Upon playing Batman: “I’ve done an absurdly commercial cartoon and now I’m more likely to get hired for a job I couldn’t get hired for before, because I hadn’t done enough movies. It’s so rare when an actor gets hired because he’s right for the role – it just doesn’t figure into it.”
The only time it’s ever like work is when you don’t like what you’ve done.
“I was going to movies and watching TV, going to the theater a little bit. It was, like, ‘Wow, you could make a living doing this? Great! What could be better?’ There isn’t anything I could choose better.” – On why he initially choose acting as a career while still a young man.
Being successful doesn’t change things. There’s a painful, lonely part of acting because you’re always waiting. The thing about being a performer is doing, and when you have to wait, it’s the same pain as when you’re starting out and have no job. You think that thing will go away, but it doesn’t. It just shifts. I remember Robert Duvall saying that being a successful actor is all about finding interesting hobbies, because if you don’t have the right hobby, you die. It’s very hard to maintain interest. Most actors don’t. They become a little clichéd. You learn how to do tricks and stuff.
Tim Matheson arrives at the 22nd annual Critics’ Choice Awards at the Barker Hangar on Sunday, Dec. 11, 2016, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Born December 31, 1947 · Glendale, California, USA
Jennifer Leak(September 28, 1968 – January 1971) (divorced)
QUOTES:
[on starting out in his career as a child actor] Kurt [Kurt Russell] taught me a lot. Basically, Kurt left the business for about five years. He made a lot of money as a kid, then sort of went to be a baseball player. And after that he focused on skiing … bought a house in Aspen and skied … And he didn’t care about it. My point is that you have to have a real life. I also think one has to reinvent oneself as a performer every five to seven years. I look at my career, and I was a kid actor who did cartoons, then I was a Western actor as a young man, then I was a comedy actor in movies, then a TV-movie actor, then a TV director … There are different phases … But I think one has a shelf life of about five to seven years where you’re in a series, or you play a character, or you hit in a movie — and that sort of wears out its welcome after a certain point. Then you’ve got to put it on its head, reinvent it, find a new approach, otherwise you’re just stuck being that guy who did that thing back then. So I’ve always sought out new challenges. Also, I’ve tried to have a home life and a family. I raised my kids up in Santa Barbara and got away from the city of Los Angeles so that [the environment] wasn’t so crazy for them to grow up in.
Some directors just shoot characters walking around a set, and they think that’s all they have to do. That’s not it. Howard Hawks and John Ford knew where to put the camera. They knew if the camera was here or there, it tells the story better. And, early on as an actor, I remember sometimes thinking that I’d given a good performance in certain shows, but then when I finally saw my work, it wasn’t particularly dynamic. There were flat shots, the directing wasn’t very good … But when I’d work with better directors, who’d stage my scenes differently, who use stronger camera angles, and — perhaps even though I didn’t give what I thought was the best performance — the result was more dynamic and effective. And I thought, “Ah-ah! He made me a better actor by what he did as a director.” So I think my job as a director is to help the actor give his or her best performance, as well as frame it in such a way to enhance whatever they do to create a stronger impact.
[2009, on Fletch (1985)] I got to work with one of my dear friends, Michael Ritchie, who ended up being my next-door neighbor for several years. And Chevy Chase, finally. I’d known Chevy a bit, but I’d never gotten to work with him. Chevy had been a bad boy with a drug problem, and had never really realized his potential. Fletch was the first movie he sort of straightened up on. And Michael was Harvard-educated, 6’6″, a brilliant director and political thinker. He was the guy the studio thought could handle Chevy, and keep him in check. And he could. He’d shoot the movie the way he wanted it, then do one take for Chevy. When I worked with Chevy, he’d say, “Just ad lib and try to break me up. Just insult me. Anything.” When we were doing his close-up, or when my back was to the camera, I would come up with jokes or quips or anything, to get a real reaction out of him. He was smart enough to know that was gold. So it was great fun working with him and Michael, and getting to see how the two worked together. I think Fletch and Clark Griswold were Chevy’s two best roles. He’s so incredibly talented and still vastly underused. I don’t even know what he’s doing now.
Spouses Chris Calkins(May 4, 2009 – present) Paul Dorman(June 1984 – 1991) (divorced)
QUOTES:
[about the film Tadpole (2002)] It’s more about who Oscar is that these women are falling in love with him than just his age. In that sense, it’s a little more European than we’re used to.
I’ve always loved to dance on stage. I’ve been doing ballet since I was five, and stage dancing since I was seven. Ballet has always been how I defined myself – even as a child. It’s never been just a thing to do.
I have the greatest picture of Ted [Danson]. That was a big caper: There was one person [opening] the door with a butter knife and another person kicking the door in so I could get a photo. He’s decapitated, but totally nude. And he’s really well-endowed.
Kirstie [Alley] saved me, in a way. [At the time], I had a terrible marriage, and I stayed at her house. She was wonderful – just a kind, big-hearted, filthy girl. Somehow she could be vulgar without being vulgar.
Go to the Daily Film Festival Platform http://www.wildsound.ca and sign up for the free 7 day trial to watch a new and original festival every single day.
SUPERNO, 90min., Ethiopia Directed by Abel Mekasha A person who is inside a perfect solo enviroment, he thinks he is kidnapped, but not, with only a telephone as a way of communication.
Go to the Daily Film Festival Platform http://www.wildsound.ca and sign up for the free 7 day trial to watch a new and original festival every single day.
YOU ARE SPECIAL, 18min., Ukraine Directed by Ilya Noyabrev A little boy, fascinated by the legend that the white keys on the old Steinway piano, which “lives” in his parents’ house, are made of elephant tusks, dreams every night of meeting the gray giants one day and never being separated from them…This desire grows from day to day along with the lullaby that his mother sings to him, because there are words in it: “You are special!”
BLUEBERRIES, 24min., USA Directed by Eric A. Eisenstein Terrance needs to convince his fiancé, family and friends he does not have a drinking problem. But can he convince himself?
Festival Reviews 