A couple of weeks ago I had the great opportunity to have a little telephone chat with Stephen Tobolowsky, the incredible actor who plays the famed Sandy Ryerson. What an honor! I have been a big fan of Mr. Tobolowsky for years ever since I saw him on Broadway in a little play called “Morning’s at Seven” (for which he was nominated for a Tony). And I really had to restrain myself from going all fangirly on him when I heard his distinctive voice on the other end of my phone.
Some of you may know him as Ned Ryerson from the movie Groundhog Day but all of you know him as the fantastically quirky, sometimes inappropriate, and always entertaining Sandy Ryerson from Glee. I was so lucky to be able to chat with him all about his career and of course about everyone’s favorite show!
Stephen Tobolowsky is a seasoned actor who has been in a myriad of different projects. With over 110 movies and close to 250 television shows to his credit his career has been long and prosperous which is unusual in an industry that loves young talent. Stephen credits his long career to the ability to avoid the “pocket” Hollywood makes for actors these days. Stephen has the depth as an actor to take any roll and make it his own without falling in to the typecasting that is so prevalent these days. His talent is endless.
Not only has he had his fair share of roles on television and in movies he is also a stage veteran. I had the great opportunity to see him in his Tony nominated roll in a play called “Morning’s at Seven” several years ago. Let me tell you, it was a treat. When we got on the subject of the grueling schedule that comes with theater we turned our conversation to Glee and his thoughts on what makes it so successful.
GCO: Why do you feel that Glee is so successful?
ST: One of the reasons why Glee is such a success is, and I’m just going to focus on one thing: the people in the show. They have had this background of being theater actors. The work level on Glee is so high in terms of the number of hours you have to put in; the discipline you have to put in; the rehearsal you have to put in; the skills you have to put in with singing and dancing and acting. Having people like Matt [Morrison] and Lea [Michele] and Jane [Lynch] in the show, you have actors who have done a lot of theater and are disciplined like that, you can pull of a show like Glee. I’ve been on shows where I’ve worked with huge, huge stars that have never been in a play in their life and they have probably never worked as hard as Matt or Lea does on any given day doing Glee. They don’t have the tools to work that hard and one of the things that makes Glee happen is the fact that the people have such training, such amazing training that makes it a joy to be on the show.
Another thing that makes Glee so successful, I’ve talked about it from the actor point of view and the workload. There is another point of view that to me – I loved Glee when they handed me the script and I loved it before it was a hit and I loved it before it was even done in the show and I loved it because the show is an affirmation of the positive things in life. There are so many shows, which are ultimately about putting people down or are ultimately about assuming that possessions are the important things but Glee is about having a voice figuratively and literally. It is saying that it doesn’t matter who you are, you’ve got a voice and of course in the show we have some of the greatest voices in the world. But not just singing. Metaphorically if you just say who and what you are, there is power in that. And when I read the script I found it so moving, both funny and sad and all sorts of things. What a great title, Glee, because that is the source of joy. A feeling that you are empowered to be you and that to me is the secret of success of the show.
GCO: Please describe working with Ryan Murphy.
ST: I’ve worked with a lot of really great directors in the world. I’ve worked with Ridley Scott; I’ve worked with Allen Parker. I’ve worked with some great people and Ryan [Murphy] is right up there. And the reason why Ryan is up there is that he has a combination that is very rare. And I’m talking about working with him as a director not as an executive producer. The combination is very rare in that he has the ability to create a scene without micromanaging it. He kind of lets everybody do what they do. Yet, at the same time he is able to kind of direct the energy all in the same direction. I’ve worked with a lot of TV directors who say ‘do this, don’t do this’, that isn’t Ryan’s style. Ryan is very easygoing yet at the same time he is incredibly prepared. He knows exactly what he wants and that confidence kind of gives the actors confidence. On the set, you know, Sandy is like a little neutron bomb. Ryan gives me the freedom to just go out there and even fail, which a lot of directors don’t do. Just go out there and throw it out there and see what happens. That is very much in the same category, the same kind of director that Harold Ramis reveals on Groundhog Day. Very easygoing, empowers the actor, incredibly prepared and knows exactly what he wants to do. He knows what he wants and he structures it to where it is able to happen.
GCO: What is the energy like on set?
ST: Hilarity. Hilarity. I mean, we are laughing from the start of the day to the end of the day and there is a lot of hard work and everything but as soon as they call “cut” half the time we’re busting a gut because of something funny that happened. Again, I think it comes from that theater background to where everybody is kind of all for one and one for all instead of cutthroat and behind everybody’s back. The feeling isn’t specific to being on set either. It is off the set too. There was a similar feeling when I did “Deadwood” too but also that had a lot of theater people in it too so I’m suspicious that the root of it is – one, theater and two, it comes from the top. If there is a lot of terror coming from the top, it kind of kills that feeling and I think Ryan and Brad and Ian as executive producers encourage that kind of openness and kind of camaraderie.
GCO: Will we be seeing you on any of the final nine episodes of the season?
ST: It is a secret, but I have been told that the odds are very high that that will occur but how it occurs is a bit of a surprise. I can’t say anything more than that. I think the people who are Sand fans should be happy but I can’t really say anything more than that.
GCO: I’m sure there is an element of personal creativity for you when you’re cast for a certain role. How did you channel Sandy Ryerson and create his character?
ST: For me I think it was a collaboration pretty much with Ryan. I came in when I auditioned and I auditioned a certain way and Ryan said, ‘well, now try it this way. Or this way’ and when we got on set and we were doing the pilot and Ryan said, ‘I want you to be really mean. I want you to be the meanest person in the world, the villain, do terrible.’ So Ryan would kind of give me permission but then just wanted me to improvise. So then, I would make up lines and make up stuff and Matt would go like, ‘is that in script?’ and I would just make up different stuff each scene which delighted Ryan and confused Matt and delighted Cory.
I remember one scene, I guess it was the pilot, we did about 20 takes and Ryan came in just laughing with Ian [Brennan] and Dante [Di Loreto] and Brad [Falchuk] and they were just laughing saying ‘oh you know we already printed the first one. We just wanted to see what you would come up with’. There was just a bit of playing around there. For comedy too, in a way you need permission to just reach out and do it. If you work with people that hammer you too much its hard, you always feel judged. That permission factor on the set is a biggie.
There was a scene that was cut out of the pilot which I thought was kind of pivotal for Sandy. In that I’m being fired once again by the principal and he is just like ‘this is the 33 times we’ve fired you for inappropriate touching of the boys’ and I’m like crying in the chair and I’m going like, ‘but I’m not even gay!’ They cut out that scene where I said, ‘I’m not even gay’. And to me, of course, it doesn’t matter whether the perception of Sandy is that I’m totally gay or the perception of Sandy is that he is just from outer space. It doesn’t really matter but in terms of my thinking it mattered a lot. In a way it’s more universal. If we see Sandy, he’s just somebody who just cannot connect with the normal world and maybe he really does have a long distance girlfriend in Cleveland. The doll collection and wearing the red kimono is just something that is really comfortable. And its so funny to not tie the weirdness of Sandy to any sexual proclivity but it is more that he is like somebody from another world and I think that’s one of the fun things that Sandy brings to the show. He describes that outer boundary of reality to where when Jayma [Mays] is wearing latex gloves in the teacher’s lounge. Yeah, that’s weird but you know it’s not as weird as Sandy.
GCO: Describe working with the cast.
ST: Well, Cory [Monteith] is hysterical. He is always playing practical jokes, I feel like he is 10 years old or something.
Matt [Morrison] is the hardest working man in show business. This guy is absolutely tireless and he runs more than anybody because he has to wear so many hats on the show. He is running to the recording studio, he is running to dance rehearsal. Matt is so fast at everything. I want to say he is like a rock. Every scene he approaches with real sincerity, with his whole self. Then he runs off to dance rehearsal and he is such an athlete and such a great dancer too. He is so earnest and sincere about everything he approaches. He sets a great tone.
Lea [Michele], I have a guilty pleasure I have to say, that you fans don’t get that I get. It just makes me smile like the Cheshire Cat over here. So often a lot of the musical numbers for Glee are cut down or shortened because, hey, it’s television you don’t get the whole shot. When I’ve been there and I get to watch Lea sing one of her songs, I get to hear it all the way through. The way God and nature intended with that girl standing there singing. I have got to tell you, it fills me up with so much joy. Her voice is so powerful and pure and Matt’s voice is so powerful and pure too. Just beautiful.
I love; of course, hanging out with Jane [Lynch] is absolutely hysterical. We get together on the set and we just start swapping stories and I feel like we’re sitting on a porch somewhere rocking and chewing tobacco and spitting and drinking beer. Jane has theater stores and I have theater stores where we go back and forth and end up laughing so hard we are crying off stage and then the AD (assistant director) comes and says, ‘ok you guys have to come on set now’ and we’re already dying because we’ve been laughing so hard.
Jayma [Mays] is so, so sweet. I could apply that adjective to a lot of people on the show. She is just so sweet, so kind and sincere and I think that really comes through in her character too. No matter how wacky-doodle she is with her issues, her obsessive-compulsive issues, and her cleanliness issues. Her sweetness comes through and that’s why we root for her so much.
Of course I go and listen to Amber [Riley] sing and that is so great. I always run to try and watch all of the musical numbers because those people are so phenomenally talented. I’m really awestruck when I see people with that kind of musical talent and I love to watch the dance rehearsals too.
Iqbal [Theba] is a hoot! He and Jane have tons and tons of lines. He’s kind of all over the place when we’re rehearsing but when they call “action” with the camera it’s like you see this sudden steel look behind his eyes and he barrels through that dialogue like a machine gone. It is so funny to watch him spit that stuff out. So that’s a ton of fun.
GCO: What is it like working with Jane Lynch?
ST: Jane is a unique individual as a comic actress and I think everybody recognizes it because there are a lot of people who have a sense of what’s funny and what’s ironic and there are a lot of people that have this enormous intelligence but it’s very unusual to have a person with that kind of intelligence that she has and that kind of comic insight into things. I really think you could give her a Yellow Pages and she could make something funny out of it. She can make any scene funny by just her intellect and her comic sensibilities working together. It’s amazing to watch and it is hysterical.
GCO: I don’t know how any of you get through a scene with her. I would just die laughing.
ST: We don’t! We don’t! There was this scene, you know with the red kimono and the dolls and Jane throws this thing, she whispers in my ear and she says like ‘this time through I’m going to try and catch a peek up your skirt’. So I’m doing the scene and then all of a sudden I see her eyes dart under the kimono and I’m just busting a gut. Fortunately it was a close up on her and so I just kept going even though I was totally losing it off camera. It was so hysterical the way she kind of just threw that in, in an underplayed way. It’s terrific.
GCO: Lastly, let’s talk briefly about your podcasts, the Tobolowsky Files.
ST: David Chen asked me to be a guest on Slash Film probably a year ago. I did like 3 different guest spots on that show and in one break David asked me; he is stationed in Boston, if I wanted to do this. It was around Halloween and I thought, well the industry really shuts down over that period of time, so why the hell not?! Let’s see what happens because he loves the movie, Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party, which everybody on Glee loves too. So they love the stories and the story telling so David said let’s do a Birthday Party part 2, where you to stores that aren’t in the movie and I though great! Now I’m really enjoying kind of creating an audio novel on the air, which has not only film stories but also life stores.
Many many thanks to Stephen Tobolowsky for taking time out of his busy life to talk to little old me. I was honored and so thrilled to be able to chat with him. The conversation ran much more like a friendly catch-up than a formal interview, he was just so sincere and real. What a fantastic & talented man!!
Let’s keep our fingers crossed that one Mr. Sandy Ryerson graces our TV screens once again come April! Until then, I strongly encourage you to subscribe to the Tobolowsky Files on iTunes because they truly are fantastic!
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