You’ve had television and film experience, including Man of the Century (we’ll get to that) and multiple episodes of Law and Order: SVU as CSU Tech Pat Fisher. But you continue to show up in obscure and exciting off-off-Broadway productions and downtown New York theatre—what’s the draw, for you?
I like working on new plays. I have a tremendous affinity for films, plays, music, and art between World War I and World War II. Talking pictures were new, Jazz was new the traditional “well-made play” was relatively new. I think what those pieces have is not only technical skill, but also a lot of heart and an excitement about discovering what artists can do with this new vocabulary. I think there is a similar excitement in downtown New York theatre today that I’m happy and very fortunate to be a part of.
What were your experiences like with Law and Order? Was the process any different than what you would expect?
I have fun working on Law & Order. Everybody’s really nice when I work there. The pacing of hour-long television is not unlike an independent film. Everybody’s really good at what they do and they don’t like to mess around.
The first L&O I did was an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and I remember reading in the script that my first scene took place at Port Authority bus terminal at 42nd Street and 8th Ave. It’s one of the busiest street corners in the world, so I just assumed that they would be shooting the scene over on the side or cheat it somehow. But I showed up on the set at 9am in the heart of rush hour, and the crew was setting up right in the thick of things. I was surprised (and appreciated) the kind of relationship that the show has with the city. It’s great. And great for the New York actor.
When did you know you wanted to be an actor?
I always knew I wanted to do something with performance. I started playing guitar when I was 10 hoping to be another John Lennon or David Bowie. I went to a performing arts summer camp in the Catskills called French Woods. I played in a rock band there, but I enjoyed doing the plays so much more, so I think I just gravitated toward that.
Why did you decide to go to UCLA? What was your experience with the UCLA theatre department?
I grew up outside of Philadelphia and went to a small prep school, so I wanted to try my hand at a bigger pond. I wanted a big city so it was New York, Chicago, or LA. I knew I wanted to live in New York eventually, so I concentrated on Northwestern in Chicago and UCLA. I got into both, but I had two friends (from French Woods) who were at UCLA so it seemed like a nice fit.
The program has changed so much since I was there. When I was there, there were a lot of theatre majors, but no so many opportunities for students to act, so what resulted was a sort of positive unrest in which people were creating opportunities for themselves on campus, using unused rehearsal spaces, bathrooms, or even the benches out front. Every area was a potential theatre and it made for an environment where creativity not only thrived, but was rewarded.
You worked out of LA after college and became a member of Los Angeles’s Buffalo Nights theatre company.
Buffalo Nights was founded from the same kind of energy that I mentioned above. We were all kind of working and embarking on careers very soon after college, so the company gave us a chance to do the kind of theatre we wanted to do. We were finding these crazy Polish Expressionism plays and putting our spin on it. Despite what it may sound like, it was very unpretentious, but was good work.
You co-wrote and starred in the Independent Film Channel staple and cult favorite, Man of the Century. So, tough guy, what made you think you could write your own feature film?
I met Adam (Abraham) shooting his graduate thesis (called Song of the Sea) for USC. We hit it off, had a lot of the same sensibilities, and decided to write this movie. I had never written a screenplay before, but when I look back at my high school experience, I realize I was always writing skits and sketches and little plays and things.
Adam certainly knew much more about screenplay and story structure than I did; and I had the acting experience to ensure that the characters were three dimensional; and we both had the love and knowledge of movies of the period to give the film the unique flair that I think we gave it. It was a wonderful process.
Tell us about the steps involved in getting the movie made.
Adam and I had to make a choice early on if this was going to be a project that we were going to try to sell or if we were going to make ourselves. We were both trying to forge careers for ourselves, so it seemed like if we wanted me to play the title character and for Adam to direct it, we would have to produce it ourselves.
It was a completely different time when we produced the film (in 1997). It was before the get-rich-quick days of the internet-tech-.com boom; the stock market wasn’t all that hot, and four of the five nominees for best picture that year were all “independent films”. It was actually a viable business investment at the time.
We put a packet together with information about the project and how much money it would cost and how much we would likely make and we went to every rich person that we knew. We raised a pittance in terms of what we thought we were going to need, but adapted to make the film for what we had and shot on 35mm, black-and-white film stock in New York City in the winter of 1997.
We did post-production in LA and I went into serious, personal credit card debt, but finally the film was finished and we got into the Slamdance Film Festival, which had finally been legitimized after five years of programming good films, and that led to very good festival buzz and inclusion into other festivals. Finally, we were able to find other investors, get out of debt, and eventually scored a distribution deal from Fine Line Features.
Is there anything you learned during the process that you would do differently today?
I think the whole process would be done differently today. “Independent films” just aren’t made like that anymore. Production companies with multiple investors or hedge funds or god-knows-what provide most of the financing for indies today. And it’s not bad, it’s just different.
Adam and I had a lot of authority on Man of the Century because we were responsible for our investors’ money. There were no battles between the creators and the producers, because we were both. But it was also lonely. And we put our necks out there to be cut off by anybody who cared to.
Fortunately, we found a distributor, and though that had its own set of concerns and problems, we had the storybook ending for an independent film. But as I’m putting projects together now, I’m trying to get other people involved in the early stages so that there are more people wanting the film(s) to succeed from the onset.
When did you make the move to New York, and why?
I finally made the move to New York after Man of the Century was released. While the film has since found a life on cable and DVD, it never really got the chance to find its audience in theatres, and I was finding myself very frustrated in Los Angeles, so I decided to move back east and, basically, start all over again.
As if acting, writing, and producing weren’t enough, you also directed numerous one-person shows, including Christopher Titus’s Norman Rockwell is Bleeding, which lead to his FOX television show Titus. You clearly believe, as we do at Actorslife.com, that creating your own work is the way to go. What advice would you give people who are thinking about writing themselves a vehicle?
One of the things that Chris and I worked on with his show was making his story universal. We are all individuals, and we all have our unique stories… but what in that unique story is a thread that nearly everyone in the world can identify with?
For instance, Chris’s show was about dysfunction families. He had an unbelievable childhood. His father was an alcoholic and his mother was mentally unstable, to put it euphemistically. He had a childhood that very few people can relate to. But what we tapped into, and what became the theme of the show, was that as human beings, we are survivors, and no matter what happened to us in the past, we have to let it go in order to step into the future. So, my advice is to put yourself in the audience’s seat and ask, “How is your story going to help me transcend my life?”
Some people say that the entertainment industry prefers people to specialize in one area—be the best comic tap dancer you can be, say, and ignore your dreams to also direct Shakespeare. What would you say to defend your more multidisciplinary, I’ll-do-what-interests-me approach?
I have no idea. I don’t know if I can defend it. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I should have become the best comic tap dancer I could be. Damn.
What kind of representation do you work with, and what has been your experience with agents and managers over the years?
My relationship to representation has been spotty. I have had eight agents and/or managers over the length of my brief career. All of the jobs that I have gotten, the ones that have really transcended my career and helped me move forward, I have attained myself through my past work or creating the opportunity on my own.
And yet, for every experience like that that I have had, I know there is someone else whose agent or manager worked like hell to open a door for them. It depends on the person. My only advice in regards to this is that I have to be the CEO of my own career. I can’t expect other to work as hard as I do for myself. But if they don’t work at least 10% as hard, then I have a responsibility to my career to find someone who does.
What advice do you have for our younger readers who look at your career and say “That’s what I want to be doing? How do I get there from here?”
The best advice ever given to me was that agents, managers, casting directors, producers, everyone in the business is lazy. They don’t want to do anything. So all that you can do is become the greatest, individual artist that you can be. Eventually, if you are true to who you are and what you do, the public will respond and, all those suits will have to scramble to work with you. That kind of blind faith in yourself and persistence. That’s it.
About Kipley