Random Reminiscing: Looking Back at my Many Random Roles Interviews (Part 18 of Quite a Few)
Featuring Michael Ironside, Olympia Dukakis, Alanna Ubach, Timothy Hutton, Dean Winters, Eddie Izzard, and William Daniels
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!
Michael Ironside:
Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)—“Gen. Katana”
Michael Ironside: Wow. General Katana. How can you not like a guy where they give you… [Starts to laugh.] Look, I’m bald. I have not had hair since I was 27, 28. But I showed up for work, and they glued a full mane on me, give me a cape, leather boots that go to my thighs, and a four-foot stand that I can cleave people in half with. How can you not want to go to work, you know? That was an absolute joy! And then I get to hang out with Sean Connery?
I just saw Russell Mulcahy, actually, when I was in Nova Scotia. The new Lizzie Borden miniseries, I’m doing a piece in that, playing a crazed mountain man who’s wanted for murder and stuff, and while I was there, Russell was directing the second section of it.
But we hadn’t seen each other since after Argentina, when he was in town shooting a music video for Elton John—he did a bunch of his videos—and he calls me and he says, “Hey, let’s go to dinner! We’ll all go to dinner!” So I’m at dinner with my wife and Russell, and Chris [Lambert] came along, and he brought Diane Lane with him, because he was married to her at the time. Diane’s a hoot. She’s a great friend. We did The Perfect Storm together, too.
But, anyway, I’m sitting there at dinner, and there’s this guy with a beard and long hair across the table, and he’s talking about how he’s working on this Western he’s been wanting to do. I said, “How long have you been working on this script?” He said, “About 11 years.” I said, “Dude, you’re a cliché! Do you know how many people in this town have a first and second act and an unfinished third act?” And we were laughing about it, and he said, “Yeah, I know, but it’s an obsession with me.” And I’m sitting there… and I go, “Oh, my God!” And he said, sounding surprised, “What?” He actually looked around, because there were, like, eight of us at the table. And I said, “You’re Bernie Taupin!” And he said, “Yeah! And you’re Michael Ironside. I’ve got a copy of Scanners. Could you sign it for me?” [Laughs.] I’m sitting there for a fucking hour and a half talking to Bernie Taupin before I realized who he was! One of the greatest lyricists of all time! I mean, just Tumbleweed Connection alone! And Russell was sitting there, and he looked down the table—he’s got these blue, devilish juvenile eyes —and he said, “You guys are getting along famously, aren’t you?” It was one of those perfect dinners, where everyone at the table just added to the conversation, and it was wonderful. Stories just rolled around the table. It was a 10-star dinner.
So that’s basically what General Katana reminds me of, but… in Highlander II, do you remember when I fall through the ceiling of the subway? Well, here’s an anecdote from that. The stunt guy was my double—I won’t mention his name, ’cause he’s got kids—but we shot that in Argentina, and he’d never been anywhere where cocaine was so cheap. You know, you could buy a gram of cocaine for about four dollars American, and you could buy a brick of it for about 150 dollars. And he was hammered out of his mind on drugs while we were there. And we go to do this scene, and… I’d done all of the sword-fighting training, and Frank Orsatti, a dear friend of mine, and Tommy Huff were the stunt coordinators. They’ve both passed now. But we learned how to sword-fight and did all that stuff, me and Chris Lambert, we were all getting along great, but… My stunt double… came and knocked on my door in the middle of the night, and he was totally naked, and he had paint all over his testicles. [Laughs.] And I said, “Are you all right?” He said, “Can I borrow a pair of sweatpants?” And I said, “Well, why don’t you go to your room?” And he said [In a low voice.], “There are people in my room.” And I went, “Okay!” So I went and got him a pair of sweatpants, and he said, “Thank you!” And he smiled and ran down to the exit.
Two days later, he had to do that stunt for me. We’d built a subway car, and he had to walk along and crash through the floor—because I come to Earth, if you remember, on a comet—through the cement into a subway. All he had to do was sort of hang on the ceiling, and they’d blow the thing, and he’d fall face-first, flat body, through it. And he was so whacked out of his brains when we went to do the stunt, they blew it, and he decided, “Wait a second,” and came through backwards and upside down, and he landed on his ass. And not only was it totally not usable, but he broke his ankle in the process. And Russell was sitting there, and he went, “Christ, what are we fucking going to do now?” And stupid, stupid me, being from Canada, where we used to do all our own stunts, I said, “Well, I could probably help you out there. I could probably do it.” He said, “Well, we don’t have another train car. I don’t know how we’re gonna do it.” I said, “Well, I think I know how to do this.” And then I thought, “What are you doing, you stupid asshole?”
So we set it all up, and I hung from above the hole of the ceiling of the subway car, and he called, “Action!” I let myself fall, and if you remember, they piled all this plaster shit on my back, so that when I fell, it looked like a bunch of stuff fell with me. We kind of made it up as we went along. And in the film, I land, and… I said, “No matter what happens, Russell, keep rolling, because if I break anything, we’re only gonna get one shot at this.” Well, I dinged my head a little bit coming through. I hit a crossbar on the subway. But when I landed on the floor of the subway, everyone’s staring at me, the dust is clearing, and I remember thinking, “Did I break anything?” I’d broken my back before, so I stood up, I checked my back, my shoulders, and my hands while I was half-bent over. But when I realized I’d done it and I hadn’t broken anything, I threw my head back and I went, “YES!” [Laughs.] That’s when I realized, “Wait a minute, the camera’s still rolling!” And I went, “A-HA!” And I walked off-camera. So that was not acting in its purest sense. That was just me surviving a stunt! And Russell said, “That was fucking brilliant! Let’s leave that in, and we’ll build on that!” So that’s how I got the coat and the cape and all that other stuff, walking through the train. But we kind of made that up as we went along… all because my stunt double had screwed up the stunt so bad!
Olympia Dukakis:
Death Wish (1974)—“Cop at the Precinct” (uncredited)
You’re technically uncredited, but… did you play a cop in Death Wish?
Olympia Dukakis: I did! I did! And the lead detective in the film was my husband in Moonstruck, Vincent Gardenia! I was the room with him. And I remember we shot it at the Public Theater, in one of the big rooms or something.
Was that a case where you were already in New York and the part just happened to be available?
Yeah, they sent me over, and the director [Michael Winner] was, uh, not necessarily liked by the actors. I mean, he made me turn around, and he wanted to see me, and… he treated me like a piece of meat during the audition. But it was, like, one day, so I could take the money and go home and say, “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.” [Laughs.] You can’t put that on, I suppose.
Sure we can. It’s the Internet. Why not?
Oh, okay, then put it on! [Laughs.] I don’t care. It’s true! It happened! It‘s not very flattering, but there it is.
It kind of rounds you out as a character.
It’s a laugh! It makes me laugh about myself. Look, we had three kids. I wasn’t going to let his stupidity and rudeness deprive me of the money. We needed the money.
Alanna Ubach:
Waiting… (2005) / Still Waiting… (2009)—“Naomi”
Alanna Ubach: [Writer/director] Rob McKittrick knocked on the trailer door of every actress. I was the last one he came to. He asked Anna Faris if she would show her bush, he asked Kaitlin Doubleday if she would show her bush. He asked everyone. And they all said, “No, absolutely not, I will not lift up my skirt and show anything.” And he was, like, “Come on, it’s all in the name of comedy!” And they all said no.
And he finally knocked on my trailer door, and I said, “You want me to show my bush? Absolutely! But it better be the ugliest looking vagina you’ve ever seen this side of China. I want paperclips hanging from it…” [Laughs.] “I want cottage cheese… the whole bit. It’s got to make the fourth-grade boys laugh. I want the little boys to laugh at this. They have to howl with laughter. And the only way we’re gonna do it is if we show a double.”
So they decided to go across the street and find this stripper who was working at this bar across the street. But they managed to use her as a double, with a giant merkin taped to her crotch. It was very funny. And I sat and gave her direction while she was being filmed.
AVC: And you’ve still probably had to spend the last decade having people ask, “So was that really you?”
AU: Oh, sure. And it’s very funny, in fact, that if you look down at the message board on IMDB, a lot of people are saying, “You know what? She really needs to do some grooming. It’s just not the style these days. What’s up? Hasn’t she ever heard of a Brazilian wax?” It’s a lot of fun. You just kind of sit back and enjoy, and you know what you know. Ah, the magic of moviemaking…
Timothy Hutton:
Ordinary People (1980)—“Conrad Jarrett”
Timothy Hutton: It was a very surreal time. I wondered constantly if I was doing a good job, hoped that I wouldn’t be replaced, and… I’m sort of answering these questions in terms of what my memory is of my mindset, but that’s the only way I can approach it, I guess: my memory of my mindset. But that was a very intense time. From the moment I got the phone call that I got the part, all the way through every day of filming, I just had to keep it out of my head how excited I was and how big it was to me. You know, the script, the character, the book, the people I was working with… I just had to sort of keep myself very focused and have a level-headed appreciation of where I was. It was one of those most ideal set of circumstances I’ve ever experienced in my life.
Do you remember your mindset when Mary Tyler Moore called your name at the Oscars?
Oh, yeah, I remember that very well. She opened the envelope, and then she looked at me, with a look that felt like it lasted an hour, and then she said the name. The cool thing I remember about it was that Jack Lemmon was presenting with her, and he was someone who I’d always liked very much, so I couldn’t believe that. And sitting right in front of me was Peter O’Toole, who was a very good friend of my father’s, so that was kind of great, having him there. And he was talking to me before we all took our seats and throughout the ceremony. Oh, and the other thing I remember about that night was that Diane Lane was my date! [Laughs.]
How surprised were you when you got nominated, let alone when you won?
Well, it certainly took me by surprise, as did all the reaction to the movie, which was so positive, and the different things that the movie was recognized for and nominated for. It was a really amazing thing to go through that cycle of award season, and… it’s really quite something. What I remember mostly, though, was that I had started rehearsals on Taps in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and I flew back to Los Angeles to attend the ceremony… and the ceremony was postponed a couple of days because Reagan had been shot! I don’t know if it was 24 hours or two days, but I went to the show, and everything that happened, happened. And it was amazing. And then the next morning I flew back to Philadelphia to begin the first day of filming of Taps! So it was very surreal for me at the time, because I was already deep in the woods, so to speak, on a new project.
Dean Winters:
30 Rock (2006-2012)—“Dennis Duffy”
Dean Winters: Next to Oz, that’s the best job I’ve ever had. When you’re working with Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, and Tracy Morgan, it’s like, no one’s better than that. And it was the first time that anybody ever let me be funny. Tina took a real chance in giving me that job. She didn’t have to give me that job, because I had done nothing in my career to prove that I was funny. But she gave me that shot, and it opened up a whole new bunch of doors for me.
Did you ever get any clue as to what inspired her to give you that shot? Did she ever say?
I think it was just the way that I did the audition. Like, I did it differently from everyone else, and I was the last one to come in. And the director, Adam Bernstein, had directed Oz, so he was in my corner, and I think they had a real powwow, and he was, like, “Look, I know Dean, and Dean’s funny in real life, so we can get him funny on-screen.” And it just happened that way.
But you want to know a funny story? I went to the audition for 30 Rock—I walked in, and there was, like, 30 guys up there reading for my role, and they all—they were the funniest guys in New York City. I’m not going to mention any names, but they were all a bunch of funny guys my age. I walked in, I signed up on the sign-in sheet, I looked around the room, and I’m, like, “I’m fucking out of here.” And I left, and I went to Central Park, because I knew I wasn’t going to get the job, and I didn’t want to waste their time or my time.
So my agent was in New York, and I get a phone call from his assistant, and the assistant says, “Hey, how’d it go at 30 Rock?” And I was, like, “Oh, it went pretty good. I’m not sure I’m right for it, but it went good.” He said, “Really? That’s interesting.” I go, “Why?” He said, “Because they’re waiting for you. They said they haven’t seen you yet.” And I was, like, “Okay, well, you know, the truth is, I’m not going back. I’m not going to get this job.” And the assistant goes, “Dean, if you don’t go back, we’re going to drop you.” I’m, like, “What are you… What the fuck are you talking about? You can’t drop me, you’re the assistant!” He says again, “If you don’t go back, we’re going to drop you.” And I’m, like, “What, motherfucker?” So I went back. [Laughs.] And they were waiting for me! And I did the role the way you see it on-screen, just as a guy who really believes in himself, no matter how dumb he is. And that’s what they were looking for. I didn’t know that. But it just clicked. And that’s how I got the job.
Is there a favorite Dennis Duffy-ism from your back catalog that still makes you laugh?
I mean, just calling her “dummy” was enough, you know? [Laughs.] It was just so nice to call someone like Tina Fey “dummy.” Because she’s so not a dummy. Although I have people who walk up to me on the street in New York, and they’re, like, “Call me ‘dummy.’ Please? Please call me ‘dummy.’” I’m, like, “You’re a fucking dummy. Now get out of my way!”
Eddie Izzard:
The Avengers (1998)—“Bailey”
Presumably you were well familiar with the original British series.
Eddie Izzard: Oh, yeah, I was a big fan of that. Have you seen the film? I think they must’ve shown it in tests, and it wasn’t quite getting the reaction they wanted it to, so they thought, “Well, we’ll put it all out, and the reviewers won’t get advance copies.” So I think people who were going to review it, they were kind of passionate on that, and they kind of got the hump. ”We’re not allowed to review it before it comes out?” So they’d already sharpened their blades before it came out. So it was really attacked, but… I think it’s fine! But it’s got this big, black mark over it.
People obviously compare it to the original series, but it never seemed as bad as all that.
No. It was fun to do. And I was back at Pinewood [Studios], which I’d broken into when I was 15, and… yeah, it was a big, fun production to be involved in. And doing scenes with Sean Connery? [Grins.] That was crazy. Unfortunately, I think people aren’t going to really find it. They aren’t going to look for it because of its reputation.
Sorry, if we could just jump back for a second: How did you break into Pinewood Studios?
[Laughs.] To get into films! I was trying to break into films, so I thought I’d just go to the film studios and see if I could work out how I could get into a film. I was very logical about things: I’d been watching films, I wanted to be an actor, and I thought, “These films on the telly, real people make them. They don’t just turn out from a factory where they just push out these things. People make them separately, then they put them on the screens in the cinema, so they must make them somewhere.” And at the bottom it said, “Filmed at Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Bucks.” So I thought, “Well, then, I must go to Iver Heath, Bucks, to Pinewood Studios!”
So I got a map of Britain—this is before Google and the Internet—that had every town in the whole of the U.K. listed, and I found it alphabetically. I took a train to London, I took a tube to Uxbridge, and I took a bus to Iver Heath, and then I said, “Is Pinewood Studios here?” They said, “Half a mile down the road!” So I walked down the road, I walked up to the front gate, this gabled entrance, and I said, “Can I come in? I’m going to work in films.” And they said, “No! Fuck off!” [Laughs.]
So I thought, “Well, that’s no good, because I’ve come miles!” So I found there was a second entrance, so that’s when I decided not to ask at this entrance and just watch people. And some people were just walking in, some people were showing documents and giving them things to check, but the people who seemed to know what they were doing were just marching in. So I thought, “Well, I’m just going to march in.” I don’t know if I had something out, but if I did I probably held it like this. [Looks straight ahead and mimes flashing an ID.] That always looks good. So I marched in—and suddenly I was in. It’s like Where Eagles Dare, where Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood get into the Schloss Adler. [Laughs.]
So I got in, and then I just crept around in Pinewood Studios, trying to get a job. I failed after, like, 30 minutes. There was nothing there that said, “We need people! We need this kid!” I just thought it might be like Hollywood, where they just discover you. “You! You’re in!” But no. It took longer.
William Daniels (with Bonnie Bartlett):
The President’s Analyst (1967)—“Wynn Quantrill”
The Graduate (1967)—“Mr. Braddock”
How did you enjoy doing The President’s Analyst?
William Daniels: At that time, I was working on another picture, with Mike Nichols. I was working on The Graduate.
Bonnie Bartlett: They all came together, because Theodore Flicker was doing The President’s Analyst, and you were playing all of these same kind of guys. You did it in The Graduate.
WD: And I got pretty tired of playing it, too.
BB: The character in The Bob Newhart Show, too. They were all kind of the same character.
WD: Anyway, I had a meeting with Mike Nichols and the producer, and the producer said, “I have reservations, because you’re not old enough to play Dustin Hoffman’s father.” And Mike said, “That doesn’t matter.” He said that to the producer. He actually wanted all Broadway people, all New York actors, in The Graduate. So I left that meeting thinking I wasn’t going to get the part, so I took the other job and went to do The President’s Analyst, and when I came back, I get this call from Mike Nichols, saying, “What did you do? I want you for this part, and you went and did another job!” I said, “Well, yeah! I didn’t think I was gonna get the part!” He said, “Of course you’re gonna get the part!” [Laughs.] And he yelled at me, but I had finished the other one by then, anyway. It just made him nervous when he heard I was in Seattle.
BB: You weren’t in Seattle. You were somewhere else.
WD: All right, well, wherever it was. San Diego.
BB: Washington. I think.
WD: Okay, Washington! [Laughs.]
BB: Well, I don’t know. Do I know?
WD: Well, you seem to be interrupting like you do!
BB: Yes, I do. Go on. Please, go on.
WD: [Sighs.] This is a marriage that’s gone on for a very long time. [Laughs.]