Billy Zane on playing masked superheroes and tuxedoed villains for four decades on screen

Actor Billy Zane reflects on iconic films Back to the Future, The Phantom and Titanic, and what still drives him.

Chicago-born Billy Zane knew he wanted to be an actor from an early age. It was the family business.Picture: Unique Nicole/FilmMagic/ Getty Images.

When Billy Zane first pulled on the tight-fitting purple suit to portray the legendary masked comic strip superhero The Phantom in the big-screen movie almost 30 years ago, he knew it was “the greatest honour” because of what The Ghost Who Walks meant to so many Phantom Phans around the world.

“I was introduced to the character while filming Dead Calm (1989) in Australia,” Zane, 59, recalls over Zoom.

“I never knew the serial from any of the newspapers. I only knew him from newsagents in Australia. Everyone bought it – school kids, businessmen, labourers. I’d watch people buy The Phantom comic. I’m like, what’s going on with this guy?”

The Phantom was created by Lee Falk in a newspaper comic strip that debuted in the US in February 1936. This costumed superhero, who lived in Skull Cave in the Deep Woods of Bengali and pledged to fight “piracy, greed and cruelty”, predated Superman and Batman. His secret identity was Kit Walker and for 400 years the eldest son carried on this noble mission.

“I started reading the reissues and I loved him,” Zane says. “I just thought he was such an incredible character. He was a white hat hero and well adjusted, and had a girlfriend and some animal friends, and I liked the fact that he didn’t have superpowers, which meant he was accessible, he was aspirational and you could be The Phantom.”

The Simon Wincer-directed film, called The Phantom, was released in September 1996. The cast included evildoers and roughnecks Treat Williams (Xander Drax) and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Sala), and featured Kristy Swanson as The Phantom’s girlfriend – and future wife – Diana Palmer. The film was not a box office success but became iconic and respected, and has loyal devotees.

“People associate with a character who’s not defined by vengeance and trauma drama,” Zane explains. “In the kind of glut of grey area heroics out there with body counts and antiheroes, tormented characters, it’s just nice to have someone who’s fighting piracy, tyranny and cruelty in all its forms, you know, just kind of doing the deal.”

In The Phantom, 1996.

With actor Kristy Swanson as Diana.

Just months after the film was released, Zane was in Mexico shooting James Cameron’s epic, Titanic (1997), alongside Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson and Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater. It was one of the biggest films ever made, ran over budget and was plagued with delays, but astonished audiences when it was released and collected many awards.

“It was a phenomenal experience,” Zane says of filming Titanic. “Cameron was wonderful – first in the water and last out, nothing but respect for him – funny, great sense of humour, inclusive. Leo was charming and it was great to watch his career blossom. And Kate was lovely and so were all of the supporting cast and crew. I made great friends there who I’m still very close with.”

He notes, as Winslet has, that a movie can act as a timestamp for moments in audiences’ lives that are forever attached to it: a first date or getting engaged, bonding with a sibling or seeing a parent cry for the first time. A cultural moment can transform into a personal moment, and Titanic is one of those films.

“These things aren’t about us,” Zane says of audiences and their reactions to his films and television shows. “It’s about them. And I just love hearing it. It’s such a gift to get to meet people and who share these stories with you that are so personal. It’s a nice touch.”

Zane’s character, Cal Hockley, was engaged to Winslet’s Rose and soon became jealous and resentful of her affection for DiCaprio’s Jack, and their impending marriage was a casualty, like the ship itself.

Hockley was stiff, arrogant, entitled. He was kind of the villain of the movie. Zane jumps in to protest as I describe the character.

“I thought the villain was the ­iceberg,” he jokes. “I didn’t kill 2000 people.”

As Cal Hockley (right) with Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) in Titanic, 1997.

“It was a great character to carry the hubris of the age, you know, and the gross assumptions of privilege,” Zane says. “He was incredibly fun to play, watching him kind of learn certain guardrails and about the strata of society that he didn’t really pay much attention to, and a value system that shifted and that suddenly became a challenge to his offerings that just didn’t compute.”

However, Zane notes that there is a “team Cal defence” emerging and some moviegoers are “rethinking the Cal prejudice”. He explains: “A lot of the team Jacks came over to team Cal as they kind of got older, realised their priority is about stability and like ‘Ooh, I kind of like that diamond’ and ‘he wasn’t that bad’. It’s very funny to see them kind of battle and rationalise their preferences.”

Chicago-born Zane knew he wanted to be an actor from an early age. It was the family business. His father and mother were actors, and so is his older sister, Lisa Zane. He studied drama at school and attended theatre camp in Wisconsin.

“Bill and Thalia Zane were great actors but also loved cinema, and grew up around it,” he recalls of his parents. “My father was an usher at the Biograph in Chicago where, famously, John Dillinger was shot. I was raised on classic cinema. So, it informed me early on. I had an incredible wealth of knowledge at a very young age that I was able to speak to and reference.

With Nicole Kidman in Dead Calm.

“I wanted to be a filmmaker when I was younger … I was crewing on commercials when I was 16 in Chicago. I just wanted to be near it. But I had the genetics, I guess, and the influences, and it seemed like a logical way to get to the epicentre and learn to be an actor, and as a way into the industry. So, I just pursued that and it led from there.” His first screen role was in another celebrated movie, Back to the Future (1985), starring Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd as Doc Emmett Brown. Zane was cast as Match in Biff Tannen’s (Thomas F. Wilson) gang. It was the highest-grossing film that year and became a cult classic. He returned for Back to the Future Part II (1989).

“This was my first professional Hollywood job and I had only been in town two weeks,” Zane recalls. “It was a gift and continues to be. To be on the backlot of that studio in that setting with that calibre of talent, it was a ‘pinch me’ moment, you know, and I loved it.

“Driving … every day for months from Beachwood Canyon over the hill to Universal Studios into an immersive 1950s landscape – to me, the 1950s was cinema – putting on that kit and seeing the cars and the details and the process was so nostalgic as much as the theme of the film itself.”

In recent years, Zane has steadily appeared in films and television series including Charmed (2005), The Deep End (2010), Guilt (2016), DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (2017), Curfew (2019), The Boys (2019-22) and MacGruber (2021). He has also directed and produced films. Another passion is painting, which Zane says began while filming Titanic in Mexico. His works of abstract expressionism have had regular gallery showings in the past two decades. His Tenison Field exhibition had recent showings in West Hollywood and San Francisco.

A new comedy-drama, Waltzing with Brando (2024), about the life of Marlon Brando, has won awards and critical accolades at film festivals. Zane, who portrays Brando with uncanny resemblance and delivers a star turn – and is also a producer – says the film will get an international release from ­September 19.

“It was a six-year labour of love,” Zane says. “It really shines a light on Marlon as a forward thinking activist on civil rights, Indigenous rights, but really environmental rights, which no one was seemingly thinking of in the 1970s. It’s beautiful – shot in Tahiti, most of it.”

As he looks back on 40 years since his first film role in Back to the Future, a thoughtful and reflective Zane says what he is looking for these days is “levels of functional cinema” that “push the needle on culture”. He seeks characters that both entertain and prompt a deeper understanding or appreciation of the human condition and the planet on which we live. “So, you know, stories that ideally lead towards an expanded state rather than a contracted one,” he expounds. “I like drama. I like opera as well. . I really like comedy too. I think the audiences need a little relief.”

But it is the jungle drums that continue to call Zane back to The Phantom. He was contracted for two sequels that were never made. He thinks the legend of The Man Who Cannot Die is “ripe for reinvention”, especially given the plethora of streaming platforms. He enthuses about a limited series, not necessarily a film, noting the 1943 black-and-white 15-part film serial starring Tom Tyler.

So would Zane like to put on that purple suit again and return to the title role?

“In a heartbeat,” he responds. “It makes total sense as it was a father-son hand-off. You know, grooming the next generation – it would be about the right age. Maybe not relinquishing the suit entirely just yet, having to slip into it once in a while. It’d be fun to do.”

Billy Zane will appear at Supanova Sydney (June 21-22) and Perth (June 28-29).