February 11, 2003 - Most people will recognize Alexis Denisof from
his role as former-Watcher turned demon hunter Wesley Wyndam-Price
from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (which is currently in its
fourth season).
Beyond that, Denisof has had an extensive career in films, TV,
and on stage – most notably in First Knight, Rogue Trader
and Noah's Ark.
Fox Home Video has also just released the complete first season
of Angel on DVD.
This interview was conducted in January of 2002...
IGN FILMFORCE: If we could start back as far as we can – you're
from Salisbury, Maryland?
ALEXIS DENISOF: Yes.
IGNFF: Which isn't too far from my old stomping grounds...
DENISOF: Where are you from?
IGNFF: Quantico, Northern Virginia.
DENISOF: Oh my goodness – the little town I was born in
is Quantico, Maryland. Salisbury's the big city with the hospital,
but the actual farm is in a little area called Quantico.
IGNFF: Even though you were born in Maryland, you were actually
raised in Seattle, right?
DENISOF: Yeah, that's right. I moved to Seattle when I was two
or three years old. Had my early education there, and would spend
summers on the farm in Maryland. Then I went to boarding school
in New Hampshire, to St. Paul's School. From there, I moved to
London.
IGNFF: I guess it's hard to do comparisons, but what was boarding
school life like?
DENISOF: Well, it was a big change. I was 13 years old, and going
away to school would be a change for any 13 year old – but
to go from Seattle, Washington, to Concord, New Hampshire, was
a big change geographically and culturally. And then also the kind
of intense type academic environment that Ivy League boarding schools
create was a big change. It's all at a formative time in your life,
so on the one hand I treasure the time that I had there, and am
very grateful for all of the values and educational opportunities
it provided. It was also in some ways a shock to the system.
IGNFF: Was the boarding school your choice?
DENISOF: Yeah, it was. I mean, it was sort of a joint choice.
It was very hard to leave home at that age, when you're used to
the security of your family and your home. But on the other hand,
that school afforded opportunities that weren't available at the
local schools in Seattle, that sort of level of academic possibility,
and athletic possibilities, and resources of a large boarding school.
IGNFF: So at that point did you have a creative outlet like acting,
or that didn't form until later on?
DENISOF: I had done some very early in professional theaters in
Seattle, around the age of 11, 12 and 13. I had worked at a contemporary
theater in Seattle, in a few plays there like A Christmas Carol,
and another production of a strange play about West Virginia religious
holy rollers – in fact, that was the name of the play, I
think. Or no... it was called Holy Ghost. And a couple of other
things like the children's theater in Seattle at the time was called
Poncho, and I had done productions there, Pinocchio and something
else there. Maybe one or two other theaters in Seattle. So I had
shown an interest in it, but I certainly didn't know at 13 when
I was going away to boarding school that that's what I wanted to
do as a career. But it was something that I was very comfortable
with, and I felt at home with it creatively and personally. It
just made sense to me.
IGNFF: But it's not something where you instantly thought, "This
is what I'm going to do."
DENISOF: No, no it wasn't. I mean, I was a kid. I still kind of
thought maybe I'd be a professional soccer player or a fireman,
or an astronaut, you know? So being an actor was pretty low on
the list at that point. By the time I had finished my studies at
St. Paul's School, I knew I wanted to be an actor. I had taken
all the standard stuff there, academically, and I had shown a real
interest in the arts, but most specifically in theater. So by 16,
I knew. It was kind of a process of deduction by default, really.
I was going through the process that all high school kids go through,
which is to try to select a college and begin the application process.
In part of that process you're asked to write long essays in which
you have to figure out what they want to know about you. In doing
that, I can't remember the ones I was interested in – I remember
a kind of eclectic list, like maybe Yale and Berkeley if I was
lucky, and then on down into various other schools if I wasn't
so lucky. But in that process of writing those essays, it clarified
for me that in fact I did not want to continue on the Ivy League
academic track.... That what really excited me and gave me a sense
of feeling at home was working in theater and acting on film and
TV. At that point of realization, I sheepishly called my mom and
dad and said, "How would you feel if I didn't go to college?
I think I might want to be an actor." And, fortunately for
me, they were both very supportive. Because you know, those are
difficult choices to make at that age, and your parents have a
big influence on you at that time. Their view was absolutely "you
follow what makes sense to you and what excites you, and let it
take you where it will."
So I took a little bit of time off after St. Paul's School, and
worked a few different grunt jobs. I was dishwasher, then promoted
to chef in a local kitchen in a restaurant in Seattle, and I was
working on a building site as well, putting in insulation and painting
houses, and then doing some classes at a community college nearby.
I used that time to make some money and to look at various places
where I could go and train as an actor. My respect for educational
institutions was kind of ground into me by virtue of going to an
Ivy League boarding school, and a high-speed school in Seattle
before that. I knew that my approach to the profession... I knew
I wanted to take as serious and...
IGNFF: Would you say methodical?
DENISOF: Methodical an approach as possible, to get as much training
and education as I could in the subject and field that I had chosen,
professionally.
IGNFF: So you weren't expecting to just hop in a car and go to
Hollywood and be a movie star?
DENISOF: You know, I kind of had that – like, that was my
backup plan. I was like, "gee, that would be really great," but
I sort of sensed that that wasn't right for me – and also
that that could be a burnout road to take, too. My mom was instrumental
at that point, in kind of sitting down and saying, "Okay,
look, if this is what you want to do, then you have to try and
do it at the highest possible level, so you can get the most out
of it for yourself." And not to just sort of throw a coin
in the fountain and hope for the best. So I started looking at
places to study, and the usual list came up as far as America was
concerned, like Circle in the Square, and NYU, and some of the
California schools, and Carnegie Mellon – all the great schools
you have here. I don't know how it popped up, maybe it was my mom
again, or somebody had mentioned that it was possible to study
in London. That really, really excited me right away. I thought, "Wow,
if I could get that, that would just be the ultimate dream realized,
to go and study over there." I'd always had great admiration
and respect for the English system of education and their actors,
and just their work that they produce over there. I organized auditions
for London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and Royal Academy,
and flew to New York and auditioned – really just for the
hell of it. The same as with St. Paul's – sort of a repeat
of that, where I really thought I would probably end up going to
local high school in Seattle, but thought, "Well, what the
hell. I'll throw in one boarding school and maybe it'll work it," and
it did. I'm fortunate that it did. Kind of the same thing happened
with London. So, whether luck or fate working its way out, I don't
know, but I was just fortunate enough to be accepted, so I moved
to London. I was 17 at that point.
IGNFF: How much of a culture shock was it? That would be what,
the early '80s?
DENISOF: Yeah, around mid-'80s, I guess. But it was a huge shock.
It was kind of akin to the shock of going from the West Coast in
America to deep into the Northeast culture. Well, this is the same
again.
IGNFF: Did the prior experience help any, with being able to acclimate
yourself to a new situation?
DENISOF: It did. It had done more than that – it had made
me crave that experience, that sense of being an outsider looking
in and trying to assimilate. That's a skill I've acquired now,
after many cycles of doing that... of going to a nice place and
making it my home.
IGNFF: Well, that's essentially what an actor does, isn't it?
DENISOF: I suppose so. Yeah. So there's a reflection going on
there, between my personal life and professional life.
IGNFF: How would you describe acting school in England? You had
done the intense academic track – what was the culture like
as far as the acting school?
DENISOF: It was very surprising. I had created a very specific
idea of what I expected, and I think I constructed it out of books
that I'd read, and movies that I'd seen, and people that I'd spoken
to, and I'd sort of – not unlike everyone – I'd concocted
a vision of what it would be like. It was nothing like that. In
some ways it was very disappointing that it wasn't, and in other
ways it far exceeded anything I could have imagined.
IGNFF: What was the most glaring aspect in which it disappointed
you?
DENISOF: I expected more – I was a very earnest and serious
young actor, far too much so. And I somehow thought that I would
be surrounded by all these young professors of acting, which is
how I saw myself. I don't like myself for it, but there it is – that's
how I approached it, and I think probably irritated an awful lot
of people around me with my piousness about it all. But there's
no creature more determined and dedicated than a young actor starting
out their studies, if it's what they really want to do. Now, I
discovered at this school that there were a lot of people that
didn't particularly want to do it. There's this system in England
whereby you can have your further education entirely paid for or
supplemented with government funding, as long as you choose somewhere
to go. It's not that it's easy to get in, it's very difficult,
it's extremely competitive, I think they audition 2 – 3,000
kids for 25 places. Nevertheless, since you asked me what was disappointing,
I was disappointed that the work wasn't harder, and that all the
students weren't intense enough for my liking. Not all of them,
but some of them. So that's a comment on me as much as them, because
what I can tell you – thank goodness – I don't take
it nearly as seriously now. I'm very grateful for those kids who
taught me how to just relax.
IGNFF: Or else you'd have an ulcer right now...
DENISOF: Yeah.
IGNFF: How long was the loosening up process? Is it just by nature
of the productions that you do, or the exercises that are done
that loosens you up, or is it an internal process?
DENISOF: I think it was more of a cultural experience. I really
threw myself into the work there, and if they could have added
six hours of class a day, if there was some way to do that, I would
have done it. I was crazy for it, I wanted more and more and more.
So no, actually, the loosening process happened almost as I was
leaving there, and starting my first professional work. It just
was really a case of osmosis, and absorbing the attitudes and approaches
of the people around me, and realizing that there is a place for
hard work and that that should be applauded, but that simply working
hard is not necessarily, in acting terms, the way to achieve a
good performance. There are other very important elements like
relaxation, and spontaneity, and intuition, and things that I needed
to pay attention to, because all of my hard work and discipline
wasn't going to be enough to make the kind of actor I wanted to
be.
IGNFF: Do you think you would have gotten as far as you have,
if not for the acting training? How important would you rate the
acting training?
DENISOF: That's a very hard question, because I have to hypothesize
about who I would be without it, and what my life would be like
without it.
IGNFF: Well, how often do you draw on the training, even today?
DENISOF: I think, for me, it was essential, because it gave me
something that I absolutely wanted – which was a framework
and a structure. It gave me an approach. Why that is essential
for me is because it's there when I want it, and what I've also
learned is to be able to throw it away.
IGNFF: So it's a fallback position.
DENISOF: Yeah, so it's sort of like in a well-executed play on
the football field – one has a plan, but if somebody ducks
left instead of right, you want to be ready to throw the ball left
instead of right. Because if you just execute your plan, you could
lose the ball.
IGNFF: So there has to be some kind of fluidity...
DENISOF: Yeah. So I think knowing that I have a plan is a great
security and backup, and it means I have confidence. I think that's
the single best thing I got out of it, was that you can have confidence
because you think you're talented, and because you want to do it – that's
one thing. But to have confidence because you have a system on
which you can fall back to dissect and figure out a way to approach
a scene or a character, that's really invaluable, because it is
an intuitive and spontaneous art form. That's very important, but
sometimes you just need method. Sometimes it doesn't work, and
you have to have a way in which to make it work.
IGNFF: Speaking of the form, do you think sometimes confidence
based entirely on ego is often a false confidence for an actor?
DENISOF: Yeah, I do. I do, because – at least in my experience
of them – then that's the main mechanic, and the main organ
of the scene becomes the actor's ego, and actually that for me
isn't the enjoyable experience in a scene, or in a play, or watching
a story unfold ... It makes it less than it's capable of being.
I can watch an ego-driven actor and be interested and even a little
excited by what they're doing, but there's only so far that they
can carry that – and that won't be nearly as far as watching
two actors really communicate and reveal a story, or a moment.
IGNFF: So it's a versatility issue.
DENISOF: Yeah. It's just that there's something greater than the
sum of the parts, when things are going well. That's what I like,
that's what I hope to tune into when I'm working, is the sort of
unknown. It's the magic part that enters a scene when the actors
and the writers and the director have all done their work, and
then they're able to let the magic unfold.
IGNFF: Similar to what, I guess, sports people call The Zone?
DENISOF: Yeah, absolutely. To me, that's not something that your
ego can do. All your ego can do is get you up to the point where
you're in the room. Because it got you through school, and it got
you to go to the audition, and it got you to get an agent, and
it got you to shave in the morning, and it got you to work – but
the really special part, the part that I'm addicted to and that
I really enjoy isn't where the ego gets to have a party in front
of a lot of people who are watching. It's actually the opposite.
IGNFF: So I guess the ego would be a driving force, but not a
creative force.
DENISOF: Yeah, that's exactly right. Very well put, thank you...
IGNFF: How daunting was the transition of having to move out of
acting school? Or was it something you just couldn't wait for?
DENISOF: I was very excited, because you work very closely with
the people in your class for three years, and you've been through
everything together from being silly clowns and working on animals,
and improvising, and Shakespeare and Chekhov, and restoration and
musicals, and singing and tap-dancing and sword-fighting, and all
the things that all the classes that go into it – you've all
sort of been through this, together. You can't wait to get out and
try it, and see what you have, and find out whether it works. I was
very excited, and I had ridiculously high hopes for myself. I was
just sure that Alexis Denisof was exactly what the world needed,
and the sooner I got out of college, the better for everyone. But,
of course, it's a little bit like stepping out of a cocoon. We get
given a play every three months to work on, and we'd get given exercises
everyday to work on, and you're being fed – constantly fed,
fed, fed, like a child, and then suddenly dinner isn't on the table
anymore. That first day after school, you have all the same appetites,
but...
IGNFF: You have to go hunt for it now.
DENISOF: It's not being delivered. In some ways it's great, because
you're going if you can get auditions, or however it works out for
you. But your meetings and auditions – it's really about you.
You're now a young, male actor who looks a certain way – as
opposed to college, where one term you might be the old Russian,
80-year-old scientist, and then the next week you're cross-dressing
as the drunken aunt in a production. Do you know what I'm saying?
The drama school training is very bizarre for that cross-casting.
The first time you're sort of invited to just be you, and that's
a little alarming in itself.
IGNFF: Is it disillusioning in any way where you go into casting
sessions and they're looking more at physical type than talent?
DENISOF: Right, absolutely. Initially, you're not really invited
to act, you're just sort of asked to be yourself. I think that's
the sort of experience for a lot of young actors who've finished
their training, and they think they're going to go out and do all
this acting – well, my experience was not that. I was not really
invited to act. I was just kind of, "Could you just be you,
and don't do anything too obnoxious so that we can shoot all this
stuff around you?"
IGNFF: Don't draw attention to yourself.
DENISOF: Right, right. So you're reading to play Hamlet, and you're
holding a spear. But, again, I consider all these very important
steps in the formation of an actor. It's all part of the process.
For some actors, they do walk out of college and walk straight into
the role of Hamlet. For one of the 1000s of new actors every year,
that will happen. And that's terrific. That's an amazing experience.
That wasn't my experience ... most actors just go out and get a commercial,
or get a part in a music video, or get a play that's touring, you
know?
IGNFF: So it's a slow burn.
DENISOF: Yeah. It's a starting over again. And then you start to
learn all the things that you didn't really learn at college, which
is, "Well, how do I go into a room with strangers and talk to
them? How do I audition? How do I make a life? How do I pay the gas
bill? How do I support myself, in what has so far been a very indulgent
enterprise?" That's kind of the reality, that's when real life
starts. So I think of everything up until that final day of college
as a sort of childhood dream, and then from then on it's the reality
of "how do I transform my artistic desire into a check?"
IGNFF: Is there any point where that became so frustrating that
you thought of just saying, "I'll head back to Seattle and wash
dishes again..."?
DENISOF: Well, yeah, it certainly is difficult at times, because....
not that I would ever have gone into acting for money – you'd
have to be insane. That's no way to make money. There are times when
you can't make the check, and when no matter how talented and excited
you are about your career, you haven't worked in six months. That's
the sort of reality of it. Just an awful lot of people out there
who want to do the same thing, and it's not a meritocracy. So the
kid who did get off the bus in L.A., having thought to himself yesterday, "maybe
I'll go to Hollywood and be a star" – well, he's actually
as likely to get the job as you are, who's spent years dedicating
yourself to this. That's an important lesson for me, to not qualify
my experience against somebody else's. My experience is the experience
that I wanted to have, and have created for myself, but it doesn't
make me any more deserving than anybody else – or less. A lot
of those early years, it's a psychological struggle with that issue – have
you seen that program, The It Factor?
IGNFF: Yes.
DENISOF: Well, there you go. That program explains more about this
phase that we're talking about, that early phase, than I could ever
explain to you.
IGNFF: What was your first professional work outside of school?
DENISOF: I think my first job was a George Harrison video, for a
song called "I've Got My Mind Set on You." I was thrilled.
I think I got paid $500. A little story about a young guy in an old-fashioned
pinball arcade playing a game to win a fuzzy toy so he can give it
to the girl that he has his eye on. We shot it in sort of one long
day in a warehouse in London, and I just couldn't have been more
excited. Suddenly it was for real. I wasn't in a classroom experimenting
anymore – this was it. It wasn't a Steven Spielberg movie,
but to me it was. They're shouting action and cut, and I had a certain
few seconds between the two in which I had to do the right thing.
That's what it's all about. I was very excited.
IGNFF: Any George sighting that day?
DENISOF: Well, that was sort of my main thrill about getting the
job, not only that it was my first paying job, but yeah, I was hoping
to meet him. It turned out the band had shot their stuff weeks in
advance somewhere else. Yeah, I never met him. So the closest I ever
got to him was in the finished cut video.
IGNFF: Now, having that first job, does that provide a sense of
empowerment for persisting on?
DENISOF: Well it is affirmation, and boy is that something that
young actors need a lot of, because it's certainly a diet rich in
rejection ... That job represented a morsel of affirmation, and that's
something that tastes awfully good.
IGNFF: For some actors, that first job is almost like the carrot
on the stick if another job isn't quick in coming – was that
the case for you?
DENISOF: There are absolutely ebbs and flows in any artist's career,
but certainly for actors there are good times and bad. So when you
are in a bad time, you do tend to think back to a time when things
were better and you had a job, and you think, "Well, I'll just
keep hanging on because somebody gave me a job once upon a time.
If it happened once, it could happen again." It's not much to
go on, but at times it's all you have. As I was saying earlier, there's
no system, there's no corporate ladder on which you can simply get
on at the bottom rung and climb your way through the system. I really
valued – as silly as some of the commercials and things that
I did earlier on, they were essential to making it possible for me
to make a living at what I had chosen to do, and also giving me enough
money that I could afford to do things that I loved to do, like theater.
As for early jobs, that video was first, and then a few European
commercials – all of which are pretty embarrassing to look
at now.
IGNFF: What is the embarrassing part about it?
DENISOF: Well, I'm not good at looking at anything I've done, so
it wouldn't matter if it was last year's Angel or a commercial from
10 years ago. Either is hard for me to watch. I've never gotten the
hang of that, and I should, because you need to develop an eye for
watching yourself, and learn from that.
IGNFF: If you view yourself that harshly in things you're doing
even now, how do you quantify you performance – is it external?
Someone says, "That's good"?
DENISOF: That helps, although I have stopped requiring as much of
that as I once did, mainly because I got to the point where somebody
saying, "That's good," or "That's bad," doesn't
affect how I felt about it while I was doing it, and it doesn't affect
how I felt about it while I was watching it. To sort of jump forward
to how I feel about it now as opposed to how I felt to watching myself
back then is that it's not as important. Watching myself and what
I experience in watching myself is not as important as what I experience
while I'm doing it. So that's what I really think is important, because
life is an active process, and it's not a reflective process. There
is a place for reflection, but it's more valuable to me to be engaged
in the moment during the process of working than it is to deconstruct
it later. What I'm trying to perfect now is getting the experience
of while I'm working to be as satisfying and fulfilling and as creative
and as in the moment as I can so that it won't be as important to
me what the end result is. Because later on, I can't change it. Later
on, it's out in the world and it will either be enjoyed or loathed
by the people who watch it, and that's when they go through their
experience of it. But for me, that's already taken place. So I need
to put all my attention on the time that I have while I'm in the
process of creating it.
IGNFF: And trying to be as positive as possible during the moments
themselves...
DENISOF: Yeah. So then, you've just watched that – now what
are you going to do? Are you going to file that experience into
the, "Oh my god, what a hideously embarrassing experience
that was," or are you going to file that into, "That
was the happiest moment of my life that happened to be captured
on film"? And personally, I prefer the latter, because the
critic, if allowed to, will never shut up. I have a very loquacious
critic, and so I have found that it's more productive for me to
focus on the work at hand, rather than focus on analyzing the work
that I've done. I also feel that it gives you more tools while
you're working, to make the adjustments that you want to make,
and to get your senses refined to the point where you can make
the adjustments you want to make at the time – rather than
watching it later and thinking, "Oh, I missed that, I should
have done this, I should have done that." Because then you're
kind of living your life and your art in reverse. You're kind of
doing it, and then experiencing it the way you want it to be later.
I'd rather experience it the way I want it to be now.
IGNFF: Do you think that self-critic is a function of the ego, to
some extent?
DENISOF: Yeah, I think so. I can't speak for everyone, but I know
that if allowed to, I would love to write and rehearse my life before
I live it. And so the challenge for me is to not do that. The challenge
for me, both in life and in my work, is to live it, and create it
to the fullest – whether that's on a rehearsal room or a stage
or a film set, or whether it's in my own life. I think that you're
probably right, the critic is very closely allied to the ego ...
The ego is our greatest enemy, really. It's the ego that sends us
to war, and the ego that gives us road rage, and the ego that makes
us a victim, or any of the challenges that we face in our daily lives.
IGNFF: Does things out of spite...
DENISOF: Is that what it is?
IGNFF: I would think to some extent. What would you say would be
your first breakthrough part? Even if it was on a personal level...
DENISOF: That's hard to quantify externally, because it sounds like
you mean in terms of a career – the profession looking at me,
rather than me looking at the profession. It's hard to say. I know
that my first couple of experiences working more intensely on a character
or with a group of actors were both very – my first theater
job was the Royal Shakespeare Company, in a production of Hamlet,
in which I was Fortinbras' understudy, Laertes. I still look at that
as one of the most important experiences, because I so admired the
actor, Mark Rylance, who played Hamlet. He runs the Shakespeare's
Globe Theater in London now, and is a really formidable actor. I
treasure that experience, just because of what I learned, and in
watching him particularly, but also just a great company of experienced
actors. I was a very young actor fresh out of school, and so to be
working on Shakespeare's arguably greatest play and perhaps literature's
greatest play, and to have it be worked on by people of such experience
and talent – I regard that as one of my most important experiences,
professionally.
Also an early movie that I did, which is not a good movie at all,
but I played the young lead opposite Christopher Lee, and it was
a very silly, kind of straight-to-video movie. But because I was
on set everyday, and because I was invited to be the centerpiece
of it and to work so intensely in front of the camera for that three
months, I also value that enormously, because I opened up a whole
new area for me in realizing what was possible with film as opposed
to theater.
IGNFF: This would be Murder Story?
DENISOF: Yeah. So it's not that I take pride in the product – this
connects to what we were saying previously. There's very little value
in me going back and watching it, because I just see a host of mistakes
and choices that I wouldn't make now, and flaws in the script, and
lighting, and camera – all sorts of things that I would like
to improve. So it's pointless to view it that way. I choose to view
it as an incredible opportunity to be in the center of a film and
get to practice that work.
IGNFF: Would you say developing as an actor is comparable to a puzzle?
As an incremental process?
DENISOF: Yeah, absolutely. I recently shot an episode with Joss
[Whedon]. He wrote and directed episode 13 of Angel, this season
(the Season 3 episode "Waiting in the Wings"). That and
an earlier episode that we did this year, titled "Billy," I
think those are – in recent memory – my two most fulfilling
experiences as an actor. I had finished a day that I absolutely loved
every minute of, of working with Joss and the others on this show
recently. At the end of the day, I was thinking how well it had gone,
how in the moment I had felt all the way through and how free and
accurate, and both kind of in control but also spontaneous. That
for me is the zone that you look for, where you're responding spontaneously
to what's around you, but at the same time you feel the larger pull
of the truth of the scene – so that, in a sense, you can get
out of the way of a much greater thing that is unfolding, and at
the same time experience it. That's a rare sensation.
IGNFF: How much is that a function of who you're working with, and
working under?
DENISOF: It's an enormous function of that – that has a huge
amount to do with it. What I was going to say was that at the end
of the day, thinking how lucky I was to have a day like that, I thought
to myself, "Well, part of why this day happened was all the
days that it didn't happen." All the days that you're in front
of the camera, and you're feeling awkward and you don't know why,
and feeling untruthful and you don't know why, or feeling stiff and
you don't know why, and that process of working through all of the
days where it doesn't work, is what brings you the day where it does
work. So your question about it being an incremental process, of
pieces of a puzzle that fit together, is absolutely correct, and
the puzzle goes on and on and on. That's why a lot of actors can
never give up, because they're always looking for that next piece
of the puzzle that they can fit in, because they still have bad days
on the set where they can't find that zone.
IGNFF: Almost like a scavenger hunt?
DENISOF: Yeah. So I guess what I'm saying is I now am as grateful
for the days where it doesn't work as I am for the days where it
does work, because I know that to have a day that it doesn't work
means that I'm working towards a day that it does.
IGNFF: How often are the days that you don't think it works, but
everyone around you doesn't see that? Is that frustrating as an actor?
DENISOF: It's not frustrating. It's for two reasons that I think
that happens. First of all, as an actor, you set up your own internal
guidelines for what you expect – and in my case those are usually
higher than anybody else around me, because I know what it is that
I would like to achieve. That isn't always necessary to have the
highest level of work in order to fulfill the obligations of the
scene. So for a director to be satisfied and be ready to move on,
because they got what they need for the scene, doesn't always mean
that I'm satisfied. Now, I know that we can move on because there's
enough there with which they can work to put together the scene and
show, but I know that I was capable of more and maybe didn't get
it for some reason. Sometimes I'll insist on going on until I can,
or going on until I realize that I can't, and then I have to figure
out why.
The other reason that that can happen – that you can feel
that you haven't hit it, but everybody else around you thinks that
it's okay – is an interesting, curious fact about film and
television and theater, which is that in the process of telling a
story, for the actor, you experience your truth and reality as that's
unfolding. For the audience, they're experiencing another. So it's
important to allow that to take place. If I fill the camera and screen
and scene with all of my story, then in a way I haven't left any
room for the audience to include their part of the story, their interpretation
of the events, and the emotions that are taking place. So there's
a sort of ideal amount that you want to put in and then leave the
rest to the audience.
IGNFF: So it's a matter of striking a balance?
DENISOF: Yeah. I don't know exactly what that is, but that's part
of the fun of it – is trying to find that. Does that make any
sense?
IGNFF: It makes perfect sense.
DENISOF: I think those are the two reasons why you can sort of feel
like, "Oh, that isn't quite what I wanted," but then the
people around you can think, "No, no, no, that's working." It's
something to do with what they've filled in, because the audience,
if they're enjoying it, they're anxious to participate, and the way
in which they participate is to flesh out the details of the story
that they're watching with their own story.
IGNFF: That makes perfect sense.
IGNFF: Something else I did want to touch on – I wanted to
touch on Rope.
DENISOF: Oh yeah, yeah.
IGNFF: I spoke to Tony Head, and he praised your performance in
that, up and down.
DENISOF: Oh, well, likewise. He was superb in that production. I
loved watching him work on that. Tony is a very interesting actor,
very wonderful actor to work with – so giving and receptive
at the same time, and that's a very sought after quality, for me.
I really enjoy working with Tony. We have a lot of fun and we make
each other laugh, and I respect him enormously. I'm glad that he
enjoyed that as much as I did.
IGNFF: At what point in your career were you when that production
came up?
DENISOF: I had been working professionally for a few years, and
had started to have some confidence about my professional life and
was able to pick and choose a little bit about things that I would
do. I got to the point where, if a part didn't suit me, or there
was something prohibitive about the production, then I'd be willing
to sort of turn it down and risk that something else would come along
that I'd want to do. So I was becoming more discerning in that sense.
I wasn't at the point where I just had to have a job, no matter what,
and I was feeling – I know that in that particular instance
I felt a sort of resonance with the play that I knew I could do something
with it. I had a sense that it was a part I could bring something
to. I was excited about it, it was a small cast and a very intense
evening in the theater, a psychological journey. That's exciting
for an actor, because you get to be right in the middle of what's
going on. You're not filling in the spaces between special effects
or car chases, you're the car chase ... We all, Tony and myself and
the other actors, we really – thanks to the director and the
cast – we really found something exciting in the play.
IGNFF: Am I right in understanding that since you had gotten out
of acting school, your work had been entirely in Britain?
DENISOF: Yeah, really until I came here in '98, it was in Britain
and Europe ... I had done some things in Ireland and Scotland and
Wales and France and Spain and Germany – but basically Europe,
and more so Britain.
IGNFF: Was it just the consistency of work that kept you there?
Or was there no real intention or desire to move out to L.A. or New
York?
DENISOF: Well, it was the good fortune of a really steady stream
of work that I was interested in doing, and falling in love, and
buying a house, and having friends and making a life. Those are all
hard things to turn your back on and say, "Okay, I'm going to
go here now and start over." So I think I needed to follow that
through its natural cycle, and that really takes – you really
need seven to ten years to fulfill a cycle of your life, and I had
more than fulfilled that cycle by the time I came here in 1998. I
had been wanting to, thinking about coming back and working in New
York or L.A. for a while. I kept feeling the pull of my life and
my work in London, so it had been hard to do it until the powers
that be found the right time and place for me to come and the right
influences in my life to make it possible for me to stay. I had had
a rough breakup and wasn't working at the time that I came here on
vacation with a couple of good friends, and absolutely was looking
the other direction when all of a sudden work started coming my way
in L.A., and here I am today with a life and a love and all of the
things that I could hope for.
IGNFF: So a new cycle has begun.
DENISOF: Yes, absolutely.
IGNFF: What was your first work on moving out to L.A.?
DENISOF: The first thing I got was a pilot for Fox which didn't
get picked up – Ghost Cop. It was that that sort of got me
set up also with agents and things out here, and I was still anxious
to go back to London, because at that point I basically lived there – so
I was fully expecting to return and live and work there. But the
pilot was followed by another job, Noah's Ark – an NBC mini-series.
IGNFF: That was the Jon Voight one, right?
DENISOF: Right. It shot in Australia, and coming back from that
was followed by one or two episodes on Buffy that turned into half
of a season, and that was followed by a small independent movie in
L.A. called Beyond the City Limits. Finally, more than a year had
gone by and I was beginning to realize that things were working out
in L.A. far better than I could have ever hoped, and that maybe I
should buy some more t-shirts and underwear ... So I went back and
sort of tied things up in London, and actually did a short job over
there – an episode on the series called Randall & Hopkirk.
Then came back, and when I came back Joss had conceived the idea
of putting Wesley, my character from Buffy, onto the spin-off show
Angel. So I was lucky enough to get right off the plane and into
a job. That's where I've been ever since.
IGNFF: I guess things wouldn't have worked out quite as well, according
to Tony, if you hadn't gone to a book signing?
DENISOF: That's right – yeah, that's true. In that vacation
in '98 that I mentioned to you where we were just really here mucking
around, not looking for work at all, we went into a bookstore on
Sunset Boulevard that was advertising a celebrity signing of the
Buffy Guide with Tony Head. I hadn't seen him for a while, so we
resolved to come back and sneak up on him at that signing that evening,
which is precisely what we did. It was great to see him, and it lead
to he and I catching up with each other. I guess a day or two later,
he was talking to the casting office over at Buffy and they were
mentioning this part. They were having trouble... they were looking
for somebody who could play this guest role of a kind of quirky watcher – a
version of Tony's part, but different. I popped into his head because
we'd seen each other a few days earlier. So thank goodness for Tony
mentioning me, or I probably wouldn't be here talking to you today.
IGNFF: You might have been talking to me for something else... who
knows?
DENISOF: That's true.
IGNFF: In constructing a character like Wesley – your understanding
at the time, if I'm correct, was it was not going to be a character
that was sticking around for long. When you essentially go in for
a role like that, what elements do you bring, and what elements are
already pre-established in the writing or what the director says
his intention is?
DENISOF: Well, that varies enormously from script to script, but
I think the important thing is to find something that's true for
the actor when you go in, because the writer or the director may
have an extremely clear idea of what they want – and in some
cases they will find exactly that – but in some cases they
won't, and they'll need to find something else that's either similar
or different, but that works. And so I try to take the guidelines
of what is laid out in the script in terms of the character, but
then make it as true to what I'm able to do as possible, so that
the choice for them is then, "Look, this guy's brought something
that works. Do we do that, or do we keep looking for the idea that
we've cooked up in our heads?" Mainly, in my experience, it's
the latter that works, I have found. A lot of the jobs that I've
gotten have been, they've told me later, "You know, you weren't
really what we were looking for, but you made it work." So that's
all I can do, is make it work for me, and then if that's something
that they can use in their project, great. If it isn't, then at least
I've done something that I believe in and just maybe there'll be
something else in that that they can use later on. It is a long process.
IGNFF: In talking about hindsight, and what we were discussing earlier
about the process and where the satisfaction is found and what works – when
you get that after-the-fact kind of compliment, how does that really
affect you, besides it being a pat on the back? How deep does that
kind of comment go with you?
DENISOF: I guess it just confirms that it's better to be you to
a fault than to try to make so many adjustments to what you think
they want that you disappear. I don't really see it as a personal
compliment as much as an affirmation that you can only really bring
what you have, and that either works for the job or it doesn't ...
I would be lying if I said I don't blush at a compliment, because
I do, and the reason I blush at a compliment is because it also touches
some part of the ego that wants to be liked, and wants to be approved.
There's certainly that element, but I try to file it under a job
well done, rather than "Oooh, I'm great."
IGNFF: In your post-Europe Hollywood career, what has been the most
satisfying job for you personally?
DENISOF: Angel. Definitely Angel, because of the length and depth
of the process that we're working, and the opportunity to examine
at such a deep level the dynamics of this character's life. To have
the chance to evolve character with detail and time – that's
an amazing gift to an actor, and that's what I view long-term, episodic
TV as... as a character journey. For the people that become interested
in the show and follow it, that's part of the satisfaction for them – following
the turns and curves of the character's lives, as well as all the
great action and sci-fi and crazy stuff that goes on in the show.
It's rooted in the journey of these characters through their lives,
and the opportunity to work every day at the thing I love doing,
with people that I love doing it with, is – well, priceless.
IGNFF: Which is the more important factor – the security of
steady work, or the consistency of what the steady work brings as
far as being able to develop the character and work with certain
people continuously?
DENISOF: You know, it's both – but more the latter. I would
value the consistency of being able to keep practicing and refining
like this, that I value more. There are certainly days where I just
feel awfully grateful that I'm not unemployed. But, if it came to
it, the choices that I've made through my career are about balance,
you know? It's important to have a gig and pay the bills, but it's
also important to be stimulated and excited, and to want to do the
work. I think that you need both, because a great actor who's starving
to death is not a happy man, and an actor who's a millionaire who
is not enjoying his work is not a happy man. So I want to be a happy
man.
IGNFF: Do you think, as of this point and time, you've found that
balance?
DENISOF: I'm pretty lucky right now. It certainly financially takes
care of way beyond anything I require, and I'm getting to do work
that I love, so I feel that I'm striking at a pretty good balance
right now. And if I had to choose right now, it would be more important
to me that the work be what I want it to be, rather than the paycheck
be what I want it to be. I'm just so damn lucky that I'm getting
both.
IGNFF: Is there any aspect that you look at and you go, "That's
the one thing that I wish I could be doing right now," in addition
to this, or instead of this?
DENISOF: Yeah, absolutely. I don't feel that this is it. I would
not expect this to sustain me forever, and I don't expect it to be
interesting every day, because there's days when it's just not fulfilling
and it's not satisfying, for a variety of reasons – some of
them to do with me, and some of them to do with what goes on around
you on an episodic TV set. I've absolutely still got an appetite
for more, and I'd love to add a character-driven, independent movie
to my life right now, or a psychological play in a little theater
in L.A., or a piece of classical theater in London – any of
those things would be a thrill to be able to work on right now, and
I hope I will, I really do, because it's important to stay diverse
and do as many things as you can.
IGNFF: Do you think that being on a successful show like Angel,
and it being on the surface a genre show, has a way of limiting options – or
does it only limit options if you, as an actor, let it by not pursuing
other things?
DENISOF: Does it open doors or does it close them?
IGNFF: Yes... or is it not a passive thing, but more of an active
thing that's incumbent upon an actor to go out and find the things?
DENISOF: Well, you know, it's both at the same time. It opens and
closes doors in the professional world that I can't control, and
it opens and closes doors personally for me that I can control. So
I can try to do as much as I can on the personal, and the professional
I'm not as in control of that. Basically, you can't really know,
and I know that a lot of people would love to freeze an artist at
a certain point in their career and say, "Okay, so now this
is what you are." And most artists would prefer to not admit
to that and go on to the next project, and then maybe very late in
their life look back and say, "I was this, and then I was this,
and then I was this." I can only answer your question by saying
it does open some doors and it does close others, but I have to hope
that it will open the right door that I can go through that will
continue to open other doors. It's too hard to plan that process.
IGNFF: What can you tell me about Beyond City Limits?
DENISOF: I guess they've got some kind of final edit on it, and
I'm dreading that it might get some release, because I think both
Alyson and I felt that that was a very questionable movie.
IGNFF: In which way?
DENISOF: Oh, it just – it was an interesting kind of exciting
character-driven script that could have been very good, but it wasn't
shot sufficiently, or even at all enough, I think, to piece together
a movie, so I'm not convinced that they have a story ... I can't
say for certain. There were a lot of problems in the filming process.
IGNFF: It's going on what, two years now?
DENISOF: Yeah, yeah, so that's probably evidence enough that there's
something not right.
IGNFF: I guess as a quick way to consolidate matters – if
I were to name off a couple of your Angel cast mates, if you could
just give a quick impression of them...
DENISOF: Sure.
IGNFF: I guess we'll start with David [Boreanaz].
DENISOF: David – funny, consistent, tough, sweet.
IGNFF: Charisma [Carpenter].
DENISOF: Spontaneous, funny, full of life.
IGNFF: J. August Richards.
DENISOF: This is hard. Let's see – professional, talented,
warm, loving.
IGNFF: Amy Acker.
DENISOF: Vivacious ... quirky, talented, and playful.
IGNFF: I guess the last that you're in regular contact with would
be Andy [Hallett].
DENISOF: Insane.
IGNFF: Pure and simple?
DENISOF: Yeah.
IGNFF: Hopefully that wasn't too painful for you.
DENISOF: Nah, hopefully they'll forgive me.
IGNFF: At this point in your career, would you say that you're happy
with where you are?
DENISOF: Yes.
IGNFF: With qualifications being that no actor is completely satisfied?
DENISOF: Yeah, certainly, but it couldn't be any other way.
IGNFF: Would you say that there's been a definite change from how
you were 10 years ago, 15 years ago?
DENISOF: Yeah, and I'm happy with the change. Most of the time.
-- Ken P. |