What's Up, Eric Bogosian? The Time Stands Still Star on Romancing a Younger Woman and Why Acting Trumps Writing

After a couple of decades as a king of downtown theater (writing and starring in Funhouse, Drinking in America and Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, among many others), Eric Bogosian has spent the past few years writing novels, playing a police captain on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and savoring revivals of his plays Talk Radio and subUrbia. At long last, he’s making his Broadway acting debut in Donald Margulies’ Time Stands Still at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Romantically paired with Alicia Silverstone as a party planner whose world view is at odds with the combat photographer played by Laura Linney, Bogosian is savoring every moment in the acclaimed production. The uber-versatile actor/writer chatted about his career with Broadway.com.

What’s fun about acting in a play you didn’t write?
It allows me immerse myself more deeply in the character. If I did write it, I would be analyzing the words and how the play is constructed. In this case, all I have to do is think, “How can I perform this better?”

At this point, do you think of yourself more as an actor than a writer?
I’m an actor—I always was. The writing started when I wrote the monologue shows for myself in the late 70s. I did six of them off-Broadway between 1980 and 2000, and I then I kept getting jobs as a writer, and it became a habit: I got up in the morning and I wrote. I come from a working-class background, and I equate “work” with something that’s hard to do—and, for me, writing was hard. But acting is like falling off a log.

You still have your original wife [director Jo Bonney]. What’s it like to portray a romance with someone [Alicia Silverstone] who would be your trophy wife?
When I met Jo in 1980, and we fell in love and married about two months later, I knew I was meeting my soul mate. I have the feeling that [my character] Richard has been through a variety of people, and now he’s met this person, Mandy, who is his soul mate. I don’t really have to make believe—I just remember the sensation when you feel chemically and vibrationally in tune with another person. It’s easy to imagine: Alicia is extremely nice, and she has her own aura onstage. I personally can’t imagine this relationship—Jo Bonney is more like the Laura Linney character in the play, very self-motivated and a little more tough. I don’t think I’ve ever called a woman “baby” in my life, but hey! Richard calls [Mandy] baby! And she likes it.

Were you surprised at how good Alicia is onstage?
I’m not surprised—it’s more that I marvel at her acting and her comedic skill. When the first priority of a character is that they be beautiful, very often that’s the first requirement to get filled and then the other things get figured out later. I’m very happy to watch Alicia take the stage and do all the things that every seasoned actor knows how to do. This is going to sound crazy, but I was thinking last night that the tradition of comedic acting she falls into is the one Jean Stapleton lived in when she played Archie Bunker’s wife—someone who doesn’t seem to have any awareness of how funny she is, just guileless and a truth-teller.

You recently published your third novel [Perforated Heart]. Are you working on any new plays?
I have a number of plays that have been “circling the airport” for years, but for whatever reason have not been produced in New York. I usually write a new play every year and a half. I have this fantasy that someone will do a festival in New York of all these plays that have been accumulating. I enjoy writing plays. Once I get started, I can knock one off in about a month. Writing novels is a marathon.

You should create a TV series for yourself.
My agent would like that! [Laughs.] I’m a little too close to the business—I understand what it means to write and run a TV series, and that’s not necessarily what I want to do when I get up in the morning. I did 60 episodes of Law & Order [Criminal Intent], and I loved being invited into their party, but if I’m going to put that kind of work into something, I have a different idea of what I want it to be. That’s why I’ve loved writing books. I love surprising people by saying, “Here is a novel I wrote.”

My favorite quote on your website is, “The phrase ‘sex, drugs, rock and roll’ has been tattooed on my life.” Is that still the case?
I wrote that? I think I survived what’s supposed to come along with that tattoo and made it to the other side [laughs]. I’d say my two children are tattooed on my life at this point. I’m very proud of both of them.