That Guy ... Who Was in That Thing 1 Page #2

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I'm going to be nice and

cordial, but don't go punching

me in the arm or don't, you

know, ask me for my cell phone

number or anything.

Oh, the funniest one was

I was with my youngest daughter.

She was just a baby.

And I'm taking her to cedars,

to the hospital to get her

checkup.

This woman comes in the

elevator, and then she looks at

me and she goes--

[gasps]

"Oh, my god!

You're that man.

You're that dirty man, and you

have a child?"

And my daughter's waking up.

And I'm like, "lady, for god's

sake, I'm an actor."

But the best is when you go

to a checkout counter or you go

and, you know, and they're

dealing with you and everything

is going, and as you're walking

away, I've had people say,

"thank you, Mr. President,"

or something like that.

So they let you know that they

know who you are but they

don't--they don't bother you.

So, to have people come up

and--and say they like what you

do, they like your work, you

got through them on some level--

It's the most gratifying thing

in the world.

I think you're lucky if you

are able to make a living in

Hollywood any way as an actor,

but it--I think you're very

lucky if you get a chance to

make a living doing different

characters every time.

If you look at the range of

roles I've played from,

"Elvira:
Mistress of the dark,"

you know, to "Babylon 5.

That's where we're luckier than

the stars.

I've gone from weirdo,

freako psychotics to sensitive

dads.

After "longtime companion," I

had sensitive parts with dying

everybody for a while.

Now, it's evil wasps.

I'm constantly being cast as

very confident, you know,

businessman types.

I do get a little tired of it.

I'm excited to play somebody

like--well, more like me.

You know, jeans and, you know,

a porkpie hat, maybe an

attitude, earrings all three of

the holes.

I've lost work because of this.

"We need the attorney

who's gonna lose the case."

"Yeah, well, Bob joy,

he'll be a good choice."

Or "we need the axe murderer

who's gonna, you know--you know,

kill the little girl."

"Oh, that would be Bob joy,

right?"

You get typecast from the

next five years, which is great.

You know, it's nice to have an

identity as long as you can

keep changing it.

I had to quit playing bad

guys for a while because I had

a casting director say to me

once, "well, let's face it.

You'll never play the nice guy

next door."

And I go, "what do you mean?

I am the nice guy next door.

Go talk to all the old ladies

down the block and ask them who

the nice guy next door is, and

I guarantee they'll all say

it's me."

I was afraid to come to

Hollywood initially because

I said, "well, I'm going to get

typecast.

I'm gonna be, you know,

the bad guy or--"

[laughs]

"You know, the--the athlete."

I'm happy to say that I haven't

been typecast.

There's one thing worse than

being typecast, and that's not

cast.

I've lived my life for that,

I can't wait to be a type,

where people pick the phone up

and go, "that's who I want.

That's the guy we want."

I don't quite understand

people who want to play nice

guys all the time.

I think, "isn't that just

skating on the surface?"

That's so cliche.

Yeah, I play a lot of nasty

characters.

It's what I get cast to do.

I kind--I kind of look like

an a**hole, so I get cast

as a**hole characters.

But sometimes I would find

myself saying stuff like

Bellick would say, having the

same kind of negative attitude,

getting pissed off at people

and stuff.

Yeah, I call it character

hangover.

I don't like having to go into

the--this horrible kind of

psyche of a guy like that.

He's a horrible person.

You know, if I got to play

one more nice guy, I'm gonna

cut my head off.

I got an inner demon, a

pathological nut inside me just

aching to get out.

As an actor, as a character

actor, especially you get to

play a lot of demented

characters.

You get to go places and sort

of pretend like a kid.

When we were kids, my mom

put us in talent shows.

And we were--we were so poor.

I remember we were--when we were

really young, you know, we lived

pretty much in the ghetto in

Detroit.

She was in the living room

one day pulling off the drapes.

And she began cutting them up.

She--she made our costumes out

of those.

I credit all my creative

instincts from her.

Well, a lot of people in the

industry come from transient

situations.

My mother and I sat down one

day, and we counted out that we

have lived in 18 different

houses by the time I was 18.

My father was a pharmacist.

My mother was a nurse.

Nobody has ever been involved

in acting.

My father was a marine for

24 years, and then he had

a whole another career as an

officer of the bank of

Burlington.

Burlington, Wisconsin.

He did that for 20 years.

He was the mayor of Burlington

and later a county councilman.

So he was very involved in

local politics and was not an

actor.

And as a matter of fact,

confessed to me how difficult

it was for him to do public

speaking.

My father was a monk.

He left my mom and the family

and became a monk.

And we didn't hear from him for

about five years.

Well, we keep in touch, but he's

a monk, so we can't really talk

to him very much.

[laughs]

My father's an electronics

engineer who works in--god, help

me, I have a book of his

somewhere here.

Uh, it's, like, microwave

communications and--and solid

state circuitry.

And I get completely lost.

So I had blond, wispy hair

as a kid.

Always did till the day I was--

Entered college and almost

promptly, it went into full

retreat.

My parents who've always been

very honest and candid with me

about my pursuit of acting,

were like, "well, Matt, you

know, you have a situation.

And your face and your body are,

you know, of a 19-year-old,

and your hair looks 35.

For a graduation gift, we would

like you to consider

a-a toupee."

So I'm like, "okay.

I guess--go over along route 20

in upstate New York," which is

really not the place to go

shopping for hair.

In hindsight, you see now,

but I get in there, and he's

telling me this thing, "it's

a weave, and it'll be nice,

and you'll, you know--it's

made--handmade in Haiti, and

you'll really like this."

"Okay."

Anyway, it turns out obviously

that baby doc Duvalier is down

there making a mess of things,

and everyone's throwing him out

on his ass and burning

everything down.

My roommates were watching it

on the news, and they'll see

like, you know, mayhem.

And, like, one guy's like, "hey,

I think that woman who's running

from that burning hut has your

toupee in her hand.

Look, yeah."

Finally, they call, it's ready.

And I go back to school, and I'm

asking people, and they're all

kind of like, "ah, yeah.

Ah, yeah, okay."

It's funny what you can talk

yourself into when you--when

you get into it, or you think,

"maybe no one will notice."

Then years later I've--I've

gotten these high-end ones that

are very--that are subtle.

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