MacDonald's latest role commanding attention

By ROGER MORRIS Western News Publisher

Former Libby resident Scott MacDonald has got people snapping to attention in his latest screen performance, "Jarhead."

The 1977 graduate of Libby High School plays a Marine Crops drill instructor in the Universal Pictures production released in early November and directed by Sam Mendes.

"It is by far the biggest film I have ever been involved in so it follows that this is the most attention I have received for a film," MacDonald said recently. "Sam Mendes is an Oscar-winning director, the writer has an Oscar, the producers all have them, many of the actors were on the A-list."

MacDonald considers the part a professional coup in which he shares "rare air" with some of Hollywood's top movie-makers.

"I am credited in the film in what they call single card, first position, which is star billing," he said. "In the credits I am nestled between Oscar-winner Chris Cooper, Emmy-nominee Dennis Haysbert and Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx."

The story is set during the first Gulf War and follows Anthony Swofford, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, a third-generation enlistee, from boot camp to active duty, where he's carrying a sniper's rifle and a hundred-pound ruck sack while moving through Middle East deserts with no cover from the heat.

MacDonald makes his appearance briefly at the start of the film during Swofford's boot camp experiences.

The Washington Post, in a recent piece on the movie, acknowledged MacDonald's performance as continuing a colorful tradition of Marine drill instructors in the movies.

He spent six weeks of "intense rehearsal and research working with several former Marine corps specialists.

"One, who helped me a great deal, was a former drill instructor named Staff Sgt. Tom Minder and I worked closely with him picking his brain for details on how to get this character right," MacDonald said.

"My feeling was that I could scare my mom (Borgie MacDonald of Libby) but could I come across in a convincing fashion to former Marines around the world? I have subsequently heard from many Marines who have, to a man, told me I nailed it. I'm prouder of those reviews than the Hollywood press I have received, which fortunately has been positive as well."

He said after the first night of screening, Sgt. Major Jim Dever, his "C.O." while training, who served two tours in the Gulf, told him, "You could go to the grinder in Camp Pendleton with the real DI's and no would know the difference.'

"That's high praise," MacDonald said.

For the role, MacDonald spent a week in boot camp in the California desert and countless hours in the barracks built on the lot at the Universal Studios drilling footwork and form with Minder.

"The boot camp was quite an event," he said. "They drilled 15 or so actors with weapons. We slept in GP tents and stood guard duty. We dug fighting holes and skirmished, hiked with 60-pound packs and weapons — all the while gleaning information from the seven Marine experts."

He said it was obviously just a sample of the extensive training Marine recruits experienced.

"I was the by far the oldest guy humping around in drills and it was tough on my old bones," MacDonald said. "Also, the studio hired a personal trainer for me; one of the guys from the TV show "The Biggest Loser." He tortured 15 pounds off me in three weeks after boot camp. Ouch."

MacDonald's appearance in the movie is brief.

"My actually screen time is right at the top of the film and is a brief, blazing and memorable few minutes," he explained. "It is often ironic how seven weeks of actor prep can be boiled into several minutes on the screen."

Over the years, MacDonald has made numerous appearances in the Star Trek clones on television — "Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager." Most recently he played the villainous Xindi reptile Commander Dolim in 10 episodes of "Enterprise."

And he appeared in 14 of the 27 episodes of HBO's "Carnivale" as a 1930's roustabout named Burley. Also, he has been a guest star recently on the television shows "Threshold," "Navy NCIS," "JAG" and "West Wing." He will appear in an upcoming episode of "Boston Legal."

On the big screen, MacDonald will be seen this year in an independent film from World War II called "Straight into Darkness." And he appears in another film called "American Crude," directed by Craig Scheffer, who starred in "A River Runs Through It." MacDonald worked with Scheffer in a film from 1993 called "Fire in the Sky," about an alien abduction in the mountains of northeastern Arizona.

"I do a good bit of voice-over work for radio and TV commercials and I also voice characters on X-Box/PS2 games," he said. "Some folks who play those may have heard me as Gambit on the X-Men games for those systems."

He hasn't had time for local theater in the LA area because of his television and film work but hopes to return to the stage.

"I was watching Once Upon a Mattress on TV recently and was stunned to realize I did the lead role in that play my senior year at LHS in 1977," MacDonald said. "My 30-year reunion is upcoming. I don't know about my classmates but I am not ready to deal with that reality.

"I don't know how they all aged and I haven't but that's my story and I'm sticking to it."