Random Reminiscing: Looking Back at My Many Random Roles Interviews (Part 21 of Quite a Few)
Featuring anecdotes from Steve Guttenberg, Jennifer Beals, Joel Murray, Ray Stevenson, Gerald McRaney, Paget Brewster, and William Devane
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!
Steve Guttenberg:
Can’t Stop The Music (1980)—“Jack Morell”
Steve Guttenberg: Well, you know, that was insanity. Just complete insanity. It made no sense at all. The movie was crazy. I really enjoyed being around Bruce Jenner and Valerie Perrine and Village People. Allan Carr was a hoot. But I have no idea what was going on. [Laughs.]
In an interview a few years ago, Jenner said that Valerie Perrine was kind of diva-esque on that film, complaining about everything under the sun, but that in retrospect Perrine was right to complain.
Oh, you know, films are hard. The truth is, it’s really hard to make a good movie. And you can’t blame people, you know? Everybody’s trying to do a good job.
True. And it was Nancy Walker’s first time directing a feature film, so it was a trial by fire.
Yeah. And she did okay. Everybody tried their best. Nobody intentionally tries to make a bad movie.
Jennifer Beals:
The Madonna And The Dragon (1990)—“Patty Meredith”
Jennifer Beals: Oh, my gosh, that was such a great adventure. I got to work with Sam Fuller. We met because he did a film with my ex-husband. I was married to Alex Rockwell, who’s a tremendous filmmaker. We were married for 10 years, and while we were married, he did this film called Sons, and Sam played a part in the film. It was really low-budget. I think they shot in New York, New Jersey, Paris, and the south of France for $200,000 or something. [Laughs.] I may not be exaggerating, actually, on that front.
Anyway, I met Sam and just loved him so much, and after the film was over, I got a phone call: “Jennifer! I’m working on this film, and I’ve got this part. She’s a photographer. You wanna do it?” I was, like, “Sure! I mean, you’re Sam Fuller. Of course I want to do it!” But I was about to do this play, Brilliant Traces. I was contemplating whether I was going to do it—I was going to replace Joan Cusack, coming full circle back to My Bodyguard—but then Sam called, and I could not, to Sam Fuller, say “No.” So I was on a plane and headed off to Manila, where I played this photographer, and I had this amazing adventure with Sam Fuller in the Philippines, shooting on Smokey Mountain, which is this area that’s just blocks of burning garbage. It literally was like a mountain of burning garbage. It’s so noxious. As soon as we got to the set, the makeup artist inhaling the smoke started vomiting and had to leave, but Sam, who… I don’t know how old he was at the time, but he was completely fine, smoking a cigar the entire time, and would’ve worked through lunch easily had not someone said to him, “You know, the crew kind of needs to eat. I know you’re okay, but the crew needs to eat.” It was just this great experience. I took a lot of photographs. I loved being around Sam. He was so alive and had so many different ideas.
He also seems like the kind of guy who’d have no problem mocking someone who wanted to stop work because they needed to eat.
[Laughs.] Well, I think he understood. But he was someone who, for our action sequences, for “action,” he would shoot off a gun, which was the old way of doing it. But it’s smart, because you can hear it over all of the noise that’s going on in the scene. You can hear your “action.” When you hear that, you go, “Oh, that’s a real gun. It must be time to go.” I have a picture of Sam shooting off the gun, with his cigar. I really need to go through those negatives.
Joel Murray:
Shakes The Clown (1991)—“Milkman”
God Bless America (2011)—“Frank”
Joel Murray: [Laughs.] “It truly has been a great life, George Bailey!” Uh, yeah, that was Bobcat’s directorial debut. I played the milkman. That was a small and un-pivotal role, but it was fun to be a part of it. And the day I actually worked, Bobcat was wildly sick. He had, like, food poisoning. And I remember I ad-libbed. I yelled at Julie Brown, “Hey, Madonna! Get out of the way!” And she’s, like, “You think I look like Madonna? Really?” And she went on to do that Madonna parody thing not long after that [Medusa: Dare To Be Truthful]. I’d like to take some of the credit for that.
Twenty years later, you worked with Bobcat for God Bless America. Was that a case where he’d wanted to work with you again in a larger capacity and it just took that long to find the right project?
Well, he wanted me to be in [Sleeping Dogs Lie]. You know, the one with the dog? Where the girl blows the dog? And my agents at Gersh wouldn’t even let me read the script. The guy was so appalled by the girl blowing the dog on page two that he wouldn’t even give me the script until about three months after Bob sent it to him to offer me the part. And I finally read it, and I was, like, “Hey, my character’s a nice guy who gets laid in a broom closet by a really cute girl. I don’t see the down side of this one.” But they wouldn’t let me be in that.
And then when I went and saw World’s Greatest Dad, I was so blown away by how good Bob had gotten and how great that movie was… I think that’s one of the best things Robin Williams ever did. He was so great in that. And that Daryl Sabara kid was just amazing. He was such a prick. He was so good in that. So I was really jealous that I wasn’t, you know, in the Mighty Bobcat Players at that point. And then Bob was having back surgery, and he hadn’t seen Mad Men yet, so I knew he was going to be laid up for a while, so after his back surgery I brought him over lunch one day, and I brought him the first four seasons of Mad Men. And he said that in the middle of season two, his wife said, “Well, Joel could play Frank.” And Bobcat was, like, “My God, it’s so obvious. How did I not think of that?”
And he sent me the script, and I read the script, and I said, “God, this is phenomenal, Bob. Who do you want me to be? The guy in the office? This guy? That guy?” He said, “No, I want you to be Frank.” [Startled.] “Frank’s the guy.” “Yeah! I want you to play the guy!” I’m, like, “Hell, yeah!” I don’t get leads in movies very often. So, yeah, that was a hoot working with Bob. Such a nice guy.
Your young co-star, Tara Lynne Barr, was pretty great, too.
She was phenomenal! And, you know, Bob always was, like, “Well, we’ll get casting, and we’ll get down to a few, and then you’ll read with a couple of the girls, and we can kind of see who’s got the best chemistry.” But when she came in and read, Bob’s, like, “This girl’s got the part. Don’t worry about it. She’s going to be great. You don’t have to meet her or anything like that.” So, yeah, she blew us out of the water. You know, for all the girls you could’ve gotten for this 17-year-old girl… You could’ve gotten a real weird, self-centered, chatty one. Instead we got this girl who was very interested in learning everything and listening, and she was just wonderful to work with. Really good.
We went back and reshot some stuff in Syracuse, New York to get more bang for the buck, to maybe make it look like a bigger movie. We shot some stuff in Syracuse, and we shot some stuff in Manhattan. And I realized at one point, I’m driving through the Lincoln Tunnel in a car with fake Virginia license plates with an underage girl and a trunk full of guns. [Laughs.] And a camera crew filming me the whole time. Illegally. Out of another car window, basically. And I felt like, “Yeah, what could go wrong here?”
Ray Stevenson:
Rome (2005-07)—“Titus Pullo”
Ray Stevenson: I got sent the script, and I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. I was, like, “Ancient Rome? What is this?” And I was literally finishing King Arthur, actually, and we were at Pinewood Studio, and I was hanging off sheets of ice on the back lot and killing lots of Vikings, and being killed! And then I went straight into town, straight from a day of that, and straight into the audition, where I met Bruno Heller and Anne Thomopoulos. I just dived straight into the audition, and they went, “Um…” Because I didn’t know they’d been three months looking for this character, Pullo. And they said, “What do you think of the script?” And I said, “I’ve no idea. But it’s damned intriguing! I want to read more. I want to find out more about him.” And I got it. And I embarked on a job that’s ultimately changed my life profoundly.
There was to have been another season, but the story is that HBO pulled the plug on it, but with enough warning to at least sort of offer a conclusion.
Yeah, there could’ve been a third, fourth, or fifth season. It could’ve gone on. But HBO had a change of regime or whatever. Deadwood went as well. It suffered from the fact that when a new groom comes in, if they keep a show on, if it’s a success, it’s their predecessor’s success, and if it’s a failure, it’s their failure. So it’s kind of lose/lose for them, so they come in with their own programming ideas, and it’s out with the old, in with the new. And Rome hadn’t really actually opened officially! But, of course, as soon as they pulled the plug, it went ballistic. It went through the roof. I think they dropped the ball on that one. But by then, it had gotten me my representation in the States, and my movie career started in earnest, and what can I tell you? I’ve got no complaints. Also, I met my partner and the mother of my children there. So it had a profound effect on my life.
Once upon a time, there was a Rome movie script floating around, intended to follow the second season.
Yeah, but I think it also suffered from too many middle-aged men trying to elbow their way in and attach themselves to what was deemed to be a potential real success. And then there were questions of ownership and all this sort of stuff, and by then the second season had been brought to a close, and actors were going on to other things. So it almost became a victim of its own success.
At one point, you described it as a series where one had to leave their dignity at the door.
Well, yeah, I think you could say that’s a premise held by most actors on most things they do. [Laughs.] But in that one, you really had to commit and go for it and trust in the writing and in the people around you. And when you did, it bore great fruit.
Was there any particular moment, be it graphic or otherwise, where you just went, “Well, I’ll do it, but only because it’s my job”?
Well, there was one where my wife at the time, the young slave girl, she’d been poisoned but didn’t know at the time that she’d been pregnant, and I woke up in a bed full of blood, because she’d died. And in those days, do you think I’ve got on a sleeping shirt and a hat? I’m naked! [Laughs.] Of course Pullo sleeps naked, but I have to run out into the house, yelling and screaming for help. But I’m not actually naked, I’m covered in sticky blood paint and things. It was my choice. I said, “Well, of course, I’m not going to sleep with anything, but with the enormity of the emotion that’s going on, it’s not about a nudity thing.”
It was never about titillation in that. It wasn’t about heaving gussets and all that sort of stuff. So it was right, we went ahead and did it, and at the end of the day, I spend a long time washing off blood, which makes your skin turn pink, funnily enough. And then you have to use Gillette Shave Foam. It’s a crazy thing, but you use almost a whole canister of shaving foam in order to take the fake blood off your skin. So there’s a tip for you. [Laughs.]
Gerald McRaney:
Keep Off My Grass! (1975)—“David Sherman”
This next one is the most obscure thing on my list—there’s not even so much as a clip from it on YouTube—but the credits alone are fascinating enough that it’s a must-ask.
Gerald McRaney: Oh, God, I don’t know if I’ll remember it!
I can’t imagine you won’t remember this one: You played David Sherman in Keep Off My Grass!
Oh, God. That was something written by people who had no concept of what hippies really were, but it was their hippie movie. And it had no bearing in reality whatsoever and was… really not a very pleasant experience.
There are probably half a dozen posters for the movie that are floating around the internet…
Oh, good God.
…and they’re all absolutely epic.
[Snorts.] Yeah. I’m sure.
What’s most fascinating, even more than Micky Dolenz playing the lead, is that it was directed by Shelley Berman.
Uh, yeah. And Shelley Berman as a director is a damned good stand-up comic.
Do you have any specific recollections of filming the wedding scene? From what I’ve read, there’s apparently an LSD freak-out after someone spikes the ice cream.
Oh, just that idiotic conceit of stomping on a glass with a bare foot. That’s my one big thing to remember about that. Oh, wait! There is one other thing: It was only going to be a montage, the wedding, but then that day, as I was getting into makeup, they brought me Hebrew dialogue! I’m a redneck kid from Mississippi, born and raised a Southern Baptist. What the hell do I know about Hebrew? [Laughs.] But there it was for me to learn. “And you’ve got 10 minutes!” So that was sort of fascinating. And then they wound up not using most of it, if any of it. I don’t really even remember if it wound up in the movie at all. I just remember having to learn it.
Paget Brewster:
Strange America (1993-1994)—cast member
The Paget Show (1994-1995)—host
It looks like your first real on-camera appearance was as the host of your very own talk show.
Paget Brewster: Yes, that would be The Paget Show. It was in San Francisco in… 1994? We did 65 episodes. I was bartending, and Ricki Lake had just made a ton of money for Garth Ancier and 20th [Century Fox] or something, so every production company was signing anyone in their 20s. I think there were 15 talk shows that year that came out for syndication. There was Tempestt Bledsoe, Carnie Wilson, Mark [L. Walberg]… He went on to host Temptation Island.
So I was the Westinghouse 25-year-old host to be developed locally—late night in San Francisco, at the CBS station, KPIX—and you can quote this, because all those people are gone, but they wouldn’t let me report my hours or else they said they would let people go. So I was still bartending on the weekends while my show was airing on TV, because otherwise I couldn’t pay my rent! [Laughs.] So I was hosting my show, and while I was bartending everyone wanted to put my show on, which is not great, to be on TV and fetching drinks at the same time.
So how does one go from never having been on TV to getting your own show?
Well, actually, I had been doing a public access cable show called Strange America. I was bartending at a bar called The Slow Club in Portero Hill, and a guy hung out in my bar—because he lived around the corner—and he was a manager. So I said, “Manage me!” And I just kept bugging him to manage me, as I was going to acting school at the Actors’ Lab in San Francisco, and I think I plied him with a lot of martinis and free French fries, but he said, “Okay, I’ll send you on three auditions.” But I didn’t understand that he represented on-air talent like anchor people, correspondents, and journalists. So I went on three auditions to host stuff… and I got a pilot to host a show! [Laughs.] I had no intention of hosting a show. I just made a video of me at the supermarket juggling, I think, and interviewing people in the street, because I had nothing to lose. I was 24 years old, maybe 25, and I was, like, “Well, why not?” And I got a show!
That’s pretty nuts. And what was Strange America?
Strange America was just kind of a sketch comedy show that these two guys… [Hesitates.] My partner was Kris, I can’t remember the other guy’s name, but they were both Sun Systems software guys. They installed Sun computer systems and made an inordinate amount of money, and they wanted to do a TV show, so that guy Kris hung out at my bar and asked me. He left town to go to a Sun Microsystems conference, and he said, “I’m going to give you my video camera.”
For the three or four days he was gone, I did stop-action claymation, and I wrote a sketch where I actually made botulism, which… All you have to do is put pork in a jar of water and leave it out with oxygen inside the jar. It’s actually, like, a serious poison. And then I was terrified because… I mean, how do you get rid of a bowl of botulism? I don’t remember what I did to get rid of it!
Can I just ask what on earth made you decide to make botulism? That’s not widely recognized as a go-to comedy bit.
I had seen an episode of Quincy about a bunch of people dying after a baseball game, and he discovers they were poisoned with botulism because someone threw old pork chili into a sink and accidentally made botulism, so I figured I could do that with pork chops in a jar of water. I kept it on my fire escape and time-lapse filmed it as it got grosser and grosser. It started bubbling and festering! I think I called poison control to figure out what to do with it. I was terrified they’d hunt me down.
But when Kris came back from his conference, we ended up doing 10 or 11 episodes. But you can’t find them. And I can’t find The Paget Show on YouTube anywhere, either, which is probably good, because I looked like Ralph Macchio—I had a flattop—but they dressed me in, like, Cosby sweaters. So it was just a bad look all around. Oh, and lots of rings! [Laughs.] You know, it was the ’90s. And a San Francisco Giants hat. I mean, I looked ugly.
I feel like I need to put out an open call for anyone who might be able to provide us with some of that footage. Our readers can be very industrious.
Oh, God. I hope you don’t find it!
William Devane:
Yanks (1979)—“John”
Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)—“Mayor Kirby T. Calo”
William Devane: I was always tight with John Schlesinger. I actually did two films back to back for Schlesinger, or at least right around the same time. First I did Yanks, and then Honky Tonk Freeway came right after that. Boy, they totally misunderstood his attack in that picture. It got hammered. He got killed, like he was trying to take America down. But if you look at the picture, it’s pretty incisive and pretty interesting how that whole thing went. It was a lot of fun. Although the elephant got paid more than any of us.
You two clearly worked well together, given the results.
Oh, yeah, John was great. We got along really well. He lived down in The Desert [in Palm Springs] ’til he died, so I used to see him a lot down there. A fabulous guy.
I don’t want to monopolize you at this event tonight, because I know you’ve got rounds to make and other critics to talk to. Do you want to finish this up by phone?
I want… a beer. [Walks off to bar. Returns after a moment, takes a swig of his beer.] I don’t like talking on the phone. What else ya got?
Ok, finding out that Paget Brewster used to bartend at The Slow Club, which I went to many times although not until probably several years later, AND had a late night talk show in SF just blew my mind. Thank you.
William Devane - That. Was. An. EPIC. Ending!