The Informant!'s Scott Bakula on Dream Roles, Fat Damon and That Legendary Playgirl Shoot

The FBI is painted as yet another bumbling operation.

Unfortunately, everything in the movie is real. It was all documented extensively -- thousands of hours of interviews. These are the stories and character pieces that were all reported on and collaborated on. Truth is stranger than fiction.

So that Chinese restaurant scene really happened?

Isn't that classic? And I tell you, that day we could barely get through it. Everybody was killing themselves laughing. It was a good scene that [screenwriter Scott Z. Burns] wrote -- but again, it was straight out of the book.

When you started rehearsals, had Matt Damon already gained the weight?

We didn't actually have rehearsals. We all just showed up in Decatur and started shooting. I don't know if Matt had his full 30 pounds on by then, but he was well into 20, 25 pounds by then. He was having a ball. He had Doritos, anything he could eat that was fattening. He had done so many films where he had to be the perfect physical specimen, the Bourne stuff, this was kind of a great release for him. We'd be sitting at the bar at night, and he'd be ordering a dark beer. "Most calories! Most calories!"

I think that halfway through the movie he found out he was going to have to do reshoots on this other movie he had been working on. That meant that he was going to have to strip this weight off immediately; we were all wishing him well on that one. But he was enjoying it, and I have to say, there's a scene that's not in the movie, where he had to swim in a pool in Hawaii, and it was just hysterical.

Was he self-conscious?

Oh, no. He was loving it! He'd smack his gut and grab it. He was just having the best time. In this day and age people are always sneaking pictures, so the very next day his picture got out, by the pool without a shirt on. It was so funny.

bakulaplaygirl.jpg

Speaking of, I want to ask you about that iconic Playgirl photoshoot you posed for in the early '90s. How did that come about, and what's your take on it now?

First of all, as long as there was no full nudity I was fine with it. I can't remember what we were promoting -- Lord of Illusions? -- I can't remember what movie it was. You know, looking back it cracks me up. And I kind of look at it and go, what was I thinking? But that happens some times in this business, and thank goodness I kept my pants on. But you tell yourself, well, Burt Reynolds, he was naked. Didn't he do it with stockings on or something?

I think he did a Cosmopolitan magazine centerfold on a bear skin rug.

Oh yeah, something like that. You know, I can't go back and say I wish I hadn't done it. It was what I was doing at the time. When people show up with it in their hand to sign it, I get a chuckle out of it. I can't do anything without it coming back. You're signing a picture like this, a picture like that, and then -- boom! -- there comes that Playgirl. Oh yeah, look at that! I'll be darned. [Laughs] That was just one little chapter.

Pages: 1 2 3



Comments

  • metroville says:

    I was at that same performance of Guys and Dolls--and he was great, and so were we.

  • Cynthia says:

    I wish I could of seen him in Guys and Dolls. I have waited 20years to see Scott singing in a show. I still have faith.

  • Strepsi says:

    Dear god, I remember that Playgirl issue well. And Lord of Illusions. What is the interviewer etiquette regarding telling a subject you've jacked to them dozens of times?