Peter Fonda

The late Peter Fonda portrayed Mephistopheles in Ghost Rider.

Significant roles[]

Wyatt in Easy Rider (1969)
Larry in Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974)
Tom Skelton in 92 in the Shade (1975)
Mike Graham in The Hostage Tower (1980)
Jake in South Beach (1993)
Dracula/Dr. Van Helsing in Nadja (1994)
Pipeline in Escape from L.A. (1996)
Terry Valentine in The Limey (1999)
Dr. Cantway in The Laramie Project (2002)
Dr. Austin Shepard in Supernova (2005)
Damien Blade in Wild Hogs (2007)
Byron McElroy in 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
The Roman in The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009)

Quotes[]

"I’m the devil, I’m Mephistopheles, but today I’m going to find out that I’m not really Satan. I’m not quite sure what that means; I’m working on that. I bring to the role 6 foot 2 inches and 65 years I want to be back in Port Douglas. This sucks, except for which there’s a movie being made, which I love. My take is totally different than yours. I am approaching this character a much different—egads man, it’s what I get paid to do and I never really think about it."
"I play it very calm, very quiet. I like the idea of going off what’s thought of the character. And in fact, this is what I’m about to do now, this is the end of the movie for my part, this is the most vocal that I’ll get—the loudest, the most angry. In fact, I’m not angry at all till this moment. As I said to the director, this is my—I guess, this would be early Pacino from the Godfather, when the only time when Michael Corelone shows any real anger is when he slams the table with his fist—with his flat hand and tells her “don’t you ever ask me about my family.” And this is my Michael Corelone moment. Or Bob Paige, long weird fingers, and strange ears. Mark and I decided to go a different direction with it. And that’s how we are dealing with it. It’s more fun to tell you the truth."
" It’s difficult work, but I’m not going to be involved with the CGI stuff as Nick is and the other characters. This all happened in a matter of a day and a half, as I was driving from my ranch to Los Angeles on February 11 and by February 15th, I was on a plane coming here. So I had a chance to give a quick read of a few pages of the script and decide, yes I’ll do it. At the entreaty of Nick and Gary Foster, the producer, they both thought this was very interesting. Someone else was supposed to have played the role and the idea of my doing it came up and I like the idea. I like Nick, I like Australia, and I like Ghost Rider. I like the comic, why not? Play the devil…better than a beekeeper in North Florida."
"Most of my scenes are with Nicholas. It’s not necessarily with Nicholas, but with the young Johnny. Then, we’ve already shot my first scene with the older Johnny, and this is my last scene with the older Johnny. In major motion pictures, we don’t necessarily shoot in the order that makes sense to anybody else, but it makes sense to production. It’s easies and what we have to shoot."
"I started working on the script on the airplane coming over, as is my want, I go in a different direction when other people have indicated in sense or in the page. Vocalization, and anger and all motion, I just cut that shit right out. It looks good on page, but it’s for reading on page. For performance, I like to go a different way if I can. If I have to play someone who is a screaming Mimi, then I go for it. But for this character I don’t have to. So I said to Mark, “the king thing,” the king thing is that the king never has to say he’s king. Everyone else does that for him. The king can be very calm. He doesn’t have to command attention. People give him attention. And my take was that I don’t make any threats, I don’t make any—it’s just very calm statements. Just facts. And when I make the deal with Johnny, it’s very easy. I do this all the time. I take good care of my souls."
"I don’t think of this as a biker picture. And I don’t get to ride a bike. Except when I got here, I bought a bike. The contact was put together so quickly; they forgot to put in the contract that I can’t ride a motorcycle. Nick can’t ride, on film he has to ride a little bit. but he can’t ride. So I went out and bought a MV Augusta 4-1000, which is all about racing, it’s a extraordinarily fast bike. Not like 65-year old man should be riding around on it and I drove it around here. I just gave it away to auction for the world children’s neo-natal wing here at the World Children’s hospital, an auction called Celebration for Life, last Thursday. So I had a free ride, cause it was bought from me for what I paid for it, by the fella who ran that charity, who was on the plane coming over who I heard me say to these gals what I was going to do. Well, I got a lot a time off, I’ll buy a motorcycle and ride it around the tank and sell it for more than I bought it for. And it’s funny about the Easy Rider thing cause there’s some pages floating around here, here’s how we make the sequel to Easy Rider. Why I do feel like somebody is suckling on my ideas? Since the first movie has been made, it’s kind of like everybody wants to take a piece of that pie, instead of being original and making their own shot."
"I’m very familiar with the comic book genre. I grew up with most of it before you guys were even born. The first comic I figured that was done for me was Mad Magazine and although I made the cover of Time magazine 3 times, Life magazine 1 time and god knows how many other things. It was when I made the cover of Mad Magazine I knew I hit what I called the pinnacle, I was so cool. I made the cover of Mad, and you didn’t. Nick’s never been on Mad. Jane’s never been on Mad. Dad’s never been on Mad. Bridget’s never been on Mad. So they’re all playing catch-up as far as I’m concerted."