The question had to be asked: what the hell is a dernsie? Veteran actor Bruce Dern dropped the word during a Cannes press conference for Alexander Payne\u2019s Nebraska, proclaiming it the first movie he has ever shot without \u201cdernsies.\u201d Later, holding court at the Carlton\u2014just before Steven Spielberg\u2019s Cannes jury would name him best actor\u2014Dern is pressed to elaborate. \u201cDernsies,\u201d he explains, \u201care little things that you do, unpredictable behaviour or dialogue that\u2019s not on the page.\u201d Since forging his career in \u201970s films like Coming Home and The Driver, Dern has been known for playing suspicious outliers who are uncomfortable on any page. But as he unlocks a trunk of memories, and names like Hitchcock and Kazan and Nicholson come tumbling out, those wild eyes that critic David Thomson once called \u201clime pits of paranoia and resentment\u201d spark with the campfire glint of a practised raconteur.<\/p>\n
Dern, who turned 77 last week, pinpoints his first memorable \u201cdernsie\u201d to his role in The Cowboys, a 1972 western in which he kills an unarmed John Wayne. The Duke had taken off his jacket so the crew could plant squibs for the bullet hits. Unbeknownst to Wayne, says Dern, he and director Mark Rydell planted a squib in the back of the jacket\u2014\u201cbecause no one would ever think anyone would shoot John Wayne in the back.\u201d As the camera rolled, recalls Dern, \u201cI said, \u2018Turn around you son of a bitch, I want you to see this coming.\u2019 He doesn\u2019t turn around . . . pow! He was shocked. But he went right with it. He dropped to his knees. I walk over and shoot him two more times. That was the first dernsie ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Dern says his pal Jack Nicholson coined the word while directing him as a basketball coach in Drive, He Said. Nicholson asked him to embellish a simple shot of him walking down a corridor with something spontaneous. Dern snapped his fingers at a couple of passing cheerleaders. Dern slips into a dead-on impression of the Jack drawl: \u201cFrom now on, when I say \u2018dernsie,\u2019 give me a dernsie.\u201d Dern laughs. \u201cWe\u2019d done nothing but dernsies in the Roger Corman movies,\u201d he says, recalling his early days with Nicholson in the B-movie racket. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t stay alive if you didn\u2019t invent s\u2013t because there was nothing on the page.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dern\u2019s volatile edge is what caught Hitchcock\u2019s eye when he cast him in Family Plot (1976). \u201cWhy me?\u201d the actor asked on the first day of shooting. Mimicking Hitch\u2019s plummy sarcasm, Dern recalls the response: \u201cFirst of all, Bruce, Mr. Packino wanted a million dollars.\u201d Packino? \u201cYou spell his name phonetically: Pacino is Packino. I picked you because you\u2019re entertaining. And unpredictable.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Dern says Nebraska is the first movie where he didn\u2019t change a word of dialogue, or invent a dernsie. Because, he says, Payne\u2019s direction needed no enhancement. \u201cThis guy takes the time to shoot behaviour. You don\u2019t have to speak. He\u2019ll leave the camera on you.\u201d Shot in austere black and white, Nebraska is a droll Midwest family drama, with Dern in the lead as an ornery coot who embarks on a road trip with his son to collect a million-dollar \u201cprize\u201d from a magazine subscription scam. The movie, which opens in November, could see Dern crown a 50-year career with a Best Actor nomination\u2014remarkable for a character actor with just one Oscar nomination, for a supporting role in Coming Home. For some, his claim to fame is being Laura Dern\u2019s dad.<\/p>\n
Payne (who directed Laura in Citizen Ruth before making About Schmidt, Sideways and The Descendants) now ranks in Dern\u2019s pantheon of six \u201cgenius\u201d directors\u2014with Hitchcock, Elia Kazan, Douglas Trumbull, Francis Ford Coppola and Quentin Tarantino. \u201cNo one will ever equal Kazan,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t care about his politics. He had game. When I started acting, there were three goals: go to New York, become a member of the Actor\u2019s Studio and work for Kazan. Now when they come to Hollywood, they want to have a star on the Boulevard and go to the party. Nobody continues studying.\u201d After Nebraska\u2019s Cannes premiere, Dern recalls, Richard Dreyfuss came up and hugged him. \u201cHe had tears in his eyes. He said, \u2018Thank you for taking me back to school.\u2019 \u201d And not one dernsie on the curriculum.