T.V. Week: Actor J.K. Simmons on His Chilling Performance in "Oz."

DATE August 30, 2000 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Actor Peter Falk talks about his role as the detective,
Columbo, in the long running series by the same name
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

It's TV week on FRESH AIR, featuring interviews with the stars and creators of
classic and current TV shows. Today: crime shows. Peter Falk is known to TV
viewers around the world as Columbo, the disheveled and seemingly inept
detective who always managed to solve the crime. Falk has portrayed Columbo
on and off since 1971. He's also highly regarded for his work with director
John Cassavetes in such films as "Husbands and Wives"--as "Husbands," I should
say, and "Woman Under the Influence." He won a Tony award for his performance
in Neil Simon's "Prisoner of Second Avenue." I talked with Peter Falk about
"Columbo" in 1995.

What was the part of Columbo like when you first read it?

Mr. PETER FALK (Actor): Ahh. It was very good. It was somebody that I
immediately wanted to play. The basic thrust of a guy appearing less than he
actually is, that was always there.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. FALK: And the--that disarming quality of not ever appearing formidable
was always there. I think that when we started to make the series, they would
often write scenes that were supposed to be humorous. And those were the ones
that made me very nervous.

GROSS: Why?

Mr. FALK: Because I didn't think they were very funny. They were kind of
cute. And so I would tamper with those all the time to make sure that they
was--that they were funny, that they were humorous, not funny, and that they
were more subtle and more believable. And the other thing that I guess I
insisted upon was that I think that he is by birth a polite man. But he's
also canny. So he's not above using his politeness. But the fact that he
is polite makes it easier for him to play polite. And the other thing that
used to bother me about the early scripts--not the early scripts, any of the
scripts, was in the final scene, if you have what actors used to refer to as,
`moishe'(ph)--moishe, to explain the scene.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. FALK: And that's when the detective, he takes two pages--he talks for
two pages and he explains everything that happened. And as the actor, you can
hear the people snoring, you know the audience is tuned out. They're not
interested. So the trick is to have that final scene remain the scene and
have the cat and mouse going back and forth. And the audience plus the
villain, they don't know what in the hell this guy's driving at, but they're
interested. You show them just enough to keep them interested, keep them
guessing, what is he--what is he gonna do? And when you finally nail the guy,
that's the end of the show. There should be about three lines after that and
that's it. It was things like that that used to--and clues, the clues can't
be transparent and--if they're obvious to the audience, then he's not Sherlock
Holmes.

GROSS: I like the way you described Columbo as looking like less than he
actually is. That's something that's easy to identify with. Did you identify
with that?

Mr. FALK: I've always been sloppy all my life. I never could keep myself
together. And I am in person, a bit misty. I can't keep an umbrella more
than three days, that was when I used to live in New York, I'd lose it--I lose
everything and frequently walk into walls. So I understood that quality. And
I am a slow thinker. And I am attracted to ambiguity. I'm not somebody that
has black and white answers to everything. And that kind of fits in with
Columbo so the slowness and the methodicalness and the sloppiness, that was
all very easy for me.

GROSS: And, of course, I should ask you about the raincoat, Columbo's
raincoat, which I believe you bought?

Mr. FALK: Mm. Well, there was a dispute over that because I...

GROSS: What?--over who really bought it?

Mr. FALK: No, the dispute--I always said I read that in the script. But
Link and Levinson said no, it wasn't in the script. But I seem to remember
seeing it in the script so, whatever it is. I did buy it. But I didn't buy
it at the time. I had already had it. But I said, `This is what I want to
wear.' And I knew what I wanted to wear underneath it, too. I wanted
everything to be tan and brown altogether, a little dash of dull green in the
tie.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. FALK: And that's about as flashy as he got. And the suit that fitted me
the least was a seersucker--kind of seersucker blue and white so I said, `Dye
that.' And they dyed it. And got out all that white and whatever the hell it
was--I don't remember. But it had to be dyed. And that became tan. And the
shoes were mine, too. They were a pair of shoes I picked up in Italy, I don't
know, a long time ago. They happened to be fairly expensive shoes, handmade
shoes. They were very comfortable and they were clunky.

GROSS: And that was important, clunky?

Mr. FALK: Clunky was important here.

GROSS: For that sense of being slightly uncoordinated?

Mr. FALK: I think you always wanted that contrast because the people that he
was going after, they were always...

GROSS: Wealthy.

Mr. FALK: ...they were always, yes, God's chosen, I mean, they all have long
necks and they all could buy suits off the rack and it fitted them and they
looked good. And their teeth were white and they had dough and they spoke
well. And so clunky shoes were a good contrast.

GROSS: I have more Columbo question for you.

Mr. FALK: Yeah.

GROSS: Do you think that your long association with that character has worked
for you, against you, both--in your--the other part of your career outside of
Columbo?

Mr. FALK: Well, I always say the same thing, Terry.

GROSS: Say it again.

Mr. FALK: I'll say it again. Being known as Columbo, it ain't cancer. So...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. FALK: ...the--I mean, I make a lot of dough and the listening's--you
know, I think it's difficult for the average person, say, `What is he
complaining about, that he's typecast? Who the hell cares? I mean, he does
make a lot of money and he gets good seats in restaurants.' So I don't feel
that that's something that people are really interested in. But to answer
your question, I think, arguably, I probably would be a better actor if I
hadn't spent so much time playing that one role. I think that kind of
diversity and that kind of challenge--I might be a better actor, I don't know.
I'm not sure. I think probably I would be. But so what?

GROSS: I want to ask you, you have a glass eye. And I think that happened
when you were three, you had a tumor removed?

Mr. FALK: Yeah.

GROSS: And I guess they removed your eye, too?

Mr. FALK: It was--yeah, it was a malignant tumor.

GROSS: Do you think that that's--that you've made that work for you as an
actor, to affect your image, to use it as something that looked menacing or
that makes you look more vulnerable.

Mr. FALK: Well, none of that was consciously...

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. FALK: ...I mean, the only thing that I would be aware of when I was
acting was try to avoid looking 100 percent wall-eyed so that if you were to
look in one direction and one eye went all the way to the left, and the other
one was still in the middle, I tried to avoid that. But I have never
consciously felt that, oh, I'll use it in some way.

GROSS: Gee--could you not get shot from certain angles because your eye
wouldn't move and that would be the only eye on camera?

Mr. FALK: I'm better off on the left side be--I think that that minimizes the
wall-eyed thing.

GROSS: Mm-hmm. Did kids pay you to look, you know, bizarre?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. FALK: That was a good--no, they never did that. No, when you're a kid,
you know, I used to dread that moment when somebody would say, `What's the
matter with your eye?' or something like that. And there was a turning point,
I don't know, when I was 12 or 13 years old, I think it had to do more with
playing ball with the guys because once you started knocking around with those
guys, they were so open about it. And they would say it so freely and it was
usually a gag or a joke or knocking you or whatever the hell it is that by
then it didn't mean anything to me anymore. I was very comfortable with it.

GROSS: Did it interfere with...

Mr. FALK: 'Cause I realized--another thing--I realized you could get a laugh
with it.

GROSS: No, did it interfere with anything that you wanted to do?

Mr. FALK: No. No. Not at all. No, the main--well, the problem with the eye
was the fact that my mother would--if I would go play football or whatever,
whatever sport--she was always nervous about it. And I always thought that
was ridiculous, nothing to be nervous about. You know, when you're that age,
nothing can happen to you. I had--and you could always get people's attention
if you took a spoon and tapped it.

GROSS: Oh, gosh!

Mr. FALK: But as I say, I remember the first night I was in the Merchant
Marines. There was this black guy from San Francisco--no, I think he was from
Oakland. He didn't know me, I didn't know him. We were just--shared this
foxhole together for the first night and he was sitting up in the top bunk
opposite me and I came in and I sat down. It was already very, very late.
And he had his pajamas on. So I started getting undressed. At that time I
had, my front teeth were knocked out and I had a removable bridge. So I took
out that bridge and put it on the table, it had a nice sound effect, a little
clunk when that went down. And then I popped the eye out and then the glass
hit the tabletop, that had a nice sound effect. And he's up there--he's up
there watching me. And then I bent over and I started unscrewing my knee. It
was a gesture, you know, where I started turning it. And it looked like I was
about to remove my leg.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. FALK: And I'll always remember him saying, `Excuse me, I'll be right
back.' He went somewhere. Probably the men's room.

GROSS: Well, I wanted to thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. FALK: Well, you're very welcome.

GROSS: Peter Falk recorded in 1995.

Coming up, J.K. Simmons, the neo-Nazi on the HBO prison series, "Oz." This is
FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Woman: One Adam-12, one Adam-12, a 415, man with a gun. One
Adam-12, no warrant. Lincoln ...(unintelligible) item 483. One Adam-12, 415,
fight group, with chains and knives...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Actor J.K. Simmons talks about his role as the
neo-Nazi Vern Schillinger in the HBO series "Oz"
TERRY GROSS, host:

It's TV week on FRESH AIR. And today we're featuring interviews about crime
shows. The most violent, sadistic and psychologically damaged TV criminals
can be seen on the HBO series, "Oz." Its fourth season ends tonight on HBO.
Oz is short for Oswald Maximum Security Penitentiary, the fictional prison in
which this series is set. One of the sickest in this collection of miscreants
is the neo-Nazi Vern Schillinger played by J.K. Simmons. Simmons leads a
TV double life on NBC's "Law & Order." He plays the police psychiatrist Emil
Skoda. In 1998 I spoke with J.K. Simmons about his role in "Oz" as
Schillinger, the neo-Nazi. Early in the first season of "Oz," he
psychologically tormented his new cellmate, a young lawyer, and turned him
into a sex slave. In this scene, Schillinger has stolen his cellmate's family
photos and is using these photos to further intimidate the scared newcomer.

(Soundbite of "Oz")

Mr. J.K. SIMMONS ("Vern Schillinger"): You've got a lovely family. I'm
amazed you haven't showed me these pictures before. Amazed and a little hurt.
I hope you don't mind me finding these hidden underneath your mattress.
Beautiful. My wife is dead. Well, I got two sons, 17 and 16. Handsome
(censored) kids, too. Good Aryan stock, you know? My sons are devoted to me.
I am an icon to them because I went to prison for my beliefs. They would do
anything I asked them to: steal, maim, kill. Maybe I should have them go
visit your family. Huh? Just a little friendly call. What do you think? My
sons and your wife; my sons and your daughter.

GROSS: J.K. Simmons, let me ask you to describe your character of Vern
Schillinger on "Oz."

Mr. SIMMONS: He's the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood in the maximum security
prison which is, of course, a neo-Nazi organization. He's a prisoner in for
longer and longer, as it turns out, and one of the main relationships I have
is with another prisoner and he and I have sort of gone back and forth in this
dominant-submissive-torturous relationship.

GROSS: Yes, well, early on when this other character whom you refer, who was
a lawyer who was imprisoned for drunken driving in which he accidentally
murdered a child--anyways, you made him your sex slave early in "Oz."

Mr. SIMMONS: I did, indeed. I made him my lovely wife.

GROSS: Yeah, I'm wondering what it was like for you to play this sadistic,
neo-Nazi who takes this young lawyer, makes him his sex slave.

Mr. SIMMONS: Well, it was pretty fun.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. SIMMONS: You know, I guess--it really actually is just as bizarre and
twisted and sick as much of what we do on the show is. And, of course, as
much of what happens in a maximum security prison actually is. It's sort of
like that, you know, like a M*A*S*H unit, we really have a great time. And we
keep referring to the jokes and, you know, oh--and this joke is, you know,
really gonna work, where I tattoo his rear-end. That'll be, you know, funny
because...

GROSS: With a swastika, I might add.

Mr. SIMMONS: Yeah, with a swastika, sort of, you know, leaving my mark. It
really is just a good time. It's a bunch of really wonderful actors working
with Tom Fontana's words and we're all just so happy to be there that no
matter how dark the stuff is that we're doing, it's just--I think it's just
kind of a release, in a way, getting that stuff out in a safe way. And we
just have fun.

GROSS: I thought one of the high points of the first season was when your
character, the neo-Nazi, got your sex slave to perform at, I guess it was, the
talent show, with lipstick on singing "I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good."

Mr. SIMMONS: Yeah. We--actually originally Tom wanted that to be "Somewhere
Over the Rainbow" but for some reason they didn't want to give him the
rights.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. SIMMONS: So I was all prepared with my, `I don't think we're in
Kansas...'

GROSS: That was a little Oz joke, wasn't it?

Mr. SIMMONS: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was all prepared with my, `I don't think
we're in Kansas anymore,' ad lib. And then they had to change it. But "I Got
It Bad And That Ain't Good" was, you know, a pretty good second choice and Lee
pulled it off pretty well.

GROSS: Who chose the song?

Mr. SIMMONS: Tom.

GROSS: Uh-huh.

Mr. SIMMONS: Tom Fontana, our erstwhile leader.

GROSS: Now what did you bring to the character in terms of research? Did you
feel like you had to hang out with brothers of the Aryan Nation or go to
prison and see what life was like inside? Did any of that seem necessary to
you?

Mr. SIMMONS: No, frankly, and it's also not as available to us working
schmucks as it would be if I were Robert DeNiro. You know, it's not like I
could just call a prison and say, `Hey, I'm J.K. Simmons, I want to come live
with the prisoners for a few days.' But I did do--I actually did--the
research that I did do was mostly on the Net, you know, checking out some
Aryan Web sites and just getting--trying to get an idea of their philosophy
and how they state it so that I could have some kind of place to come from.
And that was one of the things that Tom and I talked about between the first
and second seasons was trying to get more into a little bit of the politics
and relating my character with some of the other characters and--the black
Muslim and some of the other characters in the show.

GROSS: Now the way you play the character of the neo-Nazi on "Oz," there's
always this veneer of solicitousness. You always make it seem as if what
you're doing is for everybody's larger good and you're a real understanding
kind of guy.

Mr. SIMMONS: Veneer? Vern's a sweetheart.

GROSS: Well, that's how he sees himself. That's how he projects himself as
he's, you know, doing some very sadistic thing to...

Mr. SIMMONS: Yeah, you know, I--my general philosophy of playing bad guys,
which I've sort of done, you know, half the time, is you know, very few people
who we view as bad guys get out of bed and think, `What evil terrible thing am
I gonna do today?' Most people see their motivations as justified as, you
know, justifying whatever they do and that's what I try to go with.

GROSS: Is there anyone among your friends and family who you would rather not
have see you on "Oz"?

Mr. SIMMONS: Well, the ones that I would rather not have see me on "Oz"
choose not to watch "Oz" anyway. Most of my dad's family in rural Illinois,
you know, would completely disapprove, not only of the content but some of the
language. And I certainly respect that and, you know, they see me in my more
G-rated kinds of things. And I was actually--during the first season
especially where, I guess, I was--as my wife said, `bringing it home with
me'--she found it difficult to watch. I think she said something like--it was
airing at 11:00 one time and she was doing a Broadway show so she would get
home just before the show would be on. And after the second episode, she
said, `So, I'm supposed to come home from work, watch this with you, and then
get into bed with you? I don't think so.' So she actually kind of stopped
watching during the first season. But she is watching it with me again now.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. SIMMONS: Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

GROSS: J.K. Simmons plays the neo-Nazi Vern Schillinger on the HBO series,
"Oz." New episodes will debut in January. You can also see Simmons on the
NBC series "Law & Order." Our interview was recorded in 1998.

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly talk about the making of
"Cagney & Lacey"
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

It's TV Week on FRESH AIR. Today the subject is crime shows.

(Soundbite of "Cagney & Lacey" theme music)

GROSS: "Cagney & Lacey" was the first series that attempted to realistically
portray the lives of women cops. The series ran from 1982 to '88. Tyne Daly
played Mary Beth Lacey, a cop who also had to handle responsibilities at home
as wife and mother. Sharon Gless played Chris Cagney, a cop who was also a
single woman. After the series ended, Tyne Daly starred in the Broadway
revival of "Gypsy." She now co-stars in the CBS series "Judging Amy." Sharon
Gless married one of the creators of "Cagney & Lacey," Barney Rosenzweig, and
collaborated with him on another series, "The Trials of Rosie O'Neill."

I spoke with Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly in 1995 when they were reuniting for a
"Cagney & Lacey" TV movie.

(Excerpt from 1995)

GROSS: I think before "Cagney & Lacey," the TV shows that had women cops were
"Charlie's Angels," in which that show was as much about glamour as anything
else, and "Get Christie Love!" and then "Police Woman," which starred Angie
Dickinson. When you started the series, what did you want to do different
from the women cops of earlier shows?

Ms. TYNE DALY (Mary Beth Lacey, "Cagney & Lacey"): Well, I don't dishonor
those shows because I do think that they made an attempt to do something--you
know, we're all just products of our time frame. And in the time frame, they
were, in fact, allowing women to be at the helm of shows. So I can't despise
them at all. Without those foremothers, as the women's movement is fond of
saying, there wouldn't have been us in some ways.

But we certainly were really interested in talking about women who do not wear
high heels to run around the streets after bad guys who actually have the
smarts to change into their tennies to go home on the subway even, much less
to chase after perpetrators.

GROSS: Was there ever any pressure on you both, from outside or inside, or
pressure on the writers, to make the characters more glamorous?

Ms. DALY: Sure. There was lots of pressure from all sorts of places.
There's pressure on women in this society to be more glamorous no matter what
they do. But certainly on actresses.

Ms. SHARON GLESS (Christine Cagney, "Cagney & Lacey"): I used to be very
offended by people saying, `Well, so are you going to be effeminizing the
show?' And I said, `No.' I mean, it's already a feminine show. It stars two
women.

Ms. DALY: We are females. Here were are.

Ms. GLESS: Right. So I went out of my way--you know, to--well, just to make
her the woman that she is.

Ms. DALY: Yeah. There were a lot of real dumb assumptions in terms of the
women being strong and friends. There was stuff about lesbianism. There was
stuff about not being glamorous enough. There was--you know, there was stuff.
But that happens whenever you're trying to--What's that awful phrase?--push
the envelope a little bit.

GROSS: So what were the pressures about being more glamorous? Where did they
come from? What was said?

Ms. DALY: Jeez, that's a long time ago.

Ms. GLESS: Yeah. I didn't--I never got any direct pressure from any network
and certainly not from Barney.

Ms. DALY: We hired new costume people that second season, you know, that
were supposed to upgrade the clothes. There was supposedly more attention--I
had to...

Ms. GLESS: Oh, they did cut bangs on me.

Ms. DALY: Right.

GROSS: What was that supposed to do?

Ms. GLESS: I don't know, soften me I guess.

Ms. DALY: Yeah. I had to beat the hairdresser away, you know, to tell her
just to leave me alone because Mary Beth hadn't seen the back of her own hair
in 15 years and I didn't want to be constantly fluffed in terms of this very
busy, very tired lady. Stuff like that.

GROSS: And Mary Beth was hardly a very fashion-conscious character.

Ms. DALY: No.

GROSS: So--I mean, that's the way she should have been.

Ms. DALY: Yeah.

GROSS: But were you told she should be dressing better for the audience?

Ms. DALY: There was a--yeah, they brought in all these clothes, you know,
and then you just--and then you have to fight about what to wear and what not
to wear. It's all about image. And we were trying to get inside these women,
but there was--I felt there was--in those days if I go back, there was a lot
of discussion about how they looked and what they ought to look like.

Ms. GLESS: Two years into it I was taken shopping and told to get a better
bra and start wearing sort of slinkier clothes.

GROSS: What was wrong with your other bra?

Ms. GLESS: I got a better bra. They decided I wasn't high enough. But I
fi--I let them buy the clothes and then I didn't wear them.

GROSS: And what was it like for you both to learn how to carry a gun for the
series?

Ms. GLESS: Different experience. I was very nervous about it. When I first
was invited to play Cagney--when I first came to play Cagney, I was sent to
the police academy for training and Tyne showed up really just--I think for
support.

Ms. DALY: No, I was cleaning up. I was--go ahead.

Ms. GLESS: Yeah. Anyway, so there we were out on the target practice and
they had blanks in it and I was doing, you know, so-so. And then they took
the blanks out and put real bullets in and I just lost it. I really got very,
very frightened and tears started rolling down my face. I was shaking. I
just hate guns. But I looked over at Tyne and she had her bullets in and she
was getting pretty close to the bull's-eye. And all of a sudden I got very
competitive. And I said, `Wait a minute. Miss Cagney's not a wuss. Wait a
minute.'

So I started popping them off but I never had been comfortable ever carrying
the gun. When I needed to feel the weight in my purse, I would carry two
small cans of tomato juice. It got to be sort of a joke with us. And the
only time I would actually carry the gun, because our guns that you saw us
with were actual, real guns that did work. If I had to carry it on me, like
in a strap across my chest or in my belt and you saw it, I would then do it.
But otherwise, it always in the prop man's hands.

GROSS: Did you talk with women cops before you started the series?

Ms. DALY: Mm-hmm.

Ms. GLESS: Yes.

GROSS: Who did you seek out? Where did you go?

Ms. GLESS: I used just the women that they provided for us on the set. We
had technical advisers. And it was fascinating for me to hear the stories
when I was first there. I remember--it was like my first day on the set and I
don't remember who the technical adviser was.

Ms. DALY: It was that little--that very short blonde woman. She was
wonderful. She was from California.

Ms. GLESS: Right.

Ms. DALY: And she had six kids and she'd been married twice, both times to
cops.

Ms. GLESS: Right.

Ms. DALY: She was our first TA and I can't recall her name either, which is
too bad. But she was an interesting woman.

Ms. GLESS: Well, I was aware of the fact that we were playing
non-traditional roles and it was in a man's world. And I remember I asked
her, `Is it all right to show feelings in these characters?'

Ms. DALY: And she said no. And she said, `If you're standing over a dead
body and you quiver and shake and throw up, they're going to not respect you
and you can't do it. You've got to hold on to yourself.'

GROSS: Right. Right. What's the range of response you heard from cops about
the show?

Ms. GLESS: Mostly positive that I remember.

Ms. DALY: I think that people don't trouble too often unless they're very
upset to tell you what they hate about it. There--we got a lot of
appreciative mail all around, you know.

Ms. GLESS: The most frightening is when you get mail from young, young,
young women or young girls who say, `We really--I love your show and I've
just--I'm just out of high school and I just enrolled. I'm going on the
force.' You know, you want to write them back and say, `Look, you can get
killed. This is just a dramatization.'

Ms. DALY: However, chances are if they're not made for it and they go
through the academy, they'll either do it or they'll get weeded out.

Ms. GLESS: Yeah.

Ms. DALY: But it does feel like a huge responsibility to have the young
saying, `I'd like to follow in your footsteps as a cop.'

Ms. GLESS: Right.

Ms. DALY: And you want to say, `Don't, I'm an actress.'

Ms. GLESS: Right.

Ms. DALY: `I know nothing about being a cop.'

Ms. GLESS: Exactly. Right.

Ms. DALY: `So you want to talk about my profession--go into my profession,
that's a whole other discussion.'

Ms. GLESS: Right.

GROSS: Well, I guess that made you think twice about doing anything that
would glamorize police work.

Ms. DALY: No. My intention was to do a lot of sitting in front of the
typewriter filling out reports.

Ms. GLESS: Yeah. Because that's what it is.

Ms. DALY: I mean, that's the boring part of the job, the stuff that's just
routine is so huge. And yeah, we were allowed to do that in a way that a
glamorous male star who has to uphold the fantasy of what cop life is like
is not obliged to do. It wasn't until a little bit later that we started
getting your "Hill Street Blues" and your "L.A. Laws" and stuff like that
when we look a little bit of how it really goes. But still, we--you know, I
kept--we had a couple of gunfights but they were rare because you if pull that
weapon in real life and to shoot somebody you're going to have to fill out
reports in triplicates.

Ms. GLESS: Right.

Ms. DALY: About why you did it and where the thing landed and how come you
used two bullets instead of one?

Ms. GLESS: We also were told that as often as you see guns being pulled on
television by people who play cops, that they don't do that.

Ms. DALY: In their careers.

Ms. GLESS: They don't pull that gun unless they mean to use it.

GROSS: Sharon Gless, did you want the series to end?

Ms. GLESS: When it ended?

GROSS: Yeah.

Ms. GLESS: Yeah. By that time, I was ready. Hell, I was in rehab when it
ended.

GROSS: Were you?

Ms. GLESS: Yeah. I was at Hazelton when I got the news. And I thought,
`It's best. It's fine. I need a rest. I need a break.' I noticed there
was--when it was time to go back--you know, in that time whenever it is you go
back to do your series again, when that time rolled around, I remember sort of
feeling an emptiness. `Gosh, this is when I'd be doing this.' But I was
glad. I felt we'd all done wonderful, wonderful work. I'd made a friend for
life. I fell in love with the producer which was good news and bad news. All
kinds of things happened so I went away with many things. But when the end
came, it was OK.

GROSS: Let me ask you, was there any connection between your character's
drinking problem and your own time in rehab?

Ms. GLESS: No. I don't believe that. I didn't even think that I had a
problem until a year after Cagney had sobered up.

GROSS: That's funny because Cagney never thought she had a problem.

Ms. GLESS: Well, that's true.

GROSS: I guess you didn't learn anything from it, huh?

Ms. GLESS: You know, there may be some level on which I actually--a doctor
that I interviewed with about what I should do and do I have a problem, blah,
blah, said, `I thought'--he said, `When you were playing Cagney,' he said, `I
thought you were sober. I thought that you'--I mean, I was sober when I shot
it but he said, `I thought you had already been in rehab and knew exactly how
to play an alcoholic.' And I said, `Well, that was me just acting.' He said,
`Well, very impressive.' I said, `Thank you.' Because I wasn't that good
where I could drink on the set. I wouldn't remember my lines and that
particular two parter had a lot of monologues in them so--anway, no I don't
relate between the two. She was one person and I was another.

(End of excerpt)

GROSS: Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly starred in the series "Cagney & Lacey." We
spoke in 1995. Coming up, "NYPD's" Lieutenant Arthur Fancy. We'll talk with
actor James McDaniel. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: James McDaniel, "NYPD Blue," talks about his
character, racism and acting
TERRY GROSS, host:

We end our program on TV crime shows with a series that begins its seventh
season this fall, "NYPD Blue." James McDaniel plays Lieutenant Arthur Fancy,
a very decent, ethical man who backs up his men when they deserve it. As an
African-American, Lieutenant Fancy is acutely aware of racism but does his
best to keep his emotions in check. I spoke with James McDaniel in 1996. I
asked him if the character of Arthur Fancy was written specifically for him.

(Excerpt from 1996 interview)

Mr. JAMES McDANIEL (Lieutenant Arthur Fancy, "NYPD Blue"): Yeah. And I
could really never figure that out because they said, `You're going to be the
lieutenant of this squad of detectives.' And I'm saying, `I don't--of all the
things that I could be doing, I see myself much more on the street running
around chasing perps, you know. I'm not that old yet. You know, how am I
going to live up to that? That's not the way I see myself at all.' You know,
I mean, when we started talking about this, I was--you know, it was around the
time I was doing "Six Degrees of Separation." I was playing a 21-year-old
interloper into a family's life. You know, I was playing a kid. And they
wanted me to play this leader of men and I knew that I was going to be working
with Dennis Franz. And, you know, I mean, `I'm going to be a leader of Dennis
Franz?' So I had to figure out a way to make that work and I got it.
Gradually I got used to the idea.

GROSS: You had to figure out how to be a convincing authority figure.

Mr. McDANIEL: Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh.

GROSS: Well, how'd you do that?

Mr. McDANIEL: A lot of thought went into it. Well, one of the things that I
realized from, you know, my years of being on the stage, was that--if you want
somebody to do what you want them to do, the best way to do it is quietly.
For example, if someone's making a move to the door and you're next line is,
`Stop,' the best way to do it is just say, `Stop' as quietly as possible so
it's barely audible to the audience. Because that actor has to stop after
all, right? So if you scream, that means that you have to scream in order to
make that person hear you. But if you do it very quietly, he's got to turn
around and that connotes power. And that's one of the things that I use on
the show is a--he's very confident and he makes his wishes known by just
really never raising his voice. I mean, he just says what he wants done.

GROSS: Now one of the things you give the impression of in "NYPD Blue" is of
always, like, checking your emotions, reining them in. You always get the
feeling that there's stuff this character is thinking that he's not showing
and he's not talking about. Do you feel the same way about the character? Do
you feel like that's your approach to him?

Mr. McDANIEL: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know--I mean, you know, this is a
cognitive thing that I actually--it doesn't just happen. I don't just show up
on the set and have this like magic, you know. It's--you know, I'm acting.
The thing that you have to remember when you do something like that is when
you have a secret, you have to really have a secret because if you don't have
a secret, the audience will know that you don't have a secret. It won't just
appear that way because you just don't say anything, if you know what I mean.

GROSS: Yeah. So if there's stuff that you're not revealing, you have to know
what it is that you're not revealing.

Mr. McDANIEL: Exactly. Exactly.

GROSS: So what are some of the things that your character knows about his
real feelings that he never tells us about?

Mr. McDANIEL: Well, I--one of the things with him is that he's got this black
thing and he seeths about--he's definitely a seether. And he sees a certain
amount of injustice and he's dedicated to overcoming that with every fiber of
his being and it drives him, it makes him almost sick sometimes because he
feels as if he can't be wrong. Everybody should be allowed to feel that they
can be wrong sometimes, just fly off the handle, say things they don't really
mean.

GROSS: Now you know how you were talking about your character as having kind
of very, very deep and very strong feelings about race in America but keeping
that in check on the job, just keeping that in and just kind of steaming
without revealing what he's really thinking.

Mr. McDANIEL: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Have you ever been like that yourself on the subject of race?

Mr. McDANIEL: Oh yeah. I mean, to a certain extent it's what--it's one of
the things that motivates me. It's been a great motivator for me. I'm very
fortunate to be a black man, you know. This is going to sound awful but it,
to a certain degree, has kept James McDaniel from being mediocre. I really
think it's one of the driving forces behind me, to prove that I can be good,
that I can be somebody. And to make the world see so that other people like
myself can kind of feel like there's somebody. I mean, that sounds pretty
pompous, I guess, but that's one of the things that drives me, you know. I
see double standards all the time and I can never really understand it. I
just--I really won't be happy until people can just walk into the room and we
live in a colorless society. And I feel like we're so, so far away from that.
People just need to look at each other and talk to each other and from making
that assessment decide whether or not they like each other just based on what
they hear. What they believe is in someone else's heart.

GROSS: There was a great episode of "NYPD Blue" awhile back in which race was
one of the subjects. And Sipowicz had used a racial epithet with someone on a
case that he was working, after that person used that word in describing
himself. So Sipowicz was accused of being a racist but he defended himself by
saying, `Well, he used it to describe himself first and I was just following
up on it.' And then you and he have a big blowup over this and whether
he--you know, you're accusing him of behaving poorly on the case. Of being
unprofessional on the case. And he's basically accusing you of playing the
race card. Let me play that scene, where you and he have that big encounter.

Mr. McDANIEL: Okey-doke.

(Soundbite of "NYPD Blue")

Mr. McDANIEL (As Lieutenant Arthur Fancy): It would have been smarter for you
to go home when the shift ended.

Mr. DENNIS FRANZ (As Detective Andy Sipowicz): If you're going after me, you
bring charges or let Quasi(ph) do it 'cause I want a chance to answer them in
front of somebody besides you.

Mr. McDANIEL (As Lieutenant Arthur Fancy): Yeah. This is about me, Andy.
I'm the racist.

Mr. FRANZ (As Detective Andy Sipowicz): I've said that word. I thought it
plenty, but I've never used it on the job till your hump pal put us on that
road.

Mr. McDANIEL (As Lieutenant Arthur Fancy): This isn't about a word, Andy, or
your impure thoughts. It's about you making this case harder to work.

Mr. FRANZ (As Detective Andy Sipowicz): It's not about you being black, huh?
Not about giving something back to me?

Mr. McDANIEL (As Lieutenant Arthur Fancy): It's about what I say it's about.

Mr. FRANZ (As Detective Andy Sipowicz): Then say part of what it's about is
watching me sweat.

Mr. McDANIEL (As Lieutenant Arthur Fancy): Well, a hell of a lot went down
today so I'd have to check my notes, but I thought I'd spend some of that time
trying to save your sorry ass.

Mr. FRANZ (As Detective Andy Sipowicz): Give me a break.

Mr. McDANIEL (As Lieutenant Arthur Fancy): No, I'm not going to take you out,
Andy. I move you out, my white bosses, they send me a little message. They'd
send me another one just like you, but maybe that one can't do the job like
you can.

Mr. FRANZ (As Detective Andy Sipowicz): Jeez, thanks a lot, boss.

Mr. McDANIEL (As Lieutenant Arthur Fancy): If you go, it'll be somebody like
Quasi or like that reporter. I've been dealing with white cops like you ever
since the academy. I could manage you with my eyes closed. Now maybe you
can't handle a black man being your boss.

Mr. FRANZ (As Detective Andy Sipowicz): I can handle it. I've been covering
you three and a half years. Except when you get so tied up in your
brother-brother crap, you won't let us work the streets. That's when you get
yourself in trouble.

Unidentified Man: Hey, Lu(ph), we got a report of a person shot near the
Housin Street Projects(ph).

Mr. FRANZ (As Detective Andy Sipowicz): Want me to handle it?

Mr. McDANIEL (As Lieutenant Arthur Fancy): Was it a homicide?

Unidentified Man: I don't know.

Mr. FRANZ (As Detective Andy Sipowicz): That teen-age girl, the eyewitness,
isn't she in those projects?

Mr. McDANIEL (As Lieutenant Arthur Fancy): Yeah. I think we got them out,
though.

Mr. FRANZ (As Detective Andy Sipowicz): Sylvia was involved there.

Mr. McDANIEL (As Lieutenant Arthur Fancy): Check it out.

Mr. FRANZ (As Detective Andy Sipowicz): You want me to check it out?

Mr. McDANIEL (As Lieutenant Arthur Fancy): Yeah. Sipowicz'll handle it.

(End of excerpt)

GROSS: How did you prepare for the role of Lieutenant Fancy when the series
was starting? Did you hang out with cops?

Mr. McDANIEL: Yeah. Yeah. That's the first thing and that was really
interesting, too, when you're trying to fashion a character because the first
thing you want to do and, you know, hence the term role models. You know, you
want to see the closest person that you could be to that guy. And, you know,
Bill Clark, our technical adviser and who is now one of our supervising
producers, was hooking me up with a lot of people who did my job. And the
guys were like, `Hey, Joey, you know, could you run down and get me a cup of
coffee.' You know, they were all those kind of guys.

And I could relate to them to a certain degree, but I just couldn't get that
thing. I couldn't see me being them, you know? Most of them were like father
figures and stuff, you know. And I couldn't see me in that role. But I met
this one black lieutenant named Gene Albright(ph), who is much older than me
but he helped me out a lot because what it made me realize is what Arthur
Fancy could be. That there wasn't like a strict stereotype or a mold that I
had to come out of because this guy had an art degree and he was very literate
and he was very different, had a very, very high kind of nasal voice. He
didn't strike me as being extraordinarily manly. And what that does when you
see that, is it releases you to other possibilities that maybe your
imagination hadn't kind of allowed you to accept.

GROSS: My guest is James McDaniel. He plays Lieutenant Fancy on "NYPD Blue."
We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: It's TV Week on FRESH AIR. Let's get back to our 1996 interview with
James McDaniel, who plays Lieutenant Arthur Fancy on "NYPD Blue."

After having played a cop yourself for several years, what do you think of
cops now, and particularly--you know, police relations in Los Angeles are so
racially charged now and have been for many years. Do you find yourself
relating to the cops or what?

Mr. McDANIEL: No. You know, I keep it simple. I relate to people. You
know, there's good cops and there's bad cops.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. McDANIEL: And, you know, bad cops make bad policy. And vice versa. You
know, I get just as exasperated by cops now as I ever did, you know. I mean,
you know, I drive an expensive car. It's not unusual for me to be pulled over
twice on the way home on any given evening, you know, because my windows are
slightly tinted. I mean, we know what that's about. So, you know, I just
kind of take it a person at a time. You know, knowing that it's human nature.
There's some good guys and there's some bad guys. There's a real problem out
in LA, I can tell you that.

GROSS: Now when that happens to you and you're pulled over, do you ever make
a point of making sure that the cop knows who you are, what your role is, how
paradoxical this whole situation is?

Mr. McDANIEL: Well, I mean, I don't--you know, I don't lean on the show...

GROSS: Right.

Mr. McDANIEL: ...because that's just--that'd mean...

GROSS: `Do you know who I am?'

Mr. McDANIEL: Yeah. Yeah. You know...

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. McDANIEL: ...when those words come out of my mouth, that's going to be a
big day.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. McDANIEL: That's really--I'm going to say, `Uh-oh, Jim, you've gone over
to the other side. Things have gotten really bad. You are officially an LA
jerk.' But I do try to make some type of statement about it.

GROSS: Like?

Mr. McDANIEL: Well, just what we said. You know, I'll make a big deal as to
why the stop. You know, the first thing I do is make sure that my
automobile--everything checks out even though my windows are slightly tinted.
But I mean, everybody's windows are tinted in LA. You know, you can't drive a
car that doesn't have tinted windows. Your upholstery gets ruined and you're
hot all the time, you know. So I got the lightest tint possible but
everything else on my car checks out and it's, like, right there. Bam, `Open
the glove compartment.' Boom, it's there. And from that point on, I just
start talking to him and start asking him why he's doing this. And I try to
get into his psychology so that when we finally separate, he thinks about it a
little bit. I was kind of an unusual experience.

GROSS: What kind of reactions have you gotten after talking with the cops who
pull you over?

Mr. McDANIEL: Well, LA cops are tough because they have this veneer that's
very unlike New York cops, whereby they try to act like perfect human beings.
`Hello, sir. How are you?', you know. `We're just about to shoot you, but
have a nice day.' You know, they go through some type of training for that.
I don't know what it is. You know, it's like smile and hate you at the same
time. You know. New York cops if they don't like you, you know, they make no
bones about it. It's like, `I don't like you, buddy, right now, right here.
Let's go.' That answer your question?

GROSS: Yeah. No, is there anything you've been able to use on "NYPD Blue"
from your experiences, from your encounters of cops who've pulled you over?

Mr. McDANIEL: Well, you know, if I was a street cop, there definitely would
be. My approach would be to play one of those guys, because, you know, that
goes straight across race lines, too, you know? I mean, because I've had that
experience. That's why I say it's not necessarily a racial thing because I've
had that experience with black cops, too. And they do that hail fellow,
well-met type behavior just as good as anybody else. So I--you know, if I was
a street cop, I would probably play one of those guys. You know, I don't like
just, you know, regular old heroes. You know, just, `Da-da da, Dudley
Do-Right, here he comes.' I would play one of those kind of guys. Try to
find me humanity in there someplace.

GROSS: James McDaniel, a real pleasure to talk with you. Thank you very
much.

Mr. McDANIEL: It really was. I enjoyed that.

(End of excerpt)

GROSS: James McDaniel plays Lieutenant Arthur Fancy on "NYPD Blue." Our
interview was recorded in 1996. FRESH AIR's TV Week continues tomorrow with
variety shows and sketch comedy.

(Credits given)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.