I like Billy Zane, sure.
THE Billy Zane movie is
Blood & Concrete: a love story (1991). One of the few starring roles for Bill, this low-budget independent follows Joey Turks (Zane), a low-rent small-change grifter who gets involved with a suicidal girl (Jennifer Beals) and unwittingly wrapped up in the dealing of a new synthetic Spanish Fly-type street drug. The great Darren McGavin (
A Christmas Story, "Kolchak: The Night Stalker") is a burned-out pissed-off detective looking to bust the mid-level scumbag (Nicholas Worth) trying to distribute this sex in a pill, and he doesn't really care if Joey gets hurt in the crossfire. The incomparable Harry Shearer (
This Is Spinal Tap, "The Simpsons", A Mighty Wind) is Joey's mentor, and indie regular James LeGros (
Living in Oblivion, Safe) is a love-sick ex-beau of Mona's who can't take a hint. Zane is terrific as the good-looking but incompetent thief in way over his head, but always styling in his jacket and shoes, bumbling toward the goal. Great off-center dark comedy of a crime flick, and Beals' song "One Girl in a Million" is a show-stopper. I own it letterboxed on LaserDisc, and it's one of my very favorite little movies nobody has ever heard of.
JOEY TURKS
(Billy Zane)
I love you.
MONA
(Jennifer Beals)
You've only known me for three days.
JOEY TURKS
Well, I like you then.
Orlando (1992) is the other must-see film in Zane's somewhat limited filmography. In Sally Potter's inventive and smart adaptation of Virginia Woolf's satirical novel, Tilda Swinton's remarkable gender-switching central performance is the showcase, but Zane is excellent and, dare I say, sexy in support, and Quentin Crisp gives what is perhaps the definitive drag portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I. Weird and funny and dense and thought-provoking, there's not much else out there like
Orlando.