Post by lemur on Apr 3, 2008 9:57:04 GMT -5
Is he a Republican?!
I thought not, but then I came across this old Guardian interview with John Mahoney (rather good). I've indented the incriminating bits!
Good at grouchy
June 29, 1998
John Mahoney is a brilliant ensemble actor, as fans of TV's Frasier will testify. But in private he's very much his own man. Simon Fanshawe reports
It's utterly pathetic. But it's true. You expect actors in soaps and sitcoms to be the character. Not like the character, but actually the character. So when John Mahoney opens the door, there is Frasier's dad. Just like you see him every Friday. But of course there is no dog, no limp, no home-care worker, no prissy, pompous pair of sons with their precisely laundered and pressed social pretensions for him to prick. There is just John Mahoney, who is not a widowed 64-year-old ex-cop from Seattle with distinctly conservative views and a cranky but touching cynicism about the world. Instead there is a polite, kindly, unmarried 57-year-old opera-loving Democrat from Chicago in sneakers with an air of no regrets about him and a considerable film and theatre pedigree.
But after talking to him for an hour and a half, and liking him very much, I'm not sure how much I discovered about him other than he is one of the most self-contained people you might ever meet.
Although Mahoney's not in the least cagey. In fact he's charmingly and quite openly blunt. "I have very strong opinions about everything," he says. "It just depends on the situation whether I'll express them, just how obnoxious I find the person I'm talking to. If that person is extremely obnoxious then I'll do everything I can." None of this comes over as terse as it seems on paper; he just says these things with a great deal of certainty about himself. "I'm a very glib person and very well-educated and it's very easy for me to put people down, but I don't want to do it. I'm very afraid of hurting people's feelings. But if it's a nasty person who's just asking for it then I take a great deal of pleasure in doing it."
Maybe that's why he's good at playing grouchy. In his hiatus from Frasier he has come to London with Steppenwolf, the company founded by John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, Laurie Metcalf and a bunch of other actors who have since shot into the A-list. Mahoney has belonged to it for 20 years since Malkovich spotted him and cast him in David Mamet's The Water Engine in 1977. In London he is playing the irascible Sheridan Whiteside whose brutal comic put-downs have made The Man Who Came To Dinner by Moss Hart and George S Kaufman one of the classic American comedies.
But in among all the other US stars coming over here to bathe in the credibility that the London theatre can give them, Mahoney does not regard this as 'celebrity casting'. "I know it had a lot to do with my association with Frasier" - which is a modest way to put it - "but the script is a great match for me. And I have certainly done a lot more theatre than TV. And I'm very excited to be here and not in the least intimidated by it."
This last remark is a rare moment of guarded vulnerability. With awards galore for his work on and off Broadway and with Steppenwolf from Pinter and Beckett to Ayckbourn and Shaw, no one would suggest Mahoney had any reason to be uneasy about the stage. In fact theatre is clearly his guiding inspiration. "It's where I feel most alive, it's the most joy in my life, it stimulates me intellectually and emotionally. It's the use of language, telling the story, the absolute freedom to play, the fear of screwing up. You're always aware that you might send 1,500 people away very disappointed and with a very low opinion of you."
It is part of the great success of Frasier that Mahoney, Kelsey Grammer, who plays Frasier, and David Hyde Pierce, who plays Niles, are all stage actors. "Kelsey was in the park with Shakespeare when he got Cheers and David has even toured Russia with Chekhov. So we have a lot in common."
This is because Mahoney, who was born in Liverpool and lived in England for his early life, was brought up a Catholic. "I drifted away for a while in my late twenties and then drifted back in my forties. So while I regard myself as pretty liberal socially, I'm pretty conservative when it comes to abortion. Kelsey once asked me to a charity thing once. I went without knowing what it was. And basically it was an organisation ... something like Our Bodies Ourselves, Our Bodies Our Lives ... and he had a lot of comedian friends who got up and took off after the Pope and Catholicism. And I felt myself about ready to explode. I didn't get up and leave only out of deference to Kelsey and our friendship. I could never support abortion. And I know that it puts me in a great, great, great minority amongst the people that I know. But Kelsey and I never argue about things like that, we really don't."
Celebrity gossip over, we return to talking about Chicago, where Mahoney returns at every possible opportunity. He made the city his home almost as soon as he first arrived in the States when he was 19. He had a sister living in Illinois and a visit to her led to him enlisting in the US army to get his citizenship and then four years at college and a year at graduate school, after which he taught for a short while before becoming the well-paid editor of a medical magazine.
"I hate LA because it has no personality. But Chicago has a huge personality. That massive lake as big as an ocean with miles and miles of beach with the skyscrapers in the background. It has the greatest symphony orchestra in the world, even after Solti left, and it is just a beautiful, beautiful city to look at with architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rhoe and Sullivan." In March he received the Commitment to Chicago citation at the 1998 Chicago Film Critics Awards and told the audience "I feel like I should be giving the 'Commitment to John Mahoney Award' to Chicago." He has been adopted by the city which is home to his surrogate family, Steppenwolf. And in the absence of a partner it's the company and the city that grounds him. "We really have known each other so long," he says of Malkovich, Sinise and the others, "that we're like family."
"I'm 57 and I just don't live with anybody, I'm very happy the way I am. Some people are not meant to live with anybody. But everybody feels sorry for you. They try and fix you up. When I get invited for dinner I always say 'There'd better not be another single person there. If you're trying to fix me up, I'm going to be very upset.'" But he can't be always this calm, can he? When he's alone and interviews are over does he lie on the bathroom floor foaming at the mouth and screaming and shouting and giving vent to his emotions. "Oh sure when you leave, I have a rubber doll in there and I'll take it out and kick it around." He slaps his knee. "No I'm pretty even-tempered. I enjoy meeting people. And I never feel threatened by interviews, maybe because I know who I am and I don't have to impress you."
You certainly don't. It just seems such a perfect irony that this brilliant ensemble actor is clearly a solo act in private.
***
So ... has John got it wrong? Or is he joking? Or is David really ... *gasp* Republican?!
(To Republicans: I jest and mean no offence and actually quite like John McCain.
Good article anyway. Pity that Art thing never happened, sounds like it would have rocked.
I thought not, but then I came across this old Guardian interview with John Mahoney (rather good). I've indented the incriminating bits!
Good at grouchy
June 29, 1998
John Mahoney is a brilliant ensemble actor, as fans of TV's Frasier will testify. But in private he's very much his own man. Simon Fanshawe reports
It's utterly pathetic. But it's true. You expect actors in soaps and sitcoms to be the character. Not like the character, but actually the character. So when John Mahoney opens the door, there is Frasier's dad. Just like you see him every Friday. But of course there is no dog, no limp, no home-care worker, no prissy, pompous pair of sons with their precisely laundered and pressed social pretensions for him to prick. There is just John Mahoney, who is not a widowed 64-year-old ex-cop from Seattle with distinctly conservative views and a cranky but touching cynicism about the world. Instead there is a polite, kindly, unmarried 57-year-old opera-loving Democrat from Chicago in sneakers with an air of no regrets about him and a considerable film and theatre pedigree.
But after talking to him for an hour and a half, and liking him very much, I'm not sure how much I discovered about him other than he is one of the most self-contained people you might ever meet.
Although Mahoney's not in the least cagey. In fact he's charmingly and quite openly blunt. "I have very strong opinions about everything," he says. "It just depends on the situation whether I'll express them, just how obnoxious I find the person I'm talking to. If that person is extremely obnoxious then I'll do everything I can." None of this comes over as terse as it seems on paper; he just says these things with a great deal of certainty about himself. "I'm a very glib person and very well-educated and it's very easy for me to put people down, but I don't want to do it. I'm very afraid of hurting people's feelings. But if it's a nasty person who's just asking for it then I take a great deal of pleasure in doing it."
Maybe that's why he's good at playing grouchy. In his hiatus from Frasier he has come to London with Steppenwolf, the company founded by John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, Laurie Metcalf and a bunch of other actors who have since shot into the A-list. Mahoney has belonged to it for 20 years since Malkovich spotted him and cast him in David Mamet's The Water Engine in 1977. In London he is playing the irascible Sheridan Whiteside whose brutal comic put-downs have made The Man Who Came To Dinner by Moss Hart and George S Kaufman one of the classic American comedies.
But in among all the other US stars coming over here to bathe in the credibility that the London theatre can give them, Mahoney does not regard this as 'celebrity casting'. "I know it had a lot to do with my association with Frasier" - which is a modest way to put it - "but the script is a great match for me. And I have certainly done a lot more theatre than TV. And I'm very excited to be here and not in the least intimidated by it."
This last remark is a rare moment of guarded vulnerability. With awards galore for his work on and off Broadway and with Steppenwolf from Pinter and Beckett to Ayckbourn and Shaw, no one would suggest Mahoney had any reason to be uneasy about the stage. In fact theatre is clearly his guiding inspiration. "It's where I feel most alive, it's the most joy in my life, it stimulates me intellectually and emotionally. It's the use of language, telling the story, the absolute freedom to play, the fear of screwing up. You're always aware that you might send 1,500 people away very disappointed and with a very low opinion of you."
It is part of the great success of Frasier that Mahoney, Kelsey Grammer, who plays Frasier, and David Hyde Pierce, who plays Niles, are all stage actors. "Kelsey was in the park with Shakespeare when he got Cheers and David has even toured Russia with Chekhov. So we have a lot in common."
But while they may share many things theatrically, they do not see eye-to-eye politically. It is reasonably well known that Grammer, who plays the liberal-minded Dr Frasier Crane is anything but. However it was one of the great icon-smashing moments to discover that Hyde Pierce is a Republican. Niles a Reaganite? "I'm afraid so," says Mahoney roaring with laughter, "but we meet on a lot of topics. And in fact if we have disagreements it's more likely along religious lines than political ones."
This is because Mahoney, who was born in Liverpool and lived in England for his early life, was brought up a Catholic. "I drifted away for a while in my late twenties and then drifted back in my forties. So while I regard myself as pretty liberal socially, I'm pretty conservative when it comes to abortion. Kelsey once asked me to a charity thing once. I went without knowing what it was. And basically it was an organisation ... something like Our Bodies Ourselves, Our Bodies Our Lives ... and he had a lot of comedian friends who got up and took off after the Pope and Catholicism. And I felt myself about ready to explode. I didn't get up and leave only out of deference to Kelsey and our friendship. I could never support abortion. And I know that it puts me in a great, great, great minority amongst the people that I know. But Kelsey and I never argue about things like that, we really don't."
The three of them have a genuine mutual affection. When I point out that next summer, when they all take over in the New York production of Art, he will be out-numbered two Republicans to one Democrat, he laughs and says, "Honestly they're so much fun you'd never believe they're Republicans." Mahoney roars a mischevious full-throttle throaty laugh and with a big twinkle then goes on to dish the dirt on Pierce who apparently is an "utter slob, who has never seen an iron in his life." He also only shaves when he has to "which is very unsightly because he's a very hairy person."
Celebrity gossip over, we return to talking about Chicago, where Mahoney returns at every possible opportunity. He made the city his home almost as soon as he first arrived in the States when he was 19. He had a sister living in Illinois and a visit to her led to him enlisting in the US army to get his citizenship and then four years at college and a year at graduate school, after which he taught for a short while before becoming the well-paid editor of a medical magazine.
"I hate LA because it has no personality. But Chicago has a huge personality. That massive lake as big as an ocean with miles and miles of beach with the skyscrapers in the background. It has the greatest symphony orchestra in the world, even after Solti left, and it is just a beautiful, beautiful city to look at with architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rhoe and Sullivan." In March he received the Commitment to Chicago citation at the 1998 Chicago Film Critics Awards and told the audience "I feel like I should be giving the 'Commitment to John Mahoney Award' to Chicago." He has been adopted by the city which is home to his surrogate family, Steppenwolf. And in the absence of a partner it's the company and the city that grounds him. "We really have known each other so long," he says of Malkovich, Sinise and the others, "that we're like family."
"I'm 57 and I just don't live with anybody, I'm very happy the way I am. Some people are not meant to live with anybody. But everybody feels sorry for you. They try and fix you up. When I get invited for dinner I always say 'There'd better not be another single person there. If you're trying to fix me up, I'm going to be very upset.'" But he can't be always this calm, can he? When he's alone and interviews are over does he lie on the bathroom floor foaming at the mouth and screaming and shouting and giving vent to his emotions. "Oh sure when you leave, I have a rubber doll in there and I'll take it out and kick it around." He slaps his knee. "No I'm pretty even-tempered. I enjoy meeting people. And I never feel threatened by interviews, maybe because I know who I am and I don't have to impress you."
You certainly don't. It just seems such a perfect irony that this brilliant ensemble actor is clearly a solo act in private.
***
So ... has John got it wrong? Or is he joking? Or is David really ... *gasp* Republican?!
(To Republicans: I jest and mean no offence and actually quite like John McCain.
Good article anyway. Pity that Art thing never happened, sounds like it would have rocked.
Interesting finds. You could well be right.