I always fall in love with every character I play. Tim Matheson More Quotes by Tim Matheson More Quotes From Tim Matheson To me, as a director and an actor, that's the main thing. "What's the heart of this story? What's the humanity of this story? And if the movie doesn't have it, then why am I watching it?" Even if it's a silly comedy, like Superbad or Knocked Up - Judd Apatow, I love, because he's all about heart. The humor comes out of the humanity. Tim Matheson sillyheartlove-is I'd come up with one leg in theater, but never my first leg. I loved the camera too much. Tim Matheson The great thing about theater is the doing it again and again and again. Tim Matheson great-things The funny thing about The West Wing is - and I don't know what Aaron Sorkin says about it - but I'm convinced it was a comedy. It's a very intellectual and cerebral comedy, but it was SportsNight in the White House. It had an energy and a vitality and an intelligence and a passion that's rare. And it was extremely difficult to do, because they were so demanding about the dialogue. Tim Matheson passionintellectualhouse I love John F. Kennedy. My mother had been a worker on his campaign and adored him. I was just a kid when he was around. I did a lot of preparation, a lot of research. I can't do him... I sort of get a slight Boston accent, and I tried to get his rhythm. My only fear was that I was too old to play him, because I was much older than he was when he died, so I was concerned about that. But it was one of those, "Oh what the hell, I'm doing this. It's a great part, and I'm going for it." Tim Matheson preparationmotherkids When I worked with Chevy Chase, Michael Ritchie would say, "Just ad lib and try to break me up. Just insult me. Anything." When we were doing his close-up, or when my back was to the camera, I would come up with jokes or quips or anything, to get a real reaction out of him. He was smart enough to know that was gold. So it was great fun working with him and Michael, and getting to see how the two worked together. I think Fletch and Clark Griswold were Chevy's two best roles. He's so incredibly talented and still vastly underused. Tim Matheson smartrealfun Chevy Chase had been a bad boy with a drug problem, and had never really realized his potential. Fletch was the first movie he sort of straightened up on. And Michael Ritchie was Harvard-educated, 6'6", a brilliant director and political thinker. He was the guy the studio thought could handle Chevy, and keep him in check. And he could. Tim Matheson politicalguyboys Sam Kinison was one of the most compulsive people I'd ever seen. James Belushi was that way, and Chris Farley was that way. He was incredibly talented and made me laugh so hard, and there was nothing he wouldn't say. Such a unique, amazing, cynical, realistic, but still optimistic look at life he had. It was great fun to get to know him. Tim Matheson optimisticuniquefun I'll never forget John Heard doing Shakespeare In The Park with Raul Julia and Richard Dreyfuss. It was 30 years ago, I guess. It was Othello, and John Heard played Cassio, and while everyone else was "Acting!" Heard came on talking normal, and everyone in the audience was leaning in to follow him. I wasn't doing that in Bus Stop. I think in that performance, I was putting it out a little too much. Tim Matheson never-forgetactingthinking Tucker's Witch was the first television I'd done in a while. It was just before Moonlighting, and just before you could get a little more outrageous on TV. We had a great premise. Tim Matheson witchdone I'd been working on more traditional movie sets and TV shows at Universal. All of a sudden, here we're on location in Animal House, and it's down and dirty and quick. It was the way the new commercial world was shooting; the way the indie world was shooting. These were lighter, faster cameras. It was a generational change. Tim Matheson houseanimaldirty I grew up on a set. The guys I hung around with were crew guys: the camera department, the prop guys. I was like the third kid through the door when I was a kid actor on Leave It To Beaver. I was always one of five guys who would have a couple lines. I was a journeymen actor in my first career, so I was appreciative of the journeymen on the set. Tim Matheson guycouplekids John Belushi infused Animal House with this spirit of guerilla filmmaking. John Landis came from that world too, and all the National Lampoon writers were from that world. It was just chaos on film. Controlled chaos, though. We stayed very close to the script. It was a very formal kind of movie, if you look at it. Formally photographed and structured, with certain elements of improv. Tim Matheson houseanimalworld The core of Animal House was about prejudice, about equality, and about inclusion/exclusion. It was about a group of people who were together and anything went. Anybody who wanted in could get it in. Then there was that other group that nobody could get in, unless they were white, and just alike. It was very representative of the culture in the '60s, '50s, and '40s in America. Tim Matheson houseanimalpeople I wasn't working much. So I focused on studying, and I really learned what it means to be an actor. And here I was on Jonny Quest,working with all these great people from back in the golden age of Hollywood, who came up doing radio. These were journeymen, working actors. It made me proud, and gave me some insight into what acting was really about if you weren't a star. Tim Matheson agemeanpeople There is something about the vocal quality of the actors who can really do it. Jim Burrows, the great sitcom director who directed Will & Grace and Cheers, when an actor comes in to audition for him, he never looks at them. He just listens. Because funny is funny. You can be fooled by the eye, but if your performance is funny to the ear, it will be funny. Tim Matheson cheereyegrace I think it's that if you don't have the visual, you have to infuse the full personality into the voice. Think of Daffy Duck. I mean, what the heck? I was playing around with the Daffy Duck voice today when I was coming back from driving my kid to school. Tim Matheson meankidsschool I learned a hell of a lot from my co-star, Kurt Russell. He's one of my closest friends and was one of my best teachers. He was the pro. He approached it like a baseball player. Acting is a contact sport to him. Tim Matheson baseballteachersports I used to take acting so seriously, but after we did the Quest pilot and the show sold, Kurt Russel said, "You know, you work too hard. You'll make yourself sick. You can't work that hard doing a series, because it goes on so long. It's like a baseball season. You've got 162 games. You can't just go all-out the first week or two. You can't maintain that pace." And it's true. Tim Matheson sickbaseballlong Kurt Russell said another brilliant thing. He had starred in umpteen movies by that point. And he said, "Generally speaking, in every film I've done, there are only about three or four scenes that I can really do something with. For the rest of it, it's not so much that you don't have to prepare, but there's not much you can really do. You just do what is asked of you in those scenes. You don't want to do too much." Tim Matheson brilliantfilmdone
