Tommy Lee Jones does not affect humility. The Texan comes by the quality naturally.
He can be brusque, sometimes overbearingly so, and as demanding on others as he is on himself. When Mr. Jones says he's grateful, he means it.
And so, when the actor says he's honored to receive the USA Film Festival's Master Screen Artist Award, which he picked up in Dallas last week, you'd better believe him -- even if, to be completely honest, there's somewhere else he'd rather be.
"I'd rather be in Fort Worth, hanging out at the Stock Show," he said, lamenting that a tight schedule also prevented him from spending more time with local friends.
"But I've been to Fort Worth for the Stock Show -- I try to attend every year -- and this festival thing ... this really is a singular honor. It's putting it mildly to say I'm touched by the recognition."
Mr. Jones, 50, received the award for a body of work dating to 1970. That year marked his screen debut, in a minor and largely unnoticed role in "Love Story." Since then, however, the unconventionally handsome Mr. Jones has made a career out of playing smart, ordinary-guy characters. He's also starred in a string of hits, including "Natural Born Killers" and "The Fugitive," for which he won the best supporting actor Oscar.
This year, he's back in two high-profile movies: disaster sizzler "Volcano," which opened last weekend as the No. 1 box-office movie, and the science-fantasy thriller "Men in Black," opening this summer. In the latter film, in which he plays a space-alien-stalking secret agent, Mr. Jones co-stars with Will Smith, of last year's blockbuster "Independence Day."
Yet Mr. Jones, who attended "Volcano's" regional premiere at the USA Film Festival, insists he doesn't choose movies for their money-making potential.
"I can't think of any time when I've ever thought of myself as some kind of 'movie star,' " Mr. Jones says. "I'm just game for any type of role that interests me."
In "Volcano," Mr. Jones plays a Los Angeles municipal emergency chief named Mike Roark, an unglamorized hero whose job description is abruptly redefined by a volcanic eruption that threatens L.A.'s 17.2-acre Wilshire Corridor.
"He's no savior. He's an Everyman," Mr. Jones said. "He's got an important job, but he doesn't think that makes him personally important. I kind of like that.
"I could also relate to his being recently divorced, and to his daughter being a bit rebellious, as all teen-agers are."
Mr. Jones' own divorce two years ago, from photographer/journalist Kimberlea Jones, seems only to have intensified his concern with family life. In addition to his ranch in San Saba County, Mr. Jones maintains residences in Hollywood and, "to stay within close range of my two kids," in San Antonio.
"They're gettin' up into the grade-school years, for my little daughter, and the teen-age years, for my son," he said, "and there's no way I'm going to let myself miss out on those years, and the years to come."
As for himself, Mr. Jones said: "I still haven't decided on what I want to be when I grow up. I like raising good cattle, I like being a father, I enjoy making movies -- where variety is important over the long term -- and I like directing the occasional film."
A native of San Saba, Mr. Jones majored in English while attending Harvard but also studied drama; he debuted on Broadway in 1969.
"Rolling Thunder" (1977), best of his breakthrough pictures, examined the plight of the returning Vietnam veteran. In "Coal Miner's Daughter" (1980), Mr. Jones played a pure-country husband to Sissy Spacek's impersonation of hillbilly singer Loretta Lynn. "Black Moon Rising" (1986) attempted to establish Mr. Jones as an action-adventure hero.
"Tommy Lee's Oscar for 'The Fugitive' is widely supposed to have been his validation as a popular favorite," says Andrew Davis, director of "The Fugitive" (1993). "But he needs no such validation."
Oliver Stone, who directed Mr. Jones as a vengeful prison warden in the controversial "Natural Born Killers" (1994), calls the actor "a natural-born comedian, who can play it tongue-in-cheek or over-the-top, or both at the same time. He seems to know when the role calls for a larger-than-life portrayal, and when the role needs to be precisely life-size."
Mr. Jones' rationale is more simply put in his own words: "I just enjoy actin'."
Good thing. "Men in Black" opens July 2. By then, Mr. Jones will have begun shooting a new picture called "U.S. Marshals." And by summer's end he expects to be preparing to direct a film he describes as "a Southern Gothic detective yarn."
He admits to no marketplace expectations for either "Volcano" or "Men in Black" -- beyond hoping that "they give people their money's worth and don't cancel each other out."
When the dust has settled from a box-office blitz by 25-or-so action thrillers between now and Labor Day, the big winner could be Tommy Lee Jones
