From: Jason K. <kallen77@home.com>
Subject: Morrow "Movieline" interview
Date: Thursday, January 07, 1999 9:56 PM

Here's an excerpt from an interview with Rob Morrow that appeared in the
May, 1996 issue of "Movieline" magazine.

Jason K.
___________________________________________________________________

The Further Exposure of Rob Morrow

Can Rob Morrow do what David Caruso couldn’t? His follow-up to the
respectable failure Quiz Show is Last Dance, in which he stars with
Sharon Stone, who, he claims, "is the real thing."

By Dennis Hensley

Based on the much-publicized skirmishes he had with the producers of the
television show "Northern Exposure," I’m half expecting Rob Morrow to be
standoffish, if not downright combative. So I’m pleasantly surprised
and frankly relieved when the 33-year-old New Yorker greets me at a
Beverly Boulevard Tex-Mex joint with a hearty hello and a handshake
that’s so friendly it requires two hands to execute.

Perhaps those tales of Morrow's on-set divatude were blown out of
proportion, I think, as I follow the stylishly dressed actor to a table
by the window. Or maybe, having had some success at navigating the
chasm between TV and feature films (Robert Redford's Quiz Show and the
upcoming Last Dance and Mother), Morrow's mellowed in the last few
years. A third possibility -- that Rob Morrow really is an asshole and
he's just good at acting like he's not -- seems less and less likely as
our conversation goes on.

DENNIS HENSLEY. Your new film, Last Dance, isn't based on the Donna
Summer song of the same name, is it?
ROB MORROW: (Laughs) No. It was, however, loosely inspired by the song
"Save the Last Dance for Me," though it's not used in the movie.
Q: What's your character?
A: I play a kind of rich playboy who graduates from law school and all
he wants to do is meet girls and drive his Porsche. His brother, Peter
Gallagher, the chief of staff to the governor in this unnamed Southern
state, says, "Get off your ass and we'll put you in the clemency
department until you find something to do with your life." They put me
on the case of this woman, Sharon Stone, who's been on death row for 12
years and did, in fact, commit a double homicide when she was 17. But
she was under the influence of crack, a fact which wasn't
admitted in the trial.
Q: Sounds like it should be called Hot Babe Walking.
A: (Laughs) Sharon does look beautiful. We had very intimate scenes and
I was just right there with her. It was pretty heavenly.
Q: I heard you two don't have a love scene.
A: Bummer, huh? I wouldn't have complained.
Q: What surprised you most about Sharon?
A: I was impressed how flexible she was in the fray, because I didn't
know what she was going to be like. We just jammed. She's the real
thing.
Q: When Dead Man Walking came out were you thinking it might hurt your
film?
A: Ask me that next year. If Last Dance does well, it doesn't matter.

Q: Did you audition for the role?
A: I didn't. I had worked for Disney on Quiz Show and I owed them a
couple of movies. So they were nice enough to offer it to me.
Q: You've played two lawyers in a row. Do you like playing lawyers?
A: Lawyers are great characters because they effect change. My mother
tried to convince me when I was starting out to become a lawyer,
because, she said, "They perform too. The courtroom's their stage."
Q: Did you call her and say, "You have your lawyer son now"?
A: Well, not only that. She wanted me to be a doctor as well, and I
played a doctor on the TV show.
Q: If your acting career ended tomorrow, what would you pursue?
A: I guess photography. I studied it for a while and it’s a hobby of
mine.
Q: How did your book of behind-the-scenes photographs from "Northern
Exposure"
come about?
A: I made it to give to people, and I said to my agent, "See if we can
sell this," and we did. I don’t think I made any money from it, but I
liked handing it to people I worked with.

Q: You left "Northern Exposure" before your contract was up, right?
A: Yes. I did 101 shows. I didn’t feel like I could do anything else.
It was just time to move on.
Q: I read that your costar Janine Turner was upset because you didn’t
tell her you were leaving.
A: I understand why she was upset. Things can get leaked before they
should. I had to be quiet about it. So I don’t know how she found out,
but not from me. And she was pissed. That’s definitely been smoothed
over.
Q: How did your other coworkers react? Were they like, "Good for you,"
or did they think you were a traitor?
A: Probably both. I wasn’t doing anything except trying to be truthful
to myself, trying to continue to grow. I was scared that I was going to
stagnate creatively, you know, so I guess you can’t please everybody.
Q: By the time you quit, you had made Quiz Show, so you knew that you
had some future in features?
A: Well, I didn't know necessarily, to tell you the truth. I started
the process before Quiz Show came out.
Q: Did landing the film give you more confidence in your decision?
A: No. When I saw it I felt, OK, I'm holding my own. But I don't think
you ever feel completely comfortable.
Q: Early in the show's run you had a highly publicized salary dispute
with the show's producers. Were you surprised about the amount of
publicity that received?
A: I knew a bit about showbiz. There were not many surprises.
Q: Did you have any regrets about the way you handled it?
A: Nothing's coming to mind. I'm sure stuff was leaked or said that
wasn't true. I remember when I first started renegotiating, I'd have
friends come up to me and say, "You're making four zillion dollars an
episode. Why do you want 10?" I was like, "That's not even remotely
close to how much I'm making." As soon as I'd say, "Well, here's what
I'm doing and why," they'd go, "Oh. I understand."
Q: Would other actors come up and say, "Good for you"?
A: Of course. Look, the actors are not the ones who're making the big
bucks.
Q: Is there behavior of yours that, looking back, you find
reprehensible?
A: Not too much in the business dealings, but yeah, I remember one time
having a fight with the costume designer about a pair of pants. I was
just a jerk about the way I handled it. You gotta learn that stuff.
Q: What was wrong with the pants?
A: I just didn't like them. She wanted me to wear them. I was like,
"I'm not wearing 'em." She was like, "You have to." I was like, "Now I'm
definitely not wearing them."
Q: Who won?
A: Me, because the aggravation wasn't worth it to her.
Q: I guess the squeaky wheel really does get the grease.
A: What do you mean?
Q: If you're a pain in the ass, you get what you want.
A: Maybe. Ultimately what I want as I get older is not to have my way,
but to have the best product come out.
Q: Did you watch the show after you left?
A: I guess I didn't.
Q: Did you watch it when you were on?
A: I did. I saw all the shows I was on.
Q: Because of your well-publicized professional squabbles, do people
ever expect you to be difficult?
A: Maybe. My guess is anyone who meets me can tell I'm pretty
straight. I work hard and I think people know that. I'm opinionated,
but I'm not
egomaniacal.

Q: Last year, you were set to do The Island of Dr. Moreau with Marlon
Brando and Val Kilmer and then you dropped out. What happened?
A: Well, I actually shot a few days in Queensland, Australia. The
director, Richard Stanley, got fired and that was kind of it for me. I
asked to leave. [New Line production president] Mike De Luca was a
really good guy and said that if he could find another actor he would
let me go, and he found David Thewlis.
Q: What were your reasons for leaving?
A: I don't want to say anything ... it just wasn't for me.
Q: Did you get to meet Marlon Brando?
A: Never. Isn't that a bummer? That was one of the main reasons I did
it.
Q: What character do you play in Albert Brooks's new film, Mother?
A: My character is this foppish mama's-boy, high-voiced, successful
sports agent. It's a bit out there. Just what the doctor ordered.
Q: Isn't Debbie Reynolds in it?
A: Yeah. She plays my and Albert's mother. I'm not sure how much to
talk about it. Albert's really proprietary about the script.
Q: How old were you when you moved to New York City to become an actor?
A: I was 17-and-a-half. The first year in New York, I lived in a teeny
place with a couple of guys. We slept till probably three in the
afternoon and didn't go out till midnight, when we'd go and get our
dinner, which was a loaf of hot bread and a stick of butter if we were
doing particularly well. And we'd go out and pick up as many cigarette
butts as we could find and when we got home we'd have a whole big pile
and sit there and smoke and eat our dinner. It was basically, in
retrospect, complete fear of the world. Fortunately I got through that.
Q: Did you get into a lot of trouble in those days?
A: Sure. I'm trying to think of a story that I won't regret telling
you. I remember moving out of that particular flat. We couldn't afford
the rent. I don't know if we were formally evicted, but it was
imminent. And I had this old huge velvet purple couch from my family's
house and I was like, "It's my family couch, I have to get it," and we
tried to take it down the steps and it got wedged in the stairwell at
two in the morning and we couldn't get it out. We finally just left this
huge monstrosity of a couch stuck there.
Q: Were you working at that time?
A: Jobs didn't last long at that point. I was an usher in a movie
theater for a good chunk of that year. I saw Honeysuckle Rose a zillion
times. It was where I developed a mad crush on Amy Irving, who I now
bump into and I can barely speak to.
Q: What was the first movie you saw in a theater?
A: The one that first had an influence was 2001: A Space Odyssey. It
has constant ramifications in my life as I get older.
Q: What's your earliest memory of being turned on by a movie?
A: Jane Fonda in Klute definitely got me going. Any pretty girl in a
miniskirt turned me on when I was a kid.
Q: I've read that seeing Grease was important to you. Why?
A: That's where I became at least cognizant of wanting to become an
actor.
Q: Because you could be 40 and still play a high school student?
A: They weren't 40. It just looked like a blast. I saw it a bunch of
times.

[Snip]
___________________________________________________________________

Here’s another excerpt from the "Movieline" interview where Morrow
discusses Quiz Show and The Silent Alarm.
___________________________________________________________________

Q: You were in the comedy Private Resort with Johnny Depp. What do you
remember about him?
A: His sense of humor. He kept me laughing. It was a stupid movie. I
think Johnny and I ought to start a fund to buy the negative and destroy
it.
Q: You also did an episode of "Fame." Did you have to wear leg warmers?
A: I didn't. I was the tough troublemaker antagonist.
Q: Were you disappointed that Quiz Show didn't do better at the box
office?
A: Sure. You know, there's such a balance between quality and marketing
and timing. Sometimes you hit it and sometimes you don't. A lot of
people think it was a hit because it got so much attention.
Q: You gained some weight for your role in that movie. How much did you
put on?
A: I stopped looking after about 20 pounds. I'd have hamburgers and
french fries and a malt for breakfast. It didn't feel good ultimately
because we, were shooting it in New York City in the summer, and on top
of that I was wearing heavy wool suits to make me look even bigger.
Q: Did you get to introduce your mother to Robert Redford?
A: Yeah, and she was floored. After she met him, she'd walk around
saying, "My friend Robert Redford."
Q: What was it like acting with Martin Scorsese?
A: Great. He's a good actor. I really love his reasons for acting. He
likes to do it once every year or two because it gets him back in touch
with what the actor goes through.
Q: Did you think, "If I kick ass in this scene, maybe he'll put me in
his next movie"?
A: I guess it ran through my head, but it wasn't something I thought
about much. It was the perfect way to meet him, because normally I
would either meet him socially or on a meeting for a movie and he'd be
calling the shots. But in this case, he was kind of stepping into my
world in a way. He was a little nervous, so in between takes I'd say
like, "Taxi Driver!" and he'd go, "Oh yeah, Bob came in and..." I got a
lot of stories out of him. I wrote and directed this short movie that I
asked him to look at, and that was probably one of my highs.
Q: What was his feedback?
A: It was very enthusiastic and kind of like, "What's next? Where are
you headed?"
Q: What is your short film, The Silent Alarm, about?
A: It's about a kid in 1968 in a very idyllic Spielbergian Eastern
suburb. He lives with his mom, and there's this guy that sells alarms
door to door who ends up moving in with this kid's mom and wreaking
psychological havoc on the kid.
Q: What inspired you to write it?
A: Some events from childhood, and I'm just very interested in
children. I'm very aware of the delicate balance between nurturing and
oppression.
Q: Do you want to have kids?
A: Yes.
Q: Soon?
A: I think I'm getting close.
Q: Are you seeing someone now?
A: I am. She's really significant. Out of deference to her I'd rather
not say much.

Q: Did being the producer and director of your film make you more
empathetic to the behind-the-scenes people on "Northern Exposure"?
A: It was one of the biggest lessons I ever learned. I have a lot of
opinions, and as I get older I learn how to work with people so that I
feel satisfied and they feel satisfied. But as a younger man I could be
obstinate. On a TV show a lot of directors come and go and you, as the
actor, become the main power, the constant. So you're going to get your
way most of the time, because no one has time. When I went to make this
movie I storyboarded everything, and the first day I got on the set this
great actor named Scott Renderer said, "Ah man, no, I would never do
that. That doesn't make any sense." And everyone I had ever said no to
flashed before my eyes.
Q: Did you make your money back on the short film?
A: Nowhere near. But it has a life. I sold it to Bravo, so it plays
there all the time.
Q: How nervous were you the first time you saw it with an audience?
A: A zillion times more nervous than I am as an actor. As a director,
every frame is yours.
Q: Would you ever want to direct yourself?
A: As an actor I tend to gravitate toward challenging material. The idea
of coupling that with directing responsibilities, I'm a little scared of
that.