John Cusack pushes the limit
A comedy about air traffic control freaks,<
By BOB THOMPSON
Toronto Sun
HOLLYWOOD -- Control is critical in the air traffic control business. When writer Darcy Frey investigated controllers' jobs for a 1996 New York Times Sunday magazine piece, he discovered control only applied to on-the-job execution.
Frey revealed some startling elements of living a controller's life through the eyes of New York-based Tom Zaccheo. The piece had been prompted by some near misses in the skies
around New York in the mid-'90s. During his investigation into the near-misses, Frey found himself marvelling at the after-work controller
subculture.
Handling more than 7,000 flights daily in the LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark airports, the air traffic guides were anything but typical of the
short-sleeved, tie-wearing bureaucrats most imagine.
Shortly after the piece's publication, producer Art Linson saw a movie in the words, and bought the film rights. The TV Cheers team of Glen and Les Charles developed a screenplay in '97.
Amazingly enough, a year later, that film version, Pushing Tin, can be seen in theatres.
Opening Friday, director Mike Newell's comedy-drama features John Cusack as a hyperactive, macho controller who competes with a
newly hired hotshot (Billy Bob Thornton) at Long Island's Terminal Radar Approach Control facility.
Vicki Lewis, Jake Weber, Kurt Fuller and Matt Ross are featured as other Long Island controllers. Cate Blanchett and Angelina Jolie play Cusack's and Thornton's wives.
Pushing Tin was filmed last spring in and around Toronto, which boasts Canada's busiest airport and one of the five busiest in North America.
Although New York air controller Zaccheo was used as a consultant, Newell, Thornton and Cusack leaned heavily on Toronto air traffic
controller Sheila McCombe, who was hired as an on-set expert.
McCombe put Thornton and Cusack through drills "of turning planes" for landing and setting up aircraft for takeoff by directing pilots' aircraft from computer blips on radar scopes.
Pressure? Lots, when 10 planes are approaching the same airport at the same time during bad weather. Like, 'United 1230, turn left heading 280 immediately. Traffic at your three o'clock.'
Get the picture. Controllers have to take charge quickly and with authority. That's why one of the main thrusts of Pushing Tin -- controller slang
for directing air traffic -- is the examination of how these professionals cope. Hour shifts with hour breaks, five days on, four days off. Shift work, always shift work. And overtime, always overtime.
Animosity between pilots and controllers? Lots of that, too. McCombe had Thornton and Cusack sit alongside seasoned veterans, as well as work with the actors on the computer simulator that
re-enacts air traffic movements.
Both Thornton and Cusack became immersed in a major way, bravely trying to speak clearly, confidently and quickly. "They were hilarious," she says of Thornton and Cusack.
"Billy Bob came first for a couple of weeks. When John got here, he was quite nervous that Billy Bob was ahead of him "When they came back together, John was very aggressive. He didn't
care if he got anything right, he just wanted to get everything out. I actually had to restrain his mannerisms. His hand gestures would've looked completely ridiculous.
"Billy Bob wanted to think very hard about every clearance, and think about it again. And then he'd look at me and see if I was approving."
"There is a lilt to it," adds McCombe, a 34-year-old pilot turned controller. "You have to know where to put the pauses and commas in your voice."
Thornton laughs as he remembers the experiences with McCombe.
"We'd hang out with Sheila, and she was just like this girl we knew," recalls Thornton.
"Then she'd be on the set, like no nonsense, 'No, this is what you do.'
"She really got a kick out of John and me. We are so different in manner. John talks fast -- it's natural. So he'd screw up, because he'd get ahead of himself. And me? I wouldn't quite get there yet.
"I'd be like, 'Uh, TWA-740, uhh, I think ...' And Sheila would jump in and say, 'You can't pause. You can't act like you don't know what it is.' "
"The controllers are pretty wired," reports Cusack. "They are very high energy kind of people dealing with a lot of pressure.
"I think that the movie is really about how people cope with stress, and how they release steam through some bizarre behaviour."
Thornton adds: "I expected white shirts and neckties and that they would be laid out in these perfect little booths. But the Toronto guys
were in T-shirts and khaki shorts, telling stories while controlling traffic."
Yet the demanding jobs are anything but casual.
"We worked on the simulator computer," recalls Cusack of his air traffic movement practice. "You can do it at first. Then you realize it's three dimensional. And then you realize the planes just keep coming and coming. They don't stop. Take care of two, two more show up. And two more after that. "It is like a video game, but you know there is a lot more at stake than that."
Admits McCombe: "It is intimidating." But only for the uninitiated. "You plug in the headset, but every plane you turn, you don't wonder how many people are on the plane," says McCombe.
"We move so many that you get really confident on how to sequence and separate airplanes safely. I don't think you acknowledge the stress from day to day."
What about acknowledging a fear of flying for Cusack and Thornton after getting way too much information on air traffic controller jobs? "I just know I'm not going to die in a plane crash," Cusack says confidently.
"I'm not a great flyer," admits Thornton. "But on a plane now, I'm usually the one telling everybody, 'It's just the wind.' "
