411 Movies Interview: Timothy Hutton
Posted by Al Norton on 12.09.2008
411Mania's Al Norton sits down for an exclusive interview with Oscar winner Timothy Hutton
Timothy Hutton burst on to the acting scene in 1980, when, at age 20, his performance in Ordinary People made him (at the time) the youngest actor ever to win an Oscar. For the last 28 years has been a consistent big screen presence, with movies like Taps, Falcon and the Snowman, Q & A, The Dark Half, and Beautiful Girls. His TV work includes Nero Wolfe, Kidnapped, and the new TNT series Leverage, which debuted on Sunday night and begins its regular Tuesdays at 10 pm run tonight.
Al Norton: Talk to me a little bit about working with TNT on this series and how it compares to your last series lead, Nero Wolfe on A & E.
Timothy Hutton: Nero Wolfe wasn't really set up to be a series. Michael Jaffe and myself –we were both the executive producers on it – had these Nero Wolfe books written by Rex Stout and the idea was to do a few of them as two hour movies. We started with Golden Spiders and that did well ratings wise so they asked if we'd be interested in doing more. We did six of them, and then the following year we did more. We realized that some of Stout's stories would make good one hour shows, so we did a couple of those. It wasn't a series order; I was never approached and told I had to sign a contract for five years, which is the norm. We kind of did them one at a time and did it like that for two years.
In the case of Kidnapped for NBC, that was a one year arc with Dana Delaney and I as the parents. We were only going to be on the show for one year and the following year, if there had been one, they would have brought in all new people for a new story. We were never intended to go beyond one year and, as it turns out, the show never went beyond three or four episodes before it got pulled from the air.
Al Norton: You found out that Kidnapped was cancelled but then still had to go back and film several more episode to wrap up the story. What kind of experience is that, to work on something you already know is over?
Timothy Hutton: It was difficult. We ended up all being easy about it and having a good time but for a couple of weeks it was rough. We were off the air, the show was cancelled. We had filmed maybe four or five of them when they told us there wouldn't be anymore and yet we had to finish the order of thirteen. I told everybody it was like doing a play with nobody in the audience. The stage manager says, "the play is closing, that's the bad news. The good news is you get to keep doing the play. There's a little more bad news and that is that we can't let any audience members into the theater." We had this obligation to do it and we did, with our best foot forward. Now it's available on DVD.
I guess what I'm saying is that when I decided to do Leverage is was the first traditional series for me; I had to agree to be on it for five years, should it go that long. I wanted to do it, it was a great script and a great starting point for a character; having hit rock bottom and the only way to pull himself up was by helping people.
Al Norton: The character you play has a flaw – or a few – that we see in the first couple of episodes. Are those going to be explored more during the season?
Timothy Hutton: The first season will show the real range of the guy going from seemingly stable and ok, having found this new way to get on with his life, to him falling apart and pulled back into some of the tragedy that happened in his life involving his son. Two significant characters come back to haunt him as the season goes on. And the drinking remains a problem for him and he gets confronted about it by the other members of the team.
Al Norton: Leverage is a pretty high tech show. Were you much of a gadgets guy coming in?
Timothy Hutton: I am in technology and all the different things that are coming out, all the different ways to cross platform information. My typical time on my computer, as far as where I spend my time…I've got the New York Times as my homepage, I go to ESPN.com five or six times a day, BostonDirtDogs.com, Gadget.com, and Tuaw, the unofficial Apple website. Everyday I'm reading about new stuff. I like Wired magazine for that stuff, too.
Al Norton: There are a lot of shows out there now with the whole "team" concept but one thing about Leverage is that there is some levity. On some of those other shows no one ever cracks a smile, or if they do there a character that is supposed to be crazy. Does that humor continue throughout the season?
Timothy Hutton: It does continue. A lot of it comes from the different characters playing other characters in the con. There is a lot of humor in it, especially when things don't go right and they have to go to plan B. That's what drew me to the script; I didn't want them to be these big crusaders. There's that element to it but there had to be something else, this idea of these people really enjoying humiliating their cons, really sticking it to them, and helping others at the same time.
Al Norton: Can you feel the difference in the way TNT is getting behind Leverage the experience you had with Kidnapped on NBC?
Timothy Hutton: I have to say NBC did a great job in promoting Kidnapped. There wasn't anything wrong with what NBC did, or the producers. The experience was a rough one for all of us because we believed in the show and wanted it to continue but I don't think anybody dropped the ball on it.
I will say right now, in the environment out there, TNT is at the top of getting behind their shows. There are other good places; AMC and what they did with Mad Men was just phenomenal. I think the whole TV culture is going toward a place where the show is understood before it's produced, before it's greenlit. A lot of times one aspect of the show is interesting enough for the network to say "let's do it, let's see what happens", and it gets watered down along the way, losing audience because it doesn't really know its identity. I think more and more, and certainly I experienced this at TNT, they know what the show is. They have it figured out before they begin filming it. There isn't this thing of throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and see what sticks. They know exactly what it is. That's good for us because we don't suddenly get handed new pages because their research tells them that last weeks show was really good because people were wearing yellow shirts. They have it figured out across the board so the marketing and advertising departments know what the show is about.
One of the things I found with A & E and Nero Wolfe, and it wasn't anybody's fault, was that the idea I had was very different from what the commercials and promos looked like. I wanted it to be edgier and they had it as a kind of pop, 50's, bright cheery colors type of thing. I also thought the show was funny. There was a little bit of a divide between what Michael and I thought the show was and how it was being promoted.
Al Norton: Will you be looking to get behind the camera at all with Leverage (Hutton directed seven episodes of Nero Wolfe)?
Timothy Hutton: Maybe down the line. I certainly didn't have any desire to do it during the first year, only because I was fixed on playing the character and seeing how the first season went. We also had so many wonderful directors lined up. Maybe down the road…I feel like I've done that, playing the role and directing, and it's a lot to take on. I think if I were to direct again it would be for a series I wasn't acting in.
Al Norton: With the entertainment TV shows, the tabloids, and the gossip web sites, is it harder for a young actor to be treated seriously as an actor as opposed to a personality now than it was when you were getting started?
Timothy Hutton: Not if they approach it the right way. Yes, it's different because there are so many outlets. There was no TMZ when I was starting out. There was the National Enquirer, there were paparazzi, but now the fixation on camping out outside people's homes and tracking them everywhere, I've never seen anything like it. But as far as people finding a way to avoid it? People can avoid it. You don't need to go to certain places where you know that happens. If you're a young actor starting out, it might be a good idea to lay low sometimes. I don't mean become a hermit; you should be able to go out and enjoy yourself. But there's ways to be low key about it. It's up to managers and agents to make young actors understand that, but there are managers and agents that actually want their clients to get into a little bit of trouble and having something written about them because it up's their profile. It looks to me sometimes that bad behavior is rewarded and that's just the culture we are in.
Al Norton: You mentioned Mad Men earlier. Do you watch much TV?
Timothy Hutton: I caught up with The Wire recently, which I thought was an amazing show. I watched all five seasons in a week – I just couldn't stop watching it. Mad Men is great. I watch baseball, hockey, basketball, football; when I turn on the TV, that's usually what it's for.
Al Norton: Where do you see TV going from here? Do you think a lot of things will shift to the internet?
Timothy Hutton: I do think things will go to the net. People need some pretty high speed gear to watch full shows on the web without it popping in and out and the quality isn't the same as it is on TV but I think that's definitely the next frontier. I think that reality TV will continue to be a big thing and perhaps become the predominant programming on the big three. I hope that's not the case but it's the economics; the business model for those shows is such that they are such low risk, and such high risk in doing a show like the Christian Slater show (My Own Worst Enemy), which is a great show but so expensive to make comparatively. A scripted series failing can have big repercussions but if a reality show fails, they are so cheap to make that it won't discourage them from making another
Al Norton: I wonder if we'll see the big 3 do what cable seems to be doing, which is borrowing from the BBC model of making seasons that are 10-12 episodes long.
Timothy Hutton: That would be great. What we need is a mix of both. I understand people like a variety of programming. I don't turn my nose up at anything. Anything that grabs an audience, that brings an audience in, that's good programming.
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