Kevin Anderson on Shawshank, Patti LuPone and Being a Gambling Man
Kevin Anderson tends to pop up about once every eight or nine years on the London stage, which isn't bad for an Illinois actor whose resume runs from high-octane Steppenwolf aerobics (Orphans, the Lyle Kessler play that put Anderson on the map) through to Death of a Salesman, Come Back, Little Sheba and Brooklyn on Broadway and the world premiere of Sunset Boulevard in London, opposite Patti LuPone. Anderson turns 50 in January but looks at least a decade younger than he is, which bodes well for his return to the West End inheriting Tim Robbins' screen role as prison lifer Andy Dufresne in the Anglo-Irish stage adaptation of The Shawshank Redemption. The production, co-starring Reg E. Cathey in Morgan Freeman's movie role, opens Sept. 13 at Wyndham's. Sporting deeply cool sunglasses and (unexpectedly) a shirt and tie, Anderson joined Broadway.com for a revealing conversation about the actor's galloping love of poker to his knack for survival both in life and in art.
It's funny how you seem to land on the London stage at fairly regular intervals.
It's true, but this one was a total bolt out of the blue. I was in Vegas at a poker boot camp trying to figure out if I was good enough to supplement my income. I'd sort of got into "no-limit hold'em." playing for the past few years, so had made this plan to stay there for a month and play for as much as my sanity could hold. I was trying to get a sense of whether it was worth it to really take up poker in a big way. I didn't even have an agent when the casting director called and left a message on my cell phone asking would I be interested. Then Peter [Sheridan, the director] and I talked, and I said that I couldn't really afford to fly to New York to audition. Instead we just kind of talked some more on the phone. We hit it off, but I didn't find out until later that he confessed to me he is a gambler himself—only he likes the horses and to bet on sports. So he thought, This is the kind of guy I want playing Andy Dufresne: a guy who can't come for an audition because he's gambling in Vegas. It was freaky.
It's fascinating how well-regarded the film of Shawshank is in the U.K.—and, I imagine Ireland [where this production originated at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre].
I hadn't even seen the movie, and I'm not an Internet sorta guy, so I wasn't aware that it gets talked about as one of the top 10 movies of all time. The actor part of me was like, I'm not going to watch the film! But I was talking to a friend at a pub, and he was saying that it might help me to see it, you know, because it's such an iconic movie for people. I thought it might help me to understand not so much how to interpret the part like Tim Robbins, but to see what perspective people are coming to it with.
You did watch it in the end?
I did and couldn't believe how good it was. There are not many movies that move me to the point of the tears, and there I was watching it on a little lap-thing and I was even crying watching it on that.
I never realized until sitting with you today the extent to which you do actually look like Tim Robbins.
It's funny. I've heard that a lot of times. We've never met.
You should get together with Jennifer Tilly. When she was in London doing a Wallace Shawn play earlier this year, she reportedly used to hit the casinos almost every night.
Probably The Empire [a London casino], but she goes out with Phil Laak who's a big deal poker guy. I'm not in that league yet. I'm very much a beginner and was experimenting as a supplemental thing to maybe play once or twice a week if the career didn't start to kick in again. I was really getting a little concerned. [Laughs]
In what way? I would think whatever else happens for you in movies or TV, you always have the theater.
The theater's come more out of necessity, if I'm totally honest. It has happened to me a few times during my career that you think, ‘Fuck, things are drying up.’ And it's just when things really were not looking good that this incredible thing [Shawshank] came around. I didn't even have to barter for it.
What was your childhood exposure to theater?
I come from a town [Gurnee, Illinois, near the Wisconsin border] that was a true blue cow town; we didn't have a movie theater! There was like one road going in with a post office and a lot of corn fields and cows and only, like, 3500 people. What informed me more than anything were the great movies of the 1970s. The theater I did see was the stuff that would pass through: horrible Shakespeare troupes and clown-like shit that we would throw spitballs at. I was definitely not influenced by theater and thought it was a really stupid thing to do. I was really more into my drumming then.
How did your 1994 motorcycle accident affect your idea of redemption as illustrated in Shawshank?
You know, in a way, that accident is the best thing that ever happened to me because I had gotten a bit big for my britches and, I had sort of acquired a lot of machinery in my life—just business people and the whole agent thing. And [the accident] is always a part of me, that's for sure. I've got a rod in my left leg and a couple of steel plates. It's not like I think of it every day, but I learned some really incredible things through it.
And I'm sure the whole Sunset scenario didn't help [where LuPone and Anderson were dropped from the Broadway production in favor of Glenn Close and Alan Campbell, who had done the musical in L.A.]. Did you at least get a payout, as we know Patti did?
It wasn't as big as hers, unfortunately, because I just made a decision to walk off into the sunset.
Good pun.
Ha! But you know everything from that time is so intertwined, and I don't know what the truth is because I was told later they did want me for New York. I was conflicted because I thought it was a not very fulfilling part to do for another year in a difficult situation—and I also did feel a loyalty to Patti: I thought she had really been abused and that what happened to her was totally wrong. She was great in the part and sang it in the original key, which was way more exciting. The things that were being said about her were so not true, so that bothered me. Let's just say that it was a very distasteful thing getting the settlement and I'd sort of had enough of all that crap, so I fired everybody and got on my motorcycle. I had always had this dream of driving across the country on a motorcycle.
I suppose Sunset left one invaluable legacy in introducing you to Dawn [Spence, the British actress-singer whom Anderson has been with since that time].
God, yeah! She was doing Cats at the time of my accident and she came to the States and helped out full time: She and my mom kind of wiped my ass; I couldn't take a shower and had to have each of my limbs in garbage bags.
So, does London feel like a second home?
It does, though we mainly live in Los Angeles now.
Not New York?
I wish I could. I wish I had the money to have a place in New York. This time I'm staying up in Crouch End, but I've been in Bayswater and Hampstead. And people always think I'm Canadian. In that way, I think Dawn has rubbed off on me because maybe I don't sound as Midwestern as I should.
What about Brooklyn, given that you starred on Broadway in Brooklyn?
I wanted to be in Brooklyn! I know this is going to sound like an exaggeration or like I'm lying or something, but pound for pound, I think the talent in Brooklyn—the five of us—was the most I've ever had the pleasure of working with. A lot of that was because at that point—other than Sunset—I hadn't done a lot of musicals so as I matured I realized how difficult they are. And don't consider myself really a musical guy or a singer, although I do have a decent voice.To be with those singers was incredibly exciting. Karen Olivo, I mean, I knew the first moment I met her that girl has got it, and Eden [Espinoza] and Ramona [Keller], too. As a middling singer who'd really just done music but had never really sung solo, being with these people was inspiring.
You've got a big birthday coming up: how does that feel?
I do, and I have to say it does surprise me a little bit. One of the hardest things is that I was always like the young buck, you know? Terry Kinney and I used to have an expression: "I'm a young buck looking for trouble." That was like our little thing. I always got the young buck roles, so it's hard to let go of that.
How appropriate, then, to reinvent yourself as a gambler in light of the crap shoot that is the entertainment industry.
Totally. I think that's why I have an attraction to [poker], but I don't think I'm the type that would go and gamble my house away. I am addictive, but I seem to know where to draw the line eventually.