Welcome Back, Jackie Earle Haley

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Welcome Back, Jackie Earle Haley
By Philip Schweier
February 6, 2010 - 12:44

Human Target stars Jackie Earle Haley, Mark Valley and Chi McBride

It’s been said that Hollywood is a fickle mistress. Fame can be fleeting. Ask any child star.

One of the “breakout” stars of the past year has been Jackie Earle Haley, who was the defacto star of Watchmen, and is now being featured on the Fox series Human Target, based on the DC Comics character Christopher Chance. The series is somewhat loosely adapted, and Haley plays Guerrero, an information gatherer in Chance’s employ who seems to straddle the line between darkness and light.

One journalist commented that he is the best thing on the show. In fairness, that may be due to the complexity and mystery of his character. Nevertheless, with all due respect to co-stars Mark Valley and Chi McBride, I would have to agree.

Haley is no stranger to me. When I was 14 years old, the movie Breaking Away was filmed at Indiana University, where one of my older sister was enrolled. The idea of Hollywood coming to a college town in the Midwest, and that one of my siblings just might possibly get a glimpse of a movie star, was as close to Hollywood as I could hope to get at the time.

Haley played a “townie” named Moocher, who had a violent temper, especially where his height was concerned. He later reprised the role in a short-lived television series, the only actor from the movie to do so.

Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, Dennis Christopher and Jackie Earle Haley in Breaking Away

After that, he dropped off my personal radar until 1991, when he guest-starred on Get a Life, a Fox sit-com starring Chris Elliot as a 30-year-old newspaperboy still living at home with his folks. Haley portrayed cousin Donald, of whom the dysfunctional family was insanely proud for his status. The joke seemed to be akin to Curly and Larry referring to Moe as the “smart” stooge.

In the years since, Haley had seemingly left the movie business, and was producing commercials in San Antonio. Then, in 2006, Haley portrayed a child molester in an obscure movie entitled Little Children, earning him a great deal of critical acclaim, including an Academy Award nomination.

Few actors have accomplished such a rousing comeback as Haley. The movie business is typically pretty shallow waters, and often shark infested. Most mainstream movies today are adaptations of novels or comic books, or rehashed and regurgitated remakes of older films. Actors, once they reach a certain status, are no longer cast for their ability to act, but more for their public persona.

If a script calls for an unstable dangerous person, the question raised might be “Can we afford Jack Nicholson?” No. “See if Christopher Walken is available.” No. “Call Bruce Dern.”

Haley may be the heir-apparent to playing the unstable and dangerous personalities, especially in light of his upcoming role as horror icon Freddy Krueger. Success may have finally found Haley. But in Hollywood, success is often measured in terms of money and public exposure.

Jackie Earle Haley as Guererro

Achievement can be measured in so many ways beyond the values of the Hollywood system. One person I know lamented his age (late 40s) with the statement of “I’m not even a CEO yet.” Well, it is a privileged few who can achieve success with the upper corporate strata, or political office, or hit recordings, or starring roles in television or film.

Most of us are blessed with lives so utterly normal, free from the stress of public scrutiny and the question of how to sustain achievement with another hit song or box office smash. We have friends and family who will stick by us, even when the money runs out.

I’d like to believe the past several years of going to work, paying his mortgage and dinner at home has made Jackie Earle Haley better suited to handle the ups and downs of a film career.

If there’s a more valuable tool in an actor’s repertoire, I can’t think of it. More power to him.

Praise and adulation? Scorn and ridicule? E-mail me at philip@comicbookbin.com