Radioland Murders (1994)—"Herman Katzenback"
LM: It was another thing that didn't work out the way they wanted, but I had a great part. It was a George Lucas-produced movie. He said there were three movies he wanted to make when he first came to town: Star Wars, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, and Radioland Murders. Mel Smith, who was a terrific, funny English actor, directed this, and it shows you again that storytelling is sometimes—the first image that came to my mind was pitching. When a pitcher just can't hit the strike zone for six, seven, eight pitches in a row, it seems like he'll never throw a strike in his life. You just say "How is it even possible to throw a strike? It's too small." But then you start grooving it, and you say, "Oh, this is how." And in this case, boy we had a terrific time, we did our best there, I had the chance to be—speaking of film history, I said to Mel on the first day of shooting, "It may not fit, but I was thinking of playing him"—the manager of the radio station in 1936 or something, where everyone's very official, I said, "Suppose he's a German, suppose he's very officious and imperious and annoying, just yelling at everybody?" [Affects German accent.] And I start doing this accent, and he said, "That's a good accent, you want to do it?" And I said, "Well, that's Sig Ruman from the Marx brothers' Night At The Opera." He said, "Sounds great," because he knew the movie too. So whatever it's worth, I had a great time doing Sig Ruman for three weeks in Wilmington, North Carolina.
AVC: Was Lucas a hands-on producer? Was he on the set a lot?
LM: Not all the time, but when he was, it was—deservedly so, all the actors, crew, and ADs were like 9-year-olds when word came around, "George is on the set today." He came around and directed some second-unit stuff that I was in, and it was pretty neat. I've never been able to resist, with great actors I admire—you're going to try to be cool, but I've never been able to resist finding a chance to go over and say, "Oh, Mr. Lucas, oh, I think you're great. I know you hear this a lot, but I have to shake your hand and say, boy, you've done some great stuff." He's gracious, but I've never been able to resist that with a great actor I admire—not on the first day, necessarily, but finding a place or time to say, "Hey, let me ask you something, your accent is great, where did you find that?"
Seinfeld (1995)—George Costanza finalist
AVC: According to the IMDB, you came very close to getting the role of George Costanza on Seinfeld. What was that process like?
LM: This isn't going to sound very interesting, but all things come down the same way. Everything's nerve-racking—you really shouldn't be in show business if you can't stand situations that are nerve-wracking, and you just have to learn to push that aside or rip it off and graft it onto your positive, creative energy. I mean, c'mon, I've been in 40, 50 movies and a bunch of TV shows. Someone asked a few months ago how many auditions I took, and I said, "Boy, you got me. A lot, I guess. 700? 2,700? I don't know." And then I started thinking and realized, "Boy, I guess that's a lot." You know what, either get some hard bark on you, or find another line. With Seinfeld, it happened more or less like anything. It came down to me and Jason [Alexander], and would I have rather gotten the part? Sure, every actor would always rather get any part, but also, Jerry and I are friends, we knew each other from the early days. You know what I've always had a lot of faith in? Number one, my friends are good at what they do, and they do their best. And they have 50 people, and everyone makes a decision, and you know what, that's the right thing to happen. Would I be happier today or a better man if I had a jillion dollars?
AVC: My father would say yes.
LM: That's a funny father thing to say, but I bet you he knows a deeper truth to that, and I bet you do too. No, you wouldn't. You wouldn't sleep better. It wouldn't help people like you more, or help you like them more. It wouldn't help me write better, it wouldn't make me perform better tonight at the club I'm going to. It wouldn't make me be a better actor two days ago on the job I just finished, or on one I'm starting in a couple weeks. Obviously, Seinfeld is a giant show, one of the greatest shows ever made. The writing, the acting, the combination, could they have cast that any better? Of course not. Could they have gotten four people who were more iconically perfect for those parts at that chunk of life? I know I've always made the best decisions I could, and hit the ball as far as I could. And you know what? When it drops, it's okay with me.
Waiting For Guffman (1996)—"Glenn Welsch, Mayor"
LM: I sure have a lot of respect for those guys. Guffman is a very good movie, it's awfully good, and again, it has nothing to do with me. I just got a call one day at home here writing, and it was Christopher Guest, and that's a pretty neat call to get. He was talking to some of the folks over there, and they were already in production, and someone said I might be good in this, would I like to come down and play with them. I said of course. They put a really good group of knuckleheads together, and it was just great to be funny that way, but also to get to know this group of folks. When one of these things is made every two or three years, it's just a cool show-business call to get when you say "Hello?" and you hear [Imitates Guest's voice.] "Hello, Larry, it's Christopher." So that's cool, and I know all the other actors are the same on this, this is one deal where everyone just tells their agents and managers, "Whatever they send, we're just going to do it," no one's going to talk about it or make offers or counter-offers. They've been very generous. They just send money, and if the movie's done well—no one's ever done this in show business. After five or seven months, you get a check, and everyone gets a little hunk of this. And it's not little, either, it's some good dough, it's money you live on. And if there's more naturally funny people on the earth than Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, I'd like to know who they are.
Blonde Ambition (2007)—"Ronald Connelly"
LM: I like that, I really mean it. Scott Marshall directed that, Garry Marshall's son, and I really dig the guy. We got a cool time on the set. He knows me, he knows my work. Ad-lib, rewrite, do everything fast, and I love working with Jessica Simpson. You know why? She's a young woman, she's obviously holding seven tigers by the reins here, who knows what life is like when you're in that world? And she was very nice, very gracious, very cool, and she knew how to dance, so to speak. If Scotty and I could come over and say "Let's do this, let's try this four different ways, you'll come over and he'll say this," whatever she did was fine, because she was going to go along with the stuff we could do. I think it's probably a good story and well told, and I had a good time with Luke Wilson. You know, it's a movie. And I'm a huge fan and friend of Penelope Ann Miller, and also Penny Marshall who was there. C'mon, it was great. You spend a week strolling around with these folks having a coffee here or there.
AVC: It takes two people to improvise.
LM: You know what, though? I'll be honest with you, it's not that. When you have someone who's a good pro and willing to go along with the program, that's the best actor in the world. In fact, when Brando died, someone in my acting class said "Here's hoping we'll be as good as Brando," and I said, "No, that's wrong. Here's hoping we'll be as good as we can be." So on that set, when you meet someone who's going to go along with you and just trusts you and what you do, that's actually the best actor in the world.
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