A Handful of Excised Moments from A Few A.V. Club Interviews

After rescuing that Diane Franklin interview earlier today, I started going through the NewsReviewsInterviews.com archives to see what else might still be out there that’d be worth rescuing while I had the time, and I happened up a few posts that seemed worth combining into one larger post. As you’ll soon see, it’s moments from A.V. Club interviews with Phil Morris, Dabney Coleman, Michael McKean, and Neil Flynn, the combination of which makes for a highly enjoyable Saturday night read…or whenever you happen to read it.

Phil Morris

Legion of Super Heroes (2007-2008)—“Imperiex”

PM: That is the scourge of the universe. There’s not a lot of people who play heroes and villains in animated stuff, but I play both, and Imperiex was just so killer. Yuri Lowenthal plays this Superman-like character in the Legion of Super Heroes – Kell-El – and Yuri is also Ben 10. He’s one of the great voiceover talents, period. And he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet, which is just another reason why one of the most respected voiceover talents. He plays Kell-El with such earnestness and such truth that it would just piss me off. [Laughs.] Every time he would say something, it would just rancor me. And that’s where Imperiex came from. And the voice I used for him was so hardcore that Andrea and everybody were worried that I was going to blow my voice out. I said, “Oh, no, no. I’m coming from a very evil place with this. There is no bottom. This well will not run dry.” [Laughs.] A great character to play. Absolute, unabashed evil. Brilliant.

Black Panther (2010)—“W’Kabi” / “M’Butu”

The Black Panther experience was great. They used Djimon Hounsou for Black Panther, which I thought was a great choice, and I played a couple of characters in it. Working with Reginald Hudlin is always cool. I’d just go in and do my thing, and they were very appreciative of it all. I haven’t done much Marvel, but they’re great people over there, and I really would like to do more. As a kid, I was a Marvel guy. You had to pick a side. [Laughs.] Now it’s more open-ended – “Oh, well, I like Vertigo…” – but when I was a kid, you were either DC or Marvel, and if you weren’t either one, then you were nothing.

So if you were Charlton, you were out luck.

[Laughs.] Yeah, if you were Harvey, it was, like, “What?” And if you were Gold Key…well, don’t get me started. But, yeah, you know, I’d like to do more Marvel stuff. I find working with them to be very different from DC.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008-2009)—“Miles Dyson”

An easy job to a degree, but the audition process was no less grueling than Smallville. I went in, I was the first guy they read for Miles Dyson, and they loved me, but they were, like, “We can’t have found our guy with the first guy, so let’s go out and scour the nation and see if we can find the guy to knock this guy off.” And there was nobody they found. So, again, months later…I even ran into them at Comic-Con when I was there repping Smallville, and they still hadn’t made a decision. When I came back to L.A., they made a decision, it was me, and they wanted me to do as many episodes as they could write. Great!

And they were going to play Miles Dyson as a construct of Sarah’s imagination, or go back in time and have him be a bit of a Yoda for her to help her negotiate and maneuver through this whole minefield of Terminator stuff. But they felt it was too confusing for the audience and that it was not as energetic as they wanted it to be, I’m sure. So I only did one episode. I shot one episode that they cut me out of, and I was relegated to a picture in a newspaper clipping. So as cool as it was to get the part, I really didn’t get a chance to do the part, so that was a little disappointing. But creatively I got it. I didn’t understand how they were going to make Miles Dyson work in the modern era of Terminator, either, since he was dead. [Laughs.] But I was willing to give it a shot!

Marblehead Manor (1987-1988)—“Jerry Stockton”

You mentioned this as being the first time you worked with Michael Richards.

Yes! Another great, great show. It was a bit like a British drawing-room farce. Paxton Whitehead was the lead. He had just come from Noises Off, which was a very popular stage production. And Linda Thorson, who had replaced Diana Rigg in The Avengers, was the matriarch of the household. Bob Fraser – who has since passed, unfortunately – not only was he the head of the household as an actor, but he was also one of our executive and creative producers.

I got that job…again, what’s interesting to me is how you get it and where it came from. I was struggling. I had left The Young and the Restless, there wasn’t a lot going on, I was looking for something interesting to do, and comedy seemed to be great to do. I got this call from my agent saying that they wanted to meet me over at Paramount for a show called Marblehead Manor, there was no script, but go meet with Gary Nardino. Now, I had worked with Gary Nardino on a show called Brothers at Paramount, it was a great episode and a great time, so I knew Gary and was happy to see him.

So I go to his big-ass office over on the Paramount lot, I meet this guy Rodney Hudson, who I’d never met before, and we sit down with Rob Dames, Bob Fraser, and Gary Nardino, the three creative executive. And they say, “Congratulations, guys, we want you to play the brothers on this new show, Marblehead Manor. We’re doing 26 episodes.” And we were , like, “Uh, okay, great!” And he and I walked out, and we jumped into each other’s arms and jumped around and did this little happy dance, dropped to our knees and kissed the ground of the Paramount lot. I mean, we were over the moon.

I called my agent, I tell him what’s happened. [Excitedly] “I went in, I sat down, and they gave me this job!” And he goes, “Nah. That’s not how it happens.” I go, “What? Look, man, you better get right with this and call them, ‘cause that is how it happened!” [Laughs.] And he calls me back and says, “You got the job.” I said, “I told you that!”

So that was how it started, and it was just a hell of a lot of fun. It was a lot of learning for me. I didn’t know comedy that well. I did improv comedy, but I didn’t know this kind of structured comedy. Entrances, exits, beats, rhythms…crazy stuff to learn on the fly as a young actor who’s just come from a soap. I think some of these experiences are just there to teach me a lesson. Not for the money, not for it to be a big hit, just for me to get the experience of working with seasoned veteran actors to learn different styles of acting. And that’s what this was. It was learning farce and learning comedy on the run, costume comedy, make-up…it was great for me. Really great.

The Secret Saturdays (2008-2010)—“Doc Saturday”

I loved that guy. Just loved him. And I loved that show. I’m sorry it’s not still around. You know, that was a really unique show, in that Doc was an African-American, his wife in the show is the show is white, and the kid is mixed…and never do we comment on it. Ever. I mean, it was never an issue. It just was. I thought that was freaking brilliant. I loved Doc, because not only was he a doting father and someone he could have a heart-to-heart, Courtship of Eddie’s Father/ Brady Bunch moment with, but he was someone who would kick your freaking ass if push came to shove. [Laughs.]

And, again, not easy to find someone who can play both sides of that coin, and I feel really blessed that I have enough in me that people see and support to allow me to do those things. That was one of those characters that was so full and had such great stakes involved with every show that he was a pleasure to play every single week. I just absolutely loved it. Again, working with incredible vocal talent: Diedrich Bader, Corey Burton…phenomenal, legendary vocal talents. A great show that left too soon, I think. I think somebody said that they’re busting a complete-series set soon…or maybe it’s out already, ‘cause I think somebody on Twitter said that they had it already.

P.I. Private Investigations (1987)—“Eddie Gordon”

Nigel Dick was the director, and Clayton Rohner was the star. That was cool, because I was doing The Young and the Restless at the time, and they were very high on some soap actors to play in features. Tony Geary was in that, playing a bad guy. I don’t know if he still plays Luke on General Hospital, but he did at the time. [Laughs.] I look at those times in my career, and…that was when I was trying to be a little too cool, where I thought that was probably the way to go.

I look at that, and…I was playing a soul singer, and I kind of fashioned him after Marvin Gaye, who I wanted to play. I really enjoyed that, and I really wanted to do more features after that, but it was such a small-budget thing. Talia Balsam, the daughter of Martin Balsam, played a character in the film, and she’s just a lovely actress. I really thought this was going to break my feature career, and…it didn’t. It just didn’t resonate. I don’t think it was good enough, quite frankly. But it was a great experience for me, again because I think these are the lessons we’re supposed to learn on this road.

It was late-night shooting, and it was the first independent film I did, so everything was a bit a-wing-and-a-prayer, and it got me to understand that the work is everything. It ain’t about the trailer. It ain’t about the wardrobe. It ain’t about your paycheck. It’s about making movies or TV shows and being a part of a group and a team that is going after a certain goal or objective, and if you’re real about it…it’s like being at a casino: you don’t ask what time it is, you don’t care if the sun’s coming up, you don’t care if you’re tired. It’s, like, “Man, I got a barn, let’s make a show! [Laughs.] And that’s what P.I. was for me.

I’d been very fortunate up to that point. I’d done a couple of guest spots on big studio TV shows, I’m coming off the number one soap in the country, so I was always a part of big-budget shows, with a lot of time and production values accorded to the things I was doing. This was the first project I’d done that was really under-the-gun guerrilla film making…and I absolutely loved it.

Dabney Coleman

Melvin and Howard (1980)—“Judge Keith Hayes”

Dabney Coleman: Okay, that’s Jonathan Demme. And Mary Steenburgen. A good movie. I was pretty good in that. In fact, I’m sure Mary had 100% to do with them flying me back to New York to read for the part of her husband in Ragtime. It happened, though, that I had the flu. Badly. And then traveling… [Sighs.]

So I’m in the Plaza Hotel, in a room that I think at one point must’ve been a janitor’s closet, and the heat was overwhelming, and here I had probably a 103-degree temperature on top of that. I wasn’t real sure where I was supposed to do the audition for Milos Forman with Mary. It was close to the Plaza, though. Walking distance. But I ran it. With an overcoat on, with the flu, and in freezing cold weather. I ended up in the studio soaking wet, sweating from running and the temperature, and cold at the same time…and I gave the worst audition probably in the history of color movies. I remember the look of shock on Mary’s face…and on Milos’s, too, because he had evidently trusted her word. In fact, now that I look back, Milos came to my hotel room the day before the reading. That’s very unusual. And with Mary. That’s highly unusual. In fact, I think that’s unique, as I can recall. So they were really kind of counting on me getting that part.

And I was so terrible that I remember telling Mary after that, “It was from the flu! I hate to make excuses, but, flat out, that was what it was.” I didn’t know where I was. And…when I was reading it, I remember thinking, “I feel like a girl.” Not a gay guy, but a girl. And I mean that quite literally. I don’t know whether I was kind of delirious or what, but that’s what I thought: “My God, you sound like a mediocre actress, is what you sound like.” And I still can’t explain that, except that I think it had much to do with being a little bit off-kilter from the flu and having run about five blocks to get there on time or whatever. But it was the worst. And Milos even said… [Starts to laugh.] I think I’d done it two or three times, and he said, “Do you, uh, want to try it again?” I said, “I don’t think so. It’s not gonna get any better. I’ve got to go home and go to bed.” They don’t take a lot of excuses in this business, though, so…he never got nasty, but, anyway, that’s why I didn’t get the part: because I was just terrible. So that’s the story on that deal.

Anyway, in Melvin and Howard, I remember there was a moment…you know, you have these moments every now and then that kind of stick out—if you’re lucky or if you’re any good—and one of them was a line was where I’m speaking to Melvin before the trial began, before we actually started it, and saying a line that started, “If you’re guilty…and I think you are…” And it was the way I read that line. It was very good. It was just excellent. And it just caused whispers, including Mary Steenburgen, saying, “This guy’s real good.” [Laughs.] And I was! I’m perfectly willing to admit when I’m terrible or when I’m pretty good. But in that, I was pretty damned good. Yeah, I liked that movie. Jonathan Demme…oh, God, he’s just a wonderful guy. Jesus, what a wonderful man. Good God. He was something else. Is something else. [Hesitates.] Or is it “was”? Did he pass away?

No, no, he’s still with us.

Well, thank God. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought I’d heard that he’d passed away. But he is a great guy. He’s just a tremendous human being.

[Alas, now it is was. R.I.P., Mr. Demme.]

Recess (1997-1999) / Recess: School’s Out (2001)—“Principal Peter Prickly”

Oh, yeah, Recess. Okay, I don’t know what to say about that, except that I just played it for real. I just changed my voice and played it for real, unlike most of the people who do those things. For some reason, they don’t, which is just totally against the way I was taught to act and what I think is funny and what I think works, which is total reality. The closer to reality you come… Let the lines or the situation take care of the comedy, but you stay real. That’s my theory, anyway. And that’s what I did on that. I just played this old bastard and had a lot of fun. That was another good company. Paul Germain, the writer/director, wonderful guy. And I don’t say that lightly when I say these are outstanding people. What a terrific human being also. He made it easy and fun. Because some of those things… I’ve done a couple, and some of them are like pulling teeth. But he made it fun.

Michael McKean

Sometimes I just can’t resist asking a question that has no place in the piece I’m talking to someone about, and in this instance, I really wanted to know the truth about his connection the the ’60s baroque-pop band The Left Banke. There’s been a persistent rumor that McKean was in the line-up of the band for a very brief period, but it’s one of those odd little footnotes that I’d never actually heard or read him comment on, so I figured, what the hell, now’s my chance to get the truth straight from the horse’s mouth.

Due to the recurring tendency of semi-truths to find their way onto Wikipedia and be claimed as fact, I was wondering if you could set the record straight on exactly what your connection was to the Left Banke. Were you actually a member of the band?

No, but…okay, here’s what happened. The Left Banke put out a couple of singles. “Walk Away Renee” didn’t do anything, and then…I think “I Haven’t Got the Nerve,” maybe? I’m not sure what the second one was. But they did nothing. Then they made an album, “Pretty Ballerina” was on it, and… [Hesitates.] I’m not really sure of the way this shaped up, but, anyway, what happened was that the Left Banke’s first two singles didn’t do anything, but then all of a sudden “Walk Away Renee” did become a hit, and their career kind of started, and they put this album out, which had some really cool songs on it. But after that, everybody split it up. It was just a disaster. I don’t know what happened there.

But Mike Brown, who was the main composer and kind of the guy – he was something like 18 at the time and was a real prodigy – he put together a new version of the Left Banke, and it was me, Warren David on drums, and a guy named Bert Sommer on bass and mainly on lead vocals, because he had a voice that was kind of high-pitched like Steve Martin, who was the original lead singer, except that Bert had a much better voice. So we rehearsed for three months, we had our pictures taken as the New Left Banke, they recorded a single while I was there, but I did not play on it because I wasn’t very good. [Laughs.] I was 19 years old, I wasn’t much of a guitar player, so they got good studio guys to do it. I don’t even think Warren, my friend the drummer who got me into the band, even played on it. It was called “Ivy, Ivy.” So I was with the band and yet not with the band. “Ivy, Ivy” was released, and it was a complete dud. Nobody cared. It’s not a bad record, but it just didn’t happen. And then there were some squabbles.

Mike’s manager, our manager, was also Mike’s dad: Harry Lookofsky, a famous New York session man, string arranger, string leader, and violinist. He also went by the name of Hash Brown, as in Hash Brown and his Orchestra. But, anyway, that’s what happened: they had this big fight, party time was over, and they pulled the plug. And I grabbed as many instruments as I could, and the fancy new clothes that they got us, and I headed downtown and went back to school at NYU. [Laughs.]

So here’s the song that, despite what you may have read on Wikipedia, does not feature Michael McKean, followed by its B-side, “And Suddenly.” McKean’s right, it isn’t a bad record. And neither is its B-side, for that matter. But, y’know, this is coming from someone who can’t begin to tell you how many times he’s spun There’s Gonna Be a Storm: The Complete Recordings 1966–1969, so you’ll want to take my opinion with a grain of salt, I reckon.

Ah, but there’s more!

We wrapped up our interview before I’d actually gotten through all of the items on my to-ask list, but I couldn’t in good conscience keep the man any longer. As it was, we’d already gone over our allotted time, but he’d said, “My wife is bringing me home a burrito, so you’re good ’til then. But when the burrito gets here, you’re done.” I finally decided to just let him go before getting the word that it was time to wrap things up, but as it turned out, his wife had gotten home some time before, and he’d just let me keep asking questions, anyway. Great guy, that Michael McKean.

As we said our farewells, he’d said that he was going to be sending me an email with a link to a quote from Dave Grohl that he thought I’d enjoy. In turn, I told him I’d send him over the roles that’d been left on the list, saying, “These are all things that readers had requested, so if anything really leaps out at you as a great story, I’m sure they’d appreciate it.” So what did he do? He offered up a one-liner about every single item on the list.

Like I said: great guy, that Michael McKean.

Here’s what he had to say:

Young Doctors in Love (1982) —“Dr. Simon August”

MM: First big movie role; lot of funny people & good actors.

The Big Picture (1989) —“Emmet Sumner”

MM: I worked on the script and later helped with casting.  I’d read Emmet’s lines in some scenes for potential Nicks, so Chris told me to grow a beard and do the part. So I did.

Dream On (1991-1996) —“Gibby Fiske”

MM: My accent got a little better over the course of five years.  Shot in this pisspot of a studio in North Hollywood, but a truly fun set.

Coneheads (1993) —“INS Deputy Commissioner Gorman Seedling”

MM: I was cast as a Coneperson originally, but the actor they had for Seedling dropped out and I stepped in. Met a lot of people I’d encounter again.

Jack (1996) —“Paulie”

MM: We rehearsed the whole script, top to bottom, reading from the pages at Francis’ barn and environs. Very cool. The shoot was one day at Bimbo’s 365. Robin, Don Novello, Fran D. and…that’s really Francis Ford Coppola over there!

Primetime Glick (2001-2003)—“Adrien Van Voorhees”

MM: Great, amazing gig.  Marty Short is a remarkable talent and a gent.

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law (2002-2005) —“Evelyn Spyro Throckmorton”

MM: Don’t remember much, but I laughed an awful lot.

Smallville (2003 & 2010) —“Perry White”

MM: My wife got me the gig. Sincerely, though, nice to be part of the DC universe.

Homeland (2011) —“Judge Jeffrey Turner”

MM: I read the pilot when they were originally casting a series regular. They sold the show and had me in for this other part. Nice day working with Mandy Patinkin and director Michael Cuesta..

Neil Flynn

This wasn’t a Random Roles, but it was an interview for the A.V. Club. In the original piece, after Mr. Flynn regaled me with the tale of how he came to appear for slightly more than a split second in Magnolia, I brought the topic of conversation back to The Middle to wrap things up. For whatever reason, though, they brought the piece in for a landing right where it was, so this’ll be your first chance to see how the chat really ended…

Okay, so as far as guest stars on The Middle go, Patricia Heaton’s gotten to re-team with Ray Romano and Doris Roberts, but the only Scrubs alumni who’s been on The Middle has been Sam Lloyd. Has there been any talk of anyone else stopping by?

Neil Flynn: I don’t know, but it’s a nice gig if you’re an actor around town to play one of the kids’ teachers. [Laughs.] You’ve got at least a year, so you get a season where you might appear more than once if you’re lucky. Sam’s gotten on a couple of times now. And Dave Foley’s been on recently. Did you hear him slip in the Kids in the Hall reference?

Could you help but hear him slip in the Kids in the Hall reference? That was one of the most egregious—but still funny—references to an actor’s past credit in recent memory.

[Laughs.] Yeah. I don’t remember that being in the script at the read-through. I don’t know if he ad-libbed it or if he re-worded it or if they wrote it that way. At first, I was, like, “What the…? Was there even any context for that?” It took a second for me to realize, “Oh, right, he’s talking about the actual kids in the hall.” I just suspect the original word might’ve been “hallway,” and maybe Dave did that one himself. I don’t know, but I’m sure he did with the blessing of the producers. Otherwise it wouldn’t have made it into the show. It was funny. And, I mean, how many people watching The Middle even got that joke? Probably not many people watching that episode also watched Kids in the Hall. But I’m just guessing. I don’t know. I’m just not sure we share a core audience. Your instinct wouldn’t be to think so, anyway.

Lastly, there have been several moments during the course of the series where Mike reacts to something in a scene and—this could simply be my imagination, but others claim to have noticed it as well—it looks suspiciously like it’s Neil Flynn thinking something’s funny rather than Mike Heck.

Hmm. That doesn’t sound like a good thing. [Laughs.] Or maybe I’m acting so well that it just seems like me rather than Mike.

We could go with that if it’ll make you feel better.

Huh. I, uh, don’t know how to parse that one. I don’t think you’re seeing that. I don’t think there’s anything that I actually broke and laughed at that they captured. I can hardly recall laughing on the show. Oh, but you never actually said laughing, I guess. I…I dunno. But let’s go with this: the character isn’t a world apart from me, so I’m more or less playing myself if I lived in Indiana and had a wife and kids. I’m not putting on some fake demeanor, an accent or a limp or anything. Mike walks like I walk and talks like I talk. A little less than I talk, but…

You know, now that I’ve said that, it doesn’t exactly make me sound very deep or talented to say that I’m basically playing myself. In fact, I think it might be the last time I say that to a reporter. [Laughs.] So let’s go back and underline the bits that clarify that I’m clearly not playing myself. Basically, if I had a more stoic brother, that would probably be Mike Heck. Yeah, let’s go with that. I’ll rather end this by having people think of me as being at least slightly credible as an actor!