103. Tony Shalhoub’s Journey Through Theater, Television and Film

So, hi friends, and welcome back. I have a very special guest. He is best known
for his work as Adrian Monk in the hit USA Network series, Monk, the obsessive
compulsive detective. For eight consecutive years, he was Emmy nominated for
outstanding lead actor in a comedy series and won the award three times. This is in
addition to a Golden Globe award and two SAG awards for his work on the show. He
then went on to portray Abe Weissman on Amazon Prime Videos' The Marvelous Mrs.
Maisel, for which he has won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting
Actor in a Comedy Series, and two SAG awards for his outstanding performance as male
actor in a comedy series. Most recently, he returned to the iconic role as Monk in
Peacock's critically acclaimed Mr. Monk's last case, a Monk movie, receiving best
actor in limited series or television movie, nominations from SAG and Critic Choice
Awards. He has an impressive resume of Broadway credits in addition to a long list
of feature film credits, including Men in Black and one of my favorite comedies,
Galaxy Quest. He is also the voice of Luigi in the Cars franchise. He was born and
raised in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He graduated from Yale Drama School, and he is
married to the beautiful and talented Brooke Adams. And with that, I wanna welcome
my friend, Tony Shalhoub. - Thank you, Jackie. And I wanna say that thanks to you,
bringing Monk to USA Network and bringing me into it, kind of was a major,
major life changed for me. So I owe you. I owe you big time. I would say the
same for you. My career was very much made by the success of Monk.
And so I feel like I owe the turning point of my career to you. And I am so
tickled to have you on this podcast today. And I think for some people it might be
kind of like, well, what's the common denominator of I obviously have become a life
coach as of five years ago. I've had this podcast for a number of years. I've had
many writers and actors on the podcast, but the connection to you is so special
because, again, my career after almost 20 years in the business really changed a lot
with the successive monk, and I know yours did as well. Very much so. But the role
of playing an obsessive Compulsive detective and being an eight -time Emmy nominee and
three -time winner for that role You did some spectacular Extraordinary work that is
not just iconic but legacy work people still come up to me today and say oh my
god Did you work on Monk and did you know Tony and he's amazing and and so many
people who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder which is becoming actually more
and more ubiquitous, probably because of our overstimulated society. People often ask
me, is he like that in real life? So I have to start with that question. - Well,
that's a question I get very often. And I guess the truth is,
I am to a degree, my wife would say I'm much more so than Monk, - Yeah,
I think I was to begin with, and I think I have to admit that eight seasons of
that show, probably in the middle there, somewhere around season four or five, a lot
of his characteristics started to rub off on me. It was inevitable. I mean,
of course, we had those hiatus periods, so I could kind of get back to a little
more, a little bit more normalcy, but then we get back into the shooting and then
I find myself just being a little a little more obsessive and a little more
cautious than usual. And where does it manifest for you? Because I also suffer from
this. I know our colleagues on the show did. How does it manifest for you?
Oh, and many, myriad number of ways. I mean, look, I actually sort of find myself
doing things and thinking, this isn't really necessary and it's time consuming.
Why are we doing this? I'm talking to myself. What is this? How is this going to
improve your environment? How is it gonna improve your life or someone else's life?
And the answer is often it isn't. I guess in a way it's almost like it's
therapeutic, or it helps me to sort of refocus or focus on something outside of
myself, outside of my worries or anxieties. It may not be soothing to other people
watching me do it, but it's soothing to me. I guess that's the best way to
describe it. And when you're saying that, you're talking about having things in order
or having things clean? Having things orderly, both. orderly, I don't even know where
to begin, things in the refrigerator, for example, things that people put in the
dishwasher wrong way, or even things in the cupboard,
make it not as efficient, you know, moving things around or taking things.
Well, I don't want to have to move something to take something else out or knock
it into something or, you know what I mean? Like everything be orderly in a, you
know, relative to their size and shape. And for example,
a very obvious, I think a lot of people, I hope a lot of people in the world
would agree with me, that in the refrigerator, for example, when people,
and I'm not naming names. But when people put the short item on the tall shelf,
that's a problem because it means that then there is not room for the tall item on
the tall shelf. Because, you know, the short item will fit both places,
but the tall item, no. So then I have to spend valuable seconds of my life,
moving the short items to the short shelf to make room for the children. I'm
laughing because you're speaking my language. So that's why I'm laughing. I'm laughing
with you. And it sounds like a small thing, but it's part of a larger, for me,
a larger problem. You know what I mean? Yes.
Look, we're getting older, right. And so we have more behind us than that of us.
Obviously. Yeah. Time and experience. Those moments add up.
Those seconds add up to moments and those moments add up in the course of however
many years we have left. And I'd rather not have to squander those valuable seconds.
Is that money? Maybe. No, I - No, that's as good of a reason as any to have
things orderly. In my house, we call it shelf violations. So like the potato chips
go on a particular shelf and they go with like the crackers and other things that
are kind of snacky. - Hello? - And the reason for that is number one,
so you don't end up with like a small bag of crumbs in the back,
like selecting dust or whatever. You also don't overbuy and you don't waste food
because if everything is visible and you know where it is. So my husband will
often, he does not share my OCD. Oh, we weren't supposed to name names of who's
putting the things on the wrong shelf. I think everyone knows. I think you think
they do. Probably. So, you know, I'll go into the pantry and I'll be like there's
so many shelf violations here. I don't even know where to start. And like the spice
cabinet, like put the spices with the spices, don't put it somewhere else, right?
- Or how about things in those drawers or in the refrigerator or in any cabinet or
pantry with the labels out? I don't, I just want to see what it is.
I know I need to know what it is, right? I don't want to have to like go in and
why do I need to rotate it or flip it over or you know what I mean just and if
everything went back where it normally should go, I don't have to hunt around for
it. Why not open the thing and reach it and you could do it. I should be able to
do it in the dark, right? Oh, I go here, here's the yogurt. Oh, here's the thing.
What if my God forbid the light in the refrigerator goes out that's planning ahead
reminds me of a great Maisel line Where Mar and ankle who played my wife Rose? Is
told that the light in the refrigerator is out in their apartment and she says
there's a light in the refrigerator.
I Love that line because they have a you know a housekeeper. That's a great segue
though I would like to talk about Maisel We'll come back to Monk in a minute, but
I'd love to talk about Maisel for a second because I think I even wrote a blog
post about it in my former blog. That series,
there's not even enough adjectives to compliment it.
It was so extraordinary out of the gate, the costume design,
the set design, the direction, the acting, the writing, the repartee, the premise,
the love letter to New York, every moment of that series was like shot out of a
cannon as a TV viewer. I'm speaking only as a viewer now 'cause I had nothing to
do with the show. And you weren't like my Jewish grandfathers but you are like so
many Jewish grandfathers I knew. Mine were just of a different flavor. But the fact
that, well, and this just speaks to your talent as an actor, and I've said this
for years, you have played so many different nationalities. You yourself are 100 %
Lebanese, and yet you've played Italians, Jews, I can't even count how many different
nationalities you put because you're so versatile, your voice is versatile, your face
is versatile. And you lean into the subtleties of these particular,
it's not even nationalities, it's cultures, and you do it so beautifully, but Abe
Weissman was extraordinary. - Thank you, I mean, again, and this goes back to the
monk, those glorious compliments you paid me. I'd love to take credit for it all,
but the reality is that it's involved so many other brilliant people. I mean, it
starts with the writing, of course, Andy Breckman and his team on Monk and Amy
Sherman Palladino and Dan Palladino and Maisel and their team. You know, when you've
got that level of writing, it's very hard to make a misstep.
Then you have, you know, on Monk, for example, we had David Oberman as one of our
exec producers who was always, you know, guiding the ship and keeping us on track
and never sending up the OCD too much and always kind of keeping us honest.
And then, you know, Randy Zisk, our director showrunner, who was able to work
miracles in terms of like, how efficiently that show ran and what he was able to
do with the amount of time we were given and the budget we were given and make it
look like a much more, you know, expensive show. And then, of course,
the other actors I got to work with, you know, with Chad Levine and Jason Gray and
Natalie and Hector Alessando and, I mean, you know, Tim Bagley,
all those, all those amazing, that whole ensemble. And then on Maisel,
my God, we had the best of everybody. We had the best steadicam who have
facilitated our ability to do these three, four or five minute takes with any cuts.
- Yeah. - Ooling through an apartment, through a building. I mean, things that nobody
else could really do. - Yeah. - Then Donna Zakowska, the costume designer,
true artist, and Bill Groom, our art director guy.
I mean so many heavy hitters in every department there is the award arena and all
that but people you don't you don't want people to lose sight of the fact that
we're in a collaborative endeavor here yeah and it just takes so many people working
at the top of their game to make the same. Yeah I had Bonnie Hammer on the
podcast a few weeks ago and we were talking about her new book and in the book
she talks about it takes a village, you know, the old cliche, it takes a village,
and then she says it takes more than a village. She wasn't talking, she was talking
about raising a family and being a corporate executive, but it applies to television
features as well. It literally takes a village to do one of those scenes. I mean,
everybody you just named to create a, you know, three, three, four -page steadicam
shot and have this feature -like experience on a TV show and make it look better
than any feature I've seen. I mean, just extraordinarily good. And not just funny,
but, you know, when you're with depth and with present -day relevance,
that's the beauty of Maisel, too, that, you know, it's taking place in the late
50s, early 60s and yet it's speaking to, you know, women now and and it and even
politics now. Yes. Yes. You know, civil rights and all of these things that were
were important then that are important now and are connected. So if that's another
whole feat in itself in on the for the writers and the producers, right,
whereas you have for Monk, we had the support, you know, nurturing care of you guys
on the network side and the studio side, you know, promoting it and building it
and, you know, putting it out there in the ads and the promos and the, they took
such good care of us. - Yeah, I mean, look, you know, you are our flagship show.
You took a network that was 20 some years old and relaunched it to being not only
number one in cable, which didn't mean anything yet, right? Because cable wasn't a
competitor. But like we were beating network shows on basic cable. And so to
reignite or basically start a company again,
you know, we can talk for hours about, You know, the talent of people and the work
ethic and the, you know, the commitment and all that, but also there's,
I just want to say, some of it has to do with it's just a little bit of luck
and timing. Timing is so important. I agree.
Look, you and I know, because you were the main piece of it all, was sitting had
another network for what, four years before three, four years, whatever, before it
you walked it across the street and then it was at USA for a while, I'm not
convinced that
Hadmonk launched four years earlier, network or not,
that it would have caught fire the way it did, with me or with another actor. I
just don't believe it. I really think it has something to do with the timing.
- Yes. - I always, I think I said this too in the early interviews when we first
started the show. 9 /11 happened, right?
And all of a sudden we, as a culture, as a country,
you know, we're in We're in a age of anxiety has taken on a whole new meaning.
Yep, and this character reflects Deep deep phobias and fears.
Yeah, and that's a very Subliminal thing. So again timing. I don't know that in the
late 90s. It would have really Clicked and maybe if we had started it four years
later some other things that were similar would have come into the mainstream and
then that would have diminished. It was just, it was like that, who knows what? It
was just-- - But don't you think that's true in all aspects of life? I feel like--
- Yes. - Yes, I feel like, you know, when you met Brooke, wasn't that timing? Like
you're in this-- - My whole life is about random events. I can't, I could go all
the way back to my freshman year of college when I literally was walking down the
hallway and saw this thing. And then all of a sudden that one moment of this one
day just launched me in this whole other direction which took me to another place
which resulted in me ending up at the Yale drama school. And then thing out and
then my wife comes. I mean, so many random events and things falling a certain way
at a certain moment in time. I love that. I obviously can't prescribe that as part
of my coaching process, but I do talk about it and we call it the woo, you know,
W -O -O, like the woo of like believing in something, like just put out the energy
or you're manifested, there's the hard work, there's the work like, we'll talk about
this with you. You went to college, you went to Yale drama school, you became an
actor, you probably worked in equity waiver theater, you put in your steps. - Nothing
but theater for probably the first eight or 10 years of my career after getting out
of graduate school. I did four years up in Cambridge at a repertory theater, got
moved to New York, more theater, tip -toed into film and television,
did day players on soap operas like so many people did, and did little guest spots
on this show, or the equalizer was shooting in New York. Yeah, yeah. And then
somehow got a small job
What do you mean, led to wings and L .A.? Random, lucky, very lucky. - Prior to
going to Yale Drama School,
what was your thinking in college or pre -college about acting,
becoming an actor, or what you were gonna do for a living? What was the plan
before Yale Drama School? Once you're in Yale Drama School, I get the plan. What
happened before gale drama school walk me through this? It's an excellent question
because the truth is I didn't know I mean the truth is I was in such a fog in
college, I mean I was First couple of years of college. I I really was Spinning my
was I was searching around. What do I I took written a random liberal arts courses
and what would I like to do? What would I be good at? What sparks my interest?
I was acting a little, but it was more of like, kind of like a hobby thing on
the side. It never registered with me that that would be a viable life choice or a
career path, certainly. I just didn't know that that was a thing that people could
do. I didn't know how one did that. - The girl that was walking down the hallway
freshman year that you made the right turn and bumped into or talked to and then
something that led to Yale coming out. - That was actually, it was a kiosk. It was
a-- - Oh, okay. - I was going to school at my freshman year in my hometown and I
was in Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin, in Green Bay. And it was, you know, all
my high school friends had gone off to cool places to college. And there I was,
still living at home and I was like, why am I here? And it was, it was a good
school, it was fine. - Yeah. - But I was feeling restless and like, I need to move
on. But I was in a situation where I really couldn't afford to go to an out of
state school, right?
And I was there because I could pay in state tuition and live at home, it was
affordable and all that. Anyway, so there was this kiosk in the hallway just sort
of appeared and it was something called national student exchange program.
It was so it was about exchange changing schools basically the idea was you would
still be enrolled at your home school but you'd basically be taking classes and it
would allow people to go out of state and explore and you know whatever and so
they had a list of about 20 places 20 places. And one was Hawaii,
by the way, I don't know what, growing up in the freezing cold, why didn't that
Hawaii, that would have been a smart move. My girlfriend at the time was going to
school in Colorado, I should have probably chosen that. But this was the honest to
God, this is how random and there was one school on there in Maine,
right? right? And it's like something clicked in the deep recesses of my brain.
And I had never been to Maine. I've never really been that many places yet. And I
just thought, I kind of think Maine is, I got to go to Maine.
I don't know why. Because it's coldest state in the U .S., I don't know. (laughing)
- I told people in Green Made that I was doing that, we're like, that's cold too,
you know? And then when I get to the pain, they don't, you came from Green Made,
what do you can say? I have this image of myself like, you know, like fishermen's
sweater walking on the beach, and they're like smoking, but I don't even know what
it was. Why am I going there? - You wouldn't eat too many Gordon's fish sticks or
Gordon's fish sticks, right? I had never eaten a lobster in my life at this point,
right? Maybe a red lobster. Anyway, I thought Maine, it's Maine.
That's where it is. Didn't know anyone there? Never been to New England? Got to
Maine. And I swear, this is the truth. Now it's my sophomore year on this exchange
program. And
Weirdly, this school in Portland, May, had a phenomenal, it was a state school,
had a phenomenal theater department. Wow.
Wow. And I was like, "Wow." You know, I got in with some of the teachers, I
started taking some classes, and all of a sudden, things just really started to gel.
So I ended up transferring there, which you weren't supposed to do, but I did it
anyway. it anyway. And then I met this great woman and I fell in love and it was
all that was happening. But I got to work so much in the theater there and that
led to going to the drama school at Yale. Again,
I don't think I would have known about Yale or gotten the amount of experience,
good experience Had I gone to another larger school and been a smaller fish in a
bigger pond, let's say interesting And you had some prestigious classmates. Yes, in
the classes before me in the classes certainly in the classes after me Two years
behind when I was third year in the first year was you know, Jane Kasmerik and
Francis McDormand and in Cape Burton and all these I'm John Bedford Lloyd all these
great people. Yeah Yeah, amazing in the year behind me, you know David Ellen Greer
and Gordon and Wonderful people Yale was a real Game -changer that yeah that program.
Yeah, because it was such a small kind of I Hesitate to use the word because it's
gotten such a bad connotation these days, but such an elite Yes, direct playwrights,
designers. - Yeah. - Donna Zakowska, the costume designer of Maisel was at Yale after
me. - Oh, is that right? - Tuturo was there just after me. A lot of those, a lot
of people, Liev and all those guys came after me, Patty Clarkson and most people.
- And didn't you have Sigourney Weaver in your-- - She was, no, she was actually
before me. She and Meryl Streep were like the years before me. So all we did was,
When we got there was, we just heard about, oh, then I work with Sigourney, of
course, in Galaxy Quest. So we have that connection too. First of all, some of my
favorite actors in the world are in that cast, but the writing is so sharp. I've
seen it so many times. It always makes me laugh out loud. It's really hard to make
me laugh out loud. But it really holds up that film. It does. - After what,
24 years or so? - Were you guys giggling when you were making it or no? - Oh,
okay. - Oh, you were, oh, okay. Okay, so you were in on the joke. - It was one of
the most fun experiences. What I didn't know when we were doing it, what I didn't
realize till we were there at the screening was how much heart and how kind of
moving it is in moments. And that was all Dean Paraso. He was the director.
He was the one that brought the heart to it and the depth to it.
Because it could have been a much frothier, goofier, and you know, and that's why
speaking, which I asked Dean to direct the pilot of Monk.
Yeah. Remember, because we were taking ideas for directors. Yeah. I had done two
years prior, I had done Galaxy Quest and I knew Monk. I had a sense that Monk
needed a certain tone, a balance between the really, you know,
the funny stuff and the more poignant stuff. Yeah, yeah. And I knew that Dean had
done it so beautifully with Galaxy Quest and I asked him and he fortunately was
available and liked the script and he-- - He did a great job. He did a great job.
- He launched it because he found, with Andy and Hoverman and all those guys,
Dean found that sweet spot in the tournament. - Well,
we talked about the tight rope walk. 'Cause that's what it was.
'Cause it Because it could have been your question. Yeah, galaxy quest was it one
of the most fun experiences in in the shooting of it Yeah, Sam Rockwell and yeah,
Jim and and Rico colon Tony another yeah, another yaily and Alan Rickman who I
recommend oh my I mean I just I Love everything he did.
I'm so sad he was gone too soon. But he had to be hilarious in it too, right?
I mean, brilliant. So funny. So he would giggle too. It was funny because the most
fun we all had was Tim was, Tim was just a lunatic. I mean, he is a lunatic.
But on the set, he was just, he's got that kind of brain that just keeps going
and going and riffing and riffing. And He would be
He would still be Joking and messing you after being said action,
you know, it's like You know action and it was just complete and there were so
there were times when Alan would look over at Sigourney and be like it was sort of
roll his eyes like are we ever gonna be able to Take and and make our day But it
was all fun because it was so funny that that's sort of Robin Williams.
I was just gonna say you took the words out of my I was gonna literally interrupt
you and say that's what Robin used to do on sets. Unstoppable. You couldn't stop
him. It translates to the screen as great energy and sort of this sort of fire
hose of comedic you know energy and sensibility. Yeah.
But when you're, you know, you actually have to eventually say the words sort of
say the words on the page. I worked briefly with Harold Ramis when I was a young
secretary and he had just finished directing.
I can't even think which one of camp something I think it was Robin Williams movie.
And I said what was it like working with him and he said, there's no way to
control him. there's just no way to control him. He's too funny, he's too smart,
he's too manic, it's just not possible. But he said, so what we did was we allowed
him to do six takes of every scene, Robin's way,
which meant off book, out of his mind, complete improv, go crazy,
crack up the crew, like the crew, like the cameras would shake, he said, because
the crew couldn't stop laughing. And then the deal was that one take every time had
to be exactly as written. So that was the deal. - And he did it. - And he did it.
- And they probably used a lot of his takes. - Probably. But they're really hard to
cut together because nobody can feed off the line. Nobody knows the entry point for
the dialogue. And he just goes crazy. But anyway, Tim Allen is a little bit like
that too. - Tim was And we we did we all had so much fun We didn't want it to
end and it was a long shoot You know, we were in LA a lot then we had to go to
Utah to shoot the planet at a place called Goblin Valley Yeah, it was it was
really joyful and And it's interesting. I think the movie when it came out did
well. It did yeah But I think it did better later is what happened became kind of
a cult classic later Exactly. And I've heard too about whether it was just,
again, the timing or possibly the way they promoted it, or I'm not sure what it
was, again, for me, it's almost always about the timing. Yeah.
Maybe it was ahead of its, you know, ahead of its day. Maybe. Maybe. Let me go
back to something that we were talking about. So once you sort of dabbled in
theater, you thought it was fun, it was kind of a hobby, you did some plays or
you took some classes or what have you. And then you found this school in Portland,
Maine that had this theater department. That led you to Yale. Now you're on the
road. Now you're like, okay, well, I have an MFA from Yale, which is very--
- Before that, I thought before the idea of Yale entered into it, which was very
leavened hour. I thought I, well, I guess I'll maybe I'll teach I could be a
teacher because I or I could keep going on In school where I was in Maine.
Maybe there's to take graduate courses You know, there was a little theater in
Portland at the time It was a sort of semi -professional some of the people were
equity some not it was a little place called profile theater Which we all as
students we loved because they were like really doing doing the stuff in town. They
let me come into their company my senior year which was a big deal. I started out
like running for props and running lights and then they would give me small parts
in that groove during my senior year and that since has become Portland stage or
you know actual regional theater. So I didn't really know until I got into Yale I
thought, well, now maybe there's a lane that's opened up for me to pursue.
It was a serious, serious career. So from that moment till now,
what was the thought process? Because getting to LA,
making, well, you obviously were in New York for a long time doing Broadway, off
-Broadway, But making a living as an actor, there's a big gap between studying to be
one and then making a living as one. How did you bridge that gap mentally so that
you, in between auditions, in between gigs, in between roles, you stayed the course?
What was your process, either physically, mentally, emotionally, because I think it
applies to so many other careers where people are passionate about a creative
endeavor and it's just so hard to stay afloat before you make it. It is,
it is. That's another excellent question. You know,
the first thing I did when I worked in the theater in Boston, I was really going
to just stay for one year and then I'm going to go to New York and I really
ended up staying for four seasons and the reason was because first of all the
quality of life there was great we weren't making a lot of money but we were being
paid it was a paying gig ten months a year working in the theater doing really
interesting things with a lot of interesting and we were forming a company and I
didn't want to come right to New York because I I got out of school.
I was in debt. I had no money and I wasn't getting money from my parents or
anything and So I needed to save some money. I didn't want to come to New York
and be a waiter or you know be a mess I wanted to work and so I stayed in
Cambridge for four seasons and Even though we weren't making much I saved everything
I could I just able to you know, we had a roommate and you know apartments were
affordable. I didn't have a car I didn't really own anything and I didn't really
want to own anything Saved what I could so that when I did move to New York.
I had a little bit of a cushion Wouldn't have to go if I didn't work right away.
I Wouldn't have to get a wear job or something As it turned out I got very lucky
and got a job fairly soon after I got to New York. A good, good paying job.
So that was a theater job. So what was the first what was the first gig in New
York? It was acting gig. The female odd couple, Neil Simon rewrote the odd couple
were women. Rita Moreno and Sally Struthers and all these great character.
Wow. And me and this other guy, Louis Stadlin, played the counterpart to the Pigeon
sisters, we were these sort of proper Spanish, we were from, you know,
Spain, gentlemen who worked for Iberia Airlines.
We were the dates for the two divorce.
And it was, we did an out of town, started with an out of town tour. And then we
brought it into Broadway and it was a big deal for me 'cause I, you know, it's
like my second audition in New New York was crazy. Wow. Wow. Wow. I had never done
Neil's Time. It was really fun. Yeah. But the point is,
you were asking about what my process was, you know. Your process to stay. My thing
was, I had a restless, and maybe this goes back to the, when I was in Wisconsin
and I felt the need to get out. I was very happy in Cambridge Cambridge doing
theater and having steady gig and not having to audition. I mean audition,
but within the company and
After four years there because a lot of our company stayed on they just it was a
great life up there And they wanted to keep doing and I started to feel a little
sense of slight sense of complacency set And I had this weird feeling that I wanted
to feel on edge again, and I wanted to feel a little scared again.
I want to feel a little hungry again. I opted to go to New York. Though I did
have a little bit of money saved, I didn't have anything lined up, and the same
thing happened again. I was in New York now, working a bit. I was, after that
Broadway show, I started to do little things on soap operas or, you know, off
Broadway or off Broadway or going back out into regional theaters occasionally for
weeks on end. And I was in New York and I was starting to get a little
comfortable and I got another Broadway show and then I, oh I got the Bill Murray
movie, little things were happening and then I started that feeling of comfortability
or he set in again. I was in a really good place in New York,
I felt. I was more comfortable going into casting offices and I felt comfortable in
auditions and, you know, I was getting a tow hold here and did Shakespeare in the
park, blah, blah. And six years of that,
I thought, oh my god, I gotta go to LA and I just felt that restless thing again,
and I went to L .A. and it was really hard. It was like hitting a brick wall,
because weirdly, everything that I had done in New York and in Boston before really
didn't count for much there. I know. I know. They used different scorecards in L .A.
My resume was mostly theater. Yeah. Yeah, they said, oh, they wanted to see what I
had on tape. And that's like tape. What's tape?
I was told for 10 years, I had get a good resume. So I got a good one. He
wanted to look at the resume. Yeah. Yeah. That's too much reading in LA.
Where's the video? I'm like, video? I don't know. Video. Now, of course, that's all
there is anymore. It's just self -tape. Right.
And did you ever have to leave LA after that? I know you went, I know you go
back and forth and I know you've always had a presence on these process. And I'm
talking about, did you ever have to leave LA once you got into that world? Or was
there always steady work after that? How long between that and wings came fortunate
random things? I mean, the first, I would say, I mean, you know, for an actor,
people say, Oh, it was, you know, a few months, but it feels like an eternity
because when you're in the void, you don't know when the void is going to ever end
or if it's ever going to end. The weird thing was when I went to LA,
I had good agents. They were sending me up a lot for good things,
but I wasn't getting anything. I wasn't booking anything, And I wasn't even getting
a callback. I was, in New York, I was doing okay with the auditions.
I was okay with the callbacks. There, it was crickets. - Yeah.
- Until my wings audition. - Yeah. - The first thing where, you know, it was like,
I think because the casting director for NBC at that time. - Was it Mark Hershield?
- No, it was, - Shit, now the Namex escapes me. He was there, he was a fixture for
decades. There's probably still there. He was a theater goer. So he had probably
come to New York and seen me and all that on stage a lot.
And he brought me in for this role in Wings. And it wasn't one off, you know,
it was just a one episode. - I did not know that. - Yeah. - Wow.
- And Wow, and then the show ran forever. Well, I did this episode, they were
already in the beginning, I think, of their second season or middle of their second
season. And I did this episode and that was it. It was like four or five days
work, I never done a sitcom. That was so fun because it was a live audience that
I knew about. Yeah. And then I went up to Seattle to do a play.
The episode aired, I think, on the Valentine's Day episode. And I was doing this
play and my agent said, "Hey, they're calling. They want to know if you want to
come back and be a recurring on the show." Yeah. You said, "Yes." Absolutely.
Absolutely. And that was a wonderful cast of group. Yes. Oh my God.
I know. So much talent. Writers, directors, you know.
And that was so interesting too because that was a time when Brooke and I got
together and you know kids were coming and it was such a it's such a great that
sitcom schedule is so great for a young. The best. The best. And in every three
weeks you have a week off and it's really great. And summers most of the of the
summer off, it's pretty awesome. I wish they would bring sitcoms back, not just for
that reason, but because they were so wonderful. - Yeah, really, really,
that would be great. I would jump at the chance, by the way. - There you go, maybe
you'll bring it, maybe just putting it out there in the universe, you'll bring the
genre back, because I think we need that again. We need that just good,
easy laugh, and not that it's easy to You know, it's easy to laugh at, that'd be
amazing. - But anyway, so that's, you asked about process and I think it has
something to do with, first I think it takes a real,
in my life anyway, a real support system of family, of friends, of coworkers.
There's always those times in any creative person's life, whether you're a musician
or a painter or a or the answer or whatever, always those periods of dissatisfaction
and self -doubt and self -criticism and, you know, the insecurity,
your demons can, especially when you're not working for a while, those demons can,
they can overtake you quickly. - That's what I'm asking about. - Keeping those demons
at bay and full disclosure here, I Got into trouble in the early days,
you know before we met him even before wings My life It was out of balance It was
unhealthy in the sense that I over focused and Over worried I guess about My work,
you know Clawing my way up the career ladder, whatever that man. It made myself
really sick, physically sick. It manifested in a physical ailment.
I actually ended up in the hospital in LA. I had to reboot and step back and
reevaluate, what did I really want and what did I really need? And then thank God,
Brooke came into the picture again, and having that person and then a child and
another child and things outside of myself. If business is like me,
it's about me and what about me and I have to advance me. Once the energy starts
going out, for me anyway, once the energy starts going out, things start to get
more imbalanced. I try to tell people that I try try to
Nurture and foster your friendships and your relationships and your physical health
and yes Whether it's meditation or mental well -being it'll it'll inevitably it'll
help your work Yes, being out in the world. That's the fuel that we use to in our
work If you're always in your work, You're not really experiencing the ups and downs
of real life and you can't you have nothing to bring to the table when yes
That's such a great answer Tony I so love that before we wrap up because I
promised I would have you out in an hour So I want to make sure I do I'm
incapable of short answers. No, I love everything you're saying But I want to just
kind of put a little bow on it if we can which is today with all of the history
that you've had, success you've had, variety you've had, raised a family, two coasts,
theater, film, television, all the things. Do you now have any daily practices you
talked about, making sure you get out of the work and see the world and connect to
other people, connect to family, friends, very important. But because these are such
pillars of what I coach on, which is self -care, not self -indulgence, but self -care,
so that you can show very different things. Do you have a self -care routine?
And when I say that, I don't mean washing your face. I'm not talking about that
kind of self -care. I'm talking about whether it's meditation or it's exercise, or
it's prayer, or whether it's travel. - First of all, it is exercise and diet.
That I've learned over many years. And I talk a good game, but I have talked a
good game over the years, but really, really putting it into practice and being
consistent with it is that's what I've started doing. And it's really,
really helped. But I think I'm fortunate, again, it Again, it goes back to luck.
And I have this woman who is my wife, who is such a, I lean so heavily into
that. People ask, what is the key to a successful marriage or whatever? You have to
be able to talk each other off the ledges. That's really all that boils down, you
know what I mean? - Yes, I do. - Because the night when you wake up in a cold
sweat and you're like, what about, what about? You need that person. It's just like
Okay Yeah, you you've survived such and such and such and such Yeah,
that's a part of it and in terms of like a meditation for me what I do I don't
do formal meditation although I've tried a lot of that for me. I learn poems
Poems interesting or or long, like monologues from places. - Shakespeare, yeah. - It
can be Shakespeare, it can be modern place. And I find that when I go into those,
those are my meditation because I need, it blocks out everything. And it doesn't
matter how many times you revisit the same one, always something to draw from it,
or enjoy about it, and those are the things that I use to reset myself.
I think life today in our incredibly complex and technology -driven world,
really, really getting back to,
you know, your inner voice and your, call it whatever you want. I mean, it's, it's
re -centering yourself. And I'm not on social media. I've made a, it just, not
because I, I don't really have anything against it, object. It just, for me,
not my thing. And, and I have a, you wouldn't know it from this interview, but I
value my privacy. I'm kind of strict about that.
- And I know that and I so appreciate you doing this interview today, 'cause I know
how private you are and I love that about you. I love how much you adore your
family. You have talked about them to me for 20 -something years and I love that
and I respect that privacy and I still am so grateful that you spent the time with
me today to talk about your, your life, your process, your career. I think that
your fans will just adore this. But I also think my listeners who are here for,
you know, kind of guidance on how to stop their overthinking brains and those
obsessive negative thought loops that we all get into, whether we're actors or
writers or executives or lawyers, doctors. Yeah. I for me in terms of,
you know, people always ask me, oh, so what advice do you have for, you know? My
advice is I'm not a dispenser of advice necessarily 'cause I find when I have done
it, then I find, you know, that's not really what I wanted to say or it changes
over time, right? - Yeah, it does change. - But I thought 10 years ago or 15 or 20
years ago is not what I, not the advice I advice I would give today. Only two
kind of, I have two mantra, it's mantras of girl. - Yeah, mantra.
- And, you know, the first one is,
and this maybe this helps your viewers, your listeners, I hope it does. But what
I've really come to, it's not about you. I mean, it's not about me.
It's not, If someone is struggling with me, really what I come to is we all think
it is and it's just not
Even my work it's not about me my problems or my Issues my things that are
unresolved in my life Those two They're not really about me They're about a larger
And my other mantra is and it's something I heard in a meditation thing one time
upset this group thing and and I'm sure you've heard this but but for me It's
really the thing that has Gotten me over a lot of what seemed like insurmountable
Humps bumps and that was Something like, it goes something like,
the pain pushes you until the vision pulls you. Have you heard that?
- No, I've never heard that, but I love it. - It really stuck with me and it makes
so much sense. I try to go back to that. It's like you can exercise in when
you're circling the drain. - Yes, Yes. Ultimately, it's actually a blessing in
disguise in a way. I believe illness is a blessing in disguise. That's a whole
nother discussion if we ever do this again.
But whether it's psychic pain or anything physical pain, whatever it is, it's presses
against you. It's that obstacle that pushes against you to move you to a point of
revelation or vision, which if you don't succumb to the negativity of the pain of
that, will eventually reveal itself. I love that. It's such an optimistic way to
look at pain, as opposed to becoming a victim of your own suffering,
and to say, this is going to teach me something. I'm going to get something
valuable out of this. I don't know what, I don't know when, but something will come
of it if I... But it forces you in a way, or it encourages you,
I should say, to stay watchful. And for what is this,
what is that thing that's going to be the vision The moment that where the penny
drops, you know, yeah But if you're if your eyes are down and you're looking sort
of inward so much, you're not gonna see it It's gonna that moment is gonna fly by
you. It's gonna well You're gonna miss the kiosk that tells you about the exchange
program
Because it's all so random it is random, but you do still have to read the signs,
right? Tony, this was such a tremendous pleasure. I have loved seeing you.
I have loved spending this hour with you. I love your wisdom. I love that you've
shared your stories. It's amazing to catch up. Anyway, this has been a pleasure.
I will say goodbye and I will say thank our listeners for listening and I hope to
see you soon. Yes, I'm coming to Maui. - I don't know when, but I'm coming. - I
love it. All right, talk to you soon.