Lonesome Cowboy from Rolling Stone, October 10, 1985
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He played the sympathetic scientist with the noisy keys in E.T., and has starred in Heartbreakers, Cross Creek and the upcoming Jagged Edge - and now Peter Coyote, 44, is being called "the thinking woman's sex symbol," which amuses him. "Well, I'd rather be a thinking woman's sex symbol than an imbecile's. Although my suspicion is that smart women don't really have sex symbols." The San Francisco based actor has been politically active for years and served as chairman of the California Arts Council under Jerry Brown. Now Coyote champions acting as art: "Most people feel acting is just pretending. Well, let's scrap that. An actor plays a certain kind of music on his central nervous system, to produce real feelings. You can't do that if you're stupid. I'm not talking about chopped liver." He's equally philosophical about making it at forty-four. "Being an artist's a great gig. But the only way they can test you is by throwing shit at you for fifteen years. If you hold up, they say you're an artist." |
