Dylan McDermott: Dylan Unplugged

Q: She saw the actor in you right from the start, didn't she?

A: Yeah. I went to HB Studios when I was 15, and then Fordham University, which was the only school I got into. Then I met Joanne Woodward while at the Neighborhood Playhouse. She cast me in Golden Boy. And she was the first legitimate star to pay attention to me. She was one of the best directors I ever worked with.

Q: What did you learn from Sanford Meisner, with whom you studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse?

A: He made you go to a very deep place.

Q: I'd guess that the deepest you could go was returning to five when you lost your mother in a shooting accident.

A: That's certainly the most painful. That's a well you keep tapping. Whatever pain I have as a person I try to tap into if it's called for in my work. I've used it to better me rather than to kill me, because it could have easily killed me.

Q: Did you go into therapy after that happened?

A: Later on, in my teens, I've been in it on-and-off.

Q: How rough were your teen years?

A: My past is not pleasant; I grew up in a very tough town, Waterbury, Connecticut. I grew up in New York, too, but Waterbury was tougher.

Q: Was your grandmother's apartment really robbed five times?

A: Yeah.

Q: Did you once chase a robber out the window when you were 11?

A: Yeah. When you're living under those circumstances, you get fed up. You don't want to let it happen again, so you become Charles Bronson. I would tell a cop on the beat what was happening and nothing would be done.

Q: Were you a dirty fighter?

A: Yeah, you had to be. First of all, I was not big. I've been punched out many, many times. My nose has been broken, I'm not happy that all this happened to me, but I learned from it, it made me who I am today. Funny enough, I'm glad I had that experience so I could handle Hollywood. Metaphorically, you get the same thing here.

Q: You were also a bartender did you break up a lot of bar brawls?

A: Oh yeah. I grew up in the bar business from age 13. That's another reality! Most people go through their entire life without getting in a fight. When I was a bartender people were getting drunk every night and I had to deal with them.

Q: At your father's bar in Greenwich Village, did you actually serve William Hurt, Ray Sharkey and John Belushi?

A: Oh yeah. I couldn't believe it. When you're a kid and you see for the first time how famous people arc treated like royalty, how people give them things that they don't give normal human beings, its like, "Whoa, this is something I want. And need! How do you get that?"

Q: Did a lot of older waitresses pick you up?

A: Yes.

Q: Is this basically where you learned about the opposite sex?

A: No, I'd heard about it, but I wasn't very experienced.

Q: How old were you when you first had sex?

A: Thirteen.

Q: Let's talk about your marriage. Did you fall in love with your wife Shiva at first sight?

A: From the first moment I saw her I knew that I loved her and wanted to be with her. I've said to her that when I grow up I want to be just like her.

Q: How many sightings of you did it take for her to fall?

A: That's a different story, Shiva didn't have the love-at-first-sight thing. She was not that impressed with me, to tell you the truth. It took about four dates before she got it.

Q: What do you think are your best qualities?

A: My loyalty. I'm a very loyal person.

Q: What do you love about Shiva?

A: Her heart. Her compassion. I'll be watching TV and look at her and she'll be weeping, because she has complete identification with others. I admire that.

Q: Did you change once you married?

A: I became more confident because I was feeling loved on a consistent basis. Something I always craved, too, was family. We created a family right away.

Q: Did you change again once your daughter was born?

A: Totally. It made me a whole person. There was something lacking in me for a long time because of my past.

Q: Are you trying for another child?

A: No. I'm happy right now.

Q: Is the rumor true that if you had another daughter you'd name her after Camryn Manheim?

A: No, no.

Q: Your stepmother Eve has become famous herself, as the author of the off-Broadway hit "The Vagina Monologues," in which she wrote about your wife's vagina when Shiva was giving birth to your daughter. Have your friends heckled you about it?

A: Nah, because they know me, they know Eve. Eve is the best identification with avant-garde.

Q: Is it true that your name wasn't originally Dylan but Mark?

A: Yeah, I was born Mark Anthony. Eve and my father were going to have a baby and name it Dylan, but there was a miscarriage. I was in my early 20s and just about to join SAG, and they said I couldn't be Mark because there was already somebody with that name. So I had it changed to Dylan.

Q: Was Dylan more a tribute to Bob or Thomas?

A: More Dylan Thomas because I love his poetry.

Q: Since this is an election year, who do you like, Gore or Bush?

A: I don't vote all the time. I voted for Clinton. I'm more of a Democrat than a Republican. I met with Hillary Clinton, she was very impressive. Ultimately, even though I'm not nuts about Gore, I'd vote for him over Bush.

Q: Where'd you come up with your theory that everyone has 20 bad years in life?

A: Because I had 20 in mine [Laughs].

Q: If you could live inside any painting, which would it be?

A: Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory," It's so surreal, and life for me has always been a bit surreal. Life is not going to be what you think reality is, because nothing is as it appears. Dali has always wrapped that up. There's always an interior world happening. I love the Spanish culture and paintings--Picasso and Dali, Gaudi as an architect. Spaniards are the wildest to me. You go to Cannes and the wildest people there are the Spaniards.

Q: Why is the Victorian era the sexiest age for you?

A: Because of all the secrecy, all the clothes that were worn, you sort of had to peel each item off to have sex. It wasn't so easy, you couldn't see everything.

Q: You've said your style is a cross between David Bowie and Clint Eastwood. Define that in layman's terms.

A: I was a club kid in New York, and that scene was intense in 1979, 1980. The Mudd Club, Xena, they opened my mind to a whole different world. That's the Bowie-side. But then there was the reality of the movies, Clint Eastwood's Westerns.

Q: What stars have handled their careers with style?

A: Certainly Paul Newman, top of the list. Always had integrity. After The Silver Chalice he understood. I wish I had only one Silver Chalice, instead of, like, four. He understood after that one movie: never again. Clint Eastwood is also right there. Maybe Robert Redford.

Q: Is it true you wear neither boxers nor briefs?

A: That's right. [Laugh]

Q: So what do you wear?

A: Most of the time I don't wear anything.

Q: How many pairs of $400 Dolce & Gabbana shoes do you own?

A: I'm very fortunate that people give me things. That's one of the perks, people give me stuff. Everything I have on has been given to me. Even my Tiffany watch. That's the big irony, when you can't afford it nobody gives a shit. When you can, people give you everything.

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Lawrence Grobel is the author of Conversations with Capote and Above The Line: Conversations About the Movies, a collection of stories about movie industry people released last month. Both are from Da Capo Press.

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