Jaws Shark's Return to Safe Waters

Perth, AUSTRAILA – Most only know the robotic Great White Shark called “Bruce” from his film work in Jaws, Jaws 2, and Moonraker, but the famously reclusive and press-shy star has done much of his recent work behind the scenes, quietly developing his latest and perhaps greatest role as Hollywood’s go-to healer. Time Magazine's Mary Ellen Moffat sat in with the 5,000-lb. Carcharodon carcharias for a revealing discussion of friends, “LOST,” and lost friends.

TIME: You’re in town for Heath Ledger’s memorial.

Bruce: Heath was a friend. I’d only just met him – I was coaching his teeth for his upcoming role as the Joker, just as I’d done with Jack. It was clear from the start that this was a young man with a lot of star power, but there was a darkness upon him that was palpable. Fame can be quite a burden, even to those on the hunt for it.

TIME: You sound as though you speak from experience. How did you fare with your own rise to fame?

Bruce: Not well – the late seventies were a total blur, I’m afraid. I was young and single, and despite some malicious rumors spread by some former associates, the work was steady. For a while, it seemed like I could just drift between my recurring roles in the Roger Moore Bond movies [1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me, 1979’s Moonraker] and the Amity Island sequels [1978’s Jaws II, 1983’s Jaws 3-D]. The money, the drugs, the women: I thought it would never end. When Robert Shaw died, I was hit hard. We’d been so close, and he was such a mentor to me, you know?

TIME: I’ve heard that you showed up at Shaw's funeral with a harpoon gun and plastic buoys wrapped around your dorsal fin.

Bruce: (Laughs). Yeah, drugs’ll do that to you. Shaw deserved better, but that’s all I had to give at the time.

TIME: You say that rumors were spread. Can you say more about that?

Bruce: I don’t want to get into it too much – it’s ancient history, really, but Steven made it pretty clear he felt I was difficult to work with, including blaming me for some of the work stoppages that occurred on that first film [1975’s Jaws]. It’s hard, because here’s a guy who created me, you know, the Geppetto to my Pinnochio, and we become fast friends, practically living together on Martha’s Vineyard in that summer of 1974, and as soon as we wrap principal photography, he turns around and does what he does. I won’t deny that it hurt. In recovery, we talk a lot about owning up to our own addictions, but that kind of abandonment in such a fragile time? That leaves a scar.

TIME: Some feel that Spielberg used you as a way to propel himself into a Hollywood career.

Bruce: I didn’t say that. (Laughs) But I will say, look at the dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park movies, look at the robot boy in A.I., look at his affinity for Tom Hanks. Those things come from somewhere…

TIME: Spielberg famously cast your half-sister, actress Juliane Moore, in the Jurassic sequel. Are you on good terms with her?

Bruce: You’re not going to survive in this business very long if you hold onto pain and rejection and hard feelings. That’s part of why I think drug and alcohol abuse is so prevalent in the industry, and part of what we address in my workshops.

TIME: You’ve developed a second career in drug counseling in the last decade or so, and you’re currently appearing as a counselor on Dr. Drew Pinsky’s VH-1 reality program, Celebrity Rehab. How did you embark on your own road to sobriety?

Bruce: I was doing press for a 1997 TV version of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," and a reporter – some guy from Kansas City or somewhere – mentions that this was my second time co-starring with Michael Caine, who played Captain Nemo in the TV movie. I was certain he was wrong, but he insisted we had previously worked together in a Jaws film. I left the studio and went straight to a Blockbuster, and – there it was: Jaws IV! I thought: Damn, how many of these have I done? And I’ve been sober ever since. But that what it takes, sometimes, you know? You have to come to terms with just how out of control and self-destructive you’ve been.

TIME: Did you ever speak with Michael Caine about that experience.

Bruce: (Sighs) I tried. I called him up and mentioned it to him, but first he was convinced I was a drunk Richard Harris pranking him and then, wierdly, he started trying to order shoes. (Imitates Caine’s Cockney accent) "Roit, I’d like a noice pair of white bucks in size fourteen, snaps at yer ankles…”

TIME: That’s possibly the worst Cockney accent since Dick Van Dyke’s turn in Mary Poppins.

Bruce: (Laughs) I guess I’ll have to stick to mauling teenage girls…

TIME: While you’ve scaled back your acting work lately, you’ve had a small but pivotal role in the the TV show “Lost.”

Bruce: Only a couple of episodes, really. Kind of a favor to the producers, really. I’d been working – in my counselor capacity – with a lot of the cast and crew, and they were really stuck as to how they were going to progress with the second season. I made a few suggestions, and did a few scenes at scale.

TIME: We’ve only just learned that Roy Schieder died over the weekend. What are your memories of him?

Bruce: Schieder was a rock. I’ll tell you, it was hard times for me after that first movie, what with Shaw’s death and Dreyfus so clearly siding with Steven. I really felt like it was, we’ve created this robot shark and now the movie’s over, so let’s ship him off to work the rest of his life at some theme park or something. I could barely function. The script for Jaws II had come in, but everybody knew it had gone to Pacino first, and – out of resentment – I really wanted to turn it down. I mean, if I’m not your first choice for the role of ‘Shark,’ you know? Go screw! So that’s the space I was in, plus an 8-ball or two in the afternoon, when one day Schieder rolls up on his Indian motorcycle. He tells me to get on the back, and we ride up the Pacific Coast highway, stopping on a cliffside to fire off these twin Lugers he’d brought along, kind of a salute to Bob Shaw, right? And we’re sharing a bottle of Jack Daniels, just being a couple of mates, and Schieder never mentions the script. Never even mentions it! By sunset, we’re up damn near to Oregon, you know, and we’re going through this old growth forest, with the mescaline really kicking in, and you can just see the orange glow through the sequoias to the west. Schieder’s lying down on a battered picnic table, staring up at the tree tops, and I’m doing pretty much the same thing on the bike. And Schieder just says: “Sharky,” he says, “don’t let the bastards get you down.” And then we went off and did Jaws II together, and let the rest of ‘em go to hell. And that was Roy Schieder.