Q & A: Jeremy Sisto
BY ROBERT KAHN, NEWSDAY
You don't have to be a former "Six Feet Under" cast member to make it to the stage this season, but it helps. Michael C. Hall jammed with "Mr. Marmalade," and Lili Taylor and Lauren Ambrose are warming up, respectively, in "Landscape of the Body" and "Awake and Sing!" Now Jeremy Sisto, endeared to many as the alluringly dysfunctional Billy Chenoweth, is co-starring in "Festen," a dramatization of the 1998 Danish film that put the Dogme 95 collective on the world map. The adaptation chronicles the most miserable family dinner ever.
Sisto is building a career playing explosive, disturbed and/ or over-the-top characters. He has portrayed Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar in TV miniseries and performed as a homophobic ballplayer in a Los Angeles production of "Take Me Out." He has more than 40 TV and film roles to his credit, including "Clueless" and an appearance as Katie Holmes' boyfriend in the series finale of "Dawson's Creek." He'll appear this fall opposite Timothy Hutton and Linus Roache in the NBC series "Kidnapped."
The Northern California native, 31, has come east for "Festen," settling into a Hell's Kitchen rental with his year-old King Charles spaniel, Winston - who himself made his screen debut in the "Six Feet" series finale, cradled in Billy's arms during a flash-forward scene. The actor sat down with Newsday's Robert Kahn over a Shirley Temple at Angus McIndoe restaurant in the Theater District to talk about mood swings, his co-star Ali MacGraw and the peculiar burdens of having a dog in the Big Apple.
Q: As Michael, the on-the-outs brother in "Festen," you're in another complicated sibling relationship, this time opposite Julianna Margulies and Broadway vet Michael Hayden.
A: The interesting thing for me is that usually I play the crazy guy, and through my actions the drama of the story is created. In "Festen," I'm still the crazy one and you think that's going to happen again, but in fact, I grow up during the course of the play and figure out that the world doesn't revolve entirely around me.
Q: We're getting used to seeing you play temperamental. Are you seeking these parts out, or are they finding you?
A: Rufus [Norris, the director] has pushed me to find that. Michael [the character] jumps from feeling superior to people, to feeling really low and inferior. I think that because of Billy, people know that I like to do that kind of stuff. I like to play people who learn lessons in a big way and are on the verge of collapse at all times and desperately cling to any lessons they can learn.
Q: Be honest with us ... how erratic is your personality in real life?
A: Really, I'm pretty mellow. I used to be explosive in my early 20s, but for the last eight or 10 years, I haven't been as reactive. It gets emotionally exhausting.
Q: We've seen plenty in recent years from your co-stars, like Julianna and Larry Bryggman, who is a soap-opera legend for "As the World Turns." Ali MacGraw's been pretty quiet though, and now she's making her Broadway debut - as your mom. Were you familiar with any of the roles that made her famous?
I'd never seen any of her movies, but I knew her name, more because of the relationships she'd been in [with Steve McQueen and Robert Evans]. And I watched "Love Story" after we started working together. She's a warm sort of woman, and she's playing somebody pretty cold here. The cast around me is so strong that just to be surrounded by that is nice, to every night be interested in the other people ... because in a play, if there's somebody whose performance you don't like, it really grates on you. You spend every night thinking to yourself about how they should be doing it.
Q: You recently appeared on the L.A. stage in Richard Greenberg's "Take Me Out" and Sidney Kingsley's "Dead End." Is there a difference between audiences on the two coasts?
A: People who go to the theater in L.A. are really proud of themselves for going to a play, so they don't hold themselves as accountable for their reactions. Here, it seems like if people are going to be moved, they're going to be profoundly moved, and if they're going to be offended, they're going to be drastically offended. Also, people have to drive home after they go to see a play in L.A., so nobody goes out for a drink afterward.
Q: So that makes this more intimidating?
A: That makes it less intimidating. You're doing something where a reaction is imminent, and that's just much more exciting than something where there's the possibility of indifference.
Q: How's Winston handling the adjustment to a new city?
A: He travels with me a lot, so he's used to it. I definitely rely on day care. The first month of "Festen," I just couldn't do it, so I asked my ex-girlfriend to take him. It's such a pain in New York to have a dog, unless you have it all worked out. It's much easier in L.A. You throw him in the car and just go to the dog park.
Q: When you're out walking him, do people come up to you and ask about Billy?
A: For years, I dealt with being recognized for "Clueless," and that was a movie that I thought wouldn't do that well. I'd been in a bunch of other movies at the time that were more up my alley, and they all flopped. The people who recognize me for "Six Feet Under," a lot of them were personally affected by it, so it's always OK when somebody says they were a fan.