by Rob Lowe
Here’s how it works:
Take a piece of paper and pen. After reading the line you need to memorize, write the line out using only the first letter of every word. Include all punctuation. For example, here’s Kaffee’s big courtroom speech to Colonel Jessup that begins the famous “You can’t handle the truth” sequence:
KAFFEE
Your Honor, these are the telephone records from GITMO for July 6th. And these are 14 letters that Santiago wrote in nine months requesting, in fact begging, for a transfer off the base.
(to Jessup)
Upon hearing the news that he was finally being transferred, Santiago was so excited, that do you know how many people he called? Zero. Nobody. Not one call to his parents saying he was finally getting out. Not one call to a friend saying can you pick me up at the airport. He was asleep in his bed at midnight, and according to you he was getting on a plane in six hours, and everything he owned was folded neatly in a footlocker and hanging neatly in a closet. You were leaving for one day and you packed a bag and made three phone calls. Santiago was leaving for the rest of his life, and he hadn’t packed a thing, and hadn’t called a soul. Can you explain that?
(pause)
The fact is, Santiago wasn’t going anywhere, isn’t that right, Colonel?
If you were to stumble during this one, the play would be over.
Here’s how it should look using the memory technique:
KAFFEE
Y h, t a t t r f GITMO f J 6th. A t a 14 l t S w i n m r, i f b, f a t o t b.
(to Jessup)
U h t n t h w f b t, S w s e, t d y k h m p h c? Z. N. N o c t h p s h w f g o. N o c t a f s c y p m u a t a. H w a i h b a m, a a t y h w g o a p i s h, a e h o w f n i a f a h n i a c. Y w l f o d a y p a b a m t p c. S w l f t r o h l, a h h p a t, a h c a s. C y e t?
(pause)
T f i, S w g a, i t r, C?
By writing it out you add an additional brain function. By reducing the word to one letter, you are programming your brain beyond what you would if you wrote the full word. When finished, you have a one-letter cue to help your memory, but your mind still needs to fill in the word. It is a perfect mix of being prompted and having to struggle. I found it reduces memorization time by half. At least.
Unfortunately, it didn’t help me on opening night.
We had been whizzing through previews with full houses and a great response. The whole cast was on fire, and I was confident and ready for our opening, where, unlike Broadway, all the critics would come to that one performance (in New York they could attend any show during the preview period). This makes the stakes higher. The play’s future is judged on one single show.
Weird, but good, things were happening all night. At one point the circular emblem on the judge’s lectern fell to the stage with a loud thud in the middle of a scene. It then rolled ridiculously slowly all the way across the stage while both the cast and audience stared at it. I walked over, picked it up and reattached it in front of the judge.
“I believe this is yours, Your Honor,” I ad-libbed. The audience applauded.
In the middle of the second act there was a moment that we had never quite executed. It was nothing overly dramatic, just a crisp exchange between me and the actor playing Corporal Kendrick. For the first time since we began rehearsing almost six weeks previously, he and I got it right. There was a nice reaction from the crowd. He and I stole a quick smile at each other.
This night of “happy accidents” going our way, I allowed myself a private moment of acknowledging how well the show was going. This while in the middle of a cross-examination scene.
When actors get too comfortable onstage, it can be dangerous. They are in peril of being on a kind of autopilot. You might suddenly think, “Oh shit! I forgot to call my brother back last night!” right in the middle of delivering a monologue. It is always a fatal mistake.
Suddenly I was aware of my fellow actor staring at me, pop-eyed. Beads of sweat sprouted across his brow. Quickly, I understood his horror. In the split second I had taken my mind off the scene, I had jumped almost four pages ahead! This was problematic because those four pages contained vital plot points crucial to the play’s outcome. Although no one in the packed opening-night crowd knew it, I had just fucked up the entire show.
As it does in all horrifying events, time slowed to a crawl. My fellow actor’s face was now drenched in sweat. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the rest of the cast in the courtroom, stealing glances at each other, trying to hide their rising panic.
Years ago, hosting Saturday Night Live, I blew the setup for a punch line that Phil Hartman had that would end our scene. Without the setup, there was no joke; without the joke there was no ending to the scene. We were live, and we were screwed. But the late, great Phil looked me in the eye like, “Dude. Easy does it. We got this,” and guided me through an ad-libbed improv to an even better joke than the one that had been written. It took this near miss to learn an important lesson of acting live. The audience doesn’t know you’ve screwed the pooch until you show them you have. So don’t.
I gave the actor sitting in the witness box the look Phil Hartman gave me. I then stopped the scene cold and walked to the absolute front of the stage. Now I could really feel the other actors trying not to freak out. I milked the moment; I let the silence play out until it was painful. I used the time to plot my way back into the scene, to focus on the story points I needed to get to. But because I did it with purpose and confidence, making this long beat part of my performance, it played.
“Mr. Kendrick, I want to take a moment to circle back on a few items.”
“Yes, sir.”
Then, slowly, I wove my way back to the text. Soon I had folded all the information needed into my improv. I could tell that no one in the house had any clue about what had happened.
“No further questions, you may step down,” I finished, turning away from the audience and facing my upstage cast mates. I made a cartoon face of “Holy fucking shit!” to them as I approached, but I was also feeling that unique adrenaline-fueled victory that only comes from competing in the public arena. I felt even better when I learned that Sorkin had missed the whole thing. He was calming his nerves with a cigarette at the time, which will go down in history as the world’s most healthy smoke. Because sitting through my line-bungle adventure would’ve given him a heart attack.
* * *
You really do see it all during a long run of a show in the theater. Not just blown cues but other things as well.
Apparently, it is well-known within the West End theater community that there is a notorious couple that likes to have sex right there in the audience. I had originally called bullshit on this tale, figuring it was a chance for the all-British cast to “have a go” at the Yankee interloper.
Then came a rudimentary midweek matinee.
In the better theaters in London, there is always a special, private box reserved for the queen. Most of the time it is either empty or sold to VIPs. On this particular day I noticed in passing that it was occupied by an attractive young couple (I was always aware of who was in the house for any given performance).
Somewhere around the time where Kaffee and the gang go to Cuba to first meet Colonel Jessup, I noticed something going down in the queen’s box. Literally.
While trying to concentrate on the actor standing in front of me, I noticed that there was now only the man sitting in the box. A moment later a blond female head rose out of his lap, above the gilded wall separating them from the rest of the house. Then she dove back below to continue her performance, which was unquestionably more interesting than anything we were attempting onstage.
At the intermission the couple was told in no uncertain terms that this particular behavior was not tolerated within the confines of the queen’s box at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. The randy couple swore they would not do it again. And so they were allowed to stay.
They kept their word. They never did repeat that particular act. Li
ke the play itself, after intermission, they were building to a climax, and the final courtroom showdown featured me bellowing, “I want the truth!” while the supposedly chastened couple rode each other like the Urban Cowboy mechanical bull. Luckily, by the end of the show they were gone; I wouldn’t have wanted to find out who would’ve gotten a bigger curtain call.
Speaking of curtain calls, my time in the UK showed me some profound differences between American and British theatergoers. In America, audiences are vocal and ready to be pleased. They give out standing ovations like Halloween candy. In fact, I haven’t seen a show in New York in twenty years that didn’t include one. On Broadway, you will also have wrappers ripping, loud food eating and at least four or five ringing cell phones a week. I never heard one in over 160 performances in London. But we were also light on standing ovations. Maybe ten the whole run. If you eked one out of those respectful but demanding British crowds, you knew you had really earned it, and it was special. In spite of my four-page fuckup, the first and loudest one we got was on opening night.
* * *
Prepping for a role, fashioning a character, is sometimes a give-and-take between actor and director. But not always. Good actors learn early to protect themselves from inexperienced (or bad) directors by taking the care and feeding of their performances into their own hands. We make choices that force editors to cut to us when we want (light a cigarette on an important line or take off or put on your glasses, and they have to show it) or make other choices we know they can’t use, so the focus will be on some other poor slob. Good actors almost always know how to get cut to in a scene. And hack actors, unfortunately, use those tricks mercilessly. One of the things I’ve always admired about the cast of The West Wing is that everyone was too proud to stoop to that style of acting. The kind that says, “Cut to me! I’m listening! I’m reacting!” By this I mean behavior that is not found in nature but only in bad TV shows or movies. It’s nodding your head “sagely” while being told a story. It’s “stealing a glance” at a third party while you listen. It’s checking your watch at the defense table during closing arguments. It’s feeling like you have to do something while the camera is on you when you are not talking. In The West Wing, we never did. We just listened. Like people do. In real life.
The better your collaborators, the more you want to collaborate. Recently I worked with Steven Soderbergh, who is truly a master of every genre. He’s done quirky, small, indie (in fact he practically invented the modern indie genre with Sex, Lies, and Videotape), he’s done mass Hollywood blockbuster. He’s done movies in space stations and male strip clubs. His movies have voice, vision and smarts, and are always slyly funny. This is a director you are happy to follow anywhere.
In Behind the Candelabra Michael Douglas plays Liberace, and Matt Damon plays his dimwitted, deer-in-the-headlights young gay lover. They are genius. I had always been a fan of both, Michael’s The American President and Matt’s The Talented Mr. Ripley being among my favorite performances by any actors. But nothing could’ve prepared me for the spectacle of seeing Jason Bourne giving a hummer to Gordon Gekko. Like I said, Steven Soderbergh is a master of many genres.
Some characters require more shaping than others. Some come fully formed, whether by the quality and specificity of the writing or from the role being based on a real person. Then it’s more about research and authenticity than invention from whole cloth. When I played wife killer Drew Peterson, a doughy, mustached cop with a distinctive Chicago accent, the character was there for the taking. You couldn’t have made him up. The real challenge was making me look like him. Luckily, there were hundreds of hours of footage of Peterson. Within them were direct quotes that were outrageous, priceless gems, like when he was asked where his missing wife was: “I dunno. I wish she’d pop her head up.” I put these lines into the script or ad-libbed them whenever possible. I spent weeks listening to Peterson’s voice. By the time I got to the set I could channel him.
Looking like him, however, was more difficult. I took the role because I had no idea if I could be believable in a character so far from who I am and what I look like. Any time an opportunity scares you that much, you should seriously consider saying yes.
The studio and network behind the movie weren’t rushing to support my notion that to play Drew, I would need to totally transform. I had in mind some very cutting-edge prosthetics and dying my hair completely gray. They would’ve preferred a gentle frosting at the temples, a Selleck-like mustache and nothing else. “Selleck as Peterson” would’ve been the look. I often find, to my disappointment, that when the folks in the executive suites are paying for Rob Lowe they want me to look like Rob Lowe, regardless of who I’m playing. It’s always a battle (which makes the success of my character in Candelabra that much sweeter).
After weeks of discussion and numerous screen tests, we all agreed on my Drew Peterson look. Surprisingly, turning my hair completely gray was the hardest part. Turns out there is no easy way to do it; as you can imagine there is not a huge market for it. The process took six and a half hours. First of all your own color is stripped out and then, in small increments, they work color back into the hair follicles bit by bit.
The day after I had my new hair, I was to meet Kate Middleton and the guy she was marrying from England, at a benefit in Santa Barbara. In the reception line, they were a dashing and charming couple, but he in particular couldn’t take his eyes off of my white hair. I had hoped it would make me look dignified, like George Clooney. Instead I looked like the great-grandfather of George Clooney. “I can see Hollywood is treating you well,” said the future king of England dryly.
Makeup on the set was done by makeup top gun Scott Wheeler. It took over two hours every morning. Special handmade appliances gave me Cowardly Lion–looking bags under my eyes; “plumpers” were attached to my teeth and gums to puff out my cheeks. And unknown to anyone else involved on the movie, I also wore a fake nose. I knew that the studio and network would never approve of me in a phony proboscis, but it was the final, necessary touch in the transformation. So I just did it. No one ever noticed, and it made all the difference. When the first photos of me in character leaked, they went viral. What could have been seen as a bad Saturday Night Live character look was instead greeted with stunned attention. Later, the movie itself would break ratings records.
So when Behind the Candelabra came my way, I knew the power of transformation. But would Soderbergh be supportive? I knew Michael and Matt were going to utterly change their appearance. Maybe my doing it as well would be overkill. It would be up to Steven. When you work with a master, you do what they say. Still, I had a pretty clear vision of my character, a seventies-era LA plastic surgeon.
“Steven, what’s your appetite for me to really go for it with this character?” I asked him in our first phone call.
“Hey, do it! I’d love to see what you have in mind.”
And there it is. The greats have no fear. They are open to all good ideas, wherever they may come from. They are secure enough in their experience and vision to give the people they’ve hired room to run.
The script described my role as a man whose face was so pulled and shiny, he looked like a doll. Growing up in LA, the only thing more disturbing than the earthquakes are the bad face-lifts. So I knew exactly how I wanted to look.
When finished, I looked like a transgendered Bee Gee. I realized that with my eyebrows yanked up so unnaturally (by a series of painful rubber bands taped to my skin and running around the back and top of my head), if I squinted, it looked especially freaky. Because in nature it is extremely hard to raise your eyebrows and squint at the same time. My “look” was set.
The character’s voice was harder to figure out. In full makeup and wardrobe I looked very feminine. I knew the movie would be chockablock with fey characters, so I went in another direction. I imagined my guy as one of those countless transplanted New York wannabe tough guys who come to LA and end up going completely off the reservation. The kind of
guys I see regularly at Lakers games. So I gave him a vaguely Brooklyn, gravelly-sounding rasp. If in Pirates of the Caribbean Johnny Depp was doing Keith Richards, in Candelabra I was doing the guy who used to do the Men’s Wearhouse commercials.
The combo was enough that on the set, Matt Damon refused to look at me when the cameras were rolling. He would try not to laugh beholding this demented man I had conjured up. Sometimes tears would stream down his face. “Stop it,” he would say, “I can’t look at you!” Together, we had more fun than actors should be allowed to have.
I don’t know why I enjoy playing weird-looking, depraved characters as much as I do. Maybe at this point in my life and career it’s a nice palate cleanser from clean-cut optimists like Sam Seaborn on The West Wing or Chris Traeger on Parks and Recreation. Who knows. Maybe I shouldn’t feel such glee when I show photos of my rogues’ gallery to people and they react with “Eeew!”
* * *
In rehearsals for a role, there is inevitably one line that you hate, don’t want to say and lobby to get cut. The late acting teacher Roy London always said of those lines, “The one line you don’t want to say is usually the one you must say. It usually is a barrier you need to cross and often a gateway to a deeper understanding of your character.” As much as I hate to relearn this with each project, I have to admit he’s right.
In David Duchovny’s dark and hilarious sex romp Californication I sometimes show up as Eddie Nero, a drug-addicted, pansexual loon who happens to be an Academy Award–winning movie star. Happily for me, I know a number of Eddie Neros personally. So playing Nero is one of my favorite treats. I get to send up everything I loathe (and, I suppose, love) about Hollywood stars. But in Californication’s extreme world of sex and language, there was one line in my first episode (with apologies to Roy London) that I simply was not going to say.