From his early parts in ‘80s classics Birdy and Full Metal Jacket to more recent turns in Oppenheimer and “Stranger Things,” actor Matthew Modine has chosen roles that daringly expose man’s reckless endangerment of the planet and its inhabitants.
The fact that he turned down the part of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the pro-military blockbuster Top Gun (which went on to make Tom Cruise’s career) is a telling testament to his character off-screen.
The real-life maverick is committed to humanitarian and environmental causes.
“I’m always an environmentalist,” says Modine, who recently produced two documentary shorts highlighting critical social and environmental issues—Ripple Effect and SLUDGE: A PFAS UPRISING—bookending this year’s United Nations Association Film Festival.
“That’s a given. It’s not a part-time gig. I’m always seeking to discover how we can solve problems and search for ways to help improve situations.”
Screening at Palo Alto’s Mitchell Park Community Center on Thu/17, Ripple Effect, a pilot for a proposed documentary series, follows extraordinary individuals identifying harmful behaviors and workable solutions to save the planet.
A clarion call to the dangers now at our doorstep, SLUDGE: A PFAS UPRISING (Mitchell Park Community Center; Sun/27) describes the toll poisonous “forever chemicals” take on agriculture.
Modine will be recognized for these films and his years of activism with the UNAFF’s Visionary Award on Sun/27.
The founder of Bicycle for a Day (BFAD), which empowers individuals with the knowledge to reduce consumption and live more sustainably, has spent decades protecting the environment and advancing human rights.
For the actor and activist, it’s not about awards. It’s about the work, which he says grew out of borrowed intelligence from masters like marine biologist Sylvia Earle, oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, environmental activist David Suzuki, and planetary scientist Carl Sagan—which he hopes to impart to the next generation.
“Protecting the natural world should not be something one has to fight for,” he says. “But people are driven by greed and rarely take the long view necessary to avoid catastrophe for future generations. The Greek proverb goes, ‘We don’t plant trees for ourselves; we plant them for our grandchildren because we won’t be alive to enjoy their fruits or the shade from their canopies.’ So, being recognized for my efforts is recognizing the efforts of thousands of like-minded people.”
Like acting, which he studied at New York’s Stella Adler Center for the Arts and San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater, environmentalism is an “every day, every moment” practice.
Born in Loma Linda, CA, Modine grew up in Utah and Imperial Beach, CA. He spent summers at his grandfather’s gold-mining homestead in Hayfork, CA, working in the garden by day and fly fishing by night, before moving into acting.
Currently residing in NYC, he remembers his time studying and working in the Bay Area—filming Birdy (1984) in San Jose and Pacific Heights (1990) and parts of And The Band Played On (1993) in San Francisco—very fondly.
He regards San Francisco as a diverse, historically significant city of mavericks—an artistic and educational birthplace for new ways of seeing and thinking.
“SF doesn’t feel like the US,” says Modine. “SF and the outlying areas have another vibe—sophisticated but not uptight, European but without the pretense. Maybe the devastation of the 1906 earthquake shook the people’s consciousness and altered their perspective, forever reshaping the land and the people, changing their values and perspectives in a good way, helping the generations that followed understand and realize that all is impermanent, that everything eventually falls apart and dies. That’s a spiritual awakening.”
His environmental awakening came after his father’s drive-in movie theater was torn down and replaced with a mall and his beloved dog, buried in the field beside his family home, was covered with a blacktop parking lot. He recalls all the life in the field—insects, birds, and rabbits—being buried or displaced.
These events helped inform his understanding of early-’70s tunes like Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi,” Spirit’s “Nature’s Way,” and Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” as more than mere pop tracks. To him, they were religious hymnals.
“Those songs had a profound effect on me,” he says. “They explained what was happening and what lay ahead if we didn’t become conscious of our behavior. It’s 50-plus years later and we’re still destroying and consuming at an unsustainable pace.”
He sees the world’s oceans (not to mention its sea turtles, sea lions, and shellfish) in peril and the havoc that PFAS are wreaking on all living creatures.
Modine hopes projects like Ripple Effect and SLUDGE can help turn the tide at a time when corporate greed and ecologically irresponsible fast fashion and fast food are destroying the world.
Eventually, he hopes to turn Ripple Effect into a series, in which people and organizations can present solutions to the environmental crisis in a friendly, comprehensible manner that even his four-year-old grandson can understand.
“I hope Ripple Effect makes people realize how they can create positive change,” says Modine. “[Architect] Buckminster Fuller said, ‘The best way to predict the future is to design it.’ That’s what the episodes of Ripple Effect should make viewers feel—that each of us can be the change to a healthy and sustainable future.”
Coming up, Modine will soon appear in a limited, eight-episode Netflix series titled “Zero Day” opposite Robert De Niro and Angela Bassett; the Amazon show “Better Sister” with Jessica Biel; and indie film The Martini Shot costarring John Cleese, Sir Derek Jacobi, and Jason London.
These splashier projects, keeping Modine in the spotlight, help amplify his activist work.
“The two films I have in the UNAFF, Ripple Effect and SLUDGE, are a bonus,” he says. “It’s always an honor to have the privilege of presenting your work.”
27TH UNAFF (UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION FILM FESTIVAL) Thu/17-Sun/27, Various Bay Area Locations. Tickets and more info here.
