Brett played a horse trainer, Jamie Johnson, and starred opposite Julia Roberts, Dennis Quaid, Robert Duvall, Gena Rowlands and Kyra Sedgwick in this 1995 romantic film.

On his character Jamie Johnson…

Jamie’s background was that he had been recently divorced. In his divorce settlement he had to sell all his horses, including his prize winning horse, which is the one Robert Duvall rides in the movie. The deal was that he bought all my horses, but I had to come and train him. That’s what brought my character there. There was actually a scene that got cut in half, where I talk about having met her before. That set up the fact that we had known each other and I was sort of attracted to her. In fact, there was a scene where she walked away and she said, “Did we ever dance?” And I went, “No,” and we smiled at each other. That was in the original script but I don’t think that it ended up in the movie. So, that’s what brought Jamie there. Robert Duvall’s character had bought my stable. But the deal breaker was that he had to bring me along as a trainer for the horse.

Playing a Good Guy…

Jamie was a man who had principles and who was very attracted to and cared about Julia’s character and, as you saw in the movie, he didn’t want to be a one-night stand. But that’s why I think people liked him, because he had principles and had a sense of honor and integrity. He was like, “I want to do this, but I want to do it for the right reasons.”

How he landed the role…

When I read the script, I really loved it and wanted to get in on it, but I couldn’t get an audition. Dennis had called me from where he was shooting some movie and I told him I had tried to get in, but the casting agent didn’t think I was right for the part. And he said, “You mean you wanted to read for Jamie? You’re perfect for that role!” And I said, “I know, but they won’t see me.” And he said, “Whoever does this part needs to be someone that I actually believe would take my wife away from me, and you’re perfect for this.” So he said, “Well, I’m going to call them.” So, he called Callie Khouri and the producer, Paula Weinstein, and my agent called me the next day and told me I had an audition the next day. Well, I was on the “Apollo 13” set, and I went to Ron Howard and told him the deal and he said he could rearrange the schedule to get me out of there by 11:30 to make the 12:00 audition. He said, “If we’re running late, I’ll call the director and tell him it’s my fault that you’re running late.” And I thought that was very kind and gracious of Ron. So I went and read for it and they liked me and they wanted to see me on Saturday and I went to the hotel where the director was staying and he taped me, because I guess Julia wanted to see what I looked like, and I got the okay, and I got the part. And I’ve always been thankful to Mr. Quaid for making that call.

On working with Julia Roberts…

Who wouldn’t love getting paid a lot of money to make out with Julia Roberts? (laughs). I had always had a big crush on her, ever since I saw her in “Mystic Pizza.” I think she’s a beautiful woman, and obviously a really big star. And then when I got to meet her, she was really down to earth. My impression of Julia is that she’s a movie star but underneath all that, she’s just a really fun Georgia girl. She’s from the South and we used to have a lot of fun; dinner and dancing. A whole bunch of us would go out together. It was a great role and basically throughout the whole movie I got to work with Julia and Robert Duvall and a little bit of Kyra Sedgwick. Julia is a doll. I mean, who wouldn’t love the opportunity to make out with her? (laughs).

Getting to work with Dennis…

It wasn’t actually the first film we had done together. We had done a scene together in “Wyatt Earp” that ended up being cut out of the movie. That was the first time Dennis and I had worked together, after all the years we had known each other. That was cool. I was only in Santa Fe for about five days on “Wyatt Earp,” but when I got to do “Something to Talk About,” Dennis and I, and eventually my wife Michelle, who was pregnant at the time, all got to hang out. We were in Beaufort, South Carolina for three and a half months, and then we went to Savannah, Georgia and we had a great time. It was really fun to watch Dennis work. It was like being at home. Being with family. He’s like a brother. So that was great. And, of course, I constantly remind him that everyone I talk to thinks that Julia should have gone with me instead of him. And he doesn’t respond much. He just gives me the evil eye. His reaction to it was, “I read the script, and I get the girl.” And he did. (laughs).

On being cast as the “heartthrob”…

The concept of being a heartthrob doesn’t really enter the picture when you take a part, at least in my mind. I mean, my physical attributes are what they are. I can’t really do anything about them, unless I have surgery or something to better the way I look or to make my nose smaller, or whatever you don’t like about your face or your body. But what I always look at is what the role means and how it fits into the whole movie. So, that doesn’t ever enter my mind. However, what did enter my mind was that I knew I was going to have to do that scene with Julia. It was written that we were going to be taking our shirts off, and I was like, “Oh God, I have love handles!” (laughs). So, I was running five miles a day so I would at least look physically appealing when I had to do that. Then I never had to take my shirt off. We never got that far. And because of the way they had us dressed, I had a t-shirt and a shirt on, so I was wearing two shirts. And we did it once where I ripped my shirt off and Lasse, the director, said, (using Swedish accent) “No, no, it looks like you are trying to rape her.” (laughs). He said, “Just leave your shirt on and we’ll just go from there.” So, I tried to stay in shape and did some abdominal work instead of being a beer guzzler, like I like to be. (laughs).

On playing the romantic lead…

The majority of my career, except for the occasional bad guy I get to play, I’m playing one of the romantic leads. And when doing so, in my mind, it’s more about the internal mechanism that you find for the character. The inner monologue, or the motivations of that particular character, is what I find the challenging thing. If it’s a well-written script, you really don’t concern yourself with “God, I have to look like a heartthrob, or I have to act like a heartthrob.” Basically, you’re playing a man, whether he’s fat, short, tall…who’s in love…or falls in love. It’s about how you play that, so that it’s real.

On being around horses…

As a child, I was given the opportunity to take riding lessons. That was my first introduction to horses. And then I didn’t really ride much as a kid. I grew up in Texas, on the Gulf Coast, and I did a lot of surfing. I didn’t care too much for cowboys. And then when I moved to California in ’79, I got my first series, which was called “The Chisholms.” And I had to ride. So they took me out to this ranch and put me on a horse and said, “Here ya go.” And I started bouncing around on the horse because I didn’t know what I was doing, and this old cowboy came out and walked up to me on his horse and said, “C’Mon, let’s just talk and walk around the arena.” And we started doing that, and then after about three circles around the arena he said, “You look like you know how to ride now!” It was because I had relaxed and was talking to him about stuff and wasn’t thinking about what I had to do. And basically, I guess from that experience, I started really trying to look like I knew how to ride and focused on it, and practiced. Every chance I got I would get on a horse and ride around the set, and it really paid off.

On his horse, Serena…

Then, through the years, I had “The Thorn Birds” where I had to ride, and then “The Young Riders” was really paramount to my education. I was one of the guys that did know how to ride on that, and I had a horse, too, Serena. A friend of mine was going to get rid of this Arab he had, this Polish Arab. He was going to give it away, so I took the horse and we ended up sharing the horse and keeping it up at a friend’s ranch up in Malibu. I used to go ride two or three times a week. Then when I got “The Young Riders,” we ended up giving the horse to Alan Thicke. He has a ranch up in Santa Barbara. And that’s where she is now.

On becoming a team roper…

I started riding all the time in Tucson during “The Young Riders” and got to be really good friends with all the wranglers. They started teaching me how to rope. First, I would rope people’s feet walking around and then finally, they took me out to this arena. I got invited to this Ben Johnson’s Celebrity Roping, and I said I’d go, and I didn’t know what I was doing, so the guys took me out to the arena and had me start roping a burro’s legs. Eventually I got around where I could do that and then I got serious and started roping. And that’s how I got into the team roping. I’m very comfortable around horses. I love horses. I think they are very smart. I just love being outdoors and being around the animal. It also goes back to a time in our country’s history that was really exciting. You rode a horse to live. And when you’re doing a western, you sort of fall into that sense of history.

On how often he rides……

How often do I ride now? Not very often! (laughs). I live in Venice Beach, so there’s not a lot of horses around here. Then with “Legacy,” it was about horses. My children and my horses. That was great. I was one of the actors the wranglers trusted. They let me get on a horse and ride away because they knew I knew what I was doing.

On acting opposite Robert Duvall…

In the career that I have had, I’ve had the opportunity to work with some really fine actors, Duvall obviously being one of them. He’s challenging. Initially he challenged me when we first started working together, and I held my own with him and from that point forward he respected me and he liked me a lot. We got along really well. He’s not the sort of actor that discusses the work and discusses each take. But you know when it’s on and you know when he’s happy. And he liked the fact that I held my ground with him. It was an actual joy and a real honor to be able to work with, I think, one of the top five actors of our generation. He’s amazing. What’s interesting about Duvall, though, is when you work with him; sometimes he would do stuff with me and I would think, “God, that seemed really intense.” And then I’d go to dailies and see the footage, and he has a softness to him, a vulnerability, that you don’t see in person. The camera captures it. I always thought that was really interesting about him. He’s a wonderful guy and I really enjoyed being around him. I’d love to work with him again.

On what he did in South Carolina when he wasn’t working…

I did a lot of golfing (laughs). And I ran every day about five miles, seven days a week. And at night, there were a lot of times when there would be parties we would have, or several times we would all go out to dinner. It was a small town, Beaufort, and we would all run into each other. There were only so many places to go to and there were some nights that Julia and her friends and me and some other people would hook up or we’d have dinner and then go have drinks and she’d go, “I want to go country dancing!” There was a marine country bar not far from Paris Island down the road. So, there we were, two-stepping with Julia Roberts. It was great, because no one really bothered her.

Running out the back door with Julia…

We would always have one of her bodyguards with us. They were all CIA, First Division Rangers, ex-soldiers…pretty tough guys. So, one night we were there and it got pretty rowdy and her bodyguard was getting a little nervous. And I got to be pretty good friends with those guys and I was like, “What’s the matter?” And he said, “I’m a little nervous.” And I was like, “Well, what do you want to do?” And he said, “Well, if anything happens, I’ll take care of the fight and you grab Julia and run out the back door.” (laughs). So, that was what we planned to do. It was funny.

Like being with family…

Meg came into town and she and Dennis rented a house at Hilton Head on the ocean. And there was a period where I didn’t have to work for about seven days and Michelle joined me after Christmas and we went and stayed with them. We would run on the beach and Dennis and I would play golf and go to dinner. It was really nice. Being with a bunch of friends and getting paid for it.

On scenes cut from the movie…

There were two scenes that were cut. One was that scene on the porch where she and I talk about my divorce. They re-wrote that and it’s a much shorter scene. I think if they had kept that scene in, it would have given more weight to our relationship. They also cut most of the scene out at the end when she and I are out by my truck and Dennis sees us hugging. There was a really nice scene there that they cut down quite a bit. It was a couple of days after Julia and I almost sleep together and I’m saying goodbye because Duvall gives me my horse back and says, “Bring her back next year.” I’m going away with my horse and she’s like, “I’ll see you.” And it was one of those uncomfortable moments, with them kind of saying goodbye.

Choosing Jamie over Eddie…

I think what they were finding was that…Dennis played such a cad in the movie, and you don’t really want them to get back together and you can kind of see this new relationship happening and it could be a really cool, healthy one. I think the film makers were concerned it might be too much, so they tried to cut down the scene. They might have been worried it would have overshadowed your wish to see her and her husband get back together for her sake, and for their daughter’s sake. It had nothing to do with the actors, but with the story itself. That’s what they chose to focus on more than putting the hope there that she and I could make things work out later.

The horse scenes were cut too…

They also cut a lot of the actual horse stuff out, like the jumping contest. People go to see the movie and they don’t really give a damn about watching the tournament. It’s not like, “Who’s gonna win? Who’s gonna win?” (laughs). It’s not about that. It’s about the people. So they cut around that and made it more streamline. Some friends of mine that were in the jumping horse “world” were disappointed in the way they depicted the horse jumping. They said it wasn’t truthful. And we actually did shoot all of that, but the movie wasn’t about horse jumping. It was about the relationships and what those people were doing at the horse jumping. So that was another thing they chose to do and I think that was the right decision.

I see dead people…

I’ll tell you a funny thing that happened to me. I rented this house right on the river. And it was this beautiful, two-story ancient house with three century oaks on it. Two acres, beautiful dock, right on the water…and the house was haunted. (laughs). The first night I was there, I had some cocktails, I played my guitar, and I went to bed. It was all rental furniture I had gotten because it was an empty house and I had those kind of lamps where you just put your fingers near the turn off switch and it goes off from the heat. So, I turned both of them off, went upstairs, and went to sleep. Got up in the morning, came down to make coffee and looked in to see both lamps were on. And I was like, “Well, that’s weird. I know I turned those off…but…who knows, maybe I had too much to drink.” So, then two nights later it’s the night before I’m going to start working. I have to be up at 5:30 in the morning. So, I’m laying there in bed, I go to sleep, and at 2:00 o’clock on the dot I wake up in a cold sweat, and I have this anxiety. Something feels different to me and then I start hearing these footsteps downstairs. So, I get up and I turn on the lights and walk all around the house and there’s nothing there. So, I go back to bed. 3:00 o’clock. Boom! Same thing. An hour later I wake up. Cold sweat, my heart’s palpitating, and this anxiety. I’m like, “What the hell?” And I hear the footsteps again. I go downstairs, look outside on the sun porch, this covered, screened in porch, and there’s nobody there. I thought maybe it was a homeless guy outside. I didn’t know who it was. Nobody there. Go back to bed. 4:00 o’clock. Same thing. At this point, I’m convinced there’s a ghost in the house. And I was so pissed off because I had to be up in an hour and a half. And I went, (yelling) “Dammit! I gotta go to sleep and get to work in the morning! Now leave me alone!!!” And I slammed my bedroom door and went back to sleep and slept until 5:30 and went to work! (laughs).

I see more dead people…

Three or four days later, it’s sprinkling outside and I’m laying in bed at 10:00 at night. I had to get up early the next morning. Now, there were two bedrooms that I didn’t furnish. And there was a hall closet between the two bedrooms and if you walked through it, you would get this chill up your neck. It was just so creepy. It was like something was there. And I just closed those two rooms off. I never went in there. They scared the daylights out of me. So, anyway, I’m laying in bed that night, reading a book, and all of a sudden I could hear a woman’s voice. It was distant. You couldn’t actually hear what she was saying. So, I get up and walk around and I look outside and I think, “Well, maybe it’s coming from the next house over.” It’s dark and raining and there’s no one outside and I’m two acres away from another house. So, I go back upstairs and sit down and start reading again and I keep hearing it and I realize that there’s just a woman ghost living in this house.

Getting rid of the ghosts…

So, I’ve been telling my hair and makeup people the story about what’s been going on and there was a guy named Benny. He was this old black man that was one of the stable guys. A really great guy, Benny. He drove a limo on one of the islands out there in the Outer Banks. And Benny had a voice like this (using raspy voice). And I’m telling the story to the girls that do my makeup. And the hair girl had given me some sage and said to burn it and blow it out, so it’s smoking, and to go into each room and face North, South, East and West and say, “In the name of Jesus Christ, be gone.” So, I did that to the whole house. (laughs). Except for the attic, because I didn’t want to go up there. Because there were no lights. During the day it was okay, but during the night…so I’m telling Benny this story and he says (using raspy voice) “You got yourself a ghost living in tha’ house.” And I said, “Yes sir.” And he said, “I can take care a’ that fo’ ya!” And I said, “How can you do that?” And he said, “You got any rock and roll music?” And I said, “Yes sir, I do.” And he said, “You got any James Brown? Papa Got a Brand New Bag?” And I actually had that CD and he said, “Alright, I want you to play that song, one time, really loud. And I want you to dance.” And I said, “Okay, and then what?” And he said, “Then I want you to play it again, and I want you to dance really hard.” And I said, “Okay, then what?” He goes, “I want you to play it a third time really loud and I want you to really dance really really hard!” And I said, “Okay, and then what?” And he said, “Then you’ll be so damn tired you’ll go to sleep and the ghost won’t bother ya!” (laughs). He just laughed real loud and I was like, “Thank you, Benny.”

Unwanted guests at parties…

If you’re shooting nights, you shoot from 4:00 or 5:00 in the evening until dawn. And you sleep during the day. Well, if you shoot nights for the entire week, you shoot Saturday until Sunday morning and then you go to bed and have Sunday and Sunday night off. Then you go back to work on Monday. So, on Sunday, we all want to stay up because we want to stay on that schedule. Otherwise you’re going to be exhausted on Monday. So, I used to have these big beer parties. I’d get 10 cases of beer and invite all the townfolk and we’d hang out. Anyway, there was this one guy on the crew that was having a thing with one of the local girls, and she was at the party, because I invited everybody. I saw them go upstairs. And I thought, “Oh my God, he’s taking her up into my room.” And they were stumbling drunk. Well, they came down three or four minutes later and she’s white as a sheet and sober as a church mouse. She walked up to me and said, “Your house is haunted. I’ve lived in this town my whole life and I’ve had dreams about this house. Can I come back tomorrow?” I said, “Fine.”

Going into the attic…

Well, she comes back the next day, because we don’t go to work until 4:00 in the evening. She came on her lunch hour about 12:30, and I was just waking up and having coffee. We went up into the attic and I showed her the closet and she said, “Oh my God, my whole life I’ve had dreams about this house.” See, this house is like a historical landmark, it has this big wooden thing outside that describes the house. She said when she was a young girl she’d have dreams where she’d be riding by the house on her bicycle and she’d look up and at the attic window, she’d always see this woman looking down at her. So we went up there and the weird thing was the only thing up there was a fainting couch and it was right by that window. That was kind of scary. But I was fine with it. She never bothered me or seemed threatening.

A visitor in the night…

Well, when Michelle showed up, the first night she was there, we went to Charleston and had New Year’s Eve with Meat and his wife, and then we drove down on the first and went to the house. Well, you know what palmetto bugs are? Those big roaches? I had never seen any of those bugs in the house the entire time I was there. We went to bed that night and go to sleep. I have to get up at about 5:30. Well, about 3:30 in the morning, Michelle starts screaming her bloody head off and jumps out of bed. She’s screaming, “It’s in the bed!” And I’m thinking, “What the hell is going on?” I flip the light on and she’s standing there pointing at the bed and I pulled the sheets back and there’s this huge palmetto bug. She was sleeping, having a dream. She dreamt there was this bug that was on her forehead. It crawled down her nose to her chin. Then it jumped off her chin and onto her chest. She was dreaming and thinking, “This is really weird.” Then at that point she realized she wasn’t dreaming and there really was something on her chest. That’s when she woke up screaming. Well, I never saw any palmetto bugs in this house and there was nowhere for it to come from above. Michelle was convinced that the ghost had taken the palmetto bug and put it on her. After that, Michelle wouldn’t stay in the house. If I had to go to work at 5:30 in the morning, she’d get up with me at 5:30 and would get in the car, we’d go to the set and she’d sleep in my trailer. She was scared to death of the place.

Like going to school…

Watching Gena Rowlands and Bobby Duvall work was amazing. You know the scene where Gena Rowlands locked him out of the house and she’s drunk? It was just mind-blowing watching those two giants work together. Just incredible. I would just go to see these two people work. It was so amazing. For an actor like me to get an opportunity to get to work with such extremely talented people like that…if you’re smart and you take advantage of it, it’s like going to school. Being able to go to the set and watch DeNiro, Duvall, Gene Rowlands, or any number of great actors, like Gene Hackman or Dustin Hoffman, and see how they work their craft. It’s an education, and most actors don’t take advantage of it and I did. I was really pleased to get that opportunity.

Wrapping it up…

I had a blast doing the movie. I think it’s a really funny movie and it was a wonderful opportunity for me to work with Dennis and Julia. And to get to work with Bobby Duvall, and Gena Rowlands, whom I think are two of the greatest actors alive. And Kyra Sedgwick, who practically steals the movie. Lasse Hallstrom is a wonderful director. I would love to work with him again. It was a real treat. Everybody was just terrific. So, that’s my take on “Something to Talk About!”