Conflict: Harvey Keitel doesn't shy away from it

NEW YORK - Conflict.

Harvey Keitel is not afraid of it.

"There was conflict between all of us," Keitel says about the cast and crew of his new film, "Holy Smoke!" which co-stars Kate Winslet and was co-written and directed by Jane Campion. "That's a good thing. If you have a creative project and there isn't any conflict, you have a problem. I say hurray for us. I'm proud we could do it."

Keitel stars as P.J. Waters, an American cult deprogrammer, who travels to Australia to convince a young woman played by Kate Winslet to get off her guru trip. In the process, their roles get reversed, and both characters come out of it a little wiser and a little weirder.

"Kate's a very daring young lady - not physically, but emotionally," Keitel says. "She has the courage to go places that are deep and different and necessary if one is to be illuminated."

As for Campion, with whom Keitel worked on "The Piano," Keitel calls her "a witch."

"If I can survive her, I can live with any woman," he says.

If you're waiting for Harvey Keitel to wink and tell you he's joking, you don't know Harvey Keitel. At 60, the Brooklyn native is the veteran of some 70 movies, and he's worked with a corps of the industry's top quirky directors - Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Abel Ferrara. He and Campion are an odd match, but no other director has required Keitel to lay himself as bare as she has.

"Jane's a beautiful human being," says Keitel, crossing his legs. He's wearing a black leather jacket, black slacks, black dress shoes, and no socks. "Being with her is like reading a great novel or standing in front of a painting that stirs you. She's always raising consciousness."

A tough guy

With his deadpan baritone and his somewhat gimlet eyes, Keitel can communicate on many levels at once. That's what's made him a favorite in such tough-guy movies as "Mean Streets," "Pulp Fiction," "Bad Lieutenant," "Reservoir Dogs," "Cop Land," "Taxi Driver," and "Point of No Return."

That's what makes the deconstruction of his gritty masculinity in "Holy Smoke!" so effective.

"Jane (Campion) is one of the people I love to have conflicts with," Keitel says. "She never tries to avoid it. She just goes for it."

As for Ferrara, who directed Keitel in "Bad Lieutenant," one of the actor's most compelling performances, Keitel says Ferrara's way of dealing with conflict was "a lot of screaming."

Scorsese, says Keitel, "creates an open channel for his actors. He wins them over and they start to work together as comrades. Someone will make a suggestion, and he'll say, `Let's try it.' "

His big break

Scorsese was the director who gave Keitel his big break. Keitel, a student of Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler, says he was "wandering the streets of New York trying to find work" when he answered a casting call at NYU for a student film.

"Hundreds of people showed up, of course, for this non-paying job," Keitel recalls. "I went through three auditions, and I got the part of Charlie."

Keitel knew Scorsese was something special when he saw a clip of the film, "Mean Streets," during the editing process.

"It's the scene of Charlie inside the church, and the camera closes in on all the religious objects," Keitel says. "Over all that, on the soundtrack, is `Who's That Knocking On My Door?' That was the scene when I knew Marty had something."

Like Scorsese, Tarantino was open to collaboration, says Keitel, who championed the young filmmaker's "Reservoir Dogs" when Tarantino was still clerking at a video store.

"Quentin was adept at handling six or eight actors with very different techniques," Keitel says. "We wanted to kill each other sometimes."

Conflict. Keitel laughs. Says he's exaggerating. Just a bit.

"Some actors don't like to rehearse," he says with a shrug. "I like to rehearse, at least two weeks usually. Hollywood doesn't give you enough time to rehearse. They don't realize it would save them money in the long run to have more rehearsals. I wish they would listen to me."

Conflict. Just because he's 60 and he's one of the film industry's most respected actors doesn't mean Harvey Keitel will shy away from it. He likes it too much.