Young Guns Article

As William Petersen has repeatedly shown us, the line between lawful and lawless can be perilously thin. Petersen has spent half his film career sliding mischievously between cop and criminal. In Manhunter, he played an FBI agent who tracks a serial killer by thinking exactly like the murderer. In To Live and Die in L.A., his not-so-savory Secret Service agent broke all the rules while pursuing a talented counterfeiter. Now, in Young Guns II, he gets to play both sides of the coin in a single role.

Like the first Young Guns, Young Guns II follows the exploits of notorious outlaw William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid (Emilio Estevez), and his gang-mates Doc Scurlock (Keifer Sutherland) and Chavez y Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips). But this time out, the central action revolves around Petersen's character: Pat Garrett, the gunman-turned-sheriff who's hired by politicians to track down and kill his compadre, Billy the Kid.

"It's sort of like the idea that if you're not a good criminal, you're not a good cop," explains Petersen. "That's the reason they hired Garrett in the first place. We think it's weird now when there's a cop involved in criminal activity, but back then, all those guys were criminals. Nobody else was willing to put a gun on and go stand out in the street and shoot somebody down. Guys like Wyatt Earp were all complete animals and, basically, a badge away from robbing the bank."

From the get-go, Young Guns II was under heavy scrutiny. First of all, it's a sequel. Secondly, a version of the story had already been made by Sam Peckinpah (1973's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid). But as directed by New Zealander Geoff Murphy (Ute) the film offers a lot more than travel footage of brat-packers shooting guns and galloping around New Mexico Territory. Thanks to Petersen, it mines the Garrett legend for all it's worth, addressing the central question: Why would a man betray his best friend? And the reasons are many.

"Garrett was a real conflicted character," says Petersen. "He was a part of that whole criminal element in New Mexico in the 1880s and then, given the opportunity, he turned on them. He saw the writing on the wall -- that they weren't gonna be able to rustle and rob much longer -- and he was trying to become part of the establishment. When they made him the offer to go after these guys, he took it because it was a way to appease his past and deal with the future.

"It was also a way for him to pursue fame, because all those guys wanted to be famous. It was such a desperate world and there were so many vagrants that when you walked into a saloon, you never knew if you were gonna walk out again. So there was a real need for exposure."

While doing copious historical research for the part, Petersen discovered an interesting parallel between himself and Garrett. "One explanation for Garrett's behavior was that he was 10 years older than these guys he was roaming around with," he explains. "It's like the difference between me and Keifer and Emilio and those guys. They were doing movies when they were about 18 and I didn't do any movies until I was 32, and that just makes a difference in the way you look at things. If I had done movies when I was 22 instead of theater, I probably wouldn't live in Chicago. I'd live in L.A. I have a different set of roots, so I make different kinds of choices."

If you think these themes -- aging, friendship, betrayal, guilt --seem a bit heavy for a Western to handle, Petersen will beg to differ. He's "dreamed of doing a cowboy movie" since he was three. "All week long when I was a kid, I was glued to Gunsmoke and Bonanza." And his appreciation for the genre extends way beyond a boyish urge to ride horses and shoot guns. It's all refracted through his experience as a stage actor and co-artistic director of Chicago's Remains Theater Ensemble. "I feel that the Western is still our greatest venue for American storytelling," he says. "It's sort of like how Shakespeare used the kings to tell his best stories about life. Even a book like Moby Dick is a Western really -- his idea of independence and liberty, of being able to go out into the land and be free and do whatever we want to do."

"It's interesting, too, because, like in Moby Dick or The Big Sky, the American consciousness pushes you all the way to the some end ultimately, where, not unlike Billy the Kid or Ahab, you chase down death in your pursuit of freedom. And you finally get it."

"Unfortunately, the entertainment business seems to have gotten away from the Western because they've decided it doesn't sell. They're more interested in beach movies or movies where rich high school kids figure out their sex lives. But I could make one of these a year. The best characters we have in American literature are stuck out in the hills."