February, 2004
Meet the actor who was almost Batman. Eion Bailey - a somewhat familiar face from movies like Fight Club and Almost Famous - was very much in the running to don the legendary cape and cowl until Christian Bale snagged the role. But he's hardly crying about it. He's too busy for that. After using TV and theater as an acting training ground, the intelligent and free-thinking California native has already packed his schedule with no fewer than three flicks this year, including the action thriller Mindhunters alongside Val Kilmer and LL Cool J. We rang Bailey up on the set of Glory Days, where, for his first starring movie role, he was getting into character as an alcoholic former high-school sports star. Even completely sober, he proved entertaining.
In most of your movies, you come off as a pretty cool guy. But I read that you were really into your high-school drama club. Aren't all
drama club people supposed to be geeks?
You're right. The people in the drama department were known as theater geeks. And to be fair, some of them were really geeky as far as that's
concerned...but I got an interesting experience in high school. I was in the drama club and I was a football player. So a lot of my friends
were jocks. I would do plays, and the jocks came to see them. We put on some damn good productions.
You were the guy who brought the cliques together.
I don't know about that. But I'll never forget this: One day, the principal of my school came up to me and said, "Eion, I don't know who you
are." I asked what he meant and he said, "One day you're dressed all preppie with khaki pants and a polo shirt, and your hair is all nice and
neat. And then I see you five days later, and you've got a goatee, a Raiders jersey on and gangster sunglasses." And I realized that he was
true; I had no identity, I would almost play dress-up and act the part of the thug or the theater thespian and other various incarnations in
between.
Did that help you as an actor?
I certainly wasn't planning it out, but, yeah, I've always been the kind of person who says, "I really want to experience this, and I'll do
anything to get experiences. Anything."
Even if it means being in Center Stage?
Oh, I'll even do a movie like Center Stage to be around the dance movement and be in New York and get to hang out with all of those hot
dancers. But experience is everything to me. I'll go out of my way to try something new.
You're definitely trying on a few different roles this year with Mindhunters, Sexual Life, and Glory Days.
I'm on the set of Glory Days right now. It's about an alcoholic track athlete who used to be king of his town and school, and now he's in his
30s and he's a mess. It's a story of getting to that age and realizing that your boyhood dreams aren't going to come true.
Sounds rough. Do you at least get to hook up in Sexual Life?
I do, twice. I got really lucky in that one. In the movie you follow the lives of people who are interconnected through sexuality. Not sex,
but just sexuality. I have steamy scenes with Anne Heche and Kerry Washington. Both are lovely, awesome, fantastically cute women.
Is it difficult for you to do that stuff on camera?
Well, I'm so experienced that it doesn't really bug me. No, just kidding. I don't mind it. I did 60 shows of a play where my character got
nude on stage for the last 20 minutes. I'm flopping around like a fish in front of 700 people, naked. You can image the sort of views that
everyone gets when a naked person is having convulsions on the floor. I had to drop all sort of aspects of shyness about the human body after
that. So a love scene, that's nothin'.
When you do have your clothes on, what's more you: the action stuff, personal drama, or comedy?
I want to do those epic, sweeping, Lawrence of Arabia-type movies; those larger-than-life, nation-shaking roles. That is 100 percent what I
want to do.
Is that why you were drawn to trying out for the next Batman movie?
The great thing about Batman is that it's really about morality. It's about what is wrong and right in humanity. Here's a man who's trying to
find his moral standing ground. It's like walking a tightrope, and he's always struggling with it. It's more than just some cool dude in a
black suit punching out bad guys. It was such a fun experience to even try out. I think (the director) Christopher Nolan and (actor) Christian
Bale are going to knock it out of the park.
Did you at least try on the suit?
Yeah, I filmed a couple scenes in the suit. It's horrible. It's like wearing a big, heavy deep-diving wetsuit out of the water, under hot
lights. That's why Batman does all of his shit at night. It's not because that's when bats come out; it's because that's the only time he can
wear that damn batsuit without frying.
No wonder he's so pissed all of the time.
Exactly. He's pissed off because he's fucking uncomfortable.
Age: 27
Headquarters: Los Angeles, CA
Resume: Significant Others, the quickly cancelled 1998 coming-of-age TV drama starring a then-unknown Jennifer Garner; Fight Club, as
Edward Norton's star whipping, er, fighting boy; Center Stage, as a non-dancing Columbia med student; Mindhunters, as one in a team of
killer-profiler trainees who find themselves hunted by a murderer; Sexual Life, getting hot and heavy with two different girls; Glory Days, as
an alcoholic former sports star dealing with his broken dreams.
Last Concert: Coachella (music festival in SoCal) "I went both days and loved it. I was mainly there to see Underworld."
Rose to the occasion: "For Karaoke, "Paradise City" is my song to sing, because I really nailed it once. I vaguely remember Axl Rose
in the video taking the mic from the stand and swinging it during the song. I did that and threw myself between the speakers while singing.
That was the most fun I've ever had doing a karaoke song. If I ever need to, I can always go back to "Paradise City."