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From Shakespeare to Disney Photo by Andy Atkinson Denis Arndt of Ashland says it was "great fun" playing an older astronaut who acts as a mentor to a young mission commander in the ABC movie "Max Q." Arndt has appeared in several movies and television shows since his years with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Denis Arndt's latest movie gives him role as mentor By BILL VARBLE People have been asking Denis Arndt who Max Q. is. "It's not what you think it is," the 59-year-old, Ashland-based actor says. "Max Q." is a new adventure movie made by the Disney people. It airs at 9 tonight on ABC (KDRV Channel 12 in the Rogue Valley). Arndt plays a key role. "Max Q. is a point of maximum stress in a liftoff," he says. "It's the place lifting off where your engines either light and you go into orbit or beyond, or you become ballistic and start going back to Earth." The producers say the film is about a routine mission that goes awry when a malfunction leaves Mission Control with a disabled crew floating perilously through space. As fingers begin to point at the multinational corporation that funded the mission to deploy its own satellite, the only hope might be ...Cut. Arndt says he doesn't want to give up the story. "It's about young astronauts," he says. "I'm the old-fart astronaut in the background. The commander is my protege." The movie stars Bill Campbell ("The Rocketeer") and Paget Brewster ("Friends"). It reportedly features dazzling special effects. It was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer ("Armageddon," "The Rock," "Top Gun") and directed by Michael Shapiro. It was filmed in Vancouver, B.C. Astronaut Bruce McCandless, who was a mission specialist on two space shuttle flights, was on the set as an adviser. "It was great fun," Arndt says. "Michael did an excellent job directing." Arndt says he'll be seeing the completed film tonight on TV for the first time, just like other viewers. Scenes aren't shot in the sequence in which they'll appear in a movie. So Arndt says the trick for an actor is to figure out the director's intent from the script. "You're a piece of the story, but you don't tell the story," he says. "It's a director's and editor's medium, not an actor's medium. They take pictures of you. What they do with those pictures is entirely at their discretion. "If you look at an anthill ant by ant, it looks fragmented, but it's an organic process." Arndt started acting professionally in 1972 in Seattle. He first got excited about the craft years earlier, when he studied with a drama teacher named Dale Brannon at Rogers High School in Spokane, Wash., in 1957. In his senior year they toured five three-act plays in the Spokane area, and the hook was set. Arndt served in Vietnam as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot in an aviation battalion in the mid-1960s. He flew commercially in Alaska for several years after that. He was going to the University of Washington on the G.I Bill when a friend asked him to read for a play in Seattle. "The circle was completed," he says. Arndt went on to become a stage actor, performing Shakespeare and the classics. In the movies, he's been Michael Douglas' boss in "Basic Instinct" and Eddie Murphy's boss in "Metro." His TV credits include mini-series roles on NBC and CBS as well as ABC. He was Mary Tyler Moore's husband on "Annie McGuire," Franklin Dell on "Picket Fences" and Jack Sollers on "LA Law." He has his eye on some film projects after the first of the year but says it's considered bad luck to talk about them. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA