Interview with Eric Sheffer Stevens Part Four

Hard to believe, but this is the last day of my interview with Eric Sheffer Stevens. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I did! Today, we take a look at what's coming up next for Eric, and some final thoughts on the acting life.

I know you’ve just finished up with SILENT HOUSE; are you working on anything right now? Do you have anything on the horizon? Or are you just appreciating a little time off?

Yeah, that’s good. I’ve been trying to get stuff done at home this whole week, stuff I’ve neglected for months now.

We’re developing a play that’s just about written. It’s a four-hander (four characters), a playwright that I’ve worked with before. Over the past year and a half we’ve also been doing readings of a two-hander (two character play) that he had written about a married couple. Right now he’s writing the four-hander. Jenny Mudge and Chris Coffey, my wife Jenny and I. The couples are mixed up, and it’s sort of – I don’t know how to really pitch it. It’s very funny and it’s really good. [The playwright] is about 60 pages into it, and we just had a reading of it last week. We’re sort of close on a grant to start a company that would produce this sometime next year when all of our schedules come together.

Eric and his wife Jenny in last summer's Much Ado About Nothing

He’s just sold the film rights to this other script, so he’s in L.A. all the time. All of us are in different places. But that’s what we’re working on right now, this week included. Taking some time to all work on it together, try to move it closer.

And then it’s always a mystery as to what acting work comes along. You just start auditioning again, and something happens, and you start it two weeks later. I’m sure nothing right now, over the holidays. I’ll just be doing this, and then in January things are going to start up in earnest again. And I may be here, or I may go out to L.A. for a couple months, just sort of be back and forth a little bit.

LEFTY LOOSEY RIGHTY TIGHTY. Where is that in the process right now?

I just heard from them today. They think they’re going to have a rough cut next week, which is pretty amazing. It’ll still be a little bit of time before they have a final cut. Their deadline for themselves is the first week of December so they can make the cutoff for SXSW festival. I know James is working every single night on it. They’re sending it back and forth. The editor, who was also our DP (Director of Photography), is out in LA, so they’re doing a lot of filesharing and putting it all together. I haven’t seen any of it, except what you’ve seen, the teaser, which I loved. I’m going to go out there sometime this week to James’ house to go over the footage with him.

Well, we’re campaigning hard for the Seattle International Film Festival. Late January deadline. Plenty of time.

Sounds great! That sounds perfect, yeah.

Current TV lineup, broadcast and cable – what show would you like to be a regular cast member on, and what show would you like to guest star on?

MAD MEN, I’d love to guest star on. Just started watching that; it’s a great show. I’d love to go back in time and be a regular on THE WEST WING. That show was amazing.

Here’s another one that came through on Twitter. People were tossing out questions for the radio call in but didn’t get through. If you were to create your own primetime show, what kind of show would it be? Is there any kind of a feel to a show that you’re really drawn to, or just whatever happens to cross your plate?

I think anything that David Simon was writing, I would kill to be on. The guy’s doing TREME right now, he did THE WIRE, did HOMICIDE. That’s just amazing TV writing.

I’m sort of behind in TV shows. I don’t have cable, and so I watch things on DVD later. Much later. Sometimes years later. I still haven’t seen DEADWOOD; I’ve never seen THE SOPRANOS. I have kind of bizarre little quirks like that.

But yeah, I think it would be an hour-long drama, but also something bizarre and funny, which I think all good writing has. Tying all of the elements together, which makes the comedy more funny and the profundity deeper, by contrasting those two things.


I have some questions from my kids.

FutureStar: How did you become an actor? What advice would you give to someone just starting out?

I was always interested, and I started doing it in college. I stuck with it, and it just sort of kept happening. Sometimes that works out, and sometimes it doesn’t.

I’d just say pay attention to the story, more than to your own character. As far as how your character is telling the story and contributing to the story. For too long I just really wanted to be an actor. I was focusing a little too much on my role, my character, and not about storytelling. Something clicked for me when I realized that I was a storyteller, and that made me a much better actor.

Midkid: How early do you have to get up in the morning for acting jobs?

Yeah, that’s hard for me. Theater is pretty awesome because you start late. A lot of times you rehearse noon to eight pm, or ten to six. But TV you get up really early. Always before the sun comes up. It’s awful. And film, too, but they’re longer days. At least on [daytime] TV you’re getting up at 5:30 to be there at seven, but then you’re done usually at two or three. The worst day was five pm, but you’re not doing twelve hour days. They don’t do that. Film and [primetime] TV is often twelve or fourteen hours. You’re working from seven in the morning to nine at night on those days that you’re shooting. But no, you don’t sleep in.

GPS: How would you feel if you were a superstar?

I don’t think I would like it. Not what I’m gunning for. I think I would hate it. It just seems like you would lose a huge part of your life. It would be nice to skirt that and still make a living at it.

A huge thank you to Eric Sheffer Stevens for taking the time to talk with me, and for sharing so much with us all. And thank you to all the readers who took the time to keep coming back for more. I so appreciate it!

If you missed the earlier parts of the interview, links are below. And if you liked this interview, and want to read others in the series, check out the two-parter interviews with James Yaegashi, director of Lefty Loosey Righty Tighty, and Parrish Hurley, creator of "the (718)", a TV pilot.

Eric Sheffer Stevens, Part One

Eric Sheffer Stevens, Part Two
Eric Sheffer Stevens, Part Three

James Yaegashi, Part One

James Yaegashi, Part Two

Parrish Hurley, Part One
Parrish Hurley, Part Two

Interview with Eric Sheffer Stevens Part Three

Is it day three already? Wow - time flies! Today's theme is As The World Turns, which is where the majority of us were introduced to Eric Sheffer Stevens. Learn how Dr. Reid Oliver impacted Eric's life/career, how some of those character quirks came about, and what he REALLY thinks of the Cartoon Saga. Enjoy!

Would you say that the role of Dr. Reid Oliver opened doors for you, limited you, both, or neither?
It remains to be seen what kind of doors it might open, but it was a great opportunity, and it can only be good. There’s nothing that’s limiting about it. Because it was such a character role, and also because it was just less than a year. It would be pretty impossible for me to be stereotyped. It was actually great for me as far as other things I’ve done, to have a guy like that in my body of work. Because of how bizarre and specific he was written. So yeah, for me, it can only be a really great thing.

Were you surprised by the reception for the character, or the attention that you got for the role? On paper I can see it looking like, “oh, secondary character in a secondary storyline, couple of days a week, a good, solid few months of work, steady income” kind of a thing. A great character, a lot of fun to do.

Yeah, that was all exactly my reaction.

And then, all of a sudden did it feel like it exploded on you? In a good way?

It was very surprising. I was pretty unaware of it for a while. Just [noticed] that they kept me working and brought me more and more into the world there. It was just a lot of fun. And that he got so popular was very surprising to me and very unexpected. And, obviously, you think you’re just going along and … it was just what you said. They said two or three months. I’m not sure what they thought the storyline would be, but that character would be around for two or three months. And I thought, “that’s fantastic! That’ll be so much fun.” And then that they wanted to keep him around indefinitely was such a surprise. A welcome surprise – it was a happy thing. That was a character I could have played for…I would have been happy to go on longer with it.

We would have been happy to watch it, too.

My friend Maia and I live in different cities, but we always watched the show together. We’d get on IM and chat while we were watching. I used to joke that it was time for Master Class, because we loved seeing the choices you would make for the character. Line deliveries, or bits of stage action, it was like, “Oh, my God, I never would have thought of that, but it’s perfect.” It was really enjoyable.

That’s really nice. Thank you. You know, it was fun because there was a freedom there that I didn’t realize at first. I think each little thing that I got away with … I mean, they were really happy with it, but I felt more and more emboldened. “Oh, they’ll let me eat whatever food is on set, they’ll let me do anything! This is great!”

Let you drink somebody else’s lemonade.

Yeah, right. [laughter] That one was an odd one. I’ve talked about this before, but we had to redo it, because one of the cameramen started laughing. It was just so random.

Excellent. [laughter] You know it works when you can get the crew to break.

Or it’s just that bad. It could be that as well.

Have you been approached by any other soaps since the end of As The World Turns?

Yes, two. They were contract roles. I remember they were described as “nice”. And I said both times to my agent, “Wait, wait, stop.” So, neither one of those seemed right, but I’m definitely open to it. It depends on what would come along.

I have to say as someone who has done some theater, I completely get where you’re coming from. Because the nice characters are not as interesting to play.

And there’s a lot of them, and they just sort of move through the story. I know I would be really bored. And that’s a really bad place to be. Just not feeling challenged. I’d be miserable, my family would hate me, I’d be very crabby. So that’s something I have to think very seriously about.

I remember being offered a role in PICNIC, down in Baltimore. This is right after Trent and I worked down there together. It was for the role of Alan, who is the nice guy who gets jilted. The hunky guy, Hal, you know, the William Holden part, that’s the fun role to play. I’m not right for that, but I also didn’t want to play the nice guy. It would just be really … this is coming out wrong. I don’t have anything against being nice. At all. In life. And there are plenty of nice characters. But there are tons of parts where that’s their only function is to be the nice guy, so the other person can be interesting. That’s what I’m talking about. So I passed on that.

But then the guy who was playing it bailed on them after opening weekend, to go do something else. And they called me to go on in a week. And I said, “No! What?” That’s actually your nightmare. That whole being naked, not knowing your lines, onstage thing. And my wife said, “Do it. It would be the most ridiculous challenge. It would be horrible and they would love you and you’d save the situation and it would be the most unique experience.”

So I called back and said, “Uh, okay.” And I took a train that day, and the director took the train with me. I rehearsed that night, and then I rehearsed the next day, and went on that next night with a book in my hand. It was terrifying. And that was fun. The character wasn’t the challenge, the circumstances were. I went on twice with a book and the third night, the Friday night, I did it off-book. That was another scary, horrible night. And I got through. It was fun. And after playing that part for a week I was completely bored. But the whole first week was worth that.

The cartoon saga. I know you’ve heard of it, or been made aware of it.

Oh, I’ve watched a lot of them. Yeah, it’s hilarious.

The Mistake is my personal favorite because it’s based on the first time we talked, on that radio call-in when I asked about the Shakespeare plays.

The one with Yorick? Yeah. Those cartoons are hilarious. They’re so smart. They’re ridiculously smart. I think my favorite was the Bad Hair Day. The continuity one. That was genius. So funny.


There have actually been major posts on that (subject).

Oh, yeah. We had to shoot one scene, [where] we were making out, at the end of one of the episodes and the beginning of the next. And we never did the other episode until a month [later] because of some snow day or something, I don’t remember what happened. And he got his hair cut. I was like, “what are you doing?” And he said, “Yeah, it wasn’t supposed to be this short.” So then they’re trying to push it forward or something. Trying to make it all look [the same]. That was one where I knew it wouldn’t work right away.



There were a lot of conspiracy theories about that – were there reshoots, are they trying to make it hotter or what?

No, no reshoots. Just a scheduling thing. Your hair grows. When you wait that long to shoot the next scene, it’s going to look a little weird.

The joke making the rounds was that it was such a hot kiss, not only did it shorten Luke’s hair, it dried Reid’s hair.

[laughter] Yeah. That’s something they let go of, a little bit.

It must be cool to have something like the cartoon saga created around a character you developed.

Oh, yeah. Of course it is.

Guess what? Tomorrow is the last day! So be sure to stop by to see what's on the horizon for Eric!

Eric Sheffer Stevens, Part One

Eric Sheffer Stevens, Part Two
Eric Sheffer Stevens, Part Four

Interview with Eric Sheffer Stevens Part Two

Welcome to Day Two of my interview with Eric Sheffer Stevens. Today we talk about challenging roles, dream directors, and working with Terri (Colombino) Conn.

What would you say is the most challenging role you’ve performed to date?

[long pause] I don’t… I don’t know. I have kind of a hard time with those questions. “What was your favorite scene?” And I look back and it’s just a blank. I don’t see anything. Hold on here. I’m moving over to the computer to open up my resume.

[laughing] We can go ahead and skip that question if you want. They’re not typed in stone.

No, wait, I’m opening it now. I’ll glance over this and come back to it.

Okay. Well, you had mentioned in one of your radio call-ins that you had just completed a scene with Terri that you really enjoyed, but you couldn’t tell us what it was because it hadn’t aired yet. So there was a bit of a debate going on on Twitter about what scene it was.

[NOTE FROM KATE: YES, I AM AWARE THAT TEN SECONDS AFTER HE TOLD ME HE HAD A HARD TIME WITH THAT KIND OF QUESTION, I ASKED HIM THAT EXACT QUESTION. /FACEPALM]

Oh, yeah? What month was it?

Um… it was the first radio show, so it was probably right near the end. Within the last month of filming, the last few episodes, I think?

What did I do with Terri… I don’t know if this was it, because I have no idea, I don’t remember that, but it might have been – what did I say about it? Did I say anything about it? Or did I just say I enjoyed it?

You said you really enjoyed it, and it was a lot of fun to do, but you couldn’t say what it was because it hadn’t [aired] yet.

Oh, this wasn’t what I was thinking of, because this wasn’t fun to do, but… well, maybe. There were two things it could have been. The funny one, towards the end, was ...the toothbrush thing. I thought that was so random when the writers wrote that I actually keep my toothbrush in a very specific place in the holder, and that I noticed that it was turned the wrong way. And then she says, “Oh, yeah, Chris stayed over,” and I threw it. That was fun to do. That was a fun scene. I’m not sure if that was it.

One of the ones I was most impressed with with her was when she finds out Chris is sick, and then she finds out I already knew, that I knew the whole time. And then she just hits me in the chest. She hit me so hard that afterward I lifted up my shirt and showed her that her handprint was right on my chest, and it was there for half the day. But I thought it was really fantastic. Because before doing it, she was like, “I don’t know, it’s kind of stupid,” and the director’s going, “Just do it. Just go with it. I think it’s good. It’s good.” And then when she did it, she did it completely unlike how we rehearsed it and just completely whaled on me.

And she also has an amazing emotional connection. I’m really impressed with her. I thought she was fantastic. And then the whole end, with Reid dying, and dealing with Chris… I think she’s a really great actor. I loved everything we did. I loved working with her.

That was, I think, my second favorite pairing of yours on the show, with Terri. Reid and Katie together. I loved that connection you guys had.

Uh-huh. What’s your first favorite?

[Laughter] Well, it’s kind of obvious…

Oh!

Yes, definitely [Reid] and Luke.

Right.

But yes, I think you’ve covered the bases, because I think those were the two scenes that were argued about on Twitter which were the favorite ones. So I think you’re going to make everybody happy by mentioning both of those.

Oh, really? [laughter]

Have you had a chance to look at your resume?

No, no, I was trying to remember that scene. You asked me another tough one and I couldn’t –

Sorry, I distracted you again.

I started, and then I got distracted. Give me the next one, and then I’ll answer it.

Okay, let’s see…

I know one I really struggled in. I just found this and had a horrible memory associated with it. I did Alexei in A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY, by Turgenev, Brian Friel’s adaptation. I was in grad school, so this was just ten years ago. I felt like I was miserable in that. I couldn’t find my way in that one. I had a really hard time [communicating with the director] and I just wasn’t sure what I was doing. I really struggled through that whole process and wasn’t very happy with it. Ultimately I was happy for it to end. I felt like I kind of arrived at something finally but I remember I was just miserable to the point where I didn’t want to go to rehearsal. I would listen to Nine Inch Nails, I remember, on the way over to rehearsal, just trying to get some sort of energy. Some sort of will to live. [laughter] It was terrible.

That’s a really interesting choice to get the will to live, through Nine Inch Nails. You know, whatever works for you.

Yeah, that doesn’t quite work out. As far as the energy of the piece, I found, not the message of it. Not Trent Reznor’s darkness.

Okay, going to the other end of the spectrum, if you could choose a dream director to work with, who’s on your list?

Jack O’Brien. I would work with him again in a second. He was a dream director. When I did COAST OF UTOPIA, that was the one of the first times I worked with somebody who was famous and worked on Broadway all the time. And then I actually worked with him and found out that he’s just the real deal. He’s actually that good. It’s not just a hype situation. He’s a brilliant director. What he did with that sprawling, nine-hour play was unbelievable. He was like a preacher, and we just followed him. He’s a dream director to me, even though I’ve already worked with him.

The full cast of COAST OF UTOPIA. Eric is third from the left, back row, wearing black.

It’s nice to find that kind of experience.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

(Be sure to come back tomorrow for more! We'll be diving into the ATWT phenomenon.)

Eric Sheffer Stevens, Part One

Eric Sheffer Stevens, Part Three

Eric Sheffer Stevens, Part Four

Interview with Eric Sheffer Stevens Part One

Welcome to Day One of my interview with Eric Sheffer Stevens! This incredibly talented actor of stage and screen was kind enough to sit down with me (via phone) a couple of weeks ago for a wide-ranging conversation, which will be shared over the next few days on my blog. Today, we talk about the differences between film, stage, and TV, how acting is like writing, and how his creative process has changed over the years.

One thing I noticed as I was looking at your resume, you’ve worked in all the major areas of acting – primetime, daytime, stage, film, commercial. Just wondering what’s different between them for you, or is there a difference, in terms of the way you work or the experience you get out of it?

Yeah, there’s a pretty big difference. This last project, SILENT HOUSE, that I just did, there was a month of just sort of being immersed in this “thing”. There’s so much waiting – you’re not really being hugely productive, because film is a lot of lighting, and waiting for them to set up the shots. So you’re sort of immersed in the world for a very long time without actually producing anything or capturing it on film. So it feels different, and you have to learn how to fill that time to be able to plug right back into that story when they actually are ready to go.

You had mentioned on the radio show yesterday that it was all done in one shot.
Yeah, that’s a very cool project. It’ll be good to see how that’s going to play out. That’s very unusual. Very unique, film-wise. It was a lot of rehearsal, for a week and a half or two weeks, without any film crew. Well, we were with the DP, the Director of Photography, because he was very much in the whole dance. We had to choreograph him into everything so that you never see him. And it’s in a sort of dark house, so we had to rehearse how to light ourselves with lanterns and flashlights. It was pretty technical and ultimately really interesting work. I enjoyed it a lot.

As far as your other question about the differences between them, each thing is very different, even within the genres, so it’s hard to say. Theater is very much being immersed in rehearsing a scene over and over for an hour and a half and then you move on and you try and work on the next one and then you put the whole thing together over four weeks or five weeks just so you can do it in front of an audience and feel confident about it, feel like you’ve really fleshed it out. You don’t do that at all in TV. TV is also fun for that reason.

There are a lot of people, I think, who prefer one over the other, and then some who feel comfortable going in between them. I feel very comfortable going in between. Doing TV, you use a completely different part of your brain and your creative process and you just have to make very quick decisions, and if you’re good, hopefully the decision will be a good one. And then you’re stuck with it.

A lot of times what happens, which is kind of funny, and it happens in both film and tv, you work so long that day, and then that night in bed you go, “Oh, shoot, THAT was the way to solve that problem.” And you so wish that you could have had another go at it because you feel like you found something really interesting in the scene that you didn’t get to (do) because you just are spending that day, one day, in it. In theater, you can have that thought and then bring it back to rehearsal the next day. And, you know, keep building on that performance.

Tied in with this a little bit – in writing, we refer to it as plotters or pantsers. Whether you plot out every detail in advance or whether you just kind of fly by the seat of your pants. And wondering if there’s something similar in your acting, or does it depend. Like with theater, you can look at the role and decide where you’re going to go with each different scene, but when you’re thrown into something, like in daytime, where you have one day to walk on and do the work, is that more seat of the pants?

That’s very seat of your pants there, doing the daytime stuff. You’re really hanging out there.

Do you prefer one way or the other? Do you prefer having the time to immerse yourself in the character and the script or do you like the challenge of just jumping feet first?
More and more I’m liking not knowing what’s going to happen, and not having thought it out. I’m to a point now where I know what I need to do preparation-wise and then find the things in rehearsal (or actually while you’re taping, as is the case for daytime)…

I think I used to, especially when I was younger, I tried to plan things out too much. Just because I wasn’t very comfortable trusting that something would come to me. And also I didn’t want to suck.

I don’t have that anymore. I’m not afraid to suck.

I don’t care, or I care much less, about what people think about what I’m doing. And that frees me up to actually rehearse. And then you make mistakes and you look stupid, but if you don’t care that you look stupid, then it’s okay. Then you can move on to the next – actually reach something better than if you were playing it safe and caring about what people are thinking of you.

That especially applies to theater, where you’re rehearsing and you care about what your colleagues think, and you want them to trust you and feel like you’re going to get somewhere with this performance, but you have to spend usually the second week and the third week just feeling like crap. Because you have a tenuous grasp of the lines, and you’re not quite where you want to be character-wise, and it’s in that time that you kind of figure it all out, and everybody’s really familiar with that period. So as you do it more and more, you trust that something’s going to come, and you arrive there a lot faster than when you’re younger.

It’s similar with writing, people talk about the “sagging middle”. You know, the first couple chapters, everything’s great, you’re just flying along, and then you hit the wall, and it’s the worst thing ever written in the history of the universe. It just totally sucks. And you just have to work your way through it. And the more practice you get, the more you learn to trust your own skill.

Yeah, right. And you’re going to be able to write your way out of this hole and end up somewhere.

Eric Sheffer Stevens, Part Two
Eric Sheffer Stevens, Part Three

Eric Sheffer Stevens, Part Four

Let's Put On A Show!

When I was in college, I was part of a student-organized theater group called We're Not Your Mother. Every quarter or so, we'd reserve the Old Main theater, throw together a bunch of performance pieces (everything from dance to experimental theater to music videos and beyond) and put on a show.

I loved being part of WNYM, loved the opportunity to try new things and stretch my creative wings. My first plays were performed during Mother shows; I got to work in pieces by performers I really admired. And most of all, they were damn fun to do.

So when I heard that someone named Darren Criss was going to be on Glee last week, and that he'd been part of something called A Very Potter Musical, I decided to check it out. And the minute I clicked on the first video on YouTube I couldn't stop smiling. Despite surface differences, AVPM reminded me so much of what it was like to be part of a creative group like that.

The video I have of We're Not Your Mother performances is still on VHS, so I can't share any of them here. But here's a clip from A Very Potter Musical, along with a congrats to Darren Criss on his successful leap to primetime!

Interview: Meet Parrish Hurley, Part Two

As promised, the second half of my interview with Parrish Hurley:

6. What are your plans from here on out? Do you have a timeline or battle plan in mind?

Well, time is ticking away, because I have to play myself in my early thirties, and I’m not quite sure how much longer I’m gonna be able to get away with that. No one who has considered ‘the (718)’ doubts that it’s decent storytelling, but the boy-on-boy content is making a lot of the money people nervous, so I’m hoping that a little Internet notoriety will help our case. With all the gay bullying that’s going on, one could argue that this isn’t the best time to fund a project with queer content, but I’d like to argue that now is the PERFECT time to fund a project such as ours.

7. What are you currently working on?

Unfortunately, a lot of XY scatter graphs and pie charts. I do all of the graphics for investor relations at a hedge fund, and the fall is when we hold investor conferences, so now is the time when I make my mad money, which frees me up to pursue other projects during the year (for example, I just returned from my third season with Vermont Shakespeare Company, which is a fantastic little gig tantamount to a punk rock vacation on the lake with an AMAZING bunch of actors). Ben Beckley just contacted me, looking to write another ‘(718)’ script, so we’re gonna flesh out the St. Stephen arc and maybe introduce a Tyler Clementi-type storyline. I think [my character] Stephen needs to be slapped out of his LGBT apathy.

8. Why should readers of this blog check out the (718)?

I’d like to hope that people will find it to be good, entertaining storytelling with an ability to change a point of view or two. It’s a universal story—I’m just looking for love and trying to find my place in the world after my friends start moving on. If nothing else, it is at the very least honest storytelling, so much so that I may have to place some distance between myself and the character in subsequent episodes; when filming the pilot, I often felt I wasn’t acting so much as I was reliving some of my most painful and embarrassing memories. No exercises in cleverness here—‘the (718)’ is my story, and I’m sticking to it. I’m excited that women are responding to it as strongly as well, as are men of every sexual persuasion.

And I never set out to be political with this project, but given the political and social climates these days, I think a prominent gay character that is sexually active and a normal Joe might do a world of good. I kind of think that television has created a gay ghetto—Most of the very few gay characters I see on television are either (1) completely neutered, single, possibly closeted and emotionally tortured; (2) the mean, bitchy sidekick to the villain, or (3) competing on a reality show, outdragging the other queens. I don’t wish to discount any one of those varieties (except maybe #2). Be loud, be proud, or stay closeted—it’s your trip. Homosexuals account for 10% of the human race, so there is need for not only a bigger representation, but a more varied one.

And I’m quite adamant about making my sexuality a given circumstance, and not the only thing that defines me (although it seems as if that’s all I’ve been discussing with you). Patrick is a master improviser, and while filming would throw in an ad lib or two referencing my sexuality and I’d beg him not to—the strength of our relationship lies in the fact that none of my friends care that I’m queer and we co-exist very well. Some of the nicer compliments I’ve gotten on ‘the (718)’, particularly at the gay and Lesbian film festivals, have nothing to do with the writing or my performance, but of the premise itself—I get thanked by gay men for creating a show that reminds them of their friends, who are straight, and this is the first time they’ve seen that mix reflected. Being a homosexual does not make you an anomaly. And being a homosexual that counts the minutes until the 1pm NFL kickoff with your straight pals doesn’t make you an anomaly either.

Failing all of that, at least you get to hear me rap about the pleasures of giving oral sex. Very awkwardly, I might add. It’s completely ill, as the kids would have said seven years ago.

9. Who are you, anyway? Where did you come from? How did you get here?

I was born Stephen Bernard Parrish on a St. Patrick’s Day in the 1970s to a close-knit Irish Catholic family in Brooklyn. My father got transferred to Allentown, PA when I was in elementary school and a long, awkward adolescence followed. I enrolled at Penn State to study film production, found that I preferred film theory and decided I was going to pursue either journalism or academic writing. Wound up covering pop music for a Times Mirror newspaper before the Chicago Tribune swallowed it up, but fell in with a fantastic, now-defunct theater company in Allentown called the Theatre Outlet and did a LOT of theater. Did as much as I could in Allentown, decided to try acting in New York City, got into the actors unions, which told me they already had a Stephen Parrish so I changed my name to Parrish Hurley (my mom’s family name). Booked a national tour with the National Shakespeare Company and played Gremio in ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ opposite Darren Coyle as Hortensio. We became instant friends and drank lots of beer. My father died suddenly a month into the tour, flew back to Allentown to be with my family, stopped in to visit the Theatre Outlet before going back on tour, saw its production of ‘The Cripple of Inishmaan’ and remarked, “My God, that guy playing the lead is amazing! Who is he?” and was answered with “That’s Patrick Edgar, he’s moving to New York soon, is it okay if we give him your number?” and I said “Sure.” Finished the tour, Darren and I were both homeless at its conclusion, so we got an apartment together in Brooklyn. Shortly thereafter, Patrick Edgar called looking for a hot shower and couch on which to crash. The three of us became thick as thieves and drank lots and lots and lots and lots of beer. Darren is now married and living in Washington, DC and Patrick is married with a two-year old son and living in the Bronx and I’m still single and living in that same apartment in Brooklyn and doing just fine. GO GIANTS!

Interview: Meet Parrish Hurley, Part One

A few months back, some online friends made the trek to Vermont to see Eric Sheffer Stevens in the Vermont Shakespeare Company production of Much Ado About Nothing. I couldn't go, but lived vicariously through them as they posted about the show, the after-show meet-and-greet, and the people they'd met there.

One of those people was Parrish Hurley, an actor from New York they couldn't stop raving about. I "met" Parrish through Facebook, and got a chance to see his short film/TV pilot the (718), which I featured Monday on the blog. (Haven't seen it yet? What are you waiting for? Go watch!)

Since the creative process fascinates me, I invited Parrish to answer a few interview questions about how the (718) came to be, and where he hopes it's going from here. The first part of the interview follows; I'll post the second half tomorrow. I hope you enjoy getting to know Parrish as much as I did!

1. Tell me a little about the (718). What was the inspiration behind it? How did you go about putting it together?

‘the (718)’ is the story of me and my two best pals, Darren and Patrick, living and playing in Brooklyn. I was having a modest amount of success doing stand-up comedy at the time, and would always end my act telling the story that eventually became the Paul the Hot Irishman scenes in ‘the (718).’ I’d be standing there at Caroline’s on Broadway telling 300 strangers intimate details about my dating life, and just when I had them thinking things couldn’t possibly get any more absurd or pathetic, I’d hit them with “Have you ever tried to give a blow job after you’ve taken a bong hit?” When that one hit, it really REALLY hit, and I said to Darren, who had given up acting to focus on filmmaking, that we should make a short film based on that story, but he thought it would be stronger as a part of a larger television pilot.

Darren had just moved out—we had been roommates for eight-and-a-half years until he got engaged—and Patrick had moved to the Bronx with his wife a couple of years earlier. I had lulled myself into the ridiculous belief that the three of us would be living together and going to the pub to watch football until we were 80 years old. I figured that would make a great backdrop for a series—my two best pals moving on, forcing me to go out and try and find a mate, despite my lack of connection with the gay community. It set up all sorts of situations, first and foremost my having to seek my identity while losing my support system. We wanted the humor to be dry and deadpan, and we added a touch of magical realism by adding the rhyming and scheming F Train Messiah—in my scenes with him, I’m literally wrestling with my conscience and struggling to stop apologizing for my appearance and sexuality each time he calls me ‘Too Tall Nancy.’ Those scenes are fun, and exploit my limitations—I’ve got those internal rhythms, but outwardly, I’m so awkward and unsure, and my journey through the series lies in learning to accept and become comfortable with myself to the point where I’m fine without my pals and the counsel of The F Train Messiah.

Anyway, Darren was working as associate producer on ‘Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane’ and he and his crew, who were hungry to work on an actual narrative project, were coming to New York for a weekend and all graciously volunteered their time and talent. So we shot it.

2. How long did filming take? How about everything else connected to it - writing, editing, post-production, etc?

We filmed in two half days—that was about as long as the crew was going to be in town, and also about as long as we were going to get away with using ‘borrowed’ equipment. We were able to do no more than three takes of any given shot, which didn’t make for a best-case scenario, but everyone stepped up, and the frenetic nature of the shooting added a character to the show that’s kind of charming. Post-production was rather short, and after seeing it with a few different festival audiences, I was able to sit down with the editor a couple more times to streamline what people were responding to, so what’s online right now is a pretty definitive cut.
3. Did you know everyone involved in the show prior to filming, or did the show bring you guys together?

Stas May (who plays Darren) and I (as well as Aurelia Lavizzo, who plays the bartender) performed together in a play called ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ at The Flea here in New York; when Darren and I decided that Darren should focus on directing and that we should cast an actor to play Darren, Stas was the one guy I knew that could capture both Darren’s charm and goofball edge (and is as boyishly handsome as Darren). Annie Scott (Cassandra) is another friend from The Flea. I wrote the part of Mark for another Flea actor, Ben Beckley, but he was unavailable to film because he was touring with a show in France, so I asked Tom Onushco, with whom I performed in Allentown, to play the part, and he was wonderful.

I have to credit Patrick for casting the rest of the roles—He had just finished a production of ‘The Lieutenant of Inishmore’ at Syracuse Stage with Christian Conn (Paul the Hot Irishman) and Sean Tarrant (Jim). We were looking for a particularly strong actor to play Paul, and Patrick told me to consider both those guys, and I went with Christian, because Paul needs to look younger than I, and Sean and I kind of read the same age, but I loved Sean so much that I beefed up the role of Jim, which was originally a much smaller role, because I knew I was sitting on a goldmine with him. And as for Christian, we asked him to do a lot, and that was a wonderfully fearless performance he gave.

As for The F Train Messiah, I envisioned that role as a black character, and wrote it with another Flea actor in mind who wound up doing the August Wilson cycle at the Kennedy Center and couldn’t commit. Another black pal of mine was ready to step in, but wound up getting ‘Shrek’ on Broadway. When it came time to do a reading in order to settle on a final shooting script, Patrick asked Brian Dykstra, with whom he crossed paths when they were both working at the Barrow Street Theatre here in New York, to step in as kind of a ‘placeholder’ until we found someone. The second Brian opened his mouth, I knew he had to be The F Train Messiah, and I now couldn’t imagine doing those scenes with anyone else.

4. I noticed that the (718) has received a great response, including awards, from multiple film festivals. Are you continuing to enter it in competitions? Where do you see it going from here?

I’m thrilled to death with the festival run we’ve had for the past year-and-half; we wrap up in South Africa next month (November), and I see little or no reason to continue with festivals. It’s been considered—whether it was accepted or not—by every festival in which I would have liked it to have screened. So now I’m trying to create an online buzz to draw attention to both the pilot itself as well as the awards we’ve won.

5. It's been referred to as a pilot for a cable channel, which makes sense, based on the NSFW subject matter and language. (Both of which I loved, by the way.) Are you currently shopping it to different channels? Are there more episodes already in the can, or is the pilot the only one currently completed?

Thanks for saying so! That cottonmouth scene has cost us acceptance into more than one festival in which we would have liked to have screened. I mean, COME ON. I’m not quite sure we could have done it any more tastefully then we did without eliminating it altogether, which would be a mistake, because it really helps define Stephen’s plight. At one point a producer from Sony Television was interested in us, and wanted to target FX, which is great, because at the core of ‘the (718)’ you’ve got the story of three Irish-American best pals and drinking buddies and a slam poet conscience. But would the suggestion of all-male fellatio fly on FX? Not sure. I’m trying to target IFC, Sundance Channel, BBC America and Starz.

There are three more episodes written, but the pilot presentation is all that we filmed. When we wrote the pilot, Darren kept telling me to write something that could be shot quick and dirty for no money, which is what we did, so we kept the locations and technical needs to a minimum. In the second episode, we develop the magical realism started with The F Train Messiah by having me fall for a barback who may or may not be an incarnation of the Christian martyr St. Stephen, who will be a recurring character (played by Ben Beckley, who co-wrote the episode) who acts as both my guardian angel and spiritual guide. We’d need to film in (what at least appears to be) a Catholic church, and the subplot involves Patrick getting bullied by a street mime, so we’d need a mime, as well as mime training for Patrick and Stas. Oh, and we’d also need the rights to use the song ‘Renegade’ by Styx. Clearly this episode has it all, and I’m not quite sure we could do it on our own.

The other two scripts aren’t necessarily the third and fourth episodes, because you’d have to kind of know our characters better for them to really fly, but I am really proud of them, and they fit somewhere in the first season. In one, modeled after a ‘Frasier’-like farce, we send up gay stereotypes, or at least how television likes to portray gay men, by having Patrick blow an audition for a gay soap opera character by pretty much doing an imitation of me, which confuses the casting director, to say the least. Later, Patrick and I are at a bar and I spot Paul the Hot Irishman and Perfect Jim, two of my botched dates from the pilot episode, together and happily smitten with each other. In an attempt to not look pathetic, I ask Patrick to pose as my boyfriend, and a depressed Patrick sees it as an opportunity to redeem himself and prove that he is a good actor (or can at least be a good ‘television gay’), so he takes it up a notch and starts acting ‘gay in stereo,’ much to my horror.

The other one, which I co-wrote with Brian Dykstra, is called ‘Seamus Coyle, the Kneeling Tosser of Ballina.’ After I catch Darren masturbating on his knees (and Patrick and I dispense with a proper ribbing), Darren tells us the story of his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and how he (quite accidentally) saved his village from the English and Protestantism by pleasuring himself in the same way during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. It’s told via flashback, of course, and Stas would play Seamus and Patrick and I would play his two best pals. It’s not all zany, but actually often quite dark and moving, and best exemplifies our friendship by moving us to a different time and extreme place while keeping the relationships and dynamics the same. And tossing is the great unifier, isn’t it—with all this talk of heterosexuals and homosexuals, at the end of the day, aren’t we all monosexuals? Yes, we sure are.

******

LOL! And on that note, we'll take a quick breather. Be sure to come back tomorrow for part two!

ETA: Hallo AfterElton readers! Thanks for stopping by. The second half of the interview is in the link above; for a peek at "the (718)", go here. Enjoy!

Kate's Current TV Crush

If you're following me on Twitter you already know about my newest TV crush. If not, let me introduce you to:


Captain Jack Harkness





Excuse me for a moment while I swoon...

;)

Okay. Better now.

I first discovered Captain Jack via Twitter, a month or so ago. Someone had posted that the scene between John Barrowman's Captain Jack and James Marsters' Captain John was fabulous. Curious, I searched for it on YouTube and thought, I have to see this show.

Now, confession time. I've never seen Doctor Who (sorry, Angie! It's in my Netflix queue, I promise!). My last experience with British sci-fi was Red Dwarf, back in college. (Which I also loved, but that's a story for another day.) So when I got a copy of season one of Torchwood and sat down to watch it, I had no background on the character, the setting, or the history of the show. (Captain Jack was originally a character on Doctor Who, and is now the lead character in the spinoff Torchwood.) Some of the in-jokes and reference fly right over my head.

I don't care. I love it anyway.

I love the stories, I love the characters, I love the fact that sexual orientation is a non-issue (characters fall for who they fall for, without lots of commentary and freaking out), I love the cheesy special effects (and, let's face it, BBC sci fi does have its share of cheesy special effects), and most of all, I love Captain Jack.

Know who else I adore? John Barrowman, the actor who portrays Captain Jack. He's amazingly talented, having gotten his start in musical theater before moving to television. He can sing, dance, act, and is a hilarious interviewee. Sadly, I can't embed this video, but here's the link to his newest single, What About Us. He's also openly gay, and in a long-term committed relationship with his partner, an architect.

So there you have it. My new TV crush, Captain Jack Harkness (and, by extension, John Barrowman). If you like sci fi, British TV, and cute guys kissing, you might want to check out Torchwood. Enjoy!

Kate's Current Movie Crush - Van Johnson

Van Johnson as Andrew Larkin, In The Good Old Summertime.

It's a silly name for the movie, since it takes place almost entirely at Christmas. In fact, it's one of my favorite Christmas movies, one I always forget about until I run into it on TV during the holiday season.

If you haven't watched it before, you really should. It's a musical remake of The Shop Around the Corner, and it stars a sparkling Judy Garland and my current movie star crush, Van Johnson.

Now, Van Johnson isn't one of those heart-stopping sexy leading men from the film industry heyday, like Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power or Clark Gable. He's more the boy-next-door, with the quirky smile and floppy hair, who you always end up rooting for to get the girl. Think James Stewart (who played the same role in The Shop Around the Corner) or Tom Hanks (ditto, in You've Got Mail).

So if you've seen either of those movies, you know the basic plot of In The Good Old Summertime. Boy meets girl, they fight and fuss, all the while not knowing that the other is their secret pen-pal. I love watching Van Johnson's progression from sparring partner to hidden crush, as he realizes that the ideal woman of his post-office-box romance is really the spunky, frustrating Veronica Fisher. Van Johnson and Judy Garland were friends in real life, and their comfort and delight in working with each other is evident in the easy, enjoyable interplay between them.

But the reason I've got this huge, movie star crush on Van Johnson right now is the last scene of the movie. He's teasing her about her "fiance", making up increasingly horrible things about this fictional man of her dreams (he's bald! He's fat! He's unemployed!), all the while interspersing it with coded statements of how he really feels about her. The little glances, the way he holds back when what he really wants is to sweep her into his arms -- sigh!

And when he sits down next to her, he can't keep his hands to himself. He touches her hair, puts his arm around her, toys with her lacy collar, even presses kisses to her temple while she all but pants with repressed sexual tension. It's one of the hottest scenes I've watched for a long time, and the farthest they finally go is a fade-to-black chaste kiss.

I've tried to find the scene on YouTube, but all I can find is the musical numbers from the movie. So you really should go rent it now. You can find it on Netflix, or, if you're a Comcast customer, it's a free On Demand movie via TCM.

Here's the TCM trailer, for a quick taste...


So, who's your current movie star crush?