Can Rob Morrow do what David Caruso couldn't? His follow-up to the respectable failure Quiz Show is Last Dance, in which he stars with Sharon Stone, who, he claims, "is the real thing."
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Based on the much-publicized skirmishes he had with the producers of the television show "Northern Exposure," I'm half expecting Rob Morrow to be standoffish, if not downright combative. So I'm pleasantly surprised and frankly relieved when the 33-year-old New Yorker greets me at a Beverly Boulevard Tex-Mex joint with a hearty hello and a handshake that's so friendly it requires two hands to execute.
Perhaps those tales of Morrow's on-set divatude were blown out of pro-portion, I think, as I follow the stylishly dressed actor to a table by the window. Or maybe, having had some success at navigating the chasm between TV and feature films (Robert Redford's Quiz Show and the upcoming Last Dance and Mother), Morrow's mellowed in the last few years. A third possibility--that Rob Morrow really is an asshole and he's just good at acting like he's not--seems less and less likely as our conversation goes on.
DENNIS HENSLEY: Your new film, Last Dance, isn't based on the Donna Summer song of the same name, is it?
ROB MORROW: (Laughs) No. It was, however, loosely inspired by the song ''Save the Last Dance for Me," though it's not used in the movie.
Q: What's your character?
A: I play a kind of rich playboy who graduates from law school and all he wants to do is meet girls and drive his Porsche. His brother, Peter Gallagher, the chief of staff to the governor in this unnamed Southern state, says. "Get off your ass and we'll put you in the clemency department until you find something to do with your life." They put me on the case of this woman, Sharon Stone, who's been on death row for 12 years and did, in fact, commit a double homicide when she was 17. But she was under the influence of crack, a fact which wasn't admitted in the trial.
Q: Sounds like it should be called Hot Babe Walking.
A: (Laughs) Sharon Stone does look beautiful. We had very intimate scenes and I was just right there with her. It was pretty heavenly.
Q: I heard you two don't have a love scene.
A: Bummer, huh? I wouldn't have complained.
Q: What surprised you most about Sharon?
A: I was impressed how flexible she was in the fray, because I didn't know what she was going to be like. We just jammed. She's the real thing.
Q: When Dead Man Walking came out were you thinking it might hurt your film?
A: Ask me that next year. If Last Dance does well, it doesn't matter.
Q: Did you audition for the role?
A: I didn't. I had worked for Disney on Quiz Show and I owed them a couple of movies. So they were nice enough to offer it to me.
Q: You've played two lawyers in a row. Do you like playing lawyers?
A: Lawyers are great characters because they effect change. My mother tried to convince me when I was starting out to become a lawyer, because, she said, "They perform too. The courtroom's their stage."
Q: Did you call her and say, "You have your lawyer son now"?
A: Well, not only that. She wanted me to be a doctor as well, and I played a doctor on the TV show.
Q: If your acting career ended tomorrow, what would you pursue?
A: I guess photography. I studied it for a while and it's a hobby of mine.
Q: How did your book of behind-the-scenes photographs from "Northern Exposure" come about?
A: I made it to give to people, and I said to my agent, "See if we can sell this." and we did, I don't think I made any money from it, but I liked handing it to people I worked with.
Q: You left "Northern Exposure" before your contract was up, right?
A: Yes. I did 101 shows. I didn't feel like I could do anything else. It was just time to move on.
Q: I read that your costar Janine Turner was upset because you didn't tell her you were leaving.
A: I understand why she was upset. Things can get leaked before they should. I had to be quiet about it so I don't know how she found out, but not from me. And she was pissed. That's definitely been smoothed over.
Q: How did your other coworkers react? Were they like, "Good for you," or did they think you were a traitor?
A: Probably both. I wasn't doing anything except trying to be truthful to myself, trying to continue to grow, I was scared that I was going to stagnate creatively, you know, so I guess you can't please everybody.
Q: By the time you quit, you had made Quiz Show, so you knew that you had some future in features?
A: Well, I didn't know necessarily, to tell you the truth. I started the process before Quiz Show came out.
Q: Did landing the film give you more confidence in your decision?
A: No. When I saw it I felt, OK, I'm holding my own. But I don't think you ever feel completely comfortable.
Q: Early in the show's run you had a highly publicized salary dispute with the show's producers. Were you surprised about the amount of publicity that received?
A: I knew a bit about showbiz. There were not many surprises.
Q: Did you have any regrets about the way you handled it?
A: Nothing's coming to mind. I'm sure stuff was leaked or said that wasn't true. I remember when I first started renegotiating, I'd have friends come up to me and say, "You're making four zillion dollars an episode. Why do you want 10?" I was like, "That's not even remotely close to how much I'm making." As soon as I'd say, "Well, here's what I'm doing and why," they'd go, "Oh. I understand."
Q: Would other actors come up and say, "Good for you"?
A: Of course. Look, the actors are not the ones who're making the big bucks.
Q: Is there behavior of yours that, looking back, you find reprehensible?
A: Not too much in the business dealings, but yeah, I remember one time having a fight with the costume designer about a pair of pants. I was just a jerk about the way I handled it. You gotta learn that stuff.
Q: What was wrong with the pants?
A: I just didn't like them. She wanted me to wear them. I was like, "I'm not wearing 'em." She was like. "You have to." I was like, "Now I'm definitely not wearing them."
Q: Who won?
A: Me, because the aggravation wasn't worth it to her.
Q: I guess the squeaky wheel really does get the grease.
A: What do you mean?
Q: If you're a pain in the ass, you get what you want.
A: Maybe. Ultimately what I want as I get older is not to have my way, but to have the best product come out.
Q: Did you watch the show after you left?
A: I guess I didn't.
Q: Did you watch it when you were on?
A: I did. I saw all the shows I was on.
Q: Because of your well-publicized professional squabbles, do people ever expect you to be difficult?
A: Maybe. My guess is anyone who meets me can tell I'm pretty straight. I work hard and I think people know that. I'm opinionated, but I'm not egomaniacal.
Q: Last year, you were set to do The Island of Dr. Moreau with Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer and then you dropped out. What happened?
A: Well, I actually shot a few days in Queensland, Australia. The director, Richard Stanley, got fired and that was kind of it for me. I asked to leave. [New Line production president] Mike De Luca was a really good guy and said that if he could find another actor he would let me go, and he found David Thewlis.
Q: What were your reasons for leaving?
A: I don't want to say anything... it just wasn't for me.
Q: Did you get to meet Marlon Brando?
A: Never. Isn't that a bummer? That was one of the main reasons I did it.
Q: What character do you play in Albert Brooks's new film, Mother?
A: My character is this foppish mama's- boy, high-voiced, successful sports agent. It's a bit out there. Just what the doctor ordered.
Q: Isn't Debbie Reynolds in it?
A: Yeah. She plays my and Albert's mother. I'm not sure how much to talk about it. Albert's really proprietary about the script.
Q: How old were you when you moved to New York City to become an actor?
A: I was 17-and-a-half. The first year in New York. I lived in a teeny place with a couple of guys. We slept till probably three in the afternoon and didn't go out till midnight, when we'd go and get our dinner, which was a loaf of hot bread and a stick of butter if we were doing particularly well. And we'd go out and pick up as many cigarette butts as we could find and when we got home we'd have a whole big pile and sit there and smoke and eat our dinner. It was basically, in retrospect, complete fear of the world. Fortunately I got through that.
Q: Did you get into a lot of trouble in those days?
A: Sure. I'm trying to think of a story that I won't regret telling you. I remember moving out of that particular flat. We couldn't afford the rent. I don't know if we were formally evicted, but it was imminent. And I had this old huge velvet purple couch from my family's house and I was like, "It's my family couch, I have to get it," and we tried to take it down the steps and it got wedged in the stairwell at two in the morning and we couldn't get it out. We finally just left this huge monstrosity of a couch stuck there.
Q: Were you working at that time?
A: Jobs didn't last long at that point. I was an usher in a movie theater for a good chunk of that year. I saw Honeysuckle Rose a zillion times. It was where I developed a mad crush on Amy Irving, who I now bump into and I can barely speak to.
Q: What was the first movie you saw in a theater?
A: The one that first had an influence was 2001: A Space Odyssey. It has constant ramifications in my life as I get older.
Q: What's your earliest memory of being turned on by a movie?
A: Jane Fonda in Klute definitely got me going. Any pretty girl in a miniskirt turned me on when I was a kid.
Q: I've read that seeing Grease was important to you. Why?
A: That's where I became at least cognizant of wanting to become an actor.
Q: Because you could be 40 and still play a high school student?
A: They weren't 40. It just looked like a blast. I saw it a bunch of times.
Q: Did you want to be Danny Zuko?
A: Yeah.
Q: Who did you want to fuck, Sandy or Rizzo?
A: Well, Rizzo was who?
Q: Stockard Channing.
A: Sandy. I got a good couple of nights of fantasies from her, I'm sure.
Q: You were in the comedy Private Resort with Johnny Depp. What do you remember about him?
A: His sense of humor. He kept me laughing. It was a stupid movie. I think Johnny and I ought to start a fund to buy the negative and destroy it.
Q: You also did an episode of "Fame." Did you have to wear leg warmers?
A: I didn't. I was the tough trouble-maker antagonist.
Q: Were you disappointed that Quiz Show didn't do better at the box office?
A: Sure. You know, there's such a balance between quality and marketing and timing. Sometimes you hit it and sometimes you don't. A lot of people think it was a hit because it got so much attention.
Q: You gained some weight for your role in that movie. How much did you put on?
A: I stopped looking after about 20 pounds. I'd have hamburgers and French fries and a malt for breakfast. It didn't feel good ultimately because we were shooting it in New York City in the summer, and on top of that I was wearing heavy wool suits to make me look even bigger.
Q: Did you get to introduce your mother to Robert Redford?
A: Yeah, and she was floored. After she met him, she'd walk around saying, "My friend Robert Redford."
Q: What was it like acting with Martin Scorsese?
A: Great. He's a good actor. I really love his reasons for acting. He likes to do it once every year or two because it gets him back in touch with what the actor goes through.
Q: Did you think, "If I kick ass in this scene, maybe he'll put me in his next movie"?
A: I guess it ran through my head, but it wasn't something I thought about much It was the perfect way to meet him, because normally I would either meet him socially or on a meeting for a movie and he'd be calling the shots. But in this case, he was kind of stepping into my world in a way. He was a little nervous, so in between takes I'd say like. "Taxi Driver!" and he'd go, "Oh yeah. Bob came in and..." I got a lot of stories out of him. I wrote and directed this short movie that I asked him to look at, and that was probably one of my highs.
Q: What was his feedback?
A: It was very enthusiastic and kind of like, "What's next? Where are you headed?"
Q: What is your short film, The Silent Alarm, about?
A: It's about a kid in 1968 in a very idyllic Spielbergian Eastern suburb. He lives with his mom, and there's this guy that sells alarms door to door who ends up moving in with this kid's mom and wreaking psychological havoc on the kid.
Q: What inspired you to write it?
A: Some events from childhood, and I'm just very interested in children. I'm very aware of the delicate balance between nurturing and oppression.
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.