Why James Caan hated his tough guy image: “I happen not to like it”
Many actors have either thrived or withered by being stuffed into a certain box early in their careers, and James Caan had plenty of issues with the one he was thrust into, even if he wasn’t entirely free from blame, having played a number of characters that fit the bill.
Burt Reynolds would be the first to disagree after blasting him as a poser, but whether the moustachioed star liked it or not, Caan was one of Hollywood’s most in-demand tough guys. He looked like a tough guy, sounded like a tough guy, and certainly carried himself like a tough guy. He regularly signed on to play tough guys, too, which makes it a touch odd that he didn’t care for the label.
Ironically, he had his chance to take major roles in a number of classic movies where he wouldn’t have been forced to rely on his tried-and-trusted shtick, and the longer he spent becoming known primarily for one thing, the more difficult it became for Caan to try and prove himself as anything else.
It was definitely an assessment of its time, with the Academy Award nominee invoking the name of a feminist icon in a 1981 interview with Rolling Stone to voice his displeasure. “It’s just a simple statement,” he raged. “I happen not to like it. I say it, and I am immediately labelled macho. That’s my image; big macho slob pig who treats women badly.”
“I gotta listen to Gloria Steinem talk about macho. I don’t even know what macho is. I only have to be concerned with how I treat a woman and how she treats me,” he continued. “I say I believe that if a woman is going to be a mother, she should act like a mother, and it is immediately misconstrued that I think all women belong in the kitchen. I have no problems with a woman who wants a career. I just don’t think I could be in love with a woman who boxes for a living.”
Of course, Caan was more than capable of playing against type to shine in drama and romance, but being tarred with the tough guy brush was a situation of his own making, both onscreen and off. He was at his best playing no-nonsense bruisers or thugs with a heart of gold, while his idealised version of home life was that there was “just something kind of nice about a woman taking care of her man.”
He got himself a very stellar career out of it, but still, Caan wasn’t really in a position to complain about his macho persona when he was one of, if not the single biggest driving force behind that mythology being burned into the cinematic consciousness in the first place.
