Interview: Tommy Lee Jones of 'Lincoln'
'Language is life's blood for actors ...'
By James Rocchi

As Thaddeus Stevens, Tommy Lee Jones' rich voice gets to boom out the principles of equality and also utter, with quiet conviction, of the human needs and feelings that make equality necessary. He's a scene-stealer, in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," but he's also portraying a figure of American history whose record of leadership, moral courage and eloquent verbal feuding should be far better remembered than they are. Stevens spoke out publicly as an abolitionist as early as 1832, putting him far ahead of the Emancipation proclamation or the 1865 passage of the 13th Amendment.

Says Jones: ...most people don't know who Thaddeus Stevens was and many of those who do are unaware that he had alopecia and a clubfoot.

Rocchi: This is probably the earliest human being I've heard of having alopecia. I mean it's something people certainly had throughout history but something you don't think about outside of a very modern context.

Jones: We didn’t invent that malady.

Rocchi: Right, right. It's not a side effect of the industrial revolution.

Jones: (Laughs) That's right.

[I just saw this movie today. Fantastic.--TG]