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Show notes:
Transcript of press conference, part 3:
Cast members (in order of appearance):
Earl: Your dad … tell them ... your dad was friends with David (Milch). Titus: Yeah – my father (American landscape painter Neil Welliver) was a professor. He ran the Graduate School of Fine Arts at Yale at the time. And so David … they had a lot of friends … colleagues. So my dad knew David a bit then, and they reconnected when David and I did “Brooklyn South” (a TV series in 1997-98) and my father came out to visit me. They hadn’t seen each other since the days and so stories started getting thrown around, some of them that I’d never heard about my father. It was pretty interesting. He’s a very … he’s a complex but one of the most generous people that I certainly have ever encountered in show business, and he’s kind of an anomaly in that way. And I think everybody will agree here that, you know, as strong a writer as David is he’s very inclusive of the process – sort of allowing you to kind of find your way with the character. He’s open to suggestions – to a certain degree. There’s a lot of times when you’ll say, “How about if I wear purple shoes?” and David will say, “No.” Earl: Come on -- do Dave, do Dave. Titus: Naw – it doesn’t make … Earl: He couldn’t be here – you do him. Titus: It doesn’t make any sense … Paula: It’s out of context. Titus: It’s totally out of context. Me (Paul Dennis): Do Dave giving out money on Friday nights to the staff. Titus: Yeah – they have the … Paula: Lottery … Titus: … the big lottery on Friday nights. Well, the last lottery – how much was that? Paula: Twenty grand – twenty-five grand. Earl: He pulls it out of his own pocket because the crew … everybody works for cut rate money because it’s HBO. Paula: Including us. Titus: Including us – yeah. Earl: And so as a thank-you every week he gives away at least $5000 and it’s gone up to twenty. He pulls it out of his pocket and has a lottery. Everybody’s name goes into a bowl and they take how much money you’ve won – wherever you are – that’s how many chances the crew has so … Peter: It makes for a very happy crew. Titus: But the actors are excluded from that. Audience: The show has helped Deadwood a lot. I imagine it would help each of your careers. Paula: I haven’t worked since. I had a great career … Peter: What have you heard? Jim: Yeah, we … we keep hopin’. Peter: In my forty years I’ve never seen a producer who shows up before the start of every scene before it’s blocked – every single scene … and watches it and either uses it … or doesn’t … or usually does. It’s incredible. Jim: He’s probably had a better career for it when it’s done that way. Earl: The show’s probably a little bit better too. To answer the question – yeah, being associated with a hit makes you all the more desirable. And I’ve gone to a meeting and audition and this is the first thing anybody wants to talk about. Paula: Right. Earl: “I’m a big fan.” Jim: They don’t want to hire us – they just want to talk about it. Titus: It’s a little disconcerting, you know, getting off the train at Grand Central in New York and having somebody call me “cocksucker” … which really gets … I mean, the first couple times, like (makes fists as if to fight) … Paula: Yeah … Titus: … ready to go, and they – “No no no – you know, the show.” “Oh, that’s right.” Earl: Pantageous (a theatre in Hollywood). At the Merle Haggard – Bob Dylan show, and it’s between sets, and the Pantageous … there’re little privacy walls in the urinals, and they’re about this wide (gesturing) – I don’t fit in them. And I’m in there, and there’s this influx of men waiting to pee. And I’m standing there and the guy goes, “Cocksucker!” Peter: And it’s disconcerting when you’re signing an autograph and somebody will say, “Will you write to ‘You motherfucker … dear cocksucker’.” Jim: Well, my mom asked for that … (shaking head) and I said, “OK, that’s too far.” Hawkeye: Well I guess there’s a fraternity at Missouri University that called out on our set and said that they watch our show religiously, and every time the word “cocksucker’s” said they all have a shot. Well, the night that Keone (who plays Mr. Wu) did the … he said it sixteen times and four people at the fraternity passed out. They should have done half shots. Earl: You know, I did a guest star on a TV show right when we finished and I had forgotten what doing TV was like. ’Cause you’ve got nine days – sometimes ten days – but you get it and you go and that’s it. Hell, our show is like shooting a big-budget feature. I mean, we’ve taken three weeks to do an episode, all right. And that’s the great thing about HBO – they let him alone and let him do what he needs to do. Jim: However, from episode nine this past season I came to work and I looked at the call sheet, which is the thing that tells everybody whether they’re working that day or … and all the little details about what needs to be pulled together for the day, and up at the top corner it said “Day 19 out of 10.” Earl: Was that your ??? Hawkeye: Right on time. Titus: Yeah – the funeral itself – standing outside … Sean: Three days … Earl: Three days – standing there outside the boy’s house. Titus: Which was supposed to be, you know, a day. Paula: A day … Jim: It’s really fun when somebody else – one guy – had all the lines. Everybody else is just standing there. Titus: And we all try to figure out ways how to get out of having to be there. Earl: Yeah. Titus: Which is amazing to watch actors … Paula: I did. Titus: … try to come up with story points for their characters. “I don’t think … you know …” Paula: “I wouldn’t be here.” Titus: “… my character would be so completely distraught that he wouldn’t want to attend the child’s funeral.” And they’re looking at like, “Adams would have a problem?” Needless to say, the three of us (pointing to Sean and Earl – all three play Al Swearengen’s henchmen) didn’t get out of it. ’Cause we kept saying, “Well, we’re actually … we’re going to Chinamen’s alley …” Earl: Yeah. Titus: “… ’cause we have some business to take care of.” And they just sort of stood there and let us, you know – flog ourselves. Jim: These guys belong to the Robert Mitchum school of acting. When somebody asked Robert Mitchum once what was the first thing he looked for in a script, and he said “days off.” Earl: I love … one of my favorite books of his … I just read that book about him last year. Ian (McShane) worked with him so Ian told us all these stories about him. Some reporter had, like, watched all of his movies and interviewing him and they’re … they realized that Mitchum hadn’t seen the movies he was talking about ... movies he was in. He says, “Do you mean you haven’t seen your work?” He said, “Son, they don’t pay me to watch ’em.” Peter: They also asked him if he used the Stanislavsky method of acting. He said, “I use the Smirnoff method.” |
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