‘Vision Quest’ at 40: Matthew Modine Looks Back on His First Starring Role, His Most Embarassing Moment on Set and Sharing a Trailer With Madonna

Released March 15, 1985, “Vision Quest” arrived smack in the middle of the ‘80s teen movie renaissance. It was preceded by John Hughes’ first two films, “Sixteen Candles” and “The Breakfast Club” (the latter by less than a month), as well as bona fide blockbusters like “Footloose” and “The Karate Kid,” making it seem at the time like a commercial trend-follower.

Yet from the first frames of its story, about a fling between ambitious high school wrestler Louden Swain (Matthew Modine, gangly and determined) and a smoldering drifter named Carla (Linda Fiorentino), director Harold Becker’s adaptation of Terry Davis’ 1979 namesake novel stood immediately apart from its box office competition. Its tone and pacing owed more to coming-of-age stories like “Little Darlings” and “Breaking Away” where victories like Louden’s over his mythic wrestling opponent were anything but a forgone conclusion, and the pivotal romance with Carla is not just thorny but ends on a bittersweet note. That approach may also explain why it performed modestly upon release, even with Madonna’s chart-topping single “Crazy For You,” her first ballad, amplifying the film’s visibility — and prompting producers to change its name — around the globe.

Ahead of the 40^th anniversary of “Vision Quest,” Modine reflected on the making of the film with Variety. In addition to talking about his early impressions of the script and preparation for role, he revealed new details about a scene between Louden and a gay guest in the hotel where he works, and reflected on his experiences working with Becker, Fiorentino and then pre-superstar Madonna.

Revisiting this film for its 40^th anniversary, I was surprised that “Vision Quest” came out in 1985 — after “Karate Kid,” because it feels like more of a descendant of 1970s teen films like “Breaking Away.” What was your impression of the script when you first read it?

Honestly, I didn’t want to do the movie. I thought it was just another teenage sexploitation kind of story. And my wife had read it — I was already married — and she said, “No, this is something special.” And it was being directed by Harold Becker, who was a very serious filmmaker. It was being shot by [cinematographer] Owen Roizman, who did “Network” — I mean, he was a genius. [Screenwriter] Darryl Ponicsan had written “The Last Detail.” And so it had a lot of integrity and a vibe to it that was not a teenage exploitation kind of movie. It had real heart, and it was based on a book [“Vision Quest”] by Terry Davis.

What kind of preparation did you do to play Louden Swain?

Darryl Ponicsan encouraged me to read JD Salinger’s book, “The Catcher in the Rye.” He said that there’s a lot of Holden Caulfield in this character. So I read both books and they were great compasses on how to navigate this role in a serious way. Anybody that’s ever done any kind of sport that you do as an individual, even if it’s an individual effort inside of a team like wrestling, knows that what you’re up against all the time is yourself. How much are you willing to endure and punish yourself in order to accomplish a goal? Those two books [Davis’ and Salinger’s] were tremendously helpful in being able to reflect on those years of a young person. I was just 20, 21 years old, so those teenage years were just behind me, so having the literature certainly helped me to understand the psychology of what I may have been going through when I was in high school.

Did Harold tell you what he saw in you for the role?

I’d grown up in Utah and to quote Harold Becker, he said that he “felt that I still had hay in my hair” — that I was still a little bit of a country bumpkin, so he cast me and I’m really grateful that he did. I went to his office at Warner Brothers and we did chemistry reads with several actors. One of them was Demi Moore — congratulations on your nomination, Demi! And then the last person to come in the room was Linda Fiorentino. She was just as tough and pissed off about having to go on this audition. She was just perfect — she was everything that we were looking for to play this tough girl, Carla.

I was immediately mesmerized with how poised and self-assured Linda is. How quickly did the two of you gel and find the right dynamic between your characters?

That’s pretty much who she is: on the outside, like a crab that has a strong shell, but it’s really soft and mushy inside. Linda’s a beautiful person on the inside, but I don’t know the circumstances of her childhood where she grew up — why she had to create a shell of armor around her to protect herself. And that’s one of the reasons why we really loved her for the role that she was so appropriate for it. But she was a beautiful sensitive woman that I really enjoyed working with.

What sort of physical training did you undergo?

I was sent to Spokane, Washington to try to gain weight, because I just coming out of drama school and I was smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, and when I met Harold Becker, I probably weighed 165, 170 pounds. And I’m 6’3”, so I was really skinny. So it was two months of working out, doing three-a-days, lifting weights, wrestling, and doing cardio. I want to say it was six days a week. The gift that I had with the training was that all the kids in the movie were from Spokane and they were all state champions, so being around a bunch of elite athletes — including Michael Schoeffling, who was a state champion from Pennsylvania — it was great to be in that company. And then we had a great coach that was there to train [named] Cash Stone. He’s still with us and just an outstanding human being.

Given that your character’s goal was to get his weight under 168 pounds, I’m still skeptical whether or not your opponent, played by Frank Jasper, was actually in that weight class. He seems impossibly muscular.

Absolutely not. That guy was over 200 — I would say two and a quarter. Yeah, he was huge! The whole time I was making the movie, I was trying to gain weight just so it wouldn’t look ridiculous that I was wrestling such a huge man.

There’s an early scene where Louden has this encounter with a gay guest in the hotel. Given what a different time it was for having a moment like that in a movie, what were your impressions of it on the page?

This was a coming-of-age movie, and when we’re young and we think this is good or this is bad, we’re judgmental. And then as we get older, one of the great things about maturing is realizing that there are a lot of myths that are not accurate. And so, one of the encounters that Louden had was with a gay man delivering food to his hotel room, and he makes a pass at him, and Louden runs out of the room. And the next time he had to come and deliver food to the character, I think we called him Lemon Pie Kevin [played by R.H. Thomson], he’s nervous because he definitely doesn’t want to go into the room with this guy, but he’s got to deliver the room service. This was cut from the film and it was upsetting to me because I thought this was a really important coming-of-age moment for Louden Swain. Because he brings the lemon pie and [Kevin] says, “I want to apologize about the last time you were in the room. I heard about what you’re doing, that you’re a wrestler. I sell sporting goods and I want to give you these shoes.” And Louden says, “I can’t accept them.” He says, “Listen, if I was going to pay for sex, it’d be for something a lot more sophisticated than you, and I promise you it’s just a gift.” And Louden accepts the gift, these shoes.

It was a great moment for Louden to realize that homosexual men are not evil. The guy did something that was inappropriate. Louden does and says things that are inappropriate in the film. And all of these things are steps that are important for us to make as individuals, that we do things or say things that are embarrassing or wrong or inappropriate, and that’s part of the process of becoming a young adult and learning about life and being more forgiving and more accepting of people that you didn’t know something about.

I want to ask about Madonna’s “Crazy For You,” which became the film’s love theme. Of course, she was not quite Madonna then as we know Madonna now. But can you talk about her and her songs being incorporated into this movie?

As you say, nobody knew who Madonna was then at that moment. And I’m not sure, but I believe that Warner Bros. had an edict that people that were recording stars, if they could, you should put them in a film to give them greater visibility. So Madonna was one of those artists that was a Warner Bros. artist that was cast to be in this film. I don’t think she was there for more than six hours. She sang “Gambler” and she sang “Crazy For You” and was gone. We shared a trailer, and she was dating Jellybean Benitez at the time, and there was a lot of noise [coming from] inside of her trailer that she wanted to be married. But then when she sang “Crazy For You,” we thought, “Wow, that’s a really pretty song.” And she sang it nicely, and subsequently they used the song a couple of times in the movie, and by the time the film opened overseas in Europe and in Asia, they changed the name of the movie to “Crazy For You” because of the success of Madonna.

Are there moments of acting in this film that remain particularly memorable to you?

It’s hard to pull out a single moment because the whole film is sort of so cohesive. But I remember being really embarrassed when I find Carla’s panties in the dryer and they wanted me to smell them. There’s a lot of things that Louden Swain does in the movie, but that one was particularly embarrassing, and that’s why I finally pulled them over my head because I wanted to hide. Matthew Modine wanted to hide … it was bad.

But funny.

It was embarrassing, but funny and charming. People really get a good giggle out of it, so that’s good. But I don’t know. It was great to work with Ronny Cox. I’d seen him in “Deliverance,” and I just loved that movie, so it was great to have him playing my father. He was very kind, very sweet. Michael Schoeffling was really wonderful. But just overall, when you take a role, what it has the power to do is to change you. Just as Louden Swain was coming of age and learning about life, Matthew Modine was working on a set where he was working with all the artists that came together as threads to make the fabric of that film. It was a great opportunity for me, the first starring role that I’d had to learn about my place on a film set and my responsibilities as a young actor.

From early in your career, you worked with Tony Richardson, Gillian Armstrong, Stanley Kubrick, Alan Pakula, Jonathan Demme and of course Harold Becker. What enabled you to find so many great opportunities to work with so many amazing filmmakers?

Well, I have to give a great amount of props to my wife because whenever I was working, she was reading, looking for material. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t take her advice a couple of times for movies that were incredible that I wish that I had done. There’s some that I’m happy that we passed on that became very successful films. But that’s an artist’s journey.

And for me, what I enjoy about this profession is having the opportunity to experience life and learn about life. That’s the journey.

There’s this beautiful scene that you have with J.C. Quinn at the end of this movie that kind of articulates the thesis of the movie: you’re doing something for which you’re seeking inspiration, but you are providing inspiration for all these other people.

J.C Quinn, who’s really wonderful, God rest his soul, when he’s talking about “the six minutes” [on the mat in front of the crowd], he’s talking about life, that it’s what happens in your life. It’s the people that you meet, the mistakes that you made, the way you recover from those mistakes, the kindness that you give. At the front of the United States Constitution, it says “the pursuit of happiness,” and the pursuit of happiness is something that comes from the Stoics and the pursuit of happiness is not a physical thing. It’s being in service to other people, and that’s what J.C Quinn is to Louden Swain in that moment … he’s being in service to a young man who’s about to make a mistake of his life — that because your heart is broken, because this girl has left, you can’t give up on the thing that you were pursuing. And in achieving his goal, Louden is also being in service to other people.

I’ve got to say, this movie has been in service to millions of people. I’ve met at 10,000 of them that talk about how this movie has changed their life. [Like] Dana White, who started UFC and said he built his company based on the work ethic of Louden Swain. The people that have stopped me on the street and started crying and talked about how they were drug addicts and alcoholics, and how this film gave them a sense of responsibility and to be able to work hard to achieve a path out of the destructive lifestyle that they had. I’ve met thousands of them.

This interview has been edited and condensed.