Dylan McDermott may seem blessed with great fortune-- he's on the hit series "The Practice," he's starring in the upcoming film Texas Rangers and he's happily married-- but his successes have been hard-won. Here he discusses some of the lows, including losing his mother at age five and growing up on mean streets--and reveals some of his personal quirks, like not wearing underwear.
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It's really something of a mystery why it took an actor as ruggedly handsome and capable as Dylan McDermott 13 years, 15 films and three TV movies to find stardom. Then again, considering McDermott's upbringing, it's amazing he's even alive today. His parents split before his second birthday, and at age five he lost his mother (who was just 15 at the time of his birth) in what was, despite unanswered questions, ruled a gun accident involving her live-in boyfriend. The young Dylan was sent to live with his grand-mother in a rough town in Connecticut while his lather tended bar in New York City, and by his teen years he was used to getting in serious brawls. At age 16, things turned for the better when his father married Eve Ensler, an actress only eight years Dylan's senior, who eventually adopted him and turned out to be his guiding light. She saw him through his tough years when he worked at bars and partied hard at Manhattan discos, and finally persuaded him to stop drinking and start acting.
After studying with Sanford Meisner and appearing in a play directed by Joanne Woodward, McDermott moved to Hollywood. His film debut in I987's Vietnam War film Hamburger Hill was impressive, and a couple of years later he starred in Steel Magnolias, during which he became engaged to costar Julia Roberts. But he didn't make another successful movie until In the Line of Fire four years later, and the five films that followed, which included the remake of Miracle on 34th Street, and Jodie Foster's Home for the Holidays, did nothing to build his career further. He decided TV might be the way, so he took the lead in David E. Kelley's new TV series "The Practice" in 1997, only to face what looked like failure again during the show's first year. Then "The Practice" took and started winning Emmys, and today people have finally stopped confusing Dylan McDermott with that other actor, Dermot Mulroney. McDermott has never stopped making films the fit Three to Tango in during his "Practice" hiatus) and next he's in Texas Rangers. Now 38, McDermott lives with his 28-year old wife, Shiva, and their four-year-old daughter, Colette, in the Brentwood house his "Practice" paychecks allowed him to buy from Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas.
LAWRENCE GROBEL: How many times have you gone into a film thinking, "This is it," and it never went anywhere?
DYLAN McDERMOTT: There've been a few of those, certainly. I've been lucky to survive my failures. I've made some not-so-good decisions, and I've been through many agents and managers. Every actor feels he can make a movie better and I've busied my ass trying to do so, but what I've learned is, you can't you can only make it as good as the script is.
Q: Do you feel like you've ever scored with a film?
A: No.
Q: So you're batting zero for 13?
A: [Laughs] No, 15. Actually, I'd say my first movie, Hamburger Hill was there. I did a pretty good job in that. After that, maybe In the Line of Fire. And then Texas Rangers. Those would be my three.
Q: Do you hope Texas Rangers will make you a movie star?
A: It's all a gamble. But I saw the picture and it reminds me of Rid River at its best. Although it's aimed at a youth market, my performance is mature.
Q: Among your costars--James Van Der Beek, Ashton Kutcher, Rachael Leigh Cook and Leonor Varela--anyone's performance you want to talk about?
A: Besides mine? [Laughs] They're all talented, but what they have in store for them, I don't know.
Q: Do you think your performance is good?
A: I think that I really found this guy somewhere. It's a big departure for me, because the guy is dying of tuberculosis. That desperation fueled me.
Q: The director, Steve Miner, also directed Lake Placid, which was written by David E. Kelley, your boss on "The Practice." Is that how you got the job?
A: No, Kelley was not involved. Steve had directed a couple of episodes of "The Practice," so I had a familiarity with him.
Q: The adjectives used to describe many of the movies you've done would make any actor wince: "inconceivably wretched," "asinine," "witless," "inept." How do you take criticism?
A: I wouldn't disagree with some of those. Criticism when done properly is good. There are too many critics now.
Q: Let's talk about some of your movies. I know you like Hamburger Hill. If you'd been eligible for the draft, would you have gone to Vietnam?
A: I was terrified of the Vietnam War when I was 13. I thought I was going. The draft was such an ominous thing, I felt as if it was going to trickle down to me. I probably would have gone.
Q: What's your take on the 1988 indie Twister, which was not the Jan De Bone disaster movie?
A: A terrible mess. Michael Almereyda, who directed Hamlet most recently, was smart but he was overwhelmed with this project. It was like bad jazz.
Q: You did another little indie, The Blue Iguana--wasn't this supposed to be the next Crocodile Dundee?
A: That's right. Boy, it wasn't. Another mess.
Q: Then came Steel Magnolias.
A: That was my introduction to a big Hollywood picture. It was no longer the independent world. It was like, whoa, catered lunches, trailers, dinners at night, 10-hour working days, movie stars. It was an easy experience.
Q: This is the one where you almost became Mr. Julia Roberts.
A: Julia at that point was not terrifically famous--it was Pretty Woman right after that. And then we broke up. So I got a taste of that and learned from her and saw what stardom was.
Q: You've said that until you met your wife you never pursued women, they always pursued you.
A: Right.
Q: Was this the case with Julia as well?
A: Oh yeah. Not bad, right?
Q: Did you get her a basset hound when you broke up?
A: No, we already had a dog and she got the dog.
Q: How heartbreaking was it when she canceled the engagement?
A: Any ending is not the most pleasant of things. We had our time together and it ended. I went off and made Hardware, which was perfect--the last man on earth dealing with a killer robot. That was an ideal situation. I thought it was completely different from a typical low-budget horror movie and from Steel Magnolias, where I was a goody-goody guy. On paper it felt good.
Q: You went on to work with Sharon Stone in Where Sleeping Dogs Lie. Did she come on to you?
A: I can't answer that. I just saw her in Paris.
Q: Did she come on to you in Paris?
A: [Laughs] I'm a married man.
Q: All right, Jet's move on with your oeuvre, Jersey Girl.
A: We made it as a feature, but Fox sold it to its network, so it went straight to TV.
Q: Would you say In the Line of Fire was the most significant film for you?
A: I was in a very down place when I got the role, because all the movies I'd done were just not happening. Steel Magnolias kept me going because of its visibility, but the other ones were just trouble, trouble, and trouble. Luckily I had casting directors champion me, and Wolfgang Petersen is such a competent director that he said yes. I didn't have to audition. That's a very rare thing.
Q: You've called it one of the greatest experiences of your life. Why?
A: Because I had a director who knew what he was doing, and Clint Eastwood, who's a consummate professional, and a great script.
Q: Any Clint Eastwood stories?
A: Clint showed up for work one night, did a cake and Wolfgang said, "Let's do one more." Clint said, "Was I in focus?" Wolfgang said, "Yeah, you're in focus." Then Clint said, "If I was in focus, then let's move on." [Laughs]
Q: Did you get to know Eastwood afterward?
A: Oh yeah. He's always been a big supporter. We spent seven hours in a car doing a scene where I had to break down. Man, that's where I fell in love with the guy, because he was there the whole time, when he didn't have to be.
Q: What was the connection between In the Line of Fire and meeting your wife?
A: I met my wife and I got In the Line of Fire on the same day. It was one of those great days. The world opened up.
Q: We'll get to your wife, but let's stick with your films for now. Was it at all uncomfortable costarring opposite Kiefer Sutherland in The Cowboy Way since he was the guy Julia Roberts left you for?
A: No. I didn't give a shit, I was way over it. It was sort of a guy thing--we left it alone. Because it was over for him, too. We had both moved on. The Cowboy Way just didn't work.
Q: What happened with your next film, the remake of Miracle on 34th Street?
A: That was the highest tested movie in Fox history, but there was a complete audience rejection of it.
Q: Your next movie was a doozy: Destiny Turns on the Radio, which costarred Quentin Tarantino. Did you take the role because you hoped it might lead to being cast in one of his films?
A: No, it was just another change-up--a totally quirky film with oddball characters.
Q: About this time you turned down the role Kyle MacLachlan inherited in Showgirls. How did you know to avoid that film?
A: I sat down with [my stepmother] Eve [Ensler]. She said, "This feels bad, you shouldn't do it." At the time I'd been lacking guidance, as you can see by the pictures I was in. Which is why I created a whole new team. I wanted to keep my identity separate from her, but this particular script, she said it wasn't right for me, and I listened.
Q: Did you learn anything from Jodie Foster when she directed you in Home for the Holiday?
A: Jodie was remarkable. She trusted me. And my costars, Robert Downey Jr. and Holly Hunter, are both brilliant actors.
Q: Robert Downey Jr. almost seemed to be playing himself, a manic, over-the-top prankster.
A: Robert's probably the most talented guy in Hollywood. His worst-day high can still be better than most people working stone-cold sober. It's remarkable how he can just be in the moment and make up stuff. He really is the king of improv. It's unfortunate he's in the situation he's in. He's a good friend of mine.
Q: Have you visited him in jail?
A: No, not yet.
Q: If he's a good friend, why haven't you?
A: Because I've been doing the TV show. And I just got back from Europe. Also, there's an element, too, that it's really sad that he's there. I've got to deal with my own feelings as well. But I plan on it.
Q: Your next effort, 'Til There Was You, was touted as the next Sleepless in Seattle.
A: Yeah, romantic comedies are the hardest movies to make. Maybe one works a year.
Q: Then comes Three to Tango, which you promoted highly before it tanked.
A: It was terrible, but I hadn't done a movie in a while and "The Practice" wasn't anything at that time--it was almost canceled. So I felt like, man, I'd better do a movie, because if this thing gets canceled, I'm fucked. My representation at the time pushed me into doing Three to Tango. But I'll take the fall for it. I'm the one who said yes.
Q: Do you regret many of your choices?
A: I believed in all of my movies at the time. But I think I've had my fair share of bad movies. My quota is now full.
Q: Your Tango costar Oliver Platt turned down the role of Bobby Donnell in "The Practice" before you were offered it--did you thank him?
A: Yup, every day. While we were filming Tango, "The Practice" started taking off.
Q: Did you ever feel as if you were lowering your standards by taking a TV series?
A: When I started the show I thought, "Oh look at me, I'm coming from the movies so this show is going to be an instant success. And then it didn't do as well as "NYPD Blue," the show that was in the time slot before it. That's when there was talk of canceling it and I felt anxious. Luckily, we were eventually moved to Monday night and crossed over with "Ally McBeal."
Q: You've said that Bobby is the greatest character you've ever played, and that if you never worked again, this would have been enough. Nice quote, but true?
A: If I never worked again? [Nervous laugh] It's certainly one of the defining moments in my career, but that would be a lot of hours watching "The Practice" over and over. I'm a little hungrier now. Who knows how many years I'm going to do it?
Q: Do you have the willpower to turn down, say, $750,000 per episode if that were ever offered to you?
A: That's hard to turn down. My theory about actors is we're all walking milk cartons. Expiration dates everywhere. It's a trap and also a gift. Sometimes the money protects you so you won't have to work in a grocery store.
Q: How did you feel when your "The Practice" costar Camryn Manheim said about you: "The man is liquid sex. He's a walking orgasm."
A: I'm certainly flattered.
Q: You're a sex symbol and a married man. How does your wife handle this?
A: She's pretty cool with it. She's not one to get overly jealous. Her being cool with it makes it easier for me. If she was always hounding me about it, it would be a lot harder than it is right now, I feel like if it helps me get to where I want to go, then I'm OK with it.
Q: And where you want to go is?
A: To make great movies like To Kill it Mockingbird. High Noon. Taxi Driver. The Conversation.
Q: Who would you consider the sex symbol of the last 10 years?
A: Tom Cruise is right there--he's kept that ring of being the biggest star and having the most sex appeal at the same time. And Julia Roberts would have the honors for the women.
Q: If you were to do a love story, who would you like to work opposite?
A: Meg Ryan.
Q: In a drama or a romantic comedy?
A: Drama. I'm good at it. Comedies are a snaggletooth.
Q: Besides Meg, what other women do you think you'd have chemistry with?
A: Heather Graham. Sandra Bullock. Julianne Moore.
Q: Are there any films that caught you about sex when you were younger?
A: Last Tango in Paris and Belmondo's Breathless.
Q: Last Tango had a lot of kinky sex. Did you buy a lot of butter after you saw it?
A: I was only about 13 then and that was so far out. But I definitely wanted a piece of what he was doing.
Q: Were there any stars you fantasized about at that time?
A: Jacqueline Bisset in The Deep, with that wet T-shirt. And Farrah Fawcett. Mia Farrow.
Q: What was it about Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Humphrey Bogart, Steve McQueen that caught your interest as a teenager?
A: There was an element where you could grow as an actor with your body of work. Nowadays you really have to pump out that blockbuster in order to have the luxury of getting a body of work, and that's sad because the work suffers. Today everything is based on money. The older actors, they inspire me.
Q: Which actor has defined what being a man is to you?
A: Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird is still the ultimate performance of someone you'd want to be. You look at that and you say, "Holy shit, this is the ideal, the ultimate of what movies arc."
Q: How much did your stepmother, Eve, motivate you to pursue acting?
A: Eve cultivated my mind at a very early age. She pushed me into being an actor, which helped me channel my energy.
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.