The Further Exposure of Rob Morrow

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.

Q: What's the worst audition you've ever had?

A: I was real young and I was working as a PA and on the day of the audition, there was a huge snowstorm and I had to go on my lunch break from down-town to uptown, so I stuck out my thumb and this guy pulls over. And he's smoking a joint and he invites me in and asks me if I want a hit. I was nervous so I took a hit. I think there was something wrong with the pot, because I got really fucked up, like bad. I was so paranoid that it was my one chance that I went to the audition anyway. If I were making a movie of it, it would be like I walked in and sat down across from the casting guy and all of a sudden the table starts stretching and I'm having to do my piece and he keeps getting farther away. I gather I did pretty poorly. I was so devastated by the idea I'd ruined my one chance to be an actor that I walked up Lexington Avenue in this snowstorm crying.

Q: I read that one of your first acting jobs was in an Off-Broadway gay musical.

A: Was it a gay musical? I remember my mother saying, "Uh-oh," so I guess it was. It was a musical adaptation of Ragged Dick. I was Ragged Dick.

Q: I'm not going to touch that one. What's the worst thing that's ever gone wrong for you on stage?

A: I peed in my pants once on stage--literally. Just a little bit. I was laughing so hard. It was a play called Nothing Sacred. There was this big dinner scene and the lights come up, and the actor is not on stage who's supposed to start the scene, so I look at [fellow actor] Ron Rifkin and he looks at me and we start giggling. Pretty soon, we're laughing. It kept going on, and soon I was laughing so hard I was crying. And it came time for my line and I couldn't talk I was laughing so hard and that's when a little pee came out.

Q: Like how much pee?

A: Just enough to feel it. It was probably the scariest moment of my life, because it meant that I was truly out of control.

Q: If your house were on fire, what would you grab first?

A: Anyone alive, probably, but if it was just me, my diary and laptop.

Q: How long have you kept a diary?

A: I've been doing it on and off my whole adult life, at least every other day. It's just a little place to write down interesting thoughts.

Q: Do you ever cringe when you go back and read it?

A: Sure. I think, "I'm going to be so evolved since when I started this," and then it's literally the same entry.

Q: I've read that you went to Plymouth State College for about a minute. Did you study theater?

A: I just studied women and beer.

Q: Which was your major?

A: Women would be the major. Beer would be the minor.

Q: Do you have any regrets about dropping out of high school and taking the GED?

A: I guess I don't, because I'm doing what I want. I'm fairly educated. But now, to have four years of college to sit and read literature or physics would be a great luxury.

Q: What's your favorite thing to watch on TV?

A: I used to be really into the fashion shows on Saturday morning. Not the Cindy Crawford one, but the one on CNN with the older woman with the hair. Elsa Klensch.

Q: Have you ever chatted up a supermodel?

A: Well, I've met a lot of them, but I kind of feel uncomfortable in a way. It's like basking in someone else's light.

Q: Do you buy the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue?

A: I don't. That doesn't interest me. Not to say I mind women in nothing at all or in bathing suits, but there's something vaguely pornographic about that.

Q: Speaking of pornography, do you remember the first time you saw a Playboy?

A: No, but I remember the first time I saw a porno film. I was about 11. Someone's older brother had it. There was no sound but it was so hot. I remember thinking, "Man. this is going to be so great." It was very Stand by Me.

Q: Have you ever done nudity in a movie?

A: I did nudity in Last Dance but it was cut out.

Q: Just ass?

A: Full frontal nudity.

Q: It's going to turn upon "Hard Copy," you know.

A: I don't care. I mean. I would be offended by someone doing some slimy gesture of selling it, but I don't care that it exists. It was a scene where you see me wake up in the back of a trailer with this girl I slept with, and I jump out of the van and I've got my pants down like this, and I stop dead and there's a cop just standing there and we just kind of stare at each other.

Q: And you're just hanging out?

A: Blowing in the wind. It was my choice. I could have done it in my underwear, but it seemed...

Q: Nobody's ever really in their underwear if they've just had a torrid night of nookie.

A: Exactly. I hate that I guess I'm a bit of a truth junkie.

Q: Did a love scene precede it?

A: Just making out.

Q: Did you take it personally that your blowing in the wind got cut?

A: No, but a woman came up to me the other night at Sundance and said, "I saw you nude. I work for Disney."

Q: Well, if nothing else, they finally have something to replace that tired Captain EO movie with at Disneyland.

A: Excellent.

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Dennis Hensley interviewed Claire Danes for the December '95 issue of Movieline.

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