In Memoriam: John Ashton

Whatever its shortcomings, Ben Affleck’s feature directorial debut “Gone Baby Gone” (2007) exuded a distinct sense of place, maybe not a surprise given that its setting was his hometown of Boston. It exuded that place through its shrewd location work but also through the people populating those locations. Affleck has said he would utilize people who were literally already in those locations as non-professional extras to round out his well-chosen professional cast, whether it was his brother Casey, also a Boston native, or Oscar-nominee Amy Ryan, a New York native who nevertheless sounded and felt like she hailed from Beantown. And then there was John Ashton, who was a little bit in-between. He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, but was raised in Connecticut, and studied theater arts at USC. Indeed, while Ashton became famous for a smorgasbord of solid supporting work across a wide spectrum of both television and film, including perhaps most famously in the 1984 action/comedy blockbuster “Beverly Hills Cop” and its first two sequels, he got his start on the stage. 

The New York Times obituary for Ashton, who died last week at the age of 76, noted that he earned his audition for “Beverly Hills Cop” on the strength of a production of Sam Shephard’s “True West” at the South Coast Repertory Theater in Costa Mesa, CA in 1981 with Ed Harris. (When I read that, I decided that I saw Ashton as Austin and Harris as Lee, but turns out, it was the other way around, and I’d like to think my misread is a testament to each man’s versatility.) There were stories at the time of “Gone Baby Gone’s” release that Affleck had cast Ashton because of how much the director loved “Midnight Run,” another 80s comedy in which Ashton played key comic support, and that’s no doubt true. But I also wonder what Affleck knew of that 1981 “True West” production given that he cast Harris and Ashton as a pair of police detectives, Remy Broussard and Nick Poole, respectively.

The screenplay describes Poole as the good cop in their relationship, but that is not quite how it comes through on screen; it’s more like Irritable Cop / Irritable Cop. Broussard and Poole are forced to work with a pair of younger private detectives, Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan), hired by the family of a missing child to provide further support and the four investigators meet for the first time at a diner. As the PIs enter, Ashton has Poole take a sip of his iced tea and lean back against the wall, sizing up Patrick as he approaches, posture belying an attitude of, “This fucking guy.” But that is not the best or most important part.

It has been almost 20 years, so while I will not give it away completely, I will observe that Broussard and Poole are involved in the child’s disappearance, albeit in an altruistic if misguided kind of way. They don’t want Patrick and Angie involved, but they can’t say they don’t want Patrick and Angie involved, obviously, and they certainly can’t say it to us, the audience, lest they ruin the surprise. But when Patrick says he might be able to contribute information regarding a shady character in the life of the missing child’s mother, Poole replies, “How’s that?” And as he asks it, Ashton does the most remarkable thing by folding his hands in front of his face as he says it.

There is an air of annoyance in Ashton’s voice, but it’s so much more. It’s in that bit of physicality with his hands, the aggression with which he folds them, putting them in front of his mouth not just in an attempt to conceal his annoyance but to conceal his rage, his realizing this nosy guy has the ability to ruin this whole thing and that what he most wants to do is punch him in the face and can’t. In one gesture, Ashton tells you what is happening without telling you what is happening at all.

Watch the scene here.