Tim Daly
So how are rehearsals going?
Really well. I mean, it's very intense because it's become the custom now to rehearse for less than four weeks, as we can get in more previews that way. So, hopefully the audience will teach us a lot, as they always do, and we'll be in good shape when we open.
With so much testosterone in the rehearsal room, been any blood yet?
No, no. No blood. The veins are still closed.
Your director, Jerry Zaks, is probably a good referee.
Actually, it's sort of a disgustingly congenial group. We all get along really well. So far it's all been real copacetic.
You're in New York for the run of the play, but do you usually live in Los Angeles?
No, I live in Vermont.
Really?
Yeah, I make it as hard as possible for myself to get work. [Laughs.]
Like your wife and two kids...
You're a native New Yorker, right?
And you've got this whole show biz lineage, with your father being an actor on Broadway in the '50s and '60s, then in Hollywood.
Do you have any memories about the theater from that time?
No! I meant later, as a kid being around the theater, because of your dad?
When he was working, did he ever take you to the theater with him?
Looking into your future! You know, having spent so much of your career in front of the cameras, I was wondering if there was anything you missed about not doing a TV series these days?
So when you were a kid, did your dad guide you around and explain how things worked backstage and all?
Until you were like 16, right?
Speaking of family, you must've seen your sister, Tyne, in Rabbit Hole. Yes?
So, you're really enjoying being back in the city?
So how did Caine Mutiny come about for you?
Could it be in your genes?
And are you enjoying your character of the court-martial's prosecutor?
Are you the kind of actor who comes up with secrets to put into the character, for under the text?
The plot of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is actually a fictional dilemma, right?
Considering the war in Iraq, it sounds like a very timely question.
No kidding?
Wow. Well, finally, shifting to a much lighter subject—but one which actually instills another kind of competitiveness and, well, pride, in its participants—will Caine Mutiny be playing softball in the Broadway Show League?
So, is that a "yes" to playing this summer?
See Tim Daly in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial at the Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 West 45th Street. Click for tickets and more information.
Yeah, when I'm not working it's really, really beautiful. Depending on how much I work... Let's put it this way, all my stuff is in Vermont.
Well... [Laughs.] I don't consider them 'stuff'... I don't have full ownership of them. [Laughs.]
I am! I was born in Mount Sinai Hospital.
Yeah, my dad was in a Broadway show when I was born, as I recall.
Well, not from when I was born, no. [Laughs.]
Growing up in Rockland County, New York, I can remember my dad getting up in the morning and shaving really closely and putting on a suit and tie and driving into New York City for auditions. Cause that was the way you went to work, putting on a suit and a tie!
Oh, yeah! I guess my most vivid memories of being in the theater are of summer stock. You know, the theater is a fantastic place for kids; always places to climb and hide, and you're in on this big secret that you're playing on the audience. It's really magic, fantastically fun. So I loved being in the theater as a kid. And I also remember going to visit my dad—and this is very embarrassing—when I was like eight years old. And I wound up in this PBS production of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, directed by TV legend Paul Bogart. It was very serious play, filmed in big chunks, and the thing I remember most about it is when the camera was looking through me and the kid who played my
brother, a couple of times I looked right into the camera—with my mouth just hanging open. Into the black hole! Then went back to my acting.
Well, certainly it's a very large and regular paycheck. The thing about [a TV series] is that it does enable you to be less of a gypsy than most actors are. It can be quite a lonely and peripatetic life, and that's sort of the way it has been for me the past year. Though I have done two TV series that were picked up, they didn't last very long. I do miss not being able to plant myself in one place for a long period of time. So, hopefully Caine Mutiny will run and then that'll take care of that.
Well, sort of. I don't remember him guiding me around. I mostly remember running around. I was usually very polite. The thing that was great about summer stock was that there were all those beautiful young apprentice girls who thought I was so cute, and they would bandy me on their knee and nestle me in their bosom. And I enjoyed that tremendously.
Well... [Laughs.] Even when I was 16! They didn't bandy me anymore, but... [Laughs.] With my father, though, I do remember he was doing a play called The White House with Helen Hayes, Gene Wilder and Fritz Weaver. And Fritz Weaver played Abraham Lincoln and I was just amazed by the make-up that he did all by himself. And I would stand outside his dressing room and watch him. And this may be totally false, and if it is, I apologize to Fritz, but I remember him looking at me and saying "Get out of here, kid!" I was terrified of him. But I did learn in the theater to be quiet and to not bother people when they were concentrating. Also, when I was very young, I had a knack for remembering lines. And whenever I was backstage I would always say to people, "Oh my God. How about that line that he blew?" And they would say, "What?! Oh... yeah." Cause I had this sort of photographic memory for other people's words. [Laughs.] I wish I had that now!
I have. And she's fantastic. I think that my father would be simultaneously bursting with pride and green with jealousy that his two children were both on Broadway, back to back.
I am. I mean, it's so exciting to be on Broadway. I was at the Schoenfeld the other day, looking up and down the street. There's so much energy and excitement. I mean, it's such a cliché! But here it is. You can't help but feel it when you hit the street.
Yeah, I guess. I mean, when I first imagined myself as a professional actor, I never really thought I would be anything but a theater actor. You know there's a wonderful kind of music that's played between an actor and an audience when you're doing it live: You get to feel their energy and they get to feel yours, and things change and evolve. And I think that, in some ways, I like the fact that performances onstage are remembered in someone's imagination, rather than captured forever on a DVD or something like that. Because I think your imagination lends a certain quality to a performance that you can't find when you have it written in stone.
Well, I have to admit to being extremely dumb about this. I knew about the movie. I didn't even know there was a book or a play. And so, I read the play and thought, 'this is fantastic.' And there was something about it—you know, I think David Schwimmer is perfectly cast as Greenwald—that when I spoke with Jerry Zaks, our esthetics just lined up perfectly. So I thought, this is just a great opportunity to get back in New York and let people see that this is something I can do again. Because the unfortunate thing is that people do forget that you started out on the stage, and that you know what you're doing. I guess people forget that in every medium, but I consider this a test for myself: To show the community and New York and whoever wants to come see the show that this is something that I'm pretty good at.
I think that is true. I think of it more like a congenital disease! [Laughs.] Something my sister and I have inherited from my darling father. So, we have it, and we've both embraced it.
Oh, very much, very much. I mean, the thing is, I'm around to serve this play. He's not a character who's dwelled upon much with his background or anything like that. But I think he has an opportunity to really drive this play because he is the Judge Advocate and he is responsible for this 'The People' and this entire proceeding. More than the outcome, he's responsible for it being done within Naval regulations, which are very strict. So, I like it. And hopefully I can make him somewhat vivid so that it will enhance the whole play.
Yes, I am. I am. And those things will remain secret, but hopefully they'll inform the character somewhat. But this is a really well-made play. There's nothing too fancy about it. I mean that in the best possible way. It doesn't deal with the subject in a simplistic manner. It's complex. And it doesn't answer a lot of questions, but the characters are just very well drawn, so there's not too much layered... there's nothing extraneous.
Yes. It's something that has never happened: A subordinate officer has never relieved a commanding officer in the history of the United States Navy. But I think the interesting question that [the play] raises, specifically, is about our personal responsibility. Cause as individuals in the military we are supposed to obey orders without questions. That is the function of a subordinate soldier: To get an order and obey it. And yet, we're also charged with the responsibility of disobeying that order when we find that it is morally objectionable or ethically wrong. And the question is: Where is that line?
Well, it's a very deep question that we have to ask ourselves—not just as people in the military, but as citizens. I feel, personally, that we're at a place right now where we're fighting this supposed war—although, it's an actual war, it doesn't appear like a war—but we're fighting this war and we've basically absolved ourselves as a general population from any responsibility. Cause it doesn't affect us at all. We're not rationing. We're not discussing things. Sometimes it doesn't even make the newspapers. And yet, there it is—there are people sacrificing their lives for us. And I think we have to ask ourselves, as a society, can we do that? Can we ask people to sacrifice
their lives when we, as citizens, make no sacrifice whatsoever? Is that too deep?
I think it has. Of course this play takes place during a war that was almost entirely supported by the citizens of the United States. So, it's a much different attitude towards that particular conflict. And I think I'm the only person in the cast who had family who fought in World War II. My father, my father's brother and their two sisters all were in the military. And my father, in particular, was on destroyers and troop transports in this exact area in this exact time that the play takes place.
Yeah. And this Naval historian came in and spoke to us at rehearsal. Really great guy. And he was talking about the duties of sailors in the South Pacific and I started to get very welled up, thinking about my father being aboard a ship for five years. My God, talk about the sacrifice. And my father didn't talk about the war very much. Like I remember, as a kid, that I did ask him if he was ever attacked by kamikazes. And he said, "Yes." And that was it. He wouldn't say any more. And you know, some people would consider him a hero just because of the fact that he was there. I'm sure [Caine Mutiny writer] Herman Wouk would. But my father was just doing his duty. He never had that [post-war] pride thing. It was like he really wanted to put that behind him and move on with his life.
[Laughs.] Well, it's funny you should ask, cause we were just talking about the softball team today! Now, the last time I was in a Broadway show it was Coastal Disturbances, and we were a good team. And me and my understudy were very good ballplayers. In fact, I remember a couple members of the Bartenders League offered us fifty dollars a game to play for their bars. [Laughs.] I supplemented my income by playing softball.
I don't know. I hope so! If we do, I've got to start training like now. Cause, let me tell you, my rotator cuff ain't what it used to be.