I talked with Malin Akerman, Lake Bell and Erinn Hayes and I kept this my last because it was incredibly hard to transcribe! The back and forth banter was quick, funny and writing it down just didn’t capture the spontaneity of the interview.

I’d listen to the audio portion if you want to get the full feel of the interview. There was a lot of things I couldn’t include here because most of it would look ridiculous in print.

From talking about having each other’s children, their outrage at Rob Corddry for not inviting them to go to Brazil to film a 10-second-scene and having their characters die and come back to life, the conversation was definitely a highlight.

Children’s Hospital airs on Adult Swim at midnight on Thursdays. 

For the full interview, click onto the audio link above or download from iTunes.

Children’s Hospital is not the kind of show where you go, “What is my arc?”

Lake Bell: None, there’s no logic.

Is that a challenge as an actor or is it more freeing?

Erinn Hayes: It was awesome.  All you have to do is show up and be like, “what am I going to do today?”  You don’t have to think about it or like do a whole lot of prep other than, like, what’s going to make this the funniest for this particular episode. 

Is there a lot of improv?

Malin Akerman: Yeah.

Erinn Hayes: Yes and no.

Lake Bell: I would say no, not at all comparatively.

Malin Akerman: Really?

Erinn Hayes: Well, I mean, it’s very tightly scripted show.

Lake Bell: Yeah, all the like, funny bits, I mean they are definitely written in the script but yes, there is playfulness in it.

Malin Akerman: Yeah, but I think we do a lot of what is written and then I think… There’s a lot of stuff on the day.  But it is all written very well.

Lake Bell: Yeah, on the day. Indeed, indeed.

Erinn Hayes: I think people have this idea that, you know, we kind of go in with a loose idea of what the scene is going to be but it’s not like there…. there are lines to learn and they write very funny lines.  We do them and then throw in some other stuff when we get to that.

Lake Bell: But it’s not like an improvised show.

Erinn Hayes: We really nailed that question, huh?  We win guys, we win.

You guys are all busy. How do they even start to schedule when you’re going to shoot the show?

Erinn Hayes: It’s really hard because I have a doctor’s appointment in November but I feel like I can move it.

Malin Akerman: We’re trying to fit her in our schedule. 

Lake Bell: I think it’s just been, like, luck.

Malin Akerman: We’ve been lucky that everyone’s been available and also doing it around Christmas and New Year’s is really smart.

Erinn Hayes: Yeah, we only filmed like for a month and a week.  Our whole shooting schedule for the whole season is about, like, five weeks, five or six weeks.  We film an episode in two days so if you film it around the holidays usually other shows are on hiatus.

Mailn Akerman: Like some people would be in certain episodes and not in others because you have to go work. Which is great.

Lake Bell: And characters are interchangeable.

Erinn Hayes: Yeah, very honestly, like that’s the thing about the continuity thing is that you get a script and you’re like, “Oh my God, that’s so fun” and then you get the revised script you’re like, “Oh, that’s not me anymore.” They just changed over all the lines now and it’s like Rob Huebel doing it and they didn’t change any words.

Lake Bell: W1hat’s cool about it is that the ladies and the men are also interchangeable.  

Erinn Hayes: And then there was also something that was like somebody got pulled out of an episode and then Rob Corddry was going to do it and then he was like, “that’s not good,” it was then it was me. It went from three different people and none of the lines changed.

How would you guys compare shooting this to do anything else? How fast is it?

Malin Akerman: It’s super fast. I like it though. I think also it’s nice because we’ve all found a rhythm together so it makes it easier to come in and shoot quickly.

Erinn Hayes: Although, I have to say it, between the first and second seasons, it felt so different.  Because the first season was the webisodes. I mean, I was there for only two days and I was in almost every episode. We were just like running around the hospital.

Lake Bell: So much running, so much running. I lost a lot of weight. It was great cardio.

Erinn Hayes: It was great for the metabolism. And so then, the second season we came back with Adult Swim and we actually had like, are we really taking our time with this episode? Two days for a whole episode?

Now you guys are on Adult Swim but are you ever surprised at what you get away with?

Lake Bell: Yeah, I mean I think at first when it was a web series obviously, you know, you can do whatever you want and then it was interesting to see that that didn’t’ shift that much.

Erinn Hayes: Yeah, but I bet if it started out as a show on a network, we would not, I think, had not been able… it’s different I think when you start out and you make something work and they go, “oh it’s working.” I don’t know what I’m trying to say, honestly.  Let’s all take a nap.

Lake Bell: No, but I think that Adult Swim does give you the allowance to be pretty irreverent.  I mean that’s kind of their brand so, you know, it doesn’t surprise me that Adult Swim would allow that.

Lake and Erinn, both of your characters were killed off and then brought back.

Erinn Hayes: I faked my own death.

Lake, you were off for a while and brought back. Was that planned?

Lake Bell: Yes.  I had to go do, and speaking of when things are scheduling issues, that was a perfect example. I do a show How To Make It In America and a initially there was a conflict and they had to figure out how to do that. 

Now, being funny ladies, do you like it when you get to do something more dramatic? And do you seek that out just for a change?

Lake Bell:  I really do.

Malin Akerman: I love it.  I definitely, definitely seek it out and definitely have to fight for those roles that are more dramatic just because a lot of stuff that people see is comedy. But I think independent films are great for that too. That’s where people take chances on you.

Erinn Hayes: Could you get me one of those?

Malin Akerman: Yeah, sure.  I’ll write you one right now. [laughter]

Bill’s an incredible character actor who’s been in dozens of movies and has been a series regular on over 7 shows, including The Event. On the show, he plays ‘Vice President Jarvis’, who’s character is beginning about to have a major part in the story.

Hal Holbrook… well, he’s Hal Holbrook. In the show, he plays Dempsey, “a businessman with shadowy intentions.”

These guys have both been in the business a long time and listening to them talk was a true treat.

I got a chance to talk to them in a media conference call where they talked about the show and the life of an actor. And as a bonus, Mr. Holbrook tells the story of how he got started acting.  You’re going to love it.

For the full interview, click onto the audio link above or download from iTunes.

Hal, I’m curious to know how you identify with a mysterious character like Dempsey when we don’t really know who he is?

Hal Holbrook: Well I know he’s up to no good. And there are so many people in our society today who are also up to no good. They all wear cuff links and take home millions of dollars. So I have some wonderful examples staring at me in the face every day, every time I turn the news on or pick up the newspaper. So I have no problem understanding playing this man.

The thing that’s interesting about a person who is not doing good, sometimes called a villain, I don’t know whether this man’s a villain or not yet I haven’t figured it out, but whatever he is he’s up to no good. But what he thinks – a person who does ill toward other people doesn’t do it with the idea that he’s doing ill. He thinks he’s okay. He doesn’t say, “I’m doing a bad thing.” He thinks he’s doing something good and that’s what this man thinks.

And, Bill, coming off such a meaty episode for Jarvis, what do you like about the direction of the character as compared to who he was in the pilot?

Bill Smitrovich: Well it’s always nice to have your character be revealed in some way and the depth of that character because of this episode, will be revealed as well. But it also sets up great conflicts, inner conflicts, for this character. As Hal so eloquently put, there are a lot of monsters out there who wear cuff links and get millions of dollars a year and I happen to get caught up in this cesspool of promises from those kinds of people.

I have no problem as Hal does, you know, playing a character like this because they do exist and it’s just fun and rewarding to play this kind of character and to investigate the conflicts that go on inside of someone who is I think a really stand-up guy but got caught in the wrong pajamas I should say.

Do you think a show like “The Event” is feeding into the current mood in America or feeding off it?

Bill Smitrovich: Well I think it’s a little bit of both. And certainly there is reason to be paranoid and reason to be concerned. But it’s entertainment. I mean it’s – what – but if we can call it art, and I do believe that we have artists on the show. I don’t think television has been called an art form any time recently but I think art is supposed to be something that, you know, calls people to duty, wakes them up.

I was wondering, so how far ahead of the script – are you told on an episode-by-episode basis? Or are you ever given like ideas of what may come in the future for your character?

Hal Holbrook: I don’t have any idea. I’m just very interested. I’m like a member of the audience. I can’t wait to find out what I’m going to do next, you know.

Bill Smitrovich: Amen. It’s like being in a novel, you know. Go from one chapter to the next, you know, you don’t want to get ahead of yourself. It’s kind of fun to play the immediacy of this moment, you know. And it’s not so necessary for us to really know what our lives are going to be because nobody knows what their lives are going to be.

Hal Holbrook: That’s a very good point. That’s a good point, yeah.

And going into a show like this with a story arc that’s going to go on for a long time with twists, turns and things like that, what were your expectations going in?

Bill Smitrovich: I don’t know. I’m happy to be working. I’ll put it that way. And I’m happy to be working with Hal.

Hal Holbrook: Oh, yeah, working with Bill and good actors. No, I – that’s it, kid. I mean we’re happy to be working. Anybody who isn’t happy to be working these days particularly, you know, has got some kind of a goldmine stuffed somewhere. But it’s wonderful to work with these different actors and have really good actors on this show.

Bill Smitrovich: Yeah. That’s true.

Hal Holbrook: The girl that I played with in this show coming up, Taylor Cole. She is so interesting. Such an interesting young actress. I had a wonderful time playing the scene with her because to begin with she’s very beautiful. She was a model at one time and you can see why. But she’s also a very good actress which is not always the case with a model turned actress, you know.

Bill Smitrovich: Well she’s got a certain raw quality about her that, you know, when we worked together that she’s open and available, you know.

Hal Holbrook: That’s the whole thing. And when I sat down to do this scene with her, you know, I was very aware of her beauty, attractiveness, and then when we started working on the scene I realized well of course what I am reacting to here the character would be reacting. I mean this is a beautiful woman. So something – yeah, no, so I mean that’s part of the scene.

Bill Smitrovich: Well we know your character is not gay.

Hal Holbrook: Yeah. And so the point is that I started – I was reacting to not just the lines I had to say but I was reacting to something that was going on between the two of us and she caught it. And it is played underneath the lines. It’s just there. But it made the scene so interesting. I’m anxious to see how it’s going to come out.

What surprises and challenges have there been in doing a show like this from twists and turns coming every week?

Bill Smitrovich: Well that’s it. The surprises are the twists and turns. An actress that just passed away recently, Jill Clayburgh, God bless her soul. And she said an interesting thing about careers and things like that. She said, “You know, everybody thinks we planned this career out. We don’t plan our careers. Our careers are just the forces of nature, whatever happens, whatever is given to us, whatever opportunity comes to us creates our career. We don’t build this. You know, we might choose what we’re offered but we don’t get to choose our offering.”

Hal Holbrook: That’s so true, Bill. People don’t – I don’t think really understand that anywhere near as true as it actually is.

Bill Smitrovich: We just get an opportunity and we run with it.

Hal Holbrook: Yeah. If somebody hands you a job to begin with and you think it’s good material and, et cetera, and you have the time to do it, you do it. And it can take you I mean, you know, when I was much younger somebody from Universal, Sidney Sheinberg, came to New York. I was – I hardly ever done a movie. I just was a stage actor and he offered me a job playing a lead in a television series for Universal. And I did it. It was called “The Senator” on Sunday night and it changed my whole focus. It changed my whole life as an actor.

How did you get this opportunity to be on “The Event”?

Bill Smitrovich: Well I was sent the script and I went in to meet the producers and the director, Jeffrey Reiner, and they called and said, “You’re the guy.” And I was thrilled. You know, this script was the best pilot script I had read, you know, in a long time and the best of the year as far as I’m concerned. It had more levels. It had more colors. And it, you know, had a reason to live. It was, you know, captivating and a page-turner. You know it was a slam dunk and I’m just tired of wearing general outfits so I’m going to go back to the suit. I figure it’s just a natural progression for me, you know, captain to the general then the joint chiefs of staff and then vice president and then who knows.

Hal Holbrook: Well my agent, (Joe Rice), sent the script here and my sister (Joyce) read it and I read it and I thought it was very interesting, interesting character and didn’t quite understand what was going to be going on with the show because they were very secretive. So I met with them and liked it, you know, and it was a wonderful opportunity.

I didn’t realize when I took the job how interesting this character was going to be though. That’s the thing that’s turned out to be like candy to me because now I’m getting so interested in this character, what an evil person he is. But he has all kinds of sides, you know, like the interesting thing – the thing that’s fun about acting, one of the things of course, is you find all these different colored lights in a character. This guy’s a bad guy, okay. But what else is he? You know.

Bill Smitrovich: There are so many scripts that we get and I’m sure you’ll agree with this where the characters are so one dimensional and  just, you know, you’re the bad guy. That’s it. You know, bing, bing. You’re the good the guy and you’re the funny guy. All the characters in this script can be funny. They can be bad. They can be good just like life.

Hal Holbrook: You can feel sorry for them and you can hate them…

Bill Smitrovich: That’s called art.

Bill, did you have any idea when you got the script the  turn that your character would take?

Bill Smitrovich: I was waiting for my character to take a turn from the beginning. But well I can tell you at the beginning of the show I felt very much like a vice president. No one was telling me anything and I didn’t know anything. And I was going to a lot of ribbon-cuttings and that was the extent of it. But now this episode clearly launches this character and a major part of the whole story. And I’m just thrilled.

Hal Holbrook: Yeah. It’s – I mean what’s happening to Bill’s character is an example of what this show is all about. You get surprised by the twists and turns that these characters are taking and the situations in which they find themselves.

What’s the most challenging aspect of playing your character?

Hal Holbrook: I would think figuring him out, you know. Thinking about what kind of person this is, bringing it into my own life, bringing it into my own circle of observation of how people behave and slowly getting a specific idea of who this guy is. The interesting thing about the role is the challenges that it offers.

Bill Smitrovich: My particular challenge I would say would be being in the middle of good and evil and how to make that work for myself you know, as the character. You know, I got myself caught up in an evil situation and inherently Jarvis is a good man. And now he finds himself in this cesspool of, I don’t know, promises that he’s keeping or has promised to keep or has been keeping. But it’s a – that’s the challenge just to make it as human as possible, make it as interesting because we are really all about the human condition as actors. We’re not, you know, all humans come in different sizes, colors, shapes and politics, so you’ve got to find the inner core of that character, you know, the – what makes them tick.

Mr. Holbrook, do you ever think about retiring or are you the kind of actor that you’re just going to stop when they stop coming to see you?

Hal Holbrook: Actors do not retire. They get retired. Sooner or later they will retire me and put me back in the closet and you’ll never hear from me again but until that day happens I am not going to reach for a golf club.

But it’s a great – you know, it’s a great privilege to be an actor. I know Bill feels exactly the same way.

Bill Smitrovich: I really do.

Hal Holbrook: It’s a great profession. It’s a great privilege to be an actor.

Bill Smitrovich: It’s the best job in the world when you’re working.

Hal Holbrook: Yeah. And especially if you can deal with interesting material and characters that are really interesting where you can be saying something to people out there through your character. I mean it’s a wonderful way of life and it keeps your brain going. You know, they say that the memory situation, the more you use the memory part of your brain, the longer it will keep working. I’m knocking on wood. Where is some wood? Bang. Bang.

And, you know, part of the challenge is to keep your body working right. So, you know, I keep checking the doctor every few weeks to make sure all the different parts of my body are still working.

Bill Smitrovich: Maybe we better not go into that, Hal.

As far as your characters go, did you help create any of your little quirks or mannerisms that you brought to the character?

Bill Smitrovich: We get actors with a show like this anyway, you know, we’ve got some really fine actors and I think the producers are aware of that. And they give us the words on a page and we take those words and we run with it. And we’re inspired by their words as the writers are inspired by our performances.

So whatever we come up with in our imagination is always in tune with what the writers are thinking about because their looking for answers too. And our – the way we develop and the way we portray our characters gives them the fuel that they need to go on after they’ve started the fire.

Hal Holbrook:  Yeah. They have to bet on us, you know. When they cast an actor like Bill or myself in a role they’ve thought over, you know, what they’re looking for and in terms of the character but that’s what they’re looking for. But what we’re going to give them is something they don’t know about until they see it. They trust us because we’re – we’ve proved ourselves out to be a good enough actor for the – to be considered for the part. So then you get – they give us this material and the writer is tremendously important to us. What he puts down, how he puts it down, how he handles dialogue for example is extremely important to us. And we learn this stuff and think about it and then we give back to the writer and the producer and all as well as the audience, we give back what these words and these ideas have formulated inside of us and we give it back to them.

Bill Smitrovich: Yeah. Our interpretation.

Hal Holbrook: Yeah. And so it’s – you know, the producers and writers don’t really know what we’re going to give to them until they see what we’re giving to them. Sometimes it’s a pleasant surprise. There are probably times when it isn’t. It’s called a – I forget what they call it but it’s called a cooperative endeavor here, you know what I mean.

Bill Smitrovich: That’s right. We’re collaborating.

Hal Holbrook: Collaborating. That’s what the theater is. That’s what the show business is. It’s collaboration.

Bill I wanted to find out, out of all the episodes that have aired so far, do you have a maybe an especially memorable scene or an especially challenging scene acting-wise for your character would you say?

Bill Smitrovich: Well the most – one of the most challenging scenes I’ve had so far has been in Episode 8. But I really can’t tell you what it is until it airs. And it’s where I am really stuck in the middle of a conflict coming from three different directions and including my life and is at stake. And I’m on the phone with the president and I had a lot of dialogue and a lot of opportunity to show or display my character’s raison d’être and it was difficult. It was many takes because there was a ballet with the three cameras that they were trying to do at the same time.

So while they’re doing the ballet I’m trying to, you know, give the same or a better performance every take and it’s, you know, that was challenging. I will say that. And then the other challenging thing was working with Hal.

Hal Holbrook: What was challenging about it? I just said my lines, man.

Bill Smitrovich: Well that was the challenging part. I didn’t know mine and you knew yours.

Hal Holbrook: Well I want to tell you, some of these lines I mean they’re kind of – some of the words in there especially this pharmaceutical guy, man alive. That’s really something. Yeah.

Mr. Holbrook, did you always want to work in this industry while you were growing up or did you have other professions in mind?

Hal Holbrook: Well yeah, I mean I was in school and I was at Culver Military Academy in Indiana. And my fourth year, my last year, I had flunked Algebra and I was never very good in math and I flunked Algebra and I had to take it over again in my senior year plus the regular curriculum which meant I had extra credit, you know, hours, extra classes.

So I had to pick something really, really – I mean astronomy was out. You know, I had used up my chapel credit. I needed one more hour of credit and it had to be very, very, I mean, hopelessly simple.

And a friend of mine in the company I was in, (Perry Fisk), was in the dramatics class. There was a dramatics class. They had a very find dramatics class there at Culver. Josh Logan came out of it, people like that. So (Perry) said, “Well you know, you could go out for dramatics Harry Hal,” he called me. “It’s a one hour credit.”

And I said, “No. I wouldn’t want to do -” I didn’t want to tell him that I didn’t want to associate with a bunch of weirdoes because we thought people in the dramatics class were really weird and strange. So I said, “No, I wouldn’t want to do that. I couldn’t go on the stage.” And he said, “Well Major (Mather) will probably just give you one line or something.” And I said, “No, no, no, I couldn’t do that, (Perry).” And then he said, “Well there’s no homework.” I said, “What?”

He said, “There’s no homework.” So that made the decision for me that was it. So I went out for dramatics and before long in the class I started too really like these people. They were very unmilitary and they were fun and they had a great sense of humor.

And when I walked on the stage for the first time I was in the opening scene. I was playing an old man of course and I was in a George M. Cohan play called “Seven Keys to Baldpate.” And I went out there and suddenly I was in front of this great mass of darkness and silence and this blue light was on me and I started to speak and I had this extraordinary feeling for the first time in my life people were listening to me.

For the first time in my life people were listening to me. And I can’t tell you what a feeling it gave me. And when I walked off stage sweating, you know, just perspiring, I stood there breathing heavy, there was an elderly lady who played the character ladies, you know, she was married to one of the guys – teachers and she was sitting there she’d been in Vaudeville and everything. She’s sitting back stage and she looked at me in the dark sweating and breathing and she said, “You’re hooked, Sonny.” She knew.

Some of the questions they were asked: Did they actually go out with real conductors to prepare, what’s the most memorable experience on any mode of transportation (Denzel laughs and say’s he can’t answer that question) and what is their weirdest fan-related experience (again, Denzel won’t answer that question…this time it’s in the negative vain).

Some great stories, a little dish and great insight into the business.

The Hollywood Reporter gathered them all together for your viewing enjoyment.

There are 3 clips and at the end of the post is the whole conversation (1 hour long).

In this 1st clip, they’re asked how they balance work and family.

In this clip, they are asked if there were roles that they had to turn down that they regret? What parts do they wish they had gotten?

What is the biggest regret in their careers?

And finally, the whole conversation.

Edward Norton

And guess what? Leaves Of Grass is great! Edward Norton plays twins Brady and Bill. Brady is a small-time pot grower and Bill is an Ivy league professor. Tim Blake Nelson who also wrote the film plays Brady’s redneck friend Bolger.

I saw the premiere at SXSW and the movie is funny, violent and at times, you have no idea where the story is going to take you, which for me, makes the film.

This was another roundtable interview (my question is here) and the interview ran longer than most, so I’ve cut it down a bit. If you want the whole interview, you can listen/download the whole conversation above or click here for iTunes.

On a side note: I’ve been interviewing people for a while now and I have to say, Tim Blake Nelson is truly one of the nicest guys around. The day after this interview, I was in the hotel lobby when Tim and I saw each other. He said, “Hi” and we started to have this 5 minute long conversation. It wasn’t anything about his movie… just a normal conversation… about BBQ. You gotta love SXSW.

Tim, I was wondering as actor and as a filmmaker do you involve yourself with films that act as a corrective and not go straight towards the stereotypical easy laugh?

Tim Blake Nelson: Yeah, I certainly do.  I do grow tired of intelligence having such a limited manifestation in movies.  And so when I wrote this I knew immediately that the wisest and smartest characters, two characters in the movie in this movie would be the ones who either remained in Oklahoma or returned there.  So, the smartest guy in the movie is Brady.  I think that’s evident and it’s also stated by the mother.  And the wisest character is Keri Russell’s character, and she’s chosen to return and write in Oklahoma, and I think she gives the Bill character the wisdom that allows him to begin to move forward in his life as it’s collapsing around him.  So, in answer to your question, I was eager to debunk certain stereotypes about Southern characters in this movie.

This question is for both of you and it has to do with that obviously to believe in the duality of it you have to have this suspension of disbelief, and I’d like to hear from you how you achieved it through filmmaking and how you achieved it through your acting.

Tim: Yeah, suspension of disbelief in a story like this is pretty essential, although that said, I think you have to be responsible to your story as a storyteller.  To make it feasible enough, and I hope that this story is feasible enough.  There are details peppered throughout that I didn’t want to bang the audience over the head with it.  I mean, an obvious question would be well, hang on, wouldn’t folks know they were twins, but they didn’t grow up in Ida Belle, in the Ida Belle, Broken Bow area.  They grew up in another town, Hugo.  And Brady is moved to Ida Belle.  But these stories are all far-fetched, but the antecedent material for the movie, like in Menander and Plautus and Shakespeare, you know, it’s a retelling of a twins genre.  And the main character in the movie is a classicist, and so that’s all very intentional.  It’s meant to reflect on those earlier works.  The character, Bill, has done a translation of Plautus’ play The Menaechmi, which is a Roman twins play.  And so suspension of disbelief and that whole question is part of the fun of the movie.  Alright and now he’s going got say thanks for referencing Menander (laughter).

Edward Norton:  Well, no, actually I was going to say that any questions I had about whether a redneck from Oklahoma could actually go and become a Brown classical philosophy professor were ended when I met Tim because I think as you can see one conversation with Tim and you kind of realize, ‘Oh, Bill is a believable character.’

But I actually really agree with the idea that there are kind of you know there are kind of not just archetypal characters, but there are stories, types of stories that going way back to classical drama and stuff like that that have certain structures of suspending disbelief in them.  But for me in this, I thought that the two worlds it was trying to straddle were was kind of delightful.  I loved it, and I thought it was not something I had ever seen before, which is always hard to find.  And Tim is so authentically rooted in both of those worlds that it really, you know, you know when you’re being driven by someone who knows where they’re going, and you can feel that when you read a script, and I think you can feel it when you see a movie.  And I think that was a big part of the appeal of it to me was it was clearly a film that only Tim knew how to make because he owned it all.  And That’s something I, like, if there’s something, if there’s a criteria that really tends to get me interested in a piece of work, apart from a personal reaction I have to the themes, if I feel like this is the right piece of work for that director at this moment in their career, that’s a big draw and whether you know like I felt that way with Fincher on Fight club. I felt like this is the guy to handle that text and just hit it out of the park.  And I felt that way with Spike Lee on 25^th hour or David Jacobson on Down in the Valley.  If you feel like someone just knows what this is about to their core and knows how to bring their personal style to it, it’s gonna have that kind of special confidence.  For me, the only thing that really I wanted to just be careful of was that the twins never felt like a trick.  That you stopped looking at the scenes and you felt that these were guys inhabiting the same space and interacting with each other in a very extemporaneous way.  For me that was thing I wanted to make sure you buffed the scenes out on it.

Logistically, Tim how did you do this with your team. Also acting in the movie and your own internal work and physical work how did you economize those two performances so that you could buff out the scenes and make sure you were at least getting enough into the cameras so that in editing or the mocap or the green screen you guys could make this thing completely believable and not just performance but the technical aspects?

Tim: Remarkably there’s not green screen in this movie.  There’s motion control.  And technically there were all sorts of challenges but really the soul of it is Edward’s talent.  You write these characters, but when you write a movie and all you can hope for and depend on is that your actors will elevate the material because screenplays aren’t written to be read, they’re written to be made into movies.

And what’s so remarkable about Edward and that I think comes through so beautifully in his performance in the movie is that he’s so truthful as an actor.  The source material from within him is so gorgeously accessed that the dramatic base notes in the movie such as when he’s eulogizing his brother are just exquisitely rendered.  And then at the same time he’s able to play the loopy comic moments.  And so few actors have that sort of bandwith.

And then what Edward also brings to you as a director is this incredible mind.  And to play these twins, it really was quite a juggling act because he as to, and he’ll talk about this, but he’s not gonna compliment himself, so I’ll just enjoy the floor for a moment (laughter).  It takes a mind, a rare mind, to be able to map out a scene as character A in a way that will leave room for character B and how that character might respond.  And so it’s almost as it were a cubist way of thinking.  You’re looking at the scene from all sorts of different angles and he’s just got the ability to do that.  And to do it truthfully.

And you have to keep the schedule of 36 days – I mean, did those two things, letting him find both characters and explore them –

Tim:  Again a huge advantage having Edward because he’s directed a movie before, and so one thing he appreciates is how hard my job is.  And he was always very sensitive to that.  And we finished this movie a day early.

Edward:  There’s a little bit of the dirty dozen in him.  Like Donald Duck goes here.  I think you have to, knowing you’ve got to pull, you have kind of no room for error kind of scenario in terms of like if there’s a day where we’re doing the twins on the porch together, it has to be finished that day.

I think the thing we did the best on this was prep for it literally like on a given day like that how, if you answer all the questions about…. we’re going to show up in the morning, we’re going into this character first, we’re doing these shots and these shots and these shots, if you map it, then you leave yourself more room to play.  But I think what we did well was sort of say like it, you know, we had a very, very, very clear roadmap of how we were gonna handle it technically, and in what order.  No sitting around going well maybe we should try to do X.  And that way at least you’ve got the room to, you’ve got a little more breathing room.

So with the motion control team, did you guys work from a base previously recorded performance for timing making sure that the conversations –

Tim:  We get Brady done first, set a performance with which Edward and I were both happy, and that was a collaboration.  You know, it was never, you know but somebody like Edward you don’t want to say, this is the one we’re going with whether you like it or not.  It needs to be something we agree on.

Edward:  I don’t even think we ever like – we were almost always, if we started laying down stuff, I think we pretty quickly always gravitated toward, ‘Yeah that’s what we’ve got.’  And sometimes we would have something and kind of look at each other and go let’s go one more try to see if we can juice this or that little moment.  Or if I, you know, sometimes if I had an idea, you know, we’d have one that we liked, if I had an idea by doing it a couple times, sometimes even if something regimented like this, there’s fun ways to improvise.  And when you start playing with what these techniques can do when you start realizing it there’s actually not like a clean line on the screen past which one character can go, when you realize it can shift and stuff like that, sometimes right in the moment, I would have like a thought to have the one character to go over and fake kick the other one.

Tim:  Or the mirror shot?

Edward:  Yeah, the mirror shot was fun we originally we had one idea about it and then we started realizing we could actually have them touch and stuff like that if we did the angles right.  So sometimes we would throw down some improvisational type of stuff and see if it would stick.  And I thought some of those things are what actually make you go, huh – like that’s interesting.  And that’s what we wanted.  We wanted just a couple – it only takes like one or two moments per scene, of people overlapping in conversation or touching or interacting in a way that feels really authentically extemporaneous to do the job of taking away the idea of the effect and it was fun.  We also had they do some things now that they didn’t do back in the day with twin things where you know you can do this kind of stuff with actual moving cameras now, and that made a big difference, too, I think.

A much more simple question, through the course of this film or previously, did you guys ever try noodling, and how did you get Keri Russell to play with that?

Tim:  I’ve done about every different kind of fishing you can imagine, but I’ve never noodled, and the reason I’ve never noodled is because I don’t want to end up getting bit by a water moccasin.  I’m just too afraid of snakes.  And getting Keri Russell to do that was about the easiest chore that I had as a director on this movie.  She had a great attitude about it.  She and Edward were fantastic together.

You know, you dream as a actor’s director of being able to let moments breathe in two-shots.  And one of my favorite moments in this movie is just letting the camera sit on Edward and Keri on that porch in a two-shot when he tries to kiss her.  It goes on for several minutes and I never had to cut to a close up.  They’re so exquisite together.  It’s just great.

In your career, it’s been relatively rare for you to do movies that are primarily comedies.  Did the fact that this was a comedy attract you to the film and can we expect to see you in more comedies in the future?

Edward:  Sure, I mean I never… I don’t tend to say, ‘Oh you know time for another one of this or that genre.’  Things flow to you in strange way.  And why you bump into a certain kind of thing in a certain moment is – and some people know you in a certain way and some people don’t.  I mean I – it’s hard to explain.  I knew Danny DeVito and he knew me, so he really wanted me to do Death to Smoochy.  And I love that stuff and I had a great time doing it.  But I don’t actually, I mean to me, Fight Club was a comedy.  When Fincher sent me the book and I read it, I called him and the first thing I asked him, this is a comedy, right?  And he went, ‘Oh yeah, that’s the whole point.’  And I went, ‘Okay I’m in,’ you know what I mean?

I certainly wasn’t imagining myself as a dramatic actor when I was running around in my underwear and Florsheim shoes, you know what I mean?  I thought Rounders was a comic movie in its way, too.  The first time I directed a movie I wanted to do a comedy.  I like things that aren’t sort of superficially one thing or another.  I think you know my favorite comedies are ones that are really smart, too.  And I thinkhave a whole second level in them.  When we worked on Keeping the Faith, I think I was looking at a lot of Kukor’s old films and things like the Philadelphia Story and stuff that’s hilariously funny but really, really, really smart and cutting critique in the humor, too.  And this when I read it, I mean, mainly I was laughing a lot at the lines.

I remember reading Brady saying, “not the Merriam Webster, either the motherfucking OED” (laughter).”  For me there’s always a line or two in a script, you hit it and you go, you kind of almost decide to do the movie off of a line or two.  And that was it.  A few of the things like that in this for me, I was like that’s too funny. You almost do it for the fun of getting to say a line or two like that.  I don’t have any specific plans.  I guess if maybe Seth Rogan calls with a great buddy pic, I’ll be there (laughter).

Edward, playing twins, as an actor, how do you go about creating both those characters who are the same but different.  And Tim, being the writer and director, as an actor, does that make your job easier or harder?

Edward:  For me, it’s the same as always.  Just twice.  And I think in this case, I hear people talk about it like some actors being intellectual actors, some actors being instinctual actors.  I always think it’s kind of crap.  I always think that anybody who knows anything about it knows that good actors sort of do both.  They do inside out work and they outside in work.  And you can’t not do both.

So, in something like this, Tim provided a lot of good work on the inside out.  He’s given you in a script like this a lot about who these characters are emotionally, and you don’t really have to, you’ve got a great road map to that.  So for me, with these guys it was a little bit more outside in.  Not in an intellectual sense, but in a just tactile sense.  Like what do they wear and how do they sound and finding the skin of them.  But in terms of the twins in particular, the only thing that I thought was interesting was I poked around about twins a lot and what was interesting was it was very hard to find anybody who was an identical twin who didn’t focus on how much they were alike.  And really seemed powerfully to assert that identical twins are endemically alike in many ways.  And that brought up interesting conversations with us because the script is emphasizing their apparent differences but then what we started doing was talking about all ways that they’re actually the same.  And that made it a lot of fun.  There were a lot of fun details in that.

We even added the line that Bill says, “you’re still using vinyl.”  And Brady says, “I don’t go for digital, you can’t improve on the classics.”  Because he’s really the same as Bill.  He’s just as committed to a set of classical values.  His just happen to be Little Feet and Townes Van Zandt.

Tim:  Acting, you know I’ve never acted before in one of the movies I’ve directed.  This felt like the time to do it.  Just because the movie itself is so much of a platform for the lead actor, and it’s really written for an exciting performance.  And it really depends on the audience watching an extraordinary to have a great time pulling off this feat.  And it makes sense to me as the director to act in support of that.  And to be around as a sidekick who doesn’t say much.  But is just around to help both characters out of certain problems.  And I just loved doing it –

Edward:  You tried to punk out on it.  But we wouldn’t let him.  We, the producers, made him.  We were trying to imagine a better face for Bolger, and it was hard to come up with.

Tim:  But it was great, it was really fun.  And I don’t regret it.

Edward:  Mainly he just wanted to wear a do-rag (laughter).

This movie is basically your baby.  You wrote, directed, co-produced and acted in it.  And it was also a homecoming for you, doing it based in the place where you’re from.  So I wanted to know, what it meant for you to make this movie because you were just so ingrained in it.

Tim:  This movie has everything I love in it.  Classics, my home state, philosophy, literature –

Edward: Orthodontists.

Tim:  Orthodontia (laughter).  And you know, even my wife and two of my children are in it as actors.  Because I love the material, the source material so much, it was really easy to write and an utter delight to get to direct because I had people like Edward elevating the material and surprising me in their interpretations of all of this stuff that’s so close to me.

Edward:  It’s all downhill from here.

Tim:  This was really a lot of fun.  I’d love to sit here and say that it was some sort of rigorous, poignant and debilitating struggle, but it wasn’t.  It was great.

Edward:  You should just say it will never be this good again.

Tim:  Right.

He talks about improvising at the 2:30 mark.

I saw this back in March at SXSW and it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve seen this year.

I interviewed both John and Jonah for the film (along with the directors, Mark & Jay Duplass).

For the entire interview, click here.

For the Duplass Brothers interview, click here.

Here’s a quick excerpt:

You guys did a lot of – I know that the Duplass Brothers do a lot of improvising in their movies.  How much did you guys stray away from the script?

John:  Dialogue-wise we never really did the script.  There were a few places where we did what was written, but for the most part I mean, I thought that was a really kind of egoless way to direct a movie especially since they wrote it.

Jonah:  And it was a really good script. It was a great script. It was actually one of the better scripts I’ve ever read.

John:  Yeah, you know what needs to happen here.  We don’t have to say this. Just say it as honestly as you can to each other.  It was a lot of fun, very empowering, but also a big responsibility.

Did you ever worry that you were ever going to just like – were there a lot of scenes where it just didn’t work because you didn’t end up in the right place?

Jonah: Only one scene that I think….

John:  A couple places where scenes were…. what we found on the day didn’t exactly jive with what the structure of the movie needed to be in the editing room, so in those places I think they did those more creative voiceover things.  You heard dialogue while people are not saying dialogue.  Where they kind of layered, which I thought – it’s not what they intentionally set out to do.  It’s not that they filmed those scenes so they could do that, it’s that we improvised our way through a scene and they turned it into that.  It’s one of those cool moments where necessity is the mother of invention.  They created this new interested way to move the story along because they needed to because the scene that they shot was different than that.

Sofia Gian, does one thing each day to reach her goal of living her dream.  In this process she interviews industry professionals and learns tricks and tips which actors can use to move their careers forward.

Follow her daily quest on www.actressconfessions.typepad.com

Interview with Social Media Strategist/Personal Publicist Joy A. Kennelly

What it’s like to work as a Personal Publicist to promote and brand an actor?

Professional Social Media Strategist/Personal Publicist, Joy A. Kennelly knows exactly what goes on behind the scenes when working with an actor or other Celebrity to promote their work and themselves. Joy’s experience working red carpet events with her clients has successfully ensured the media develops her client’s personal brand through her efforts.

As the strategist behind the brand, Joy Kennelly discusses the world of celebrity marketing, branding and promotion.

How did you get into this industry?

I’ve been in the entertainment industry for many years and working with talent has always brought a lot of glamour and exposure to whatever I do. When I first started in the business, I produced the Short Pictures International Film Festival (SPIFF) for five years. During that time I worked with a variety of talent over the years, including Forrest Whitaker and Eriq La Salle, among others.

Since that time, I’ve seen a lot of my SPIFF filmmakers make it to the next level, most recently Tariq Jalil (Executive Producer of Marmaduke) and Jason Reitman (You know who this guy is – GO CANADA!). It’s very gratifying to see people I’ve worked with achieve what they want in the business.

Who have you personally worked with to create their brand?

Domiziano Arcangeli is an Italian actor who was very well-known in Europe before coming to the U.S. When we first began working together he wanted to re-brand himself as a bad guy after being type-cast as a gay character in a very successful U.S. TV series for four years.

We discussed his goals and then I wrote his bio, upgraded his website, helped him shoot and select new headshots to create a new look and developed an overall presentation package. I combined this effort with social media marketing and red carpet branding to help him successfully achieve his goals within a year.

If a certain red carpet event fit with his new image, I would pitch him to attend and more often than not, because we were selective and chose appropriately, he would be accepted. One thing that Domi understood, having achieved fame overseas which some actors don’t understand when they’re starting out, is when you are on the red carpet or attending an event – you are working.

As a Celebrity you are always branding your image to the media and the public. There is no point of attending an event when no one knows who you are or why you are there, which is a mistake many new actors and actresses make.

When you go to an event it is important that the photographers know your credits and understand that they can sell your pictures in order for them to shoot you in the first place. For Domi I would often tell the paparazzi that he’s appeared in a Fellini film and some of his recent credits. Because his name is so difficult to spell I would also show a small sign or pass out business cards to make sure they gave him proper credit on Getty Images or wherever the images were available after the event.

So many young actors and actors go to an event and they don’t understand having a publicist with them representing them to the media and photographers is so important to move their career forward.  Rumor has it, Arnold Schwarzenegger, when he first got started never went anywhere without a publicist which was a very savvy move on his part.

Stan Rosenfeild is a very successful Personal Publicist in Hollywood who I‘ve learned from over the years by observing and taking classes from him. He represents all the big name actors, (George Clooney, Robert Deniro, Danny DeVito, Kelly Ripa and Helen Mirren), to name a few. You will see him at every event making sure his client is well represented and knows who to speak to, for how long, and who to avoid.

I’ve learned a lot of what I do professionally from him even though we‘ve never worked together. I also read a lot of marketing and branding books which everyone can benefit from in any level of their career.

How do you keep your clients in the limelight?

Social Media is very influential right now. I believe it is also very important for an actor to have a Facebook fan page and a web site. Take Vin Diesel for instance. Vin has a great fan page with over 8 million fans. It gives his fans a chance to interact with him, builds his brand, and lets him get news out without going through the media. He’s successful because he’s authentic.

I also am a big believer in branding a client on the red carpet at special events because that’s where the actor is seen by producers, directors and others who potentially might hire them. Also, the media covering the event will highlight clients if it fits their story and the event publicist has included them on the tip sheet. The more actors are seen, the more they’re remembered.

Same goes for publicists. I often would see the same photographers from event to event and because they knew me and trusted my choice in clients even when they didn’t know my actor, they would shoot them and put them up on Getty Images because they knew I was a professional. My relationship with PR agencies was the same way. They trusted my clients and I to show up when we said we would attend which makes an event publicist’s job easier too.

As a PR professional what do you see as some of the biggest mistakes in celebrity PR?

Actors need to realize when they are out in public, they are working and need to always be on and professional. A good example of personal branding is Kim Kardashian and a bad example is Lindsay Lohan. One brand moves this person’s career forward, the other is moving it backward.

If you do drugs and alcohol then you don’t have control of what you say and your image is damaged. You also have the potential to lose work. You need to figure out how you want to be perceived and then focus only on that. You are your own brand and you’re either building it up, or you’re tearing it down.

What about celebrities who put their foot in their mouth?

I’ve learned over the years that if you are genuinely apologetic then the public will accept it if it‘s done sincerely, you correct your mistake and enough time passes. If it is a consistent thing however, then it will be a problem. Actors must remember that they are employees of whoever they’re working with and sometimes need to keep their opinions to themselves.

Who in your opinion are some of the best spoken actors/actresses? What goes into training these people?

Nicole Kidman is a good example; she shows up on time and is always the consummate professional promoting her work. She has learned how to divert questions she doesn’t want to answer and keeps her private life private.

A big part of training is coaching – what to say, what not to say, how to pitch themselves in sound bites, what angles to pose in, what clothes to wear, which events to attend, which ones to decline – it’s the complete marketing package which I helped my clients with all of this.

When you think brand you always want to match your brand to what you want to accomplish. A personal brand also doesn’t come over-night, but is the result of persistent, patient steps in the direction of the goals you want to achieve. As long as you keep that at the forefront of your mind it will guide you towards successfully accomplishing your goals.

How important is online promotion compared to the traditional methods of newspaper/TV?

I think that traditional methods are going away, or combining with social media to create an even stronger impact. Social Media is key at this point in the game. You’re either learning and adapting to this medium, or you will be left behind.

One of the keys to becoming successful is realizing how important it is to have a platform that is accessible and inter-active unlike a traditional web site. Communicating with people, providing value, and establishing trust by being authentic are key components in this world and brand development.

In the video below (after the jump) the cast talks about what is was like working together, coming up with the jokes and more.

My quick review: What do you get when you make a movie with a bunch of comedians and give them no real script? Stupidity. But guess what? I really enjoyed it.

Is the movie idiotic? Yes. Is there a real plot? No. Is the movie filled with stereotypes? Yes.

But I couldn’t help but laugh.

Here’s a wrap-up of interviews I did with three fantastic actors (and incredibly nice people).

Montego Glover is currently starring in Memphis. She’s nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical. I saw the show and she is absolutely wonderful! The show itself is nominated for Best Musical and 6 other nominations.

Stephen Kunken is nominated for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for his role as Andy Fastow in Enron. The play also has 3 other nominations.

Mary Catherine Garrison can still be seen in the extremely funny Lend Me A Tenor. The show is nominated for Best Revival of a Play and 2 other nominations.

Also, check out The Andy Gram on Sunday. He’ll have live webcasting coverage of the red carpet arrivals starting at 6pm eastern time!

My favorite was video 3 where Jane Lynch talks about trying to memorize lines.

These guys are long-time casting directors and have tons of great information to give. This is well worth your time!

RJ Mitte

The show was one of RJ’s his first real acting jobs and from the pilot to his work now, you can how he’s evolved into a really smart actor.  He has teenage-smartass syndrome down to a science.

RJ’s also the national spokesman for I AM PWD, SAG, AFTRA and Equity’s joint program to bring awareness to actors with disabilities.

And, he’s probably always the coolest guy in the room. Read how he got the part on Breaking Bad. I guarantee you would not do the same thing if you found out you booked a series-regular role!

How does it feel to work on one of the best shows on TV?

It’s an amazing feeling.  Any actor is lucky to work on any show.  I’m just one of the very few to work on one of the greats. We have an amazing cast; I couldn’t have gotten any luckier to work with the amazing actors I do. It’s one of the best feelings in the world where you have any role, but especially one of these.

How much of you is in Walt, Jr? Because your character is pretty much a smart ass in the show. Did the writers take anything from you in your life?

Yeah … Well [LAUGHTER]. I would say I’m a smart ass but not too often. We mix it up a little bit. We’ve added some of my life into the character. Like, we changed the room around to be more like my room. Here and there, we’re slowly but surely morphing into a new character.

First of all it’s a fantastic cast you guys have got. You work really well with Bryan; what has he taught you from an acting standpoint?

Not just Bryan, but from everybody, you learn here and there, you learn different things. But this show—I’ve never really worked before on a set—so I’ve learned all different kinds of things. I can’t really say, because you learn so much and you pick up from your surroundings. It’s like subliminal messaging.

I read where Vince Gilligan said your acting gets better with every episode. Is it easier for you now or do you think you’re just more comfortable in front of the camera?

I can’t really tell you. I don’t watch myself on the show. I walk out of the room every time I’m on camera [LAUGHING]. I definitely have gotten more comfortable in front of the camera. It’s never an easy thing when you first start, because when I first started Breaking Bad, I had never been in front of the camera except for little here and there things, nothing major.

Do you watch the show? You just walk out when your character is on screen?

Yeah, pretty much. [LAUGHTER]

How did you go about getting the role?

I auditioned five times. I auditioned four times in LA, and then one time in Albuquerque. And the one time in Albuquerque, I started going against someone in Albuquerque.

So it was between you and somebody else?

It was. I think I met them in the lobby, or in the hotel that I auditioned in, in the conference room. But I literally walked in, did the audition, went up to my hotel room; I passed out and I got a call a couple hours later saying “You have the part. When do you think you can start working?”

Wow, what was that feeling like?

I said “This is amazing but I’ll be more surprised in an hour. Let me get some sleep!” [LAUGHTER]

Like, “you woke me up!”

Yeah, I was tired. I literally got on the plane at 6 in the morning and got there at 8. Went straight to the hotel, did the audition and went to my hotel room.

Most people would be up and pacing, and waiting for the phone call.

You can’t really do that because there’s always that one chance that it may not happen. So, I’ve always lived by “If I get it, I get it. If I don’t, I don’t.” And I was in the running, and that’s what matters.

You have cerebral palsy and so does your character. But your character’s symptoms are supposed to be worse than yours. You don’t even have to use crutches in real life, right?

I don’t.

And I read that you had to fight to get the part because of that, because your symptoms were much milder than your characters.

I kind of did. Since I don’t really use crutches and my character has more of a stutter, they really wanted someone that had a severe case of cerebral palsy. I did my best on trying to go back and remember what I had to overcome and bring that to the character.

When you get the script for the newest episode, what do you do, how do you go about and figure out what you’re going to do for each scene?

When I get a script, I found the best way for me—everybody has their own rituals—but I found the best way is I read it really fast, and then I have somebody else read it to me so I can hear it vocally in my head. I go through that and then I come out and dissect every scene.  I go from there and just try to figure out how and what’s the right way to try to portray that role, that day.

On your hiatus from Breaking Bad do you look for more work or are you just hanging out and taking it easy?

I do a little bit of both. You’re always looking for more work, but I’m mostly relaxing. Tomorrow I’m flying to Philadelphia to go to Prom.

Oh wow, yeah?

Yeah, so it’s gonna be fun. And when I get back I go to DC for a conference. So, it’s work, but it’s more meetings and interviews, and that kind of work than on camera.

You’re also the spokesman for I AM PWD. Can you tell me about that?

It’s a training organization with all of the Guilds to bring awareness to people with Disabilities. That’s actually why I’m going to DC. I’m doing a little seminar with them, and interviews. It’s to bring awareness to people with disabilities in the acting industry. If you’re in a wheelchair and you can’t go up flights of stairs, how are you going to get to your audition? A lot of auditioning places have stairs and some people can’t access them. So, we’re trying to bring awareness to help make it easier on everybody, to see that everyone can do a part and not just one person. And just to bring awareness to people with disabilities.

How does it feel to be a role model, not only to young actors but to people with disabilities?

It’s fun. It’s definitely a great honor. Not a lot of people get to do what I do. I do my best at bringing awareness to any aspect of the industry and to help when I can.

What are your plans for the future? I heard that you want to direct.

I do. I want to try to get into directing. I want to direct, produce and do a couple other things. Directing is my main goal right now. I want to get into that.

Do you think you’ll get a chance to direct an episode of Breaking Bad?

I would hope so. That would be pretty amazing. You never know, anything could happen in Breaking Bad.

That is true, you have such a great show. The thing I like about it is you absolutely don’t know what’s going to happen.

That’s what I love so much about it. It’s so crazy. It’s a surprise every time you read the script.

What advice would you give to upcoming actors, especially performers with disabilities?

The best advice I can give is don’t give up on what you want. I think no one’s going to hand you your part. You have to take it and make it yours. Just keep going and don’t dwell on the audition. Once you leave that auditioning room you move onto the next.

Can you tell us what’s going to happen to your character in the final episodes?

It’s going to get pretty rough for the whole family. As you can see the stress between Walt, Jr and Hank is already getting pretty bad, like you saw in last weeks’ episode. So, like I said a minute ago, anything can happen. Just tune in and watch, and it’s going to get crazy.

If you saw the videos I posted the other day with the men discussing their work, here’s another set The Hollywood Reporter did, this time with actresses who have given notable dramatic performances this past year.

Glenn Close, Chloe Sevigny, Elisabeth Moss, Kyra Sedgwick, Claire Danes and Sandra Oh talk about women in television, doing press and more!

If you saw her Oscar nominated performance in last year’s Frozen River, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Need more proof? Check out the first 5 seasons of Homicide, 21 Grams and the upcoming Welcome To The Rileys.

She’s currently starring in HBO’s Treme as attorney Toni Bernette. If you haven’t been watching the show, you are missing some great performances. Not only from Melissa, but John Goodman, Khandi Alexander, Wendell Pierce… the list goes on.

I talked to her while she was on set, filming another HBO project, Mildred Pierce.

When I first became aware of you in Homicide, and everything I’ve seen you in since, is that you bring a deep reality to everything you’re in. You keep everyone and everything around you grounded. That’s a big reason that Homicide stunk after you left the show.

Oh my God! I don’t know if I want all that responsibility but that’s quite a compliment. An actor at a festival once handed me a card, and she had written on it “Acting, the art of pretending the truth.” And I use her quote an awful lot, because it is. To me, that’s what it’s about, even when things go into the fantastical realm that they can on stage or in film. That’s an extraordinary compliment. Thank you.

After Frozen River, do you still have to audition now?

The auditioning has waned, some of it by choice. For many years, I recognized that I was used for casting directors to impress directors with their choices, to find out how a difficult part, in fact, can work. So I, as I’ve begun to have work offered to me, have backed away from auditions from time to time.

You seem to take these roles that might be difficult to cast, but you fit them perfectly.

Well, I think that anybody who does any kind of work gets the thing that if you’re going to be working, you might as well be working hard. So, that’s what I do, and I guess my passion and love for it is that acting really is my life. The only other thing really is my son.

So how much of “you” do you bring to a role?

I try to bring as little of me as possible. The actor’s instrument is innate. It cannot be changed. It’s that thing that makes us love a great actor. [Al] Pacino was Kevorkian, he was an MD. But you Al in there, because as much as he became someone else, he also is Al Pacino. So, I actually look for the things that are further from me to hone and make my own.

You don’t seem to play the same character twice. How do you go about preparing for a role?

Reading the script, first and foremost, again and again. Finding what others think of my character. Where does she sit in the picture as a whole? What is her role in the story? And ‘who is she’ should be on the page. The costume department, the hair and make-up department help me enormously. It’s quite traditional that the very first call an actor receives from production – sometimes the only one – is a call from the costume department. So I begin working with them, they work more directly with the director, 9 times out of 10. I include that advice in it. And again and again, go back to the page. If an actor works too much out of their hopefully, vivid, imagination, they’ll veer from the project as a whole, and it can harm a project enormously, I’ve learned.

Let’s go back to your beginning. When did you realize you wanted to be an actor, because you went to London to study at 15.

I did. And it was many years before then, maybe 10. And as I talk to you today from Cooper Square in New York City, I am half a block away from where it all began. The building that’s now the Public Theater here in New York was the building owned by the city of New York that Peter Schumann and his Bread & Puppet Theater had the use of for a few years in the early 60’s, when I was a child growing up around the corner. My mom took us over and we participated in public workshops, and the nativity play the theater has done each year for many, many years. That was the beginning of it, in a darkened room with people coming to watch the spectacle, children and adults alike creating and believing in a make-believe world. I found a place that I was comfortable, and walked the path toward that, and learned eventually that it’s called “acting.” You can find employment as an actor if you are so lucky. I just took every opportunity, left high school in part because I could not do theater at the public high school I was at in Vermont, and went to the theater school in London eventually.

And then you came back and went to SUNY Purchase?

Very, very, very important time in my past.

What did they teach you, because so many great actors came out of that program?

I think it was a curiousness and respect for the art of acting that Purchase was designed to be. Not a mill to turn out a commercial, get a job. We were dissuaded from work the entire course of the four years there; it was a conservatory. Every one of the mentors there, my own, Joan Potter, just so damn serious about acting. I was just talking about it in the van back from Long Island last night with Brian O’Byrne and Mare Winningham, that training is still what I rely on.

You go from film to TV to theater kind of like most actors change clothes. Do you have a preference?

[Laughter] I don’t have a preference, which is probably why my work is so varied, and in size, student films and big films and television. It’s unusual and it is my pleasure. To me the most horrifying thing about spiders and heights and darkened corners is a fear of sameness. The notion of living a life, God bless the people who can do it, 9 to 5, 5 days a week, with a weekend and a holiday each year. To me, that would be unfathomable. So maybe it’s that I embrace that changing, not knowing, going to the audition and “Did you get the job or not?” It’s out of my hands. My whole work life has made me a better human being, because I’ve learned to take it as it comes.

When you go from theater to film—the theater obviously you have a long rehearsal process, and with film you have maybe 10 minutes before you do the scene—what do you take from theater that you bring to film or TV, and what do you take from film or TV that you bring to theater?

It’s very interesting that you ask this question. They’re exactly the same and they’re totally opposite. In rehearsal, we all make preparation together for a play. We sit around a table and read it out loud, sometimes for days and days to crack open the true meaning of the play. Then we get it up out on its feet and find its movements all together. We go for 8 hours a day and work with a guide, our director, to get to that thing. But then you walk out at 8:00 each night, and sometimes twice a week in the afternoons, and try to hit those marks you know are there.

In film we prepare, by and large alone, somewhat with a director and the other departments involved. It’s a little scattered like that. In a play rehearsal there’s a wonderful day that the set designer comes up and shares with all of us the plan of the set. We don’t know in film what are we going to walk into, what the movement is going to be, does the director have an idea of the images he wants in the space, so we find that for him. Then on film you do this amazing, magical thing where you capture and use the finest of the moments, the moments when you do get those marks that you try each night to hit on the stage. So they’re the same but a little bit opposite. I guess it’s about the preparation primarily, and because of the way you asked the question, it’s a new thought to me. I can’t wait to read what I said. [LAUGHTER]

Preparation, preparation, preparation. You’re so right. Now you’re currently starring in HBO’s Treme.

I am such a lucky girl, oh my gosh. I had been hoping that something would invite me into television to broaden the public’s awareness of my name. The public knows a lot of the time my work, but then they don’t recognize me if I go into the mud truck to get my coffee in the city. Which is fine by me.

You’re working with David Simon and John Goodman, two wonderful, great people. You and John—did you know each other before, because it’s like you’ve been married for 20 years?

John is my favorite kind of people. John is an actor. He is an actor, an actor, and an actor. With some actors you fall into it, and with John—I had never met him before, I had admired his work for long, long time, felt that he was often misunderstood as an actor because he’s so good at being funny that the depths of what he’s able to bring to things is unsung, or not properly sung at least. What the writers have given him through the season, to be saying about the circumstances in New Orleans, it was so moving to watch being filmed. Easy peasy for “Toni Bernette” to love that nutty husband of hers. [LAUGHTER].

What’s your advice to actors?

If there’s anything else you can do, do it. If anything can stop you, let it. And if there’s nothing else you can do, and nothing can stop you, do nothing but. Just like when we work, it’s 101 Acting, you can’t go for a result. And in our career paths, we should avoid the notion of a result. Have a golden dream in your heart and head, but just do your life like you’re acting. Let it happen beat by beat. Be informed by what comes at you.

As always, I recommend listening to the whole interview. You’ll get much more out of it! Click on the link at the top of the page!

Mark Christopher Lawrence

And he’s not one to sit still and rest on his laurels. He does theater, stand-up, voice over, writing and producing.

He’s a truly multi-talented guy.

You’re currently starring in Chuck. The show has a rabid fan base. Do you get recognized a lot for that?

Yeah, pretty much everyday.

You were in for pilots the year you got Chuck, but Chuck was only a guest star role in that pilot.

Right.

So, was it just a gamble that you took when you got Chuck, that you auditioned for Chuck?

It was no real gamble, it was just one of the things that came across the plate that year. We auditioned for everything that came across. It just happened that Chuck was the only thing I got booked in.

Since it was only a guest star role, did you have a feeling that it could be moved up to a series regular?

No, I didn’t even read it. [LAUGHTER] I actually just read the sides because I was really concentrating on those other pilots, because they were series regular roles. I read the [sides] the night before I went in to audition, and just prepared to go in and get a job. Maybe because I was so relaxed, it wasn’t that important for me.

That happens a lot, when it’s not that important. Boom, you get it.

I think what happened is when you’re at that point—and not that you don’t care because you want to work—but when you’re at that point where it’s not that important, you have this sort of relaxed state that you walk into the room with. That was part of it, being really relaxed. The other was because you know what’s at stake before you go in and read for the network. Because they cut you a deal before you go in, so you know exactly how much money you will or will not get. So, I was just able to really relax and go in and have fun, and go out and concentrate on something else.

When people say they do it all, you seriously do it all. You’re not only an actor, you also do theatre and stand-up, and voice-overs, and write. Most people just stick to one thing or maybe two; how did you come to put your hands in everything, and not only that, but be successful at all of them?

I think part of it is just my drive to continue to work, to flow from one thing to the next. And then a lot of luck. The voice-over world is a really a hard nut to crack, and I literally work for the same people over and over again, the same 4 or 5 different producers. Once you’re in with some people that like what you do, they keep using you. That’s how that works. Then they will refer you to other people. So that’s what got the voice-over thing going. And the comedy, I started doing in high school. As an actor you just try to keep the ball rolling.

When did you know you wanted to be an actor?

People say that I used to say it in high school, that I would love to be on television. But I don’t remember saying that. I went to USC on a debate scholarship. I was using that to go to law school, and then it wasn’t until I changed majors and got into the Bachelors Fine Arts Acting program at USC that all of a sudden, “this has to work out.”

I think you said something like, “You don’t choose acting, acting chooses you.”

Yeah. If you just wake up one day and decide, “I think I’m going to be an actor,” what does that really mean? Until you have a taste of it, something inside you says, “Hey I’ve got to do this. This is calling me, it’s pulling me.” Because, clearly, at any point I could’ve went back and gone  to law school. Especially in moments where nothing was going on, for a couple months at a time. But just that pull of the craft kept me going. I think that’s what that means. When people say you get bitten by the bug, and that’s what it is. It’s like you’re possessed.

Yeah, I know that possession. [LAUGHTER] You’re first professional job was Hill Street Blues, and you pretty much have been working non-stop from then on. How have you been able to maintain a career this long?

It’s just been a lot of luck. I had a couple years where I was having agency issues, and those were very slow years. But in those years I had a couple of great jobs.

Just being able to get the right team in place—like right now I think is the first time I’ve had all of the pieces in place to help me get to the next level. In terms of an agency that’s hungry, that really believes in what I do, a management team that feels the same way, and also a publicist who really getting me some name recognition, to add the name to the face. So this is the first time that I’ve had all those pieces in place at the same time, and I think that really is the key once you pass a certain point.

Clearly, early in your career you don’t need a manager per se because you don’t have anything to manage. You know what I mean? Why are you cutting off 15 to 20% when you’re not making that much. If you’re not making about 250 a year, it’s really not worth it for you to have a manager. And if you don’t do multiple things, it’s not worth it for you to have a manager. Because, the way I see management working is they capitalize on everything you do, and everything you can do. If you can excel as a producer/director/write/actor/comic, then that manager needs to make you money in all those areas. I do think that publicity is very important early on.

If you book a series and you’re not the lead in the series— if you’re not Chuck for example—the network really isn’t promoting you to promote the series, they’re using Chuck to promote the series. Clearly, if this is your first job then what you need to do is get a publicist to capitalize on your visibility—while you’re working get you onto magazines and blogs and guest appearances on television shows if that can happen. That’s the kind of work that needs to be done early in a career. The first series I had, nobody said that to me. Had I known that, I would’ve spent the money back then. It makes sense to spend that money because it only helps you.

A lot of your work, you come into a scene and you dominate it in a completely great way, then you leave. You’re so memorable in all the stuff you do. How do you prepare? What are the things you normally do when working on a role?

I was talking to a writer the other night in San Diego, a filmmakers event, and he had asked a question, “What do you want from the writer?” “Do you want him to give you directions that say ‘Frown here,’ or whatever.” I said to him “No, I don’t want you to give me any of that stuff. I want to find it organically.” In the process of preparing for a role, I go in and I find those things, but most importantly I find something active to play. The writer and I continued our conversation after the thing was over, and I said to him “Look, what I want you to give me in the script is ‘what do I want,’ but I don’t want you to give me that in stage directions. I want it in the writing so that I can see in the piece, my character wants ‘x’ and in every scene he’s driving towards ‘x.’” In some scenes, he gets it, and in some scenes he doesn’t. Maybe overall he doesn’t ultimately get what he’s after, but at least it gives me something active to play.

I drew an example for him. The last play I did was The Piano Lesson. My character in that play shows up at his sister and uncle’s house, and there’s a piano there that belongs to their family, and he needs that piano, he wants that piano so he can sell it and get some money to put with part of the money that he has saved. Then he shows up with a truck load of watermelons he’s going to sell. So he puts those three parts together, and buys land that he is currently working for as a share cropper, and that his family has worked for as slaves. He wants that piano. That’s what his through line is for the whole play, that’s his objective. So every time I hit the stage, before I went on I’d stand back stage and say “Ok, now go get that piano.” Even if the scene is not about me getting the piano, it really is. Underneath everything else that he’s saying, his objective is to get that piano. Let’s say in real life, for example, you are busted, you’re completely broke, your phone bill is due, your rent is due. You talk to your parents, but you don’t talk to them about what’s really going on in your life because you don’t want to upset them. Finally, the question “So, how’s everything going?” “Oh, everything’s okay.” And you never really say exactly what you need from them, you might say something to the effect of “Yeah, I just don’t know where this phone bill is coming from.” Something like that. You don’t straight out ask them for it. And sometimes writing doesn’t do that for you, writing gives you everything but what your “ask” needs to be. You have to use those words in a way to help you get what you want. Acting 101 is “What do I want?” That’s the way I prepare. I try to find out exactly what I want in the scene, and it gives me something active to play.

And that’s what I do. When you see me working, I’m active. That’s what’s different from a lot of people, because they’re playing emotions and stuff like that. Because I have a stage background, that’s the way you work. If you watch the really good actors, that’s what it is. When they’re really engaging, they’re actively playing something.

Do you still get nervous when you do a scene or when the lights come up on stage?

In theatre I do. Right before I go on for the first scene, I always have some butterflies. In TV and film, it’s so disjointed and distracted that I’m really concentrating on staying focused. So I don’t have time to get nervous. But in theatre—especially that first time I hit the stage, you really try to set a pace. I get nervous right before I do that.

What is your advice to actors?

Be prepared. Every step of the way. From the audition to the job, to the end of the job, be prepared. When you go in to audition, if you walk in and you haven’t really prepared, and you see me sitting in the room, you are not going to get a job. When I say “me,” there are other actors out there who are prepared. If you see an actor that you see all the time, it’s because they’re ready. You gotta be prepared. I remember one of my first auditions, I walk in—and I used to watch Baretta all the time—and Huggy Bear [Antonio Fargas) was there. And I saw his sides, and he was reading for the same part. And it kinda threw me. Then I thought, “Well if they want him, he’s been around a long time and he’s going to be the guy they get.” And it relaxed me. And I went in prepared, and I think because I was relaxed, Huggy Bear didn’t get a job. [LAUGHTER]

You stole a job from Huggy Bear!

I got past the fact that it was Huggy Bear, and either they wanted him or they wanted me, because we were so vastly different at the time. Even age-wise. I think there were even a couple of women reading for the same part. That’s when you know that they really don’t know what they want. And I ended up with that job. That was a great learning experience for me early on, that my preparation was there. No matter who’s in room, if you’re prepared you may do something that changes their mind about the way they see the role. Or if they don’t see it in a certain way, they will see you and go “Oh wow, that’s what it is.”

By “Be prepared,” are you saying memorizing the sides, knowing it backwards and forwards?

When I say “Be prepared,” I’m saying, for me that means having something to play. I’m not just saying or regurgitating words, I’m actively playing something. Also, I tend not to memorize the sides, and I actually use them in the scene because I feel like—and I don’t know where I got this from, nobody ever said this to me, but in my head, I feel like—if I come in memorized, I feel like they may think, “Okay, that was the performance.” And I know in my process, the way I work, I get better every take. So I don’t want them thinking this is the best they can get. Even if it is memorized, I still hold it in my hand and look at it as if I’m reading it, because I don’t want them to think of it as the performance, or that it’s the best it’s going to be.

I say “got a chance” because the day Stephen found out he was nominated he was also told that the show would be closing later that week.

If that were me, I’d want to jump out a window but Stephen is taking it all in stride.

And why shouldn’t he?  The critics universally praised his work, he and his wife just adopted a baby and he’s such a fantastic actor, the phone is probably already ringing in his agents office.

I got a chance to talk to him while he was sitting in his car about to take a well deserved break.

Congratulations on your nomination.

Thank you so much.

How did you find out about it?

I was watching, because I knew it was important to find out about the longevity of our show – Enron. With how expensive the show was, if it didn’t get nominated, I knew it would probably be a rough road for us. I was curious and watching for a couple of minutes. Then, they let it go and I watched it online. I sort of saw it all happening in rapid succession. They did the 5 big categories first on TV and then they ended it. So I thought that I had missed my category. I was like, “Damn, I can’t believe it!” But then they actually went back to it.

What’s that feeling like, to be one of the top five actors nominated?

It’s crazy. I don’t know that it’s sunk in yet. I was just talking to my wife about it. It’s such an incredible honor and its a thing that you always dream about as an actor, I think. Especially as a New York theatre actor who grew up on the Tony’s and grew up coming to see Broadway shows. I went to Julliard in the city, which is an institution for theatre.

I remember my first Broadway show, right before I went on, saying “Wow, as soon as the first word comes out of my mouth, I’m going to have done a Broadway show.” It was an incredible, huge threshold to walk across. It hasn’t even really sunk in yet to be considered a part of the community in a performance that was noteworthy in this season of incredible actors and performances. It’s kind of mind-boggling. It’s thrilling. It’s such a huge honor. I know these are all the things that everyone always says, but it’s so true. You actually really do feel awed by the attention and awed by people actually caring. There’s nothing that I just said that’s new or exciting, but it’s totally true. It puts all of that work into perspective for a moment. It’s a milestone in your career that you can look back and you can say, ‘Oh, my God, I actually put together a little body of work.’ It’s quite cool.

Is it true that now you can get better seats in a restaurant?

I don’t know. If I won the award, I could walk in with the statue and I still think I would lose instantly to anyone who’s been on a TV show or in a film. Maybe at Angus McIndoe across the street they might say “Hey!” but I think other than that, that’s the beauty of the theatre that unless you saw it, you don’t really know it.

And then, a couple of hours later, how did you hear about the show closing? That’s got to be a sucker punch.

Well, I saw that the show hadn’t been nominated and the producers were pretty frank with us earlier on. The day after we opened, we had a day off and we came back and talked about it. New York is tough. The New York Times is a such an important paper for a big Broadway show. Because it’s a table setter and a tone setter for the way people think about a show. Ben Brantley from The New York Times really didn’t like the show. He had very nice things to say about me, which was very nice but he didn’t like the show. And already you could feel as we came back that we were battling that perception. We had amazing reviews from all other places, but theater people have very strong opinions about the play. So, I knew from the producers who said the Tony’s would be very important to us. So I knew we were in a bit of a race, and when that didn’t come through, I knew that our time might be short. But I didn’t think it would be that short. We found out that night. They sent us all an email basically saying “Please come to the theatre a half an hour before.” Then they told us that there wasn’t an advance being built and that the Tony’s were really important to help build that advance, and that the show was very expensive, and the timing was wrong, possibly, for a show all about finance. There were a million reasons. You could Monday morning quarterback what happened with it a million different ways but we found out that night that that was going to be our last week, which was crazy.

It was heartbreaking also, because you hit that moment when you’re like, ‘I can get to live in this thing and I can show people my work,’ and then it was gone just as quick. But it’s a great metaphor for the theatre. The theatre is a living organism that is of the here and the now, and it’s going to disappear and that’s the beauty of it.

It’s gotta suck that you put in all this time and energy, and you got nominated for a Tony, and people can’t see your work.

Yeah, it’s definitely a drag. All my out-of-town friends will have missed it. And people I know who bought tickets for later in the summer won’t get to see it. But, in terms of my community of people, a lot of them were great. They rushed to go see it or they had seen it in the preview period. I know that the producers made a valiant attempt to try and get as many of the Tony voters in before the show closed. They got a good bit of those people in.

As far as the joy of doing a play, and getting good notices, and having some kind of acknowledgement that you than get to live in that because it happens so infrequently. That was a drag, definitely.

Let’s go back to the beginning. How did you get your start? When did you realized you wanted to be an actor?

I did it in high school. I did all the school shows. I had a great high school drama professor who really made us cut our teeth in high school, not on Bye Bye Birdie, and stuff like that but on Bertolt Brecht. That really pushed our imaginations. So, I sort of knew when I was in high school that I really loved it. When I went to college, I went as a political science major, actually, and took a couple of classes. I realized in political science, it’s really a science of figuring out people, and how to manipulate people and how to manipulate perception and understand it. It was all these things that I was doing and loving in the arts, but it seemed for more nefarious purposes. So, I decided that I’d rather do it for entertainment and to help people see the world in a different way that to build a political career.

And then you went to Juilliard?

Then I went to Juilliard in the city, which was very lucky.

I talked to Carrie Preston who also went there. She said it was like an acting boot camp. It was like her Vietnam she said.

Totally. I love Carrie Preston, she’s a buddy of mine. She’s awesome. The thing about Juilliard that’s so great, in terms of the hardest part about Juilliard, is that they look at you when you come in, and they say “You do these amazing things naturally. And let’s be honest, you don’t need us to continually tell you over the course of these four years what that is that you do great. So let’s give you as many skills and tricks and craft as we can do over four years with things you’re not good at.” So, you can spend four years thinking you’re not good at all, which I think is the danger if you go there too young or too green. You can start to lose your confidence. But if you can maintain your sense of the world, you can come out of that program with an incredible set of skills, and having worked with some really great people.

You pretty much work non-stop; do you credit your education with that?

Yes, in large part. I think a huge part of why people want to work with you or hire you—it’s 50% what you’re doing in the auditions and how prepared you are and what kind of take you have on a role, but the other 50% is, are you somebody who’s reliable and that people want to work with.  That starts to snowball. I pride myself on being somebody whose prepared and who isn’t causing problems when they’re in rehearsal and is just really there to make the play better, to make the project better. I think that’s an important part of why you continually work or don’t work. Your reputation precedes you into a room. Hopefully, it’s working for you as opposed to against you.

You’ve played two real people; Jim Reston in Frost/Nixon and Andy Fastow in Enron. They’re completely different shows, but was the research on the people the same for you?

Yes, in a way. It’s interesting, when you play a non-fictional character; you’re playing somebody who you can pull lots of source material for. It’s exciting because a big part of your job is done. You can see pictures of that person, you can hear that person, and you can do a lot of the external work that will get you close to that person. But then there’s a point when that stops being helpful, and you have to do the same work you would do as an actor on any fictional character. Which is go to the script and figure out exactly what the author or playwright is asking you to do. Because, even if I did the greatest Jim Reston ever, but it was running counter-intuitive to Peter Morgan’s script, then we’re in conflict with each other. So, it’s more important that I know what David Frost is saying about Jim Reston in the play and then somehow interpret that either to embody that or do the opposite of it. To take all the given circumstances that I know from the world of the play and try to marry them with some of the things I know. It is a kind of hybrid thing when you work on a non-fictional character, but it’s not a far afield from just working on Chekhov. Where you’re completely creating a character from scratch. You have to do all that same beat to beat, moment to moment work, or else we would just be doing documentaries, essentially.

So when you get a new script—and I know you’ve done a lot of new plays— what are the very first things you look for and you do?

That’s a great question. I think I probably start off reading the script a number of times. I had a professor once who said that your first impression is so important, and that when you read a play the first time, don’t read it piecemeal, don’t read it on the subway, 10 pages here, another 15 pages there. You’re first impression of it should be in some ways the same as if you were to sit in a darkened theatre and watched 2 hours of a play. So that impression is really important. The first time through, I’m really just responding emotionally or intellectually to the experience. And then I go back and read it a few more times, because it’s actually really interesting to read a play before you know who you’re playing in it. Sometimes, if you get the breakdowns and there’s equal parts that you might be right for, it’s really interesting to read a play not tracking it for your character. You sometimes learn a lot in that respect. Once you’ve read it the first time or you know who you’re playing, I start pulling out all the things I know, trying to develop the skeleton of a character from all the bread crumbs that the playwright has left you. Very simple things, like how old the person is, where the person grew up, to all the emotional things about that person; what are their triggers? What are the things that set that person off? All of the things we work on in acting school, like what does this person want? What does this person out of life? And then you start to go back and filter all of that together and I find there comes a point where you’re never even learning the lines, because you’re doing so much work on figuring out why the lines are there that it sort of figures itself out.

I know that you just adopted a baby, are you going to take some time off and hang out with the family or are you calling your agent and saying “Let’s get back to work”?

It’s funny you say that, because my wife and I have a little house up in Connecticut. I’m literally sitting right now in a car in the driveway. We just got here, battling traffic. I was doing this play David Cromer’s Our Town, I was playing the stage manager right before we started rehearsals for [Enron]. Literally, I left Our Town on a Thursday night, did my last performance. On Friday, we flew off to Ethiopia, to get our daughter. We spent two weeks in Ethiopia, flew back and landed on a Saturday night and started rehearsal on a Monday. So it’s been brutal. But she’s absolutely the greatest kid in the world. She is the easiest, sweetest, most grounded kid who’s kept all this in perspective, all the things like the show closing. I have this little face to come home to who doesn’t care about any of that, it’s amazing. Part of closing is going to be lovely. I’ll get to spend a chunk of time with her. Certainly I love working, I love what I do, and if opportunities come up, I’m sure I will be on the horn with the agents saying “What’s next?” But I don’t suddenly feel the time clock going “T-minus 2 weeks till I need a job before I go crazy.” I’m very content to have a little bit of vacation time.

Two more questions: What is the best piece of advice someone gave you regarding acting? And what is your advice to actors?

For the business I think—and my current situation is a perfect example—it’s a long, long game. I remember coming out ofJuilliard thinking that it was a series of sprints, that you would look to your left and your right, and you’d see people in your class and you’d see people with the agents that you want, or you’d see them get job you thought you should have, or you weren’t booking and you tended to make an assessment of how you were doing by the people around you. And you judge that on very short sprints.

But the business is a marathon. Your career is a marathon, and you have to figure out how to pace yourself, and you have to figure out how to have a sense of inner worth and inner measure, rather than constantly looking around you. I look at the people in my class, certain people sprinted ahead and then fell back and haven’t worked in a while. And we’re all going through the same thing. There’s enough work for all of us. We’re not in competition with each other really. I know that’s sort of “self-helpy” speak, but it’s kind of true in this profession. There’s going to be a job that opens up for you because you didn’t get the other job. There’s enough work if you stay in it. There’s a huge attrition rate in this business because people can’t figure out how to go the whole way. It’s such a hard business and people fall off, and if you can figure out how to support yourself and feel good about yourself, your time will come. Your chance to get those things will come. Somebody told me that and in the beginning right when I came out of school I totally didn’t believe it. I was miserable for a lot of time, because I thought “If I hear another person tell me that I’m going to really start working in my mid-thirties, I’m going to just kill myself.” [LAUGHTER] I was twenty-something, and I thought “I want to do that!” and they’re like “Yeah, you know what? You’re going to have a great career in your mid-thirties and your forties and fifties.” That’s not what you want to hear that. You want to hear that you’re going to get it now. But looking back, I’m like, “Wow, that’s great advice.” It’s hard advice to take when you’re in the middle of it, but—if you’d have told me in my twenties that I’d be sitting with a Tony nomination for a new play, I would‘ve have believed it.

In terms of craft, I’d have to think about that. Tell the truth.

I’ll think of something good at some point. [LAUGHTER] I’ll give you a call at 2:00 in the morning when I can actually come up with something [LAUGHTER]

I talked with Brian Vermeire, one of the main guys behind Performer Track. He loves his product and from talking to the people who use it, they love it as well.

We talked for a good while so this is only part of the interview but Brian has a lot of good information to give. Click on the audio portion (or download it off iTunes) above for more.

For more details, go to performertrack.com. And as a bonus, if you use code: FRLC9 you’ll get 2 months off your first year!

You started the company?

Brian Vermeire: Yeah, it started about 10 years ago. It all came out of a need. I was the “typical performer.” Every time I got called by my agent, by my manager, by a random casting director who could get a hold of me directly I would quickly grab a sheet of paper, a scrap piece of paper, or a sticky note—whatever I could write on—and I would quickly jot down where I’m going. When it came to going to the audition, I would lose the information, I would have to call my agent, “Where am I going again? Who am I meeting with? Okay, okay.”

And it never mattered to me. What mattered to me was being the best performer. I’d go in there and give it my all and then just forget about it. I did Meisner for a couple of years, and I was told by other acting teachers that I had to just go audition and then forget about it, which is a huge disservice to your business as a performer. And it’s an awful thing to do for your business. In realizing I was doing everything completely wrong, without ever understanding that it was wrong, I just thought, “No, I don’t want to be bogged down with that information. I’ll just go do it and if I get it, I get it. That’s all I need to know.

I was watching my friend at the time, and every time she got called by her representation, she would always get out the same college ruled notebook and pull it open, she would rattle off  the same questions, have everything in her mind and ask the questions in a very succinct, rhythmic order. And she would put everything in one spot. And I thought that was genius, that’s great, I should do that. So I made myself one and we were carrying those around and it didn’t take too long before our friends started asking us “Hey, how do I get one?”

It was at that point, when our friends started asking us how they could get one, I started realizing that this wasn’t a unique problem. This is something that is plaguing the industry and plaguing us performers. It’s a complete misunderstanding to running an effective business, and so the program I’m talking about is called Performer Track. Performer Track came out in September of 2008. One of the wonderful things happening online is how quickly we can make updates and how we don’t have to wait for a downloaded update. As soon as you refresh the screen, you are always using the latest and greatest. We can just throw updates when we want, just  pop them up there. There’s no waiting for versions. We’re constantly adding new features, new streamlined parts of the program.

I was coming into this interview thinking Performer Track was more of a organizational tool, but it’s not actually, is it?

I think that’s one of the biggest misnomers with our product. It does help you to better organize because that is a natural byproduct, but it’s true purpose is to allow the performer to finally run their business like a business, to leverage their information.

The problem with performers now is if they feel they’re doing something positive for their career “Oh, yeah I’m writing, I do that, I have a notebook.” Well, how is it helping you with PR campaigns? How is that helping you realize who’s late on paying you? How are you using this to stay connected with cast and crew members that you work on a project with?

Those kinds of products like Excel spreadsheets, or even Outlook or Entourage or Bento or Sugar—those products are built for the masses, they’re not built for our business. When you’re using one or more of those types of tools, what ends up happening is you think you’re doing something positive for your career because you’re thinking “Oh, well I’m being proactive.” What you need to be is productive with your information. You need to start taking your information and then leveraging it to do things so that you’re not just writing things down and being passive with your data, you’re now going to be productive with your data. What you need is to have a way for all these types of tools talking to one another.

You’ll start to see how your auditions are connected to your contacts, which are connected back to your callbacks, which are connected to your project expenses, which connect  back to your bookings, which connect to your cast and crew area, which connect back to your contacts section, and on and on and on. It is amazing to see what an eco-system that goes on with your business when you start to tie everything together, because now you start to realize the relationships you’re making in this business. You know who to go back to when things seem slow, quote on quote. So you can start to drum up activity in this business. It will allow you to finally see what is working for your business. How hard are you working for yourself? Who’s working the hardest for you? Which agent and agencies are getting you out the most? And what kind of projects are they getting you out for? Are they getting you out for the kind of projects you want to do ultimately in this business?

I can see the time and energy and money that goes out, and I can start to compare that with my return on my investment. I can start to then get rid of the waste, what’s not working for my business, and alleviate it. Then I can see what is working for my business so I can build upon my successes, I can build upon what is working for me. Until you start to do that will you be productive? Which is what we want to be, where we can start to gain traction in this business, finally.

I like what you said about treating this as a business, because a lot of actors I know don’t. They’ll get an audition, write it on a little scrap of paper, go to the audition and never write anything down about the audition, or who they met, or anything like that.

When you’re first starting out, you’re meeting everybody, but are you meeting them and then following up with them? Are you staying in touch with them? There will be people you make an attempt to stay connected with because you’re following my advice right now by listening to me.

You’re going to be a good Performer Track user, and you’re going to do this. There will be those who flake out, who fall out of the cyclone because they don’t follow through, and they don’t follow up. But you’re going to continue to follow up, and as you continue to do that, the flakes, the people who don’t really take this seriously, they’re going to fly out of the cyclone and the circle you make gets smaller and smaller as you wind up. That’s why you see so many “A” level performers working with the same directors, working with the same producers. “Why do I have to recreate the wheel to find these people I know can do the job?”

Casting directors think the same way. The last thing a casting director wants to do when they get hired, to fill roles for a part, is get behind a computer monitor and pour through thousands and thousands of performers they do not know and do not have relationships with. And pour through their thumbnail headshots until their eyes bleed out. It’s the last thing they want to do. When they get called and get told “We want you to fill the roles for this indie film or this feature film or this commercial,” immediately the casting directors go to their mental rolodex. And they think, “We need a tall, lanky guy, kind of goofy. Let’s bring in Brian and Gordon from the other agency’s office, and let’s bring Bill and John who we had to do a favor for with that other agent. Okay, let’s bring those people in.”

That’s how this business works. We need to really rein this in to the point where we’re operating more efficiently, where we’re are going about this  business in a strategic and smart manner, and let everybody else do it the other way. We would not have taken on and done Performer Track, we would not have taken the time to do this program, we would not have wasted our energy to do this program if it didn’t work. We wouldn’t have wasted our time doing this if by having your information on spreadsheets, on word documents, on scrap pieces of paper worked. It doesn’t.

And that’s why you need something that’s built for this business, and you need something that can move your career along, and have you see your career completely differently.

I saw the show when I was in New York and it was hands down the best show I saw that week – and I saw some great shows!  The moment the lights went down to the curtain call (one of the most inspired curtain calls I’ve ever seen), I never stopped laughing. Lend Me A Tenor does not disappoint.

One of the reasons the show is so good is because of Mary Catherine Garrison. She plays Maggie, Max’s (Justin Bartha) love interest in a show that is over-flowing with talent. Directed by Stanley Tucci, is also stars Tony Shalhoub, Anthony LaPaglia, Jan Maxwell and Brooke Adams, Mary Catherine shines in the role as the”virginal” damsel.

She’s got such a great story on how she got her first Broadway role working with Nathan Lane. Whether you want to work in theater or not, this interview is priceless on how she got her start.

As always, I recommend listening to the interview if you have the time.

So, as the curtain comes up you’re the very first person we see on stage. What was that feeling on opening night?

Mary Catherine Garrison: Every time I start a new show I think “This is my last chance to run away, to never be heard from or seen again.” So, I had that feeling like I always do. But it’s also neat—I’m trying to think of how many shows I’ve been on stage when they start—and it feels like an honor, but it also feels like a lot of pressure to get the ball rolling and make sure your energy is up there where it needs to be. Especially for something like this.

The cast is obviously amazing. You get a chance to run around and have fun with them night after night.

Oh, my God, it’s so stimulating. This is one of the best jobs I’ve ever had hands down, because everybody’s so good at their job and so creative. They never stop working. Tony Shalhoub is a maniac. He works on his bits. He’s still working on stuff. When he’s not onstage, he’s backstage running through things, trying to figure out certain jokes. And just the other night I was backstage with Justin and Tony and I lost some laughs that I had since the beginning, and we talked it. We were whispering. We practiced different versions of what it could be, and we figured it out and I got it back. Everyone’s so generous, and there are no crazy egos in this cast. It’s really stimulating and fun. I just feel really, really lucky to be a part of it. Everybody says stuff like that, but I actually really mean it. [LAUGHTER]

And Justin Bartha, this is his first Broadway show and it looks like he’s been doing this for years.

That’s what I’ve been saying, you’d never know this was his supposed debut. He did do plays in high school, but obviously that was a few years ago. He’s just blown me away. I love being on stage with him. I love watching him. I love watching him and Tony. I literally stand backstage and watch some of their scenes every single night. I think they’re so delicious together. And he’s just game, he’s a pleasure.

Do they change—especially somebody like Tony—does he change his bits up on a whim?

Well, you can’t because the precision with which you have to execute, especially the physical stuff. It’s very scientific. Throughout the rehearsal process this has a lot to do with Stanley too, who I think is some bizarre master of comedy. Like, we figured out three knocks is funnier than five sometimes. Or, if you reach out with your left arm it makes the joke work where your right arm kills it. It’s stuff you can’t really explain, but obviously it’s fascinating. But he will—if Tony feels like there’s a joke or something funny he had in a scene somewhere he will keep digging until he finds it. And he can make things funny that with any other actor wouldn’t be funny. Something about his manner is so hysterical.

The show is probably like a marathon every night, and like you said everything has to be perfectly executed. You’ve got to be exhausted by the end of the night.

Yeah, especially that crazy curtain call.

Oh my God, that was hilarious!

I feel like I’m going to the gym at eleven o’clock. It’s so weird. It’s exhausting but it’s especially exhausting for—you know Justin gets very little time off stage. For him and Tony it’s especially marathon-like. I’m really tired.

How is it working with Stanley as a director? He’s a brilliant actor.

I’m trying to think if I’ve ever worked with another actor as a director before. I don’t know that I have. But he, first of all, is very sympathetic. Because he’s also an actor and he knows what it’s like to be up there. But because he’s an actor first, he gets inside it himself. Unlike with other directors, I really feel like we all worked on it together. He was as much of a “Lets figure this part out” process as any of the actors would be. Everybody says this, but he has a real collaborative nature, and so ideas came from every single person that was in the room; our stage management team, the producers who were watching, everybody who felt free to chime in and figure something out that needed to be figured out. I’m a hippie at heart, so I loved that. Equal opportunity directing. But he’s also so smart about comedy that you trust him. Many times in rehearsal process he says “Just trust me. I know this is funny.” And he was right. It happened all the time.

Have you or has anyone else completely lost it on stage laughing-wise?

I hate to tell you this but that happens at least once a week. It’s so genuine. And there are a few of us who are weaker than others. Some might say less professional. But Brooke Adams is made out of steel; she just doesn’t lose it. But there are other people [LAUGHING] like myself who are a just a little bit more vulnerable in that area. I just have the hardest time. Especially… the people are really funny. Sometimes they just look at you cross-eyed and that’s it. I’m just a human. I can’t be any stronger than I am. It’s tough! [LAUGHTER] The audience loves it when it happens. Did we break the day that you were there?

No, actually you didn’t. I was almost waiting for it because the audience was completely busting up laughing, and I just don’t know how you guys sometimes can save face.

I know. It works half the time, especially when the audience gets really tickled and they don’t stop laughing. It’s human nature to want to laugh also. It’s so hard to keep a straight face. The inside of my mouth is bitten to pieces just from chomping down on my cheek. Because I’m a laugher anyways, so it’s not a skill I have in life.

Were there any parts in the show where you didn’t expect to get as much of a laugh as you did?

Yeah. Especially after being in the rehearsal room and doing the same jokes for the same people. We really needed an audience. And there were parts of it—I thought the play was really funny when I read it, but I didn’t know it was this funny. The giddy frenzy the audience is in—I call it Oprah-like, you know with Oprah how people are screaming and losing it in the audience—when they get to that point, I had no idea it was going to be that kind of escalated delirium. It is so thrilling to be on stage when that happens. It is such a present in life, I can’t even stand it.

You’re from New Orleans?

Yeah, I grew up in Slidell. I went to school at NOCA. It’s a creative arts High School that has music, a jazz program and art. It was like FAME but it was in New Orleans. It’s funny because I actually was an artist; I painted and drew and made things my entire childhood. I heard about this school and I wanted to go into art. But you had to show a portfolio and I didn’t have one. And I didn’t sing, I didn’t write, I didn’t dance, I didn’t play an instrument, so that left acting. It was random. I was like, “What’s a monologue?” I picked one, did it, got in and have literally done nothing else.

Then you ended up in San Diego.

For grad school.

Okay, so grad school for theatre?

Grad School for acting, theatre, and then I went to college in Evansville, Indiana for painting. I got a minor in oil painting, and my major was theatre. I’ve been in theatre classes since I was 15 years old. I have no excuse. [LAUGHTER]

How to you go from San Diego to ending up in New York City working with Nathan Lane on The Man Who Came To Dinner?

That’s a random story too because I had moved to LA after grad school—you have that showcase thing and I opted to move to LA—and I got a job as a reader for that play. And at one point Jerry Zaks turned to me and – there was a part for a young girl, a young woman. He said “Why don’t you audition.” I said “Sure.” It was the end of the first day, and at the end of the second day he had everybody come in; I did my audition and I got it. And that’s how I got to New York.

Do you think it helped you because you saw everything the other actresses did wrong?

I have to say, as much education as I’ve had in theatre – and I’ve had an embarrassing amount of it –  it was probably the most helpful thing that’s ever happened for me professionally. And I continued to be a reader while was in New York just to make a little extra money here and there. It’s so fascinating when people walk in the room, that’s it. That’s it. It’s already sold. People would sabotage themselves upon entering the room and they have no idea. You can tell. You have people come in who aren’t even right for a part, but because of who they are and how they saw themselves—and also talent and interpretation of the thing—will get a part. Where somebody might come in seemingly perfect and just wasn’t there. It was so interesting, I’ve never forgotten that. Auditions are weird. It’s not really acting it’s something else. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not really necessarily acting.

Do you think you’ve mastered the audition yet?

I think I am at least not scared of it. I enjoy them. I went through a period of stage fright and my auditioning got really affected. I’m certainly on the upswing from that. Actually the audition for this show was a really positive step in that direction, getting rid of stage fright.

How did you go about auditioning for the show? Did your agent called up and said “Hey, we got something for you.”

Yeah, that’s it. He sent me the sides and I was like, ‘Really, this is for the lead.’ The female lead anyway, this is obviously about the men. And I just went in and did it and it was a great audition. Stanley was really easy. He’s a very nice person immediately when you meet him. He’s really funny and he gave me a few adjustments, and we got along well. That was it. It was so pleasant.

So from the time you were in LA to the time you got the part, how long was that?

Let’s see, I graduated in April and it was a couple months later.

Wow, that’s awesome.

Yeah it was. [LAUGHS] I got really lucky.

So right now which do you like better; Broadway, television, film?

I don’t know. I haven’t had a lot of experience with film. I’m really curious about it. Plus, who wouldn’t want to do more. I spent time in LA, I don’t know that it suits me as much as it suits other people. Now, I’m married so I’ve had to pick a coast. My husband asked me very nicely to pick a coast, because I was going back and forth for awhile. I’m interested in all of it, but I just tend to work more in theatre, so I feel like that’s probably my home creatively. It’s hard. Eight shows a week is really hard. I would love to just go on a set and have hangout time and take my craft projects into a trailer. I do miss that kind of thing.

What do you do on your days off?

Well, what I’m doing today actually. I’m sewing. I have a blog and a website where I do sort of like Martha Stewarty I guess. I make stationary, I make clothes and vintage patterns, I try new recipes, I make up recipes, I bake. Anything creative that I can think to do. It’s like my second job, what I want to do when I’m an old lady.

What’s the website?

It’s www.littleredfox.typepad.com. And I sell all my art through it.

Cool. Ok, I’ll check it out.

Thank you. It’s a little girly, but you never know. [LAUGHTER]

What’s the best piece of advice someone gave you and what is some advice you can give to actors?

Well, Lance, I have a horrible memory. I do not remember a wonderful piece of advice, but I do have a—my piece of advice would be to be a reader. Because if you can get that job as a reader you learn a whole lot. Not to mention you get to spend time, casual time with people that hire you which is one reason why things worked for me. The other thing is—uh, that’s good enough, right? [LAUGHTER]

That’s perfect. That one story you told me about being a reader for a man who came to dinner, that’s awesome.

I know it’s one of those crazy things that happened. I just kept working from then. Just little stuff and gradually the parts got bigger. Here I am, and hopefully it will keep going.

Lend Me A Tenor is playing at the Music Box Theater, 239 West 45th Street, New York, NY. For Tickets, call (212) 639-6200  or click here