singing.] “I’m ‘Enry the Eighth, I am!” He was quite nice. We traveled together and had a nice chemistry onstage.

Did you find the stage intimidating?

No, I mean, I was raised on the stage. You know, I did the Goodman Theater, I did Sexual Perversity in Chicago, I did Second City, and something like 40 plays in high school and college. I think my wheel house is on stage. I love the relationship with the live audience. And I still do. I do the Blues Brothers with Danny [Aykroyd], I have my own band, the Sacred Hearts, and I’m on the road with an improv group with Larry Joe Campbell, who was at Second City but who was also on According to Jim. We travel the country performing and improvising. That relationship with the live audience is what keeps me alive.

You mentioned Sexual Perversity in Chicago, which of course became About Last Night. When I interviewed Rob Lowe, he said that for all of the ’80s movies he may have been in, that one still stands up, and he’s as proud of it today as he was when he made it.

Absolutely. That movie holds up line for line today. Relationships, commitment, the saboteur of the friends who are jealous of people leaving them… And I think Rob was so good in that movie. They gave him such a hard time back then because he was so damned good looking, but they were just jealous. They couldn’t see past his looks and see what a good actor he was. He is a terrific actor! He was good, man. He was really good. And we had a really good rhythm together. You know, that [David] Mamet rhythm is very specific.

Yeah, I didn’t realize until years later that Mamet had written it. 

Well, the original play was 60 minutes, and the movie was an hour 50. So you’ve gotta know what Denise DeClue and Tim Kazurinsky did to make that movie work. And I think David’s still mad about that movie.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I think it’s because he sold the rights in, like, ’75 or something for $10 grand.

Well, that’d do it. 

Yeah, it’s like Bo Diddley selling his song in the ’60s for $10 grand. That Bo Diddley riff has been going on forever! But what’s funny is that I actually did a scene that wasn’t in the movie when I auditioned for About Last Night… Because I did have to audition for it, believe it or not, even though me and Jason [Brett] and Stu [Oken] were responsible for getting that movie written. Because I was at Paramount with a TV show and wanted to be in movies, Don Simpson flew out to see the play and said, “Boy, you should do a script of this!” So I told my guys, and we’re all so naive, so we hired Tim and Denise, and they wrote the film, and I brought it to Don, who loved it. And then he offered it to my brother John and Dan Aykroyd!

John called me and said, “Uh, yeah, Simpson just sent us the script, the one you’re doing, the play. You know, Sexual Perversity.” I said, “Don’t do it!” “Aw, Jimmy, c’mon, you don’t understand Hollywood. They’re heat-seeking missiles, and Danny and I are hot right now. There’s no way you’ll ever be able to do it.” “Don’t do it.” “Jimmy, come on. What are you talking about?” “I’m saying that’s my character! I developed that thing on stage, John! I can’t hold a cheeseburger, I can’t hold a samurai sword, I can’t do Marlon Brando, I can’t do anybody! You’ve eaten up my wheelhouse! That’s the only goddamned character I’ve created that doesn’t have anything to do with you!” And he goes, “Jimmy, you’ll never do it. You know what? If Danny and I pass, they’re gonna offer it to Bill Murray. Now, wouldn’t you rather want someone in your family to do it?” [Laughs.] I said, “You son of a bitch, no!” And he got mad at me and hung up! But then the next thing I know, he passed, and… I have a feeling that John might’ve said something to Bill Murray. I don’t know it’s a fact, but Billy passed, and I think John said, “Leave it alone, let Jimmy have it.”

And then the film went into turnaround, and both Jason and Stuart – especially Jason – just didn’t give up. They got it to Tri-Star. And Ed Zwick turned out to be a terrific director. But I had to audition! So I went in to audition, and I auditioned with that opening scene. I took Rob in the other room, and we worked it for about 15 or 20 minutes, and I got him right into the rhythm. He picked it right up. And I went in and read it with Rob, and Ed Zwick said, “Not only are you in the movie, but we’re gonna find a place for this scene!” And they put the scene in the movie in the opening credits.

Somehow I’ve never heard any part of that story before. That’s great!

Yeah, it’s cool how it happened. It took six years after John passed… Well, not after he passed, but after he passed on the movie! But it changed my career. It made me a movie star! So that was a good year. I did Salvador that year, too.

Actually, before we wrap up, I meant to ask when I brought up Wild Palms: how was it to work with Oliver Stone?

Well, it was pre-Platoon, so Oliver was still just a guy trying to get a movie done. And James Woods and I would tease him all day. He had directed a movie called The Hand, so Oliver could give us direction and stuff, and I’d go, “Well, gee, Oliver, I don’t know. I think there’s something missing in this scene. I think if I could just bring my hand up over my face and turn it to the camera…” “STOP IT!” [Laughs.]

But he’s a guy that… [Hesitates.] You know, I think we had $1.6 million to make that movie. We had no trailers, no makeup. I mean, it was as guerrilla as you can get. But it was very important to him that there were horses in that battle scene, because… I mean, those were their tanks, you know? And the producer kept saying, “We can’t afford it,  can’t afford it, can’t afford it…” And Oliver sacrificed his $25,000 salary to get those horses. So here’s a guy who’s just about the story. That was just such a momentous moment for me. I just went, “Wow… This guy is all in.” It’s like that Wilson Pickett song: 99 ½  just won’t do!

Katie Says Goodbye, starring Olivia Cooke, Mireille Enos, Christopher Abbott, Mary Steenburgen and Jim Belushi, is now available to rent or buy on VOD.

Will Harris (@NonStopPop) has a longstanding history of doing long-form interviews with random pop culture figures for the A.V. Club, Vulture, and a variety of other outlets, including Variety. He’s currently working on a book with David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. (And don’t call him Shirley.)

Where to stream Katie Says Goodbye