Troy Evans on facing down Steven Seagal and trying to be a badass for David Lynch
Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.
The actor: Troy Evans took somewhat of a circuitous route to becoming an actor. He spent time in a rock band, went to college, got drafted and went to Vietnam, came home and bought a bar, and did a stint in prison. It was that last stop that led him to consider an acting career in earnest, and since making that decision, he’s certainly made the most of it.
Trying to nail down why you know Evans’ face could well be a Herculean effort, if only because you might know it from so many places, including series such as China Beach, ER, and Bosch, or films like Rhinestone—yes, the infamous Sylvester Stallone/Dolly Parton vehicle—and The Frighteners, just to name a few. Evans is a man who knows how to tell a tale, which is why, despite his extensive career, we could only ask him about a fraction of his credits. Still, over the course of our conversations, he spun stories of being ordered to get angry at Michael Jackson, having Johnny Depp offer to be his on-set errand boy, and barely tolerating Steven Seagal, so suffice it to say that we’re not complaining.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Soap (1980) — "Bailiff"
Lou Grant (1981) — "Tom Pepper"
The A.V. Club: IMDb assures me that your first onscreen credit was playing a character named Tom Pepper in an episode of Lou Grant. Is that accurate, or was there something before that?
Troy Evans: Oh, no, my first job was on… Soap! I came to California when I was 29, and I was a fucked-up Vietnam vet, I was an ex-convict, I was a recovering alcoholic. My first few years, I was fighting like crazy to be the third cop. "Hold it!" [Laughs.] But the first job was through this guy Stu Silver. They needed a bailiff in a courtroom scene, so first he made me audition, and the bailiff had to say, "All rise." So I go in, and it's a room full of producers and directors and god knows who else, which doesn't even happen anymore. First of all, you don't go in—and if you do go in, you're lucky if you even meet the casting director. But now you send a tape in, and who knows if anybody ever even looks at it, or they've got it running while they're talking to somebody on the phone. But this was 45 years ago!
I'm in this room, and I say, "All rise." [Long pause.] I mean, what's to complain about, right? [Laughs.] But there's hemming and hawing, and then someone says, "Okay, could you, uh, say it again?" "All rise." "Where are you from, Troy?" "Uh, Montana, actually." "Montana. Huh. Ooh." [Grimaces.] And then they get into this big discussion. "Well, he sounds awfully regional. Would the bailiff be regional?" And they get into this big thing with all of these people—it's, like, thirty people—and there's this big discussion going on. And Stu Silver stood up and yelled, "What difference does it make?" And they're, like, "Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's just the fucking bailiff." So I get hired to be the bailiff.
Michael Jackson, "Is It Scary" (1993) — "Townsperson"
The Stand (1994) — "Sheriff Baker"
TE: Oh, The Stand was very brief. It was basically flying up to Salt Lake City, doing one routine jail scene, and in the next scene I was dead. Which happened to a lot of people in The Stand. [Laughs.] But Mick Garris, who directed The Stand, he's a very nice man, and he called me sometime after and said, "Listen, I am directing a music video with Michael Jackson, and I need some actors in it, and I was wondering if you'd be willing to do it. It's not a lot of money, it's just a couple of days, but it might be an interesting project."
Well, they were coming out with the first sequel to The Addams Family, and they wanted to open with a music video. They shot the music video in the Addams Family mansion up at Universal Studios, and the scene was that it's this little town, it's these farmers, these normal American white-bread people, and this weirdo has moved into their town. It's the image of the crowd coming, we have pitchforks, we have torches, and we're screaming, "Get out of our town, weirdo! We don't want weirdos! Get out of our town, you freak!" And Michael Jackson's there.
We're doing one part of the scene where Michael Jackson comes out and says, "I don't understand, why don't you like me?" And one of the parents yells, "You're too scary, you freak! You're too scary!" And Michael Jackson comes down the stairs and picks up a four-year-old boy and says, "Do you think I'm scary?" That was part of the scene in this thing.
They were doing a super close-up on Michael, and they asked me to stay and do the off-camera. I was playing basically the entire crowd across the camera from Michael, and Michael did not speak to me. There was a lot of communication going on, but there was a guy that he would talk to, and then that guy would talk to somebody, and it would go around like a game of Telephone. And we were, like, four feet from each other! But then the guy would come around and say, "Michael was wondering, could you..."
And we got really hung up because it became clear, and this is fairly common for this to happen in acting, that Michael wanted to be shown as being very upset about what people were saying about him. And I became convinced—because they kept stopping and starting the scene again and saying, "No, really insult him! Really go after him!"—that they wanted me to call him...a word that I won't use. The word. The poison word in America—and for good reason it's poison! And I wouldn't go there. So I'm just screaming all this shit at him, and they keep cutting and saying, "No, Troy, we want you to really go after him!" And I swear to god this is true: we do a take, and I screamed at him, "You fucking bleached freak, stay away from my son!" And they cut and said, "No, really insult him!"
Then there was a little pause, and I heard this voice and I realized that Michael was talking to me. He said, "Sir? Excuse me, sir...?" And I look over and there he is. "Sir? Could you give me one of these?" [Very slowly and delicately holds up his middle finger.] I said, "Uh, sure. Sure, I can do it." So I gave him one of those. And then they were satisfied. I flipped him off, and then they were good!
I'd been on that set for 12, 14 hours. I got in the car and turned on the radio, and that's the day they announced the charges against him up in Santa Barbara. His whole world had collapsed while I'm inside screaming insults at him on the set. And the reason I'm telling you that is because that was directly because of The Stand. That footage was lost for a long time, but I think you can find that video now.
AVC: I was just looking it up, and I think it was intended as the original video for “Is It Scary.” But I guess it was scrapped, and the concept eventually evolved into a short film called Michael Jackson’s Ghosts.
TE: I have no idea. I've never seen it before. I've just heard that it's out there. But it was a very weird, sad day for me, because it wasn't very satisfying professionally, and... well, obviously he was a guy with problems!
Veep (2016 & 2019) — "Montana Congressman"
TE: Well, that was actually a really wonderful thing for me. My grandfather, Troy Evans, who had a sixth-grade education and, as a very young man, was, like, the shotgun guy on a stagecoach, and he lived long enough to be driving around Montana at 110 miles per hour in a '67 Plymouth Fury. [Laughs.] He was, among other things, a Montana state senator, the boxing commissioner in Montana for many years, and he was the head of the savings bond program in Montana during World War II. Complete self-made man.
Because of him, I took an interest in politics very, very early. I formed a plan, and I was deadly serious about it. Nobody in my family on either side had ever been to college. I was going to go to college, I was going to become an attorney, I was going to go to the state legislature, I was going to become the governor of Montana, then the senator from Montana, then the first president from a western state. And then I fucked around and got drafted, and when I came back from Vietnam... I wasn't really aware of it, but I was not the same person. In any way, shape, or form. I thought I still had that goal, but obviously it had gone elsewhere.
I took all my Vietnam money, and on the day they dropped the drinking age to 18, I opened a rock 'n' roll bar in Kalispell. I was making money hand over fist. It was really great. However, one of the little side bonuses I brought back from Vietnam was a strong, dark version of alcoholism—and it turns out that owning a bar is not a particularly good profession for an alcoholic!
It's a long, long story, but the short version is, two or three years of extreme drunken jackassery and I ended up in Montana State Prison. And you don't sober up overnight or over the weekend or even in a week. Your brain is foggy. So I'd been down in Montana State Prison about six months, and I woke up one morning and had an enlightened moment, and I went, "I bet I'm not gonna be president!" [Laughs.] So, then I started thinking, "What will I do? Well, I can't go back in the Army. I can't be a police officer. I can't own a bar. I can't be a teacher. I can't be an accountant." One day I went, "Oh! I'll bet no one ever asks an actor if he has a felony conviction!"
I sent what they call a kite—that's a written message in prison. You'll hear people in movies talk about a "snitch kite." It's a very dangerous thing. They have a box that you put the messages in, and if you're seen putting a message in the box, it's easy to assume that you're snitching on somebody. "Scooter Bob has heroin!" But I sent a kite to the warden, asking for a copy of Hamlet. I started sitting in my cell, reading Hamlet. And the rest is history: I became an actor.
I came down to California, and my first job was at a place called Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts (PCPA)—almost every success I've had is connected in some way to that place. And one of the wonderful people I met there was Brad Hall, who is married to Julia Louis-Dreyfus, so I assume this is why that happened. When that role came up for the congressman from Montana, they called and asked me if I'd play it. So I said, "Well, I didn't make president, but I played the congressman from Montana with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. I'll take it!" [Laughs.] She's very sweet. A very nice person.
China Beach (1989-1991) — "Sgt. Pepper"
ER (1994-2009) — "Frank Martin"
TE: There was an actress at PCPA, [Belinda Casas-Wells], who was John Wells' first wife, and I was doing a one-man show called Troy Evans: Montana Tales And Other Bad-Ass Business. I just tell the kind of stories I've been telling you, but in a slightly less organized fashion, I suppose. [Laughs.] She brought John Wells to see my show when he was a writer on China Beach. He said, "Well, this guy's a Vietnam vet!" He brought me on China Beach. Actually, I was on as two characters. First, they had me come in just as a random military guy, a drill sergeant who was just screaming all that R. Lee Ermey kind of shit, y'know? And then they brought me back as the motor pool sergeant.
And then when John Wells sold ER, he called me and said, "Noah Wyle's first scene is with this cop. It's a little part, but I want it to be a good actor. I want the scene to be really good. It introduces this major character." So, I did Frank.
AVC: Do you have a favorite Frank-centric storyline or moment?
TE: I'm very proud of one thing. Well, more than one, but there's one that jumps out at me. It's when Abby [Lockhart] left. When Maura Tierney left the show, she comes through, admin is deserted, and I speak to her. I'm going someplace where I have to tango, and I'm nervous, so she gives me a one-minute tango lesson, and she turns and walks out the door, never to be seen again. That's a pretty sweet moment to give to what was a minor character.
The other thing that I'm really proud of is something that the editors told me. I was there nine seasons and never got a raise of any kind. They have a rate called "top of show" that's negotiated with the Screen Actors Guild that's supposed to be the rate that's paid to seasoned actors. It's supposed to be the minimum that's paid to seasoned actors, but it's become the ceiling. "Well, you're getting top of show!" But then that adjusts every year. So I'm there nine years, and they wouldn't even raise me to the current top of show. I stayed at what had been the top of show when I started. However, my real reward was having the editors come to me and say, "We're always happy when you're in a scene, because we know if you're in a scene, we can always cut to you. You're always engaged, you're always there, you always bring us into that moment."
Even though the pay was nominal–I mean, in those days, those weren't 10-[episode] seasons, those were 24-[episode] seasons, and they were good residuals in those days, so they paid off my house. It could've been a little better, but when I tried to get more money, they actually told me, "Troy, we have all these people we have to pay who are pretending to be doctors. We can't give you more money. You're pretending to be a clerk!" [Laughs.] "Oh, okay. All right, makes sense to me!" But, yeah, ultimately, it was a positive experience.
AVC: Just to jump back to China Beach before we leave the John Wells-verse, what were you able to bring to the role from your own Vietnam experience?
TE: Well, I guess the simplest answer to that would be "me." [Laughs.] But I actually think... [Hesitates.] You know, it wasn't vivid at the time, it wasn't like there was a magical moment or something, but I have a general feeling that China Beach was sort of my therapy. It helped me get Vietnam into a manageable place in my psychological universe. Have you seen the episode where I tell the Dog Man story on China Beach?
AVC: It's been awhile, but I have. I've seen the whole series.
TE: That was actually my story, my true story, that John saw me tell when I did my one-man show. And then he set up a scenario in China Beach where on the base we were doing sort of a talent show, and Sarge just gets up and tells this war story. So that was actually my story. Dark, but... [Shrugs.] But I'll tell you a nice thing, and I'm very proud of this. Two years ago, in Mineral Wells, Texas, they opened the National Museum of the Vietnam War. There are approximately one million surviving Vietnam veterans, and out of those one million surviving vets, they picked one to give the keynote address at the dedication of that museum... [Voice cracks.] And it was me.
Rhinestone (1984) — "Heckler / Bettor"
Demolition Man (1993) — "Tough Cop"
TE: Oh, Rhinestone, that was a wonderful job. Bob Clark was famous for making Porky's, and I was friends with some of the guys who were in Porky's, and they played poker with Bob. And same thing: they were friends from the PCPA, where I worked when I first came to California! So I started playing poker with Bob Clark, and then they fired someone from that movie... Have you ever seen that movie, by the way?
AVC: It's been awhile, but I have.
TE: Yeah, it's, uh... [Grimaces.]
AVC: My sentiments exactly.
TE: [Laughs.] Yeah, and it was a bizarre concept: Sylvester Stallone as a country singer. I've done a couple of Stallone movies, and I'm not a fan of him as a human being. He's not a very nice person. But for example—and it was always the same—he won't come out of his trailer. Sometimes for days.
On Demolition Man, we all came to this special location we had. It was the middle of summer, we all get ready on Friday to shoot, Stallone never shows up. He'd gone to Cannes and not bothered to tell anybody. So they sent the Warner Brothers jet and brought him back on Thursday, and then Friday we all come in, and we're all ready to go. We're on, like, the fifth floor of this building; it was really cool. It was a circular building near LAX that was under construction, so the walls weren't in, and it was really interesting cinematographically, because you're in this office space and there's nothing but air around you. Since there were no walls, we could easily see that Stallone was down by his gigantic trailer in a tanktop and shorts working with his putting coach. He never came to the set that day, either.
But back to Rhinestone. He frequently did similar things. But when he wouldn't come out of the trailer, Dolly Parton would get up on the stage and sing and play for us. One day when we were shooting the film, it was the worst storm I've ever seen in L.A. I don't know if it was recorded as a hurricane, but it was a hurricane-like storm. Only about half the cast and crew made it to the set. It was just a total clusterfuck. And in the midst of this, we're on the set, and they're trying to figure out if they can do anything or if they should just send people home. And one of those big metal doors cracks open, and the wind caught it and swung that door open...and it had cracked open because Dolly Parton was pushing on the outside. So it flung her into the room. She comes spinning into the room, and we all rush over to her. Bob Clark rushed up to her, he said, "Dolly! Dolly, I'm so glad you could make it! Are you alright?" She said, "Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine... But isn't this terrible? I was out there, my hair blowin' in the wind and I was too proud to chase it!" [Laughs.] I just adore her.
Twin Peaks (1990) — "Principal George Wolchezk"
TE: That was pretty early in my career, and I was pretty nervous about it. Because I thought, "Well, David Lynch is such a legend as a director that he's got to have an idea of how he wants this done." So, I decided in the rehearsal to do what I call verbal typing. I memorize that speech so it's so perfect that I can say it backwards and forwards, and I say it with no mustard on it whatsoever. Just the words. Just let him know that I know this, I've got this down, I'll do whatever you want.
So, they send me into makeup and wardrobe. I go to the set and they've already set up the cameras and the lights with a stand-in. I sat down, and my idea is just to say that as simply as I can, and then he'll tell me what he wants. I was sure he had a thing. So, David says, "Do you want to rehearse this?" I say, "Sure." He says, "Troy, do you mind if we shoot the rehearsal?" And I said, "No." And I'm assuming that's just for technical reasons, to make sure the camera's working, how the lights are, whatever.
I start just as I planned. And if you remember, there's a little desk, and there's a little microphone that comes up, and then there's a whole world of switches up here, so there's a switch for each room in the high school. And I started just saying it, and as I'm trying to do that and keep it as clean as I can, I get maybe two or three sentences into it...and the horror of what I was saying just started to overwhelm me, y'know? This young girl was coming to school, and somebody killed her! And I'm trying to hold it back, and I don't want to cry, but I get to the end, and the thing with the switches, that was completely instinctual. And David Lynch said, "Cut!" I was waiting for this reaction and he said, "Are you happy with that?" I thought he meant, like, with the general approach. I said, "Well, sure, if you are." He said, "Okay, moving on!" That was it. He shot the rehearsal, he liked it, he kept it.
Then he had me come in for Wild At Heart, and I came in to read for one of the lunatics driving around in the car. I have a little different perspective on this than I used to, but at the time I was kind of upset about it, because we're doing the audition, and Nic Cage was there, and they were acting like I was going to be in the movie! And David Lynch got really mad and didn't yell at me, but sort of sharply told me, "Well, you know, with your background, I thought you'd be a lot scarier!" [Laughs.] Well, now I realize, and you probably know just from talking to me, that I don't want to be scary. I don't want to go out and spend six to eight weeks driving around, feigning joy at doing horrifying things. I don't want that! I wasn't aware of it at the time. I mean, I can be scary. I've been in fights in the fucking prison yard. I've been through the fucking Tet Offensive! If I have to be a badass, I can. But I don't enjoy it. But he was just so pissed that he thought I'd be scary, but I wasn't.
Planes, Trains And Automobiles (1987) — "Antisocial Trucker"
TE: Oh, that’s actually an epic but wonderful, wonderful story. I’d never been in a movie. I was getting quite a bit of TV work, but not bigtime TV work. I was starting to get better parts, but then this one, this wouldn't happen today. It's remarkable to me now that it happened then!
I had a meeting with John Hughes about a part in this movie he was going to make, and he was casting a truck driver. And he says, "Now, there's nothing scripted here, but if you have anything you want to say, you can say it, if you have an idea." So I said, "Listen, you two! Okay, I'll give you a ride in the back, but you be careful back there! That might be cheese to you, but that's bread and butter to me, pal!" That's an old plumber's line: "It might be shit to you, but it's bread and butter to me!" John Hughes thought that was marvelous! He just fell in love with that. So, I got the job.
In those days, I was making about $200 a day when I got these TV jobs and such. And my agent called and said, "You got that job from John Hughes, you'll be Mr. Oshkonoggin, the cheese truck driver, and they're gonna pay you $1,000." [Jaw drops.] Well, it might as well have been a million to me. Oh, my god! A few days later I get a call. "Okay, they've decided that the cheese truck thing, they're gonna shoot that in Buffalo, New York." And I was so green, I said, "Buffalo, New York? How the hell am I gonna get to New York? That'll take my whole thousand dollars just to get to New York!" They said, "No, no, no, they'll fly you there and you'll get a day of travel and a day back, so it'll be three days." I said, "Okay, that's not too bad." "And they'll pay you for the travel days." "And how much do they pay for the travel days?" "$1,000 a day." Now I'm making $3,000!
I fly to Buffalo, New York. They stick me in the motel. A teamster comes to the door and hands me $150. I was, like, "Hey, hey, hey, I don't know what's going on here, but I'm supposed to be getting $1,000 a day!" He said, "Not from me! This is your per diem!" I said, "What the fuck is 'per diem'?" He said, "That's your spending money!" [Stunned.] "I get spending money?" Well, then they don't shoot the scene. I'm in Buffalo, New York for, like, two weeks. And within four days I'd turned into, like, a lifer in prison, making little marks on the wall of the motel. "One day, two days, three days..." You know, every day is $1,000! I'm up to, like, $14K by the time they come to me and say, "Yeah, Troy, they're not gonna do the scene here in Buffalo. The company's moving to Chicago." I'm, like, "Oh, shit. So, I just go back to L.A.?" They say, "No, no, no, you'll go to Chicago with us."
In Buffalo, it was a crappy little motel. In Chicago, I'm in the Westin O'Hare in a suite with three televisions! I was a guy who thought a Holiday Inn was a really fancy hotel. So, I'm in Chicago a couple of weeks, then down in St. Louis a couple of weeks; 11 different cities and 51 freakin' days before they shot Mr. Oshkonoggin. $51,000. And my wife and I, we'd never been through anything like this. I'd left home with, like, an overnight bag with a change of underwear and a clean t-shirt, y'know? And early on she was, like, "Well, Troy, when are you coming home?" I was, like, "Baby, when you start paying me $1,000 a day plus a crisp $50 bill every morning before breakfast, I will be there. But until then, I'm ridin' this horse to death!" And when they finally shot the scene, I went home, and we bought our first house.
AVC: That's amazing.
TE: Yeah! And the irony is, I've been in about 60 movies, and I've never made that much money on any other movie. [Laughs.]
Under Siege (1992) — "Granger"
TE: Oh, uh... [Long pause.] Interesting. I'm not a fan of Steven Seagal. He's not a nice man. At all. We got through that, we made the movie, but I would never watch it. And I don't have any fond memories about it. He was a dickhead. I mean, we're out in the middle of nowhere in Georgia, and a guy would have to come over and open a special case and unfold this leather and give him a little Beretta, and he'd slide the Beretta behind his belt and his pants before he'd walk out onto the set. That's Steven. He lives in Russia now, you know. Good friends with Putin. True. I see pictures of them all the time.
AVC: You know, I've never had anyone tell me a positive Steven Seagal story.
TE: Well... [Hesitates.] Actually, this is a little self-serving, but I'll tell you one. So, this was the scene where Tommy Lee Jones is escaping in, I think he's got a little submarine, and we've got some kind of big freaking gun on the boat, and there's, like, 20 of us remaining with Steven Seagal. He found us, we were locked in the laundry room or something, and he got us out, and we're gonna help him. So the scene was written... like, we look at the gun, and I say, "You know, there's, like, a hundred-man crew that fires this gun." And Steven said, "Listen, we've got Gunny right here, and he's gonna take us through step by step, and we'll do this right and get it done." We rehearsed that once, that's fine, everybody likes it.
We start to shoot it, and I say, "You know, there's a huge crew that fires this gun"—all this is scripted, so what I'm saying is word for word out of the script."—and we're as likely to blow up the ship as we are to hit that boat if we try to fire it." And instead of saying his line about how we've got Gunny here and all that stuff, he says, "You... you fucking pussy. You chickenshit. I don't even want you on my fucking crew. You're a fucking disgrace. Fuck you! Fuck you, you fucking pussy!"
And I've never done this or anything similar to it on any other set, but I just reached up and put my hand over the camera, and I said, "Cut!" Which actors do not say, you know? And the director comes out from behind the camera and he says, "What's going on?" I said, "What's going on? Lemme tell ya something. I'm a veteran of the 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam, and all this shit this fat prick does for make believe, I've done for real a hundred fucking times!" And I turned to Seagal, and I say, "I will not be called a pussy by you in your movie or out of your fucking movie! Is that clear?" And to his credit, he said, "Well, why didn't you tell me sooner? I would've given you a bigger part!"
The Frighteners (1996) — "Sheriff Walt Perry"
TE: A wonderful, wonderful job. I'd already worked with Michael J. Fox on Teen Wolf, so I knew him a little bit. It isn't like we were super tight. And, of course, Peter Jackson was wonderful, working with him. He's a genius. You know, that whole movie was shot in New Zealand. It's supposed to be in New England, but it was all in New Zealand. One of the things I loved about that movie the most... [Pauses.] Do you know who Jeff Combs is?
AVC: Absolutely. I know him first and foremost for Reanimator.
TE: Yes! And then he has that whole life in the Star Trek universe. But he plays that psychotic FBI agent in The Frighteners, and he and I met the first summer I was in California, in 1976. We were both working at a little theater about two hours north of L.A., in a place called Santa Maria, California. Powers Boothe worked there, Robin Williams worked there—a long, long list of people who did very, very well in the business started out in that little theater there. It was a theater which was founded by a guy named Donovan Marley who I'm still friends with, and his taste in talent both onstage and backstage was just incredible. But Jeff and I were close friends, and then we ended up working in that movie together! That's one of those movies that might've blown up, but it didn't. It just sort of came and went.
But there's a scene at the very end to tie all the loose ends together. I, as the sheriff, drive into the scene. Now, the house is way up here on the hill, and Michael J. Fox is way down here, like 300 yards down the hill from where the house is, and he's having a picnic with his new love. And I drive my cop car in the middle. Now, the cop car is what is known in the movie business as a picture car. And what that means is, they find a piece of crap car, an American car that could pass as a cop car, and it's just a total junker. Like, it didn't even have linings inside the doors. It had been stripped. But they put a coat of paint on it, they put the stars on it, and they shoot from a right angle, and it looks okay. So, as this scene plays out, where Michael and I talk it through and sort of tie up the loose ends of the movie, the bulldozers are pushing the house over the edge of the cliff. So, this is a one-take scene!
We rehearse it, and we've got it down. It's like butter. Everyone decides everything's cool, they call "Action!" and the bulldozers start pushing the house off the thing. I drive into place, I call down to Michael J. Fox, and I start to get out of the car and talk to him and the car door will not open. So, I'm trying to casually talk to him, and I'm pulling on the handle, and I'm hitting it with my shoulder, and I'm banging it here, and I reach outside and try to push the button outside, and I'm trying to pull the thing up here... the fucking door will not open. As an actor, your instinct is, "Find a way to make the scene work!" So, what I did was not the smartest thing, but I said, "Well, I'll just climb out the window." Like they're gonna use that, right? The sheriff pulls up in his car and then climbs out the window! Meanwhile, the house is over the fucking cliff, and Michael J. Fox is just looking at me like, "Dude, what the fuck are you doing?"
So, I go running down the hill to where the crew is, to get to where Peter Jackson is, and tell him, "I'm sorry! The fucking door would not open! I couldn't open the door on that shitbox car!" And the cinematographer was completely melting down. He's on the ground, kicking like an infant, and screaming, "What the fuck are we gonna do?" And Peter Jackson, I went over to try and talk to him, and he couldn't even talk to me, because he was laughing too hard. The cinematographer was still going, "What are we gonna do?" And this is the smartest thing I've ever heard anybody say on a movie set: Peter Jackson said "We'll do something else." [Laughs.] It was, like, "Okay, we had this dream shot. We're not getting it." Well, they had other cameras going, so they cut the scene together, and you see the house going over. They didn't get their shot through the car and everything, but nobody knew but the cinematographer and Peter Jackson.
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998) — "Michigan Police Chief"
TE: I went in and met with Terry Gilliam, and something like two or three months go by. And then I got a call late on a Friday afternoon saying, "Hey, you got that movie!" Now, I was laying in the ICU at Cedars-Sinai. I'd had my knee replaced that morning, and I'm still on heavy painkilling drugs. So I said, "What movie?" They said, "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas!" I said, "Well, when am I supposed to do it?" They said, "Next Tuesday." I said, "You know you're calling me in the ICU, right? I just had my fucking knee replaced! How the hell am I gonna go work on this movie in Las Vegas?" They said, "Okay, we'll tell him you can't do it." So then Terry Gilliam, he was adamant: "Oh, no, no, no, no! I have to have him! I have to! I don't care, we'll get him a flight over here, we'll pay. I want to have him!"
So they flew me over, and this was real early in the knee-replacement business. They were just starting to do that. Now you get, like, a 4" or 5" incision, and you're walking fairly decent by the next day. They've got that surgery down. This one, my incision was 26" long. I was open from the middle of my thigh down into my calf, and I was just... [Starts to laugh.] It's funny that, on the Fear And Loathing set, I was the one there who was actually on fucking drugs!
Terry Gilliam, they told him about the surgery and everything, so he came over once I got there, and they had me in, like, casual slacks and a Hawaiian shirt, I think. And he comes to my dressing room and says, "Let me see your knee!" So I showed him and it was just this horrible, oozing mess, this huge gash down the front of my leg. He called wardrobe in, and he said, "Cut those pants legs off! I'm not having a leg like that in my movie and not be able to see it!" [Laughs.] In fact, I don't think they got any good coverage of my incision, but Terry wanted to see it!
The other thing is, when we did the takes, I would shuck the crutches and just walk into the scene and lean on the counter and do the scene. And the scene wasn't very long, but when it was over, there was a guy there who would run and get my crutches for me, and that guy also would go and get me Cokes and shit like that. And that guy's name was Johnny Depp. It wasn't like a second A.D. or something. Johnny Depp would say, "Anything I can do for you, man!"
But in the scene, I ad libbed a line: "Wait a minute! I don't get a room and you're giving this guy a fucking room? What are you running, some kind of dick-suckers' convention here?!" [Laughs.] Terry Gilliam was in heaven. In heaven. Oh, and here you go... [Reaches off-camera, produces a framed piece of Ralph Steadman artwork.] That's probably the nicest wrap gift anybody's ever given me.
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) — "Roger Podacter"
TE: That was probably my busiest time of my career. I think that year I was in three different movies, and at one point when I was working on Under Siege and shooting down in Mississippi, there was a triplex across the street, and I was in all three of 'em! [Laughs.] I felt like, "Man, I'm just getting started!" Little did I know that I was actually at the top of my mountain...
There were a lot of really good things about Ace Ventura. The director was great, and they hired guys like me and John Capodice and just a lot of funky old character actors. Real character actors. That was just a pleasure to me. The funny thing about it is, you know, I do these movies, and they were all modest budgets, and at least half the time you'd never even hear from the movie. They'd finish it, and then it would maybe open somewhere for a day and then be gone. But Jim Carrey, he was marvelous to work with, because no two takes were ever exactly alike, and each new one was a little bit better. A little different, but it wasn't just a change, it was an improvement. He had an endless font of creativity. But the thing that amused me at the time was that he had a mantra on the set, which was, "This movie's gonna do $200 million." And I just remember thinking, "What the fuck are you smoking? Jesus! $200 million? This'll be lucky to do two dollars!" Well, I think Jim Carrey gets the last laugh on that one. I'll bet it's done two billion by now.
Bosch (2014-2021) / Bosch: Legacy (2022-2023) — "Det. Barrel Johnson"
AVC: How did Bosch come about? Did they reach out to you, or was it an audition?
TE: It's an amazing occurrence in my life, and it brings us back to that little theater in Santa Maria again! I was at Montana State University down in Bozeman, and then I got an offer to go to this little theater down in Santa Maria and I really didn't want to do it. Here I was at Montana State University, and they want me to go to this junior college for the summer? [Groans.] But I said, "Okay." So I go down there and well, ER came from people I met there. China Beach came from people I met there. Another pilot I did came from that. My first big part was a part on L.A. Law, and that came from a woman who I didn't know but who had been up there on vacation and saw me in a play and then came back and wrote an episode of L.A. Law for me.
So it's 1976, it's my first summer in California, and this is a little farm town. There was another actor there who had been going to school up in Oregon, and his name was Jeff Combs. And he had a friend who was a college playwright named Eric Overmyer. And Eric came to see the plays in Santa Maria, so I met him, and then we had a little contact over the next few years. But 40 years later, he calls me up, and he says, "You know, I'm developing this thing with Michael Connelly, and I think there's something here for you."
AVC: Wow.
TE: Yeah, it's mystical. It's hard to even follow all the connections that have come out of that theater—including my wife, now of over 40 years. I met her there. She was in the prop shop! So anyway, they had these parts of Crate and Barrel. You know, Crate and Barrel are very small parts in the books. They just pop up a little bit. And Eric, who is a great television writer and playwright as well, he told Michael Connelly, "If you want this to have a life, you have to have more of this lighter side. Because Bosch is plenty dark enough, and you need somebody who's not slapstick, but just to lighten it up a notch once in a while."
Now, we ran into a wall, because we did the first seven years of straight-up Bosch, and that was all very pleasant, and we had a good time. And then they did the spin-off, Bosch: Legacy, and one might ask, "Well, why do you have to change the name? He retired, he became a private detective. Why can't it still just be Bosch?" Because they need it to be a different show so they can break all their old contracts. "We're not doing Bosch anymore, we're doing Bosch: Legacy, so everything starts clean." So they clean house every place they want to.
Now, I've never met any of the people from Amazon, but my assumption—which may or may not be true—is that somebody new came on to supervise Legacy, and they did not want Crate and Barrel there. They didn't want the age. But then when we weren't there, they would get letters. So, they would try to have us just enough so they could say, "Oh, yeah, we've got Crate and Barrel." In the first three seasons, I think we worked five days in three years. And never actually involved in the plot. We'd just show up and tell a fart joke, a minute and 30 seconds, and that's it for Crate and Barrel.
AVC: That sucks.
TE: [Shrugs.] It's all right. It's like Eli Wallach told me once: "You're an artist, but you're an artist in a business." And the Amazon people, they don't even make a pretense to caring about the quality. They just have their demographic that they want and the demographic that they don't want, and that's all that they care about. So, yeah, it sucks. But it comes with the territory.