Random Reminiscing: Looking Back at my Many Random Roles Interviews (Part 16 of Quite a Few)
Having just passed the 10th anniversary of my first Random Roles, I’m 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, 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!
Daniel Stern:
C.H.U.D. (1984)—“A.J. ‘Reverend’ Shepherd”
Daniel Stern: Now that was a genius movie. That’s a movie that we put together, just friends. Everybody in it was a friend. Our friend [Shep Abbott] wrote it. He had the idea for C.H.U.D. John Heard, Christopher Curry, and I starred in it. The director [Douglas Cheek] was a friend. And that part of the reverend wasn’t even in the original script, but I wrote it. We wanted to do this movie together, and there wasn’t really a part for me, so I helped write that part into the movie. So it was sort of a custom-made part for me. [Laughs.]
It was just a blast. I mean, a summer in the sewers of New York? What better way is there to spend your summer? [Laughs.] But we got to make our movie, you know? And if you look at it now, it’s got Jay Thomas showing up. John Goodman shows up. It’s just our old buddies, and it was really guerrilla theater at its finest for us. And the part was great. I mean, I got to go climb through the sewers and find the bad guys and shoot a gun. I blew something up. I don’t know—it’s just a good, action-y part. And in the end, once we’d done it, the producer… [Starts to laugh.] Now, it has these weird monsters in it, right? These bad, slimy creatures. But when we shot it originally, there were no green monsters in it. The people who turned to C.H.U.D.s were just actors who turned into cannibals. But then in order to sell it as a horror movie, they added in these terrible slimy things. It wasn’t quite what we’d wanted to make it, but the experience of making it really showed me how to make a movie. That was the first time I’d been on the ground floor of writing it, and the director was a good friend, and Claire Simpson, who’s turned into a world-class editor—I got to sit in the editing room and help her go through it. So that was a great learning experience, too.
Plus, it gave the world one of the great acronyms of pop culture.
When Shep—the original writer—said “C.H.U.D.,” we just said, “What’s ‘C.H.U.D.’?” We had a stencil, and we went around New York and just sprayed the word “C.H.U.D.” Because it was just such a hook kind of a word, you know? Everybody wanted to know what “C.H.U.D.” was. And when we were writing it—it was “Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers,” but the plot point we added was that it was actually the disposal site: “Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal.” That was the secret of C.H.U.D. They did a C.H.U.D. II a few years later. What was it, Bud The C.H.U.D. or C.H.U.D. The Bud? Something horrible. [Laughs.] But I’ve actually had an idea of doing C.H.U.D. as a musical. A Broadway musical.
Is this a scoop? Can we say, “You heard it here first”?
You heard it here first! Yep. I’ve got two songs written for it, actually. It could be interesting. I mean, it’s like I said: It’s C.H.U.D. I think that grabs people! So I’m working on it. When I’m looking for investors, I’ll let you know. [Laughs.]
Mekhi Phifer:
Curb Your Enthusiasm (2005)—“Omar Jones”
Mekhi Phifer: [Laughs.] Well, that was fun, because that was the first time I’d ever done improv in that fashion as an actor. Because there’s no script—it’s all improvisation—and then you’re working with the great Larry David and all of those guys. It was just a lot of fun. You didn’t know what to expect. I mean, they give you a sentence or two, kind of what the log line is, but then after that you have to just bring it, add your own words, and that kind of thing. So that was fun, but I also just thought it was funny being the Muslim private investigator taking on a Jewish client, and someone as neurotic as Larry David at that.
So how does someone with no improv background find his way into Curb? Did they come looking for you?
Well, I was at a poker game with Jeff [Garlin] in Vegas—it was a celebrity poker game—and we were sitting next to each other, so we just started talking and everything, and he liked my work, and I liked his work. And I said, “Man, I’m loving that damned Curb Your Enthusiasm. If anything ever comes up, give me a call!” And it just so happened that in the next few weeks, something came up. They had this character, this Muslim guy or whatever. The thing with that show is that it doesn’t matter who you are, you have to come in and read with Larry, or read with whoever you’re going to be dealing with, because they need to see how you’re going to be as far as improv goes, because everybody can’t do it, you know? I mean, you might be a great actor, but you’re getting those lines fed to you. To come up with it on your own is a trick in itself. So I went in there, and most of my scenes were with Larry, so I just came in and read with him, and it was fun and it was funny, and then they told me I got it. So I ran with that. [Laughs.] I was very happy to do—what was it, four episodes on that? Yeah, that was great.
Alfred Molina:
Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)—“Satipo”
Alfred Molina: Yeah! That was my first real movie. Hardly been in front of a camera before that. I was so green, the carpenters were giving me notes. [Laughs.] But what an experience. Spielberg was already a star director, Harrison [Ford] was already a star actor, we shot most of it in England, and they cast me in England. It was like a weird dream, in a way, because up until then I’d just been working in the theater. I wasn’t a star in any way. I was a busy actor. I was a jobbing actor, busy working, doing plays in small theaters or maybe the occasional bit of television. One TV job I think I’d done before that. But the theater was essentially my employer… and then this job came along.
I met with Steven, and he didn’t even ask me to audition. I was expecting to have to audition, like you did in the theater. I had my Shakespeare piece ready, and I had my modern piece ready. [Laughs.] But we just talked. We just sat across a table, and we just talked. He said, “This is what the movie’s about, blah blah blah, there’s a character here you might be interested in,” making it sound as if it was completely up to me. I had no idea of the protocols. I didn’t realize the protocols were so polite and pleasant! And then he offered me the job, and… I can remember the offer was £1,000 a week, and it was for three weeks’ work.
At the time, at the theater where I was working, the top rate was, I think, £200 a week. Or at least that’s what I was earning. And I kind of went, “What? Yeah!” And my agent said, “We’ll try to get it up more,” but I said, “No, no, that’s okay, I’ll take it!” Because my daughter was about to be born. When we finished filming, my ex-wife was in her seventh month of the pregnancy, and I’ll tell you, that money came in real handy. I mean, we bought a cot, we bought a push chair, we bought a stroller, I got the little room that was going to be her bedroom decorated. I was broke when that movie came around, and I’ve thanked Steven publicly many a time. And I’ll do it again. [Laughs.] Thank you, Steven. You saved my bacon in more ways than one.
How many times have people come up to you and said, “You know, you really should’ve thrown him the whip”?
[Laughs.] It’s amazing. I think the reason why it got such a high profile wasn’t because of the size of the role. You might be a bit too young, or you might remember, but at the time the movie was released, all the trailers featured me very prominently, because my little chunk of the movie had nothing to do with the rest of the film. It was just, like, a little introduction to Indy, so it didn’t give away any of the plot, so they used that 10-minute sequence at the beginning, because it introduced Paul Freeman’s character [Belloq], it introduced Indy…
It introduced the boulder.
Exactly! All of that. So in the trailer, it looked as though I had a huge part. It looked as if it was like me and Harrison. So I was getting phone calls from people saying, “Oh, my God, I’ve just seen the trailer!” I’m like, “Yeah, relax. I get popped off in, like, 10 minutes. I barely make it past the credits.” [Laughs.] But everybody saw it! Generation upon generation are still coming up to me saying, [As Satipo.] “Throw me the idol, I throw you the whip.” I’m delighted. I’ve got a little corner of movie history that’s mine. So I’m fine with it.
Tony Goldwyn:
Ghost (1990)—“Carl Bruner”
Tony Goldwyn: That was obviously a big turning point. Up ’til then, I’d been—well, I’d been working, and in retrospect I was doing pretty well, but at the time I felt like I was just sucking wind, because you never know when your next job is going to come. And I couldn’t even get auditions for movies, because in those days, if you did television—and I’d obviously started doing guest spots on TV shows—you couldn’t even be considered for films. It’s all changed, but at the time it was very compartmentalized.
I fought my way into an audition on Ghost. My wife was the production designer on that movie. At that time, she was much more successful than me and was doing all these big movies, and she kept saying, “They haven’t cast that part! You should bug your agents!” And I kept harassing my agent, who would never return my phone calls, and I managed to get an audition. And, by a fluke, they stumbled on my audition tape and said, “That guy was really good.” [Laughs.] When they couldn’t get a star for the part, I got to screen test for it, and it worked out.
So what’s the worst reaction you’ve gotten from someone who recognized you from Ghost?
[Long pause.] Well, the worst was right when it was in the theater. I was doing a play in New York, and I went in to get a bite to eat in a restaurant in Greenwich Village, and the waitress would not seat me. She was incredibly rude to me—she wouldn’t give me a menu, she wouldn’t take my order—and I finally said, “Look, I’m on a break. I have to go.” She finally took my order, but I’m like, “Why is this woman being such a bitch to me?” She was just staring at me evilly! Then as I was eating, she came over to me and said, “Excuse me, are you an actor?” I said, “Yeah.” She said, “Oh, my God, you’re in that movie, aren’t you?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “I’m so sorry! I knew I hated you, but I didn’t know where from, and because I couldn’t place who you were, I thought you were a guy I slept with who was horrible to me! I’m so sorry I was treating you so badly!” So, um, we became friends after that. [Laughs.]
Carl Weathers:
The Candidate (1972)—actor (uncredited)
Magnum Force (1973)—“Demonstrator” (uncredited)
You’re not officially credited, so better to approach this with trepidation: Was your film debut as a demonstrator in Magnum Force?
Carl Weathers: Oh, wow. You didn’t. You didn’t go back there. [Laughs.] My God, yes. I don’t know who dug that up, but, yes, that’s true. Yes, that was a billion years ago, in San Francisco. But, actually, you know something? I’m not sure that’s true, now that I think about it.
What I think the first was—I played an extra onstage in a scene that Robert Redford did in a movie called The Candidate. I remember that day because I was a theater major, and I wanted to be a professional actor. It was shot at a Grand Theater in Oakland, and I remember at the end of that day saying “never again.” Because I wanted to be Robert Redford! [Laughs.] I wanted to be a principal, not some guy standing out in an audience. So I think that was actually first, and then Magnum Force was after that, because in Magnum Force I actually had lines, which never wound up being on camera. But I did have lines, and I was paid as a SAG actor, not as an extra. Wow. That’s funny, recalling that.
When you made the transition from sports to acting, you obviously weren’t the first football player to try and make it as an actor. Were you concerned about that?
CW: Even though I played football in college—that was on scholarship to San Diego State—I was a theater major. I always wanted to be an actor even from when I was a young kid. I loved movies—grew up watching movies. So making the transition was, in a way, truly out of ignorance. I never really had a clue of the challenges of “making it in Hollywood,” so to speak. I came here expecting to make it, not thinking it was going to be a very tough transition at all. And I was just very fortunate that, within six months of arriving, I was working.
I worked on a lot of episodic television, a lot of Quinn Martin’s shows, and—I mean, good God, I worked on Kung Fu and Starsky And Hutch and—you name it. I ended up on Delvecchio and S.W.A.T. and Switch and God, it went on and on and on, those titles. The Six Million Dollar Man. I was very fortunate. All of that happened very quickly, and then I translated that into working in some movies for AIP, and then, you know, the big break—quote unquote—came along with Rocky.
Tim Daly:
I Married A Centerfold (1984)—“Kevin Coates”
Tim Daly: Oh, gosh. Wow. Okay, so the funny story about that... Hey, I’ve got a lot of good stories! [Laughs.] I was doing The Glass Menagerie, playing the Gentleman Caller, with Amy Irving—that was when I was being an artist—and I got this TV movie called The Girl Of His Dreams. And there was this beautiful, long scene that’s sort of the centerpiece of the movie, with Lew Ayres, the old cowboy actor, who I was a fan of, and I thought, “This is great! I mean, it’s kind of a little bit cheesy, but… it’s Lew Ayres! I get to work with him!”
So, literally, I did the closing night of The Glass Menagerie, and they hired a little two-engine prop plane to fly me from where I was, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to L.A. to start work the next day. So I fly on this plane, I go to this office in L.A., and there’s Lew Ayres and Teri Copley, who played “the girl,” and the producers and the director. And they hand me a script that’s now rainbow-colored, right? It’s red and pink and blue and taupe and whatever other colors they make up. And then on the cover of it, it says, not The Girl Of His Dreams. It says I Married A Centerfold. I’m like, “What? Huh? What’s this?”
Anyway, we read through the script. The big, beautiful scene was completely gone, and Lew Ayres, after the reading, politely stood up, and he handed the script to the producer, and he said, “Thank you very much, but I really don’t think you want me for this part. It’s not what I signed up to do.” And he walked out. And I was like, “Whoa! Holy shit!” So that was that. And at the time, I had, I think, an 8-month-old baby—my son, Sam—and they were paying me some absurd amount of money for me at the time. Like, low five figures, but it was still five figures. So I did it. And the rest is history.
But, hey, at least you got to meet Lew Ayres.
I did get to meet Lew Ayres, who was a cool guy. He was very sweet, and I admired him for just kind of being old enough and cranky enough to say, “You know what? Fuck this. I’m out of here.” [Laughs.] “I’ve been around too long for this. See you later.”
Scott Bakula:
I-Man (1986)—“Jeffrey Wilder”
You did a lot of work in the theater before you ever got in front of the camera, but the farthest back I could find with your on-camera work as a leading man seems to be a TV movie for Disney called I-Man.
Scott Bakula: Oh, my gosh. That was a crazy… [Starts to laugh.] I have so many memories about that, but the first memory is that it’s a job I got in New York, which you never get. When we were in New York and we’d go on tape for the west coast—that’s tape, in the old days—you’d go, like, “Yeah, it’s just not going to happen.” You never felt like you could get the job if you weren’t in the room with people… which is ironic, since 80 percent of the time now you’re not in the room with people. You’re being put on video and sent to them. But you just feel like you don’t have a chance, because you’re dealing with the casting person. And, you know, they’re trying so hard to get you the job, and they’re giving you advice and they want you to do well, but you can’t talk to the director, you can’t make adjustments… So I did this crazy audition back in New York, and I kissed it goodbye.
But I grew up watching The Wonderful World Of Disney on Sunday nights, and that was iconic for me and my family, so when I got this call… [Sighs.] It was wild, because Corey Allen directed it, and Corey Allen is most famous for being in Rebel Without A Cause with James Dean, where they played chicken on the cliff. You know, when they’re driving, the bad guy [Buzz Gunderson]? That’s Corey Allen. So the whole thing was overwhelming, but first of all just because I got the job! I’d done a little bit of camera work back in New York, a little bit of soap opera work, but it was, like, a day on a soap opera, and then six months later another day. Mostly it was just theater, theater, theater. Although I did do a little cameo on a TV show called On Our Own, which was with Lynnie Green, Bess Armstrong, and Dixie Carter… and the first TV job I got when I got when I came to L.A.—or, rather, when I moved to L.A.—was for Designing Women. So there was almost a 10-year gap between them, but Dixie was in the first TV show I did in New York and the first TV show I did in L.A. I loved Dixie. I adored her and Hal [Holbrook].
So I was overwhelmed, and before I met anyone, they flew me to L.A., because I had to do all this makeup work. My character was indestructible—that’s what the “I” stood for, and originally it was called The Indestructible Man—so if I got shot, if I got burned, if I got blown up, then I would heal. The only time I would die is if I didn’t have sunlight. I was like a plant, basically. So I had to come and get makeup testing and all these molds and everything made of my face, so they could do all this prosthetic work to me. I’d never done any of that before in my life. I get picked up at the airport, and I go to Disney to meet with Robert Schiffer, one of the most famous makeup artists in the industry. He was, like, Burt Lancaster’s personal makeup artist. So I went down into the bowels of Disney, and… I didn’t know Disney. I didn’t know anything! But he had his own little shop, a room full of heads, and he puts this plaster cast on my head. I’m sitting in there, and all of a sudden I’ve got two straws up my nose and I’m in a plaster cast… and he goes away! And I’m like, “What if he just never comes back? Who even knows I’m here?” [Laughs.]
From there, I got on a plane, and I go up to Vancouver—I’d never been to Canada before—and I’m on a set, and I’ve got to do all these things, like, “Okay, this is the scene where you get on the fence and you get electrocuted, so you’ve got to figure out how to die like you’re being electrocuted, and then you’ll come back to life. And this is where you’re dying because you’re not getting sunlight, so now you have to figure out some kind of death through no… chlorophyllication or whatever!” [Laughs.] But Corey Allen was just… He was my buddy. And he knew it was my first thing, and he was an actor first, so he was like, “I’m gonna get you through this. We’re just gonna figure this out.” I worked with Herschel Bernardi, who passed very soon after that, and with John Anderson, who was famous for playing Gabriel on The Twilight Zone and who was also from St. Louis, so he and I became fast friends.
The whole experience was just surreal. I had to just say, “I don’t know anything!” We had an English D.P. [Frank Watts], and I said, “I don’t know anything about anything. You’ve just got to help me.” So off we went on this adventure, making this movie, and the next thing you know, Michael Eisner was introducing it one Sunday night on The Wonderful World Of Disney, which… I mean, that was great!
Judd Hirsch:
Taxi (1978-1983)—“Alex Reiger”
Judd Hirsch: My agent said, “They really want you to do this.” I said, “No, no, no, no. No more, no more. I want to do movies and plays, and I’m going to go to Europe, and I’m taking off!” He said, “Well, what do I tell them?” I said, “Well, I mean, send me the script. I haven’t even seen anything.” So they send me the script for Taxi, and I said, “Aw, crap. This is going to be at least a three-year show. I’ll be an old man by the time this goes off the air. Ah, Jesus. But—still, probably not.” My agent says, “So what do I tell them?” I said, “Make them an offer they can’t accept!” He said, “What if they accept it?” [Laughs.] “Just do that!” He did. They accepted. And I had to take it.
You actually ended up with your name above the title.
Oh, that was embarrassing. The only thing they said was, “Okay, we haven’t done billing yet,” and I said, “I don’t care. What, first-mentioned name? I don’t know. I really don’t know. I haven’t done this before.” Okay, so then it comes to opening night—we’re at the producer’s house, we’re watching it on television. The whole cast is in front of me with their backs to me, I’m standing in the back, and it comes on. [Hums the Taxi theme.] “Judd Hirsch in…” [Looks positively stricken.]
I thought, “Jesus! They are not going to like me! I’m going to be the person that makes them say, ‘Who the hell is he? Who does he think he is? Coming from New York! What did he do? Nothing!’” [Laughs.] “He did Rhoda!” So I was going, “Oh, man, am I embarrassed…” I didn’t ask for that. They did it for their own purposes, thinking that maybe I’d bring in something. Nobody knew me! I mean, not really. Not on television. But they thought otherwise. And I lived with it for five years.
As far as the ensemble goes, how quickly did you guys gel?
I’m thinking about the first show. The pilot was so wonderful. In a way, the pilot is how we got to know each other. I didn’t know any of them. Well, except Danny DeVito. I reminded myself that, years before, I had done a play with Danny DeVito in Philadelphia. It was one of those wacko things where he played my dog! [Laughs.] And I remembered it while we were doing the pilot, and I went, “Oh, Jesus, I can’t say, ‘Hey, Danny, remember that time you played my dog?’” I was too scared! But then later on he reminded me! [Does a Danny DeVito impression.] “Remember I had a song and you had a song?” “Yeah!” I was, like, “Okay, it’s all out: You played my dog.”
But the cast was great. We had parties every Friday night. Champagne and everything. We shot on Friday night, and every single Friday night for the entire duration of that show, we had a party afterward—at the studio, no less. You stayed until the last person went home. You’d see the guard go home, at two o’clock in the morning. And the ABC lineup was just great back then. We had the most winning night in television: Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Three’s Company, and Taxi. We’d walk into each other’s studios on the Paramount lot. That’s how great it was. Everybody visited everybody. In fact, they were on our show! Bosom Buddies was part of the ABC lineup at the time, and Tom Hanks did an episode of our show. Both him and the guy who was with him on the show [Peter Scolari]. It was a great time to do this kind of television situation comedy, because Paramount’s lot was full. It wasn’t just ABC. It was Paramount. They owned comedy. They owned the best shows. I hardly did anything that wasn’t at Paramount. Taxi was done at Paramount. Dear John was at Paramount. George & Leo was done at Paramount. Even Numb3rs was Paramount! We just didn’t shoot it there.
By the way, just for the record, I was originally going to try to buy myself some extra time by closing with the question, “What does a yellow light mean?”
[Laughs.] Yeah, I don’t think so. I’ve seen how you are. I’m not going to spend the next hour and half saying, “Slow down!”
Kurt Fuller:
No Holds Barred (1989)—“Brell”
Kurt Fuller: See, now you’re trying to hurt me. [Starts to laugh.] Okay, I’ll start from now backward: They just re-released No Holds Barred on Blu-ray, and I don’t know that they did it for all of it, but a lot of the way it was marketed was as one of the worst movies of all time. But it’s one of those that’s so bad it’s good.
Again, an early job, and I still knew nothing about acting. I was a terrible actor, and that’s why I got the job: I would allow myself to be so bad that I lowered and got down to WWF standards. [Laughs.] I’m sort of this insane Donald Trump-like head of the network, and I was working with Hulk Hogan. I have nothing bad to say about Hulk Hogan. In fact, compared to what I have seen in the press and all the high jinks of his life, I didn’t see any of that coming, man. He was just a businessman who worked out, you know?
But there was a scene where I offer him money to go to my network, and he’s supposed to shove a check down my throat, and his line is, “I won’t be around when this check clears.” But nobody told him that, on movies, you fake it. In wrestling, they really do a lot of the stuff. But he shoved a check down… my… throat. And I couldn’t stop him. I literally thought I was going to die. We finished the scene, and I coughed it up, and he said [Does a spot-on Hulk Hogan impression.] “Oh, sorry, brother, I didn’t know we were supposed to fake it!”
At one point I said to the director, “You know, I’m being really loud. Is this too big?” And he said, “Kurt, you’re standing next to a guy who’s 6-foot-9 and wearing red spandex. You can’t be too big.” I said, “Well, I guess you’re right.” But he was wrong: you could be too big, and I was! [Laughs.] You know, there are some things you can’t unsee, and there are some movies you can’t get off IMDB no matter how hard you try. That’s all I’m going to say.