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Adam West Talks About 'Batman,' Type Casting, and Shatner

Over at The Onion A.V. Club today, veteran actor Adam West is featured in their ongoing "Random Roles" interview series. Since The Dark Knight is still tops at the box office, it seems like a good time to look back at TV's first Batman, and how the role shaped his career.

From the interview:

A.V. Club: Was it rewarding to finally have some steady work?

Adam West: Oh my gosh, yes. Because when I left Warner, there was a writers' strike. Lots of different things happened, different setbacks. And you know, you're out auditioning, you're out testing, and this and that. I've done maybe 12 pilots in my career that never sold. Like so many other people, I guess...

Batman (1966)—"Bruce Wayne/Batman"

AW: Success! I had been doing films in Europe, and had some success with a spaghetti Western, and I was offered more pictures over there. But I came back to see my kids. My agent said, "There's a big project out at Fox. Would you be interested? They'd like to talk to you." I said, "What is it?" He said, "Batman." I said, "Come on, Lou! I'm trying to have a serious career here!" But I got curious, so I read the pilot script, and thought it was one of the funniest, most absurd takes I'd ever read. So I said to my agent, "Well, if they want to sign me, I'll do it." And they did, they signed me that day.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1969)—"Johnny Cain"

AW: Well, let's see, it was with Nancy Kwan. And Buddy Greco, the jazz pianist and singer. What I recall is getting into that movie because my agent said, "You've gotta do something different from Batman." And I said, "What have you got?" Knowing that it would be very difficult to break outside the typecasting. The more successful you are in a role, the tougher it is to get out of it, especially on TV...

AVC: You did a lot of TV guest appearances at the end of the '70s and the start of the '80s. What was it like to show up on the set of something like The Love Boat or Fantasy Island? A little vacation?

AW: In a sense. But I don't think I looked at it like that, as a vacation. I really try to bring whatever I have, the best in me, and do whatever is required to keep moving forward. I have a simple attitude: "Send the check." I think it behooves an actor to keep working, whatever comes along.

AVC: How was that era of TV different from when you first started?

AW: Nothing's changed. Maybe people tell you it has. But you know, it's the same old routine. Wardrobe, makeup. Then you start to cook.

Adam West is still best known as the campiest Batman ever seen on screen, but read the full interview here to learn about more of his "random roles," including his current gig as the voice of Mayor Adam West on Family Guy.

Read more "Random Roles" interviews, including recent Q&A's with Teri Garr, Billy West, Tim Meadows, and more, here.

-- Daniel Lehman

Some Letters From SAG and AMPTP

There are letters addressing events over the weekend from SAG national president Alan Rosenberg and the AMPTP.

And we made a mistake in yesterday's post. The thresholds for new media work are $15,000 per minute, $300,000 per program, or $500,00 per series, whichever is lowest. (We had it $15,000/$25,000/$300,000.)

Not only do we sincerely regret the error, we sincerely regret choosing to work on a Sunday.

--Andrew Salomon

Voice-Over Secrets Revealed!

Next week, voice-over actor and author Joan Baker, along with a panel of experts including voice-over actors, talent agents, casting directors, and network TV executives, will host "How to Make Millions With Your Voice," a crash course for The Learning Annex.

Special guests include voice-over agent Matt Ambrosia, casting director Angela Mickey, TV producer/director Jon Chironna, NYU professor Johnna Gottlieb ("The Business of V.O."), executives Stewart Wilson-Turner and Rudy Gaskins, and more.

Voice-over artists at the event will include Stephen Newman (voice of ABC's 20/20, Movado, and Mitsubishi), Rodd Houston (voice of the NFL on CBS and ABC College Sports), Valerie Smaldone (mid-day radio host of New York's 106.7 Lite-FM and NBC Promos), Fred Collins (the voice of ABC News and the first voice heard on color television), and more.

The seminar will be held Aug. 5, 6:45-9:30 p.m.  in NYC. The cost is $39.99. The location will be announced three days prior to the seminar. Baker donates all author royalties from her book Secrets of Voice-Over Success  to the Alzheimer's Association, and all proceeds from the seminar will also go to the Alzheimer's Association.

Special bonus: During the seminar, six participants will have a chance to perform a live audition.

To register, call (212) 371-0820 or email [email protected].

UPDATE: "Make Millions With Your Voice" will be held at the Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel New York City, 569 Lexington Ave. (at 51st St.), Room Metro 1 on the Mezzanine Level, NYC.

-- Daniel Lehman

Broadway Buzz

Equity principal auditions will be held for Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler on Tue. Aug. 5. All roles are being cast except for Hedda. The production runs Jan. 6-April 5, 2009. Another show planned for Broadway is Ben Elton's Popcorn, a comedy about Hollywood which won the Olivier Award during its West End run in 1997. EPAs are Aug. 8. We've also got news that a stage version of Robin and the 7 Hoods is gunning for a spring 2010 opening.

Here's how the 2008-09 season is shaping up:

NEW MUSICALS

9 to 5; 13; Angels; Billy Elliott; Nerds; Nice Work If You Can Get It; Shrek; The Story of My Life; A Tale of Two Cities; [title of show]; Vanities

NEW PLAYS

Dividing the Estate; Impressionism; Popcorn; Reasons To Be Pretty; To Be or Not To Be

MUSICAL REVIVALS

Brigadoon; Godspell; Dancin'; How the Grinch Stole Christmas; Pal Joey; West Side Story

PLAY REVIVALS

Accent on Youth; All My Sons; The American Plan; Equus; for colored girls; Hedda Gabler;  Mary Stuart; Orphans; The Seagull; Speed-the-Plow; Waiting for Godot

SPECIAL EVENTS

Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy; Wishful Drinking (Carrie Fisher's solo show)

Still up in the air is the revival of Stalag 17 and the stage version of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

--David Sheward

New School Alum Sweep Samuel French Honors

The 33rd Annual Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Short Play Festival announced three top prize winners for New School alumni writers Janine Nabers (Juniper; Jubilee), Bekah Brunstetter (F**king Art), and Gabe McKinley (The Grave).  The winning plays will  be licensed and published by Samuel French Inc.

This marks the second such honor for Brunstetter, who landed the top prize for her play Sick in 2006.

The Samuel French annual weeklong festival – which ran July 15-20 –  accepted 40 short play submissions and presented them to a panel of judges composed of playwrights, agents and Samuel French editorial staff, who then selected six finalists to have their works licensed and published by Samuel French, Inc. 

Seven of the forty selctions were New School Drama students and alumni: in addition to the three winners, these include Good Enough by Kitt Lavoie (‘01)); The Visit by DeLora Whitney (‘07), directed by Graeme Gillis (‘01); A New Shade of Red by Jessica Hinds (‘10); and wild follows the queen by Matthew Paul Olmos ('04). Thirteen plays were then selected as finalists from which the winners were chosen. These included the submissions by Whitney, Nabers, Brunstetter, and McKinley.

Broadway Or Bust?

You'd think that most theatre writers, directors, and performers would probably say that their ultimate career goal is a show on Broadway. According to an article in this week's Time Out New York, though, Broadway might not be the be-all end-all for theatre artists that many think it is.

From the TONY story:

To the outsider, Broadway is the unquestionable theater-career apex -- it bestows “authenticity” on the actor or playwright due to some hazy myth of glamour and tradition. The rest is just the minor leagues, or worse -- the amateur fringe.

For insiders, though, the perception is just that: perception. And how much artists care about that perception defines their success.

The article tends to ramble beyond this thesis, but the point is clear: For everyone who wants to see their name in lights on the Great White Way, there are plenty of others who are more comfortable carving their niche in the Off- and off-off Broadway theatre scene.

Writer Adam Rapp, for instance, turned down the opportunity to move a show to Broadway because, he says, “I just felt that I’d formed a bit of a following that was used to paying $20 to $40, and if I did a show with $100 tickets, I’d lose my audience.” Rapp and producer Scott Rudin took the show Off-Broadway, where it ran for six months and lost money.

John Clancy, a founder of the New York International Fringe Festival and a veteran of the Edinburgh Fringe, says he wouldn't turn down a job at a big venue, but, according to the story, thinks he can make a career without Broadway or even Off-Broadway as part of the equation. It’s about creating a scene and keeping it alive. “Success,” he asserts, “is having the respect of people you respect.”

But what do you think? Would you rather stay away from the Great White Way, or is it still the most important measure of success? Read the full story here, then leave a comment below.

-- Daniel Lehman

A Resolution Doesn't Always Mean an End

The East Coast portion of Strike Watch spent Saturday taking a sack-load of pennies, nickels, and dimes to the bank ($151.14, thank you very much), then going to the movies at MoMA, where we saw the Marx Brothers' in Monkey Business.

If those two things didn't do enough to remind us of compensation for new media and the current state of the SAG negotiations, what would? Probably the emails that awaited us when we got home, telling of the unanimous resolution passed by the SAG national board late Saturday. Yes, the elected leaders of the most fractious union in show business found enough common ground to state it would press the AMPTP to get rid of the thresholds for work in new media. Any new-media work directly made by an AMPTP signatory would have to be union, regardless of cost.

As it currently stands, the producers' final offer states that any original new-media program by an AMPTP company can be made with nonunion actors if it costs less than $15,000 a minute, $300,000 an episode, or $500,000 per series order. (Also, residuals would be limited to original programming that costs more than $25,000 per minute and is available on a consumer pay platform for purchase or rental, such as iTunes.) There is an exception, however: If any of the work that falls below those thresholds employs a single "covered performer" (a union actor or one with enough substantial professional credits), the whole production may become a union gig. This is what AFTRA agreed to, and these terms follow those established in contracts that producers signed earlier this year with the DGA and WGA.

However, SAG's collective leadership combined to say, "No dice." Actually, what they said was this: "It is a core principle of Screen Actors Guild that no non-union work shall be authorized to be done under any Screen Actors Guild agreement, and that all work under a Screen Actors Guild contract, regardless of budget level, shall receive fair compensation when reused."

Two questions: 1. Does this get the two sides closer to a deal, or does it drive them further apart?

According to a guild board member not in the Hollywood Division who requested anonymity, the resolution could narrow the discussions and "break loose this logjam in the negotiations, to give our negotiating committee a tool to make an opening to get to a deal." Asked if a resolution focused solely on new media means DVDs are officially off the table, the source said that nothing is officially off the table, but DVDs haven't been a factor "for a while now."

However, Doug Allen told Dave McNary on Variety.com the resolution was meant as a way to try to solve the new-media portion of the contract, and not represent the entire endgame. "If we could address these two issues with the companies, it would help us get the new-media part of the deal done," Allen told McNary. "There’s certainly not that much distance between us on the other issues."

Jonathan Handel, entertainment attorney and author of the Digital Media Law blog, told Strike Watch he didn't think DVDs were off the table. And even if they were off the table, it does not signal the beginning of the end: "This was a consensus statement that represents what the entire Board feels, not what the controlling faction, Hollywood's Membership First, feels. MF's position is what matters, as long as they control the board. Taking DVDs off the table would be significant, but continuing to hold firm on major aspects of the new-media framework means we won't have a deal any time soon."

A source close to the producers had many more questions than answers: "Does the statement mean that all of the other issues they have been insisting upon are now being abandoned? I don't get the sense that is the case..., but to me that is the question: Is SAG signaling that is it willing to drop everything else if it can get this jurisdictional issue resolved? Or did SAG simply figure that it had to say something after a day-long meeting and so picked the one issue people could agree upon?"

2. How will the resolution affect the political prospects of Membership First, who announced their board candidates over the weekend, in the September elections?

Handel thinks it undercuts the momentum of Unite for Strength, the opposition party that was announced this week. The New York and regional factions "handed Membership First an important tool and made Unite for Strength's campaign a lot more difficult."

However, a guild board source said that isn't so. The resolution was hammered out in back channels, and its formation had very little to do with Membership First board members. Another guild source believed the resolution was worked out by New York and regional board members, national executive director Doug Allen, and national president Alan Rosenberg.

(Don't forget to vote in the Strike Watch poll on Membership First and Unite for Strength. Voting ends today at 8 p.m. EDT/5 p.m. PDT.)

Strike Watch will have more on the Membership First slate later this week.

--Andrew Salomon

Another View of 'Dark Knight'

There is no bigger Bat-fan than me, but I was a little disappointed in The Dark Knight, the latest variation on the comic book hero. Maybe because I will always hold a special place for the spoofy Adam West series of the late 1960s, but I don't like it when the Caped Crusader takes himself too seriously--or the filmmakers do.

My main problem with the behemoth blockbuster was it was one crisis after another with no breathing room for character development.  I kept picturing a conference in Hollywood with a movie exec screaming at director Christopher Nolan "You gotta have a life-or-death dilemma every 20 minutes! An explosion every 15 minutes! And Batman using some new gadget every 10 minutes!"

By the end of the film I didn't know who the Chinese guy was or why the Joker was going to blow up a hospital or why that policeman wanted to shoot that accoutant type. I stopped caring after a while because there was just too much to take in. Heath Ledger did give a brilliant performance as the Joker, giving the white-faced supercriminal a dangerously vicious edge. You could really believe he would kill anyone for any reason at any time which gave him a scary unpredictability. There's been buzz he may receive a posthumous Oscar nomination, but I don't think it'll happen. Action pictures rarely receive acting nods (OK, Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, but that wasn't a superhero franchise.)

--David Sheward    

Kirsten Dunst on Johnny Depp's Acting Techniques

Actress Kirsten Dunst has revealed an interesting rumor to New York mag's Vulture blog, about Johnny Depp's unique acting style. "Johnny Depp has music playing in his ear when he acts," she said. "He has an earbud. That's why he's so great."

Vulture's Darrell Hartman investigated:

"I don't know if he does it on every project, but I know he does," Dunst said. What kind of music does Depp listen to? "I have no idea," Dunst replied, her story kind of losing steam. We asked her how Depp conceals this supposed earbud from the camera: "Maybe his hair's covering it? I don't know, but I know he does it," Dunst persisted. Finally, we asked Dunst to reveal her source. "I'm in the biz," she said. "Word gets around."

We don't know if it's true, but can you imagine trying to act while listening to your ipod? I can barely type the rest of this sentence with my headphones on.

-- Daniel Lehman

We Have a Few Issues

So much to cover, so little time, so pardon us while we go a little John McLaughlin and do this in blustery bullet points. (We promise no combative debates on abstruse Washington issues such as FISA or the inner workings of the House Rules Committee.)

Issue 1: Dave McNary reports on Variety.com today that Sally Field has endorsed Unite for Strength, the new opposition party that is trying to break Membership First's near-unanimous hold on the Hollywood board and its slight majority on the national board. The endorsement is not a surprise, because Field backed the AFTRA contract during SAG's Vote No campaign and signed Ned Vaughn's petition in February calling for qualified voting. Vaughn is the principal leader of Unite for Strength, and is among the 31 candidates from that party seeking seats on the national and Hollywood boards in elections this September.  Stephen Diamond also talks about Field on his blog Vallywood, and provides an interesting tidbit of news.

In his article, McNary reported Joely Fisher ('Til Death) and Clancy Brown (the lead prison guard in The Shawshank Redemption) will join Keith Carradine as newcomers on the Membership First slate of board candidates. The ruling faction has 32 of 33 Hollywood board seats (Morgan Fairchild is the lone independent).

Three newcomers to the majority slate probably means that party leaders are unhappy with at least two of the current board members for not towing the party line, two guild sources told Strike Watch. But that probably isn't the only reason the newcomers are on the ticket. 'Til Death is an AFTRA-covered show. Will Fisher/Membership First try to get a lot of campaign mileage of AFTRA-bashing, particularly if there isn't a contract agreement come election time (and all the pundits are saying there won't be)? It would seem to be a safe bet.

If you haven't already, please be sure to vote in our poll on Membership First v. Unite for Strength.

Issue 2: Leslie Simmons of sister publication The Hollywood Reporter gives us a preview of SAG's semiannual plenary. A guild source tells THR to expect "fireworks," as board members from the New York and regional branch division (RBD) may press the Hollywood folks to make a deal on a new TV/film contract with producers.

Issue 3: Actors' Equity Association, the Northwestern Mutual Life of actors' unions, announced the results of its National Council elections in an email today:

"Fifteen members of Actors' Equity Association, the Union which represents more than 47,000 stage actors and stage managers nationwide, were elected to the National Council, the Union’s governing body, it was announced today.  These members were elected to serve five-year terms and represent Principals, Chorus and Stage Managers in Equity’s three regions, Eastern, Central and Western.

"Of the 15 seats open in this election, nine (9) were available in the Eastern region, one (1) in the Central region and five (5) in the Western region. In the Eastern region, Linda Cameron, Scott McGowan, Kate Shindle, Jeanne Lehman, Valerie Toth-Grant and Buzz Roddy) were elected to represent Principals. In the same region, Allyson Tucker, Mark Aldrich and Jeff Williams were seated for Chorus. The Central region’s one open seat was a Principal spot filled by Thomas Joyce. Seated as Principals for in the Western region are Ivar Brogger, Joshua M. Bott and Robin Gammell; James T. McDermott and Linda M. Tross were elected to represent Stage Managers."

Equity recently hammered out a tentative agreement with producers on their biggest deal, the Production Contract, which covers Broadway and tours. The union has been particularly mum about the contract, releasing few details. But it will hold informational meetings with rank and file members who are eligible to vote. (Unlike SAG, Equity has qualified voting, meaning only those who have worked a particular contract within a certain number of years are allowed to vote on ratifying a new version.) There are no specifics yet on when those meetings will be held, but members might check the Equity website or call 212-869-8530.

Bye-BYE.

--Andrew Salomon