‘Old Man’ brings life to big screen

Frazier Moore

Friday, Feb. 7, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

NEW YORK -- On the set, says Jeanne Tripplehorn, they called her "Waterella."

There she was last August, like the rest of the cast and crew of "Old Man," withstanding 5 1/2 weeks of Louisiana bayous and daily rainstorms and a special-effects flood, all for the sake of this "Hallmark Hall of Fame" production of the William Faulkner short story (airing at 9 p.m. Sunday on CBS).

But among those making "Old Man," only Tripplehorn had been in that same boat before. Only she had weathered months in watery purgatory after landing the role of Kevin Costner's co-star in the 1995 epic "Waterworld."

"I like to bring stories to life," Tripplehorn explains, "and 'Old Man's' story is so beautiful I decided it would be a shame not to do it just because it was set on water.

"But when I got there outside of Baton Rouge to start shooting," she says with a what-was-I-thinking laugh, "I had flashbacks. Deja vu. It was exactly like 'Waterworld,' only instead of being cold it was really hot, and there were snakes and alligators, and some of the water was polluted!"

Out there, she says, smiling, "I was the vet -- the vet with the thousand-yard stare."

"Old Man" (the title refers to the Mississippi River) tells of the Flood of 1927, when a prison convict, played by Arliss Howard, is set loose in a small boat to locate and rescue a woman imperiled by the deluge.

Through stubbornness and dumb luck, the dutiful J.J. does indeed find Tripplehorn's character Addie, who is clinging to a cypress branch -- pregnant, on the verge of giving birth.

The rest of the film follows their journey to find their way back, as an odd but big-hearted attachment forms between the two, and, before long, the three of them.

There is lots to like about "Old Man," but as gorgeous and evocative as the settings are ("we were in some serious 'Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom' country"), they defer to something even more special: the tenderly oblique relationship connecting J.J. and Addie.

For all that may be going on between them, they don't say much, which means that viewers are called upon to do less listening than feeling as this sort-of love story unfolds.

Tripplehorn says she and Howard pushed to make the script's already sparse dialogue even more "pared-down and simple. These are country folk, from another era. They talk around things, with a lot left unspoken."

"By the end of the movie, everything catches up with the audience, because everything they thought is confirmed. But even then, it isn't said in an outright, forthright way. I think that makes things more powerful and bittersweet, yet very hopeful."

Clearly, Tripplehorn feels a kinship with the characters of "Old Man." They remind her of who she is and where she came from, growing up in Tulsa, Okla., a place she's never really left.

"I go back all the time," she says. "I've got a place there, and it's really good to go back home."

In fact, as she talks, she drops hints of a down-home twang.

"Yeah, I'm drawling," she says with a smile. "When I'm tired, I start to roll."

A freshly appealing young woman with wideset brown eyes, she doesn't LOOK tired. But if she is, it's because she's still getting her sea legs (so to speak) in a new Broadway production of Chekhov's "Three Sisters," in previews with Amy Irving and Lili Taylor as the other title characters.

Masha is only the latest of the diverse roles Tripplehorn has tackled in her young career.

In "Basic Instinct" just five years ago, she played a police shrink who made whoopee with Michael Douglas. She co-starred as Tom Cruise's wife in "The Firm."

But this graduate of the Juilliard School of Drama was first seen on the New York stage. Including John Patrick Shanley's play "The Big Funk," where, in one scene, she wore nothing but suds, taking a bubble bath.

"Oh, yeah!" she says, now truly sensing a theme. "MORE water!" And so far in Tripplehorn's thriving career, no dry spells.

Jeanne Tripplehorn