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An Interview With John Bolger - August 2008
John Bolger: Actor, Director, and One Heck of a Fun
Guy
It was a beautiful sunny day on Long Island when I
met John (Mayor Floyd, GH) Bolger for lunch and a couple of pints at a
local pub we were both familiar with. Our wide-ranging conversation
touched on his early days as a graduate theater student at NYU, numerous
off-off Broadway (and other) stage productions, daytime, primetime, and
“Sex and the City” roles. We also spoke at length about the project he
starts this month, which he’ll be working on for more than a year, which
may take him to Broadway at last (though that would not technically be
his Broadway debut, but more about that later).
When you look at Bolger’s IMDB.com credits, you
assume that his career has been fairly balanced between daytime and
primetime television. Not so. He has a considerable amount of theater
work behind him – and ahead of him as well. Following are excerpts from
our time spent together (sorry, not all of it!):
JB : You
know, I really cut my teeth off-off Broadway, with Circle in the Square
and then with the Willow Cabin Theater Company, which I co-founded by my
sister-in-law, Maria Radman. She came to me after a few years of almost
non-stop theater work and said, “We’re doing Twelfth Night,
and we’re opening in three weeks at the Bank Street Theater. Oh, and
you’re giving me $2000 to help produce this!” So I was not only an
actor, but also a producer at this point! Most of the cast members of
Twelfth Night
spent 10 years working with Willow Cabin, and it was a great experience.
I’d also done a lot of regional theater, a lot of
Shakespeare, plus Odets, Inge, Genet, Tennessee Williams and Thornton
Wilder. Throughout this time, we were all working day jobs. I was on
“Guiding Light” from ’85 to ’86, then in ’87, I did a pilot with Jason
(“Seinfeld”) Alexander, “Everything’s Relative,” which lasted only seven
or eight episodes. I then had the great honor of working with Harvey
Fierstein in Safe Sex,
a trilogy he wrote, which we did in ’87.
John then shared several bawdy stories involving
Fierstein – he does a=2 0damned good imitation of that raspy voice –
most of which I can’t print here. Okay, just one. Safe Sex shared
a theater with another company that went on first and would only exit
the stage after all the Greek women in the cast had been killed.
Fierstein, impatient, would often lean over the stairwell and yell,
“Die, you f*cking Greeks, die!”
MH: You’ve worked on three incarnations of “Law
& Order.”
What’s it like to work on a Dick Wolf production?
JB: Dick
Wolf was really the catalyst for making New York City viable for filming
rather than going to Vancouver or Toronto. New York finally realized
that they could make money at this and started cooperating with
producers, providing incentives for them to film here rather than in
Canada. (Sonny Grosso, the cop that the character in The French
Connection was actually based on, became a producer. In 1989,
I worked on a series called “True Blue” which he produced, and he
refused to move to Toronto to film, saying, “it’s too clean!”
Unfortunately, the network wouldn’t budge, so True Blue
didn’t last long.)
I had the pleasure of working with Jerry Orbach on
the first “L&O” I did, and he was the quintessential New Yorker. It
was like meeting an old friend, and I felt very much at home.
MH: You also worked with Paul Haggis on “The
Black Donnellys” some years later. What stands out about that
experience?
JB:
That was a lovely accident. The casting director had cast me in “NYPD
Blue” back in ’93, its first season, and remembered me all those years
later. I was cast as the Donnelly’s father in flashback scenes and did
six episodes. When I was brought over to meet Haggis, he was filming a
bar fight scene and I remember being impressed that he kept the camera
rolling, wanting to get the best material. This was working with film,
not video, which is much more expensive, but when you’ve just won an
Oscar, you have some leeway! I thought he was very confident, a great
technician, and was amazed at his ease with the actors. A true actors’
director.
MH: I took an informal poll and learned that you
are perhaps best loved as John Sykes on “One Life20to Live.” Is that
accurate?
JB:
(laughs) I really have no gauge from which to tell. I will say it was
a great job. Thanks to (executive producer) Jill Farren Phelps, two
weeks turned into three years. I was put together with Linda Dano,
whom I’d worked with on “Another World,” which was a pleasure. When
you have to block for camera and go over lines at the same time, when
you actually shoot, you’re under rehearsed, which is always a
challenge. Not with Linda. She’s a pistol. Several pistols, actually!
On “Another World,” Linda Dano played Felicia,
mother of Lorna, Robin Christopher’s character and my love interest as
Gabe McNamara. Time spent on that set was like the Mardi Gras. You’d
hear Linda’s wonderful laugh, which had been set off by Robin’s
fantastic laugh, which made for a rollicking set. “Another World” is
truly missed. I’m usually stopped by fans of that show, all these
years later.
MH: You’ve been playing Mayor Garrett Floyd on
GH on and off since 2006. What are your favorite storylines thus far?
Actors you’ve particularly enjoyed working with?
JB:
My favorite story would have to be early on, working with Alexis
during her trials and tribulations. That could have been more of a
relationship, but the mayor is always on the periphery of storyline. I
also enjoyed working with Rick Hearst. It’s a talented group of people
who are consistently enjoyable and who love going to work. The
atmosphere is really a tribute to Jill Farren Phelps and the rest of
the ensemble and crew.
I was an apprentice director there for a year and a
half – trial by fire, but invaluable, as it gives you the ability to
see everything that goes into putting on an hour-long show.
Regarding the mayor, he’s like the Yankee’s
reliever, Mariano Rivera. He’s functional, depending on what’s
happening with the main characters.
Working with Robin Christopher (ex-Skye) again
really made me appreciate those days back in Brooklyn on “Another
World” even more. She is just an extraordinary actor and person. When
working at the pace you do on daytime, you must totally trust the
person you’re working with, and Robin is one of those people. It’s
like a high wire act and Robin, like L inda Dano, is a tremendously
courageous lady.
MH: Would you agree with the statement that
daytime is a great training ground for primetime and other acting
gigs?
JB:
Absolutely. Here’s an example: when I did “NYPD Blue,” I got the call
about a month after my audition for ABC to let me know I got the part.
It was shot in a cemetery in Queens off the Brooklyn Queens Expressway
(the same cemetery used in The Godfather), and when it
was time to shoot, (then-star) David Caruso was exhausted. The shot
was delayed because of that, but we needed to get it in quickly so we
wouldn’t lose the light. My daytime experience helped me get that in
the can. Daytime is great training for everything.
MH: Please tell me about the big project you’re
starting this month.
JB: I’m in
the Broadway-bound musical version of Dirty Dancing! I’m
cast as Dr. Jake Houseman, Baby’s dad, which was the Jerry Orbach role
in the movie. Jake is in several musical numbers and additional scenes
cut from the movie have been restored.
MH: Awfully big shoes to fill.
JB:
I could never fill Jerry Orbach’s shoes. You have to bring your own
shoes, recreate the role, and bring the person you are to it.
MH: What’s the schedule like?
JB:
We start in Chicago, and we’ll be there six months. Rehearsals begin
August 4, previews on September 28, and we then run until January. We
open in Boston February 11 through mid-April, then L.A. in May through
part of July. The big move to New York will be in the fall of 2009.
I’m excited and grateful at the same time, and feel
fortunate to have been chosen. It’s a classic, timeless story, and
it’s wonderful to get a crack at it eight times a week.
Technically, though, it would not be my Broadway
debut. About two years ago, I understudied all three male leads – Mark
Linn-Baker, Scott Cohen and Matthew Arkin – in Losing Louie
at the Biltmore Theater. There was a Wednesday matinee that Arkin
couldn’t make, so I stepped into the role in front of 500 kids from
the Bronx! The role called for lots of scenes with Mark Linn-Baker,
and when it was over, he gave a wonderful speech to the audience,
marking my Broadway debut, to huge applause. I really owe Mark
Linn-Baker for his generosity and that speech that marked my one-show
debut!
MH: Does this mean that Mayor Floyd will be
exiting Port Charles?
JB:
At this point, the mayor is very much alive. I’ve let the show know
that I’m available on Mondays for shooting, but whether they need or
want to work with my limited schedule is something else. I’ve learned
through the years that there’s no rhyme or reason, you have to do
what’s best for the show. I’m certainly open to it.
MH: I have to ask you about your episode (“Baby,
Talk is Cheap”) on season four of “Sex and the City.” I can imagine
you coming home, huge bouquet of flowers behind your back, telling
your wife, “Hey, honey, I just got cast on “Sex and the City” “Oh, are
you paired with Charlotte?E2 “Um, no.” “With Carrie?” “Actually, with
Samantha,” as you present her with the flowers!
JB:
(laughs) Actually, my wife and older daughters were huge fans of the
show, so they loved it. Then my daughter’s college soccer team got
hold of the episode and they had a special showing of it for the whole
team. She called the next day and said, “Thanks a lot, Dad!” As for my
wife, as long as the checks come in, she’s happy.
MH: Is this the same daughter that brought you
to sixth grade “Show and Tell” and said, “My daddy’s an actor. He gets
rejected for a living?”
JB:
(laughs) One and the same!
MH: You know what they say about payback!
JB:
Absolutely! And it was great to work with Kim (Samantha) Cattrall. I
walked onto the set and she greeted me with, “Take your clothes off
and let’s play!” The whole experience, working wi th that terrific
cast and crew, was wonderful.
MH: Is there anything you’d like to say to your
daytime fans?
JB:
We spend 90 percent of our time looking for jobs; so to have a
dedicated, loyal group of fans involved in your story is fantastic.
The fans are consistently enthusiastic and supportive, and I still get
stopped by them. I think the most amazing fan encounter I had was back
in the mid-1980s, when my wife and I were at the top of the Leaning
Tower of Pisa while vacationing in Italy. My wife started having a
panic attack, because the tower really does lean, and all these church
bells started going off, which didn’t help a bit. I was trying to help
her, and all of a sudden, someone came up to me and said, “Excuse me,
are you Phillip Spaulding from “Guiding Light?” You get stopped
everywhere! Daytime fans are the most passionate group of fans and
over the years, I have greatly appreciated their loyalty.
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