(3 of 4)
At the center of the film—as he was in Altered States and Eyewitness—is William Hurt. Here again he plays the bright, likable guy who follows an obsession and takes the moviegoer along on the trip; he is both anchor and sail. For an actor trained to stage work, Hurt has remarkable economy of gesture. He acts with his eyes and his voice: under pressure, his head snaps into a stare that means to burn into the viewer's skull, and his voice exhales intellectual urgency, as if a dangerous possibility had just slapped him on the back. He seems at once charmingly reasonable and wildly driven—a watcher and a leader. This is what distinguishes Hurt from explosive actors like Richard Dreyfuss and Al Pacino: where they are forever displaying their most manic emotions, he keeps something secret, in reserve. But the careers of Garbo, De Niro and Mitchum indicate that audiences never tire of trying to fathom those mysteries. Body Heat offers the best chance yet to study this electrifying enigma. "He's totally focused, assured, authoritative," says Larry Kasdan, "and his range astounds me. His power is both raw and refined." Marshall W. Mason, his director at Manhattan's Circle Repertory Company, praises his "generosity and anger, his sensitivity and scathing sense of humor—all this and lots of sexual heat." Adds Steve Tesich, who wrote Eyewitness: "His future is limited only by his ambition. If he wants to join the two or three male superstars, it's there for him to achieve." Sally Kellerman, as a cynical singer in PBS's Verna USO Girl, put it more directly when she first laid eyes on William Hurt: "Now that's what I call a gorgeous hunk of man."
Hurt, 31, doesn't read reviews, but he has heard this said about him before —in 1977 when he appeared in Corinne Jacker's My Life at Circle Rep as a young physicist "swimming in memories" (Christopher Reeve played his grandfather), and in 1980 after his theatrical film debut as a young scientist swimming toward his primal past in Altered States. He heard it when he played Hamlet and originated the Kenneth Talley Jr. role in The Fifth of July at Circle Rep; he will surely hear it again when Body Heat opens next week. The verdict is in, the course is set: this blond, hunky six-footer will be the Wasp movie idol of the '80s.
Just now, though, as he prowls in blue Med Corps shirt and faded jeans through the Manhattan apartment he shares with New York City Ballet Dancer Sandra Jennings, Hurt sounds more like the theology student he was at Tufts University in the late '60s. "We were never meant to understand," he says with Byronic intensity. "We don't cause events, and we certainly can't hope to control them. But we can be amazed by them, and enjoy our amazement. That's what theater is —and, I think, film can be—a compact made between the artists and the audience to witness and to sing."