Back Stage West
January 03, 2002
Being
Frank
Playing
ordinary Joes or extraordinary jerks, Peter Boyle's distinctive mix of the
profound and the goofy always rings strangely true.
By
Rob Kendt
Among
the highlights of my job are moments like the following scene: I'm interviewing
Peter Boyle at Nate and Al's, the Beverly Hills deli that seems like a time
capsule from another decade, and no less a personage than Tim Conway cuts in to
say hello. There they are: two icons of my entertainment childhood, Young
Frankenstein and Mr. Tudball, shaking hands across
the table from me.
For his part, Boyle wears such iconic status as offhandedly as the non-descript
cardigans worn by Frank Barone, the cranky
There's a lived-in quality to Boyle's performances that transcends acting craft
and makes even his most outlandish characters seem to be simply behaving
on-screen. It's what makes Frank Barone's often crass
put-downs ring with relish but not rancor; it's what made his performance in
Young Frankenstein simultaneously sweet and scary; it's what made his
frightening turn in Joe, a film he
says he thought of as "a goof" when he made it, so bracingly real.
And it's what makes his performance in the new film Monster's Ball rise above the one-note stereotype it's written to
be (the script is by Milo Addica and Will Rokos). As Buck Grotowski, a
retired executioner in Georgia who has raised two succeeding generations of
Death Row corrections officers (played by Billy Bob Thornton and Heath Ledger),
Boyle is able to give his character's racist, misogynist venom its full
toxicity, while at the same time economically sketching Buck's deep-set
disappointment, his resignation, and—shades of a Southern-fried Frank Barone—his wicked sense of a good time. In a chilling scene
with
Boyle's mastery of such ambivalent moments is hard to explain, but it helps
somehow to know that he studied both with Uta Hagen
and at
He's
since appeared in a mix of material—from the heights of Taxi Driver to the middle ground of While You Were Sleeping and Dream
Tream, to the depths of Species II—and suffered a stroke and a mild heart attack. But
Boyle, now in his sixth year on the unstoppable Raymond, is going strong. In a recent interview, in which he
appeared more serious, soulful, and deliberate than his relatively loose screen
persona, Boyle talked about his craft, his career, and the unavoidable
craziness of his calling.
Peter Boyle: I know Back Stage.
I used to read it desperately when I was a starving actor.
Back Stage West: Back when you studied with Uta
Hagen?
Boyle: When I studied with Uta Hagen, I was a
little too serious about being an intense dramatic actor. Then I started to do
a lot of improv workshops, and they sort of helped me
loosen up.
BSW: You have a gift for playing unpleasant people. Do you know guys
like that? Do you know that in yourself?
Boyle: Both. We all have mean and crazy thoughts. Most of us are able,
as adjusted human beings, to process them out, but I think part of the
intention of Monster's Ball was that
everybody's insanity is out front. I don't love playing meanie
guys all the time, but on the other hand, in this case, because of the script
and the nature of the issues, it seemed worth a shot. When I was much younger,
I did a movie called Joe, and the guy
was very outspoken and crazy, and it was very hard to deal with afterwards. I
got recognition, but also people identify you with the part.
What you realize is that people like that don't see their cruelty as cruel. An
actor cannot play a negative choice; the "negative" is only a social judgement. Osama Bin Laden thinks he's a good guy. He
thinks he's doing God's work. That's what's fascinating. Robert De Niro plays Al Capone in The
Untouchables—he weeps at the opera. Hitler hated cruelty to animals. This
duality is a source of endless fascination in literature and drama, and part of
the human struggle. You really cannot say while you're doing it, "This is
a bad guy." This is a guy.
BSW: What I admire is that on the one hand you don't look down at these
characters, and on the other hand you don't sweeten them or ask for sympathy
for them. They seem rooted in just what they are.
Boyle: Yeah, it's like a tree, you know? There are ugly trees. They're
in the ground and they're growing. Like poison ivy.
BSW: So Frank Barone on Raymond is—what, a ficus?
Boyle: Well, that's a different thing. Even though he has an edge and
he's a little obnoxious, he thinks he's funny. But because it's a sitcom, it's
for laughs. It keeps me off the hook a little bit. But there is an edge to
Frank, and that's why I enjoy doing it.
BSW: Have you ever worked on a show for this long?
Boyle: I haven't done anything this long. This is longer than school.
BSW: You didn't do any long runs of plays back in the old days?
Boyle: I was in a touring company of The
Odd Couple for two and a half years. That was the longest thing. The same
thing kept me going then that keeps me going here: You know it's a long haul,
but when the audience comes and you do the stuff, they laugh, and it's great.
BSW: Looking back at your career, your work reminds me a bit of Rod Steiger. I know people think he's a little nutty.
Boyle: Let me ask you something: Do you really want to watch sane
people? You've got to be a little daring or risky to even presume to step
onstage. Ancient Greek actors worked with a mask, and they thought it was the
essence of hubris for an actor to appear onstage with his face to the
audience—that it was an offense to the gods. And a modern actor, a guy like Rod
Steiger, brings himself to everything. Done the right
way, it's a form of healing—not just the feel-good part, but the catharsis,
acting out the passion in a safe, controlled environment.
BSW: I read about your audition for Raymond:
You got lost and got there late and were flustered.
Boyle: I couldn't get on the studio lot, I couldn't find a parking
place, and also I had my entire family with me—my wife and my two daughters and
a friend who was staying with us. I was a little hot and annoyed. I wasn't
screaming or ranting or anything, but I just had a little steam.
BSW: And it fit the character.
Boyle: I think it did.
BSW: I'm actually a little surprised they had you audition for the part.
Boyle: You know, we're actors. Last time I was
in
BSW: What has kept you going in the leaner times?
Boyle: I don't know—some craziness, some ability to deny reality and
have grandiose fantasies of, I'm an actor! It's hard to answer. You meet giants
of the movies, people who are famous, powerful, successful,
who always think their last job was their last. What's very comforting about
the series is I'll go on hiatus and I'll know we'll be back next year. It has
improved my mental health. It's brought a stability that's wonderful. Before
that, I had a religious trip, I went on other spiritual trips, I did health
food trips, I did a crazy, destructive trip. About 70
percent of that is being unemployed. Actors go on diets, get into meditation,
we take yoga class, we take self-improvement things, we play softball. We try
to find a community. That's the hardest thing for actors, because we all compete
with each other.
When you're not working, there's absolutely the bottom point. I get very
depressed. If I were a plumber, I wouldn't have had bouts of depression—but if
I was a plumber, I'd say, I want to be an actor. You can't analyze it too
closely.
BSW: Was there ever a point you felt like you mastered what you do?
Boyle: I thought I did, but it was an illusion. The more I go on the
less I feel like the master of anything. The one or two points when I thought I
had mastered it were major mistakes. One of the healthy and humbling things
about doing this show for six years is that every week I go through at least a
day or two just before we do the show where I can't act. I'm in a panic. But
you go through the whole process, and when you get enough time to do that
regularly, then you come out the other side and go, My God, that was great.
It's a wonderful experience to resolve all that conflict and fear with the
feeling of being one with the audience, being just sort of a group mind, with
that sense of communication that's not average everyday communication. It's
like extra-sensory perception with a live audience.
And the whole thing when you're not working is that there's no resolution of
all of that. There's no approval from an audience or from other people. When
you're not working, you're involved in this sad drama that has no catharsis.
You're alone in a room. You're just this wacky person saying, "I know I
can do it, but am I crazy?" Every actor asks the question, and you realize
you are a little bit.
I mean, as an actor you're working with your own craziness, trying to cultivate
and farm it, or transform it in a way that most everyday people don't. They
shut down their process. It's like as an actor you're in a state of perpetual
adolescence.
BSW: It's strange to hear that you struggle so much. While your
performances certainly never look lazy or phoned in, they have a certain
loose-fitting ease about them that makes them all the more real.
Boyle: Well, when all the craziness is resolved and comes together, you
actually get centered and get a weird feeling of serenity. Sammy Davis Jr. said
it best; he had a song called "Yes I Can," and the lyric is,
"Gee, I'm afraid to go on/Has turned into, Yes I
can." It's scary to stand up in front of a crowd. They're either going to
attack you or ignore you. On a very ancient human level, it puts you right into
the fight-or-flight response. The wonderful thing for an actor is you don't
fight, you act. You act like you're fighting, and at the end of the fight you
stand up and take a bow. Or you get stabbed.