Damages Season 2 - BBC One, Sunday 22.20

I’ll start a post here when episode one of series two begins, and you’d be more than welcome to add your comments as you watch it.

BTW, Damages is followed tonight by the movie Runaway Jury which is also a cracker if you like courtroom and legal drama.

And if you love it, check out the DVD of the series in the sidebar - currently selling at Amazon for an amazingly cheap £11.98 .

Find out more:

TV Squad: William Hurt Joins Damages

Damages DVD Season One Box Set

Ted Danson – Damages UK press tour

So how’s London treating you?

Good! I’m happy to be here. We had cocktails last night, went out to dinner, had a great time actually.
Do you enjoy this part of the day?

In the morning, yeah. When I get to the end of the day I feel like I’m gonna puke. It’s like taking a bad drug – at the start it seems like such a good idea but at the end you’re feeling awful. But it’s the morning, so you’re lucky.
Are you familiar with London?

I worked here when I did Gulliver’s Travels so I haven’t been here in a while. My wife has worked and lived over here for many years and also has a store so she comes to London and Paris on buying trips.

Congratulations on Arthur Frobisher. I love the character.

Me too. It’s the real me. I’ve gotten angry and bitter in my old age (laughs).

You went to an acting coach to help prepare you for the role, is that right?

Yes, yes, an acting coach. The day before we start the guys comes up to me and say ‘we have this friend, he’s an acting coach’ and I was like, oh dear god they hate my work! I’m in trouble. So I said I’d love to and I told the guy when I showed up but I had the best two hours and it really kind of changed, er… I’ve been doing comedy for a long time and comedy has like a rhythm to it, like there’s a metronome in the background. There’s this dance step that you have to do. And he was very freeing to me. Here I am playing this multi-billionaire, narcissistic or at least indulgent man, and he was saying thing to me like ‘don’t learn your lines, learn the other’s persons’ or ‘there are three sentences here, maybe you’ll say one, you won’t say the other two because you don’t feel like it’. An attitude like that, this wonderful indulgent acting lets you be anywhere you want to be in a scene and that’s kind of what a billionaire is like – I can buy you, I don’t have to play by your rules. So it was very liberating to talk about an acting style that was very freeing and was also appropriate. They also had me talk to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in New York and that was great because it allowed me to realise I could be them, I don’t have to pretend. They came in all shapes and sizes, some like me and some not, and I believed them to be CEOs of Fortune 500 companies because they said they were, not because they looked like a certain, you know. They also told me about a study that was done that showed a similarity between CEOs of large companies and sociopaths in prison. Obviously the CEOs had balancing factors whereas the sociopaths probably didn’t but the similarity was that it was very hard for them to read the emotional impact they have on people. One of the CEOs knew this about himself and hired somebody to be with him at all times to tell him when he missed things because he just didn’t know.

As an actor you read people all the time…

Yeah, I understand being narcissistic, we all do. We all understand fear and greed so it was very easy, and the writing was so good. They created scenes where you saw his humanity and his love for his family and his fear and his this and his that. By the time you get into the later episodes, you actually get the response that they love the character. They’re horrified but at the same time they understand him. When you see someone’s pain or narcissism you’re more likely to go along with them than to tick them off as a category.
Were you offended by being sent to a coach in the first place?

You’re giving me credit for thinking I’m any good! No, I, as an actor fall into all the bad acting traps there are and I tend to try and see those traps in advance and remove them. The other thing this acting coach said, which was great, was that on film, all that truly matters is that you are really there in that split-second moment, being real to that moment and reacting to whatever it is. From you’re point of, all that matters is that you are there and being creative in moment – not showing your understanding of the story or your understanding of the character, just literally being present and enjoying yourself in the moment. It was very invigorating. And then when you have great writing and great camera work too, that’s when it all comes together. And with Frobisher, I decided he knew what he was like a little. If you’re as bad as he is and you don’t see it, its no fun. He knows he’s a schmuck and he has fun with it.
Did you know it was something special when you were filming it?

I didn’t know – a lot of times you can have great writing, wonderful actors that you’re playing with, but the camera’s wrong. I mean, literally, you can see it, the camera is not where it should be so you’re almost, if you were on stage you’d be doing it to the wings. But when you see this you really know what they’re doing there, it’s very stylised and it works.
You said you don’t know if you’re going to be in the second season or not. Do you think this sort of thing works better with continuing characters or should it take the ‘villain of the season’ route?

I don’t know. Even if I did come back I think I would be a story that had ended and they would have to have stories that began. And I think the real fun would be to watch Glenn Close do battle with someone new – fresh meat every year, or even a couple of people. They may not just do one story every year, I don’t know.

You’re best known for comedy but this is by no means your first dramatic role.

No.

Does it annoy you to think you might be typecast?

I’m very proud of Cheers. It’s my problem, not yours, that I’m beheld in a certain way and I should get on and do more Damages and things like that, you know? I think everyone is typecast until you see him or her do something different. I typecast people in my mind; even actors I know can do more. We all do that and you’re typecast because you’re in something that was really good. It was beautifully written and directed and just good as a piece. I think Damages is this good and people are looking at me differently but it’s because this works, not because I’m doing something I haven’t before.

But I’m here because of Cheers and I love it, and I loved Becker, I pretty much love whatever I did last.
Do you keep in touch with any of the Cheers cast?

Everyone except Woody, he became way too famous. No, I see Woody, I see them all. Everyone’s gone off in different directions but we keep in touch.

I read you once asked a woman if she was pregnant but she was just fat – what sort of person are you?

Actually I asked her husband but it’s not much better really. You know my wife is Mary Steenburgen? Well she spends her whole time cleaning up after me.

How long did Damages take you away from LA?

It was hard; we were just talking about this. Mary and I both went off and made films in Louisiana. It was a tough time – I was commuting from Louisiana to New York. Then we had a month where we had a break and then Mary got a film in LA so it was like two months of commuting from one side to the other. But there’s something, and this isn’t true of everything, but some things are intrinsically New York, because of the power and the money. When you shoot it in New York, instead of doing it LA and lying, it’s so much better. This is so good partly because it’s in New York and it’s drawing from a New York crowd of actors. In New York there’s this element of always looking to be the student and to be more creative, whereas in LA you’re there because you’ve arrived and what you should do is relax and you’d better do what you did last because career is more important. But in New York you’ll do a show, a small part in a soap and you’re all over the place just being creative, so you have really great actors in very small parts because they’re having fun.
What do you think of LA?

Well, it’s a bit unfair of me to have said that in a way because everyone on LA is a New York actor. They’re going to and from or they’ve moved from New York. But it’s definitely just a big factory. They don’t have theatre which gives you much more of a sense of performing instead of being a celebrity. You’re much more part of the publicity factory so you need to find a niche and you’re happy to be in a niche but people in New York are excited to be in a role.

Did it affect you?

Yeah, I think so. You get used to making decisions for the wrong reasons.

What do you mean?

I think I got used to making a lot of money on Cheers. The decisions start to be wrong. It’s not do I want to go and do that, it’s can I afford to go and do that, which is probably a bad decision. It should be ‘can I afford not to go and do that?’
And now? You turned 60 recently?

Yeah, December. Things change – I like my home and my wife and my kids so I think whether I want to be in a motel or putzing around in my garden with my wife? I’m at the point where I don’t particularly want to leave my home to act but when I’m on set I love it.

Do you think about giving up?

No. I love acting, I really love it. I don’t know that I want to go off and make a TV series for 22 episodes and nine months because my wife would go and make a movie and we’d never see one another. If I had a magic wand I think maybe we’d go off and make one movie in a year and then maybe we’d do some theatre together, that would be ideal.

I read you’re a founding member of the American Oceans Campaign.

Yeah, that’s right, thanks for mentioning it. I’m probably no more or less ecological than anyone but 20 years ago I started the campaign. We’re now the largest single international ocean activist and it’s doing great, it’s very effective. We’re stopping the destruction of habitats through bottom trawling. We’re not interested in just raising awareness; we’re interested in changing policy. We’re working with fishermen to change the way things are done and it is getting the job done. I’m so proud to be part of it. But I wish I’d chosen global warming, maybe I could have got a Nobel Prize out of it…
Damages is out on DVD on Monday

Glenn Close – Damages UK press tour

So we’re here to talk about Damages.

Yes. Exciting.

It’s a brilliant series.

Thank you – so where are you up to? I don’t want to give too much away.

I’ve seen the first three episodes – I’m really annoyed I’ve not seen any more.

Oh, I’m glad you’re enjoying it!
So, Damages came about, I believe, from your stint on The Shield. I read that you enjoyed that so much that you asked for something similar for you to take on. How does it differ from film work?

Well, I’ve done TV my whole career so it wasn’t the first time. Doing The Shield was actually the first time I did a whole season. I love FX, I loved the writers and the crew so it was just a great experience. And I love the pace of television, it’s very challenging, and you have great writing and you don’t have to wait around for days just to do a scene. It’s just a great experience. So I said to them after The Shield ‘if you ever want to do anything in New York’ – because I knew I couldn’t ship out to California. A year or so went by and then I got a call and they pitched me this idea. I thought it sounded great – and they handed me that incredible pilot, which is better than most of the movie scripts you get sent.

Its sharp and witty and it gets you– did you pick up on that straight away?

Oh yeah. It’s so important, even in drama, if it doesn’t have a sense a wit it gets lost.
It’s a big step to commit to another season so soon – a lot of seasons.

Yeah, it is. But then I think, you know, Angela Lansbury did it – not that I want to do it for that long. I just said I have to be in New York because that’s where my life is. And the only reason I even thought about it because it’s thirteen episodes a season, which is only about four and a half months, so you have enough time to either do nothing or do a film or even tour and do a play of some sort. I hope that if it keeps going we’ll get into a sort of a rhythm. And it’s fun to turn up and know that I just have to go to Brooklyn to work and have this great team.
Were you nervous going into a part like this?

It’s not nervous exactly. You always have to search to find the character and for the pilot I felt that, for me, the scene at the core for her was the scene at her son’s school where she’s talking to Ellen and telling her to never have children and all that. That was the key scene and I took it to a coach I’ve known for many years and it helps. I play these amazing women who are nothing like me and I can become intimidated when I’m confronted with these characters. If I was sitting across from them I’d be like what do I say now? So I find it helps to take them to someone and break through the barrier of that. Then you get the little bits of things. For that particular scene and what was key and just so Patty Hewes was that she left Ellen not knowing if what she said was true or if it was just bullshit.
What’s your opinion of Patty?

It’s very different for me to be in a series where I don’t know what the end is. And the writers, for reasons that I fully understand, keep their options open because they potentially have six seasons to write. So I don’t even know about her mother, her father so when you ask me how do I like her, it usually goes back to knowing where someone has come from that helps me answer. But knowing about Patty has made it sometimes difficult to play her because she’s tough.

And it must be easy to fall into the trap of playing her as a bitch.

Yeah, which is not interesting. There’s a lot to her – you meet her husband, her son. I think it’s wonderful that her marriage is really authentic and interesting. There are lots of elements to her life that give her more. But the bitch element is interesting too because she’s just acting like a man, she’s not necessarily a bitch.

In a lot of interviews you’ve had to make the point that you’re a nice person. Because of some of the roles you’re known for do you have to defend yourself?

I think for some reason I’ve played these women in my career. Alex Forest in Fatal Attraction and the Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons. They’re huge characters, great characters, beautifully written, and I think people like that kind of dangerous woman and people like to see me in those roles. But I have to be careful that that’s not all I do. I recognise that and going into Patty Hewes was very interesting because the writers, when they first talked to me about the role, were using a very powerful male lawyer as their template. I said to them you can’t do that because as soon as you make it into a woman everything changes. It was interesting to me because I wanted to play a woman who had succeeded in a man’s profession and had gotten to the top of her game and was totally in control. And that’s rare because even in New York where I’ve met some amazing women, they’re not at the top. It’s interesting to see what power has done to this woman and how she deals with it. The story is about what power does to people.

Do you think you’re powerful yourself? Because of your success?

I guess. I don’t look at it that way. I think that if you do good work consistently that will open doors and you become credible and your professionalism is respected. As far as wielding power? Yes, I do have power. For example, in the whole Damages team I’m very aware that every single member of the team needs to feel important and that they’re doing good work. That’s why as the leader of the Damages team, as the lead actor, I go out of my way to make sure that people, even if they come on for one scene or the guy who brings you the food every day, that they always feel important.
Are people afraid of you?

Yeah, I think so, for a little bit. We set a very high bar; we have very good actors on Damages. People come into the show because they want to work with who’s there and they’re challenged by that.

How was it working with Ted, did you enjoy that?

Oh yeah. I personally didn’t have that many scenes with Ted but they were wonderful. What I loved was watching what he did throughout the season. What he did, I thought, was spectacular work. Funny and horrible. He created, with the wonderful writing, this awful narcissist. But not just the bad guy, just complicated. You watch him and you find yourself laughing because he’s so awful. But he’s no fool. He’s just so self-involved but he’s no fool.
When you’re filming something so serious is there opportunity to have a laugh on set?

All the time!

You don’t stay in character?

Oh good god no! I take my dogs to work, you know. Sometimes, you’ll never know, but one of my dogs will be lying under my desk in a scene. The guys, the writers, they work so hard that they have to be very serious but they’re all incredibly funny. In fact they helped me do this tribute to Robin Williams. I couldn’t go but they helped me. I dressed up as Jenny Fields who’s his mother in The World According To Garp. They helped me say something very rude and very funny that I haven’t said in a while and won’t repeat! And Tate Donovan, and Rose, they’re both very funny too. Rose has had several giggling fits.

You’ve said that Patty is smarter than you. Do you really think that?

Well, if you’re a lawyer and you’re that good a lawyer then you have to have the capacity to assimilate thousands of documents, you have to have a certain kind of brain. Not smarter, just different. One of the most impressive women I met before I started was top of her field, a litigator, she reads up to ten thousand documents in any case and then when she delivers her statement to the jury it’s all extemporaneous, there are no notes. And then with the summation, she said she’ll have certain key words or certain key phrases but she thinks it’s important to maintain eye contact with the jury so she doesn’t read anything. And I think that’s a mind! I have the mind of an artist, they… It’s a different kind of intelligence. And I wanted Patty to have that kind of a mind, that ability to go through all that information and find that little tiny thing.
People always talk about women reaching a certain age in this business and then finding it difficult to get major roles.  Do you still look for Hollywood roles?

Well we have a great idea for a third Cruella movie but I don’t know if we’re going to do it. That’s a part I could do forever. I love playing characters that are so far out there but you have to be careful that people don’t forget that you can do other stuff. Anyone who’s been in this industry as long as I have has to really want to do something if it comes up. I mean, you’ve sacrificed so much of yourself to your career, being away from the people you love, it has to be worth the time away. I don’t want it the same way you do when you’re young and you’re hungry.
Comes back to power a little bit.

Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if they would have done Damages in New York if I hadn’t been a part of it.
So is Hollywood ageist?

Oh, you know the answer to that! More women than men for sure, but the world is ageist, especially for women.
But it hasn’t stopped you.

Oh how lovely!

What’s the difference for you then?

Well, having people come to me and say do Damages. I don’t know, there’ll be fewer and fewer as time goes on!

Something like Damages is always lapped up when it comes to DVD – is it something you think of when you’re making it? Do you get involved in the extras or anything?

I’ve done commentaries, yeah.
Do you see value in DVD s and extras?

Absolutely, yes. Our kind of show is heavily TIVO’d and it’s kind of put Hollywood in a bit of a panic because it’s taken away a source of money. But the extras add things for fans, you know.

You live in New York; do you still have to deal with protecting your privacy?

I think that people recognise me but they don’t necessarily intrude into my life, no. Only tourists really come up to me. It’s nice. And that’s why DVD is nice for someone like me as well – if you haven’t done a big blockbuster then you’re still alive in front of people.

Do you ever feel shy? Even though you do the job you do?

Yes, absolutely. All the time. What I’ve learned, I was very shy as a little girl, and a lot of the actors I know whose work I respect are very shy people, they’re not always presenting themselves. I find it very hard to go into a room and make conversation with people who know me when I don’t know them but I’ve learned.

Would you encourage your daughter to go into acting?

It’s funny, she’s grown up on various sets and I think she kind of has this idea that it’s a fallback position! Would I encourage her? Absolutely.

A lot of actors say that they wouldn’t.

Yeah, which I can’t understand. Why would you something for your whole life but not want your children to do it.

But it’s how you treat it. You’ve not lived your life in front of the camera.

Yeah, it’s important. I mean I’d much rather be in a pair of blue jeans and an old flannel shirt. It’s a big effort to get dressed up all the time and it’s better to keep things separate.

What do you think about the writers ‘strike?

Well I would be nothing without writers so hopefully there’ll be a fair solution.

Is it affecting forthcoming seasons of Damages?

Well we’re supposed to be starting soon – which unless it’s settled, won’t happen.
What do you think about Clinton? As in Hilary? Are you excited at the prospect of a female president?

Oh god, I think America needs to catch up with the rest of the world and I think Hilary is the best. She’s the most experienced and I think it would be good to have a woman. There’s a lot of repair that has to be done. Ted’s wife Mary Steenburgen has been a friend with the Clintons for 30 years and hearing her talk about them just makes you think she’d be the best. We need a big change, so much damage has been done, and she’s been loyal to issues her whole life, things like education and children, things that are so vital. I hope it happens.

Damages is released on DVD on Monday.