Why Tom Petty Was ‘Grateful’ for Role in ‘The Postman’

Tom Petty appeared on-screen for just a few moments in 1997’s The Postman, however it could have been simply the expertise he wanted on the time.

Generally talking, the ’90s discovered Petty navigating uncharted waters. His second solo album, 1994’s Wildflowers, was an immediate traditional but life was not all it gave the impression to be. Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch, who’d been with the band for shut to twenty years, give up the identical 12 months. Meanwhile, Petty’s marriage to his first spouse ended in divorce in 1996, and he struggled with a heroin dependancy.

Petty had labored on one other movie, 1996’s She’s the One, the place he rapidly composed the accompanying soundtrack and rating. He then launched a complete Heartbreakers album titled Songs and Music From ‘She’s the One.’ The movie starring Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz was poorly acquired. Petty’s album, which additionally included covers of songs by Lucinda Williams and Beck, was not: It reached No. 15 on the Billboard 200.

“I think people were drastically confused by the idea of a soundtrack album that wasn’t,” Petty informed BAM in 1997. “I know the record company was. The film didn’t do well, but I liked it. It was funny and it had something to say.”

Petty then launched into a 20-night residency in January 1997 on the Fillmore Ballroom in San Francisco, one other adventurous undertaking the place the Heartbreakers let free in a manner they’d by no means fairly finished earlier than. In addition to the hits, they performed dozens upon dozens of canopy songs and invited company onstage to carry out. “I wanted to play where there were no obligations at all,” Petty defined.

Obligations had been, as Petty had realized through the years, a part of the value one needed to pay for being well-known. Still, it could be inaccurate to explain Petty as disillusioned by fame in the ’90s. He hadn’t been all that eager on it in the primary place.

“It’s never been in my nature to want to be like a personality or a big celebrity,” he stated. “It’s fine if you do; I have nothing against it. It’s just not in my nature. I would be put off by that. I don’t attend premieres — I actually shy away from things that are gonna put you in that limelight. … We don’t do photo shoots at all. I just don’t do them. I don’t want to do them. It’s fine when you’re a boy, but now I feel ridiculous sitting in front of a backdrop and getting all painted up. So, if they wanna get a picture of me, get me at work or get me on the go, but I’m not gonna do that. The last one I did made me sick; I think I actually got the flu.”

Watch the Trailer for ‘The Postman’

By the latter half of the ’90s, Petty and the Heartbreakers had conquered nearly all there was in the world of rock ‘n’ roll music, garnering each industrial success and significant acclaim. But that did not precisely equate to whole satisfaction in Petty’s thoughts.

That’s when he bought a name from Kevin Costner, then at work on a movie he would produce and direct himself titled The Postman. Based on the mid-’80s novel of the identical title, his film takes place in a post-apocalyptic neo-Western world in the course of the then near-future 12 months of 2013. Costner was to painting a title character who travels the U.S. delivering outdated mail to residents, unwittingly inspiring hope.

Costner’s name additionally occurred to encourage some hope in Petty, who took on a small however memorable position as an area politician. “Kevin called me up and asked me to play the mayor of a post-apocalyptic city, and it was at a time when I really needed to do something,” Petty informed Rolling Stone in 1999. “I was, like, lost. The band had stopped touring. I lived alone.

“I wanted to do one thing with my time,” Petty added, “and this sounded excellent, so I took off and went as much as Washington, in the center of the woods someplace, bald eagles going over and freezing chilly in July.”

He was familiar with being on set in front of a camera. Petty had been doing it for years with his own music videos, a task he simultaneously enjoyed and found to be another drawback to fame. “We had been round in the times earlier than movies and it was a lot nicer, as a result of individuals made their very own movies to songs in their head,” he told BAM. “They found you in a distinct manner: on the stage. I’m not making an attempt to be a purist. I’ve loved making movies and I like movie and I like the entire course of, nevertheless it’s only a ache in the ass to need to [have] one for each launch.”

Petty’s Postman character even bore an eerie resemblance to the post-apocalyptic drifter he’d portrayed in his music video for 1982’s “You Got Lucky,” but working on a feature-length Hollywood film was still new. “Kevin was the director, and he actually bought on my case about how you can do it — ‘We do that completely different than you do music,'” Petty told Rolling Stone. “I’m grateful to Kevin. He taught me, or tried to, plenty of issues about how you can get this or that throughout on digital camera.”

Watch Tom Petty in ‘The Postman’

In Petty’s cameo, the Postman encounters the mayor while seeking sustenance. “I do know you,” Costner’s character says to Petty. “You’re well-known.” The mayor casually replies: “I used to be as soon as, kind of – form of, not anymore.” Later, he insists that the Postman is actually the famous one.

Released on Christmas Day in 1997, The Postman was an epic failure at the box office, returning only a fraction of its $80 million budget. Critics harshly condemned the film, and it won five Razzie Awards for Worst Actor, Picture, Song (for the film’s entire musical selection), Director and Screenplay.

Costner would go on to defend the film in subsequent years, while expressing gratitude for having made it. Petty’s lines in particular, he later said, were meant to serve as a broader metaphor.

“It offers with the character of fame, what I imply? It’s a really refined factor,” Costner told The Daily Beast in 2020. “I feel The Postman really is form of a really humorous film, whenever you watch it. There’s humor wrapped throughout it. Just dealing a little bit bit with the character of fame, and coping with someone who’s well-known, and him saying, ‘No, you are well-known.’ That’s all of the film was making an attempt to do.”

Not long after the movie was released, Petty received treatment for his addiction struggles, achieving sobriety in time for a tour supporting his 1999 album, Echo, and then married again in 2001. He went on to land a few more roles in film and television, most notably voicing Elroy “Lucky” Kleinschmidt in King of the Hill from 2004 until the show’s end in 2009.

Fame, then, didn’t seem so daunting. Petty and his second wife, Dana “can have peaceable instances when it isn’t an element in our lives,” he said in the 2005 book Conversations With Tom Petty. “Really, more often than not it is like a traditional household. I’m working, and we’re elevating a 12-year-old child. It’s common spending a big a part of the night making an attempt to assist [Petty’s stepson] Dylan end his homework. I’ve simply bought an uncommon job.”

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