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"I guess, because of TV, producers look upon me as someone who could sell tickets," says Bradley Whitford, an Emmy and SAG Awards winner for "The West Wing" (1999-2006; for which, he wrote two episodes). He's returning to Broadway in Boeing-Boeing. "For many years, as a younger actor in New York, I really hated a television guy who came in to do a play. Now, I'm that idiot. [Laughs]"
How did he become involved in a revival of the French farce (which had a short Broadway run in 1965, but ran seven years in London)? "I heard that [director] Matthew Warchus had an interest in me [to play Bernard], and wanted to meet. I read the script and became very enthusiastic. It's silly, and radically different from anything I've done lately."
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| Bradley Whitford in Boeing-Boeing | ||
| photo by Joan Marcus |
At Juilliard, Whitford earned a masters in theatre. He had the title role of Coriolanus at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre, and his films include "Scent of a Woman" (1992), "Philadelphia" (1993), and "The Client" (1994).
Josh Lyman on "The West Wing" (1999-2006) is "the longest relationship I've had with a role," claims Whitford, and also the one that's given him the most satisfaction. "It was a challenging schedule, crazy hours, but with a great group of New York actors — Allison Janney, Richard Schiff [whose brother was Whitford's college roommate and best friend], Martin Sheen, John Spencer..."
Nominated for an Emmy in 2001, '02, and '03, Whitford won the first time out. He jokes, "I'll be carrying it around onstage [in Boeing-Boeing]." He also received a 2001 SAG Award (as part of Best Ensemble) and was nominated on five other occasions.
He first met Aaron Sorkin, who created "The West Wing" and the actor's most-recent series "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (2006-07), an episode of which Whitford directed, when he made his Broadway debut in the writer's A Few Good Men — first (July 1990), as a replacement in the role of Lt. Jack Ross, and two months later as a replacement in the lead role, Lt. j.g. Daniel A. Kaffee.
Previously, he'd appeared Off-Broadway in Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class, opposite Kathy Bates, and, at The Public Theater, as Paris in Romeo and Juliet, in which he also understudied Romeo. In 1989, at the Mitzi Newhouse, he played Claudio in Measure for Measure, with Kate Burton as Isabella.
Burton introduced him to her best friend, actress Jane Kaczmarek, who became Mrs. Whitford in 1992. "They're about to do House of Blue Leaves together in L.A., with Kate as Bananas and Jane as Bunny." The Whitfords are parents of three: Frances (11), George (9), Mary ("I call her Lulu," 6).
Do any of them plan to follow in their parents' footsteps? "Our rule is that they're not allowed to do it for money until they go to college. One of them has no interest [in show business], which I'm very proud of. It's already too much of a fight for the mirror."
Kaczmarek played Lois, the mother of Frankie Muniz, the title character on "Malcolm in the Middle" (2000-06), and received six Emmy nominations and three Golden Globe nominations.
"My wife and I both had jobs where we really got lucky." The Madison, WI, native's first TV series was 1998's "The Secret Life of Men," with Peter Gallagher. "It died quickly."
Other New York stage appearance include the The Tower of Evil (1990; "I had totally forgotten about that"), and (his most recent turn) the 1997 Manhattan Theatre Club's Three Days of Rain.
Confides Whitford, "It's a relief to get a farce in front of an audience. Doing this play is a lot of fun."
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Among the stellar female cast of seven of the MTC's production of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls at the Biltmore, is Mary Beth Hurt, a three-time Tony nominee (Trelawney of the "Wells", Crimes of the Heart, Benefactors). According to Hurt, "The play's set in three places: a kind of dream state, a house in [Suffolk], and an office called 'Top Girls,' an employment agency in London. It was written in the '80s, at the height of women's liberation."
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| Mary Beth Hurt in Top Girls | ||
| photo by Joan Marcus |
Continues Hurt, who plays Louise/Waitress, "I don't know that Caryl Churchill would agree; but, it seems to me, the play's kind of a rumination on choices women have to make throughout the ages — not choices that are thrust on them by men, but choices that involve ideology.
"The structure is non-linear. There's a dreamlike opening sequence in which Marlene meets famous women [factual and fictional] from the past." The ladies who lunch include Pope Joan (Martha Plimpton) who, disguised as a man, is supposed to have assumed the Papacy between 854 and 856; explorer Isabella Bird (Marisa Tomei); Dull Gret (Ana Reeder), a Flemish-folklore figure; Lady Nijo (Jennifer Ikeda), a Japanese emperor's mistress, and later a Buddhist nun; and Patient Griselda (Mary Catherine Garrison), a "Canterbury Tales" Chaucer character. While everyone gets drunk, it's revealed that each has suffered problems that parallel the contemporary characters.
Come August, Hurt celebrates her 25th wedding anniversary with writer-director-producer Paul Schrader, whose credits include screenplays for "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull."
They're parents of two: Sam and Molly. "I was fortunate enough to do both things I wanted to do in life — act and have children." Does either have show business ambitions? "Absolutely none!"
From 1971 to '81, she was Mrs. William Hurt. The Hurts spent a year in London, where Mary Beth (illegally) performed with "a little regional theatre in Ealing, called 'The Questers.' I did a play called Happy Haven, playing Mrs. Phineas, a woman about 110, who was in a wheelchair."
It was as a slightly younger (98) Vietnamese man, Uncle Remus, that she made her New York stage debut, at the Public, in Michael Weller's 1973 musical More Than You Deserve. Hurt was then hired by Joe Papp for Shakespeare in the Park.
Several plays followed, including Boy Meets Girl, which was televised on PBS (Jan. 12, 1977). She shot two "forgettable pilots," both of which were televised: "Royce," a Western with Robert Forster, and a women-cops sitcom "Ann in Blue," starring Penny Fuller.
Born Mary Beth Supinger, the middle of three daughters, in Marshalltown, IA, her baby sitter was Jean Seberg, the tragic actress (1938-79) who starred in Otto Preminger's "Saint Joan" (her 1957 film debut), and later committed suicide. Hurt narrated the 1997 documentary "From the Journals of Jean Seberg."
Hurt's movie debut occurred in 1978, playing Joey, the youngest of Geraldine Page and E.G. Marshall's three daughters, in Woody Allen's "Interiors." Recalls Hurt, "To get to do that movie with Maureen Stapleton and Geraldine Page was just wonderful!"
Other films include "Head over Heels," "The World According to Garp" (as Robin Williams' wife), "The Age of Innocence," and "Six Degrees of Separation." She may also be seen (sans credit) in "Hide in Plain Sight" (1980), starring and directed by James Caan. "They had to replace someone quickly. I was good friends with [cast members] Joe Grifasi and Jill Eikenberry. They called and asked if I'd do it. I said, 'Sure.' My agent said, 'No.' I did it for no credit, playing Joe's wife in two scenes — at a bowling alley and in a cocktail lounge."
Again playing one of three sisters, she won an Obie as Meg McGrath, a would-be singer, in the MTC production of Beth Henley's Pulitzer Prize-winning Crimes of the Heart, which transferred to Broadway. In Top Girls, Hurt plays two roles: Louise/Waitress. "I'm onstage longest as the waitress — and I say nothing."
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Making his Broadway debut, as Brick, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, opposite Tony winners Anika Noni Rose, James Earl Jones, and Phylicia Rashad, Terrence Howard describes the difference between theatre and working in film and TV: "The amount of preparation. On the stage, you have a month of rehearsals, a month of previews. You're able to discover aspects of the character, and of the production. You have a clearer understanding.
"In film and TV, there's a lack of preparation. You go in, sit down with the director, half-ass your way through part of a scene — and everybody's nodding, like they got it. They set up the cameras and blocking, and you're supposed to form the character, as if you've known this person all your life. You can never, never really accomplish much that way. Character develops in stages.
"But you have more time to rest with film. In theatre, you're owned by the stage, the producers, the audience. It's extremely difficult to do a three-hour, very emotional, show eight times a week. You cannot afford to not give a performance. Any actor who steps on a stage and thinks, 'I'm going to do what I did yesterday' is doing a disservice to himself, and to the play — especially with Tennessee Williams.
"Every emotion has to be real. You have to step out there, every night, emotionally naked. I try to be brand new again at every performance."
Does Howard think that he's captured Brick? "I won't feel that way until 10 or 15 years from now."
In my opinion, I tell him, I think that Debbie Allen directed the play very well. "Yeah, me, too," notes Howard. "She was criticized for her style of direction, but I think that she did a great job. We're sold out every performance, and we get always get standing ovations." As previously arranged, Howard took a three-week leave (April 15-May 6), in order to promote the well-reviewed superhero movie, "Iron Man." Until the leave, his 10-year-old daughter, Heaven, played one of the drama's "no-neck monsters" (Maggie's name for her brother-in-law's kids). Did Heaven always want to act?
Replies her dad, "No, I insisted on it. It builds self-confidence." He also has a son, Hunter, and a daughter, Aubrey. The mother of three is Lori McCommas, to whom the actor's been married and divorced twice.
Howard's start was on an episode of "The Cosby Show." His breakthrough performance occurred in "Mr. Holland's Opus" (1995). Among his credits are the TV-movies "King of the World" (2000, as Muhammed Ali) and "Lackawanna Blues" (2005). He praises S. Epatha Merkerson, his co-star in the latter.
Theatrical releases include "Crash" (the 2004 Best Picture Oscar winner), "Ray" (with 2004 Best Actor Oscar recipient, Jamie Foxx, as Ray Charles), "Hustle & Flow" (for which Howard received a 2005 Best Actor Oscar nomination), "Pride" (2007), and "The Brave One" (2007). In the latter, Howard tells me, "Jodie Foster was so generous. She wanted me to have billing with her above the title." He adds, "But the end of the picture sucked."
Born in Chicago and raised in Cleveland, Howard's one of 11 children. Every summer, he came to New York to visit his grandmother, actress Minnie Gentry (1915-93). "She's my mentor," relates Howard. "She's why I'm on the stage."
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Filling in as Brick during Howard's leave, Boris Kodjoe made his Broadway debut. He told me, "I had to fight to be seen [for the role]. I wasn't on the list, at first. I spoke to Debbie [Allen], who let me audition. I had two weeks of rehearsals with Debbie and the understudies, two days with Debbie and the cast. They've all been an amazing help to me.
"Back home in Germany [where he grew up], I played professional tennis; I was one of the best juniors in the world. That's when I got hurt [suffering a back injury]. The decision to accept a [tennis] scholarship to Virginia Commonwealth University was based on the fact that my professional career was over.
"It's ironic. What Brick goes through is exactly what I went through — a year of severe depression. All my life had been focused on being the best tennis player in the world. That life was taken away from me; I didn't know what I was going to do. My mother said, 'Why don't you get your mind on other things, get away from home, go to the States for a couple of months?' But I stuck around to get my degree.
"Once, while I was visiting my sister in New York — she was working for Spike Lee — I was walking on the street and had a chance encounter with an agent from Ford [Modeling Agency]. I stayed in touch with her. After graduation, I came to New York [and soon became a supermodel]."
Pursuing an acting career, Kodjoe was signed for the series "Soul Food" (2000-04), which introduced him to his wife, actress Nicole Ari Parker. "She's a loving, beautiful person, with incredible spirit and energy; she's a great influence, in terms of acting." They're parents of two: daughter Sophie (3) and son Nicolas (1). Husband and wife also co-starred in the 2004 sitcom "Second Time Around."
In 2002, People magazine selected him as one of the year's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World." Is there any downside to the designation? Kodjoe laughs. "You're the first person who's ever asked. The answer's yes. In Hollywood, if you're not ugly, it means you cannot act. You get offered the same type of role over and over. The temptation is to 'take the money and run.' I turned down a lot of roles, because the offers didn't allow me to do anything [that required acting]."
Born in Vienna, and raised in Freiburg, Germany, he's fluent in German, English, French, and Spanish. One of three children of Ursula, a German-Jewish psychologist, and Eric, a Ghanaian physician (who married and divorced each other twice), he has a brother, Patrick, and a sister, Nadja. "I also have a 14-year-old sister, Lara, my father's child. She's named for a character in 'Doctor Zhivago,' a movie that's shaped my life. My parents loved it. I'm named after Boris Pasternak [who wrote the novel]." Kodjoe and his brother run Ziami.com, "which offers custom-made clothing at affordable prices." Next up for the actor (after his May 4 exit from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) is a trip to Boston, "to film 'Surrogates,' with Bruce Willis."
After a Cat performance, is he exhilarated or exhausted? "Both, but exhilarated supercedes exhaustion. This is a dream for me, so I don't really think exhaustion." Does he have other dream roles? "I'd like to play Othello." (Big Daddy James Earl Jones portrayed the Moor on Broadway in 1982, with Christopher Plummer as Iago.)
From center court to center stage: Is Kodjoe's Main Stem debut comparable to playing at the U.S. Open? "Yes, I'm playing a championship game with James Earl Jones [for most of Act Two]. That's my favorite [time as Brick]. Any actor on the planet would love to play this role.
"The first act is probably more difficult. Brick and Maggie used to be in love. There was tremendous lust between them. You can't detach yourself; you have to play indifference. But the second act's more rewarding. Cat has been huge for me. I'm finally able to show what I can do."
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VARIOUS AND SUNDRY
Danny Burstein, whose Luther Billis in South Pacific earned Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk nominations, not only appears in "Deception", the new movie, starring Hugh Jackman, but also just played Uncle Fester ("Boy, am I getting old") in the workshop of The Addams Family musical, with a score by Andrew Lippa ("great songs") and ("a very funny") book by Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman...Among this month's "Law & Order" guest stars: Stephen Collins (May 6, "SVU"), Melissa Leo (May 14, "L&O"), Len Cariou and Tom Everett Scott (both "L&O," May 21).
Frank Elgin, the role that Morgan Freeman currently plays in The Country Girl was originated (in 1950) by Paul Kelly (1900-56), probably the only Tony winner (Command Decision, 1948) to serve time for first-degree murder (details: Ibdb)...Renee Zellweger is executive producer, with "Chicago" moguls Craig Zadan and Neil Meron for "Proof", an October Lifetime movie, with Harry Connick, Jr. as the medic who developed breast-cancer drug Herceptin 2.
Reminder: Lerner and Loewe's Camelot, directed by Lonny Price, with Gabriel Byrne and Marin Mazzie heading a star-studded cast, will be telecast "Live from Lincoln Center" (Thursday, May 8, 8 PM ET) on PBS New York/Thirteen WNET.
(Stage to Screens is Playbill.com's monthly column that connects the dots between artists who cross freely between theatre, film and television. Contact Michael Buckley at [email protected].)
