Once upon a time, I fancied myself a budding independent filmmaker. Suffering the bus ride downtown, slipping into the community college’s editing suite with a “borrowed” key, sweating over a Steenbeck flatbed editor from sunrise to sunset—that was my idea of a summer well-spent. I was in my element, poring over yet another 16mm short that would devour all of my time and money, crewing on weekend indies that wrapped but never saw the light of day. It was miserable, but it was heaven. If I could revisit one period in my old life, that summer would be a prime candidate.

Oftentimes, the thrills are few and far between when producing esoteric mini-documentaries for the dwindling DVD market.  Today is an exception, as we find ourselves on the second of two days of interviews with prolific character actor Dick Miller.

Miller, to me, is the archetypal “that guy” of contemporary cinema.  The casual moviegoer may not be able to place him right away, but the observant viewer will recognize Miller from brief but memorable roles in The Terminator, The Howling and Gremlins, while the most ardent cinephiles will know that Miller was a mainstay of Roger Corman’s early work and, decades later, would have his scene unceremoniously snipped from Quentin Tarantino’s indie opus, Pulp Fiction.  He also enjoyed cameos—and, sometimes, recurring roles—in damn near every hit sitcom or primetime melodrama from the last forty years of television, everything from Taxi to ER.

While coiling up my microphone cables after the first day’s interview, I can’t resist telling Dick that I credit him with getting me into this business—at least, in part.  It was during a childhood viewing of Explorers that I first realized, “Hey, I’ve seen that guy before.”  This would lead to the epiphany that movies don’t just magically appear on our televisions and theatre screens to entertain us; they are actually crafted by someone.

It’s only fitting that I would learn this lesson from a Joe Dante picture; after all, Dante has featured Dick Miller in all of his numerous films.  In fact, several years before today’s interview, I was shooting an interview with Dante, and gave him the same amount of credit for leading me down this questionable career path.  At age 10, I had seen Gremlins 2: The New Batch at the movie theatre.  There was a scene in which Hulk Hogan stands up in a theatre and threatens the gremlins who have melted the film right out of the projector.  However, when I saw the movie again on VHS, this scene had been replaced with footage of the gremlins shooting it out with John Wayne in a black-and-white TV western.  Once again, this clued me in to the fact that there was someone tinkering behind-the-scenes to create the movies I loved, and I wanted to learn all about how it was done.

But that’s a tangent.  Long story short, it was a thrill and a pleasure to meet Dick Miller, not only a gracious host and affable, humorous conversationalist, but an admirable actor who gladly exchanged name recognition and marquee status for unrivaled longevity in his profession and respect among his peers.

"Oh, sure, stick the short guy in the middle," gripes Dick. From L-R, producer/director Elijah Drenner, actor Dick Miller, director of photography Elle Schneider, and sound guy Dan Greene.