E-mail a friendChris Noth
airdate June 17, 2009
Chris Noth is known for two long-running TV roles: Law & Order's Mike Logan and his Golden Globe-nominated performance as Sex and the City's Mr. Big—a role he reprised in the hit film. The versatile Yale School of Drama grad has actually balanced stage and screen work since the early '80s. He won a "Best Broadway Debut" award for Best Man and starred in and exec-produced the TNT original film Bad Apple. Noth returns to the stage in the political drama, Farragut North, and will be seen in a new CBS series, The Good Wife.
Actor talks about being perpetually identified as Mr. Big, one of the two roles for which he is best known. (3:20)
Full interview. (13:18)
Chris Noth
Tavis: Chris Noth is a talented actor who legions of "Sex and the City" fans know, of course, as Mr. Big. As you might expect from a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, he's always had a love of theater, including his upcoming stint in the production of "Farragut North." The play runs here in L.A. at the Geffen Playhouse from June 24th through July 26th.
Here now, a sneak preview of "Farragut North."
[Clip]
Tavis: So it's back to the theater.
Chris Noth: Nice to meet you.
Tavis: You doing all right, man? Nice to meet you. Why this one?
Noth: Well, I think we all felt that we weren't done with it, this play, when we did it in New York. We could have had an extended run, but the Atlantic Theater had already had a play that was ready to go in - an Irish play, I believe. And we were just finding it when we had to - when it ended, and because it was off-Broadway it was a limited run.
And so I talked to Doug and we wanted to ride again, so to speak, and we were fortunate to find the Geffen Theater was available and most of the cast was ready to rock.
Tavis: There's been a lot of buzz about this thing lately, this play, because - buzz in the sense that I'm hearing, if I got this right, DiCaprio is - I'm hearing DiCaprio's going to play the - you're going to do a movie about this.
Noth: Oh, you heard - possibly a movie.
Tavis: Yeah.
Noth: I've been hearing about that for a while.
Tavis: You been hearing about this? DiCaprio playing the lead, and what's the other handsome guy who's going to direct it?
Noth: I think his name is George Clooney.
Tavis: Yeah, George Clooney, yeah. (Laughter) So this thing may become a movie.
Noth: Wow. I think it would make a great movie, actually. I really do.
Tavis: For those who haven't seen it, the play is about?
Noth: Well, on the face of it it's about a presidential election, behind the scenes - the machinations that go on to get one's candidate in a position of power. But I also think it's about, subtextually, maybe - I don't know if I can articulate it, but it goes - the idea of, especially in America, where we sell everything, we give everything for ambition and the notion that winning is everything, above all.
That's sort of a - that can go back as far as Ibsen, who said love can't exist in a - for instance in - oh, God, my mind is going. But the idea that if you're giving your whole soul to winning and to being out in society and that success is everything, it's impossible also to have, say, a marriage that works, like in a doll's house. That's the, I think, beneath it all, the conflict there.
And there is a love story in this play, too, that can never be - cannot exist in that kind of poisoned atmosphere, really. Because it's kind of like it seems to me when the chickens come home to roost, when it's all about winning or making money, if that's all it's about and that becomes the focal point for everything, then what do you have at the end of the day? You're left with dust in your mouth, really.
And although we champion it and we think - and I think that's changing, maybe - but we've come to believe, at least in America, I think, that that's the only thing worth having, to win above all.
Tavis: I'm listening to you and I'm thinking on the one hand - and I think you tried to make this point a moment ago, or were about to make this point - on the one hand it is, in fact, what we have taught our kids either directly or indirectly, there's a whole generation of kids who've been raised on believing that winning is everything.
In the hip-hop language, CREAM - cash rules everything around me. It's what we have taught an entire generation of kids on the one hand. I don't know how we arrest that kind of development that we created. On the other hand, if what's happening, happened over the last year or so, doesn't arrest that development, then I don't know what can.
Noth: I remember when 9/11 happened and everybody thought that was going to change it. But I do think it's a phenomenon that's happened in the last 15 to 20 years. I don't know, I remember as kid growing up, when we saw movies, the focal point wasn't how much the box - there was never any discussion of box office. There was never any discussion of - it was like an incredible performance or a movie that you had to see. And it's funny to me that now it's a movie you have to see because it made a certain amount of money. (Laughter) So that's the criteria.
I find that obviously backwards, but again it's a small symptom, and there are larger symptoms, and I think the whole financial crisis is maybe one of the symptoms too, where the fundamentals aren't there. I just don't remember as a kid myself - and this isn't a kind of judgment - I just don't remember money being a focal point when I was in college or education, in any of my schools, as being something that drove me.
Tavis: I was in this conversation not long ago with a bunch of friends of mine, and a bunch of friends of mine who happen to be African American in this particular conversation. And a group of African Americans who have been blessed - I say blessed - to have done well in their lives and in their careers.
And the conversation, Chris, kind of centered around how it is that you do, in fact, arrest that development of winning and succeeding and making money when we, African Americans in this generation, many of us are now raising kids in bigger houses and driving them to school every morning in very nice luxury cars.
Noth: And able to taste the fruits of capitalism.
Tavis: Absolutely. So on the one hand, the whole point of succeeding generations is that you want to do better than your parents did. You want your kids to do better than you did. But you've got to balance that with not giving them the impression, to your point, that winning is everything, that everything is about money.
So since you said you have a kid now, and this kid - obviously your kid is a kid of privilege, perhaps in ways that you were not, how do you balance that as a parent?
Noth: It's not that - let's face it. Money is a comfort that we all need, and everyone says money doesn't buy happiness; well, it can.
Tavis: Nice down-payment.
Noth: If you're waiting for the bus here in L.A. - without money it can be very deadening, what it can do to you. It's because of our society and the way it's built toward comfort, and so you do need money.
But it seems to me it's how you look at it in terms of, like, are you going to get it because you're doing something you love and are passionate about or even to the - I read a thing of like - I used to say, “Well, when I got into acting it was because I had fun, and then I took my fun seriously.”
So that those old clichés of following your dream or whatever your passion is and all that, it's like sometimes I'm very interested when I talk to young kids and I say, "What are you studying?" and they say, "Business." And I'm thinking, in college, you're studying business when you've only got four years to explore some of the great works of humanity? It's a very short time, and you don't get to really do it that much after you're done with college. You're busy doing what you're doing; trying to make a living and support your family and things like that.
So I remember Sandy Meisner (sp), my acting teacher, used to say that your talent has nothing to do with success. You may be successful, you may not, and it's okay to be successful, but don't confuse the two when you're nurturing your talent and working on it. They're different things. That's a weird thing to say, I guess.
Tavis: No, I get it.
Noth: Because we have built everything upon the notion of success, but there's a lot of really talented voice out there that maybe are being passed over and that we aren't hearing and that they don't have a chance to platform their art.
Tavis: This is our first time meeting in this conversation, and as I sit and listen to you express yourself and reference your drama teacher now, Sandy Meisner, I wonder how you have found or will find, you tell me, a level of comfort around the fact that you are trained on the stage, you are trained in the theater, you're back now, "Farragut North," you're back to the theater now and I'm sure will come back to it time and time again throughout your career.
And for all that, you may be known as Mr. Big. How do you (laughter) juxtapose those two things?
Noth: There's nothing that I can do about that. That role and what it has done for me and it's - I'm watching now (laughter) - and how that has sort of exploded into popular culture. And it's not so much - I really believe that people are available to see you in all kinds of different roles. It's actually in the business that sometimes I think it's too much freight for them to put you in something. It's like, well, "He's Mr. Big, I don't know, we don't want to bring that perception into this project," you know what I mean?
And that's mostly in film that it could be a problem. But my job is to accept it and move on, which is plays like this and I find the theater to be a rigorous training ground and the best teacher for me as an actor I could find. And I'm never, ever comfortable being static, and I know that the two roles that I'm the most known for - because let's face it, TV - the medium of TV just reaches out everywhere, so between "Law and Order" and "Sex and the City" and the way they play "Law and Order" three times a day, five days a week on cable, I'm either arresting you or saying abso-lutely. (Laughter)
Tavis: I'm either arresting you - either bringing the heat to guys or bringing the heat to women, take it any way you want to take it. (Laughter) But I was going to say, though, if you're going to be connected to two franchises, you picked two good ones - "Law and Order" and "Sex and the City." You could have hitched your wagon to two lesser projects. (Laughter)
Noth: Gosh, who knew? Really, literally. I was very curious about the last line of the pilot, which she said, "Have you ever been in love before?" And I say, "Abso -" can I say that? No, I can't. "Abso-lutely." And I went, boy, that's an interesting way to end something.
And I also thought that the show was as sort of revolutionary in its take on sex between men and women and all of that as "Saturday Night Live" was in its day when I first saw it on TV and I went, "They're doing this on TV? They can't possibly be doing this on TV." That's kind of the way I look at "30 Rock," too. It's interesting, it's different, it's just eccentric, in a way.
Tavis: There's a sequel?
Noth: Yes, I think we're going to start filming the second movie in August.
Tavis: So between now and the sequel to "Sex and the City," which I'm sure you all are anxious to see, if you're in the L.A. area, the Geffen Playhouse - great theater, great theater, the Geffen Playhouse, "Farragut North," starring one Chris Noth, opens there Wednesday, I believe, June the 24th.
Noth: Yes.
Tavis: Congratulations in advance.
Noth: Thanks a lot.
Tavis: Good to see you, man.
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