When I returned to New York in 1986, the Manhattan Theatre Club produced Joe Orton’s black comedy Loot with a cast that included Kevin Bacon. The show garnered good reviews, and though subscribers may have yawned or slept through Orton’s signature language and madness, true Ortonphiles showed up in the final days of the run to laugh convulsively at the late English playwright’s dark and twisted take on family, sex, and politics. I was told that the legendary producer David Merrick attended one of the last performances and decided to move the show to Broadway. Bacon, on his way to starring in many films, could not make the move with the rest of the cast, so I got a call to audition for the role.
The producer, Charles Kopelman, gave me a copy of Prick Up Your Ears, John Lahr’s definitive biography of Orton, where I read about the playwright’s role in the cultural life of “Swinging London” in the ’60s and his tragic end, bludgeoned to death by his lover Kenneth Halliwell. (Gary Oldman played Orton in a film version of the book, which was released the following year.) John Tillinger, the director, warned me from the moment I was cast that we would only do a “put in” rehearsal, due to the brief window of time before the opening. Thus, it was eight days of “Kevin did this” and “Kevin did that.” There was a smattering of apologies from people assuming they were offending me with a rehearsal that bordered on puppetry, but I couldn’t have cared less. I loved every minute of it. The role of Dennis, the undertaker’s apprentice, was a small one, so the obstacle wasn’t about memorization, but about my nerves. We previewed briefly, as all the other cast members were ready to go. It all seems a blur now, but the opening night was indelible. I made my first entrance feeling like I’d been fired out of a cannon. On that stage I tasted, for the first time, the joy of doing a well-oiled show. Knowing what I was going to say, how the other actors would respond, and the ultimate effect it would have on the audience became an addiction.
Charles Keating played the patriarch (a pejorative in Orton’s worldview), Zo? Wanamaker was the nurse, and the talented Zeljko Ivanek played Hal, my character’s lover. All three of them were such a pleasure to watch. But the otherworldly and brilliant Joe Maher was the Meadowlark Lemon of this team. Maher could bend a line, a phrase, or even a syllable to suit his desires. You couldn’t take your eyes off of him. I’d first gotten a glimpse of Maher when I’d auditioned for Tillinger four years prior to replace Max Caulfield in Orton’s Entertaining Mr. Sloane. Awed by his playfulness, pomp, sinister sexuality, and thunderous eruptions of conceit and indignation, I thought, “Imagine having gone to school with this guy!”
Throughout the run of Loot, which lasted only three months, I stood each night by the desk of the stage manager, Peggy Peterson, while she called the show. I was nearly hypnotized by Maher as, again and again, he tickled the crowd and his fellow actors with his signature zany effusions. In one scene, Maher brandished a book, intoning, “You have before you a man who is quite a personage in his way. Truscott of the Yard!” He then snapped open the book to indicate his picture. Beforehand, Joe would go to a newsstand and buy male porn magazines like Honcho and Mandate, cut out a shot of a guy with an appendage the size of a wrench, and paste it into the book. Zeljko’s next line, “It’s you,” was meant to be thrown away, as if his character was unimpressed. But Zeljko and I could barely contain ourselves. Zeljko would spit the line out, stifling a laugh. That alone indicates how funny Joe was, but he was also kind and instructive offstage. Working with him was the most fun I’ve ever had. Wicked, funny Joe, I miss you.
As soon as the show closed, I was back on a plane to LA to audition for a film. In the beginning of my movie career, I met with casting directors frequently, and that year I was lucky enough to meet Jane Jenkins and Janet Hirshenson. Jane and Janet are two of the biggest names in casting in all of Hollywood, but when you talked with them, they were kind and generous, unpretentious and professional. Meetings with them were like going to the school nurse. If they brought you in and they liked you, they wanted you to get the job. In those days, when I had to audition for a role, I never knew if I was going to be offered the job until the end of the casting process. Eventually, I got to a place where I rarely have a discussion about a role without an offer, but the old days were more fun. The expectations were low. The excitement was real. For every job you were cast in, no matter how small, you had immeasurable gratitude.
I went through the casting process with Jane, Janet, and the director John Hughes, and got the role of Davis McDonald, the leading man’s best friend, in the film She’s Having a Baby. It was set to star Kevin Bacon, coincidentally enough, and Elizabeth McGovern. Hughes, slightly awkward yet smart and funny, reminded me of a resident assistant at a college dorm, having focused his films on the woes and triumphs of the young. I loved shooting with him, as he was very thoughtful toward me on my first real movie. Liz was that rare kind of actress with both beauty and talent but devoid of ego and insecurities. She reminded me of Katharine Hepburn. She knew who she was. Kevin was quiet, and his shyness suggested that the nature of movie stardom itself was a bit of a rash for him. We shot the film in Chicago and LA, and when it was over, I wanted more. I was attracted to the slower, more thoughtful pace of the movies, the professionalism on the set, and the belief that film is an art form.
The Hughes film was also my first time seeing a truly top cinematographer at work. Don Peterman, who had shot Flashdance, Splash, and Cocoon, among others, was a reserved guy who began my education about the camera. The first lesson he taught me is that the camera is the real star of every movie, and your first priority as a film actor is to get your relationship right with it. How you have prepared, how you look, how truthful you and the choices you make for your character only matter if they are revealed to the camera. Otherwise, it’s like painstakingly crafting a painting only to hang it on the wall backwards.
In the summer of 1987, I made a trip to the Williamstown Theatre Festival to do an odd little adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes novel. Believe it or not, I played Holmes. My Watson was an actor named Brian McCue, whose honesty and subtlety I can never forget, even though we worked together for a mere two weeks on what was otherwise a trifle of a production. It seemed that every time I did a play, I worked with someone who taught me something.