John Mahoney
Once they've achieved success in film and television, plenty of actors wave bye-bye to the theater, but John Mahoney never allowed his 11 seasons as patriarch Martin Crane on Frasier to pull him off the stage for long. On every hiatus, he headed home to Chicago to do a play at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where he's been a member since 1979, plus occasional forays to theaters in Ireland and his native England. In the three years since Frasier went off the air, Mahoney has worked almost exclusively onstage, but he's just now getting back to New York after a 15-year absence in the Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway revival of Prelude to a Kiss. Cast as the Old Man, he finds himself in a soul swap after sharing a wedding day kiss with a newlywed named Rita Annie Parisse. Mahoney's life story is almost as strange as anything Prelude playwright Craig Lucas could dream up: Determined to escape post-war Manchester, England, he arrived in America in 1959 at age 19, spent three years in the Army, earned a masters degree in English and bounced around jobs ranging from hospital orderly to college instructor to medical journal editor. At the age of 37, after taking an acting class with a fledgling playwright named David Mamet and being cast in a play with an up-and-coming actor named John Malkovich, he began a new life as an actor that eventually brought a Tony Award for John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves, success in movies Say Anything, Moonstruck, Barton Fink and, of course, Frasier. Universally considered one of the nicest men in the business, Mahoney took time to look back on his long and winding road to fame and his enduring love of the stage.
Were you familiar with Prelude to a Kiss?
Yes, I saw it about 12 years ago in Chicago. I thought it was a terrific play, and I always thought it would be a great part to play sometime. When they called me from Roundabout, I said yes right away. I've never seen the movie; somebody gave it to me when they heard I was going to be doing it, but I would never watch that until the show is over.
Why did you find it appealing?
Well, it's not very often that you get to play an old man in the first act and a young woman in the second! Everything about the part I just found fascinating—the idea of being trapped in another person's body and desperate to get out of it and not knowing how you got there.
As Annie [Parisse] was acting, I studied the way she moved her mouth, the way she sat, the way she kept her knees together as a lady does, the way she held her hands, the way she threw her hair over her ears. Physically, I'm an old man and I have to convince the old man's daughter that I am who I'm supposed to be, so I didn't want to use a woman's voice or anything like that. But just as Annie studied me and the way I sit and the way I talk, I studied as many physical characteristics of hers as I could.
Has Craig Lucas been present during rehearsals?
Yes. Like a lot of terrific playwrights, Craig only makes comments if the director asks him to. John Guare always deferred to Jerry Zaks during The House of Blue Leaves, and Craig is the same way; he's there in case you have problems in the script. He did change a couple of lines today, to convey the old man's desire to go back [to his own body]. He added some lines about how he thought he wanted another chance in fresh, healthy body, but now he realizes that being around his loved ones is much more important. That was implied before, but now Craig has put it in as dialogue. Of course, he might take it out again!
Does a seemingly light show like this present a different set of challenges from the more serious plays you've done?
You have to give every play the same intensity and the same honor, whether you're doing Long Day's Journey Into Night or Prelude to a Kiss. You have to be committed to it and act it as if it's as important as anything you've ever done or ever will do. A lot of people are not quite sure how to do that. For example, when we were doing Frasier, we'd sometimes have guest stars who were wonderful stage actors. When they got onto Frasier, they thought, "Oh, now I go into my sitcom mode," and they were not as serious about the material. I think that's very wrong, and you could tell it was wrong by the performances they were giving. You have to commit yourself totally to whatever you're doing.
What's the last play you did in New York?
I did The Subject Was Roses with Patrick Dempsey and Dana Ivey at the Roundabout [ in 1991] when they were at Union Square. Dana and I were the husband and wife and Patrick was our son.
Was Patrick Dempsey any good onstage?
Yes, he was! Patrick is a wonderful actor. I've desperately wanted to come back to New York since then. I never stopped doing plays—even when I was on Frasier, I did one on every hiatus, but not in New York. There's nothing quite like it, especially Broadway. It's every actor's dream.
It seems as if you made a made a conscious decision to concentrate on the stage after Frasier.
That's right. I've done about six plays since Frasier ended, a couple at Steppenwolf, one in London, one in New Jersey [Drawer Boy at Paper Mill Playhouse] and this one here. I'm not that interested in getting in front of a camera again. I certainly am not interested in doing another series. If I wanted a television legacy, I couldn't do better than Frasier. I'd do guest spots, but never another series.
What makes you agree to do a play?
I don't care if I have a big part or a starring part, just that it's a well-written script with something to say—and, of course, somebody that I admire directing it. I've worked with directors that I wouldn't work with again. But when you hear Dan Sullivan is going to be directing [Prelude], you remember Proof and all the things he's done and you talk with other actors who have worked with him and say he's wonderful.
Where do you get the stamina to keep taking on one play after another?
I think a lot of it comes from the fact that I love what I'm doing so much that it doesn't feel like work. I had major surgery about 10 months ago and had to drop out of three plays I was going to do in Chicago, but after the surgery I felt like a million dollars and now it's like I was never sick.
What's the best play you've ever been in?
Probably Orphans [Lyle Kessler's 1985 violent dark comedy starring Terry Kinney and Kevin Anderson as orphaned brothers and Mahoney as their mysterious father figure, directed by Gary Sinise]. It was a terrific play and a terrific part, and Gary had a really great take on it as the director. Orphans sort of put me on the map professionally, and I absolutely loved doing it.
I remember that production as if it was yesterday.
So many people do! When someone comes over on the street, I always I think they're going to talk to me about Frasier or say, "Where's Eddie [the TV dog]?" When they say, "I saw you in Orphans," it makes me feel great that they remember it. And that happens often, especially in New York. I did that play here for a year.
How can I put this? I knew that I did not want to do it any longer, but that was because I was afraid we'd start repeating ourselves. I wanted us to go out with the prestige and the glory we had. We'd started to repeat ourselves a little, and I thought, "No, let's end this." I don't miss doing the show, but I do miss the people I worked with very much.
Isn't it wild that you and David Hyde Pierce [star of Curtains] are onstage in New York at the same time?
Kelsey [Grammer] too! He's going to be doing four performances of My Fair Lady with the Philharmonic. We're all scheduled to go out and have breakfast together this week.
Your life story would be almost unbelievable as a TV movie: arriving in America from England at 19, going into the Army and then teaching and editing a medical journal until you began acting at age 37. What are the odds of achieving the kind of career you've had with such a late start?
I think it was a one-time thing, to tell you the truth. And I speak from experience, because a lot of people write me letters saying, "You've inspired me. Acting is something I always wanted to do." But it was a quirk of fate that it worked for me. Of the people who've written to me, it's never worked. And I've heard from a lot of people who have gone through a terrible time, giving up good jobs to pursue the dream of stage work. When it doesn't happen they have a lot of family problems.
Does it seem like you've lived three lives? The England life, the life of a teacher and editor and the actor life?
It really does. They're all so totally different, especially the non-actor and the actor life. It's the difference between feeling okay and being gloriously happy every day that I go to work. This is what I was meant to do, and thank god I got the chance to do it.
How did you have the nerve to leave your entire life in England behind? Did the fact that one of your sisters moved to America give you the impetus to do it?
Yeah, we had visited my sister when I was 11 [in 1951], and I knew then that this was where I wanted to live. I was growing up in post-war England in a town that had been destroyed by the German air force, full of broken down buildings and air-raid shelters and everything rationed and dreary and dark and dull. All of a sudden, I was in America eating chicken for the first time and seeing my first banana and driving around; I don't think I had ever ridden in a car when I was 11 years old. It was like I had died and gone to heaven! It was impossible for me to believe that people lived this way every single day, and that's what I wanted to do. When I went back to England, I worked and saved every dime and then my sister very kindly sponsored me until I got on my feet, which happened quickly because I went into the Army for three years as soon as I got here.
I understand that Did David Mamet plucked you out of an acting class and gave you your first job.
David was wonderful in recognizing something in me and allowing me to be in his first play [The Water Engine], but it was a very small part. If I owe my career to anybody, it would be to John Malkovich and Gary Sinise. After I did a play with John, he invited me to join Steppenwolf Theatre, which was a huge step. It was a very prestigious theater even back then, and I was a newcomer who had only done one professional show. But John had faith in me. After I joined the company, I always wondered why Gary never cast me in any of the plays he directed. I thought, "He hates me," but when he cast me in Orphans, he said, "I was waiting for the right part. I wanted to cast you in something I knew you could do very well." So the two people I owe the most to are John and Gary.
What is John Malkovich really like?
He's just what he is: a boy from a small town in Illinois. When John comes over to my place, we play cards, and he's always bitching because he doesn't get enough wild cards. He helps make dinner; he makes a terrific gravy. He's totally unlike the person I read about.
A lot of people think he's a weirdo, basically.
Not at all. He's so normal. And very, very caring and considerate of people. There's nothing arrogant about him. He might not like that I'm saying he's ordinary—he might have a persona that he wants to put out there—but I find him one of the most ordinary people I know, in a good way.
I almost hate the fact that Gary Sinise has had such success with CSI: New York because it's taking him away from the theater.
Yeah, I don't think he's done anything since One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and he's such a great stage actor. Malkovich, too: As great as John is in film, he's even better onstage.
True West with the two of them? Oh my gosh!
And Burn This… I've been onstage with John in half a dozen plays at Steppenwolf over the years, and he's just incredible. You sort of stand back and become part of the audience when you're acting with John; you can't take your eyes off him. He's not trying to steal focus or be cute or anything, he's just got something that you cannot stop looking at.
Probably because there are so many people who can pluck you out of companies in New York and give you a big career—put you in movies or on television. There was never any of that at Steppenwolf. All the work that John and Gary and Joan Allen and Laurie Metcalf got acclaim for in New York, they'd been doing it for years in our company. But that was in Chicago, and the audiences weren't filled with agents and managers and directors and producers like they are here. If a company started in New York with a bunch of actors like that, they'd probably do one play and then be signed up to god-knows-what like John and Gary and Joan and I were. It would be hard to keep them together. There's none of that in Chicago, so you just keep working and that's how your company grows and lasts.
Chicago seems to have very adventurous theater audiences.
Yes, they'll give you a chance to fail. It's not life and death in Chicago. They'll watch just about anything, and if they don't like one thing, they'll come back the next time and hope you're doing something they can understand better. They're very loyal.
Why have you kept Chicago as your home base all these years?
It was the first big American city I was ever in that I really fell in love with. I went to Quincy University in Quincy, Illinois, about 200 miles from Chicago, and I used to go to my friends' homes there for the weekend. It's such a great city—lots of theater, lots of museums, miles of parks and beaches, the lake that's as big as an ocean. They say home is where the heart is, and I always felt that it was home. If I didn't live in Chicago, I would live in New York. It was a lot of fun to work in L.A., but it's not a place I would want to live.
Have you ever come close to getting married?
No. I've lived with a couple of very nice women, but it just never seemed to get that far. It never happened, and I have no idea why. Of course, when I was doing Frasier, I was going back and forth from L.A. to Chicago and doing plays in other cities. I traveled around so much. I'm going to be 67 now and it's a little late. I'm very, very happy to be living by myself.
You must have to fight off gals of a certain age.
Oh, I don't have to fight 'em off, but I do get approached; I get mail and stuff like that [laughs]. I try to be as gentlemanly as I can when I answer, it but I'm too set in my ways to get into any kind of relationship.
Are there any roles you're dying to do?
Not really. I just have fun seeing what comes along. I always wanted to do Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? but that never worked out and now I'm too old. Prelude to a Kiss came out of the blue, and that's what I like. I want to read something and be blown away by it.
Luckily, Frasier gave you the power to pick and choose.
It sure did. I have no problems whatsoever financially. If I want to work in storefront theaters for the rest of my life, I can do that. And I'd be happy to do it if the parts were there.
See John Mahoney in Prelude to a Kiss at the American Airlines Theatre.