E-mail a friendRichard Jenkins
airdate April 30, 2008
Richard Jenkins is one of Hollywood's most in-demand character actors. He's worked steadily in film and TV and has an impressive list of credits, including the films There's Something About Mary, Me, Myself & Irene and, his latest, The Visitor. He's known to TV audiences as the family patriarch in HBO's Six Feet Under. Jenkins has also enjoyed a distinguished regional theater career, including a 15-year stint at Rhode Island's Trinity Repertory Theater, where he served as artistic director for four years.
Richard Jenkins
Tavis: Richard Jenkins is a talented actor whose many notable films include "Silverado," "Sea of Love," and "North Country." His latest project, "The Visitor," is one of the most highly regarded films of 2008. The movie is now playing in theaters across the country. Here now, a scene from "The Visitor."
[Clip]
Tavis: Sometimes I get clips, Richard, and I wonder why the studio sent me the clip, because it doesn't do much justice to the film at all. That clip actually gives you a good sense, some sense of what the film is all about. I'll let you unpack it, though.
Richard Jenkins: Well, it's the story of a college professor who is kind of going through the motions in life. His wife has died seven years earlier, and he's sent to New York to present a paper. And he has an apartment that they've kept forever, and he hasn't been back since his wife died, and he checks - goes into his apartment and he finds two people living there.
And one is the young man we just saw in the clip, from Syria, and a young girl from Africa. And he befriends them, and his life changes, as does theirs. And as you can see, one - they're illegal, they're illegal immigrants, and the young man is picked up in the subway and put in a detention center, and that's the scene we just saw - Walter visiting the detention center.
Tavis: The movie, to my eyes, at least, had a number of things to say about immigration in this country - immigration more expressly, more specifically, in a post-9/11 world. Was I supposed to get that, or was that Tavis reading too much into it?
Jenkins: No, well, I think what - Tom McCarthy, the writer-director, I think really what he wanted to do here was - and he's visited a lot of these detention centers and talked to detainees, and immigration, the whole subject is so complicated and so - I don't even know how I feel about it. I don't feel qualified to even talk about the way we should go in this country.
But I think what he was saying is this is what's happening, and this is how we're treating people. Now how you treat someone, no matter what the laws are, I think is important, and I think he wanted to show how we are treating immigrants.
Tavis: As an actor, and as a lead actor in this film, I might add, as an actor, how does one go about taking the layers off the role? Digging deep into the role about a subject like immigration if by your own admission you're not really sure how you feel about it?
Jenkins: Well, I never saw it as an immigration story. I saw it as a friendship. I saw it as a human drama. And I kind of let the movie unfold, like the audience. I was kind of in it like they were. It kind of unfolded before my eyes. So I had to kind of trust the script and not try to push it along.
Tavis: Tell me if I got this right. I think I read somewhere where this movie wasn't the easiest thing to get done, because you happened to be filming in New York City at the same time that another film was being made, and they pretty much had a monopoly on all the studio equipment that you all - I'll let you tell the story. It's pretty funny, if it's right.
Jenkins: Will Smith. "I Am Legend." It's like we couldn't get any trucks.
Tavis: You guys were doing your movie at the same time he was filming "I Am Legend."
Jenkins: I know, it's like -
Tavis: And they just took all the equipment.
Jenkins: Everything. I thought we were going to have a camera with a handle on it. (Laughter) It was just - we couldn't - it was unbelievable. But we finally got some dressing rooms where you could go in like this. (Laughter) But yeah.
Tavis: So Big Willie comes to town and just shuts everything down.
Jenkins: Shuts it down. I think we had to go to North Carolina to get a dressing room. We couldn't find one in New York, yeah.
Tavis: That's amazing. To that point, then, at this point in your career, perhaps more than some other point - I don't know, you tell me - small, independent films like this are enticing to you?
Jenkins: Well, it's the roles that are enticing to me. Big films with big budgets are also enticing to me. I tried to get in "I Am Legend," but Will, he wouldn't even see me. (Laughter) No, it's just if the part's interesting. I look at something and I say, "Can I bring anything to this?" Sometimes you look at it and you go, "There's a lot of actors who could do this better than me," and so you just have to kind of know who you are as an actor.
Tavis: So who is Richard Jenkins as an actor? Have you figured that out yet, or are you still working on that one, too?
Jenkins: I don't know, I don't know. (Laughter)
Tavis: Seventy films and you ain't figured this out yet?
Jenkins: It's great to be on the "Tavis Smiley Show." I have no idea what I - no, you know what's funny? Somebody asked me the other day, I said, "It gets harder. It doesn't get easier, it gets harder." Because you know what you need to do to have a chance at being good, and it's scary.
Tavis: I'm fascinated by that. What aspect of it, specifically, gets harder?
Jenkins: Well, you'd know, you just know what you need to do, and it's a daunting thought. You just have to all kind of let it go, and it's a little scary.
Tavis: You've been in tons of - I said 70 earlier, that number is not too far from being inaccurate - from being accurate, I should say. So many, many films you've been in -
Jenkins: I don't keep count. Seventy-nine.
Tavis: Seventy-nine. (Laughter) I love it. And yet -
Jenkins: Films and TV movies.
Tavis: Films and TV movies, yes, yes, yes.
Jenkins: Did you happen to see the -
Tavis: (Laughs) And unless I have my facts wrong, this is the first time that you have, like, carried a movie, been the lead in the movie?
Jenkins: Yup.
Tavis: First time?
Jenkins: First and last, yup. No, yeah, it's my first time, yeah. No, this is my first time. I -
Tavis: Why is that?
Jenkins: I was a character actor, that's what I did, and I had no complaints. I have no complaints. I had a fabulous career. I've had great opportunities, worked with terrific directors and actors, and this was just - this was like a gift. It just, like, there it was. I wasn't expecting it, and I was grateful.
Tavis: Back to Will Smith a moment ago. Everybody has this dream, everybody who wants to be an actor - I do not. But for those who want to be an actor, they have this dream of being Will Smith one day, the most powerful guy in Hollywood, the guy that can carry a film all by - speaking of "I Am Legend," the guy's on screen for 95 percent of the movie by himself.
Jenkins: Yeah, but he doesn't have a shirt on.
Tavis: Yeah. (Laughter) And he still makes a ton of money. I raise that only because there is something, it seems to me, special and blessed about being a character actor, about not being - with all due respect to my friend Will Smith - about not being Will Smith. What's the coolest thing about being a character actor?
Jenkins: Well, first of all I want to say it's hard being Will Smith. To carry a movie, to put a movie on your back, is an unbelievable gift, and there's not a lot of people that can do it. So - and I've worked with a lot of them, and I know. You just really respect them because they're all incredible actors.
But you get a chance to play different things, and you have a scene, you're finished, you go get a doughnut. It's great.
Tavis: But oftentimes, as you well know, you've done this a few times. Oftentimes these character actors end up stealing the movie.
Jenkins: Yes, sometimes they do. Sometimes some great parts are character parts. And I've been really fortunate; I've had a lot of cool things to do.
Tavis: You've been living in Rhode Island for how long now?
Jenkins: Forty years.
Tavis: That's kind of off the beaten path, isn't it? It's not New York, it's not L.A. You like it like that?
Jenkins: I do, I do, yeah.
Tavis: I guess so, 40 years later.
Jenkins: Yeah, no, it's good, it's good. Like, where am I going to go now?
Tavis: How'd you end up there?
Jenkins: I came out there as an apprentice in a theater - the Trinity Repertory Company - and I stayed as an actor there for 14 years, and I started doing movies, and my kids were in school there and my wife worked there and we had a house there, and so we stayed.
Tavis: I would assume - you tell me if I'm right or wrong - I would assume there's a certain stability for an actor in being connected to a theater company like that where there's a base, I guess is what I'm trying to get at. So when things are not jumping in Hollywood, there's a -
Jenkins: Well, I don't - and once I left, I haven't been back there, no. But it was an incredible place to work. We did a lot of exciting things. But it's great to live in Rhode Island except when the phone doesn't ring you think "I think they forgot about me." You're so far away from everything.
Tavis: Is there - I know you've been asked this question a thousand times, but not by me. Since you've played so many characters, what eludes you to this day as a character actor that you might want to try your hand at?
Jenkins: Oh, that's interesting.
Tavis: You've done so many - that's what character actors do. You do everything.
Jenkins: But in my entire career, I have never had a list of things I wanted to do. On the stage or in film, I've never said, "Gee, I would love to play -" I just - my little brain doesn't work that way.
Tavis: So how do you pick them when this stuff comes at you, then?
Jenkins: I just see if - I read them and I think if they're interesting and I could bring something to it, I could add something to this character, I'll say, "Yeah, let's do it." But I haven't - there are parts that I've wanted that I didn't get, that - but usually, when you - when you want a part, you know the part I wanted? I wanted the part that William Macy played in "Fargo."
Tavis: That's a great movie.
Jenkins: And then I saw the movie, and I said, "Oh, I know why I didn't get the part." That's why, because he was phenomenal, and he was better than I would have been in it. So that's the other thing you learn - don't take it personally when you don't get a role.
Tavis: I'm trying to think in the years I've been doing this how many people have come on the show and said, "That guy was actually better than I would have been."
Jenkins: Well, he was.
Tavis: This may be the first time I ever heard this.
Jenkins: He was, he was. And it's happened before, I've seen other - I remember I wanted John Goodman's part in "Raising Arizona." Can you imagine? But when I saw - (laughter) and when I saw it, I thought well, what the hell was I thinking? Because he was amazing in it.
So it's - there's so many good actors. You do a movie and a guy'll come on and he'll have five lines for a day. He's phenomenal. And you think, "How many people didn't get that part that were just as good?" They were maybe a little old, a little tall, a little short - who knows? So there's a lot of good actors out there.
Tavis: I have great respect for Richard Jenkins, except we disagree on two points. Number one, I can't imagine anybody sitting better in this seat than I sit in this seat every night, that's number one. I'm not that magnanimous, number one. And number two, if I ever walk in my house and I see two folk just living there because I've been gone for a few days, you got to get out of my house. (Laughter)
So we disagree on those two things, but the movie is called "The Visitor," starring Richard Jenkins, and I think you will like it. Mr. Jenkins, nice to have you on the program.
Jenkins: Nice to be here, thank you.
Tavis: It's good to see you.
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