Interview: Bruce McGill (Pt. 1)
The first time I interviewed Bruce McGill was the phoner I did with him for Random Roles. It went well enough that, at the end of it, he told me, “If you need anything else, I'll be glad to oblige!"
He really did…and I can prove it, because it impressed me so much at the time that I posted about it on Facebook.
He also liked the way it turned out when it ran on the A.V. Club, and I know this for two reasons, the first being an email which - by delightful coincidence - he sent to me on D-Day.
Beyond this heartwarming missive, however, he said as much again when I met him in person during a TNT party at the TCA press tour, where he told me - and I don’t think I’m getting this story wrong, although if I am, I know he’ll be the first to correct me - that on the day it went live, he’d gotten calls from his agents on both the east coast and the west coast, each telling him what a great interview it was.
In fact, it happened on the heels of Alex Rocco deciding that he didn’t want me to help him write his memoir after all, and Bruce told me, “If I ever do one, you’re my guy…but the key word here is ‘if,’ because I’m never gonna do a book just to blow smoke up my own ass, because that’s not me. If I do a book, there’s got to be a reason for it…and unfortunately for you, I don’t know what that reason would be!”
I’ve since interviewed Bruce two more times - once for my podcast, Obscurity Knocks, which you can hear right here, and then once for my previous website, News Reviews Interviews, which you can now read on this very site by clicking right here - but I’ve also made it a habit of sending him an email once a year, just to say, “This is my annual check-in to see if you’ve decided to do that book yet.”
For the record, he still isn’t ready. But it probably won’t surprise you that the subject came up again during this conversation, which I made sure began at the precise minute it was scheduled to begin.
Bruce McGill: Punctual.
Well, I try.
[Laughs.] Hi, buddy, how are you?
Very well! How's Toronto treating you?
Well, the honest answer... I'm pretty much in solitary confinement. It's very, very COVID lockdown. Yesterday was the first day they even had outdoor dining...and very limited. You know, I've been doing this for so long... It was like going back in time. I moved to Texas, and we've been pretty open there for months before I left. I've been here since April 20, and...there were some pre-production days where I saw people, but otherwise I've shot four days in two months.
Wow.
Yeah. So it's challenging in different ways. But it's fine. You know, I won't ever do anything like this again under these kinds of constraints, but live and learn. It's a good part, it's a good job, it's a good payday, and besides, I said I would do it, so now I've gotta do it! The worst thing about it is how it affects my wife, because she lost her private chef and her driver when I left. [Laughs.] And the restrictions for crossing the border are onerous, so even if I could - and I got legal approval to bring her here - she said, "I'm not doing that!"
First of all, you have to have so much paperwork. I've been coming to Canada to shoot for decades, literally, but I never had to carry a sheath of paperwork like I had this time. Besides being testing many times before you go, there's this 12 or 13 page sheath of papers that I had to present for my work permit. And then I had to go to a government-mandated hotel by the airport. You don't get to choose. It's ridiculous. It's $2000 - Canadian, but still - for the mandatory three-day and meal package. And before I went, I said, "Do I get any choices on the meal package?" "No!" They drop a bag outside your door.
You know, I really should write a book now, because this'd be a hell of a chapter! But if I was ever gonna write one, it would've been now, because I've been alone in this small apartment for two months with four days of shooting and two days of pre-production. So how's Toronto treating me? I don't know! [Laughs.]
But I did rent a nice apartment, so I'm on the 29th floor, looking out over the Don River valley, and at least I have a sky and stuff to look at. And I go out once a day for a walk, even when all that was open was grocery stores. Oh, and drugstores, so if you needed to buy shampoo or soap or something, you could do that. But it's been really interesting. I never did anything quite like this all by myself. Completely solitary, really. I talk to my wife a few times a day, and I've given a few interviews. But at least when I'm alone, I'm in good company!
Well, that's true.
And I'm a guitar player, you know, and I've always sort of wanted to play Hawaiian slack guitar, so now I've got that! [Laughs.] I found a couple of Hawaiian slack players on YouTube doing tutorials, so I've added that to my bag of tricks. And that's really interesting when you're learning a new discipline like that. I go, "God, what is wrong with me? My fingers are really bothering me!" And then I look at the clock, and I've been playing non-stop for two hours! So that's been really good. The deal is about filling your time constructively without sitting on the couch eating Oreos and watching old movies...which I've done plenty of that, too! The last couple of times I went to the store, I said, "No Oreos! Forget it!" The one thing about Oreos, like McDonald's, is that they're dependable all over the world.
They're definitely a vice.
The big thing I've learned about myself is that if I was ever going to be a writer, it would've been now. I am not a writer.
Well, I still stand ready whenever you want to pretend to be one.
Yeah, but how would that work, if I said, "Yeah, let's do it, because I am so interested in myself?"[Laughs.]
I suppose it'd all depend on the format. It could be just a matter of you talking and me transcribing, after which it could be credited as "As Told To." Or it could just be done as a series of back-and-forth conversations.
Well, I have a lot of friends who are writers, screenwriters, and stuff, and more than one of them has been saying, "You gotta write a book, man. You've done this, you've worked with that guy, this guy..." And one of them is a very, very good writer, and he said, "You can write! You don't need a ghostwriter to do it!" And I said, "Yeah, but if I could, I would've by now! I'm not compelled to." And I think you and I had the conversation before about, what, would I self-publish and then be in the hole? Because I'm a business guy. A thrifty Scottish Jewish Texas freelance artist. [Laughs.] Anyway, someone asked me, and I mentioned you, because if I do do it with a ghost writer, it would definitely be you, because you're the one that first broached the subject in a plausible way. And also, I find you delightful to talk to.
Again, I try.
Well, you're good!
I think the biggest reason I seem delightful to talk to is because I let the other person talk. I find that's the best way to get the best stories: stop talking and let the other person talk.
Yeah, but you have to give the odd prod. No bad pun intended. [Laughs.]
Well, that is true. I can do that, at least.
Yeah, you're very good. So let's see, that's the Toronto tale, and... Oh, here's something funny! I mean, as you said, just let 'em talk!
Absolutely.
This show... Do you know Lee Child's Jack Reacher books?
I do. I've seen the Tom Cruise movies.
Yeah, well, he was too little. [Laughs.] We've got a full-sized, 6' 4½" absolutely fit 250-lb. Jack Reacher, which is what he should be. It's an Amazon series for Amazon and Skydance. Skydance is David Ellison's production company, and David Ellison is Larry Ellison's son, and Amazon is Jeff Bezos' baby, so there's no financial difficulties. Basically, the confession is, they bought me.
It happens.
Well, you know. Professional actor. Profession-al. [Laughs.] Anyway, so they're doing one eight-episode season per novel, if this goes well. And this is the first novel he wrote, where the character was introduced, called The Killing Floor. It's really interesting: the show runner, who's also a novelist and a very good writer, he said, "Well, don't expect the novel, because the novel would really only be about two episodes - four at the most - of good television, and we need eight." So it basically starts out very faithful to the novel, and then it expands into TV world, which is... Well, it's not never-ending, but it's sort of a not-ending second act, where it sort of just keeps going, characters are changed, and things like that. But I love the Jack Reacher books. They're one of my guilty pleasures, like John MacDonald or Ian Fleming or Harold Robbins, even. So when they came at me with the offer, that was interesting, and the payday was very, very good, which is... At this stage of life, I don't look to act for free.
And my wife and I, we bought property in the neighborhood where I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and we're building a compound. We've got two properties next door to each other, and we were gonna rent one and then scrape the other. And then we got into the demo phase for the reno, which...if you're thinking you're gonna renovate, you've got to demo very carefully. And we were going by degrees, and we realized, "You know what? Forget it. It's not worth saving. Scrape it." So regroup, reboot, and now we're building a house, and this job will just about take care of the first house, which is essentially going to be the guest house. So there were reasons to do it. But, boy, lesson learned: as I said, my wife lost her private chef and driver, so she was pretty cranky for awhile.
I'd imagine. In that I tend to be my wife's chauffeur, not to mention the one taking care of dinner more often than not.
Well, hey, when I'm not working, I'm happy to do it. And I love to cook for her, because I'm a good cook...and if I'm cooking for her, I'm cooking for me, and I get to cook what I like...with some exceptions. Once in awhile we have to have broccoli and broccolini and stuff like that, which...I've learned to cook it where I like it fine, but it's Texas. "You want barbeque again? You want steak again?" [Laughs.] So anyway, that's where I am right now. That's what this job is. I'm the bad guy, and it's a good part, it's a good payday, it's very difficult on the psyche... [Hesitates.] Well, it's not that bad. At least I know I'm a well-adjusted guy, because if you were marginal and you were put in this position, it could be very bad.
You could either jump off the balcony, which would be so easy. I think about it, just to explore it as "what are people thinking about when they do that?" And, man, it would be so easy. I could just hop out there and die in a flash! But if I do that now, I go [Makes shuddering sound.] "Oh, God! No, life is rich and full! I love it!" But if you had no good prospects... Like, this will be over in about a month, which sounds like a long time, but compared to the four months when I started, that's not bad. So I just thank my stars that I have exciting and good things still to look forward to at the end of this. But if you didn't have a good relationship and you didn't have a career outside of this one job, I could see you going batshit crazy, either Oreos and TV or Scotch Whisky and face down on the carpet. If you didn't have your stuff together, you could go bad here in a situation like this. Because it is solitary confinement, even though it's a very nice cell with a full kitchen.
And when you do go out and go for a walk, you don't really see people. You see foreheads and eyeballs. And now there's some where their hats are off, but for the most part in Toronto... I mean, there was ice on my balcony when I got here! You know, chunks of ice. So you don't see people's heads, and you don't see their faces. If they don't wear glasses, then you see eyes and foreheads, period. And you don't know any of them and you don't interact with any of them. And at the grocery store, when you do interact... Like, the first time out, it was a very strict quarantine for 14 days, and then I had my wardrobe fitting. And in the middle of the wardrobe fitting - and they were fitting me with a lot of suits, because I wear suits for most of the eight episodes, so I was there for quite awhile - I was just talking like crazy! And I was, like, "God, excuse me! I'm just blathering! I don't know what's wrong!" And the costume designer said, "Well, you've been in quarantine!" So he'd seen it: people who'd been two weeks in a room alone, coming out and just babbling to a complete stranger! [Laughs.] Well, I'd worked with him before, so he wasn't a complete stranger, but... Anyway, that's Tales of Toronto 2021.
Awesome.
And never again! [Laughs.] Plus, every time I work in Canada, I get chapped about the tax structure. Because in the States, I work through a loan-out corporation, which is basically... Oh, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but the name of my corporation is one word: Bullroar Incorporated. And "Bullroar" is a quadruple entendre. My nickname around my buddies in my twenties and thirties was "Bull," not because I looked like a bull, but because one time we were doing impressions of animals, and it was a challenge: "Well, nobody can do a bulldog!" So I did a bulldog...and I was instantly "Bull" or "Bulldog." And it was a damned good bulldog. [Laughs.] It must've been, because at first they were sort of horrified and fascinated, but then they were laughing very hard.
So there's that, and then in The Hobbit, the game of golf - which I'm a player of - was invented by a character named Bullroarer Took. So Bullroarer Took invented golf, Bull was my nickname, and bullshit was what I incorporating it for! And I was dating a girl at the time who was too much of a lady to say "bullshit," so she said, "Well, that's just bullroar!" And there was one more reason behind it, too, but that's at least a triple entendre that I recall. So that's why it's called "bullroar." And as I say, it was the bullshit of taxation that caused me to incorporate in the first place, although it's a very good thing to do, and I've never regretted it for a moment.
At first it was, like, "You mean I only get half of the money I earned after my agent and my government takes it?" "That's right." But when you're incorporated, a lot of things that would otherwise not be deductible are legit expenses for an actor that performs onstage or in front of the camera, like haircuts and stuff like that. Anyway, there's the story of my corporate name! But if you try to use it in Canada, you get double-taxed. They tax you, and then they also tax your corporation...so it's a three-edged sword, two of which are bad!
Well, let's see... I went to people online and asked them what they wanted me to ask you about, so I guess I'll just throw some of these at you in the order I received them.
Sure. That exonerates you from any indication of how important you think they are.
100 percent.
[Laughs.] See? Stuff like that. That's delightful. "100 percent." Okay, proceed!
Okay, although I will say that the one that leads off the list is actually one that I watched myself a couple of weeks ago on HBO Max: someone asked if you could talk about the experience of working with Michael Ritchie on Wildcats.
Oh, yeah! Good guy. Tall guy! You know, it's funny. It was a football movie, and even on the football field, you could spot your director, because he was taller than just about everybody...and that's including all the kids playing football! He was, like, 6'5" or something...and that was his best attribute as a director. But it was handy when you were out in a big football-field situation.
The movie... Relatively speaking, it holds up. I mean, not all of it, but a fair amount of it is still pretty funny.
Well, my knock on the movie was Goldie [Hawn], my dear friend and executive producer and star, should've had somebody riding herd on her. It was overly long. It sagged. About two-thirds of the way through, she got too far into her character and her family and left what was fun about the movie for too long. I mean, I understand that that stuff's interesting and it's human interest, but I just think it should've been compressed a little. And I think that was probably her doing more than Michael's. But I haven't seen it in... Oh, God, a hundred years! [Laughs.]
But I do have a very funny story about having been that guy. Dan Darwell, that was his name. I was doing a movie in New Orleans, I was staying at the Royal Sonasta, which is a very nice, quiet hotel that's in the quarter, but it's built around a center courtyard, and it takes up a whole block of the quarter. And the hotel itself is actually, like, the outer walls of the inner keep, so even in the crazy French Quarter, the courtyard - with its little pool and trees and palms and all that stuff - was very quiet and very serene and just a great place to sit in the shade and have a drink and work on your script.
So I was doing that: working on my script. And there was a young black guy, maybe 18 or so, who was a busboy, picking up towels and stuff, keeping the area neat. And he kept looking at me, looking at me, and looking at me...and I know the look. It's the look of somebody who knows me, but they don't know why, so you just have to see how that plays out. So finally I was leaving, and I stopped off to say, "Hey, I've got to go, let me sign my bill." And he's still looking at me...and he finally says, "Do I know you, man?" And I said, "No, I don't think so..." But I don't let 'em dangle, I just go, "Well, I'm an actor, maybe you've seen me," and usually that works okay.
So I started going through the usual suspects. "Did you see Animal House? Did you see this? Did you see that?" And then I said, "Did you see Wildcats?" And this kid - remember, this is a beautiful, serene area, and they spend money to make sure it stays that way - he gets big-eyed, and he goes, "Wildcats?! Oh, yeah! You was the dickhead!" And he said it so loud. [Laughs.] And I just leaned into it, to try and take the curse off his faux pas, and proclaimed, "Yes, I was! I was the dickhead!" But it was straight out of a broad comedy: in the middle of a super quiet setting, somebody goes way over the top. But it was just his moment of recognition...and since then, I've never described the character in any other way. Well, maybe in polite company...
Here's one that you and I talked about when you were on my podcast, but someone wanted to know what it was like working on the TV series adaptation of Semi-Tough with David Hasselhoff.
Holy cow! Like anybody can remember that. Those were the blur years! [Laughs.] But I'll tell you what it was like: it was my first experience with multi-camera, and it was a bit horrifying to me, because they had this staff of... Well, they're all called producers, but they're writers, right? And these producers / writers, when you do run-throughs, whether it's funny or not, they'd just do this awful fake cackle laugh at their own jokes and the jokes that are supposed to be funny. So in a way they're telling you where you're supposed to be funny, and in a way they're fulfilling the "you give me three jokes a page" criteria or whatever.
But I loved being picked to play the Burt Reynolds part! And that was the last time I really trained so hard that I would throw up at the end of workouts. Because I didn't have much time to turn into a football player, but I was young enough and I was still pretty much in my leftover fitness from my last semester of college, where I took fencing, gymnastics, and badminton. Oh, and physics. I had to have a solid subject. [Laughs.]
But I was working on this show, and I was appalled, in a way, because I was coming right out of New York theater and Shakespeare, where the text is pretty good, and new plays by "serious" new playwrights at the Public Theater. So this kind of process was just cringeworthy to me. And...do you remember who Bubba Smith was?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Well, Bubba Smith was in this, and it was one of his first acting gigs. I think he'd done Miller Lite beer commercials, but not much else. But Bubba's a Texas guy, 6'8" defensive player. So we're doing one of the scenes that all of the football players are all in, in the locker room. And this director was getting much too complicated when he was trying to direct Bubba, and Bubba just looked at him. And the guy was... I mean, if he had ten ways to say it, he picked the least easily understandable, especially for a non-actor. So he kept saying it, and Bubba was just, like, 'What the fuck's that guy talking about?"
And I said, "Oh, look, Bubba, he just wants you to get up, walk over to the locker, and before you open the door to the locker, say your line and then open the door." "Is that all he said?" "That's basically all he's saying, yeah." And he went, "Well, shit, I can do that." So he did it. And the next time a director - the same director - started to direct Bubba, Bubba just put his big hand over my head with his finger pointing at me and said, "Talk to my man." So from then on, they'd tell me what they wanted from Bubba, and I'd tell Bubba what to do. He was a good friend. I really liked him a lot. He was a good guy. And, you know, being from Texas... It was a good relationship.
Now, Hasselhoff, "The Hoff," whose checkered past we all know about, and God bless him... We put our football stuff on, and I had big ol' kilt-wearing calves, and the other guys are all football players...and David Hasselhoff has bird legs. And some of these guys were NFL players, and others were guys who didn't quite make the NFL but played in college, and they were like [Shouting.] "Hey, man, look at them bird legs! Look like a stork! Look at them legs!" And he had the tightest football pants they could, and they still wobbled around the knee where they're supposed to grab tight. And David... They were just merciless!
Well, they weren't merciless, but they weren't treating him like the star of the show that he thought he should be treated as. And he just didn't have a sense of humor about it. And he finally, almost tearfully, said, "Man, you gotta stop! You guys gotta stop that, man! You gotta stop!" He didn't sob. But he was on the verge of tears, I swear. And I just thought, "Holy cow..." Of course, it was early in his days of substance "visits." So I think there were other issues going on there besides the fact that his legs were skinny. I just said, 'Man, I'd love to be shaped like you! Shut up!" Anyway, it was a great experience, in that we didn't shoot all of them, but they had to pay me for all of them.
Actually, that is great.
It had the same problem that the TV series version of Animal House had, which was that they bought this raunchy comedy, and then they put the adaptation on at 8 p.m. in the days when television had to be pretty clean at 8 p.m. And that's what happened with Delta House, too. The reason the things were fun was because they had raunch in them...and you couldn't do raunch at 8 p.m.! I think that was on ABC, and they were as buttoned-down as any of the networks were. Maybe the most so. But you couldn't do the jokes that made it a hit, so...it wasn't a great artistic experience.
But it was my first significant payday, because I was strictly single-shot feature films and stage up until then. Also, that was the first time I ever experienced that pay-or-play thing where, whether they shoot it or not, they paid me. I was, like, "Holy cow, I've got to pay attention to this!" [Laughs.] Oh, and my mother really liked that there was a picture of David and me in a football stance, one which she kept around. Because I had that big moustache and '70s long hair and was in very good physical shape. So I remember that she liked that. She always found no fault with my work, but she really liked it better when I didn't cuss or shoot anybody or get shot. Which would be understandable for my mother. So, anyway, that’s what I remember about that show.
I also noticed that Ed Peck was in the show, who I always remember from when he used to square off against the Fonz on Happy Days.
Yes, he was. I can still remember Ed Peck pointing to his head and going, "Farmland." Like he had nothing between his ears. [Laughs.] He was a nice fella, too.
You know, speaking of Delta House, I noticed a few days ago that someone just uploaded a full episode of the show to YouTube.
Oh, my God!
I haven't convinced myself to watch it yet, but...
I don't know that I could. [Laughs.] I mean, I just remember once again learning a lesson...and I'm still learning lessons - a lot of them! - on this Toronto trip. But I was referencing the feature to one of the directors, and directors in television... With sitcoms, in some cases the same director sticks with the show and does 'em all, but with a show like Delta House, one guy had to be cutting while another guy's prepping and another guy's shooting. They're like revolving doors. But this one guy was directing me and saying, "You've got to do this." And I said, "Well, in the feature..." And he says, "Just a minute, let me explain something to you: if this episode is the lowest-rated episode on any of the three networks, it will still be seen by more people than will ever see the feature."
And, of course, that wasn't quite right, but it was close enough for me to suddenly say, "Oh, yes, well, okay, we're making a different animal here." And he said, "Yes, you are!" And we were. We were making a different animal that wasn't as funny. [Laughs] I think it could've gone on longer, though, but it was a little too expensive, because they were trying to do stunts on a half-hour show, and they could afford to do stunts on cop shows with their action audience, but on a sitcom... That was ill-conceived, I think.
You know, one interesting thing about Delta House that I didn't realize until I read the specific credits was that John Hughes wrote some episodes of the series.
Yeah, I think he did. [Pauses.] Yes, he did! That's right, he did! I'll be darned...
Now I'll have to see if the episode that just got uploaded to YouTube was one of his.
I don't know. I can't remember which ones he wrote. But I know that one of them I had most of the input on my guy, because it was basically the story of my draft physical! I was found 1Y because of hyper-flexibility of connective tissue, and I demonstrated that. With the draft physical, if you were found fit, you'd better have brought a toothbrush, because you're on the bus at five! And at that time - I don't do it anymore, because it's probably not good for you - I could turn my feet backwards to where my little toes could touch in the back...and it was positively odd-looking. But I went through the whole physical, went through the written stuff and the hearing test and vision tests and all the tests you go through before you actually sit in there in a cubicle with a doctor. And I had written down "bad joints," and he said, "What's that?"
And I'd been to military doctors, because my dad was retired military, and I knew this thing was a problem, because if you ran, your upper leg and your lower leg separated and then banged together, so you would get bone bruises in the end of your femur and the end of your lower leg, so running for any length of time... You just couldn't do it. So it wasn't like I made it up. But when he said, "What is this? What do you mean, 'Bad joints'?" And you know, you're in your underwear, with your watch and your wallet and your car keys in a plastic bag. I don't even think it was a Ziploc bag. I think it was just a fold-over bag. Funny the details you remember. So I turned my feet backwards and...he looked like he'd just caught a coelacanth. He said, "Joe! Tom! Come look over here and look what I got in my group!" So that was sort of it. And I related that story to the writers, and we made an episode out of it...and I think in the episode I actually did turn my feet backwards! But again, I don't remember who wrote which episode. Again, I was in my 20s, I'd just done Animal House, and I was going out and...I wasn't married, so I was just D-Daying around!