Free Teaching the Pig to Dance: A Memoir by Fred Thompson Page B

and walked out.
    I asked Roger what was going on. He told me that my character was in several scenes in the movie, including the trial, the lead-up to the trial, and noncourtroom stuff such as the scene we had just read. Several guys screen-tested for my role, but the producers weren’t satisfied. They decided to give me a shot at it if I was interested. Things were moving from interesting to a little bizarre.
    Back in my office, I had to laugh at the thought of it. It occurred to me that if I was going to play myself, they couldn’t tell me that I was doing it wrong (an incorrectassumption, I later learned). I refused to let myself take it seriously. I didn’t know much about show business, but I knew enough to know that they didn’t walk up to a guy who had never been in so much as a high school play and say, “How would you like to play yourself in a movie?” Besides, what about my schedule? I probably couldn’t do it if I wanted to. On the other hand, if it did happen, wouldn’t it be a kick. Maybe I could act. Some might say I had been doing it for several years. Then I would snap out of it, and it would be “Thompson, quit being an idiot. Get back to work on that brief.”
    It was more than a month before Roger called again. I had long since relegated the matter to the back of my mind. “Mr. De Laurentiis wants to know if you could come to New York and read another scene for us.” My first reaction was to tell him that I couldn’t possibly make it before eight o’clock the next morning, but that might have appeared to be overly eager.
    A few days later I was in New York before the camera again, except there were several more people present. It was apparent that they were not all there for me. Actors were all over the place auditioning for minor roles. De Laurentiis didn’t attend this session. He watched the film later. Many months later, I was told that when he first saw me on the screen, he pointed and exclaimed in a heavy Italian accent, “Blan-ton, Blan-ton.” He apparently thought I would be perfect for the role of Ray Blanton. “No, Fred Thompson,”Roger told him. “No, Blan-ton,” De Laurentiis insisted. “No, that really is Fred Thompson,” Roger tried to explain. Roger finally persuaded him that it would not be a good idea for me to play Ray Blanton.
    Before long, Frank Capra was in my office again. They wanted me to take the part—to play myself in the movie. By then I had read the script and knew that it would be a sizable role. Wow. By the time of the meeting, I was definitely up for taking on this new challenge if it came my way. It was a door I wanted to walk through. In weighing the situation, it seemed to me that it presented a disadvantage and an advantage. The disadvantage was not knowing what the heck I was doing. The advantage was that by not being an actor, and by being totally out of my element, if I fell on my face it would not be that big a deal. I’d never had an acting lesson (later a buddy told me that for those who had seen my work, it wasn’t necessary for me to point this out anymore). Anyway, Frank got down to business and asked me if I had an agent. “Of course not,” I replied, but I was a lawyer and had in fact negotiated the original Marie book deal. Then I proceeded to prove that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. Capra said we needed to talk about money. I think I stopped myself barely in time—because my first thought was “I wonder how much he expects me to pay them?” I let him talk long enough for me to see that they were going to pay me an amount I considered to be a fair fee for this lark. Besides, what difference did the amount make?This was a one-time deal. It wasn’t like the amount was going to set a precedent that other filmmakers could use against me in the future when I might want more money. R-i-i-g-h-t.
    Of course, this turned out to be the first of twenty feature-film roles for me, as well as numerous television