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Over the years, Quaid has added more land to Oates’s original holdings, including the late director Sam Peckinpah’s ranch, three miles up the creek. He now has roughly 500 acres, on which sits a magnificent 7,800-square-foot home whose construction he personally supervised until its completion in 2000. The home and five other houses on the property provide lodging for up to 20, and the land is almost entirely surrounded by national forest—which means, Quaid says, “I can walk out my door and walk about 100 miles without crossing a road.”
It’s classic Quaid. Though Hollywood talk makes him tetchy—he often shrugs off his “work,” saying it’s not like having to tar roofs for a living—he perks up when conversation turns to the thing he loves: namely, getting outside. It’s no coincidence that almost every room in his Montana home has at least one door leading outdoors. You get the impression that it doesn’t matter whether it’s fishing, riding, flying (he’s also a licensed pilot), running, or go-cart racing with his son Jack, 15: Quaid is happier when he’s outside.
On the ranch, Quaid likes to take a long run in the mornings or get up before dawn to stalk native cutthroat trout along his three miles of private creek. “I’ve caught some cutthroats that were from my finger to my elbow in that creek,” he says. “The farther up you go the purer it is…the cutthroats up there actually growl at you when you catch them.” In the late afternoons, when it starts to cool off, he’ll go to the stables and pick out one of his 11 horses for a long ride. This summer, he and Jack plan to do some horseback camping “either from our house or go into Yellowstone and go from there. You ride for a day and wind up in a fish camp,” Quaid says.
Even when he’s not in Montana, the actor makes exercise a priority. In L.A., he devotes part of each day to running, lifting weights, or practicing yoga. And, of course, there’s golf. “My routine is, I usually get up in the morning, fix Jack breakfast and take him to school, and then go to the golf course but only once a day,” he says with a laugh. Quaid jokes that he was “a scratch golfer two years ago for about 30 minutes. Then I got a job and worked for about an entire year straight. In order to be good, you have to be there five days a week.”
Though Quaid has been noted throughout his career for his athleticism and physique, he says that’s not what motivates him. “I just like the way it makes me feel. And it’s really about raging against aging more than anything else. I used to box in my twenties, and there was a guy at the Hollywood Y, he was in his early fifties, and he said, ‘Look, if you take care of yourself in your twenties and thirties, your fifties will take care of themselves.’”
Quaid has two more reasons to look after himself these days too. In November, the actor and his wife, Kimberly, became new parents of twins, a boy and a girl. “I love the commotion of kids,” he says. “They keep you young.” Still, one wonders if he has really thought this through: He’ll be 63 when it’s time to play catch with his son and over 70 when it’s time to kick the *** of his daughter’s prom date.
“I quit smoking when the kids were born,” he says with pride. “I’ve gone over two months, and this is the one. I’ve quit a hundred times, but I’ve really quit this time because I want to be around for them.”
No smokes for two months? Ah, that’s why he’s grumpy.
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