Exclusive! Robert Forster interview part 2!
Robert Forster: My mother, when I was a junior in college at Alfred University, she sent me a book. An old book written in about 1907. It was a book called White Hyacinths, and it was a book of short essays on work, and marriage, and child-rearing, and effort, and being 100% man, and work... and this little book of essays, I read it from one end to the other. It was really, really... somewhat inspiring. Now I know that my mother intended for me to become a better person from having read it. It began this way, on the front page it said, “If I had but two loaves of bread I would sell one of them to buy white hyacinths to feed my soul.” And from that I understood that life had a spiritual component and I had to feed it. The very last phrase in the book was this: “And the reward which life holds out for work is not ease or rest or immunity from work, but increased capacity, greater difficulty, and more work.” And I thought, “Oh, I hope not!” I was a lazy guy, and I figured, you know, you put in some work and then they let you rest. So then I became an actor. And I realized that a day’s work is a gigantically great thing. You get a job finally, you go on a set, they call you every once in a while, you step into the set, you try to hit the ball out of the park. Every time, every take, you’re trying to smack that ball... don’t forget, you don’t just have to get the lines right, you’ve gotta understand what the writer intended so that when you hear “action” you can put in what the writer intended. Why did the writer create the scene this way, and why is it crafted this way, and why is it in the movie this way... you’ve gotta do what the writer intended so that you satisfy that. And the guy who sets the lights, you’ve gotta be in that. And the one who’s watching you from behind the camera – if you do something too big for the size shot you’re in, somebody says “no good for composition, start again.” If the one listening for the words you’re saying doesn’t hear them correctly, somebody says “no good for sound, start again.” Or if I put the cup in the wrong place, somebody says “no good for continuity, start again.”
The actor owes something to everybody on that set. Everybody is your boss, and so are the other actors who may have to go up emotionally in a scene, I have to build them a little ramp so the other actor can go up in that scene. And for the editor – I’ve gotta understand how the roller coaster of this episode or this movie works so that I can contribute to the downs and the ups and the going around the curves. We want that audience to get into a roller coaster car with us at the beginning of the ride and be with us at the end of the ride, and I’ve gotta be believable in order for them to be with us at the end of the ride. If I’m not believable, they’ll fly out going around the curve.
And for the one who hired me, I’ve gotta be ready on that first shot. I gotta be ready to deliver it and see if I can’t deliver it in the shortest number of takes as we possibly can so that they can get their day’s work done. You owe that to the producer. You owe something to everyone, and as I say, it is a great job to stand there and try to hit that ball long and over the fence and try to contribute to what everybody needs. Everybody needs something from you, everybody’s your boss, and your job is to create a shot, to create an action which advantages everybody at once.
HP: Wow, absolute words of experience. The voice of experience... just beautiful, beautiful stuff.
RF: Thanks, thanks. It’s a great job. Hard to get the work, but it’s a great job if you can get it. You could say that about... I guess romance... “a great job if you can get it?” There’s a song with that in it. “Nice work if you can get it.”
HP: Yes, something like that. There we go. Now, I’d like to ask what it’s been like to work with Malcolm McDowell, Cristine Rose, Milo Ventimiglia, Adrian Pasdar and anybody else on the cast you’d like to talk about.
RF: Malcolm McDowell is one of those guys that I have liked my whole career and admired from the very first thing I remember seeing him in. Clockwork Orange. If you have ever seen it...
HP: I have seen that, and it was pretty darn disturbing.
RF: It is the most disturbing movie I ever saw. Up to then and for many, many years since. I’m not sure whether there’s been anything else which has disturbed me more, but that was because once I saw it, I said, “Oh, don’t let things really, really be that,” In the back of my neck I was afraid that’s the way things were going. And they have. When that picture was made, it was a much softer period in history. Such miserable things... and now you hear every day about people doing such dastardly things, really mean things to other people. Torturers, and... ah, it’s a horror! Anyway, not to lean on that. But that guy played such a fabulous part, he was so good in it, and the picture was so good that it made an indelible memory and impression on me. So, working with him – he’s good! He goes in there and suddenly you’re slugging with a guy who knows what he’s doing, and to knock a scene out with a guy who does know what he’s doing is fun. And now you start with Cristine, well Angela, and whoooo what an evil woman!
HP: *laughs* Well you’re one to talk!
RF: And I asked the producers, when I was asking about my character, “What am I vulnerable to, if anything?” And they said “You’re vulnerable to the one you love.”
HP: Haha, yes, I had heard that from somewhere.
RF: And I said “I see... I see... the guy’s a real man. Vulnerable to a woman.” He can’t just do thing with impunity. He passes things through a filter, and I always did when I was married, I always said “Well, how will this affect June?” before I made decisions. So once knowing that this guy had a relationship that was a vulnerable relationship with the woman that he loved, her actions all had different colors, different meanings, because I understood her. And even the fact that she poisoned me. There was a moment at which I rendered her immobile.
HP: Yes!
RF: She comes to me in a dream and says to me, “Let me go, Arthur.” And I could not but let her go. I understood why she poisoned me. Why she was standing up for the kids.
HP: That was such an amazing moment. That whole scene was just... you could cut it with a knife! Ahh...!
RF: And then you get to the kids! And these are really attractive young kids, and that Milo, what a hard-working guy! He’s in there and working his stuff. Now, he’s one of the mainstays of the show, and he knows how things were done. And he would tell me how we do this and how we shoot the... what the hand motions are, because he thought ‘em out and they worked on them. And so I come along, I am the progenitor of these guys, and he reminded me of things that I needed to know about the powers. And as attractive kids, these guys are great. I’ve seen all their shows now. They carry off what a lead actor must on any show. Their actions are understandable and appropriate. And they’re attractive! All the kids are attractive.
Look, this business only buys three things – I read this in a TV Guide interview. Several casting directors sitting around talking. And they concluded this – this was maybe 20 years ago, I cut it out and it’s in a file somewhere here in the house. They said “This business buys three things: Great beauty (and that includes sex appeal); great personality (and there are people that you just like to watch ‘cause whatever they’re doing is interesting); and great talent.” And by talent they went on to describe it this way, these three things: The ability of the actor to understand what the material requires of him. Understanding is important to an actor, you can’t just walk out there and just go helter-skelter, you have to know what you’re doing. That’s the detective work that you did when you figured out what the writer needed from you. The ability of the actor to bring it to life using himself, and the ability of an actor to make it exciting for the audience to watch.
Now those three things, I understood the first two, but the last one I thought, “Now what do I have that could possibly make people excited to watch?” And I recalled my fascination with documentaries, the old-fashioned... pardon me... the “old school” documentaries. A window was open to you to a world or a place that you’d never seen before. And that was fascinating in its belief. Because if you’ve ever seen Nanook of the North or any of the good old documentaries, you know what you’re watching is true. And that is what I said about my own work. If I can make my work believable as a documentary, that’s what I’m gonna offer as that third component. Understanding, that’s obvious, and bringing it to life using yourself. And these kids bring it to life using who they are, and it’s simple. When done right, it’s real simple, and they do it real simple. And of course they’ve got beauty going for ‘em. Attractiveness. That’s a big component. Nowadays you usually think of character actors. But the business buys beauty, personality and talent. And these guys each have big pieces of all of those.
HP: Yep. Great stuff. Absolutely great stuff. So coming back to your portrayal... did you help create any back story that’s maybe not in the script that helped give you motivation for the character of Arthur?
RF: I felt sure that their back story was what I needed to understand. This is a little tricky – I didn’t feel like I should be creating back story. They should tell me. I can fill in, of course, but they’ve got to tell me, and they did tell me. I asked a lot of questions – I can’t remember now all of what they were – but especially in the beginning where I had a good foothold on what I was doing, and “is this my son,” and “why doesn’t he think he is,” and “what were the real circumstances of his attempting drowning, and is it true or am I lying about that.” And I didn’t know what was true and what was not.
HP: Oh really!
RF: And so questions abounded in my first few episodes until I got a little bit more grounded and had read the scripts that I didn’t see, the early shows. I saw the first show, finally, after about two or three weeks of work they had the first episode of this season prepared and I saw it. And so there’s a lot of gathering. But I relied on them, the writers and directors, to give me the back story, because his back story isn’t just referred to, they jump backwards and then they show it to you.
HP: Mmhm, and then there’s the online graphic novel, have you seen that?
RF: I have not. I’m not modern, I’m old school.
HP: You have not?!? Well you gotta see that! There’s a lot of back story and it involves a deer hunt that Arthur took the boys on when they were young. There’s a good piece of back story that involves Peter being able to pull that trigger or not. And if you haven’t seen that, you probably should!
RF: Holy mackerel, complexities on top of complexities. There’s an old remark, I can’t remember who said it, maybe Winston Churchill, “A mystery wrapped in an enigma” or something like that. So! More things for me to figure out!
HP: Yes, you’ve gotta read that! I can’t believe you haven’t read that.
RF: You know, I didn’t realize that any of that was...
HP: They don’t tell you anything! *laughs*
RF: No, they don’t tell you... listen. They’ve got their hands full. They’re fighting a never-ending battle for getting it ready and getting it right.
HP: Yes.
RF: Well, there’s something else for me to do.
HP: Well, you’re laying there in your sick bed, you know, you can get on there and it gives you something to do! All right. Well, Cristine Rose, who’s obviously such a pivotal part of your entire stay on the show pretty much... somebody’s asking here about a story where she fell down the stairs and you caught her? What’s that about?
RF: Oh, they can make a story out of anything. We were doing a scene, repeatedly going up the stairs and then making an entrance, coming down the stairs, and she just tripped once. I had a hand on her and we just didn’t fall very far.
HP: Was this at the initial dinner party scene?
RF: Yes. It was the only time I can remember coming down the stairs.
HP: That’s what I was thinking too.
RF: It’s our wedding anniversary and at the end of it I tell Malcolm McDowell that if one of our sons does not come around, I’m gonna have to kill him.
HP: Right! Oh man, that was just so chilling. And then just looking her in the eye and lying to her about putting a hit on Nathan, it’s like “whoa, man!”
RF: Yeah, sometimes you just have to lie with an open heart.
HP: *laughs* With an open heart! Oh, that’s just so great. One thing I keep seeing over and over is how calm, maybe even cold, that Arthur was. Is that... I don’t want to say “your natural delivery style”... I mean, you’re obviously not this super animated guy. You’re calm, cool, collected... the detective, the hard-boiled cop. So I’m thinking... was it just natural to play him that way, as this calculating, look-you-in-the-eye guy?
RF: The material almost dictates to you what you need to do. The material makes the difference. You bring yourself to it, of course, but you bring the character to life by understanding the character. What does the material require of you? And I’m not sure that I said that to myself, but the material dictates a great deal of what you show up and deliver.
HP: Other actors, I would imagine, would portray him very differently.
RF: Maybe, I dunno. I’m not sure.
HP: But that’s what the script said to you, right?
RF: That’s what the script said to me!
HP: Now, we’ve heard that there was a reconciliation scene at the end between Angela and Arthur, apparently meant for “The Eclipse Part 2.” And we’re wondering if that ever got filmed or never made it into production.
RF: I’m not remembering a scene in which we reconciled. Remind me of what you know about the scene, or think you know about the scene.
HP: Well, I’m not sure, but basically what I know about it is that there was more reconciliation beyond just Arthur letting her go free. That at some point they actually got together and had this reconciliation. Obviously if you don’t remember it, it must not have been filmed, right?
RF: I think that is correct. It may be still in the minds of those who master this show.
HP: So it could be picked up again at some other time.
RF: Oh, anything is possible, I’m told. Shots to the head don’t always kill.
HP: All right, I’ll leave that alone. So did they ever say how many powers Arthur had acquired over the years? And the burning question on most peoples’ minds is why, of all people for Sylar to kill and not take his powers... was it just anger over the whole father/son fakery? Or what was up with that? Because there’s a smorgasbord in there, man!
RF: It is a smorgasbord. As I remember, in this episode tonight [313 “Dual”], I believe that when someone says, “Where’s the body? Where is he?” Someone else says “The body’s been removed.”
HP: Been removed...
RF: That may not be the right dialogue, but it’s as simple as that. “It’s been removed.” We don’t know to where, or in what condition, or anything else about it, but when asked “Where is dad?” or “What happened to him,” or “Where’s the body?” The reply is very simple... and enigmatic maybe. “He’s been removed.” What does that mean?
HP: Oh my. Yes... what does that... I guess we’ll find out eventually, but... creepy! Very creepy! Okay, two more quick questions. One, if you could have a power in real life what would it be and why?
RF: Hmm... hmm... I’d love to know who’s lying and who’s not.
HP: That’s a good one! All right, in the interest of time I’ll leave it there. Anything that you’d like us to know about your motivational speaking, future projects, and anything that you want people to know about you.
RF: During the years in which my career was on that downward trajectory, there was a moment at which I said, “Bob, okay, you’re not getting good jobs. You’re not getting jobs at all these days. Better think of a way to express yourself, because a life without expressing yourself is pretty vacant.” And I said well, collect the lessons of your life, stuff that everybody knows anyway, put them in a little short form menu – it’s on my website in case you want to look.
HP: Yes, I have looked at your website, it’s great!
RF: Did you see the menu? Did you get that far?
HP: I think so!
RF: Well, it’s just a menu of all short items, three, four, five minutes long, and they all really come together. I do a free program and it’s good stuff. Positive stuff. There’s stuff about my career, stuff about lessons of my life... it’s a fun program and I do it frequently. I do it free, and nobody gets hurt.
HP: *laughs* Nobody gets hurt. Well, if it’s anything like this interview, then it’s absolutely brilliant stuff, and I suspect some of that stuff did come through in my questioning of you, Mr. Forster.
RF: Oh, thank you, Willow. Much fun, you’re terrific. You’re helpful, and it was nice talking to you. I hope to meet you some time.
HP: Well thank you, it’s been a delight!
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