TONIGHT
E-mail a friendEric Braeden
airdate September 3, 2007
Known for his long-running role on CBS' The Young and the Restless, Emmy-winning actor Eric Braeden also performs on stage and in films, including the indie Western, The Man Who Came Back—which he also exec produced. Born in Germany, he immigrated to the U.S. as a teen, became a naturalized citizen during college and holds dual citizenship. In '89, Braeden was the only actor on the then-newly-formed German American Advisory Board and has been honored by the German and Israeli governments for his efforts in advancing German-Jewish dialogue.
Eric Braeden
Tavis: Pleased to welcome Eric Braeden back to this program. For 27 years, he's played Victor Newman on one of daytime TV's most popular shows, "The Young and the Restless -” Y&R. Early next year he serves as both producer and star of a new film, "The Man Who Came Back -” more on that in a moment. Earlier this summer, though, he received a long-overdue star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame just a couple of miles from this studio, in fact. Eric Braeden, as always, it is a blessing to see you. How you doing, man?
Eric Braeden: Tavis, nice to be here.
Tavis: Nice to see you. I didn't realize this until researching for your appearance tonight - you're the last German to receive - if my facts are right here - the last German to receive a star on the Walk of Fame was Marlene Dietrich.
Braeden: That's right. And she did, I think, in the - I forget when, but in the fifties sometime, I think. But certainly the first post-war German to receive it. So maybe the tide is slowly turning, who knows?
Tavis: (Laughs) Very, very, very, very slowly, yeah.
Braeden: Very, very slowly, you bet.
Tavis: So how does it feel? I haven't had that honor, so how does it feel to walk out there and -
Braeden: To be honest with you, it's a little surreal. You're surrounded by family and friends, and it suddenly becomes very touching. It just - whoa. And it was right next to Grauman's Chinese, and my son had written a film for Vin Diesel called "A Man Apart," and the opening of the film was in that theater. And then you suddenly reflect upon having been in this town since 1961.
And you've seen it all. And it's a wonderful honor. In this town of transience and impermanence to have something that is permanent be affixed that people can walk all over is nice.
Tavis: Yeah, well, you are permanently affixed to the lineup of Y&R, so that's not your only thing that's permanently affixed in this town. You are on that show. I can't imagine - and I'm sure the fans feel the same way - they can't imagine Y&R without you. Did you ever think you'd be there this long? Twenty-seven years.
Braeden: No. When I first started out, I thought I would be there for three months. And then I didn't like it at all, and then after a year I wanted to leave - didn't like it either. And then they changed producer who said, none of this is written in stone. Prior to that, they thought it was written in stone. And I said, "Even Shakespeare changed lines in the last minute," so. (Laughter)
And that new producer made all the difference in the world; that's why I'm still there. Because I love the process of making something real that was written by other people, and that still fascinates me. It's never bored me. So besides that, I'm extremely lucky to be working in a town where you have 120,000 registered actors, of which 1% make a good living.
Tavis: So the primary reason that you were not happy were producers at the time.
Braeden: It was the speed with which they did things. You have to get used to that. We'd shoot 80 pages in one day. Nighttime television does approximately between eight and 10 pages a day. Film does two or three pages a day. We do 80, so the tempo is just absolutely extraordinary. You learn lines - you cram lines into your head all day, and by now one has - you can develop your memorization (unintelligible) so exponentially that now I just look at it two or three times and I know it. So otherwise, it used to be torture.
Tavis: Tell me more about that, because I'm curious about that. What's your secret? How do you look at something two or three times and -
Braeden: You have to - I think part of memorization has to do with emotionally identifying it, really understanding it. First of all intellectually understanding it and then as an actor emotionally identifying with whatever you want to say. But you need to understand it, although there's by-rote learning; I'm sure we all have done it in school, where you don't really understand the text. But as an actor, you learn to understand it. That's an enormous challenge from Shakespeare. I love it, but it's very tough to be real in Shakespeare. Very tough.
Tavis: Have there been points or any point over this 27-year journey on Y&R where you just vehemently disliked, opposed, the direction they were taking for your character? That you said, "This is just not Victor."
Braeden: To answer it very simply, yes. Not too long ago, one of the head writers asked me - had a conversation with me and said, "I'm sort of thinking of taking Victor Newman down." I said, "Why, to what end? Why would you want to do that?" If you take his business acumen, his business power down, you have nothing that other people can run against.
Their center's gone. And he then for a while wrote a few storylines that I was diametrically opposed to, but things have changed now. We have a wonderful head writer, Lynn Latham, doing a hell of a job, so things are now, I think, in order again.
Tavis: When I first met you - you've been here before - but when I first met you I didn't know whether or not the way you speak was really the way you speak or it's the way Victor speaks. I've come to know, knowing you now, the way you talk is the way you talk is the way you talk - that's the way you enunciate and the way you - that's your sound, your tone.
Braeden: Right, right.
Tavis: I raise that only because I wonder how much of that you think makes the character, Victor? Because I think so much of Victor is just the way you deliver the sound, the intonation, that coarseness, that hoarseness - it's just the sound. That's what I think; what do you think? Who cares what I think?
Braeden: I don't know. I think - I don't know that, that's in the perception of the audience. I don't know that personally. What I think contributes to the success of the character is that he, to put it very bluntly, very plainly, doesn't take any (unintelligible). I think that men in American television have been denigrated so extraordinarily - mostly in commercials.
I think men are made fools of. When you watch commercials on all of television, the man is the blubbering idiot most of the time. The character of Victor Newman is not. I won't let them do that to me. So there's a tendency to make men the fools, and I've a feeling that is (unintelligible) by advertisers in a sense because they know most women do the shopping.
So the notion of a strong man is one that doesn't take any guff from people is very rare on television, and I personally think combined with a certain vulnerability that the character shows on occasion in regard to women and children, it is that combination, I think, that - "Sports Illustrated" had an article once where they interviewed from the Yankees to the Raiders to Tommy Hearns to boxers, and they liked the coldness in Victor.
Said he's as cold as ice. But it is a combination of the two; it is coldness, hardness, and vulnerability at the same time.
Tavis: I want to ask you before my time runs out in a few minutes here about "The Man Who Came Back" coming out next year. Before I do that, since you went there, let me ask the flip side of that question - or maybe not the flip side, but certainly it's tangential. When you've been on a show for 27 years, and you are in the minds of the everyday viewer the star of that show - with all due respect to your fellow actors, everybody knows Victor's the man - how much leverage does that give you?
When you say - and I'm only asking that because you say the character Victor doesn't take any crap. But it must be awfully nice to know that there's only so much crap that Eric Braeden has to take. Because if you ever decide to walk off that set, all hell in America would break loose because you aren't there. That must be awfully nice come negotiation time every few years.
Braeden: Let me tell you something very honestly.
Tavis: How impolitic was that?
Braeden: Tavis, let me tell you something. (Laughter) Let me tell you something very honestly. Once you begin to believe that as an actor, you're on the way down. Don't ever believe that. Don't ever believe - if you think that, that's fine. If I think that, I'm in trouble. You must always think that it is tenuous; it is temporary. Nothing is permanent in this town, so you've got to keep on fighting all the time - all the time.
I do not believe - I honestly don't believe that I'm the major character on the show. I think the show is made up of many actors. It is mostly the hands of the writers. Once I start believing what people say, what you just said - which is wonderful; I wish it were true, I wish I would fully believe it - it isn't, it really isn't. This is - I'm not saying that out of false modesty.
I have known too many actors who thought they were, and suddenly they're gone, and the (unintelligible) goes on. (Laughter) So as nice as that sounds, I don't want to believe in it.
Tavis: That's a fair answer. I accept that. Now I could never - just for the record, I could never believe that. I am Black and male in Hollywood, so I know how tenuous this situation is. And I'm on PBS, so believe me, I could never believe that personally, just so you know that. It was just a question.
That said, let me ask you right quick about "The Man Who Came Back," coming out next year. Tell me about this project.
Braeden: I had a hell of a time doing it. Someone brought a script to me a number of years ago, a revenge picture. Took place in the south, more or less. Was very interested in it. It's sort of deep in my psyche to get even for injustices done to me, but I needed historic context. It was too - hence I once read a book called "Without Sanctuary."
Tavis: I have it in my library.
Braeden: Exactly. And it's about the history of lynchings in this country. And then I told the writer, I said, "I want you to somehow make that part of the picture, because it's part of the background - the historic background." And then we came upon the labor strike in 1887, in Thibodaux, Louisiana - the second-bloodiest labor strike in American labor history.
It was put down brutally on the 21st of November, 1887, by militias from New Orleans, from Shreveport, Lafayette, etc. The picture stars George Kennedy, a wonderful actor, it was such an honor to work with him, and a man full of history of this town; Kenny Norton, who I've admired enormously, former heavyweight champ; Billy Zane from Titanic; Armand Asanti; Sean Young from Blade Runner - a hell of a cast.
Tavis: Nice cast.
Braeden: Wonderful cast. I had a hell of a time doing it, to be honest with you, and I executive produced it and starred in it. And we're cutting it right now, and it's a whole new thing, and I have enormous respect for anyone who has made a good film. It is tough, tough to do, and we did it with a limited budget in Texas, and it'll come out probably around November or December. "The Man Who Came Back." In other words, essentially it is Eric Braeden, Victor Newman, coming back to town and kicking ass.
Tavis: Yeah, well, that's what Eric Braeden and Victor Newman do. (Laughs) Nothing surprising me. Nice to have you here.
Braeden: Tavis, a joy.
Tavis: Always good to see you.
Braeden: The same to you.
Back to September 3, 2007