The Peter Principle

Peter Berg displays his dark side with Very Bad Things

As the rebellious Dr. Billy Kronk on the hit drama series Chicago Hope, Peter Berg has become a bad-boy heartthrob of prime-time TV. This month, Berg makes his directorial film debut with the dark comedy Very Bad Things, and GEORGE WAYNE meets with the actor to discuss his being inspired by Abel Ferrara, his college ice-hockey days, and his spiritual connection with Madonna.

George Wayne: Peter Berg, you are a very bad boy, foisting this abhorrently brilliant directorial debut of yours on John and Joanna Public.

Peter Berg: Robert Bly talks about the box that all men drag behind them—where they keep all their repressed emotions and confusions, angers and hostilities, and they check it all into this box. But every once in a while the door to that box pops open and everything runs out. That is what I was trying to access with Very Bad Things.

G.W.Well, yours is truly an audacious debut. G.W has not seen a movie this disturbing since being forced to watch a very rough cut of Abel Ferraras Bad Lieutenant at the Chateau Marmont during the L.A. riots.

P.B. Abel Ferrara is definitely an influence on me. Abel's films kind of go for the throat, and I like that.

G.W.Your casting was also fabulous:

Cameron Diaz, Jon Favreau, and Christian Slater!

P.B. I had a pretty good sense of what I wanted the movie to feel like, and I was pretty confident that we could find humor in things like bodies' being dismembered.

G.W.Were you in a frat in college?

P.B. My college didn't have any fraternities. I went to a small school in Minnesota called Macalester College. But I played a lot of ice hockey, and my icehockey team was a fraternity.

G.W.There must have been a wealth of male bonding.

P.B. A lot of cold bus trips. Men huddled for warmth in the back of old, broken-down buses.

G.W.Love it! Men huddled for warmth. ... Where did the seed for Very Bad Things germinate?

P.B. It started when I first went to Vegas, about eight years ago. I noticed more than anything else these packs of white, suburban males roaming the streets—with the look of the Devil in their eyes. And I realized that Vegas becomes a place where it's O.K. to break rules. And I started wondering what would happen if a group of supposedly normal men were to slip and then try and get away with it.

G.W.I'm sure Madonna got her private screening. While you were nestled in her bosom one night, with Lola tugging at your big, hairy toe, saying, "Get out of Mummy's bed!"

P.B. I don't remember that.

G.W.Are you telling me yours is not a personal, intimate relationship with Madonna?

P.B. I don't know what you are referring to, at this point. Madonna is a good friend who has taught me the primary Ashtanga yoga series.

G.W.Is that like Tantric sex?

P.B.[Pauses.] Well, there are certainly no orgasms involved.

G.W.What about mental orgasms? P.B. It's deeply relaxing.

G.W.You can't wait to get out of your contract with Chicago Hope, can you? P.B. I'm looking forward to respectfully hanging up my stethoscope. After this season, that's it for Dr. Kronk.

G.W.O.K., we're getting back to Madonna. It's none of G. W.'s business whether you are sleeping with her or not. But her public validation is important—Madonna doesn't allow just anyone into her inner sanctum. She realizes you have a point of view and you are quite smart. There is potential for you to be truly "the next Tarantino," and Madonna is endorsing that.

P.B. I am honestly very appreciative to be given this opportunity. And I am flattered to be talking to you.

G.W.Well, this is quite an honor talking to you. And, please, the next time you do yoga with Madonna, tell her G.W. says she must, must, open her 1999 tour, with "Super Trouper"from ABBA.

P.B.[Laughs.] O.K.