“I went in my blue dress uniform up in the cheap
seats,” remembers Dye. “The fact that he
recognised me in his speech made my career.”
Stone doesn’t let him forget it. “Whenever I miss
the premiere of one of his movies, he calls me up
and chews my ass about it,” says Dye. “‘I made
your career, where the hell are you?!’”today, he’d find
Dye en route to California’s Mojave Desert for
Empire’s photoshoot, three decades and more
than 40 Hollywood productions on. In summer
it’s the kind of place where even the rattlesnakes
slither for cover. “It gets hotter than a son of a
bitch up here,” notes Dye of those blast-furnacehighs (up to 49 ̊C). Thankfully, the scrubby
landscape — home to the Bride’s chapel in Kill
Bill: Vol. 2 — is a little more hospitable today.
Over a burger in a dusty corner of Mojave town,
Dye dissects the tools of his trade. “Actors have
very well-constructed egos, so you have to get
their attention,” he says. “You wear them out to
the point where all that’s on their mind is, ‘How
do I not displease that white-haired bastard?’
They look at the guy next to them, some extra
who’s never done a movie in his life, and suddenly
realise, ‘I’m not really special here. He’s sweating
just as hard as I am.’” To that end, Dye has
devised collective exercises with fiendish names
like “the caterpillar push-up” and “atomic sit-up”
to turn A-listers into teachable grunts.That ‘break them down to build them up’
ethos has served him well on productions of the
scale of Forrest Gump, Born On The Fourth Of
July, The Last Of The Mohicans and Band Of
Brothers. A nimble mind doesn’t hurt either,
especially paired with a killer put-down.
“There’s ‘piss-complected shit blivet’,” he says,
offering Empire a crash course in ego-deflating
Dye-isms. “‘Ass eyes’ is another one. Marines,
especially, love to play with language. It becomes
a weapon, and we can get your attention and
hold it.” On Outbreak, Dustin Hoffman became
‘Maggot’ — “which he thought was great,” grins
Dye — while even the most award-garlanded
thespian is just another “actor weenie” on day
ALAMY, EYEVINE one of boot camp. ❯