E-mail a friendTim Daly
airdate September 5, 2007
Tim Daly is well known for his eight seasons on the sitcom Wings. Continuing the family tradition, he began acting in summer stock while attending Vermont's Bennington College and has made his mark with credits that include the CBS remake of The Fugitive, the award-winning drama, Execution of Justice, which he also exec-produced, and several appearances in HBO's megahit, The Sopranos—for which he won an Emmy nod this year. Daly stars in the upcoming Grey's Anatomy spin-off, Private Practice.
Tim Daly
Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Tim Daly to this program. The former "Wings" star is up for an Emmy next week for his recurring role on "The Sopranos -” more on that in a moment. He's also returning, though, to prime time TV this fall as the star of the new ABC series "Private Practice." That would be the "Grey's Anatomy" spin-off.
It also stars Kate Walsh, Taye Diggs, and Audra McDonald - what a lineup. It premieres September 26th at 9:00 p.m. Here now, a sneak preview of "Private Practice."
[Clip]
Tavis: I've got to try that. "I'm going to kiss you. I'm going to kiss you with tongue. I'm going to kiss you so you feel it." That's never worked for me, Tim.
Tim Daly: Well, it worked for me on that show, I'll tell you. (Laughter) The great thing about that is that probably every actor who's done some sort of love scene will tell you that there's always this odd moment when you're with the actress where you don't quite know what the tongue situation is going to be. Like, are you going to get the hors d'oeuvre you didn't order?
But with this, it was right in the lines - it was all in the instructions. Like babies, you're getting the tongue, here it comes - it says right here in the script, boom. (Laughter)
Tavis: That made it a little easier?
Daly: Yeah, just simplified the whole process.
Tavis: It's nice to meet you, first of all.
Daly: Thank you.
Tavis: I was just thinking of the list of spin-offs that have worked, and this may put you in good company. Spin-offs do work from time to time.
Daly: I guess they do. I really - it's funny, because I really haven't thought about this as a spin-off because I guess I didn't really feel connected that much to the other show. And I really tried to approach this as a fresh show that will hopefully stand all on its own. I know that Kate's character came over from "Grey's Anatomy," but none of the other - the rest of us really didn't. So I think we're approaching it as our own thing.
Tavis: I was just reading, as you heard a moment ago, some of the names of the cast members - Taye Diggs, Audra McDonald, you - the cast is pretty amazing.
Daly: It's great. Amy Brenneman also, who - Brenneman combined with the Daly works very well. My sister did "Judging Amy" for a long time with Amy Brenneman, so they had a good run.
Tavis: It's funny - shoot me in the head, but I had not made the connection to your sister. I don't know how I missed that.
Daly: Just so you know, you're not alone.
Tavis: I felt really stupid when I realized that.
Daly: Well don't feel stupid, it's just one of those things. But Tyne and I, we've been working in this business for a long time and we are, in fact, brother and sister - same parents.
Tavis: That would be Tyne Daly from "Cagney & Lacey." I just never - duh, never made the connection.
Daly: Yeah, she's my big sister and she's a good kid.
Tavis: A great actress.
Daly: Yeah, she's a wonderful actress.
Tavis: Yeah. So this is obviously a family thing - your father, everybody else. Tell me about your family's connection to Hollywood after all these years.
Daly: Well, my parents were theater actors and my dad was a working actor in New York City - worked on Broadway in the theater, did a lot of live television. And then ironically enough what he became best known for was a series called "Medical Center" where he played a doctor at a hospital. (Laughter) And here I am, unable to avoid the genetic imperative; here I am playing a doctor.
So he did the show "Medical Center" with Chad Everett, and was well known for that. And it's hard to know how some of us kind of got the acting bug and some didn't. I sometimes think it's like a congenital disease. And it's like my son is now an actor, and one of Tyne's daughters is an actress. So it tends to get into your blood somehow and it's a lot of fun, if you get to do it.
Tavis: To your dad, though, and to what you're doing now, these medical dramas - I was just reading an article the other day about how medical dramas just find a way - pardon the pun - of living on. There's so many - television and history is replete with examples of medical dramas. You can go back to "Marcus Welby" and beyond that. These things just work for whatever reason. Your sense of that is what?
Daly: Well, I think that they work for the same reason that a lot of cop shows work, is that what happens in most medical dramas is that someone has a problem and the doctor comes and makes it better. And one of the things about TV that is that I think because it comes into peoples' homes, they want to be made to feel kind of better about something. I did a comedy and that was not world-changing, but it gave people something - it lightened their load a little bit; it made them feel a little better -
Tavis: It changed my world.
Daly: - after their long day.
Tavis: It changed my world, Tim Daly.
Daly: But I think doctor shows deliver exactly that - someone makes you better and it's all going to be okay.
Tavis: We'll come back to that world-changing series, "Wings," in a moment. Back to "Private Practice" first, though. Tell me about your character - we've kind of talked around it but not about it.
Daly: My character's really cool. He's a guy named Pete Wilder and he started out as a traditional MD and because of various things that happen to him through the course of his life, which you'll find out during the show, he broke from that and he went to China and studied eastern medicine. So he's a doctor of acupuncture, he's an herbalist, and in this medical co-op that's the area he holds down, which is the alternative medicine area.
So he delivers a whole different kind of product to people, in conjunction with people who do traditional western medicine. But he's seen both sides of it, so he's a very open-minded guy and someone who's very non-judgmental and who likes to tongue-kiss hot, red-headed women.
Tavis: And warn them in advance that it's coming. Radical departure from your recurring role in "The Sopranos - " by the way, congratulations on the Emmy - on the nod for that. By design, doing something different from?
Daly: Well, look, I think that there's a tendency in show business - whenever you use the word business there's this marketplace, and there's this tendency for forces in the market to try to package actors like you do products. You deliver something, you brand it, and there it is. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in the artistic side; I'm interested in the show more than the business, and I didn't become an actor to become a product.
So I've been really lucky. I've gotten to do all kinds of different things. I did a show last year called "The Nine" which was a great show on ABC where I played a cop. And I've been doing this thing on "The Sopranos," playing a drug-addicted TV writer, and now I'm playing a doctor of alternative medicine.
Tavis: You go from being drug-addicted to being a doctor - that's what I was trying to get at, yeah. (Laughs)
Daly: So as far as I'm concerned, my job as an actor is to explore the widest possible band of human experience, so if I'm over here playing somebody really dark, then I want to be over here playing someone really light and everything in between.
Tavis: Is there a place on that band, to your metaphor, where you think you are strongest at this point in your career?
Daly: That's a really interesting question. Somebody once told me - an acting teacher of mine once told me that I was really good at both ends and what I needed to work on was the middle, and I think he told me that because I sort of have this kind of all-American boy look, and I get cast often as kind of an everyman, and I sort of rebel against that. But I've had to work very hard at that - at sort of making the middle of existence interesting, and I think "Wings" taught me a lot about that, actually.
Tavis: Let's talk about "Wings."
Daly: I was going to give you your transition - I knew I was going to give it to you.
Tavis: I was saying to Tim before he came on the set a moment ago on my radio program just days ago I talked to Tony Shalhoub - that's the guy on "Monk." We had a great conversation; I was saying to him I'm going to see Tim, going to meet Tim in a couple days - I'm just making my way little by little through meeting the entire cast of "Wings" all these years removed. I stalked Crystal Bernard on a sidewalk one day here in L.A., trying to meet her one day.
Daly: Yeah, I did that, too, but that's a different story. (Laughter)
Tavis: Yeah. But I actually love that show. Why do you think I loved it so much? I wasn't the only one, obviously.
Daly: I think you loved it because it was funny. It's a little ironic, because it was the Whitest show in the history of television.
Tavis: It was indeed. Well, there was Shalhoub -
Daly: But then again, so is Martha's Vineyard. If you've ever been to Martha's Vineyard - that's a whole other story.
Tavis: A whole 'nother story, yeah.
Daly: But you know, it's really funny about that show, because when it came on the air the critics hated it. But somehow, it kind of hung around and then when it came back into syndication it suddenly had this new life. And now people adore it, and it's sort of seen as this kind of classic sitcom, and I must admit that every once in a while I will find it late at night or on an airplane or something, and it makes me laugh. It was just funny.
Tavis: How does it make you feel, though, as one of the stars of it, though, that it was not, to your point now, Tim, appreciated in the beginning the way it was or is down the road?
Daly: Well, Tavis, it pissed me off. (Laughter) It pissed everybody off.
Tavis: Tell me how you really feel. Yeah, yeah.
Daly: Because we're looking around, we're going, like, what the hell is wrong with this? This is a really funny show. And I think it was partly because the sort of classic element of that sitcom was sort of on the way out, in a sense, because "Seinfeld" was coming along, and "Friends," and there was this kind of new era in the paradigm of sitcom.
But we were kind of like a beautiful black tuxedo - never goes out of style, and beautifully made. So I think that's why it hung around and has finally gotten the attention it deserves.
Tavis: Let me go back to the point you made a moment ago, the joke, but there's something serious in it about it being the Whitest show. I have friends - I was never particularly a fan of "Seinfeld -” I'm sure I'll get mail about that - but I have male and female friends who are Black and other colors, for that matter, who loved - obviously, a lot of people love "Seinfeld."
So a show doesn't have to be, obviously, full of Black folk or Brown folk or Red folk or Yellow folk for you to love it if you're into the writing, and I think that's the point. That what I liked about "Wings," I thought the writing was really good and I assume for you that writing is paramount in figuring out -
Daly: That's the whole deal. When you're an actor, you're an interpretive artist and you look at something that someone else has written and you respond to it because you go, "I can tell this story. I get this person and I understand this story and I think I have the ability to convey it to people."
So speaking of my choices and where I fall in terms of the human experience, it's always about when I read something and I respond to it and I see some piece of humanity that I think people are going to understand and they're going to identify with. That's what makes me respond to a part.
Tavis: What attracted you, finally, then - speaking of what does pull you - what pulled you to this "Private Practice" project?
Daly: Well, it was a lot of things, but I have to say that it was kind of an interesting story getting involved with this because there was no script. All there was was Shonda Rhimes, and Shonda was there and she -
Tavis: That's a good start.
Daly: It's a great start. But that's the thing, when you do a series, you don't know - it might go six or eight or 10 years and you have to look to the person that created it to ask yourself is this person going to be able to sustain my character and this story over a long period of time? And I started watching a lot of "Grey's Anatomy," and Shonda is a tremendously talented writer.
And she does something that I think is especially good for a series, which is that she keeps her characters consistent. If they change, they change for a reason - they don't just change arbitrarily. So that was the strongest draw, I think.
Tavis: Well, enough of McDreamy, now she's got Tim Daly to deal with on the new show, "Private Practice." Tim, nice to have you here.
Daly: Thank you, Tavis, appreciate it.
Tavis: Good to see you.
Back to September 5, 2007