theOneliner.com Disko's Heroes: Ronny Cox: "In thirty seconds you'll be dead, and I'll blow this place up and be home in time for Corn Flakes!"

You know, when you're younger and taking your first steps into the world of cinema appreciation it's the fundamentals that count; shit blowing up, crazy car chases, raucous gunfights and maybe (if the parents are out and your friend has loaned you a dodgy copied VHS his mum bought down the market) some naked ladies. Of course it's up to the hero to traverse these obstacles, and long may he triumph over evil, but of far greater impact on the impressionable young mind is the insidious criminal mastermind. A well-defined bad guy is of infinitely greater importance than any number of gung-ho cops, elite Navy Seals or daring Space Rangers, and one man who knows it better than most is Ronny Cox.

Now if you're 40+ there's a good chance that Ronny's involvement in your celluloid upbringing will be an altogether more wholesome element. If you had to pick a feature in which to take your first steps before a Panavision camera then you couldn't ask for a tougher or more rewarding challenge than Deliverance; a film which has since transcended the screen to achieve that hallowed cultural status reserved for only the best, most affecting movies. As Drew Ballinger, Ronny not only got to be part of one of the century's most iconic pictures; he also famously jammed the now legendary "Duelling Banjos" with a terrifyingly mute inbred youngster. Just whistle the first nine notes to your dad and see what happens...

Wholesome naivety might have been the hallmark of Drew Ballinger, but a decade and some later Ronny flipped the switch and served up one of the silver screen's most memorable bad guys of recent years. RoboCop was another cultural phenomenon and as both popular sci-fi (it crossed the "geek" boundary into mainstream lore in a way matched only by Terminator and, more recently The Matrix) and social comment it remains a high watermark indeed. If Peter Weller did a sterling job as the tin law enforcer though, it was Cox who served up the real goods as evil corporate shark Dick Jones. If old Robo was meant as a Christ metaphor, then Jones was a worthy Satan indeed, and crucially his coal black sense of humour kept an otherwise wild and unhinged plot thoroughly in check.

That's how Ronny first came to my attention, via my mate Barry's VHS copy an older friend bought for us on our lunch hour at primary school. Indellible as that memory would be, however, the inimitable Mr. Cox followed it up in 1990 with a second serving of cold evil. Working again with famously OTT director Paul Verhoeven in 1990s Total Recall, Ronny again played a corporate menace, only this time infinitely more dangerous. Boardroom politics gave way to planetary warfare as Vilos Cohaagen, a man with the whole of Mars in his vice-like grip, threatened the planet's entire population with his demented schemes. Based on Philip K. Dick's short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, Cox revelled in the opportunity to put hero Arnold Schwarzenegger's character Doug Quaid through what the Austrian oak rightfully refers to as "the best mind-fuck yet".

After all that, growing up and discovering the relative calm of Deliverance came as a welcome breather. Still, even if Ronny himself admits playing the bad guy is an infinitely more rewarding personal experience, he is by no means a one-trick pony. Amongst other occasional asides, Ronny now spends much of his time performing his own blend of acoustic musical styles ranging from folk to country, jazz to blues, and much of what lies between. For Ronny music is a deeply personal journey of the soul, and for such a creative individual touring the world's folk festivals with guitar constantly in hand is quite simply second nature.

Of course many of you will have seen him inbetween times in a number of roles on the small screen. Sci-fi fans are spoilt for choice, as are followers of police procedural dramas, but some of Ronny's favourite achievements such as ill-fated musical drama Cop Rock and massively rated US TV movie drama A Case Of Rape may be unfamiliar to viewers outside America. Still, with a back catalogue of movies such as Taps, The Onion Field, Bound For Glory and, lest we forget, the first two Beverly Hills Cop movies you can't exactly claim to not have enough to be getting on with in the meantime.

I recently got in touch with Ronny who, typically of his reputation for being an accessible and generous guy, was more than happy to answer some of my questions.

You've kept a relatively low profile over the years since Deliverance first thrust you into the acting limelight, although recently a lot of our readers may have seen you in the likes of Desperate Housewives, Law & Order: SVU and Stargate SG-1. The few cinema roles you've chosen, however, have certainly made a huge impact. By what criteria do you select from the roles you've been offered, and is there a genre in which you feel the most comfortable?

First, last, and always it comes down to the script. I am, and have always been fairly selective about what I choose to do. Does that mean I don't do crap??? No, I do crap, I just don't do it on purpose. I can honestly say I have never taken a job for the money. Sometimes I will take a role to work with a particular director or actor... or sometimes I'll choose to be in a film thats not so good but the role is a great challenge, or if the role is not so good but it's a terrific script. Genre matters not at all!

This is the first time any of us here at The Oneliner have had the chance to converse with you, but your reputation for being a down to earth and likeable guy is widely acknowledged. What on earth made you want to take on the roles of Dick Jones in RoboCop and Vilos Cohaagen in Total Recall? Was it an attempt to explore the polar opposite (we are of course assuming you're not really a sociopath) of your own character, or is it just a hell of a lot of fun playing bad guys when Paul Verhoeven is pulling the strings? For crying out loud, Ronny - you scared an entire generation half to death! Explain yourself!

Playing the "bad guys" are always about 10 times more fun than playing "good guys". I use the analogy of painting.... with good guys you get red, white and blue... with the bad guys you get the whole palette. I try to spend most of my day being a good person... how boring to have to spend my acting doing the same thing. As an audience, you know as well as I, that the bad guys are way more interesting and compelling.

Unsurprisingly given Verhoeven's enthusiasm for exploring the darker corners of humanity, both RoboCop and Total Recall are only grudgingly noted by many critics as amazing sci-fi films, with their primary hang-up being the admittedly quite ludicrous quantities of violence. Is that an opinion you've had some difficulty in accepting, and did you have any concerns at the time you played those roles as to how some people might perceive the work as a whole?

Paul grew up in war-torn Europe where the violence was very real and very frightening. I've heard him speak on several occasions about using violence as a cartoonish satirical metaphor. We live in a violent society, especially here in America... seems the perfect way to skewer some sacred cows. I have no problems dealing with his "screen violence" and am unconcerned how people might perceive it.

Deliverance had, and continues to have, a massive cultural impact, and it's now regarded as not only the quintessential seventies thriller, but generally one of the greatest and most memorable movies of all time. Of all the legend surrounding the movie, your time on set as Drew Ballinger, the egotistical brilliance of Burt Reynolds and involvement of legendary director John Boorman, what we want to know is this: do people still stop you and ask for a quick rendition of Duelling Banjos?

You know, I'm almost never recognized as an actor when I'm on the street. People just think they know me... I've had this conversation 1,000 times... "Aren't you from Des Moines, Iowa... 'cause I'm Des Moines and theres a guy that looks like you..." And I say: "No, I'm an actor you've probably seen me in movies or TV". And they say: "Nope... I never saw you in no movie, but there's a guy who looks just like you... he could be your twin brother." So Dueling Banjos never comes up!!!

You co-penned the 1984 movie Courage, which you also produced, with your wife Mary, and despite moderate success you haven't returned to writing for the screen since. Is this something you have considered? Is there a Ronny Cox "dream project" we can look forward to in the future?

My passion these days is the music... I have a show called "Songs, Stories and Out and Out Lies", which is more like a stage show than anything else. I write all the stories and most of the songs... the lies take care of themselves.

You mention being proud of your work in the Steven Bochco project Cop Rock, and it's clearly something you wish could have taken off given that it marries your two great artistic passions of acting and music. So many people comment that it was a project way ahead of it's time, and it's cancellation after one season despite two Emmy awards was a blow against creativity. Would it fare better now do you think? How does the general quality of writing for television now compare to the projects you were offered then, and do you think writers are still as willing to take chances when creating work for the notoriously difficult US television market?