Brian d’Arcy James
Spontaneity and Discipline
The Spaces In-between
Brian James
was born into a family with a golden touch and the tenacity of good genes.
James is one of the good guys who still believe in the ethics of hard work. He
developed his craft and was mindful of how one’s strength can become an
Achilles heel. He is able to sit still and relish a quiet moment despite his
urge to climb the next mountain, especially if it is incredibly steep. There is
this hunger that pushes him forward to the next gig, the next big chance. James
tends to grab the hardest to that which is there then not there and shrugs it
off as the life of a working actor. He attended Northwestern University, the
alma mater of Charleton Heston. James even sang a song for him during his
induction at the 1997 Kennedy Center Honors Awards Show presided by President
Clinton. The song, More I Cannot Wish
You was Heston’s wedding song, and as the camera scanned the audience it rested
briefly on his face, tears streaming down his cheeks. A magic moment filled
with love and humanity for this aging star. James now resides in New York,
close to the action though he still pilgrimages home to mecca…to Saginaw, a
violent, misunderstood receptacle for all the misdeeds of its forefathers. It
seems fitting that a wild and woolly outpost for humanity like Saginaw could
nurture the talents of great musicians, actors, singers and poets such as Brian
D’Arcy James. I can hear his eyes rolling now…
When did you first realize you enjoyed music and
dance and acting?
My
grandmother was always interested in music and dance. She was a tap dancer
growing up. She would always encourage me to
look at things she saw things on television, if they were watching
Singin’ In the Rain or Lawrence Welk. She’d always say, “Hey, look at that guy
dancing” or “Look at them singing.” I think she noticed something in me because
I was a bit of a ham growing up, so I think that was the first seeds of it. My
uncle Brian Kelly went on to be an actor in Hollywood. He was in the television
show “Flipper.”
I heard
about that.
Yeah, he
played the dad. So I had an uncle who was a legitimate television star and that
was another familial connection to acting and the arts in general. So I guess
then the most immediate influence was my older sister who started getting
involved in theater in high school. I was a couple of years behind her but I would
watch her do her thing…she became so passionate about it. She just fell in love
with being in shows at school. I did, too. My parents were always exposing us
to the theater. They’d take us down to the Fisher Theater in Detroit and we
would see traveling shows, national tours of Broadway shows. My first memory is
seeing “Annie” down at the Fisher Theater. It probably opened a couple of years
before. I knew that score very well because we listened to it in the car all
the time because my parents would always play one of their eight-track
cassettes, so I was always surrounded by it through my family, whether they
were stories of my grandmother or watching television with my uncle, or I was
watching my sister doing theater. It was there to be explored, if one had an inkling
to explore it, and I certainly did. I studied acting at Northwestern University
and hat’s when I really fell in love with the idea of being an artist, being an
actor, and pursuing it as a career.
I have read about you performing at Pit and Balcony
when you were still a teenager. First of all, how did you pass the audition,
second how did the audience receive you, and what did you do? Did you dance in
the show, too?
It was a
local production of Annie with Jim Gaertner as the director, and he cast me in
it. I was young, 16. Yeah, I had to sing and dance, and you know to be totally
honest, I didn’t think too much about it. I knew that I wanted to give it a
shot, and I knew that I felt comfortable doing it. I didn’t really think about
getting it, and so when I did get it, it was like, “oh, okay… careful what you
wish for - now you gotta do this thing.” It really was a tremendous experience
because, you know, not only was I doing a show, but I was doing a show with
people from the community, as opposed to students from my school. So I met a
lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds, you know,
professional people who loved the theater who are also doing community theater.
All of a sudden I was afforded this chance to kind of have a whole new
community of people to kind of be with who were sharing the same goal. As for how
people reacted, I have no idea. The show didn’t close on my account, so I think
I must have been doing something right.
You did, this was pretty early on too. Joseph and
the Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Midland Theater.
I was a
junior in high school. This is another great, defining experience. I owe this
to my father. I remember seeing an article that had been lying on my bed one
night when I got home, and it was a Saginaw News article about this production
of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat that was going to be in Midland, and it
was going to be directed by this guy named Dean Badolato who was a Broadway
dancer and had a connection to the Midland Center for the Arts. My father tore
it out and put it on my bed and said, “You should check this out. You should
audition for it.” That’s the kind of great parents I had. They were aware of my
interests, and they had their eyes open for me, as well as encouraging me, so
I’m very grateful for that. The second thing that was also remarkable and
potent for the experience was the director, after having done the show, he did
a follow-up article in the Saginaw News. I remember reading this quote which
really had a severe impact on me. The question was posed, “What do you think
about this guy who’s playing Joseph? Does he show any promise? Does he have any
talent?” He said, “Yeah, this kid, Brian James, does show talent. If he wanted
to, he could have a career in this business.” It was the first time that
anybody who was a dyed-in-the wool professional made a comment like that on
record. It was a very strong moment for me to have this guy’s stamp of approval. It gave me confidence to consider continuing
to move down the road, so that was another great experience.
You mentioned Brian Kelly from Flipper. Did he ever
show you the ropes or teach you a little about Hollywood and movies?
We were always
in contact. I would see my uncle practically every summer. We had a cottage up
in Gaylord and the family would always get together there, and my uncles and
aunts would come together and we would spend the summer there. As for showing
me the ropes, it wasn’t necessarily first-hand knowledge, but I do remember
getting some very sage advice from him about, you know, pursuing this business.
His wisdom was, “Don’t do it” (Laughter). He communicated that to me clearly
pretty early on. Now mind you, he was working with a fish at the time, so I
think that had something to do with it. What’s the old quote? “Never work with
children or animals.” And I think he was doing both at the same time. Anyway
after that, his experience was as a producer, he produced “Blade Runner,” and
“Cities of the Wild.” I always wanted to hear the stories of how things were
going and what was happening. Even after I started my professional career I’d
end up in Los Angeles and I’d always see him there. It was always great to see
him on his own turf, you know, in his own backyard where he lived. It was his
world there and the life that he was living in California. It takes the
mystique away, and that’s another great thing about having somebody who’s in
the business is that it’s not a mystery. You can see that it’s just plain
old-fashioned hard work and just getting up every day and doing your job.
That’s important to realize, to see…nobody’s going to hand it to you. You’ve
got to work.
I read
about an experience you had at Northwestern University. You starred in a
production of Hair
Yes I did a
production of “Hair” at Northwestern and this was my sophomore year at college.
The director of that show, Dominic Missimi, was a wonderful director and a
great man and on the faculty of the Theater School of Northwestern. He was
asked to take the production that we were in in college and remount it as a
special production for the 20th anniversary of the production of
“Hair.” Essentially that show that I did in college, the commercial producer
who owned the rights to “Hair,” a guy by the name of Michael Butler, who lived
in Oak Brook and still does, Oak Brook, Illinois, he heard about this
Northwestern production. He saw it, and he loved it. He said, “This is what I
want to do for the 20th anniversary production in
Chicago, so
those were the blueprints for the professional production. Now that didn’t
necessarily mean that I was a shoe-in to do it. I had to audition just like
everybody else. Thankfully it was a big break for me and I was cast in the
professional production of that show my junior year of college. That was a
great connection of my education at Northwestern giving me the opportunity to
pursue something professionally.
Does it annoy you when you’re not working?
Yeah, I get
annoyed. It depends on how long the stretch is. It’s a nice thing to be able to
kind of cleanse the pallet and not do something for a while. You know, I will
say that I’m a little more selective in what I do now. I have a little bit of
a, at least I feel that I’ve earned the right. Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong
about that, but I’m taking a little bit more of a judicious approach to the
things that I do. Sure, there are stretches of time when I’m not doing
something consistently. It does become a little bit annoying, but what you
should try to do in those moments is a) enjoy it because, you know, hopefully
it’s not going to last too long, and I’ll be pining for the next time I have a
few minutes. Then b) I try to be productive in that time as well to do other
things. Like, you know I’m working on a couple of screen plays, and I’m
pursuing the rights to produce a piece as a Broadway musical, so I’m trying to
stretch to different areas that don’t necessarily rely on my acting skills
exclusively. That’s kind of how I try to bide my time when I’m not working.
It must have been difficult to do Shrek
It was challenging
for sure because, in a physical way, in a way that I’ve never been challenged
before because of the makeup and the costume. I had to be ready for it, so I
like a challenge like that. I enjoy that aspect of it. That’s right, after a
year you think, “Okay, let me be practical about this.” I would have loved
doing it as long as the run lasted but it really did take it out of me, and I
just thought if I had another opportunity to do a really fantastic play the
timing was just right enough for me to say, “this might be my time to bow out.”
Did your athleticism help you with the Shrek dance
and all that other stuff?
Yeah, you do
have to be ready to do anything, and you do have to stay in shape. Your body is
your instrument, so you kind of have to think that way. There are times when
I’m more aware of that than at other times, just in terms of my ability to stay
in shape, you know, like everybody else and just try to do the right thing. Of
course, I’m getting older, so like, “All right. It’s not a bad idea to try to
stay in shape.” You know most actors are pretty aware of the fact that they
have to be in tune with themselves.
You had
a lot of Broadway experience; “Blood Brothers,” “Sweet Smell of Success,”
“Giant,” “Titanic.” Each of them were big, big ticket items. Was there a
particular show that you liked more than the others?
Every show is
different, has a different character. I have a sense of it in my memory in
terms of how I felt about each one. You mentioned “Blood Brothers.” That was a
big one because it was my first Broadway show. I remember the first night. The
show was already up and running, so I was coming into the show as a replacement
in the cast of one of the guys who left to go do another show… which is very
common. So I was inserted into this machine of a Broadway show. I remember
getting ready to make my first entrance for the opening number and wondering to
myself, “What is this going to be like?” I was nervous and my adrenalin was
pumping. I was ready to do it. I was excited to do it, but the thing that
immediately struck me when I stepped out and started doing what I had to do for
the first number, is that it was no different than any other kind of theatrical
experience that I had before in terms of all the training that I had had, all
of the experiences I had had stepping on a stage from Pit and Balcony to
Midland to Northwestern to Chicago to regional theater, it’s all the same
equation. Now obviously it’s different because it’s Broadway, and there’s a
different expectation and there are probably different ticket prices, but the
job was exactly the same. I found great comfort in knowing that, “Wow, I’ve
been doing this for 15 years already.” It was a great sense of comfort. It made
me feel like, “Wow, I’m where I should be. This is where I belong.” In your
mind, you think, “Wow, Broadway, there’s something different about it.” Don’t
get me wrong. There is something about in that it represents a kind of pinnacle
of what you can expect from a theatrical experience. But on the other hand, it
requires the same thing, putting on a costume, stepping out on the stage, and
knowing your lines and knowing where to stand.
Speaking about what you’ve learned through the
years, and I know you’ve learned a lot for sure, are there maybe some
principles that you hold dear, that you really learned from, such as “Less Is
More?”
Um-hm. Yeah,
that’s true. You know, it’s a constant lesson that I’m learning. It’s one thing
to hear it and think that you understand it, and then occasionally you’ll have
moments when you can employ it and feel like, “Oh, I understand now what that
means and the doing of it,” but that’s the experience of things. If you get
those experiences, when you can actually experiment with ideas like that,
that’s what I think makes you a better actor. I think “Less is More” is a great
thing, especially when you, like me, are making the transition from stage work,
which was predominantly my career and then moving into television and film
work. You have to learn how to kind of really pull back and use yourself in a
different way. Overall I think on a larger scale, what I’m constantly learning
is you have to be true to who you are in each particular day that you’re living
because this week you’re different than last week, and this month is different
from last month, and this year is different from last year. I guess what I mean
by that is your ideas change, your life changes, your perspective changes, and
maybe even your interests change,
how you spend
your time and how you feel about how you spend your time changes. I think it’s
important to check in on that and be honest with what you’re getting out of
what you do. I’m speaking obviously about what I do for a living, but I think
it’s probably true for everybody. You know, you can do something for a long
time and then you can wake up and say, “Why am I doing this?” I think those
moments are good because it’s kind of like a tune-up for a car. You have to
kind of get everything back in line and say, “Okay, what am I connecting to
now? What makes me passionate? What do I care about? What do I want to say as
an artist?” I’m in a place like that right now. I’m trying to be honest with
who I am and what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, and I’m trying to keep myself
in line with how I’m going to best communicate those things as an artist.
You’ve worked with a lot of actors. You must feel
the same way sometimes when the director’s a bully or a creep in some way, or
the production is bad, and then you can join together and talk about it. Does
it ever so happen that in times of trouble on the set, on the stage, you help
each other out
Yeah, I think
it’s more in just conversing with other actors and you know, you’ve mentioned
some really tremendous people. I’ve had the real luxury of working with really
quite great actors who I look up to who have had these incredible careers and a
wealth of experience. What I’m always struck by is that actors are actors. No
matter how successful they are, if they’re going to go out and do a job, they
have to act. It’s not like they do anything differently.
They just
have been doing it for a longer period of time and might be more celebrated. It
doesn’t take away from the fact that you have to collaborate with people.
Inevitably even the greats, you know, have bad experiences where they just
can’t believe how poorly they are being treated or how uninteresting a
production can be. What I do say is that I do take comfort in knowing that
everybody just wants to do a good job. When things get thwarted in that
pursuit, I think it’s just as shocking and as jarring and as disappointing to
anybody who cares about what they do. So yeah, I take great comfort in knowing
that the greats that I’ve known have expressed, everybody’s got their
hard-knocks stories.
How do
you handle that hurry up and wait kind of problem
Well, that’s
definitely part and parcel of television and film. It doesn’t happen too much
in the theater. The theater is kind of a constant flow. It’s a low, intense
burn that just continues which is really a wonderful thing. You start working
on something and you have a continuum that pushes you forward. Television and
film are much different in that you have little spurts of activity and then, as
you say, a lot of down-time where you just hurry up to wait. A great lesson
that I learned just doing “Smash” and watching Debra Messing work is that there
is a lot of pressure, especially when you’re starting something off,
particularly with a pilot, because everybody wants to get it right, everybody
wants to control the amount of money that’s being spent, which means they have
to control the amount of time that they’re spending on a particular shoot, and
so there’s a lot of people working furiously and feverishly to kind of, what’s
called the set-up of the shot. It takes a lot of people. It’s an incredible
amount of work from the crew to set up every single shot, angles, lights,
wires, set pieces, set decorations, costumes, all those things. In between each
take, you’ve got a lot of people working really, really hard. My point is that
once it becomes time for the actor to do his job, it’s easy to carry all of
that chaos, all of that frenetic energy and have it infest you at the time when
everything stops. Everything stops and it’s your job to pretend like nothing
has been happening yet you’re in this vacuum where you continue your scene or
you continue to do your job as an actor. What I saw Debra doing, which I loved
witnessing, was just her ability to separate herself and create this moat
between all of that noise and hubbub and give herself a few minutes to breath a
bit, and then create this whole new space, this vacuum in which she could do
her job easily and not carry all of that stuff with 150 people mulling around.
I don’t know if that makes sense to you. I’m trying to describe what it is. That
was a great lesson, especially in the high-speed world of network television.
There was this seasoned professional just taking control of her job and doing
it in a really graceful way. It’s separating from the din and letting yourself
be productive within a space that is peaceful.
You’ve done all kinds of things from drama, TV, film, and theater. What’s your
preference, you prefer what medium to the other?
Well, I think
my favorite will always be the thing that I spent the most time doing, which is
the theater. It’s what I studied; it’s what got me interested in acting. It’s
what I know best. It’s what I know best in terms of how to employ my skills.
However I’ve been doing it for quite a while, and it’s been great these last
couple of years to start the ball rolling down to television and film because
it’s a different way of working. I think it’s great to be in a business where
you can all of a sudden, after 20 years of doing something, to get a chance to
kind of find a different flavor at the ice cream store and try that for a while.
You’re doing the same thing. You’re just using different muscles. I’m really
interested in exploring what it takes to be a good film actor, to be a good
television actor. It’s a combination. Then again the third part is that I would
love to be able to see something come to fruition that I’ve created, not
relying on the words that someone’s written for me, but kind of creating the
thing that I want to say. I’ve done a few things like that that no one has ever
seen. It’s always a great, an enormous pleasure and pride in kind of creating
my own things.
I understand we are both fans of Todd Rundgren.
Yeah, he’s
pretty great. He wrote a Broadway show that was performed at the Public
Theater, you know, the Public Theater in New York. It doesn’t surprise me because
he has such a wide array of talents and interests musically. I’m sure you
probably know this as well. He’s quite an accomplished producer.
So he’s able
to talk, communicate, interpret and help create. He’s just kind of wildly
talented, and I’ve always loved his music.
Let’s talk about the concert at Field Neurosciences
Institute in Saginaw. What set list did you use or what songs did you use for
your debut?
Well, I did a
lot of songs that I love, pop songs from the ‘70s and the ‘80s, Steve Winwood,
Squeeze, Billy Joel, other artists like Harry Connick, Jr, Rufus Wainwright and
things like that, so when I was talking to the folks at FNI about this upcoming
concert, they had a really great idea which is…follow up with this FNI show
using the same premise for my concert in New York - to just sing songs that I
like. They thought it would be a good idea, and I totally agree with just pushing
the parameters out a little bit and use “Under The Influence” as the title of
the concert. It would be songs that everybody loves, that everybody grew up
listening to that are in the pop medium. I’m exploring all kinds of options in
terms of what the set list will be for the FNI concert. I think that I’ll use
some of the songs that I did for my 54 Below Concert in New York Concert and
then I’ll add other songs from the ‘60s and even the ‘50s. So it will open up
the door to pop sounds from the late ‘70s and ‘80s. I think it was wise for
them to think of changing that same idea and just kind of opening up the door a
little bit to a wider array of possibilities.
How can your strength also be an Achilles’ heel?
That’s a good
question. Um, I think it goes back to what I was talking about a little bit
before in terms of, oh I don’t know, maybe just being too narrow-minded about
things and our focus is of the utmost importance, and focus is necessary. I do think, however, that, and I’m lucky
because I have a family, and it’s great to be able to look away. I mean, to
quote my grandmother, “a watched pot never boils.” It’s good to be able to kind
of have other things to do. I think when you’re so dedicated to something and
you really spend a lot of time trying to achieve your goals, sometimes it can
be at the risk of, you know, putting other things aside that would perhaps be
just as helpful to you, you know, like living a life or having a hobby or, you
know, taking a walk in the woods. It’s kind of a general answer, but I think
maybe that’s what pops up in my head when you ask how your strengths can be perhaps
a weakness.
You’ve performed for Field Neurosciences for years
and you have chosen it as a charity of yours, Fields of Hope. Is Alzheimer’s
disease a particular focus for your charitable work, or is it just
neurosciences generally?
Well, it’s
not so much Alzheimer’s per se. I think what they’re doing in just terms of
general education and their exploration of neurosciences in general and head
injury and recovery. It’s more of a general sense of what we can do with the
brain and how we deal with the brain. I think it’s a fascinating thing, and the
fact that it’s happening in Saginaw with Dr. Malcolm Field and him being such a
renowned leader in that field is such a feather in the cap of our
community. So I’m really happy to
associate myself with that aspect of it, but you know I have a family tie to it
again. My grandfather, my grandfather, Dr. John W. James, my dad’s dad, he was
on the board of St. Mary’s. He was an OB/GYN there, and he knew Dr. Field, so
there’s a family history that goes, that is connected to, I know it’s different
from St. Mary’s, but at least in the medical field there are a lot of people
who work at FNI who had relationships with my grandfather, professional
relationships, so that is another source of pride for me. I feel like I’ve been
adopted by them. I can’t say that this is something that I have sought and
found a home. I feel like they’ve been kind to really adopt me and by virtue of
me doing these concerts for FNI, I’ve learned a lot. So I feel as long as they
will invite me, I will come because I get a great feel of satisfaction coming
home and acknowledging that this is where I came from and this is where my home
is and where my heart is and also being able to do something that is positive
for the community hopefully and being a part of that. It’s a no-brainer.
To be totally
honest, I feel like I don’t want to wear out my welcome. (Laughter) If they
ask, I’ll keep coming back. If they feel like, “Do you still want to
come?” Then I’ll be there.
Field of Hope:
Celebrating 25 Years. Proceeds will help provide fellowships for student who
will work with the Field Neurosciences Institute research staff. The event is
scheduled for September 13, 2013 at The Temple Theatre featuring Brian d’Arcy
James. For more information call 989-497-3117 or call the Temple Theatre
989-754-7469.
