Here’s an interview with Ted Danson who gave a blistering performance in Damages as billionaire Arthur Frobisher:
Ted Danson – Damages UK press tour
So how’s London treating you?
Good! I’m happy to be here. We had cocktails last night, went out to dinner, had a great time actually.
Do you enjoy this part of the day?
In the morning, yeah. When I get to the end of the day I feel like I’m gonna puke. It’s like taking a bad drug – at the start it seems like such a good idea but at the end you’re feeling awful. But it’s the morning, so you’re lucky.
Are you familiar with London?
I worked here when I did Gulliver’s Travels so I haven’t been here in a while. My wife has worked and lived over here for many years and also has a store so she comes to London and Paris on buying trips.
Congratulations on Arthur Frobisher. I love the character.
Me too. It’s the real me. I’ve gotten angry and bitter in my old age (laughs).
You went to an acting coach to help prepare you for the role, is that right?
Yes, yes, an acting coach. The day before we start the guys comes up to me and say ‘we have this friend, he’s an acting coach’ and I was like, oh dear god they hate my work! I’m in trouble. So I said I’d love to and I told the guy when I showed up but I had the best two hours and it really kind of changed, er… I’ve been doing comedy for a long time and comedy has like a rhythm to it, like there’s a metronome in the background. There’s this dance step that you have to do. And he was very freeing to me. Here I am playing this multi-billionaire, narcissistic or at least indulgent man, and he was saying thing to me like ‘don’t learn your lines, learn the other’s persons’ or ‘there are three sentences here, maybe you’ll say one, you won’t say the other two because you don’t feel like it’. An attitude like that, this wonderful indulgent acting lets you be anywhere you want to be in a scene and that’s kind of what a billionaire is like – I can buy you, I don’t have to play by your rules. So it was very liberating to talk about an acting style that was very freeing and was also appropriate. They also had me talk to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in New York and that was great because it allowed me to realise I could be them, I don’t have to pretend. They came in all shapes and sizes, some like me and some not, and I believed them to be CEOs of Fortune 500 companies because they said they were, not because they looked like a certain, you know. They also told me about a study that was done that showed a similarity between CEOs of large companies and sociopaths in prison. Obviously the CEOs had balancing factors whereas the sociopaths probably didn’t but the similarity was that it was very hard for them to read the emotional impact they have on people. One of the CEOs knew this about himself and hired somebody to be with him at all times to tell him when he missed things because he just didn’t know.
As an actor you read people all the time…
Yeah, I understand being narcissistic, we all do. We all understand fear and greed so it was very easy, and the writing was so good. They created scenes where you saw his humanity and his love for his family and his fear and his this and his that. By the time you get into the later episodes, you actually get the response that they love the character. They’re horrified but at the same time they understand him. When you see someone’s pain or narcissism you’re more likely to go along with them than to tick them off as a category.
Were you offended by being sent to a coach in the first place?
You’re giving me credit for thinking I’m any good! No, I, as an actor fall into all the bad acting traps there are and I tend to try and see those traps in advance and remove them. The other thing this acting coach said, which was great, was that on film, all that truly matters is that you are really there in that split-second moment, being real to that moment and reacting to whatever it is. From you’re point of, all that matters is that you are there and being creative in moment – not showing your understanding of the story or your understanding of the character, just literally being present and enjoying yourself in the moment. It was very invigorating. And then when you have great writing and great camera work too, that’s when it all comes together. And with Frobisher, I decided he knew what he was like a little. If you’re as bad as he is and you don’t see it, its no fun. He knows he’s a schmuck and he has fun with it.
Did you know it was something special when you were filming it?
I didn’t know – a lot of times you can have great writing, wonderful actors that you’re playing with, but the camera’s wrong. I mean, literally, you can see it, the camera is not where it should be so you’re almost, if you were on stage you’d be doing it to the wings. But when you see this you really know what they’re doing there, it’s very stylised and it works.
You said you don’t know if you’re going to be in the second season or not. Do you think this sort of thing works better with continuing characters or should it take the ‘villain of the season’ route?
I don’t know. Even if I did come back I think I would be a story that had ended and they would have to have stories that began. And I think the real fun would be to watch Glenn Close do battle with someone new – fresh meat every year, or even a couple of people. They may not just do one story every year, I don’t know.
You’re best known for comedy but this is by no means your first dramatic role.
No.
Does it annoy you to think you might be typecast?
I’m very proud of Cheers. It’s my problem, not yours, that I’m beheld in a certain way and I should get on and do more Damages and things like that, you know? I think everyone is typecast until you see him or her do something different. I typecast people in my mind; even actors I know can do more. We all do that and you’re typecast because you’re in something that was really good. It was beautifully written and directed and just good as a piece. I think Damages is this good and people are looking at me differently but it’s because this works, not because I’m doing something I haven’t before.
But I’m here because of Cheers and I love it, and I loved Becker, I pretty much love whatever I did last.
Do you keep in touch with any of the Cheers cast?
Everyone except Woody, he became way too famous. No, I see Woody, I see them all. Everyone’s gone off in different directions but we keep in touch.
I read you once asked a woman if she was pregnant but she was just fat – what sort of person are you?
Actually I asked her husband but it’s not much better really. You know my wife is Mary Steenburgen? Well she spends her whole time cleaning up after me.
How long did Damages take you away from LA?
It was hard; we were just talking about this. Mary and I both went off and made films in Louisiana. It was a tough time – I was commuting from Louisiana to New York. Then we had a month where we had a break and then Mary got a film in LA so it was like two months of commuting from one side to the other. But there’s something, and this isn’t true of everything, but some things are intrinsically New York, because of the power and the money. When you shoot it in New York, instead of doing it LA and lying, it’s so much better. This is so good partly because it’s in New York and it’s drawing from a New York crowd of actors. In New York there’s this element of always looking to be the student and to be more creative, whereas in LA you’re there because you’ve arrived and what you should do is relax and you’d better do what you did last because career is more important. But in New York you’ll do a show, a small part in a soap and you’re all over the place just being creative, so you have really great actors in very small parts because they’re having fun.
What do you think of LA?
Well, it’s a bit unfair of me to have said that in a way because everyone on LA is a New York actor. They’re going to and from or they’ve moved from New York. But it’s definitely just a big factory. They don’t have theatre which gives you much more of a sense of performing instead of being a celebrity. You’re much more part of the publicity factory so you need to find a niche and you’re happy to be in a niche but people in New York are excited to be in a role.
Did it affect you?
Yeah, I think so. You get used to making decisions for the wrong reasons.
What do you mean?
I think I got used to making a lot of money on Cheers. The decisions start to be wrong. It’s not do I want to go and do that, it’s can I afford to go and do that, which is probably a bad decision. It should be ‘can I afford not to go and do that?’
And now? You turned 60 recently?
Yeah, December. Things change – I like my home and my wife and my kids so I think whether I want to be in a motel or putzing around in my garden with my wife? I’m at the point where I don’t particularly want to leave my home to act but when I’m on set I love it.
Do you think about giving up?
No. I love acting, I really love it. I don’t know that I want to go off and make a TV series for 22 episodes and nine months because my wife would go and make a movie and we’d never see one another. If I had a magic wand I think maybe we’d go off and make one movie in a year and then maybe we’d do some theatre together, that would be ideal.
I read you’re a founding member of the American Oceans Campaign.
Yeah, that’s right, thanks for mentioning it. I’m probably no more or less ecological than anyone but 20 years ago I started the campaign. We’re now the largest single international ocean activist and it’s doing great, it’s very effective. We’re stopping the destruction of habitats through bottom trawling. We’re not interested in just raising awareness; we’re interested in changing policy. We’re working with fishermen to change the way things are done and it is getting the job done. I’m so proud to be part of it. But I wish I’d chosen global warming, maybe I could have got a Nobel Prize out of it…
Damages is out on DVD on Monday