Ol' Man River,
he just keeps rollin' along …
As does Fred Willard. You'd think — given that this veteran
actor / comedian turned 75 back in September — that Willard would finally
begin to slow down at this point.
Well, think again. For this Fall has been full of firsts for
Fred. Take — for example — last month, when Willard made his daytime drama
debut on "The Bold and the Beautiful." Fred appeared in four episodes
of this long-running CBS soap opera back in October and loved every minute of
it.
Fred Willard on the set of "The Bold and the Beautiful" with
John McCook. Copyright CBS Inc. All rights reserved
"I've always wanted to be on a soap opera,"
Willard admitted during a recent phone interview. "Because I started my
career in improv, performing with Second City and the Ace Trucking Company, I
always enjoy being in situations where — as an actor — you have to think fast
& be light on your feet. And when you're working on a soap opera where
every scene is like this quick one-act play and you have to learn all of your
lines and the blocking on the fly … Boy, you really do have to work
fast."
Mind you, Fred finds himself in a similar situation this
week at Lincoln Center's
Avery Fisher Hall. Where — after a very limited amount of rehearsal — Willard
is playing the part of Cap'n Andy in an all-star concert production of Jerome
Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II's "Show Boat," which the New York
Philharmonic is presenting now through November 8th.
"I have to admit that I was a little nervous about this
one," Fred said. "I mean, I was initially tickled to be offered this
opportunity. But at the same time, in this production, I'll be sharing the
stage with some really amazing actors and singers. People like Jane Alexander
& Vanessa Williams. Which is why I thought that I'd better do some prep
prior to playing Cap'n Andy. So I then went out and rented all three different
movie versions of 'Show Boat.' Which — as it turns out — wasn't as helpful as
I thought it might be, given that the three movie versions of 'Show Boat' all
have different plots and go off in different directions. Luckily, this concert
production that I'm appearing in is kind on an amalgamation, a best-of version
of 'Show Boat.' So hopefully some of the prep that I've done will eventually pay
off."
Fred Willard performing with the cast of the New York Philharmonic's staged concert
version of "Show Boat." Photo by Chris Lee. All rights reserved
So does Willard do this kind of prep for every part that he
plays? Take — for example — the Secretary of the Interior as a car. Which is
the character Fred voiced in Disney "Planes: Fire & Rescue" (FYI:
The Blu-ray & DVD version of this recent Disneytoon Studios production hit
store shelves on Tuesday).
"In this particular case, I honestly didn't have to do
a lot of prep. Mostly because I've been playing these sorts of stuffy
bureaucratic characters since back in the H.R. Haldeman days. People hire me to
play politicians because — thanks to my background in improv — I can usually put
a comic spin on acting stiff & straight," Willard explained.
"But what was kind of interesting this time around was
— when I first went in to record on 'Planes: Fire & Rescue' — the part of
the Secretary of the Interior was fully scripted. So they didn't really want me
to improvise. They showed me a rough sketch of what my character would look
like and then asked me to read the lines as written. But a week or so later,
Disney called me again and said 'Now John Michael Higgins is coming in. And
we'd like to have you also come in and then get the two of you to kind of
banter back & forth. See what you guys could improvise while you're in
character," Fred said.
Fred Willard as the Secretary of the Interior. Copyright Disney
Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
"Now when you work on an animated film, it's pretty
unusual to have two people in a recording booth at the exact same time. Most
for technical reasons. You don't want the two voice actors overlapping their
dialogue or stepping on each other's lines," Willard continued. "I
love John Michael and we had a lot of fun at that particular recording session.
And I guess that what we improvised in character that day must have been okay.
Because when I saw the finished version of 'Planes: Fire & Rescue,' I
honestly couldn't tell the difference between what John Michael & I had
improvised and what had been previously scripted. It all fit together pretty seamlessly."
So which does Fred prefer doing these days? Working onstage?
Getting behind the mike and doing voice-acting? Or perhaps it's appearing in
sitcoms. Obviously his peers appreciate what Willard has been doing on the
television side of things. Given that — in recent years — he's received three
Emmy nominations for his performance as Robert Barone's father-in-law on CBS's
long-running hit sitcom, "Everybody Loves Raymond." Not to mention an
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series Emmy nod that Fred got for playing
Phil Dunphy's father, Frank on that ABC smash, "Modern Family."
"I love working with Ty Burrell. You know, he and I
actually worked together on a TV series a year or so prior to 'Modern Family.'
It was this Kelsey Grammar show set in a news room called 'Back to You.' I played sports anchor Marsh McGinley while
Ty played Gary Crezyzewski, the field reporter on that show. He was the guy that
the news director would send out to cover snowstorms or freeway chases. And I
would just laugh & laugh at everything that Ty did. He's this extremely
talented, very sweet guy," Willard remembered.
Fred Willard and Ty Burrell working together on Fox's "Back to You."
Copyright Fox. All rights reserved
Well, "Back to You" only lasted a single season.
But given that Steven Levitan & Christopher Lloyd — the creators &
executive producers of that Fox sitcom — so enjoyed working with Fred & Ty
that when they got "Modern Family" set up at ABC, Levitan & Lloyd
immediately invited Willard & Burrell to come be part of that show as well.
"I really enjoy working on 'Modern Family'. The only
problem with playing Frank Dunphy is that — according to that show's storyline
— Frank lives in Florida while
the rest of the Dunphy clan lives in California.
So given the geographic challenges, it's sometimes tough for the writers to
come up with a logical new story-driven reason to bring Frank back on the
show," Fred explained. "Of course, the nice thing about today's
technology is that Phil & Frank can sometimes communicate via Skype. That's
what we wound up doing last year on that episode where we did that fun parody of
'Apollo 13' where my character — via video chat — had to walk Phil, Manny and
Luke through how to repair Jay's lunar module model. Of course, when I was on
Skype, I wasn't actually down in Florida.
I was just one room over. But that's the magic of television."
Anyway, when I pressed Fred about what his absolute favorite
gig was, Willard's answer kind of surprised. It wasn't his break-thru role,
announcer / sidekick Jerry Hubbard on "Fernwood 2 Night." Nor was it
any of those semi-improvised parts that he'd played in Christopher Guest
mockumentaries like "Waiting for Guffman," "Best in Show,"
"A Mighty Wind" and "For Your Consideration." But — rather
— the 100+ skits that he did with Jay Leno for NBC's "The Tonight
Show."
Copyright NBCUniversal. All rights reserved
"Honest to God, that was my favorite job. Appearing on
'The Tonight Show with Jay Leno' was like an actor's dream because you'd come
in and just rehearse each sketch once. It'd be just me and Jay up onstage and
we'd go over the bit, joke by joke," Willard recalled. "And Jay? In
real life, he was just like you'd expect him to be. I mean, no one knows more
about comedy than Jay Leno. But when we were going through the script for each
sketch, Jay would actively seek out my input. He'd say things like 'That bit,
Fred? Do you think it's funny?' and I'd say 'Jay, I think that that's going to
get a laugh.' So it was very much a collaborative process."
"And the very best part is that — while I was
backstage, getting ready to go on — the producer of the 'Tonight Show' would
come up to me and then say 'Now try to make Jay laugh. Feel free to ad-lib.' So
to have that level of trust with the people who are producing this huge network
show, to have them actively encouraging me to go off-script, that was an
absolute thrill," Fred continued. "So you'd do the sketch and then go
home. And by 11 o'clock that night,
there it was on national television. There were no notes afterwards. No second
take. No 'Let's come back tomorrow and try to make this better.' No waiting six
months to see if what you'd done was any good. I loved the immediate
gratification of it all. I found the whole experience to be very
fulfilling."
Given how generous Leno was with Willard … Well, that's
why Fred was thrilled to hear that Jay had recently been honored with the Mark
Twain Prize for American Humor in a ceremony which was held at the Kennedy
Center in Washington,
D.C. "Jay's a wonderful guy. Long overdue for this sort of
professional recognition," Willard said.
Fred Willard at the world premiere of Disney "Planes:
Fire & Rescue." Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc.
All rights reserved
Of course, one might say the same thing about Fred Willard.
But to Fred's way of thinking, that the casting people are still reaching out
and offering him opportunities to do things that he's never before — like soap
operas and concert performances of classic Broadway musicals — is a reward
unto itself.
"Which isn't to say that I'm not willing to repeat
myself sometimes. Like if Disney wants to make another 'Planes' movie. I had a
great time doing 'Fire & Rescue.' Plus I love the message that this motion
picture tried to put across. So if Disney wants me to come back and do the
voice of the Secretary of the Interior again or voice an entirely different
car, I would totally be up for doing that," Willard concluded.
This piece was originally posted on the Huffington Post's Entertainment page on November 6, 2014