On the Twentieth Century Interview with Peter Gallagher

Gallagher’s work has never gone stale because the actor keeps things both cool and committed.

On the Twentieth Century Interview with Peter Gallagher
Photo: Joan Marcus

Peter Gallagher and On the Twentieth Century each made their Broadway debuts during the same 1977 to ’78 season. Since then, the musical has rarely been seen, but the actor has had one of those rare careers in which he’s perpetually popped up in most every performance medium and genre without wearing out his welcome or curdling into type. On Broadway, he’s run the gamut from Hair, in which he made that debut in the love-rock musical’s short-lived first revival, to the tragic Long Day’s Journey Into Night with Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey, to the golden-age musical Guys and Dolls with Nathan Lane. He’s played key roles, usually as a slickster, in films that helped define their times, like Sex, Lies, and Videotape and The Player. On television, Gallagher has matured into authority figures—mostly trustworthy, sometimes not—on such series as The O.C. and Togetherness. He’s even put out an album, 7 Days in Memphis, and toured the country with a cabaret act peppered, like his conversation, with spot-on impersonations of the many legends he’s known.

Gallagher’s work has never gone stale because, even when playing hams like impetuous impresario Oscar Jaffee in the current revival of On the Twentieth Century, the actor keeps things both cool and committed. He finds a simple, direct connection to what makes his characters tick, so we relate to them even if we don’t approve. His blend of uncommonly good looks, easy masculinity, and down-to-earth urbanity was shared by many of the greats from the golden age of Hollywood and Broadway, which helps explain why Gallagher was cast alongside stars from that era during their final working years. Robert Altman called the actor his generation’s Cary Grant, “only 40 years too late.” But it makes him especially right for On the Twentieth Century, in which he stars with Kristin Chenoweth. The musical, by Cy Coleman, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green, harkens back to the screwball comedies in which Grant excelled, set to the legit, operetta style popular in its ’30s time period. Before a performance, I spoke with the actor, who turns 60 next month, primarily about legacies—what he’s learned from his own experience, his parents, and the people who inspired him.

The list of your co-stars and directors is staggering. Who haven’t you worked with?

Advertisement

I’ve been very lucky to work with people who were part of my mythology. I worked with James Cagney on the last thing he did. I would have been happy to play a hat rack. My mother went to college with his sister, Jean. Art Carney was in the movie too. My uncle used to be a janitor’s assistant at the local New Rochelle bank where Art’s dad would bring him in to tap dance at the Christmas parties. I walked into the first day of rehearsal to Cagney’s suite at the Hotel Carlyle and he looked up at me and said, “Black Irish.” At the end of the day he said, “Gallagher, I want you to meet my wife, Billie, but first we’ve got to find her.” I got behind his wheelchair and we went searching the apartment. “Oh, Billie. Billie.” And there she was hiding behind the curtains. This kind of madness and inclusion did my heart good because, if these guys were talking to me, what could be so bad?

Later, I did a movie for Neil Jordan called High Spirits with Peter O’Toole, and he’d been the reason I’d wanted to be an actor, after I saw Lawrence of Arabia. He had a kind of a divine madness, too, and a humor that just made me feel hopeful. We got along great. And Mike Nichols. Just getting notes from Mike or having lunch with Mike or just being in the same room with Mike—that’s something that stays with you forever. Or Bob Altman.

My happiest experiences have been collaborations with people whose vision I embrace and who welcome me into the process. That’s when good things can happen. I remember when we were doing The Player, Tim Robbins and Cynthia Stevenson were doing a scene and I was up next. Altman said, “Gallagher, I need you to go in there and do something.” I said, “Okay. What?” He said, “I don’t know.” I said, “When?” He said, “Next take.” “Oh. All right.” “You ready?” “I don’t know.” “Let’s go.” It’s exciting to work with people who have the technique to take the kind of chances that sometimes pay off.

Advertisement

When you’ve been thrown in situations like that, what have you done to help it pay off?

You just think, “Where have you been, where are you going, what story are we telling?” I’ve had wonderful teachers. I worked with my longtime acting coach, Mira Rostova, for 25 years. I’d still be studying with her, but she died a few years ago at the age of 99. She had an extraordinary life experience. She and her family fled the Bolshevik Revolution, then Nazi Germany. And she ended up in New York in time for the Actors Studio to begin. The people you study with transform how you view yourself and what you think is possible. Sometimes you get new information, but the most reassuring thing is getting permission to believe in what you already believe in. It lets you know you’re not crazy.

There were so many people in the theater, when I started out, that sort of recognized who I was and helped me—not just the big directors and choreographers, but stage managers and assistants who’d come up at the knee of the theater greats. They were passing on that knowledge, but when I came back to do Guys and Dolls in the ’90s so many of them had died of AIDS. It was like a whole world disappeared. There are still a few from the golden era. I just had lunch with Hal Prince [director of the original ’78 production of On the Twentieth Century]. I worked with him on the next show Comden and Green wrote after that, A Doll’s Life, which was a big flop. I guess the thing I ache for, and the thing I enjoy most, is that sort of family, where you’re united to achieve a common goal and you do it with a kind of mad delight.

Advertisement

You certainly seem to take delight in the extremes of Oscar Jaffee, but still you ground the production as you did in other pieces that go to extremes, whether it’s the noir of The Underneath on film or the farce of Noises Off on stage.

That’s what I’ve been trying to do my whole life. Growing up, I took care of my mother a little bit because she suffered from depression. But she was brilliant. She was first-generation American, like my father, and became a bacteriologist who helped develop a better milieu for penicillin. She had Alzheimer’s for the last 20 years of her life. And when she was in the depths of it, even after she’d let go of most words, if I touched her, if I’d sing to her, or hold her, or dance with her, she would say, “That was real.”

The thing that the theater has given me, among many, many things, is you get to be present when things happen. And you don’t really have all that much to do with them. You’re more or less a vessel for the writing or the moment. No matter how outsized or comedic or diabolical, it usually has to do with something we recognize as true. We’re not alone anymore. The truth underneath things, the truth you find in a moment on stage with an audience, that’s where the magic is and the solace.

Advertisement

Is that why you’ve been so open to playing characters that aren’t necessarily the most loveable? You’re fine as long as it’s true?

I had a lot of preparation for not being dependent on people’s approval. My father’s dad was a coal miner in Pennsylvania and his mom died when he was really young. In a way, he never grew past that 7-year-old boy. Between that and having been a soldier in the war, he never really talked to me. And then I ended up being this pretty boy. Altman once said, “Gallagher, you’re so good-looking it makes me sick.” I thought, “Even this guy who loves me and keeps casting me thinks this way.” And I do too. You see a guy that’s too handsome walking down the street and you think, “That guy’s never worked a day in his life. Fuck him.” So, in a way, I can side with people who don’t think much of me. But it’s never really slowed me down.

I remember when I was doing Sex, Lies, and Videotape, I didn’t really think about whether he was an asshole or not. I thought it was a comedic performance. When [Steven] Soderbergh and I first met, I asked him how he saw it, and he said, “It’s a black comedy,” so I said, “I’m in.” People hated me. Or people who were really dangerous loved me. But for me it was the delight of cracking the puzzle, of portraying a character who would resonate with people either way.

How did you go about cracking the puzzle of playing Oscar Jaffee?

I did a lot of research, studied [legendary theater impresario and alleged theater ghost] David Belasco a lot, because I knew the role required size. Belasco was regarded by some as a genius and others a hack. That gave a wide spectrum to find the funny and find the true. Ultimately he was a passionate theater artist who believed the more real he could make the smell and the sounds and the look of it, the more he’d succeed in transporting the audience. There’s an essential truth to that which was a good kind of architecture to support you when you’re doing all the other stuff.

Part of the other stuff is Oscar’s desperation. He’s determined to “rise again” after a string of flops. Is hitting a wall and trying to bounce back something you can easily identify with?

Advertisement

All the time. I’ve hit the wall in spectacular fashion and will continue to. But it always comes down to the work. It’s like what Coach Belichick says to the Patriots: “Tune out the noise and do the work.” It’s the only place where the black dogs that are nipping at your heels fade into the background. I had a life crisis when I was 29. For a young man, and probably a young woman, 29 or 30 is a chance to become the person you want to be. There’s stuff that’s not working and you have to buckle down and do your homework. I was doing The Real Thing and it was the first time I got to work with an amazing group of people: Mike Nichols, Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, Tom Stoppard. It was an enormous hit, but then everyone got other great jobs and went off. I stayed and barely got another audition. It started to chip away at my confidence. My agent encouraged me to go do this production of Miss Julie, which was just the worst thing at the worst time. There aren’t a lot of laughs in Strindberg.

And then for the first time I quit a show, Total Eclipse, which ended up giving Michael Cerveris his first job. The director wasn’t quite sure what story he wanted to tell and I wasn’t confident enough to find my way. That was a time I hit the wall. As my mother used to call it, it’s like having a flu of the soul. But you just have to hang in long enough to have it pass. And it led me to Mira Rostova and to a kind of freedom and experience that really nourished me.

The entire experience of doing On the Twentieth Century has been nearly an existential challenge for me. I was sick in the beginning. And then the Tony Award process. I suffer from insecurity at times. It helps you see things differently and do things you might not expect you’d be able to do, but the process can be very painful. For me, it goes back to the little boy who’s desperate to talk to his dad. I would try everything in my little power. My mother finally got him to come in when he’d get home from work. I’d already be in bed and he’d lie down and I’d have these questions saved up and he’d be asleep as soon as he hit the bed because he worked hard. I never blamed him for that.

Advertisement

When I get despairing sometimes, I try to take myself by the hand as a little boy and listen and tell myself, “That’s interesting. How do you feel? Can I help? What do you want to do?” And, of course, I made the error with my son and daughter. My son would ask a question and, man, I would not shut up. One of his eyes would independently drift off and I’d say, “Am I talking too much?” And his little head would nod and I’d say, “Okay. I’m sorry.” You can’t win.

But doing what you love is helpful. And being with people you love is helpful, having a family. If I’d continued to look for love in show business it would’ve been a far different experience. Building a life has been just as scary and challenging—and even more rewarding in some respects.

Speaking of challenges, you’re about to hit a big milestone.

Advertisement

I’ll be 60 in August.

Does it seem fitting that your work is coming full circle? Your first big break was playing a kid being shaped by an idolmaker and now as Oscar you turn Kristin Chenoweth’s character into a star?

Doing The Idolmaker was great. I’d spent a year as Danny Zuko in Grease on Broadway and Hair before that, so I’d been singing and dancing almost in that same period. I’d worked really hard and fought to get the audition and then kept auditioning until they gave me the part. And it felt so right. When we were shooting in Alpine, New Jersey, I had a rare moment for me where I was walking among the C-stands and thought, “Oh my God. I’m finally someplace where I belong. I love this.” But United Artists was about to release Heaven’s Gate and that cut into their war chest just a bit, so it wasn’t the hit it might have been. Still, it’s something I’m very proud of.

Advertisement

You carried your second studio film, Summer Lovers, but after that you started playing character roles. Was that a conscious decision?

That’s exactly it. This was never about what I could get out of it. My only interest was in being the best actor I could become and trying to create the conditions that would help. With my kind of psyche, I couldn’t endure a success that I didn’t feel was earned. Doing the research for The Idolmaker, I could see a lot of the idols were still struggling in adulthood. And my looks have always been a curious thing to me, because I don’t see what other people see. Since I was a kid I always thought the problem with my face was my big fat lips. The thing I love about acting is if you play your cards right, and your body and mind stay in one piece, you can keep getting better.

While I’ve been doing On the Twentieth Century, I also finished the second season of Togetherness for HBO, which was a challenge. I love Mark and Jay Duplass. I love working with people I haven’t worked with before, where you have that feeling of standing shoulder to shoulder looking in the same direction, trying to figure out what they have in mind and doing the difficult thing, which is to tell the story. I love that more than anything.

Advertisement

So we won’t be hearing stories about you going middle-aged crazy?

Well, there’s very little certainty. You know, my father did occasionally talk to me. It was about how difficult it was being married to my mom, but toward the end of their lives they had a kind of grace and deep connection that as a child I couldn’t possibly have seen or understood. Life can hold that in store for you. So 60 isn’t something I’m scared of. If anything, I get scared about Alzheimer’s. My mother got it when she was about 70. So I look at it as I have at least another 10 good years, where I can finally get my big break. I’ll just keep on trying. And as long as my kids are okay, and my wife is okay, then I’ll be okay.

The Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of On the Twentieth Century runs at the American Airlines Theatre through July 19.

Jon Magaril

Jon Shear directed, co-wrote, and produced Urbania, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. He teaches at New York University and Columbia University.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.