Random Reminiscing: Looking Back at my Many Random Roles Interviews (Part 6 of Quite a Few)
With the 10th anniversary of my career as a freelance pop culture journalist coming up on April 1st, I’m feeling a tad nostalgic, so I decided that I wanted to start looking back at the portion of my freelance career of which I’m most proud: my Random Roles interviews for the A.V. Club.
If you accidentally missed the previous part of this reminiscing, you can check it out by clicking right here…and if you missed the part before that, well, each installment has a link to the previous installment in the intro, so just keep on clicking back until you’ve read ‘em all!
If you’re all up to date, though, then for heaven’s sake, why are you wasting time with this intro? Just dive right in!
Ed Lauter:
Family Plot (1976)—“Maloney”
Ed Lauter: Oh, now that’s a great story. Burt Reynolds’ agent… There was a part in the film that eventually went to William Devane, but it was open, so they sent over the film that I’d just finished with Burt, The Longest Yard, for [Alfred] Hitchcock to look at. Now, prior to this, he had told his secretary, Peggy Robertson, “I’m not going to do this film until I get Maloney cast.” So time went on, and he went in to see the Burt Reynolds scenes in The Longest Yard, and—Peggy told me this later—she said, “For things like that, Hitch normally went in there for about 15 minutes and then would come out, having seen what he needed to see, but this time he was in there for 45 minutes. He came out and he walked into the office, and he said, ‘Well, he’s very good, isn’t he?’” And she’s thinking he means Burt Reynolds, and she says, “Yeah…” But then he says, “What’s his name again?” And Peggy’s confused. I mean, everybody knows Burt Reynolds! And he starts saying, “Ed…” And she said, “Lauter?” He says, “Yes! Ed Lauter! We’ve got our Maloney!” [Laughs.] So much for agents: Mine didn’t even send me over, and I still got the part!
So what was the story with you and The Short Night, which was to have been Hitchcock’s next film? The story goes that you were considered for a major role. Did he actually discuss it with you?
Oh, yeah! I was going to be in it. They were having a gala honoring Hitchcock, and I was invited to it. And my wife and I were a couple of tables away, so I brought her over to introduce her to him. He looked up at me from the table—he didn’t get up so much by then—and he said, “Oh, Ed! This is my wife, Alma.” I said, “Hello.” Then he said, “By the way, I want you for my next film. It’s called The Short Night, and you’ll be getting the script. We’ll be going to New York and then to Norway. You’re going to play the part of…” Well, I forget the part, but I was gonna be the third lead.
The character’s name was Brand, reportedly.
Yeah, that sounds right. It was gonna be Sean Connery, Liv Ullmann, and then I had the third lead. Then Hitch’s health gave out, so he never made that film. It sits there somewhere, that script. It would’ve been nice. I would’ve had two Hitchcock films in a row. But Lenny South, the cinematographer who did Family Plot and worked with Hitch on a bunch of other films, I saw him at a gathering one time, and I said, “Hitch wanted me for his next movie.” And Lenny said, “Oh, geez, Eddie, you woulda been in his next 14 movies. He thought you were great.” [Laughs.] He told his secretary I was the best character actor he ever worked with. So whenever I’m down in the dumps and out of work, I think of that. It always picks me up a little bit.
Ralph Macchio:
Crossroads (1986)—“Eugene Martone”
Ralph Macchio: That was directed by Walter Hill, and I remember he asked me to name that character. It was written with a different name, but Walter said, “Give yourself your own name! I always like actors to be able to choose their name.” And I went back and forth, like, “What am I going to name this guy?” I don’t know where “Eugene” came from, but I knew “Martone” just sounded kind of cool for a musical name, because he was a guitarist. That film was arguably one of the better-looking films I’ve ever been in, and some of the coolest music ever, including probably one of the greatest guitar duels ever to come out of Hollywood, between Steve Vai and myself, although it wasn’t me. [Laughs.] I was faking it all the way. But it’s still a very cool project. Joe Seneca was phenomenal in that movie, Jami Gertz. And I’ll run into people left and right who’ll go, “Dude, Crossroads!” I was introduced to Sean Lennon, who did the score for this one film I did, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Undead, and he just went on and on about how he tried to emulate the guitar duel from Crossroads, and all his guitar friends were obsessed with it.
Did you know anything about the Robert Johnson legend before going into the movie?
No, but I studied all that stuff, the 30 songs, the missing song, and all that. Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones did covers of his stuff. And Robert Johnson, since that, has become… I mean, they’ve released box sets and lots of great stuff since then.
That was kind of an outside-the-box choice of film for you at the time.
Well, it was a Columbia film, and I was doing the Karate Kid films with them, and since that was pretty successful, they were trying to keep me in the family, at least for a little while. Our biggest concern was that it was still mentor-student, and we wanted to not necessarily stay on that path. But the film is very different in tone, and Walter Hill was a filmmaker who’d made his mark with The Warriors and 48 Hrs., and he was shooting Streets Of Fire right before then. We just sort of hit it off and figured we’d go down this path with that film.
Wayne Knight:
Dirty Dancing (1987)—“Stan”
Wayne Knight: I mean, what a surprise this was. Because I went in to audition for this thing, and I kind of ad-libbed some jokes or whatever, and… Stan was going to be this small, nothing role in the movie, but it’s a movie! I’m gonna be in a feature! But I had to have my own car and drive up to the Catskills, which is where I thought we were gonna shoot it. As it turned out, we went to Lake Lure, North Carolina, and to Virginia, to shoot at a replica of what would be Brown’s in New York. It was a fantastic experience, though, because we’re trapped in these lodges in these dry counties in the South with Jack Weston and Jerry Orbach and Kelly Bishop and all these dancers. Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. All of us are staying in the same place, in this lodge. And they have trucks going down the hill to other places to bring back alcohol, ’cause there’s nothing to do there except to just watch what happens when you mix young dancers with alcohol. Lemme tell ya, it’s fantastic! [Laughs.]
But, you know, nobody anticipated that this was going to be anything other than a fun enterprise that would come and go. And it just turned out to be such a phenomenon. It was unbelievable. I was a little upset at one point, though, because Cousin Brucie had these lines, and I was like, “Geez, I should have those lines!” [Laughs.] I also remember one time on the film when I had to hand her a live chicken as a prize. “Here you go!” And the film had an actual chicken wrangler. I mean, how often do you run into a chicken wrangler? He was kind of a strange guy. He grabbed the chicken by the neck and he swung the chicken around and over his head. I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “This is what you do. You get the blood to rush to the chicken’s feet, and he will be subdued.” I was like, “Okay… I’m glad you’re not handling actors!” [Laughs.] But I have to admit, the chicken was subdued…
Lou Diamond Phillips:
The Adversaries (1998)
Wolf Lake (2001-2002)—“Noah Cassidy” / “John Canin”
Aquaman(2007)—“Tom Curry”
Lou Diamond Phillips: Wolf Lake. Oh, my. [Hesitates.] Wait, Noah Cassidy? The character’s name was John Canin. Why would they call him Noah Cassidy? Oh, wait, now I remember. You want to know what it was? This was one of my first introductions to network television. Actually, the first pilot I ever did was Chris Chulack and John Wells’ very first pilot after doing ER [The Adversaries], a thing about both the prosecuting and defense teams of lawyers in Washington, DC. This was back in ’97, ’98, and it did not get picked up by NBC, so it was like, “Okay, that was a rude awakening.” It isn’t always a slam-dunk, no matter how good it is… cough, cough, Aquaman pilot. [Laughs.] I’ve never even seen that, by the way. It’s just too heartbreaking. It’s like, “Why am I gonna watch this and go, ‘Wow, this could’ve been great,’ when it’s all for naught?”
So I’ve learned to wait before I get too excited. But anyway, we did the original pilot for Wolf Lake, and it was very expensive, and CBS liked it enough, but they went in and re-shot the entire thing. So I think my original character’s name was Noah Cassidy and then became John Canin. They brought in [executive producer] Alex Gansa, they rewrote the entire pilot, they kept the nugget of the inspiration for the series, but it was just so odd to have done the entire pilot with certain actors, and then those actors were not picked up for the new version of it.
Wolf Lake was a bit of a heartbreak as well, in the respect that I thought it was a good show, and the people who have seen it since then have remained fans of it. Not to trivialize world events, but we were supposed to premiere on September 12, and there was just no way in the world that that show was going to succeed at that time in history. We were up against NBC Nightly News and I think 20/20, and here we are with this fantastical, weird werewolf drama. It just didn’t fit into people’s perception of the world at that time. What is sad is that, we were ahead of the curve. Cut to five years later, and you’ve got Twilight and Supernatural and all of these shows, and now you’ve got Grimm and Once Upon A Time, with my buddy Robert Carlyle, so this fantastical element has really taken off. We were just a little too much on the early side of the party.
Okay, so I hate to break it to you, but you can’t just drop the words “Aquaman pilot” and not have me circle back to it at least briefly.
[Laughs.] I can’t even speak to that very much, because—like I said—I’ve never seen it. But everything pointed to the fact that that project should’ve been a slam-dunk. It was from the creators of Smallville. The CW was going to rebrand and launch their new network, and it just seemed to be such a great calling card to have a big, slick project like that. So to me, it was a no-brainer. We had filmed the pilot in Miami, and it went beautifully. And I’m literally waiting for a call to go to the upfronts, and not until the day before do we get the call saying, “Well, we’re not going to pick it up.” And it was devastating to me.
I had real high hopes for the project. And when something like that happens, I don’t even bother to watch it, because it’s just too painful. It’s like, “My God, what could’ve been…” And it ended up being literally the number-one download for two weeks once it became available on iTunes, so I was like, “Do you see? It would’ve had an audience. It would’ve been a hit.” But they blinked and were afraid to pull the trigger. So it’s just one of those things that I chalk up to… it’s one of the reasons why I’ll never understand the industry.
With that said, I look at things like that not happening, I look at Stargate Universe getting canceled, and now I look at the success and the role that I absolutely love in Henry Standing Bear on Longmire, and I think, “Even if you have to take a left turn sometimes, maybe if you can’t go in the front door and you have to come in through the window, you still get to where you’re supposed to be eventually.”
[For what it’s worth, you can actually now buy the Aquaman pilot for $1.99 SD / $2.99 HD, and I concur with Lou: even now, it’s still hard to believe that they passed on it.]
Timothy Spall:
White Hunter Black Heart (1990)—“Hodkins, Bush Pilot”
Timothy Spall: Oh, my goodness! How do you remember that? You’re obviously a buff. That, or you’ve just looked at my bloody CV. [Laughs.] Clint Eastwood was fantastic. I still relish the time I worked with him. And what a wonderful experience that was.
That was just sort of… He was, like, three films in on that one as a director, but was an actor in that one as well. The wonderful thing about being an actor is when you work with other actors who are particularly decent and intelligent human beings, and he was just wonderful. I mean, to work with someone that you’d grown up watching on the television and in films, and then to find out that he’s a great guy, and then to realize that he’s a great director as well? It was a delight. These are the rare and cherishable moments in one’s life with which I’ll be able to bore shitless my grandchildren and great-grandchildren when I’m no longer capable of stepping out and pretending I can act.
Jeff Fahey:
Lost (2008-2010)—“Frank Lapidus”
Jeff Fahey: Fantastic. And I’m still working with Jack Bender, who was an executive producer and directed most of the episodes of Lost. We just worked on a pilot called Rewind for SyFy with a few other people. It’s another ensemble. We’re waiting to see if we get picked up. But Lost was fantastic. To work three seasons and live in Hawaii… I mean, the crew, the cast, it was fantastic. In all three seasons, I never had an argument or a disagreement. Honestly, it was really great working with that group of people and in that place.
Most viewers tend to view Lapidus as an enjoyable addition to the show, but he ultimately ended up being one of the least fleshed-out characters on Lost.
Yeah. Well, one of the reasons I didn’t mind that it ended up that way was that I was and still am working in other parts of the world with the U.S. Committee For Refugees And Immigrants. So I was traveling a lot, and one of the things that gave me great flexibility was that they didn’t go heavy into his storyline. If they had, it would’ve locked me into more time on the island. But they didn’t, so I had the flexibility to travel. I’m not saying that my traveling had anything to do with why they didn’t explore his backstory more, but it worked out positively for me, because I was able to travel to the Middle East and Western Sahara and North Africa, then come back and forth and do an episode here and there. So I had the best of both worlds, as it were, of what I was doing.
Did you have a favorite episode of your work?
Hmmm. No, you know, I really couldn’t say, mostly just because I really enjoyed the whole experience. Sometimes we get to a place where… I’m not quite sure if it’s where you’re at—meaning myself, as an individual—or where the projects are at, but sometimes they meet at this great place, and that was one of ’em. You know what I mean? It was so fantastic to feel that you’re in such a well-tuned and well-honed machine, from writers to producers to actors to directors, that there was no tension at all, and you were never worrying about what you didn’t understand.
And did you understand how it ended?
Well, no. [Laughs.] I’m left out there with half the audience. We can read into it how we want, whether it is and was that place of so-called purgatory and people were having to clear up their lives before moving on to whatever that next place was. I actually kind of enjoyed that sort of—how should I say this?—unfinished, unknown metaphysical element of what the message was. Or was the message left up to each individual in the audience? But it was a great ride, man. I don’t have a specific favorite episode, I just dug the whole ride.
Kelsey Grammer:
Back To You (2007-2008)—“Chuck Darling”
Hank (2009-2010)—“Hank Pryor”
Kelsey Grammer: I thought Back To You was a good show. The writers’ strike really kind of put an end to that, though, honestly. There were a couple of factors involved, but to start a show and then to have it disappear and not come back for that long… it’s just bad form. That killed Girlfriends [which Grammer produced] as well. There’s just no way back after that.
Did Hank ever have a chance?
You know, it really just wasn’t funny. We tried. I thought it was an interesting idea, I thought it could work, but we just didn’t find the funny in it. Maybe it wasn’t the time. Everybody was just kind of lost. We didn’t break it right, I think. It happens sometimes, you know? But I do think Back To You was funny. If it wasn’t for the writers’ strike… [Trails off.]
There’s an already-classic story about you calling the head of ABC about Hank.
Oh yeah, I called the president of Warner Bros. Television, Peter Roth, and said, “How do we put a bullet in this thing?” I guess I’m becoming more and more famous for making particularly honest statements. There are worse things. [Laughs.]