RSL during hiatus

[bironic]

As a consolation prize for those of us who didn't attend the closing performance of Company on Sunday (two days after I went!) where Robert Sean Leonard and his fiancée were in the audience*, here is a four-page interview from Entertainment Weekly about what he's up to during a summer off from filming House, besides not doing any plays: A Summer Away from the House (7/3/07).

*sob

Highlights include:

RSL: I'm the guy who's always telling [House] what he's doing wrong. I feel a little bit like the frustrated wife or something. But these two guys are very mysterious to me, their relationship is very weird. Maybe that's one of the reasons it works. I like Hugh a lot ,and I love what he does on the show. I feel quite peripheral to it sometimes, and that might be another reason it works. I just come in and check things out every few scenes.

EW: Now that you have seven weeks off, what are you going to do?
RSL: I'm going to meet my friend Craig, go to Bed Bath and Beyond. I'm so excited.

RSL: This play Tom Stoppard wrote, Coast of Utopia, I'd seen it in London three years ago, and I just knew I was gonna do it. And when I did House, one of the things I thought about was, damn it, Utopia's gonna happen. At some point Lincoln Center's gonna do it, and I'm gonna be tied [to House]. And that's what happened. I had my Neil Diamond moment of sitting on the beach with a tear in my eye. I went to see it and saw Billy Crudup and Ethan and Martha Plimpton, and for me that was like...it's like when you're watching the Yankees, and Andy Pettitte's shoulder's out, that look in his eye when he's seeing them winning or losing, that's how I felt.

RSL: It's great. You get the New York Times, you get on a bus, you go all the way uptown, cross over, and come all the way back. I love it. I find it really lulling, I don't know why.

Oh, RSL. Never change.

Comments

[bironic.livejournal.com]

This comment is so heartening. I'd love to believe that RSL is exaggerating when he talks about how little he works and how he loves that. People talk a lot about how it looks like RSL is "phoning it in" with his Wilson scenes, and how Wilson is turning more and more into RSL himself, and you get those DVD bloopers where he's all "I don't even know what play I'm in," but what you've cited here is much more palatable -- and makes more sense, for someone as talented and thoughtful as RSL seems to be to truly put thought into the character he's playing. I definitely want to check out those interviews.

And, hello and welcome! I am glad that someone is still reading these. :)

[poorfrances.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the welcome. :) Oh, I do think he is telling the truth when he talks about being lazy and not wanting a bigger role on the show (he got one, so ha ha!) but more in the sense of, "Wow, I am very boring," which he is. Like I tell people I am very lazy because I don't drink or like to go clubbing, etc. and prefer to stay home and read (I don't identify with him at all, no). Clubbing and shit to me is hard work. But to someone who hates to read or doesn't like computers, I'm not lazy at all. I can't count how many people have told me they don't like to read because "it's like work" or "it's like homework."

He also tends towards the self-deprecating in interviews, calling himself an idiot, that he doesn't know what he's doing and on and on. He actually has done more interviews for articles on Hugh than I think he has where he's the subject himself, and so frequently he says things like that when he's comparing himself to Hugh and how brilliant Hugh is and how hard Hugh works, etc. as well. I find both HL and RSL adorable in all their dorky, depressive, pessimistic interview glory. :)

I definitely want to check out those interviews.

Come to think of it, the closest I can compare Hugh's comments to are the way he talks about Stephen. He talks about Robert being so funny and frighteningly intelligent, who can name just about any book and that Hugh said they were "kindred spirits" from the moment they met.

I do recall a bit of a minor controversy amongst some fans back then because when Hugh was giving interviews around that time, RSL was the only cast member he talked about. He gave general praise to the other actors but some fans I guess thought Hugh and Robert were forming their own little actors' club.