Post by Edith S. Baker on Sept 5, 2007 15:47:08 GMT -4
MISTER SINISTER
You might not recognize Michael Emerson’s name, but there is a good chance you’re a little bit scared of him. By Bryan Reesman
While the seemingly mild-mannered Michael Emerson has spent his life working in the theater, first in the South and then on Broadway, he has recently become widely recognized through his sinister film and television roles. The man with the unnerving stare won an Emmy for his portrayal of the alleged serial killer William Hinks on The Practice in 2001; then he landed a pivotal role as one of Jigsaw’s pawns in the original Saw and nabbed a humorous villain part in The Legend of Zorro. But his portrayal of Ben Linus (a.k.a. Henry Gale), the creepy leader of the Others on the hit ABC series Lost, has made Emerson a household face, if not a household name. We caught up with TV’s most unlikely bad guy.
When people stop you on the street, what are their reactions?
People are funny. They have mixed-up feelings about me and the character. They like to make a great show of fear or terror, but it’s sort of mixed up with a case of the giggles. They just don’t know what their reaction is. They discover that they have been delighted to be frightened by me all this time, and now suddenly they have to decide whether it’s the character or the actor that they’re confronted with.
You’re very good at playing very sinister characters, but you bring this humanity to them that occasionally elicits sympathy.
That’s all the pleasure of playing a villain. I tend not to think of them in terms of villains. I just try to tune in to what they’re trying to accomplish. Even with William Hinks, there’s nothing playable in the evil or the amorality of the character. What’s playable are things like, what does he take pride in? To be precise was very important to William Hinks. That came out in all his testimony. He forgets that he is being very precise in the dismemberment of other humans. He just appreciates his sort of craftsmanship. So if you find the positive mind-set of the character, that is disturbing to the audience and also fun to play. But I think it’s really strange that I’ve ended up playing such sinister characters for the screen, because I’m not remotely sinister myself, and in the world of the theater, which is where I’ve spent most of my career, I never play anything like that. I play lots of goofy characters. I do a lot of the classics. It’s just funny — the perception people have of you and the ways they’ll position you.
You often play people who are not who they appear to be.
I guess the people who cast me for the camera are playing the tension between what I look like and what they’re suggesting I’m capable of doing. I have kind of a harmless look, I guess …
Not anymore!
I guess that’s true. These big, rough-looking guys will stop me on the street and say, “Oh man, you are scaring me.” I’m thinking, What’s wrong with this picture? Guys who could eat me for breakfast are afraid of my character on the screen. People want there to be something out there that they can be afraid of, but it’s contained and it’s fictional.
Do you think somebody who is small but psychologically intimidating is just as scary as someone who is big, brawny, and stupid?
Yeah. Maybe that’s a kind of archetypal fear in American culture, because we’ve always put such premium on deeds rather than words, on physical strength, being stoic, being the hero, being the cowboy, so we worry about the little guys who talk too much. America has a deep mistrust of being verbal, so we kind of like our villains to be verbal. It reinforces prejudice that we already hold.
You recently were in a movie called Jumping Off Bridges, in which you played a man who’d lost his wife to suicide and his daughter in a car accident.
It was one I couldn’t refuse. A young woman [Kat Candler] I had taught Shakespeare to years ago in Jacksonville, Florida, [became] quite a good screenwriter and director in her own right. She lives in Austin, Texas. She sent the script to my agent. I thought it was so spare and grown-up that it would be really a nice thing to do. I liked the idea that we had completed some kind of circle. It was really different for me to play such a mild, everyday kind of character.
We’ve been left with a cliff-hanger on Lost. Are there any secrets you can reveal?
What I should say is that I probably know only slightly more than you do. I only know what I see in the script, so I’m maybe two or three scripts ahead of you. But the drama in the operating room is ongoing, and I think I can also tell you that while Ben is incapacitated, a power struggle will begin to happen within the Others community. There’s a new character coming along that may be as scary as Ben. As if Juliet weren’t scary enough …
Will I be kidnapped by the Others after this interview?
No, no. We still don’t know where the Others fall on the scale of good and bad. In the season two finale, Ben said that they were the good guys. Although he’s a bit of an actor, I don’t think he’s a liar, so I think he believes that.
If they’re the good guys, they have a funny way of showing it.
Well, we don’t know what their master agenda is, do we? The Others seem to be living in extraordinary circumstances. They seem to be a people at war with a formidable enemy, but we don’t know who that enemy is yet. They seem to have a mission, and maybe all these things they’re doing are important. Maybe they’re trying to save mankind somehow, and we just don’t know how they’re doing it.
You’ve joked that you don’t get pursued by paparazzi. Has that changed?
I don’t really get paparazzi. I’ve noticed the last couple of weeks that I get stopped on the street more by viewers, but I don’t have cameramen around. I never see those people. I keep kind of a low profile.
Do you think they’re afraid of you?
I hope they are! [Laughs]
Source: www.americanwaymag.com/PastIssues/February12007/DownLow/tabid/2614/Default.aspx
You might not recognize Michael Emerson’s name, but there is a good chance you’re a little bit scared of him. By Bryan Reesman
While the seemingly mild-mannered Michael Emerson has spent his life working in the theater, first in the South and then on Broadway, he has recently become widely recognized through his sinister film and television roles. The man with the unnerving stare won an Emmy for his portrayal of the alleged serial killer William Hinks on The Practice in 2001; then he landed a pivotal role as one of Jigsaw’s pawns in the original Saw and nabbed a humorous villain part in The Legend of Zorro. But his portrayal of Ben Linus (a.k.a. Henry Gale), the creepy leader of the Others on the hit ABC series Lost, has made Emerson a household face, if not a household name. We caught up with TV’s most unlikely bad guy.
When people stop you on the street, what are their reactions?
People are funny. They have mixed-up feelings about me and the character. They like to make a great show of fear or terror, but it’s sort of mixed up with a case of the giggles. They just don’t know what their reaction is. They discover that they have been delighted to be frightened by me all this time, and now suddenly they have to decide whether it’s the character or the actor that they’re confronted with.
You’re very good at playing very sinister characters, but you bring this humanity to them that occasionally elicits sympathy.
That’s all the pleasure of playing a villain. I tend not to think of them in terms of villains. I just try to tune in to what they’re trying to accomplish. Even with William Hinks, there’s nothing playable in the evil or the amorality of the character. What’s playable are things like, what does he take pride in? To be precise was very important to William Hinks. That came out in all his testimony. He forgets that he is being very precise in the dismemberment of other humans. He just appreciates his sort of craftsmanship. So if you find the positive mind-set of the character, that is disturbing to the audience and also fun to play. But I think it’s really strange that I’ve ended up playing such sinister characters for the screen, because I’m not remotely sinister myself, and in the world of the theater, which is where I’ve spent most of my career, I never play anything like that. I play lots of goofy characters. I do a lot of the classics. It’s just funny — the perception people have of you and the ways they’ll position you.
You often play people who are not who they appear to be.
I guess the people who cast me for the camera are playing the tension between what I look like and what they’re suggesting I’m capable of doing. I have kind of a harmless look, I guess …
Not anymore!
I guess that’s true. These big, rough-looking guys will stop me on the street and say, “Oh man, you are scaring me.” I’m thinking, What’s wrong with this picture? Guys who could eat me for breakfast are afraid of my character on the screen. People want there to be something out there that they can be afraid of, but it’s contained and it’s fictional.
Do you think somebody who is small but psychologically intimidating is just as scary as someone who is big, brawny, and stupid?
Yeah. Maybe that’s a kind of archetypal fear in American culture, because we’ve always put such premium on deeds rather than words, on physical strength, being stoic, being the hero, being the cowboy, so we worry about the little guys who talk too much. America has a deep mistrust of being verbal, so we kind of like our villains to be verbal. It reinforces prejudice that we already hold.
You recently were in a movie called Jumping Off Bridges, in which you played a man who’d lost his wife to suicide and his daughter in a car accident.
It was one I couldn’t refuse. A young woman [Kat Candler] I had taught Shakespeare to years ago in Jacksonville, Florida, [became] quite a good screenwriter and director in her own right. She lives in Austin, Texas. She sent the script to my agent. I thought it was so spare and grown-up that it would be really a nice thing to do. I liked the idea that we had completed some kind of circle. It was really different for me to play such a mild, everyday kind of character.
We’ve been left with a cliff-hanger on Lost. Are there any secrets you can reveal?
What I should say is that I probably know only slightly more than you do. I only know what I see in the script, so I’m maybe two or three scripts ahead of you. But the drama in the operating room is ongoing, and I think I can also tell you that while Ben is incapacitated, a power struggle will begin to happen within the Others community. There’s a new character coming along that may be as scary as Ben. As if Juliet weren’t scary enough …
Will I be kidnapped by the Others after this interview?
No, no. We still don’t know where the Others fall on the scale of good and bad. In the season two finale, Ben said that they were the good guys. Although he’s a bit of an actor, I don’t think he’s a liar, so I think he believes that.
If they’re the good guys, they have a funny way of showing it.
Well, we don’t know what their master agenda is, do we? The Others seem to be living in extraordinary circumstances. They seem to be a people at war with a formidable enemy, but we don’t know who that enemy is yet. They seem to have a mission, and maybe all these things they’re doing are important. Maybe they’re trying to save mankind somehow, and we just don’t know how they’re doing it.
You’ve joked that you don’t get pursued by paparazzi. Has that changed?
I don’t really get paparazzi. I’ve noticed the last couple of weeks that I get stopped on the street more by viewers, but I don’t have cameramen around. I never see those people. I keep kind of a low profile.
Do you think they’re afraid of you?
I hope they are! [Laughs]
Source: www.americanwaymag.com/PastIssues/February12007/DownLow/tabid/2614/Default.aspx
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