Stockard Channing on InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse

from pink lady to first lady she's won the admiration of her audiences and the respect of her peers hi I'm earning the news coming up on interviews our conversation with the multi-talented and award-winning actress Stockard Channing so you accomplished what you set out to do what what is our conversation I don't know I I'm a Takei think when you're younger we all have fantasies of things we want to do and then as we get older we moved through life heroes at some of those fantasies really weren't appropriate and then you find new things that get satisfaction from you and expected so I think there's sort of a dialectic it operates in life yeah what were the things that you found along the path that you found were exciting and new that you weren't expecting uh well I'd have to sort of you know roll back the tape of my head which might take a while but I I couldn't say there's just one thing that stands out I think it's a process I think that's how most people leave their lives and I'm I'm more aware of a certain satisfaction I get from the actual process of working as opposed to thinking it's going to lead me somewhere which may be a definition of success that's externally imposed upon me maybe by the world the media how I was raised etcetera so I think that if you're lucky you find that you enjoy things that you enjoy and and it's always I think most exciting for me is to find out that my mind or my whatever talent I have is working in a new way in a better way you know as I can might approach a new piece of material that I'm able to bring something to it still you know because sometimes you think oh I'm just gonna do one thing I only have a narrow channel and it's great when you can say no I still can be flexible and and morph myself into other characters say that might you know tell them yet another story you can do that do you find the industry allows you to do that or is that that I haven't had the problem of of typecasting I think is a lot of people have had because I'm on this television series for five years and playing the first lady I sort of thought of Zachary to limit me in some way that it hasn't I think maybe if if I come out of nowhere it would be more of a problem but because I've been able to do other projects while I've been on the show you know it's pretty much the same as has always been for me does it surprise you the recognition that comes out of doing a TV series when you've done so much Feldman you've done so much theater work how complete how all-encompassing it is an audience that watches you on TV I haven't found that to be an issue really because I've been around for a while I find that people come up to me I never know what they're going to say they they like that I've done you know I did a movie million years of the first thing I ever did called a girl most likely to and it was a black comedy that I did was really very very long ago and I'm amazed people still come up to me say oh I love that what was that call you know so you never know what people see and I think that's uh that's one of the benefits of the theories are having a long career see one of my favorites from a long time ago for you to be cheap detective oh really and it's funny it's one of my favorites I have it on DVD they say there will be at the same time I made a very obscure movie called grease actually I've go back and forth between the two studios we were making them so there you go and for you you like to detect it yeah well of course everyone likes grease - was that funny playing bad character and that it's endured the way it has yeah I think that it's interesting I have more affection for that character than I used to because I thought my god if you're going to be in something that's that phenomenally huge that still continues to be in the consciousness consciousness of the grandchildren of people you know that we're doing it because of the technological developments of the time we lived it I mean if there hadn't been now DVD but before that you know VHS machines I don't really don't think Greece would be remember the way it is but we arrived at that time but I thought well you know I kind of like that that kid that sort of complex weird cranky you know kid that it was a real adolescent to me and I worked as hard on that as I would have anything with a kind of higher IQ she say so I was kind of grateful that I did work on it pretty hard and since I wasn't proud of the fact that these kids like Rizzo so much we talked with Frankie Avalon before and he was saying how they had to keep controlling him to do this and he was not interested in all in doing the film yeah was it something like that for you or did you say yeah I did the job badly I was I had a big most of initial success in my film career which some fizzled after about a year and a half none the movies I made had done and he made any money and Alan Carr is the midnight hours have asked me to do this and I was grateful just to pay my rent for a few months I had no idea was gonna turn into and I thought it was kind of a strange choice given my background but I said well it's a god it's a job like any other and I'm going to do it yeah and and I said I you know I did every little acting procedure I would for if I was playing Shakespeare in my head because I had a real sense of obligation to because it was a stretch from who I was how old I was and and everything and we just did it is acting a difficult job and I guess to do acting well I guess the better way to put it I I don't know how to answer that question I just try to do do it as well as I can I've been doing it long enough that there was a certain technique which develops over the years we have been doing anything a shorthand I have with my own unconsciousness if you will but it's I think it's very hard to talk about acting because it's in so pretentious and and also if your film acting some of it has to happen right that second you'll get another shot at it and so it's luck you know and there's the lock of the actual enterprise in which you're engaged if it's going to be successful because if it's successful you get a chance to do more of it but if it's not it can be with some things the best work I've ever some of the best work we've done has been a very obscure endeavor that didn't you know break through that membrane and these especially it's it's really the luck of the draw whether you're gonna you know break through take me back why in the world did you get into acting what was it no no yeah that's stupid um I I think it had a lot to do with the time in which I was a young person I mean I was a product of the 60s 70s rebellion with all that sort of stuff and and rebellion and also a sense that you could make your life into anything he wanted it to which was a very very different kind of attitude about his life than I had inherited should we say for my in my family it wasn't when I was a little kid that certainly wasn't in the air and it I in abled me to civ go out and do something that was basically pretty stupid which was to be trying to be an artist it wasn't it to try to be famous it wasn't trying to make a lot of money the impulse those those days would be if you got to make music it wasn't because you were going to you know make millions of dollars as a recording artist as much as you just want to be an artist and and that state of mind I think is adjusted slightly because now you get kids who think they want to be in show business they don't necessarily want to be an actor right and and when like times were very dark for me I suppose that I said well this is this is a calling to a degree and it wasn't just that I wanted to be famous you know need and and that kind of calling is if we catch you through the times when you you feel like a failure and so I don't know why I really started to do it but it's like if you're going to be paid if you can find it you can paint you get tremendous satisfaction from it and your imagination is working so I'm a painter and I became an actor and but I do think in hindsight it was a fairly foolish thing to do but I did it and once I started I couldn't stop reaction from your family friends are for my family is pretty negative really oh yeah I think mean they didn't I think my mother felt you did favor for this for you know for four years at Harvard to have you might often joined the circus and I can't really blame er but where you go I did it if your life had gone a different route what what else would you like to have done I don't really know I I always had interests in design in which it did something good stead actually being an actor choosing clothes and wigs makeup and all that the external apparatus of acting so I've always had an interest amount of Katies my mother always thought I was going to be a great dress cider but I didn't but you achieved okay I did okay here okay tell me the while tell me a little bit about six degrees of separation oh I have no where to begin ask me a question okay why was that a project you wanted to be involved in well be honest with you I sort of backed into it I was very close friends with John where we've known each other a long time he done two plays together a by writer the writer of six degrees of separation but I had just finished a play by Neil Simon that had the dubious distinction of being the first end only to this day Neil Simon play to close out of town before he did eventually bring it into New York Oh with another reworking but anyway so I I got a call from Lincoln Center and from John saying would you come we're doing this little play it's just six weeks limited engaged with the midsi new house you know the Little Theatre Lincoln Center and we're already in rehearsal and our lead actress left and we have to do it because we have subscript please would you come do it and I said I don't everyone do a play again I got to make some money I mean this is just you know we were everyone in the company was completely upset with it and I write here please come and come and read it so I came and read it with the company in Jerry's access I'm not going to try to persuade you I'm never going to persuade an actor to do anything but they're all like this and basically because I have to do it it had to be done you know so I said alright and I we did it and I think about three weeks later we were opening it was a lot of and then the first dress rehearsal where there's an audience there you had to suddenly had a sense when the audience was responding to it that this bizarre play that seemed to be so inchoate on the page and it's so difficult to know how it was going to Munich eight had a life it just touched the audience in some way and in its most comedic ways and its most serious ways and that was we went into preview for about three weeks and shaped it by the time we opened it was went through the roof and so this little thing I thought was going to be six weeks of my line ended up being four years of my life and I did a production in London which was hugely successful and won the Olivier Award and then of course made it into a motion picture and it would turned out to be one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life at what point in the process does it get talked about being made into a film where do you hear that when it was it was a huge success in the summer I think it was 1990 and then they were going to move it up to the Beaumont the big big theater of stage Lincoln Center and it got tremendous instantly had tremendous spotlight upon it and uh you know you saw people in the audience who were you knew we're sitting there sort of we are sniffing another one and especially female actresses of a certain age certainty of faith and then I had to leave the play to do a movie for a couple of months and and when I came back we went right we moved it upstairs in that whole winter there was a lot of discussion and the deal was made before it's kept see and and to do it and and and and then and then they had to write it in the course of all that winter John guerre and Fred would come and see the show and talk to me about it and John did this extraordinary thing which I asked him not to do he put it in his contract that I had to play the part and I said you know this is one of my best friends I said I don't want our friendship to suffer because you're under this obligation that you know he said no to dopey ridiculous he said you weren't already you know a motion picture actress I would never do this I would never jeopardize my piece and Fred and I'm scabs he did the same thing and it was just an amazing you know bleep face and then I left the play came back we went to London and did it and it really took a good year and a half before the in place and we were really ready to roll almost two years now when you talk about him putting you in there does that and I don't know that much about how you prepare and you as a person preparing to work but does that put pressure on you do you think I've really got to make sure this works or can you remove yourself enough to say you know separate those things well both I mean your real obligation is to do the second is to to prepare yourself and do it the best job you can but you can't help but feel a certain pressure because you're aware and you're made aware I mean because that's the nature of situation that this is a very unusual thing for an actor for a writer and director to let an actor recreate original role and in totally new medium which I remember Freddy's refer to as me putting toothpaste back into the tube and you know and he is an exercise actually when we were in rehearsal for the movie he made me say everything in a monotone and for about two weeks and then we had a drink afterwards and he said I bet you wondering why I've been such a bastard the two weeks I said well it did cross my mind but I knew he had a reason that I had I just trusted him and it was sometimes it was hard because moments on stage would have been an entirely different kind of tone to it that might have been very big very comedic very large in the screenplay were was written in a context that was totally different but they're exactly the same words and I said that would say to Fred look I'm not resisting what you're asking me to do I just got to give me about 30 seconds so I can sort of reprogram the stuff in my head but I was very much aware consciously aware that that was the process that was going to happen to happen and I also was aware that he wouldn't let me off the hook until I'd given him exactly what he wanted and that then what I said you know you just keep it you keep asking me and pushing me because I know that you you guys know where you want this to go and if this tone shift and this shift I'm just going to do it I'm not going to cling to something I did before but sometimes it was difficult because there was a safety in though yeah when you watch the piece back can you just watch as an audience member it's very I don't know why was we speak I haven't washed it again in 10 years so right I'm going to really go to swing here at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and I'm going to sit there and watch this thing that I did 10 years ago you know so and part of that's going to be like oh yeah I remember that day when we shot that I remember oh yeah I remember you know because it's going to be sunny like it's gonna be like a photo album right but I'm real I'm very very proud of it so I'm looking forward to seeing it yeah another thing you did was the Matthew Shepard story yeah for TV and if I understand the story correctly you got to know Judy Shepard who you played in the film does that change how you approach her all that I just get to know Judy that well I met her before this was even thought of year before I given her a presented fair was an award and a event for for organization and and we met and I met Dennis etc and then about a year later is when we went to film it and I really she was around the set she certainly vetted the script but Sam Waterson knives and playing her husband we we both agreed that it would be almost improper for us we weren't any some imitation of Judy and Dennis and I she she wasn't really comfortable being physically around we were shooting scene she would very much finally monitor the script it also would see dailies and that seemed to work out better for all of us because you there's no way you can know try to reproduce what went on between any couple in their private lives much less these two people who went through this extraordinary ordeal only with their son's death but with the way they had to deal with in this particular case the issue of the death penalty but even the entire media blitz you name it I mean so we didn't really want to be part of that kind of investigation but ironically she said afterwards I think she she said into the speech because that people her friend said that I did I did Judy Shepard better than she ever did you buy the high praises sometimes you'd run a parallel track you don't try to get in and imitation of people is that hard to do a piece to be involved in a piece that is so in the center of a storm of Public Relation public outcry I maybe I didn't we didn't find it so the actual filming because it was made it this wasn't a piece that was jumping on a bandwagon of something that goes in the courts the time you know which I'm not putting in those damn and it wasn't that kind of thing as a matter fact the focus of the piece was on them a year after Matthew had been murdered in the second trial second murderer and it was really focused on a weekend in which they had to make this moral decision of whether they were going to go for the death penalty or not I mean it was really about how you how you balance a certain desire for retribution at the same time you want to honor the memory of this child and that was that was kind of you know that gel so it was done I mean I think several years after he had been killed and a whole furor over the death and so there wasn't as if we were in the headlines every day and that's not what the intention was right but it was still I would say a very rewarding experience oh yeah it was it definitely was and then of course everyone get on me if I don't bring up West Wing and I know you mentioned at the beginning West Wing how did that come about for you and another one has to just jump on that question the time yeah as a first lady are you looking at other first lady's and trying to grab from them or she totally you're our slave she's like most horse ladies her own person I mean you wouldn't compare you know Hillary to Laura I mean you know I don't think they do it's alleged on you know Abigail is definitely her own person and and it's the most curious thing to me about it is it will you do something for now in five years you realize it's the most curious kind of some category just like the longest movie ever made you know because it's five years of my life five years of an audience's life and five years of this all of our lives they know acting in it so this is this long long art form if you will and I've never done this before and it's really curious but it's what's interesting about it is we are none of us exactly the same people we were five years ago neither is Abigail and you know and neither is Martin and either as Jed Bartlet's so and neither is our country so you you sort of help us you don't it's not like you take a text and say here's a beginning middle and end yeah you're just doing this kind of day in the life you drop into that life five years later it came about I just as a very it could have been come and gone in an instant they you know agents talk to managers talk to producers and I was on location and they called me and said would you like to you know we've got five days off you want to go back to LA and and I've seen the show and admired enormous Lee and I said well it was very complicated by Oh what-what you know end of the day I got in the plane and showed up and but I had very little to do in the first one and I said well this is too bad this is in and out route and again but there seem to have it a big response to it and from these you know I think I said maybe ten lines or something in the first one I never really thought I was going to go anywhere and then the second one about three months later Erin got the right idea of making me a doctor and and also brought up the whole issue of the MS situation which was completely off the top of his head as far as I can tell but that's how he writes that's how he does things and then then and start it and that was five years ago why do you think is a whole it has worked so well well I'm happy to see his work so well because it's so beautifully written it's so carefully approached by everyone involved in it I mean the top of their game I mean the bar is set so high and was the beginning the way it looks the camerawork the actors are spectacular Aaron himself who was involved in the first four years but and John Wells that matter that's the you know the that kind of excellence it is a golden age I think we're in television long phone or drama like that because there's about three or four guys out there that are really doing beautiful work and West Wing is is way up there and I think that's it is massive quality it's dense I don't they don't talk down to an audience it's dense in terms of information in terms of subtle in terms of havior and i think it's intriguing to people I don't think you learn about the television audience by seeing that that show succeeds well I don't know what you learn about him more than you know don't underestimate your audience because it's like if you watch an opera you may not speak you may be watching Italian opera you may not understand the town you may not really be an opera fan but the people are doing it right you have to understand you of things on one level and if someone knows a lot about opera they understand it in addition to another another knows a little also speaks Italian they got an another appreciation I think you can watch West Wing just about human beings in a workplace interacting and and under enormous pressure or you can learn about politics you can learn about government and also one one of the things that's really great thing to see more than once people come back to it and get a little nugget of information and I think people like to to learn something I think it's satisfying and at the same time they don't in the most part neglect just a certain dramatic push these are the whole every one of those characters are so individually shaped without cliches they're very satisfying to watch each on their own and it's great to watch them all interact yeah I I don't know why this comes to my now but I know way back you did a sitcom yes suctioning just friends I think was yeah yeah when that show was cancelled I guess they reworked it too in the middle passing it to was like two half seasons did that were you very bothered when that show cancelled and now looking in hindsight yes and no I I was a I um that show I had in terms of the deal I was like a no but it's interesting that was 1979 and 80 and today I would definitely have my name repair but then that didn't think it was seemly in some way so just even make of that what you will however it was run through my own company in this annealer so I only I wasn't just a hired hand on it I it was a real 24/7 thing which had its downside as well but I have nothing but respect for the the sitcom because I'm so we're how difficult it is to tell those stories you know and everything in the behind the scenes goes on with it having said that I was working in the second there was a man who was a who done the andy griffith show he was a real veteran and a wonderful guy and he when i was in new york doing his play when it was canceled he sent me a a telegram saying you know this could be a blessing in disguise which was an amazing thing to say at that moment cuz it ever it was like a disaster but it turned out it really kind of was because i was free to go out and take my chances yet again and you know in the open water science it was kicked out there and to that intially into the ocean yeah well someone said to me once you every time a door closes a window opens or vice versa this is awesome someone's pushing you through the winter yeah don't know where you gotta land where are they pushing you now well I'm still in a nice safe harbor yeah and but you know little that window will that door will close and the window will open I'll be forced to go out there again and see if I can fly but is there some challenge that you want to take on that you haven't had yet in your career oh right well then everything's going to be a new challenge I mean you know the river caves moving I don't know what it does to see what's around the corner well I thank you very much for taking the moments to sit down with us to talk with us thank you a pleasure Stockard Channing to order a transcript call eight six six six five two three three seven eight or seven $6.95 to the address on your screen please include the name of the guests

Channel: HoustonPBS

Views: 33,141

Rating: 4.8969073 out of 5

Keywords: KUHT, HoustonPBS, InnerVIEWS, with, Ernie, Manouse, Stockard, Channing, 'West, Wing', first, lady, Abigail, Bartlett, 'Six, Degrees, of, Separation', 'Grease', Pink, Lady, actress, actor, television, film, betty, rizzo

Id: lb6NZHL7AbQ

Length: 26min 58sec (1618 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 21 2009