Jason Patric Unmasked

Yet the elder Miller refused to return calls for this story. And Patric, when asked if he also inherited his intense work ethic from his father, says, "My past has been filled with the opposite. I've seen people close to me who let their gifts slip away." When Dern, one of Patric's close friends, is asked about the father-son relationship, he says, "Obviously there's distance...My daughter [actress Laura Dern] has been best friends with Jason for 14 years, and she doesn't know shit [about the relationship]. It's a taboo subject."

When he got the role of a troubled teen in Toughlove, his first paying acting job, Jason Patric Miller dropped his last name. "Growing up, I was always called Jason Patric, especially when I was bad," he says casually. "It's also mildly Oedipal. You have to kill the parents in order to become yourself."

Covered by a long-sleeve T-shirt, small oval shades, and Notre Dame baseball cap, Patric is sitting poolside late one morning at the Four Seasons Hotel, L.A.'s glamour epicenter. When he talks about Hollywood, he often sounds a quarter-century older than he is: "The television's all close-up, and it's all resolution in 24 minutes," he says, tearing off bits of a carrot muffin. "And so it's absolutely affected movies completely."

He does not care, in fact, for many of his own movies. Asked about The Lost Boys, he labors a moment before coming up with a diplomatic answer: "I think it's everything Joel [Schumacher, the director]wanted it to be. How's that?" Even Geronimo, he says, got "muddled" in the editing room. "It should've focused on Gatewood going to get Geronimo," he says, sounding disappointed. "I wish [they] had called me in. I could've helped."

He says he almost left the business after his first big-screen effort, in Solarbabies, a 1986 Mel Brooks-produced film about futuristic hunks roller-skating to save the world. "Brooks is a big liar," says Patric. "It was going to be much more of a realistic, Mad Max-type movie. We got there and it was a joke."

"I think he was misled by his own thoughts, his own hopes," responds Brooks. "Maybe Jason should be a writer-director-actor, you know? He probably has the stuff for it. He's obviously not satisfied with what's given to him, and that's a good clue that maybe this guy has to grow out of being just an actor." As it happens, Patric's next project may be a film that he cowroteabout Notre Dame football legend George Gipp, who was given life on screen once already, by Ronald Reagan. "Jason doesn't want to waste anything," says Zanuck. "He has this thing that you have so many good films in you, that at a certain point you'll start depending on tricks."

Patric finishes his muffin and refuses more food. He says he eats only one meal a day. What else does he do in his spare time? "Just make something up," he says. "Popsicle structures and soap carving." But then he begrudgingly lets go of a few private facts: (1) He's currently not seeing anyone, and (2) he is the proud owner of a 90-pound Vietnamese potbellied pig.

Really? What's the pig's name?

"Hey, no personal questions," he answers, smiling. "No, I will clarify it only because it's been printed wrong. His name is Fergus."

Why Fergus?

"It's Irish," says Patric. "I think it means 'of manly strength.' He's very spoiled. I like him, though. They're noble creatures. That's why I've always wanted one. There's something noble about them." Across the pool, women in bikinis and gold jewelry bask in the winter sun. A bit more relaxed now, Patric pulls off his sunglasses and stops looking at the ground. This time, his eyes match the pool.