This is one of those cases where I declare an interview part of the Legends series because I can. I think few will argue that the great characters actor Gary Cole is an acting legend; he's one of those guys that you put in a movie, and it makes the movie better. He's also comes out of the great school of Chicago acting, the Steppenwolf Theater Company, and indirectly that's what brought us together last month during the Chicago Film Festival, when a film he appears in (briefly), THE LAST RITES OF JOE MAY, served as the festival's opening night offering. JOE MAY is a Steppenwolf Films production, and it is currently, slowly making its way across the country in a limited run.
The list of memorable Cole performances is almost endless, but highlights include an early appearance squaring off against Clint Eastwood in IN THE LINE OF FIRE; playing Jack 'Nighthawk' Killian, the lead of the much-loved series "Midnight Caller"; playing Mike Brady in two BRADY BUNCH feature films (and one made-for-TV movie); roles in two Sam Raimi movies, A SIMPLE PLAN and THE GIFT; the suspender-wearing boss Bill Lumbergh in Mike Judge's OFFICE SPACE; ESPN 8 announcer Cotton McKnight in DODGEBALL; Ricky Bobby's father in TALLEDEGA NIGHTS; one of two vice presidents in "The West Wing"; the voice of the title character in "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law"; drunken, adulterous TV agent Andrew Klein in "Entourage"; and the list goes on and on.
Since Cole's role in JOE MAY is basically an extended cameo, I took advantage of our time together to go through his career, thus the Legends label. He's an incredibly nice guy, and I knew he'd be game to talk about anything for the brief time we had together. Please enjoy the wonderfully talent Gary Cole…
Gary Cole: Hey, Steve.
Capone: Hello, sir. It’s good to meet you.
GC: How are you doing, man?
Capone: Good. How was the screening last night?
GC: It went well. A lot of us didn’t stay. I saw the film at Tribeca, so I didn’t stay for the viewing of it, but we were there for the presentation and the party and all of that. It seemed to go over well.
Capone: Good. Whenever I think of you, I think of The Onion's AV Club, which did a list a couple of years ago of the “Ten Character Actors that Should be in Every Movie,” and you were number one on that list. I’m sure you’ve heard this.
GC: [laughs] I think I got wind of that.
Capone: How does that sit with you?
GC: I wish The Onion ran studios, that’s all I can say. [laughs] I’ve been fortunate in that, one, I’ve been able to work semi-frequently and, two, I’ve been able to, I think, do different kinds of things that are at least in some cases are not similar to each other at all.
Capone: Is that important to you to kind of mix that up a little bit?
GC: Well, it’s only important in terms of kind of survival, but that’s just the path I’ve been on. There are actors that can play the same type of character, but do it with a lot of depth, and that’s as valid to me as doing things that are 180 degrees different from each other. So it all comes down for me on just material. I mean, if something works as a whole package or not.
Capone: There’s a certain generation that mainly knows you from comedy, but I’m just old enough to remember "Midnight Caller" or IN THE LINE OF FIRE, some of those older things. When did you realize that you kind of had this knack for comedy?
GC: Well, it was a matter of what becomes open to you, and there is a certain amount of labeling and limited perception in the business until a perception is changed. I had done all kinds of things on stage here in Chicago, but when I went to Los Angeles, primarily all I did was dramatic television. Movies for me were hard to penetrate, and I had done no comedy, I did no sitcoms; I didn’t even do any guest starring things.
Then THE BRADY BUNCH thing surfaced, but that’s usually a situation of they can’t find anybody that they want or is willing to do that part. I don’t know who they went to or if they did. But out of survival, I worked really hard for that audition and that worked out, but then that changed the road. Other things began to open up, but then after a while, you become known as a comedian, which I wasn’t. But you aren't thought of as a dramatic actor any more, and then you have to try to balance that so that both things are available.
Capone: You brought up a couple of things. I’ve been told by a couple Chicago theater actors who were coming up in the '70s and '80s, that during that time, if Hollywood got wind that you were a Chicago actor, the world was basically your oyster, because for some reason Chicago actors were seen as these edgy guys that everybody wanted to work with.
GC: Yeah, and I benefited from that. You could point to Second City at one point as a place that Hollywood or New York drew from for comedy, but you can also point to--in terms of actors that weren’t known as sketch comedy actors or improv actors like Second City--Malkovich doing TRUE WEST in New York. And I literally was on the heels of that, because I did TRUE WEST in New York after he was gone with somebody else; I did it with Jim Belushi. And every audition I went to in New York, the first question was, “Do you know John Malkovich?” “Yes, I do.”
But yeah there was a perception there that it was maybe a place that maybe wasn’t being tapped and should have been more. But that stuff rises and falls like anything else in the business, like certain locations get hot in the country. For a while in the mid-'90s, Wilmington, North Carolina, had crews bumping into each other there was so much work. Now it’s Louisiana…
Capone: New Mexico is a big place.
GC: Right. Detroit had a resurgence, and then Chicago is up, it’s down. Wilmington is the same thing. It’s the same thing with that kind of rumor thing; it’s real to a degree, but some of it is merely perception, but in this business perception means a lot. Perception can become some kind of reality.
Capone: Absolutely. Steppenwolf has this reputation for doing the edgier, grittier pieces. Do you remember specifically a play you were in where you just went, “Wow this is about as far as I have ever gone on stage or in any acting that I have ever done.”
GC: Well again, I go back to perception, because that reputation came out of when the exposure began to broaden and it got national, and that happened because of TRUE WEST and BALM IN GILEAD, and those were very loud, violent plays. But that wasn't necessarily the whole pot of material that Steppenwolf was doing; they were doing all kinds of things. The attention garnered was some of that stuff, but to me looking over the history of the company, it’s not necessarily the brand name, it’s just what got noticed.
Capone Even just the willingness to take on that material helped build that reputation to a certain degree.
GC: Sure, yeah. But it always had to do with just what worked, what was good, and the labels I think come afterwards. I don’t think it was anything the company was conscious of, like “We're going to set out to do this, so we have this reputation as being…” That’s something that just comes with something that is successful when people watch it. Do you know what I mean? And it works, then people start to describe it, and that kind of snowballs into some kind of adjective.
Capone: You mentioned your getting cast in THE BRADY BUNCH as being a matter of the filimmakers not being able to find someone else to play Mike Brady, but you also looked the part.
GC: Believe me, anybody you could put that wig on and a bag shirt would look the part. [laughs]
Capone: I’m a big fan of Betty Thomas’s work from that era especially. Did you know her from Chicago?
GC: I didn’t know her from Chicago. I met her through Jim Belushi for the first time when we were doing TRUE WEST; she came to the show. At the moment, she was hosting "Saturday Night Live." I think she might have still been on "Hill Street Blues" or shortly thereafter, and then not long after that, she directed an episode of "Midnight Caller," so that’s where we first met. So when I got the audition and I was like “Okay whatever,” but then I noticed she was directing and I was like, “Oh, well that’s good. At least I know who’s in charge of this.”
I just saw her recently, there was kind of a BRADY BUNCH reunion, and I said to the audience, “She's responsible for changing my path, because nobody perceived me as that, and I never had any opportunities in that direction. She really had to put up a fight, I think--I don’t know all of the details--but I know that she insisted against studio powers that that’s who she wanted.” They couldn’t see it and said, “What are you talking about? He’s not going to work in this.”
Capone: You were in a couple of films that Sam Raimi directed, some very good films. How did you get hooked up with him?
GC: Sam executive produced "American Gothic" [another show Cole starred in], which was a television series in 1995, so both of those things came out of a relationship with him, so the first one was A SIMPLE PLAN which was in 1998, right?
Capone: That sounds about right.
GC: And then in 2000, THE GIFT.
Capone: He does some times draw from the same pool of regular actors.
GC: Yeah, it was fairly typical. A SIMPLE PLAN was great; that was merely a phone call. That part was available, and I jumped at that and also to me. For me, even though my part in that is not that large, although I think it’s kind of a pivotal part. I think it’s one of the best films that I have ever been in in terms of a whole complete thing and an underrated film.
Capone: Then of course it was around that time that Mike Judge found you, and I’m sure OFFICE SPACE is the film that you get asked about more than anything else. I know you did a reunion in Austin recently…
GC: I was at the 10-year reunion, which was at the Paramount Theater, and then just recently and I’m not sure when it’s coming out, but Entertainment Weekly's reunion issue is coming out soon, where they bring casts back, and they brought us back and we did a photo shoot. So I saw everybody about a week ago.
Capone: I’ve met Mike a couple of times, and he’s a very low-key guy, really nice. But for his first directing gig, how was he as a director?
GC: He was great. First of all, when you put that on paper and you’ve got that--and you probably know this, but my character and Stephen Root’s character are based on an animation.
Capone: On the MILTON shorts, sure. I’ve seen them.
GC: Those little films are so specific, I mean you know these people, and then he wrote this script around it, which was very detailed and very specific. When you’ve got something like that to start with, a lot of it is just “Action” and “Cut.” And whatever tweaks he wants to do just to refine it, he already did all of the heavy lifting before he got everybody in front of the cameras. He cast it perfectly, I thought, and there’s not a character in that film that doesn’t work. It’s a comedy with no fat on it, I think. I’m probably a little biased to it, but I think that’s why he’s so good. He can make that happen.
Capone: And then you’ve also sort of tapped into the Apatow universe. You’ve been in a couple of films that he has produced. How did you find your way into that ensemble?
GC: TALLADEGA NIGHTS came out of--and I think this is through the work of my agent, but I also think it has to do with OFFICE SPACE.
Capone: It carried some weight, even though it didn’t do well at the box office.
GC: It did. It opened comedy doors. I wound up at a reading of TALLADEGA NIGHTS for the studio and I wound up reading that part, and it went really well, because I thought it was a great character and I’ve done a number of southern characters, so I was pretty comfortable with that. And I walked out of there thinking and Adam [McKay, director] was like “That was great.” But I didn’t believe that it would be real; I thought, “Well they'll find Gene Hackman’s phone number or somebody much older.” But then they liked the idea, because he was so irresponsible that he was not much older than his son, you know? And I don’t have a lot of years, but I have like 12 years on Will Ferrell, and so we extended that to about 16 or 17 years, which worked. They liked that idea, and then being in that led to meeting Judd and being in PINEAPPLE EXPRESS.
Capone: I would be remised if I didn’t mention the "Harvey Birdman" work, which is so great.
GC: Oh thanks!
Capone: You do a lot of animation voice work, and you played a DJ in one of your first major parts…
GC: Again I guess I trace it back to, I can go back to what unlocks things. I can go back to THE BRADY BUNCH, which allowed OFFICE SPACE to happen, and because of OFFICE SPACE, out of the blue I got a call from Seth MacFarlane to do early "Family Guy." I did a number of early "Family Guy" episodes, and because of that I just got this audition to do "Birdman" over the phone; I was in Chicago, and that just opened that up.
Capone: There you go. Thank you so much. It was great to meet you.
