Exclusive David Lawrence interview Part 2!
House Petrelli: Did you have much to do with your character’s direction? Because I know they kind of make some of this stuff up as they go along, so I didn’t know if you had any kind of input like, “Hey guys, what if this happens?”David Lawrence: I think that’s left for people for whom shows are built around. You know, I don’t think anyone on this set, although I wouldn’t put anything past Greg Grunberg, but I don’t think anybody on the set... I mean, we’ll discuss things, and in fact on the day we will say, “Would this really happen? How would this happen?” And we’ll change things to fit where we are, because you can’t anticipate everything when you’re writing. But for the most part we are very adamant about making sure, to the best of my ability, to make sure that I am letter for letter for what the writer has written. Because this is a room filled with people who start writing ideas on a whiteboard, some get used and some don’t, and a script starts to get formed, and it gets refined, and written again, and written again... it goes through a very very well-defined and exclusionary process to distill out to the final script.
When I do an episode, I get a new script every couple of days leading up to the shooting date. And by the time I’m shooting off the “goldenrod” script, or the “persimmon” script, or the “watermelon” script, I’ve watched the process. In the last episode that I shot, I was actually really enamored of the second-to-last version of one of the scenes that ended up going back to the way it was in one of the earlier scripts. And I told the writer that, and he goes, “Yeah, I know, me too.” But it’s one of those things where they tend to get better as opposed to worse. And as an actor, my job is to take the writers’ and producers’ and directors’ vision and bring it to life. It’s not to pretend... although I am a very good writer and have made an awful lot of money writing video games and voicing them...
HP: Oh, really?
DL: Yeah, I don’t know if you ever play anything on Xbox 360?
HP: (anguished) I can’t afford one!
DL: There’s a game called Saint’s Row.
HP: Oh, yeah, yeah, I’ve seen that.
DL: Which was a very clear take on Grand Theft Auto. I was responsible for the final writing on all of the cut scenes for all of the missions. I wrote literally reams of scripts for the radio stations, which ended up being one of the most talked about features of the game, that you could listen to one of 13 different stations. You could play the game straight, 24/7 for three-and-a-half years and not hear the same thing in the same order twice on any of the radio stations. So we took a great deal of time doing that. The point is, I’m a writer, I don’t like writing, I see an hear things in my head when I’m acting that maybe make me think “this might work,” and there are times when I’ll go to the writer and I’ll say, “Is it okay with you if I try it this way?” And if they say it’s okay then I will. If not, then I’m totally find with whatever they want. And I’m also going to the writers on the set, because they’re usually on the set, to say “Am I giving you what you’ve heard in your head, because you wrote this.” I think that’s really important, as opposed to some of the temper tantrums that have been thrown on other shows about writing, and maybe not being nominated for Emmys, and turning down that nomination because the writing wasn’t so good in her opinion (idiot)...
HP: (laughs)
DL: You know, that is just the most disrespectful, heinous, insane approach to your craft that I can possibly imagine. Other than not being prepared.
HP: All right, but how do you really feel?
DL: (amused) That’s how I really feel.
HP: Well, because PetrelliByNature is somewhat involved in the SAG fiasco, and is one of the co-founders of House Petrelli, she wanted me to ask you your opinions about that briefly.
DL: I wrote a note to the SAG leadership decrying how out of touch they are for placing all of their eggs in the internet basket. I’ve been working on the internet before it was called the internet. When it was called Bitnet and UUnet and Arpanet. I worked for Arpa, I worked for America Online, I’ve worked for Google, I’ve worked for myself and made my fortune on the internet. And the internet, for me, has been a constant stream of hype and disappointment, punctuated by some really interesting successes. But for SAG to place, at the very top of their agenda, an irretrievable, immovable position on the internet, when we have no idea whether what currently is existing as internet distribution will be the model in the future, or if it’s another edition of Microsoft Fob. We just don’t know. And it makes us look petulant and ill-informed and childish to go in and go, “Well, we don’t know how much you’re gonna make, but we want some of it, that’s all!”
You know... why don’t you do this. Why don’t you take my advice, because it’s usually sound, and wait one or two years until all these public companies have very clear track records whether they can make money on the internet or not, or if we as consumers, who have been trained over the last ten years to take whatever we want and not pay for it, and that means not only monitarily but with our attention spans during sponsorships... you know, why don’t we just wait and see if there’s any heft to this whole internet thing before we discard the very clear increases we would make in our minimum wage, our residuals, in organizing other members of our acting community like stuntpeople and so on, perhaps merging with AFTRA... I’m in both, and I found it reprehensible that SAG would spend $1.7 million dollars of my money – it’s not their money, it’s my money in dues – on what is arguably the most anti-union, anti-labor, anti-democracy thing possible. To advertise and lobby another union to turn town the ratification of a duly negotiated contract. I was in the Teamsters for 12 years, working on the docks in Cleveland, and if the Pipefitters showed up and said, “Hey, yeah, vote that down,” we’d be out in the parking lot with pipes... not fitting them in other plumbing, but against the Pipefitters’ heads. And we’re not like that, we’re actors, we’re more genteel than that, but yet our guild had the temerity to try and get a union, which they claim is inferior in their negotiating skills, tried to force them back to the negotiating table.
HP: That’s an excellent point.
DL: I don’t get that! If they suck so bad at negotiations, and they constantly undercut our contracts, what the hell do we want them at our table for? Well anyway... I think the argument that now is not a good time economically is really a sidelight. It’s one thing to consider, but in the end, if we had solid proof that this was a long-term play, and if the idea that the idea that we are no longer going to be watching television, we’re only going to be watching computer monitors could be proven, and if we had a track record of saying, “You know, these guys are making 90% profit” as opposed to 30% profit, or 10% profit, or who knows what kind of profit they’re making because they’re clearly not transparent currently, I don’t know why we’d expect them to be transparent in the future. But we have no idea whether this is one great big sinkhole that we’re wasting our time trying to grab a piece of.
HP: And pissing everybody off in the process.
DL: Exactly, and shutting down the city again.
HP: Oh, god no!
DL: It would be horrifying. So that’s my reason, not simply because of the economic climate, which is an easy thing to hang that hat on, and those 130 “big name stars” that signed the thing today... I hope it has some impact. I hope it does, because the SAG leadership have painted themselves into a very tiny little corner, and they’re very defensive and very embarrassed about it. I mean I think they are... they won’t say they are. But they’re doing things that just don’t make sense. And whenever I write back to them I say, “Look, I know this is going to end up in somebody’s trash, but I have to be able to say what I feel, and I don’t want to your yes thing, I want you to put up a no thing. But that in effect is a vote. Is a strike authorization vote. And they’ll do that shortly. How was that, was that too long?
HP: No, it was great. So back to the more Petrellicentric part of the interview... I’m going to ask, changing direction completely, who is your favorite Petrelli and why?
DL: That’s easy. My favorite Petrelli was Nathan’s wife.
HP: Heidi! Really!
DL: I would drink Rena Sofer’s bathwater.
HP: (laughs)
DL: She... ah.... and then I’m reading all this stuff about her, and she’s kind of a crackpot in a great way? So that’s even more sexy to me. Because when she’s a nutjob, it’s great. And I used to watch Rena Sofer all the time when she was Ed’s... I don’t know if you ever watched the series Ed on NBC...
HP: I didn’t, no.
DL: She was like his distraction love interest. I’ve seen her on so many things, and I am just a sucker for dimples. She’s got like Marianas Trenches for dimples, it’s insane. So she was far and away my favorite Petrelli. Second favorite Petrelli probably is Angela, because she was one of the first cast members other than Hayden Panettiere that I got to know during filming, and she’s just a wonderful lady. Cristine Rose is just an amazing lady. She’s an amazingly precise and talented actress, and just a joy to watch. But I think you’re talking about it from the perspective of the story, is that right?
HP: Not necessarily, I’m just throwing it open to you as both you and as Eric Doyle.
DL: Eric Doyle? Well Eric Doyle’s favorite Petrelli is Claire Bennet.
HP: Right, right, being Meredith’s daughter, yes.
DL: And that plotline might be... revisited.
HP: I’ve seen some Volume 4 spoiler photos.
DL: Oh, see you ARE on the spoiler sites!
HP: No, I have to be...
DL: You are a LIAR!
HP: Hold on! Hold on! *laughs* Now I sort of have to be because of House Petrelli.
DL: Right.
HP: I was reading another interview you gave and the photos were below that and I just couldn’t stop scrolling.
DL: Well, there was a bunch of paparazzi... like Hayden is followed around by these people.
HP: (anguished) I know!
DL: She can spot them... she can smell them. I was sitting on that bench with her, and she goes “I just wish they would just come out of the bushes and out of the trees... like, it’s no big deal. Be out of the shot, take your pictures, and go.” And I’m like, “What are you talking about?” And she goes, “Look up to your left... look across the lake... look in the bush...” And like all of a sudden I’m seeing these guys with these, you know, penis lenses...
HP: (laughs)
DL: You know, and it’s insane. And the one guy’s just out in the open taking pictures and they had to sort of shoo him out of the shot. But you know what? It’s sort of a symbiotic relationship, and she even said it – If you’re going to play the game, you have to accept that that’s part of the game. And she certainly is living a great life right now. Living just a fantastic life. She seems like she’s just so happy, and more power to her.
HP: That’s a rare thing, to have someone with their head on straight in that atmosphere
DL: Yeah, I mean, look at Lindsay Lohan. My iPhone has Lindsay Lohan “pre-crazy days” but legal. A shot taken after she was 18. And when I unlock my iPhone I have to sort of run my thumb across... Lindsay... so... she goes “What’s THAT?” And I said... “Well, it’s not YOU.” She goes, “Why not?” (laughs)
HP: That’s dangerous territory... anyway... so... speaking of spoilers... but I know you can’t really say anything, but you’re going to be in Volume 4.
DL: I am, I think, unless they cut me out which has certainly happened to me a couple of times. Not with Heroes but with other things. I was slotted in to be a series regular, or heavily-recurring possible series regular for a series that will fill a midseason slot on ABC, and that was on Wednesday, and on Friday my agent calls me and goes, “Guess what? They wrote you and three other characters out of the show.”
HP: Whaat?
DL: That’s what I said: “Whaat?” Just like that, with that little ramp up of volume? “Whaat?” So as far as I know Eric may be making a reappearance in Volume 4.
HP: May be making an appearance... you guys are so vague, it’s hard to get anything out of Robert Forster either.
DL: Right, well... (slides into RF imitation) Robert Forster’s been around for a while...
HP: Oh, here we go...
DL: (still imitating) He’s taken on people who are, you know, maybe just a little bit more... forceful about this sort of thing than you.
HP: He’s a hardboiled detective that doesn’t play by the rules!
DL: (still imitating) That’s right, he’s a hardboiled detective that doesn’t play by the rules.
HP: You should read his interview if you haven’t already.
DL: I’ll read it to you, in his voice!
HP: (laughs) That’d be great! Can I record that?
DL: (imitating) Thanks for having me on House Petrelli. (drops it, laughs)
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End Part 2 – Lots more coming in Part 3!
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