“The truth about our relationship with our genitals is always fascinating,” said Thomas Jane. “In a lot of ways, you’re watching my relationship with mine on a big-screen TV.”
OK, let’s back up a little. Because it seems like some clarification might be needed here. Just who is Thomas Jane, and why have his nether regions suddenly become such a talking point?
While he’s also known as the husband of
Medium star Patricia Arquette (the two recently reconciled after she filed for divorce earlier this year), Jane is an actor with a diverse and interesting body of work – he’s had juicy supporting roles in movies like
Boogie Nights and portrayed comic-book heroes like the gun-toting, gangster-killing Punisher.
Now he’s the star of
Hung, a new series airing on pay-TV station Showcase. And as the title suggests, Jane’s character Ray Drecker is, uh, hung. As in well-hung.
Being well-endowed is about the only thing Ray has going for him right now, it seems. His wife Jessica (Anne Heche) has taken their two kids and remarried a successful doctor, while Ray, struggling to make ends meet as a high-school basketball coach, is living in a tent after accidentally burning down the family home.
But at a get-rich-quick seminar, Ray runs into Tanya (Jane Adams), a former lover going through tough times herself. Together, they hatch a plan that will make the most of Ray’s biggest asset by embarking him on a new career as a male prostitute.
“It’s a show about a man trying to survive,” said Jane. “And it really is survival. Most of us don’t have to think about a tank of gas or breakfast. I’m a freelance artist who’s spent many years thinking about the next tank of gas or the next meal and these things come in handy when playing a guy like this. We call it entertainment, although at times in my life I’ve got to say I called it pain.”
The tough times are well and truly behind Jane these days, although he says with a laugh that “I’ve had a 10, 15 year career and not yet been pigeonholed by great success”.
That’s something he attributes to his “fear and distrust of the status quo”, however. And he admits that he has enjoyed enough commercial success to start charting his own creative course.
“I don’t need the attention,” he said. “I enjoy the work. I suppose that inevitably if you’re going to make your mark you have to do something that has real critical appeal and reaches mass audiences but it’s not what interests me primarily.”
Hung also required Jane to reveal himself physically as well as emotionally, but luckily playing a gone-to-seed former athlete didn’t require hours at the gym.
“I’m playing a guy who isn’t a Hollywood guy, so working out would be wrong – having a perfect body would be very wrong,” said Jane.
“He’s got a normal body. We all get to a stage in our life when our body is at its prime and this guy...well, his body is past its prime. As an actor you are a piece of meat, so I get that. Anyway, it’s more fun to play with your sexuality than to work out at the gym.”
Hung airs 8.30pm Wednesday on Showcase (through Austar).