[Sponsored by Cinescape]
[Innerview Title Bar]
[The Big Leap] [Scott Bakula]
From TV's Quantum Leap to Clive
Barker's noir-inspired Lord of Illusions,
Scott Bakula tries to keep himself--and audiences--off-balance
By Edward Gross
Scott Bakula suffers from an acute case of Alan Alda Syndrome--everyone
who's had any contact with him says he's one helluva nice guy. Such praise
is flattering, of course, but it can also be deadly in a town where a bad
attitude and nasty manners are often necessary to garner the attention of
the news media. Still, being a nice guy hasn't kept Bakula out of the
spotlight.
Known primarily as the time-traveling, body-swapping scientist Dr. Sam
Beckett on Quantum Leap (1989-1993), the 40-year-old actor began his
professional career on Broadway in 1976, portraying Joe DiMaggio in
Marilyn: American Fable. After becoming a familiar face as Dr. Beckett (a
role that won him a Golden Globe Award) and as Candice Bergen's love
interest on Murphy Brown, he returned to Broadway in Romance/Romance. But
right now he's putting TV and the stage aside to concentrate on a
big-screen career.
In Clive Barker's Lord of Illusions, due out in August 1995, Bakula
portrays Harry D'Amour, a detective who investigates the mysterious death
of a magician, which leads him into a kinky supernatural adventure. Edward
Gross recently talked with the actor about stardom, Hollywood and Barker's
bizarre cinematic vision.
Television rarely stretches actors' talents. Did Quantum Leap, which had
you literally leaping into the bodies and lives of different people in
different eras, serve as a tremendous acting challenge every week?
It was a challenge, and what made it even more challenging was that I was
assuming some of but not all of each personality. I tried to get the flavor
of different people at different times. I might pick one or two traits that
I would use in an entire episode just to say, "Look, I'm that person." It
was fun to find those little moments.
We found out very early on that people who liked the show were willing to
take the ride with us, go out on a limb and say, "Yeah, dazzle me." We
really put ourselves out there the first time when I played a black man,
and then the next year we tried a woman, and then we just kept pushing and
pushing. The audience was saying, "Okay, give us more." What's really cool
is that the show is popping up all over the world now, and people are
responding to it in the same way as they did here.
[Bakula and Dean Stockwell]
I thought by now you would be doing Quantum Leap: The Movie.
There are a lot of things going on at Universal and we're not at the
forefront of their attention. I like to think that we will be at some time,
that somebody will take a moment and see that we are in 35 countries around
the world. I honestly believe that a movie will happen.
We had a great time on the show. It was hard work, but it was worth it. And
it's especially worth it now because it's popular all over the world. It
would be terrible to be traveling to different countries, as actors do,
feeling like, "Oh, God, I wish I wasn't in that show, I never liked doing
it." The truth of the matter is, you sign a contract for five years or
seven years and you just never know where it will take you. But I'm real
proud of Quantum Leap. We were making little hour-long movies in seven to
10 days and every one was different. The stories that we were able to tell
and the way we told them were exciting.
What's the appeal of Lord of Illusions and of the character you play, Harry
D'Amour?
This is kind of a departure for me. I hadn't really done anything in this
genre as serious as this. Actually, I'm not even sure what genre it is.
It's a combination of genres--the seedy private eye, film noir genre with
femme fatales and dupes, butting up against a wild supernatural thriller
with a little horror thrown in here and there. I just got a really good
script on my desk and then I sat down with a very famous, appealing,
likable guy named Clive Barker, who said, "I really love your work. I would
really love to do this movie with you."
Who can argue with that?
Exactly. I liked the character that he had created and the whole story. It
is unlike anything I've seen, which was one of Clive's goals. It's a big
special-effects movie, but at its core is this wonderful character. The
challenge quite often in these movies is to survive as an actor, because
you're surrounded by so much other spectacular stuff that you can disappear
into the fabric. But the character here was just so strong. He's a man who
has seen a lot of the dark side of life. He walks with both good and evil,
but he always lands firmly and strongly on the good side. He has basically
committed himself to being a protector of good, despite being confronted by
all these huge, ferociously dark and evil characters. It's the kind of
movie that keeps coming and coming at you. I think it's going to blow a lot
of people away.
The character reminds me of Kolchak, from The Night Stalker.
There are definitely some similarities. If there is a possession or an
exorcism, Harry will be there. He's drawn to that environment. The darker
forces find those people; they know who they are. He is very much that
person. Clive had this wonderful description: He said, "Harry is paying off
some kind of karmic debt." I love that. He is forced into wrangling with
these forces.
[Scott Bakula]
Would you like to play Harry again?
I would love to. There is already talk of a sequel. We are all wonderfully
optimistic. We can go a lot of places with the character.
You recently starred in a pilot for CBS [which was not picked up as a fall
series] called Prowler. TV Guide described it as a show about a detective
who "finds himself involved with cases of the macabre."
Sounds oddly familiar, doesn't it? I don't know who writes those things. We
all looked at that and couldn't believe it. In Prowler, I play a Los
Angeles police detective named Jack Harcher. We have created a very flawed
hero, which is unusual for television. Most of the heroes in the hour-long
shows are squeaky clean and carry the flag. But this is a guy who has had
some very serious tragedies in his life in the two years before we come
upon him in our first story. This permeates his work and his life, and it
permeates the whole show. So he is dealing with his own inner troubles and
strife and turmoil. In the pilot, a woman he used to work with tells him,
"You told me you wanted the nasty ones. Well, this one qualifies." Because
of his state of mind, he wants to stay out of the sunlight, he wants to
stay on the prowl--hence the name. He doesn't sleep much. He's alone. To
say the show deals with the macabre is wrong. The show is going to be about
his psyche, and what being a police detective in Los Angeles really
means--how the multiethnic clash of cultures has really overtaken this town
and confronted these law-enforcement people with a very difficult task.
That's really what the show is about.
So there are no elements of the supernatural in the show?
No, not at all. It's going to be much less about solving crimes and much
more about what makes these cops tick--how they get out there every day and
do their job.
You're ready for the rigors of weekly television again?
It's a whole different ballgame with this show. I'm executive producer now
as well as the lead actor. I was able to get a lot of really wonderful
people on the pilot to work with me. I got the director of photography and
art director from Lord of Illusions, both of whom came through brilliantly
for me. Peter Bogdanovich directed the pilot, which was lovely for all of
us. He did a spectacular job and has been very involved in helping us
develop the style and the look. Thanks to Peter, the show looks a lot
different from other police dramas on television. It's interesting to be
involved from the producing end of the business. So far, it's worked out.
Looking at your career--from your stage work to Quantum Leap and Lord of
Illusions, it's clear that you're interested in a wide range of projects
and genres.
I'm always looking for things that will stretch me. My goal is to keep
doing as many different kinds of things as people out here [in Hollywood]
will let me do. Frankly, you're not as easily typecast in the New York
theater as you can be in Hollywood. In other words, you can grow a beard in
New York and everybody accepts it as another look you have. In Hollywood,
if you don't have a beard, they're not going to hire you for a role that
requires it because they think you can't grow one. They think you can only
do one kind of role here, and you have to keep proving them wrong. Doesn't
make much sense, does it? But that's the way it is.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Image]
(c) 1996 Sendai Interactive, Inc.
(tm) and (c) for all products, characters, and indicia related thereto which are
contained herein
are owned by the companies who market or license those products.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[NUKE Home] [EGM] [CGR] [Cinescape] [Hero] [Newsstand] [Shelter] [Search]
[chat] [FAQ]