#Actor Interviews

[kasialoot]

Tumbl, you are the only place I can think to turn to so: please help me find the actor interviews from the cast of Star Trek (I think it's mostly TOS actors and writers but the guy plaing Q in TNG also had some valuable lines so anything goes as far as I'm aware). And I mean the gay fucking cursed content along the lines of "I wanted to fuck him and that's what I acted on" (which also I'm. Not sure where is from nor if it's even real, I migh have just imagined it). I am trying to win an argument with my mother here, it's high stakes!

[kingsandbastardz]

I'm watching a Zeng Shunxi MLC interview while pretending really hard that I am both literate and able to understand mandarin. Based off this machine translation, he's telling the story of his first impression of Xiao Shunyao again... about how he was intimidated and didn't talk to him at first (sounds like XSY was reserved and fierce looking in the beginning?) But then as he finally started talking to him, "Suddenly, I realized I wanted to hit him."

*cue montage of FDB and DFS bickering*

I have no idea if he was referring to the DFS character or XSY himself, cuz they both have the same relationship 😂 except XSY is obviously faaaaaaaar more gentle and tolerant than DFS is.

From another interview: "We fought each other for fun every day."

[popentertainment-interviews]

Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Bryan Cranston, Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Maya Hawke, Jake Ryan and Wes Anderson

Take Us Down To Asteroid City

by Jay S. Jacobs

No one in filmmaking has such an eccentrically idiosyncratic narrative voice as Wes Anderson. The acclaimed writer/director has been putting his very distinctive stamp on films for nearly 30 years, producing such unique entertainments as Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited, Moonlight Kingdom and The French Dispatch.

Anderson’s latest ensemble piece is Asteroid City, the story of a bunch of strangers who meet in a desert town in New Mexico in the 1950s right in time for an alien landing. (Of course, like all of Anderson’s films, this thumbnail sketch only touches on the levels of the narrative.)

As often with the cast, the film has a star-studded ensemble of stars who were dying to work with the filmmaker, including Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Bryan Cranston, Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Maya Hawke, Jake Ryan, Steve Carell, Margot Robbie, Live Schreiber, Matt Dillon, Ed Norton and Willem Dafoe.

The below discussion is culled from a virtual press conference which we attended in which many of the stars and the writer/director of Asteroid City discuss the experience of making and the meaning of the film.

On the inspiration for the film:

Wes Anderson: Oddly, that's not a question I've been asked specifically. The quick answer would be usually, for me, starting to write a script is usually not an idea for it. It's a couple of ideas. Two or three things… Roman Coppola and I wanted to write a part for Jason Schwartzman at the center of a movie that would be something he hadn't done before. We didn't really know what it was, but we had a few notions about what this character was going through. We were interested in the setting of 1950s New York theater. [A] golden age of Broadway-ish thing. We thought we'd tell a story of the play they're putting on. The original thing was it was a play called Automat and was going to all be in this automat. Then we decided it's too small. So we expanded it to the desert. I guess it then became something like this interaction of a black and white New York stage and a color cinema scope-ish western cinema story. Everybody's both an actor and the role they're playing, they mix together. That is how I got the idea for Asteroid City.

On finding out they would be a part of the film:

Jason Schwartzman: It was July of 2019. July 11th, 2019, actually. It was my anniversary. I was going [out] with my wife, but Wes was calling, so we pulled over. He said what I'm sure everyone here gets excited to hear, which was, "I've got an idea for something. I'm working on it with Roman. I can't tell you much, but we have an idea for you for something. We're going to work on it, and we'll get back to you when it's more completed. But you should be excited." That's a really rare, nice thing to get.

Tom Hanks: I met Wes at a restaurant in Rome about, I'm going to say, 15 years ago. It was a long time ago. Ed Norton said, "Hey, we're having dinner at this place in Rome."

Wes Anderson: Nino's.

Tom Hanks: This sounds like a movie from the 1960s.We were there, and part of it was like, "That's Wes Anderson?"I would imagine, the spectacle, the pompous or smoking a pipe, like what you did. We didn't talk about anything at all. I don't know if I said at that point, "Hey, come on, man, let me into that rep company of yours. Give me a call." And [years later] this came about literally because of a lovely email that said, "Would you like to come and join us?" And I said, "Yeah. Sure….” I haven't seen a Wes Anderson movie that I didn't wish that I was in. So it was great to be a part of this. The role was great. I think you used the reference of, "We're looking for a retired Ronald Reagan type." And I go, "I'm your man. I can do that.”

Jake Ryan: Yeah, after Moonrise [Kingdom], we sort of kept in touch. You had me be a part of a bunch of different projects that you were working on at the time. I would like to think that I had matured a little bit and [laughs] vaguely understood what I was doing at this point. So when I got the audition for this, I mean, you knew me.

On working on the film:

Bryan Cranston: I remember writing to Wes a little earlier after we had finished the film, and I said, "How are you feeling about it?" Quite honestly, Wes said, "I think it might be a really nice poem. I don't know about a film just yet." Because you were still in the throws of post and editing. He was just still trying to figure out where it was going…. The types of characters that he is imagining in his head. We can only take a glimpse into the head of Wes Anderson. We can't live there. That's his domain. We can only visit.

Jeffrey Wright: It was really like an equation that we had to figure out. And we figured it out. It was the wildest, strangest thing. I loved finding the answer.

Scarlett Johansson: What's unique about it is we're all circling the same thing. It's that sense of comradery that you have. One of the things that really touches me about the movie was how supportive all the performances are of one another in this way that's very noticeable. Maybe because we're all inside it but every performance stands out, but they make this beautiful sort of orchestra, the pieces all together.

Tom Hanks: For the end-up days to the Wes Anderson gravy train, the folks that were there for the first time, I wondered if we got to have ideas. Do we get to come in and say, "I was thinking about this?" We asked some of the veterans of it. "Do we get to say, 'How about this?'" And they said, "Yeah, sure. Sure, sure." We would, but then you would say, "Well, we don't have enough set to shoot that." That would be something. But I found you to be just as flexible as anybody would be, provided you're not going so far out of the realm of what you're going for.

Scarlett Johansson: Wes and I talked, tried to figure out the old Hollywood star. I was the Midge Campbell character. We shared some ideas about what type of a person this could be, or what kind of career she could've had. Did she come through the Actor's Studio? What did she sound like? I mean, I liked Bette Davis. She felt like Bette Davis feels. When you watch her, she seems comfortable in the space she takes up. I felt like that could be a good beginning. Also her voice, actually. She has a little bit of that Mid-Atlantic thing. Understanding where that came from, all that stuff was helpful.

Wes Anderson: Like Bette Davis, you said, "comfortable in her space," and it's a space that she's created, and a voice that she's cultivated – you know, an invented one.

Rupert Friend: There was so much freedom in that. One of the things we've talked about a lot is that Wes wrote one of his more succinct stage directions in the scene where we have our musical number, and it just said, "They dance." That was it. We kept saying, "When's the choreographer coming? When's the rehearsal?" It was like, "Oh, yeah, another time, another time." We got there, and we hadn't had any of that. It was just a kind of go for it. That feeling of exuberance. I remember it was actually an amazing moment.

Maya Hawke: Wes has just sort of cut all the fat and ridiculousness out of the moviemaking process. So many times when you have a scene partner, you have to establish a bond. You have these chemistry reads. It's like, "Oh, we're all going to meet, and we're going to talk, and you guys are going to get to know each other." Instead, Wes is like, "Why don't we just have dinner every night together? Wouldn't that be fine? Actually, you guys are off tomorrow, you should go for a walk." And we just did. We went for a bicycle ride. So often you're on hold when you're doing a movie. You get brought in and you sit in your trailer, and you wait. Wes has fixed that. You're always on hold 100 percent of the time. But you don't feel like you are because he's taken you out of this magical, wonderful place where you get to be both engaged in other people doing their work.

Scarlett Johansson: That's how it feels on the set. When I got there, my work was truncated into a short period of time. I could not have done it without having my scene partner, Jason, there. He was immediately completely available, present, rehearsed. It was just like falling into this comfortable pocket, you know?

Tom Hanks: You know those old movies about Hollywood where they're on the lot, and somebody is a cowboy, and there's a showgirl, and there's a Roman gladiator, and there's a guy dressed up like he's in Charles Dickens? That's what it's like hanging around getting ready to work. We're all in our costumes all day long.[clears throat] We're all dressed in these different things. We're all on hold ready to go do the work on the set. We're just incredibly focused and concentrated.

Jeffrey Wright: Basically, you're trapped. [laughs]

Maya Hawke: But you want to be trapped.

Adrien Brody: Then we all stay in the same hotel, and then Wes will say, "Oh, we got to go." Several of us will hop on a golf cart with Wes fully dressed in character. And so they'll be alien and a cowboy and a…

Tom Hanks: … A showgirl…

Adrien Brody: … or some children hanging off the back. Then we just make our way with a golf cart on the edge of this road through town, through Spain, and arrive upon this magnificent set. That is just mind-blowing. That is just as spectacular as it looks in the movie. Show up fully ready to roll and jump right into the scene, and let's get cracking.

Wes Anderson: Well, we did it under COVID protocols. I realized, I think we've been bubbling our movies for 15 or 18 years. [laughs] It wasn't that different from the usual.

Rupert Friend: I don't know if you saw this, Wes, but when we did that [dance routine], I threw my hat in the air, and behind the camera that day, Bill Murray had come to visit set, and he just caught it at the exact moment. It was just perfect.

Maya Hawke: I remember sitting and watching Scarlett and Jason do those incredible scenes between that window. I would come and sit next to Roman at his little monitor and watch them. Then after a little while Adrien would come over and he'd be sitting there, too. We were all engaged in the movie as a whole.

Jason Schwartzman: Over the years, we've been through so many different things. But it's fun to come back and to share the things that you've experienced with someone that you know and love. It's about going off and having adventures. It's like Halloween, dumping out your stuff, seeing what you're interested in.

Bryan Cranston: It's so specific and so dense with detail that it is sometimes, I have to read it a couple times to really get a sense of what we're doing. This is a movie about a television show that's doing an expose on a theater piece. That in itself is kind of a Russian doll thing. Then there's the actors who are also playing. So when you read that in script form, it can be a little daunting.

Hope Davis: The piece feels theatrical… It feels very loose, the way my early days in the theater felt. We were all jumping around in the desert with air guns in our hands. It had that kind of looseness. Movie making can be very slow and dull. This just felt so alive and so playful. It reminds you why you got into it in the first place for me.

Scarlett Johansson: This is so vivacious. It feels so exciting. Even just to be a new actress coming on the set just to watch other actors performing. It's a very unique experience for a film, I think.

Tom Hanks: There’s a very convivial atmosphere that we are all very much attracted to. That is the secondary experience. The work that we do on the set is incredibly focused and there’s nobody who works harder at this than Wes. Because Wes doesn’t walk away saying, no, that’s good enough.

On experiencing the finished film:

Stephen Park: It's just a beautiful realization of everything that Wes has prepared us. To actually see the film, it's mind-blowing. I saw it first just with my wife. Then I saw it again at Cannes the second time, and I felt like I hadn't seen it before. I was really struck emotionally the second time in a way that I wasn't the first time. I feel like I'm looking forward to seeing it again tonight, because I know I'm going to see all these new things. There's so much to savor in this movie.

On the subject of grief in the film:

Jason Schwartzman: With grief, my experience is that there’s no wrong way to feel if you’re grieving. If you don’t feel sad when everyone else is sad, that’s okay. It’s worse to feel bad about not feeling a certain way that everyone else is feeling. You just feel the way you feel. That’ll be okay. Just trust that. I didn’t think about that while we were doing it.

Scarlett Johansson: It’s the enormity of this grief. My character says I don’t want that feeling so I’m just going to not have it. Which is so great and convenient. I mean, especially if you’re an actor. It’s perfect. You just do not have that feeling and erase it. Maybe you don’t want to either, and that’s perfectly fine. That’s the world that she’s living in.

Jason Schwartzman: When I saw the movie and Adrian’s character says, “Just keep doing it.” To me that’s what it is. Don’t feel bad about it. Don’t worry about how you’re feeling. Just feel it. It’s okay. Just keep going. This movement really kind of hit me when he said that.

Scarlett Johansson: It’s funny too, because I think when we have the conversation about what connects us… Not necessarily helpful for a father of four kids, but I think it gives them both permission to be living just in the moment that they want to be in and that’s fine. You don’t have to feel obligated to, as you were saying, have a moment they’re supposed to be having or whatever. That’s what they recognize in each other in that window of time.

Wes Anderson: I guess we have these milestones in our lives and particularly as you get older. The dead begin to pile up. You go through this thing where you start to say, “I cannot believe how often you say the person who I would actually like to hear his or her point of view is this one, and I’m never going to get the answer to this question I want to ask. I will never get the answer.” That just starts to happen more and more and more. Just the power of these losses, it’s among the key milestones. At least that’s my experience. I guess you circle back to these things that you can’t quite find the answers about.

Copyright ©2023 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: June 21, 2023.

Photos ©2022 Roger Do Minh. Courtesy of Pop. 87 Productions/Focus Features. All rights reserved.

[auressea]

I'm enthralled..

by the cast and writers of The Sandman series.

today I watched a bunch of interview panels.

.....and they're ALL SO IN LOVE with this work- this story and the original story. They all READ the comics! and then they actively collaborated to build up the characters in a new way that made the story fresh while respecting the source.

They're so excited about it and passionate and FANS of their own project. you can tell most of them watched the finished show. They watched the episodes that don't feature them! They talk about each other's work with such respect and joy!

and... this shouldn't feel so refreshing. but in these days of corporate generated 'entertainment' where an actor doesn't even read the script? Where everyone's acting in a green box? and then contractually obligated to tour'n'talk for promo?

It's DELIGHTFUL to experience this amazing creative work through their eyes.

[beyonddarkness]

The Prince of Cats

It's interesting that Tevildo's character in The Tale of Tinúviel is an early version of Sauron in The Silmarillion. Everything about Tevildo in that particular story parallels Sauron--being a great servant of Morgoth; holding Beren captive (which caused Lúthien to endeavor to rescue him); and the fight with Huan. Tevildo is even said to be a fay in beastlike shape, which (fay) is probably an early version of the word Maia (roughly), because Melian is a fay, and they are part of the group of beings that...

[...] were born before the world, and are older than its oldest, and are not of it. - (an excerpt from the Tale of the Coming of the Valar, taken from the book Beren and Lúthien.)

But what really got me is the description of Tevildo's eyes. We all know that Sauron's Eye is like a cat's, but since Tevildo is Sauron (in that early version of the story of Beren and Lúthien) maybe there was more to the casting of Charlie Vickers than we thought (him being green-eyed and what not).

From The Tale of Tinúviel:

His eyes were long and very narrow and slanted, and gleamed both red and green [...]

And I've always thought that the sharpening of his teeth as he screamed was to draw the connection to him being Lord of Werewolves... but now that I think about it... he looks more like a cat than a wolf.

His purr was like the roll of drums and his growl like thunder, but when he yelled in wrath it turned the blood cold...

...and indeed small beasts and birds were frozen as to stone, and dropped lifeless often at the very sound.

And just as a reminder of what plays as he drops her...

(by the way, the mind-warping only spanned the length of the staring contest--meaning we got to see what happened outside and inside her mind. He drops her in the water, while we hear yelling in the music, hinting at what part of the vision she is in.)

Here are some sidenotes:

1) Reminder that Charlie said in that one interview that his favorite creatures in Middle-earth were cats and/or dogs (particularly werewolves and Tevildo).

2) When Charlie says that he's excited about the different SHAPES that Sauron takes in the Second Age, and that he himself is excited to explore those things...

We know Sauron takes on different shapes in this era. All I can say is maybe to that. Maybe we're going to do those things. But I'm incredibly excited to explore him doing these things that we know he does.

What different shapes might we see, I wonder.

[matthew-macfadyen-gifs]

Matthew Macfadyen Being Charming During Interviews (10/ ∞ ) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

[kittyann]

😯😊This Posh Thailand interview is a must-read for fans of First and Khaotung. Be sure to scroll to the middle to find the English translation, and Enjoy!

[shipperpersempre]

Guarda "【ENG SUB】FirstKhaotung U!MAGAZINE Interview" su YouTube

[holmesandyoyofanblog]

2021 Interview with John Schuck

I found an interview with John Schuck dated Aug. 9, 2021 on "Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast". I transcribed the parts related to "Holmes & Yoyo" below, but can listen to the whole interview at this link:

1:07:41

Gilbert Gottfried: Now-- Now we can't be nice to you any longer.

Frank Santopadre: Uh-oh.

GG: Talk to us about "Holmes and Yoyo".

FS: Also created by Leonard Stern!

John Schuck: Created by Leonard Stern… Well, it wasn't… [laughs] I must say…

[GG and FS laugh]

JS: All right guys, it was a crap show. Come on…

[GG and FS laugh]

JS: It was well-intended. It was an-- It was an attempt by Leonard to get back to two-man comedy like Abbott and Costello.

FS: Mm-hmm.

JS: I mean, you name your duo. Of course, it never turned out to be that. But several interesting things happened. The craftspeople that could make something funny no longer existed in Hollywood. For instance, if you wanted to take a phone and water squirt and some guy pours water in at one end it comes out and hits them-- the other guy in the face-- those gags, they didn't know how to recreate.

FS: How interesting.

JS: Um, we had a-- a radio that was supp-- I forget what it was. Um, and I remembered that it was-- it couldn't-- it couldn't do that-- there were a number of things… I'm-- I'm babbling here… um, maybe that was one of the problems with the show. But, we worked hard at it. John Astin directed most of them. We re-- we did a lot of naughty things. We rewrote, uh, Richard Shull, a wonderful actor, um, and an interesting man. Uh, we worked 18, 19-hour days for that show, and it just was definitely a dud. Interestingly enough, the previews for it were shown on ABC during the Super Bowl, and so, for our first night, we had the highest-rated show [chuckles] of the year!

[GG laughs]

FS: Oh, interesting!

JS: An-- And it went quickly down.

[GG laughs]

JS: I mean, by today's standards, with so many s-- We-- We went down like from a 22 to 16, you know.

FS: I always thought of it as Leonard trying to take Dick Gautier's Hymie the Robot from "Get Smart" and spin it off into-- into his own series.

JS: Uh yeah… no?…

FS: Although, you had th-- "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Man--

JS: no

FS: Uh, "Woman" were going strong at that time, so--

JS: That's right.

FS: You could understand the thinking.

JS: I also think we made a-- and here I had my-- my argument with Leonard.

[clearing throat]

JS: In the pilot… uh, there's an accident and I'm-- I fall apart on the street and, as a result, Dick Shull knows that I'm a robot. And I said that should never have happened. He shouldn't know that I'm, uh, a robot that way there's much more conflict about why can't I act like normal people and blah, blah, blah and all that kind of stuff. But, um, it-- it was what it was, and we did our 18 shows and… uh, I did have the honor that year, though, with it of being the first actor to be on two tele-- national television series on two different Networks.

FS: There you go! Oh, "McMillan & Wife" and "Holmes & Yoyo".

JS: Right.

FS: Very good. You know, we joke about it because it's easy to-- it's easy to poke fun at-- at-- at-- shows--

JS: I joke about it.

FS: Yeah, of course!

[GG laughs]

FS: But you-- you have to applaud Stern for trying to bring back that kind of classic comedy form to prime time.

JS: Yeah. And you know, we never made a pilot for it. [clears throat] Uh, Jackie Cooper directed the-- we had a-- a scene and Jackie Cooper directed it, and we went up into Sid Sheinberg's office and moved all his furniture away, and Dick and I did the scene. And on the basis of that performance, he-- he let the show go on the air. So, we never made a pilot which was unusual.

FS: Why did the r-- Why did the android have a Russian name?

[laugh]

FS: Why was he Yo…yo…

JS: Gregor Yoyonovich?

FS: Yoyonovich.

[GG laughs]

FS: Why wasn't he just "Yoyo"?

JS: I dunno. They couldn't find a Scandinavian one?

[laughter]

[projector starting up sound effect]

[The "Holmes & Yoyo" opening credits play.]

[Polaroid ejecting sound. Brass music sting]

Capt. Sedford: You've got four partners in the hospital! Come on, Alex! You're a good cop!

Alex: By the way, who's my new partner?

[Sounds of Polaroid ejection, typing, and typewriting bell]

Narrator Paraphrasing Dr. Babcock: We call him Yoyo. He weighs 427 pounds. He's a completely mobile computer specially programmed for police work.

Capt. Sedford: Is he indestructible?

Narrator: We think so.

Capt. Sedford: Send in Holmes.

[peppy funk theme music]

Narrator: This is top secret. No one, including Holmes, must know his identity.

Yoyo: Alex, no! Don't!

Alex: You're not a person!

Yoyo: You're not going to tell them?

Alex: In my book, you got the makings of a good cop. That's what I put in my report.

[music]

[laughter]

FS: One episode was directed by, uh, Jack Arnold. I don't know if--

JS: Yes.

FS: --you'd remember this, Gilbert, the director of "Creature from the Black Lagoon", "Incredible Shrinking Man", and "Tarantula".

1:51:28

FS: By the way, Richard Shull-- I was talking to John, by the way, who, uh, who starred with Richard Shull in "Holmes & Yoyo"-- By the way, you worked with Richard Shull and Richard Stahl.

JS: Yep.

FS: But possibly not Richard Schaal--

JS: No.

FS: --who was married to Valerie Harper…

JS: To Valerie, yeah.

FS: Okay, okay but there you go. But he told me, what? He was a throwback who drove a car from the '40s? Richard-- Richard Shull?

JS: He-- He and his wife, Marilyn, lived in the '40s.

[FS laughs. GG laughs.]

JS: They bought u-- all their clothes from the '40s. It's-- it's various stores. He would write only with a-- a fountain pen. He had a 1940 Chevy or something. A Buick or Chevy. He had-- He was a railroad aficionado, and he owned his own railroad car.

FS: Wow!

JS: And for the opening gift, uh, because he knew of my affection for, as a kid, of-- of taking the train from Buffalo, New York to New York-- to New Jersey to see my grandparents, and I had remarked on the-- on this doeskin type, uh, blankets that they used to have, he gave me one of those blankets numbered so you could find out where it came from. Which compartment on which-- which train.

FS: That's cool.

JS: Very thoughtful, but he was-- he was eccentric. And their-- their house was all, um, from the '40s. All their furniture. Everything.

FS: He was like a-- sort of a-- a-- a-- a curmudgeonly actor. A little bit like a Matthau.

JS: Yes.

FS: In some ways.

JS: Yes, he had this wonderful, unusual, mobile rubbery face, and, uh, very distinctive and--

FS: Loved him!

JS: Um, he was doing a Neil Simon play, went home between shows in New York, and never c-- you know, the break, never came back.

FS: Oh.

GG: Ohh.

JS: It was a bit of a shock. I hate to end this on such a downer but…

FS: All right then, sing us a little more from "Annie".

[trademarkstraggler]

Gahhhhd did anyone watch the GQ interview I am CRYING at the neutral radish

[nat-20s]

I fucking LOVE that Donna is not immune to being a little starry-eyed over The Doctor in the way that many of us get a little starry-eyed over our best friends but she IS immune to being that way in front of them lmao. Double love that this appears to also be Catherine Tate and David Tennant's dynamic

[kingsandbastardz]

Interview with Tien Jia Rui. Hah. I KNEW he would be an extrovert. He wanted to verbally fight back during scenes but the director told him he had to bear it -- so I'm seeing him getting his way in his vids behind the scenes with Ryan lol. I like the bit about how Ryan Cheng cooperated in a scene with him to maintain the mood, even though he was barely in the shot (and again let him continue holding him after shooting so TJR could transition out from the scene's emotions)

[popentertainment-interviews]

Dermot Mulroney

Look Out, Old Mack is Back

By Ronald Sklar

Once again, busy actor Dermot Mulroney is stepping – or in this case, singing and dancing – outside his comfort zone.

“I’m always comfortable when I’m having fun,” he insists, however.

This time, the fun presents itself not in another movie (there are lots of them. Check his IMDb), but as an “in concert” production of the Broadway musical Mack & Mabel (three nights only – February 16-18, 2024 – at North Hollywood’s El Portal Theater).

The fully staged, choreographed event is an inaugural production of the All Roads Theater Company; it’s based on the “forgotten” 1970s musical about Tinseltown’s earliest era. Expect Keystone Kops and flappers.

“It’s a romance and a beautiful story,” Dermot says. “It’s a major event in the musical theater world happening for a very short run.”

Dermot stars as silent-film director Mack Sennett and introduces Jenna Rosen as Mabel Normand, who became one of early Hollywood’s biggest stars.

A revival like this is no small thing for both the theater culture and for the actor himself.

“There are thirty people in this company,” Dermot says. “I’m learning so much from all of them.”

That the original show somehow slipped under the cultural radar is a baffling crime – the 1974 production starred no less than Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters; David Merrick produced it, with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman (Hello, Dolly, Mame). The show received eight Tony nominations and won none. Herman was not nominated. It ran for just 66 performances.

Yet somehow, over the decades, the original cast album grew an obsessive fan base, and there is new interest in the story.

Dermot says, “You learn now, in the computer age, that anything and everything has its following. The people who know Mack & Mabel are crazy about it.”

What else is crazy – so crazy that it makes perfect sense – is the shared hope for the show to make its way back to Broadway, fifty years later.

“There is every reason for that to happen,” Dermot says.

So why would a man who is known for so many movies suddenly take to the boards?

“I’ve decided to do Mack & Mabel for two reasons,” Dermot says. “One: I’ve never done this before, singing in a full musical. And two: because I’ve always wanted to do it. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity when it came to me out of the blue.”

Leading man roles sure enough attach themselves to Dermot. He’s been at it for about forty years, starring in everything from My Best Friend’s Wedding to The Wedding Date and Young Guns. On TV, he played Rachel’s boss on Friends, as well as prominent roles in New Girl and Shameless. He is also an accomplished cellist and has played professionally on various on-screen projects as well as in live musical performances.

Mack & Mabel, however, is a whole different animal.

“It’s hugely challenging for me,” Dermot admits. “It’s a world I’ve never inhabited. The two times I’ve been in musicals were in my senior year at Northwestern University, a thousand-seat theater. I sang in an operetta, as Ko-Ko The Executioner in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado.”

There is also the one that got away: the time that Francis Ford Coppola chose Dermot to play The Big Kahuna in his ambitious Gidget stage musical (alas, it never got past the workshop phase). And he has indeed sung in public before: on the big screen, to Julia Roberts, on a boat (see it here).

Mack & Mabel, though, is the musical Big Time. It fits nicely with his continuing busy career, including a key supporting role in the current hit romcom Anyone But You, as well as his turn as Detective Bailey in Scream 6.

“I’ve just been incredibly blessed,” he says of his journey. “I’ll admit, that’s what I thought the assignment was when I first became an actor, to be a man of a thousand faces.”

His face can now also be regularly seen on social media, as he has pumped up his posts on Instagram. Most of them push his current projects, but he also shares the kick he gets out the universally common misspelling of his name (think “Dermont” on a Starbucks cup).

“That is so fun for me because it’s happened to me my whole life,” he says.

Still, he enters the world of social media carefully, and treads lightly, as online life can sometimes do bad things to our offline attention spans.

The solution?

“We have to re-expand our attention spans,” he says. “That’s why the four-five-six-month learning process on Mack & Mabel has been incredibly good for my brain.”

Find out more about Mack & Mabel here.

Copyright ©2024 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: February 12, 2024.

Photo #1 © 2018 Robby Klein/Contour by Getty Images. Courtesy of Ken Werther PR. All rights reserved.

Photos #2 & 3 © 2024. Courtesy of Ken Werther PR. All rights reserved.

[rosered-schneeweisschens-sis]

1:07 there’s gotta be fanart of this, it’s been 8 years. please tell me there’s art of the Jim Carrey Grinch smoking up.

[bivampir]

it's SO funny that when asked what he had to do to prepare for his role in IWTV Sam Reid says he had to learn how to play the piano, learn to speak French, Italian, and English with a French accent. Bailey read IWTV religiously and added her own comments, and kept an actual fucking journal she wrote entirely as Claudia. meanwhile Jacob Anderson, when asked the same question, just responds with “oh nothing, i was already emo”. icons and legends only