Like many film actors, Liev Schreiber has spent as much time onstage as onscreen: Raised by his mother in poverty in New York, he attended Yale's School Of Drama and London's Royal Academy Of Dramatic Art, launching a Shakespeare-heavy theatre career before he ever made a film. His breakout year was 1996, when he appeared in Ransom, Walking And Talking, The Daytrippers, Big Night, and Scream; the latter gave him a signature character. He's returned to that role in two subsequent Scream films over the past decade, while bouncing between Broadway, New York Shakespeare In The Park productions, small successes like A Walk On The Moon, and big-budget flops like Sphere and Kate & Leopold.
Some of Schreiber's most memorable projects include 1999's RKO 281 (in which he starred as a young Orson Welles), 2002's controversial Neil LaBute play The Mercy Seat (in which he starred opposite Sigourney Weaver as a man exploiting the Sept. 11 attacks for selfish ends), and 2004's The Manchurian Candidate, a film remake of the 1962 classic. Most recently, Schreiber has been starring with Alan Alda, Tom Wopat, and Jeffrey Tambor in a Broadway revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross; Schreiber won 2005's Best Performance Tony Award for his portrayal of hard-hitting salesman Ricky Roma, a character originated by Joe Mantegna on Broadway and codified by Al Pacino in a 1992 film version. Schreiber also recently scripted and directed his first film, Everything Is Illuminated, based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. With the New York production of Glengarry approaching the August 28 end to its acclaimed run, and Everything Is Illuminated set for September release, The A.V. Club sat down with Schreiber in his Glengarry dressing room to discuss his stage career, his screen career, his directorial debut, and his tendency to overthink.
The A.V. Club: How does a play with a cast like this come together?
Liev Schreiber: They came to me while I was in Prague working on Everything Is Illuminated. And they told me that Joe Mantello was directing Glengarry Glen Ross, and they wondered if I was interested in playing Roma. And I never ever imagined in my wildest fantasies of my career that I would be asked to play Ricky Roma. It just didn't seem like I was right for the role, in my own mind. But I love the play so much, and I love the role—I said yes immediately. Of course, I assumed I would be done with Everything Is Illuminated long before this would start, but it didn't work out that way.
AVC: What's it like taking on a role that's been tackled before by so many acclaimed actors?
LS: Well, it kind of occurred to me afterward that I was intimidated, I guess, for a while. I was pretty much in awe of Joe Mantegna—this is one of the first plays I ever saw, and I just thought he was so fantastic. About the third or fourth week of rehearsal, I just kept going back to the script, and the more and more I read it, the more and more I thought, "Yeah, this is a really good part, and I'm going to take it." Not to take anything away from Joe Mantegna or Al Pacino, but this is just a spectacular piece of writing.
AVC: If you're taking on a stage or film role that someone else originated, do you look at their renditions?
LS: I always do. I always do. Someone very smart once said to me, "Steal, don't borrow." So if there's anything good in anything anyone else does, it's fair game. I think that everything I've ever done at some point is part of someone else's legacy.
AVC: What about when you're doing Shakespeare?
LS: I look at as many [versions] as I can. I just think that it helps to be able to understand the role, and to see it interpreted, and to see the range of interpretations, and let those bounce around inside your head while you're working. You hear different things from different people, and they're all valid, they're all valuable. I think that's what comprises a performance, is all those ideas. It's impossible, I think—I really do think that if you're doing your job right, you're never gonna be what the other guy was, but you can be influenced by his intelligence and his choices. It's insane not to know everything that's out there. I guess some people are affected negatively by seeing someone else do it, but I've always been sort of... Particularly with the plays I choose, they're good parts, and they're parts that have been around long before a bad actor played them, and will be around long after I play them. Part of what I enjoy about the theatre and acting is that sense of history.
AVC: Is there ever a sense of competition with someone who had a role before you?
LS: No. I don't think—I come nowhere near any of their performances, as much as I've stolen or borrowed. I don't think that in any way I could ever approach what they're doing. It's just the simple fact of being a different person that helps with that. I don't feel there's competition there. I guess that's easy for me to say, because Joe Mantegna won the Tony [for originating the Ricky Roma role]—maybe if I hadn't won the Tony, I'd be competitive. I don't think so. I've never felt that way before. During Manchurian Candidate—that role originated with Laurence Harvey, and I studied everything he did. I would never be able to reproduce that performance, but I got a lot of ideas from watching it.
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