Random Reminiscing: Looking Back at My Many Random Roles Interviews (Part 24 of Quite a Few)
Featuring anecdotes from David Morse, Dave Coulier, Kiefer Sutherland, Mary Steenburgen, Louie Anderson, Tony Shalhoub, and Enrico Colantoni
Back in 2021, when I celebrated the 10th anniversary of my first Random Roles, I was feeling a tad nostalgic, so I decided that I wanted to start looking back at my contributions to this A.V. Club feature, since it’s the portion of my freelance career of which I’m most proud.
If you accidentally missed the previous part of this reminiscing (and you may have, because it was in 2021!), 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!
David Morse:
Desperate Hours (1990)—“Albert”
David Morse: I met [director] Michael Cimino—I think I was the second one cast in the film at that point—and I really liked him. I really liked spending time with him. And when he cast me in that role… You know, it was right after St. Elsewhere, and I really hadn’t done a movie in 10 years. I did an independent movie [Personal Foul], but after having gone from Inside Moves saying, “I will never do television,” I then wound up doing 10 years of television and almost nothing but that. So I was so happy to be able to audition for a movie and actually get a role, and then because I was cast so early, I did all the readings with all the other actors that came in after that, which was fun to do. I got to meet a lot of people and spend a lot of time with Michael Cimino. Along the way, Anthony Hopkins became involved, and Mickey Rourke—I believe he was already cast. I think he was the first one.
But we did this pre-shoot before anybody else got there, where it was just me. We did three days up in Zion National Park, where my character… There’s a sequence in there where, after we escape the house where all the things have happened, I somehow manage to run into Zion Canyon. I don’t know how I managed to do that with that character, but that’s where he wound up. [Laughs.] But this is one of the great things about filmmaking: it really can be an extraordinary adventure. And these three days really were an adventure, going way, way up, with just the DP and myself and the sound guy, plus somebody to carry the equipment. We went way up this river, up in the canyon, where the walls go straight up to 2,500 feet or something, and they were filming us running down there, and then the spectacular death that I had, out in the middle of the river, surrounded by horses. You know, Michael Cimino, he just thought big. He had just orchestrated this great scene, where I’m standing in the river, and the SWAT team is up so far on the cliffs that I can’t even see them, and I’m down there with the horses, and then the horses all disperse, and it’s me alone in the river.
I had a wetsuit on with probably 200 squibs in it where I’m gonna get shot, and the wetsuit is underneath my clothes, but I’d never done anything like this before. The stunt guy said, “Just stand up as long as you can while these things are going off. Just let your body loose, and let the squibs do all the work, and stay on your feet as long as you can.” And when I was shot, these 200 things come off and it jerked my body all over the place. I was supposed to fall down the river and float away, but it was pretty shocking when I fell down in the water and all that water went right down my back. It was like an electric jolt! And I shot out of the water, because it was so cold, and I just ruined everything. I ruined the entire shot. They were all thrilled. [Laughs.] But we spent the rest of the day with me floating down the river, getting hypothermia, while they shot up in the canyon from a half mile away. I literally wound up with hypothermia by the end of the day! But it was such an adventure. And it was a great experience with Michael.
But as soon as we got to the set in Salt Lake City and Mickey Rourke showed up, Michael transformed into a monster. Again, it was one of those things where a director is one way, and then suddenly you see this whole other thing. I think Michael has done extraordinary work, and I won’t take anything away from that, but that relationship that he had with Mickey at that time was so incredibly dysfunctional. And he couldn’t take it out on Mickey, because Mickey was the star, so he had to take it out on the rest of us—except for Anthony Hopkins. Tony. So overall it was not a very happy experience. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Dave Coulier:
Things Are Tough All Over (1982)—“Man With Tongue In Restaurant”
In addition to doing voicework, you were also doing a little bit of on-camera acting as well. For instance, you turned up briefly in Cheech and Chong’s Things Are Tough All Over.
Dave Coulier: I did! My character was Man With Tongue! [Laughs.] I remember going in for that audition, and it was just a camera in a room and a casting director who was, like, “State your name and do something funny.” And that was it! That was my audition! So I blew some hand farts, I did some impressions, and then I stuck my tongue out. And I have a long tongue, so I do this funny thing where I act like I’m calling a woman over with my tongue. And that was what got me hired!
And then I showed up there, and… I didn’t realize that the character was gay. And this is, what, 1981 when I filmed it? And I’m sitting there, and they’re putting really heavy mascara on me and makeup, and I’m, like, “Wow, I guess this is how it’s done in the movies!” So I go and I take my place with the other actors, and I realize that these guys are gay. And I’m, like, “Oh, okay!” I realize, “Oh, I’m supposed to be gay at this table, and I’m calling Cheech and Chong over with my tongue. Okay, I get it now!” [Laughs.] But that was my first role. That was what got me into the Screen Actors Guild.
At the time, did you have a master plan to transition from stand-up into on-camera acting, or were you just kind of taking the roles as they came up?
Well, I knew that stand-up was only going to afford me so many opportunities, and it was a great showcase then at the Comedy Store, because it was a really exciting time. My fellow comedians onstage one night—I still have a poster—were Jimmy Brogan, me, Jeff Altman, Bob Saget, Arsenio Hall, Robin Williams, and Richard Pryor. That was the lineup.
So it was a hot time at the Comedy Store, where people were coming in to see comedians, and you could just get offered something when you walked offstage. I was offered the role of one of the Bosom Buddies characters that Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari played. I was offered a pilot test option one night. [Laughs.] It was basically, “Hey, we want you to do this pilot called Bosom Buddies!” But I was like, “Well, I don’t have an agent.” And then an agent happened to see me the next night, and she said, “Hey, I really think you’re funny!” “Great! Because I got offered this Bosom Buddies thing…” She’s like, “You’re kidding!” “No!” And she goes, “Here, look at this contract!” But that’s how things happened back then. It was an exciting time.
Being a stand-up, though, I knew, “Okay, I’ve got to learn how to be an actor.” Because I was never in school plays or anything like that growing up. So I went to Gordon Hunt’s acting school—that’s Helen Hunt’s father—and he was remarkable. He was a remarkably good teacher, taking a raw comedian like myself and turning that into being an actor. He said something very smart to me: “You know, you’re a comedian, and you’re making your own words funny, but what I need you to do is try to make someone else’s words funny.” And then it clicked. As soon as he said that to me, everything made sense.
What happened with Bosom Buddies? Since we know you didn’t actually end up on that show…
You know what? It was cast almost immediately when I got the offer. They found Peter Scolari and Tom Hanks, and it was over. It was over just that fast.
So close.
So close! Playing a gay Cheech and Chong character and dressing as a woman? It would’ve made my parents so proud.
Kiefer Sutherland:
Freeway (1996)—“Bob Wolverton”
Kiefer Sutherland: Oh. Uh… [Starts to laugh.] I think that was one of the most freeing experiences I’ve had as an actor, because the character was just so wrong and so awful that you could kind of just let go and have some fun with it and go with it.
The great memory that I have of that was when it came out, it was the only film ever to be sold to HBO that HBO put out into theaters. And I remember my daughter was at the University Of San Francisco at the time, and I think that’s the only time she ever called me and said, “I saw this film you were in: Freeway. You were really cool.” And so for 10 minutes in my daughter’s eyes, I was cool. [Laughs.] Because she and all her college friends went and saw it, almost in the same vein that you would go and see The Rocky Horror Picture Show, she thought I was cool for 10 minutes, which I will hold onto forever.
When we talked to Brooke Shields for this feature, she said she loved working with you, but that it was kind of a disconcerting role for her.
Yes, I think it was probably disconcerting for everybody but myself. And maybe Reese Witherspoon. [Laughs.] But we both had a lot of fun with it. But like I said, that’s why I refer to it as a really freeing experience: with a character like that, you’ve got to just let go and let it be what it is.
Mary Steenburgen:
Melvin And Howard (1980)—“Lynda Dummar”
Mary Steenburgen: You know, the first time I read that script, it was given to me by Jack Nicholson, because it had been sent to him to play Melvin Dummar. But he was committed to do The Shining, and he knew that was going to be a long commitment, so he said “no” to it at the time. But he gave it to me, purely as an example of what he thought was a great screenplay. He said, “You should just read this because it’s a great screenplay.” I don’t think he even talked to me about the role. But, of course, I became obsessed with the role. At the time he was sent the script, it was with Mike Nichols, who was thinking of directing it, and I’m not really sure I know or remember how or why it left Mike, but then it went to Jonathan Demme.
I asked if I could audition for the role, and I did, and I read with Paul Le Mat. I remember at one point we read a scene where Lynda has been out of his life for a while and runs into him at the courts, and she gives him a kiss, and I remember laying one on Paul Le Mat. [Laughs.] And then that was the end of the audition, so I left. And by the time I got home, my phone was ringing, and Jonathan was saying, “I don’t want to make you wait at all for this. I want you for this role.” And I was just thrilled and honored. It was really wonderful to work with such great writing. It won Best Screenplay as well as myself winning Best Supporting Actress, but also Jason [Robards] was nominated and was wonderful. And Jonathan should’ve been nominated for it. The direction of the movie was so impeccable and beautiful. And it’s really held up of its time as being a beautiful film about the American dream.
It was a fascinating thing, because the real Melvin was in the movie. He’s the man at the bus station. I don’t know if you’ve seen it anytime recently, but I borrow things from him to make a sandwich for my daughter. His version of the events is what we told, and handwriting experts were unable to disprove that the will that he had was a forgery. And if it was a forgery, it was one of the most sophisticated forgeries of all time. It was in the days before computers, and it included quite obscure relatives of Howard Hughes that he would’ve somehow had to have known the names of. And it didn’t say, “I leave all my money to Melvin Dummar.” It listed all of these friends and obscure relatives, and then it said… I think it said, “I leave a 16th of my money to Melvin Dummar of Gabbs, Nevada.” So I will always believe that we had the real story, the real will. But he was always up against some powerful forces that didn’t want that to be the real will. So it was a very interesting experience working on it.
So which was more difficult for you, dancing in the strip club or tap dancing on the game show?
Oh, definitely dancing in the strip club. [Laughs.] Not the dancing, but the being naked. That was excruciatingly scary for me. But I also had to make sure that I made it not about that. That it was about her moment and what she was about at that time, what she was going through, and that it not be Mary’s nakedness. Because Lynda had a whole other sense of propriety than I do.
The tap dancing… I used to tap dance when I was a little girl, and it’s funny how it stays with you. I’ve found that most people who studied when they were little, even if they never took another tap class, it’s percussive, so it stays in your body, the muscle memory of it. So that was fun to do. But it’s so funny, because last night on a commercial I heard “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” and every time I hear those low electric guitars… [Imitates the opening riff.] I’m right back there in the little rehearsal room, working on that.
Ironically, most of what’s on screen is improvised dancing, because we had a little thing worked out, and we did it, and then Jonathan said, “Okay, now throw that out the window and just dance.” And I remember looking out at the sweet man who was the dolly grip—his name was George, and he was a really good guy—and he was looking at me expectantly, and I just thought, “George doesn’t know where to push that dolly any more than I know where to go right now. I’m just going to dance with George.” And I just focused on him and danced. I wanted it to be a wonderful combination of being able to dance a little bit, not being especially good, but also playing a character who says the line, “I love to dance,” I felt like that was one of the lines that was a key to who Lynda was. She loved to dance. And just from my own selfish point of view, when you look at the moments of a career where you were glad to be an actor and you felt in concert with your crew or your fellow actor, that was one of those days for me: dancing with George the dolly grip.
Louie Anderson:
Perfect Strangers (1986)—“Lou Appleton” (unaired pilot)
It was so odd to discover that you were in the original pilot for Perfect Strangers.
Louie Anderson: Yeah! That was my first big break, getting that pilot.
So what’s the story? What happened?
Those guys, Bob [Boyett] and Tom [L. Miller], they were kind of a big deal. They had lots of shows on TV. So I get it, along with Bronson Pinchot, and I was Cousin Louie. And I had a lot to do with the shape of the show, but one day I got a call from my agent saying, “They want to replace you.” And I go, “Well, why didn’t they tell me? These are all my friends, I thought!” But it was a great lesson. And I would’ve been a whole different person, had that been my path and my legacy, Perfect Strangers. Although I think I would’ve made the show different. But who knows? But I’m glad for Mark [Linn-Baker]. You know, I like him, and he was a nice person. But I think the problem was that both Bronson and I were the funny guys, and he had a lot more cred, because he’d just come off of Beverly Hills Cop. Plus, as I’ve said throughout this interview, I’m not a good actor!
It’s definitely a recurring theme.
[Laughs.] Yeah! But, you know, I didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t know how to do it, and if you don’t know how to do something, you just don’t know how to do it. But it was a good experience. I learned a lot about how to create a show and all that kind of stuff. But after that, I didn’t trust people in show business very much.
So did you ever heard from them directly, or was it strictly through channels?
Oh, I think they did some sort half-assed—I’ll be honest with you—approach to telling me they’re sorry. I don’t think they wanted to hurt my feelings, and I don’t think they knew what to do with me, and I don’t hold it against them, except that they could’ve just called me and said, “Louie, would you be the guy who cleans up around here instead?” [Laughs.] I just wish they would’ve said, “Hey, why don’t we try to develop something else?” I wish they would’ve done the Midwest thing. “Hey, you’re a terrible shoveler. We would like you to not shovel the walk for us anymore. Go shovel someone else’s walk.” And I guess they did in their own way, but it was heartbreaking for a kid from Minnesota, I can tell you that.
But you know what? God and the universe said to me one day, “You’re only going to get what’s good for you.” That’s kind of how I try to look at things. Isn’t that true, when you look back at things? “Ooh, I’m glad I didn’t get that!” You get more philosophical when you get older, with the more life experiences you have. But I don’t have any bad feelings towards anybody that was ever involved in any of that stuff, because I don’t think that people usually set out to hurt you. I think that hurt is all manufactured by yourself and your expectations. But it’s a great thing to watch, that pilot. In fact, I show a scene from it before my shows, so people can go, “Wait, what was that? Was he in that?” [Laughs.]
Tony Shalhoub:
Galaxy Quest (1999)—“Fred Kwan”
Tony Shalhoub: I seem to have a lot of favorite projects and a lot of high points, but Galaxy Quest, wow, that was almost too much fun, that particular group of actors. And that was the first time I worked with Dean Parisot. He was the director on that. After Galaxy Quest, I asked him to direct the pilot of Monk, which he did, and we’ve been friends for a long, long time.
That was an interesting situation, too. I had first gone in to meet the director for the role of Guy Fleegman, Sam Rockwell’s part. Crewman #6. That was the initial meeting. And then I found out a little while later that Sam was going to do that, and that was great. And then Dean called me up and said, “We would like you to do this guy Fred Kwan.” And I said, “Well, no, that’s an Asian guy. I can’t play an Asian guy! Why don’t you get an Asian guy? There’s a lot of guys out there who could knock this out of the park!” He said, “No, no, no, we think you should do this thing.” And I said [Sighs.] “Well, I can’t play an Asian guy. I won’t play an Asian guy. But I will play a guy who plays an Asian guy.”
So Dean said to me, “Why don’t you take a look at the pilot for Kung Fu?” You know, the David Carradine show? “Because that was a guy who wasn’t an Asian guy playing an Asian guy.” This got really convoluted. [Laughs.] So I watched David Carradine, and then we found out that there was this rumor—I don’t think it was a rumor, I think it was a legend—that David Carradine just smoked a lot of weed on that show. That was the thing. That’s how he was able to channel that kind of Zen, unflappable character. So we decided, “Well, maybe that’s what happened to Fred, too: He just became this kind of burnout.” And then we just kind of rewrote it as we went along. Dean and the writers, we just kind of made it up as we went along, based on that idea: that he’d smoked an enormous amount of pot.
Enrico Colantoni:
Full Frontal (2002)—“Arty/Ed”
Enrico Colantoni: Okay, did you see that movie?
AVC: Once upon a time, but probably not since—
[Interrupts.] Yeah, Will, I’m going to take you at your word, right? Because nobody saw that movie. I don’t think Soderbergh expected anybody to see that movie. [Laughs.] He had just gotten off the success of—what was it, the boffo year of Erin Brockovich and Traffic? And this was the first thing he’d done after that. No, wait, he’d just finished Ocean’s Eleven. It was complete, but it hadn’t been released yet. So when you’re… [Hesitates.] How do I say this?
I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out.
[Laughs.] Okay, well, when you become part of the genius of someone’s palette, there’s nothing more exciting than having been a part of that. But I was so petrified by the experience, just because… I don’t know, Julia Roberts was there and Blair Underwood was there and Steven Soderbergh was there. But it was so benign, his approach to making a film. Especially on this one. And I realized that after the fact, when I was talking to him when I went back and did Contagion. We reminisced about Full Frontal, and he goes, “No, that was just a fun experiment. That was just for us.” And then finally it made sense. There he was, just experimenting with these small video cameras. Canon had just come out with something, and he was experimenting with that.
There were no trailers. We were shooting in a theater, and it was just a play on reality and what was real and what wasn’t. It was the most surreal, gratifying experience, because I never saw the camera, I never knew where he was, and I never knew what we were going to say. We were on script, we were off script, Nicky Katt was just, like, bouncing off the walls—he was the crazy Hitler guy—and I was, like, “Where the fuck am I? This is incredible!” All I see are four walls, I don’t see a crew anywhere. Greg Jacobs was the A.D., I guess, but I didn’t see a crew. I didn’t see anybody—I just know Steven was there with a camera and a second camera guy, and we just approached it like, “Okay, you guys ready?” “Yeah, let’s do this.” I’d never experienced anything like that.
I’ve never experienced such a low-key, sublime filmmaking experience, where you didn’t know what was real in reality and what was real in what you were saying. I’m still reeling from that film. I loved that movie, just because I had the benefit of understanding the context of it. But I can see why a lot of people who saw it said, “What the fuck was that?”