Interview: Kevin Weisman

This is an interview I did with Kevin Weisman.

Enjoy!

Alias fans who already know that Marshall J. Flinkman can do anything will be happy to learn that Kevin Weisman is every bit the multi-tasker Marshall is. Though his first flirtation with fame came at an early age, the L.A. native has worked hard for everything he’s got.

“I was on a game show when I was 9 years old,” he says. “After I did it, my father got a call from an agent who said, ‘I’d love for your son to come in. I think he could be an actor.’ My dad didn’t want to make that decision for me. He wanted me to have a normal childhood, which I really appreciate. I did theatre in high school. I did theatre festivals. I was a theatre major at UCLA. I had such a normal childhood and college life, and I think that has helped me become a better actor and a more grounded person.”

Talking to Kevin isn’t like talking to Marshall, though there are similarities. The personable, articulate actor lacks Marshall’s nervous stutter, but he shares the character’s sense of wonder for his work. “Theatre and acting was always my passion. I always knew I wanted to be an actor.”

His studies eventually took him to New York. “I was acting eight hours a day, which I loved. We did everything from Shakespeare to scene study and movement. I didn’t really have much money, so I would usher plays in order to see them. I saw [Alias co-star] Ron Rifkin in a play and I thought, that guy’s amazing! I told him that story and he thought it was great. He ended up seeing a play that my theatre company did and the cast was thrilled because he’s a theatre icon. It came full circle and it was a really great moment.”

Kevin is a founding member of the acclaimed L.A. theatre company Buffalo Nights. His work in the West Coast premiere of Sophistry was seen by an agent who signed him and a major casting director who helped him land roles in three major television projects almost immediately. One of his first TV appearances was on Frasier. “Kelsey Grammer, John Mahoney and David Hyde Pierce were so friendly and willing to talk to me about my theatre work. Their treatment of me as a professional coming in and doing my job left a lasting impression.”

Kevin appeared in several other sitcoms, as well as dramas like E.R., Roswell, and Buffy. One of his favorite gigs was “Je Souhaite,” a classic X-Files episode about two stupid brothers (Weisman and Will Sasso) who find a genie (Paula Sorge). “It was one of the first shows that I got on that I was a huge fan of,” Kevin says. “I had worked on some shows that I had seen, but I wasn’t a psycho fan. When I walked on the set, I was like, ‘Oh my God! Mulder and Scully!’ I had to forget about that and do my job. [Writer and director] Vince Gilligan was really open to my character choices and making this guy really intense and kind of dumb. The only problem we had was when I had an allergic reaction to the yellow dust. I had to be covered from head to toe and my skin started getting red and it was a total meltdown. The makeup people figured out how to apply it in another fashion so that it wouldn’t irritate my skin. Gillian Anderson said to me, ‘Isn’t it great being an actor?'”

Kevin first worked with Alias creator J.J. Abrams on Felicity, which led to his current Alias gig. Marshall was originally written as an older man whose fashion sense revolved around a ponytail and a Motley Crüe T-shirt. “I read that description and I said, ‘I’m none of these things.’ J.J. was really collaborative. He listened to my ideas and I got the job.”

Two of his favorite episodes are the second season shows “The Abduction” and “A Higher Echelon,” which found Marshall in the field with Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner). “Those were two really good ones for me. I was tortured! I got to jump out of a building 175 feet up!” Marshall’s take on a classic Luke Skywalker line in that episode is one of the all-time greatest Alias moments.

This season has seen Marshall become a husband (to fellow agent Carrie Bowman) and father. Kevin wrote Marshall’s drum-and-vocal proposal song to Carrie (Amanda Foreman) with his real-life girlfriend, and was excited about the storyline. “It’s another level of three dimensionality to the character, and it’s calmed him down a little bit because now he has this relationship and this kid and it’s really kind of matured him. I’ve made subtle changes as the years have gone on. His clothes are a little bit nicer and he’s wearing ties more often. He’s not such a mess. When you play a character over a long period of time, you can make subtle changes as opposed to a play or a movie; I’m in my 60-somethingth hour of playing the same character and it’s kind of neat.”

The changes in Marshall’s life are nothing compared to what happened to Sydney, who lost two years of her life in a bold and controversial move. “Part of the reason why the show works so well is that the writers and J.J. are not afraid to keep things moving. This show has accomplished in three years what most shows do in seven or eight years, constantly keeping the audience on their toes. There’s always going to be an inherent concern that people aren’t going to respond, but I think taking those risks makes the show what it is. ”

The changes have given Marshall more to do. “J.J. had always said that it’s tough with your character because we’re serving the CIA, we’re serving SD6, and we’re not having an opportunity to get to you as much because we’re not in SD6 as much. Towards the end of season two they really kept cutting back and forth. Once they blended the two worlds, my role expanded because I was able to do more things for the CIA. We joked that Marshall is everywhere! He never sleeps! He’s diffusing a bomb, he’s creating a gadget, and he’s helping Sydney with a problem and he’s just kind of omnipresent, which is great.”

Kevin is just as fond of the character as the fans are. “There’s a lot of people out there who have a difficulty in dealing with other people, myself included sometimes. I’m definitely a lot more confident than Marshall is in real life, but of course I have my insecurities, too, so it’s nice to be able to play that vulnerability. It’s a very serious show, and it’s nice that Marshall can often lighten the mood or cut the tension or make an observation that maybe the audience is thinking.”

He notes that he and Victor Garber surprise the fans they meet. “Victor and I are probably the most opposite of our characters when you meet us in real life. Victor is very outgoing and friendly and welcoming, and Jack Bristow certainly isn’t. I’m certainly not as nervous as Marshall. And David Anders is certainly not English. He’s from Oregon!”

In addition to all of his acting work, Kevin still finds time to play drums for the popular L.A. band Trainwreck, which also features Tenacious D’s Kyle Gass. Though they dress in hillbilly costumes and sport fake names, the members are accomplished musicians with a growing fanbase. A studio album with producer John King (of the Dust Brothers) is in the works and a concert CD is already available at www.trainwreckbootlegs.com.

Kevin is also excited about his involvement in two upcoming films. The first is The Illusion, an adaptation of the French novel L’illusion Comique. Kevin produced the film for fellow Buffalo Nights member Michael Goorjian, who directs and also stars. Goorjian plays a man who never met his father, who is played by Kirk Douglas. At the end of his own life, the father is given a chance to see glimpses of the life of the son he has never known. What he discovers gives him a chance to change both their lives.

Financing the film independently took some creative planning. “These three visions end up making up the majority of the film and take place over 25 years. We shot it over two years, and the good thing about that was we were able to raise money, shoot, raise money, shoot, and then take everything we had shot, show it to Kirk Douglas, and say, ‘This is what we have. Would you play the father?’ We shot his scenes last. We’re submitting it to festivals now. Hopefully we’ll get a distribution deal and we’ll all make our money back.” Kevin also has a supporting role in the film.

He will also be seen in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming project The Terminal, starring Tom Hanks. “I play a sleazy immigration attorney who is a chameleon, dressing as different characters to avoid airport police and help these numerous would-be immigrants like Tom’s character become citizens of the United States. Steven knew my work from Alias and hired me without an audition. It was truly an honor. When I got there, he said, ‘Thank you so much for doing this.’ I was like, ‘Are you kidding?!'”

Kevin enjoyed working with Hanks. “He’s an actor’s actor. I had the run of the dialogue in the scene while his character just sits and listens. He was very present, very supportive, and had some great ideas for me. He’s a pro through and through.”

Working with Spielberg was its own dream come true. “Spielberg kind of reminds me of J.J. He’s kind of this grown-up child in terms of his fascination and his excitement about the work. That energy trickles down to the rest of the cast and crew. I had to get over the fact that I was working with Steven Spielberg and just get to work. Just think of him as another challenging director who’s guiding me along, and not try to put any pressure on myself and hope that it comes out well. I think it did. I’m excited about it.”

Kevin is grateful to be fulfilling his dream. “Life is a balance,” he explains. “You have to satisfy various aspects of your life. You can’t disregard work from a financial place but you also have to make sure you focus on satisfying your artistic needs and your spiritual needs and create a balance. I want to keep working with good people.” And that is certainly something he has done, augmenting his mainstream acting roles with his music and constant stage work.

Kevin’s work has also allowed him to fight for a cause he believes in. “There is a charity organization I work with called the Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Fund. My little cousin is afflicted with the disease. It only affects boys, and they generally don’t live past 20 years old. They’re making a lot of strides in terms of research. There’s a fund that I started if people are interested in checking it out or donating. That’s really important to me.”

Please visit the Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Fund and Kevin’s official site for more details.

Movie Review: The Punisher

The Punisher made his first Marvel Comics appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #129 in February 1974, striking quite a chord with comic book fans who couldn’t get enough of his no-nonsense style of revenge-driven justice. This guy was Batman with bullets, a one-man judge/jury/executioner who sent society’s worst to Hell the hard way.

The first appearance of the Punisher on film came in 1989. Dolph Lundgren starred as Frank Castle, a war veteran whose life is destroyed when a mob crossfire rips away his wife and daughter. Berserk with grief, Castle finds enough focus to become the Punisher. But his war against the mob takes an unexpected twist when the Yakuza steps in and kidnaps the children of the very mobsters Castle has sworn to destroy. And so the Punisher must rescue the children of the men who stole his own life, not just because it’s the right thing to do but also because the memory of his own beloved daughter is still behind every bullet he fires. The low-budget, quickly made cheapie was written by Boaz Yakin (who would later direct Denzel Washington in Remember the Titans) and directed by Marc Goldblatt, who edited the first two Terminator films, True Lies and several Bruckheimer blockbusters. Hell, it even had Louis Gossett, Jr. in it.

This first Punisher came out the same year as the first Keaton/Burton Batman, years before the Batman franchise would fall apart and even more years before Marvel would rise to the forefront of comic book film-making with X-Men and Spider-Man. There is no offense meant to Dolph Lundgren in this comment, but let’s be fair — if 1989 could bring us a decent Punisher movie with Lundgren, the current Marvel empire could surely create something that would define the character in the same way that Spider-Man made us all feel along with Peter Parker. Right?

Um, no. The Punisher, directed by Jonathan Hensleigh and co-written by Hensleigh and Michael France, is a sloppy, heavy-handed pile of cinematic garbage. It’s been compared to ’80s action films. But I know Commando. And you, Punisher, are no Commando.

If there is one thing The Punisher does accomplish, it’s to cram as many terrible coincidences and clichés as possible into every single moment. We first meet Frank Castle (Thomas Jane) as an undercover agent trying to bring down an illegal arms operation funded by drug-dealing bad guy Howard Saint (John Travolta). It’s Castle’s last job before taking an early retirement with his wife (Samantha Mathis) and son, and we all know what that means in an action movie. One of Saint’s sons ends up getting killed in the bust, and we all know what that means, too.

Saint and his wife (Laura Harring) are devastated. Saint wants Castle dead. His wife wants Castle’s entire family to die. In a perfect stroke of luck, it just so happens that Frank is attending a family reunion. His wife and son are there, along with his mother, his father and every single brother and sister and cousin and niece and nephew. And of course his son gives him a black T-shirt with a big white skull on it as a retirement gift, and of course his dad (Roy Scheider) has just specially modified Frank’s old guns for him, and of course Frank’s wife wants to have another baby. It’s one sappy thing after another. And then Saint’s men show up and murder everyone. Women. Children. Old people. It’s the most ridiculous, over-the-top display of unnecessary savagery you’ll ever see. (At least it’s filmed so poorly that it’s not as disturbing as it could have been.)

So after the bad guys run over Castle’s wife and kid with a truck, they shoot Castle on the right side of the chest where there are no vital organs. Then they cover the area with gasoline, but they don’t get any within several feet of Frank and they certainly don’t get any on him. The explosion blows Frank clear. He’s picked up by a philosophical fisherman and recuperates just long enough to grow a short beard before relocating to the city, where he hides guns in his new apartment and adds retractable armor to an old muscle car. “Vaya con Dios, Castle,” the fisherman says before they part ways. “Go with God.”

“God’s going to sit this one out,” Castle replies. God will be in good company; common sense and good film-making will also being joining The Most High in the waiting room.

Castle shoots some guys, and stabs some guys. You almost think the film is going to get better when he devises a plan to pit Saint against his right-hand man Quentin Glass (Will Patton), but the pay-off is just as silly as everything else here. The climax is impossibly awful, and the film also features the single most terrible use of a superhero’s symbol ever.

Rebecca Romjin-Stamos, Ben Foster and John Pinette star as Frank’s misfit neighbors. Romjin-Stamos is criminally underused, playing a waitress who always falls for the wrong guy in every city she’s ever lived in. Foster and Pinette are around for something that’s supposed to be comic relief, though Foster does have a good moment that constitutes the movie’s one true display of honest-to-goodness bravery. The Punisher is weakly directed, poorly written, badly edited and acted only to the limits of its pathetic screenplay.

Regardless of the final product, Thomas Jane buffed up above and beyond the call of duty, and he definitely looks the part. He deserves a good pat on the back for doing the best he can with what he’s given. Will Patton is an excellent supporting actor and also comes out of this mess with a good performance. Travolta is reduced to a caricature of the villains he’s played before, though Harring’s curves make for good eye candy. Everyone here deserved much better.

Director Jonathan Hensleigh, an executive producer on Con Air and Gone in 60 Seconds with a writing credit on Armageddon, lacks vision and focus. His co-writer here, Michael France, is the same scribe who sucked all of the fun out of last year’s equally heavy-handed Hulk. Comic book movies can (and should) be serious, but they should also be fun. This thing is barely even fun to laugh at. It feels cheap. It looks cheap. With this cast and a decent writer and director, The Punisher could have been amazing proof that good comic books films can be made with less-than-blockbuster budgets. As it stands, The Punisher isn’t just the worst Marvel movie made so far. It’s not even the best Punisher movie made so far. And that, True Believers, is some punishment.

Movie Review: S.W.A.T.

Line up. What’s the most honored, respected and professional unit of any major police force? S.W.A.T., or Special Weapons and Tactics. These guys are called in for the big jobs that the regular boys in blue can’t and shouldn’t do.

Line up. What’s the summer’s coolest action movie? Believe it or not, it’s S.W.A.T.

S.W.A.T. is the big screen update of the classic ’70s cop show produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg and created by Robert Hamner and Lee Stanley. Steve Forrest was S.W.A.T. leader Dan “Hondo” Harrelson, whose team included David “Deacon” Kay (Rod Perry) and Jim Street, played by the late, great Robert Urich. Fans of the old show will be happy to know that the 13 episodes of the show’s first season are now available on DVD, with more to come. Forrest and Perry both appear in cameos in the new film.

Clark Johnson, a veteran television actor and director, helms the new film like the cop show pro he is. Dialogue and action move fast, the likable characters are quickly defined and the cast gets to do its thing without being hindered by the hype or special effects that swallow so many summer movies before they even hit cinema screens.

From the top, S.W.A.T. cop Jim Street (Colin Farrell) and his partner Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner) lead the way into a bank full of hostages held by gun-wielding psychopaths with zero regard for anything but the money in the vaults. The film’s wicked sound design kicks in hard and fast by way of erupting gunfire, buzzing helicopters and angry demands by the thugs in control of the bank. And into this fray come Street and Gamble, who sees an opportunity to take out one of the robbers. Street can only watch helplessly as Gamble takes the shot; Gamble gets the robber but deliberately shoots through the shoulder of a hostage to do it.

“I don’t care what they say,” says a superior. “You guys were heroes out there.” Try telling that to the city, which is about to be sued for Gamble’s ill-conceived plan. It was too much “special weapons” and not enough “tactics,” and Street knows it. Kicked off the team indefinitely, Gamble leaves the force in anger. But Street, too dedicated to the job to ever bring himself to leave it, takes a major demotion to the gun cage, where he shines the boots and cleans the guns of his former S.W.A.T. comrades.

Months pass. Street loses his girlfriend (Ashley Scott from Birds of Prey) but never his nerve. When Sgt. Dan “Hondo” Harrelson (Samuel L. Jackson) appears on the scene, Street’s patience and loyalty are about to pay off big time.

To the delight of his peers but the chagrin of his superiors, Hondo is given the task of selecting, training and molding a fresh new S.W.A.T. team to take on the worst scum and villainy Los Angeles has to offer. Early recruits T.J. McCabe (Josh Charles) and Michael Boxer (Brian Van Holt) are S.W.A.T. veterans with service records exemplary enough to please any skeptic. The rest of the team won’t be such an easy sell.

David “Deke” Kay (LL Cool J) takes it to the limit every day in L.A.’s worst neighborhoods, but struggles to feel like he’s making a difference. Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez) has more fire and grit than any man, but fights to be taken seriously in a profession dominated by men who see her as just another pretty face. But what Hondo wants, Hondo gets. And that includes a spot on the team for Jim Street, for whom the only boots he’ll now be polishing are the ones he’ll be wearing into combat.

Meanwhile, international fugitive Alex Montel (Oliver Martinez) has slipped into the country to settle a family score the old fashioned way. He’s got more than two dozen murders under his belt already, smuggling weapons and drugs with the same natural ease with which the rest of us breathe.

Montel’s luck runs out when he’s taken into custody after a routine traffic stop. And when the cops realize who he is, the feds can’t wait to sweep in and take him into custody. But Montel knows that there’s nothing so reliable as American greed. As he’s being transferred, he yells into the television cameras that he’ll give $100 million to whomever can set him free. And given an infamy that stretches into the darkest corners of L.A.’s nastiest criminals, every gang in town knows he’s good for it. Hondo, Street and the rest of the team find themselves at the mercy of a city full of monsters eager to take Montel up on his offer. Before it’s all over, they’ll face betrayal from every direction and even become suspects themselves.

One of Johnson’s biggest accomplishments in S.W.A.T. is the director’s ability to give us everything we need efficiently. The first half of the film deals with who this S.W.A.T. team is, how they train (including an awesome live simulation of a hostage crisis on an airplane) and how they live their private lives until the call comes in to do what they do. Johnson has directed episodes of The Shield, The Wire, The West Wing, NYPD Blue, La Femme Nikita and too many other shows to possibly mention here. He’s also a busy actor, and his years of experience in front of and behind the camera pay off well for the excellent cast assembled for this film.

Samuel L. Jackson is one of the best things that’s ever happened to Hollywood. I’ll sum up his performance here by quoting a character’s description of Hondo: “He’s old-school S.W.A.T., the gold standard of ass-kicking.” Amen. And just like Hondo is a natural leader here to a young team he believes in, it’s obvious that Jackson is giving every bit of himself to the young actors he’s surrounded by in S.W.A.T.

In a weight room scene, Hondo observes Street vigorously pumping iron and advises him to “save some” for the big mission coming up the next day. “I’ve got plenty,” Street says, and so does the talented young actor who plays him. Colin Farrell’s trademark charm translates into instantly believable chemistry with every single one of his co-stars. The role also allows him to play someone who’s basically a normal guy. This isn’t the out-of-his-league young CIA operative from The Recruit, the disgustingly insane killer Bullseye from Daredevil or the ambitious bureaucrat who tangled with Tom Cruise in Minority Report. Jim Street knows “you’re either S.W.A.T. or you’re not,” and in bringing his character to life Farrell makes the movie his own.

Having already performed like a champ in Girlfight, The Fast and the Furious and Resident Evil, feisty Michelle Rodriguez already knows what it takes to be a believable action star. As usual she’s all curves and attitude, but S.W.A.T. lets her take things a step further by making her character a mother, too. As a result she gets to show more emotion than usual, revealing a smile just as pretty as her snarl is menacing. LL Cool J is every bit as fun to watch as the longtime entertainer’s name suggests, with an easy charisma that makes for one of the film’s most enjoyable characters.

Oliver Martinez is both cool and calculating as Montel, making for a villain that’s quite easy to despise. But it’s Jeremy Renner, who played serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in a film last year, who deserves much praise for the film’s most dangerous performance. Bulked up and generating a creepy blend of magnetism and cold efficiency, Renner proves himself a new talent worth watching out for.

S.W.A.T. also gets the summer’s gold medal for action. Even when it’s big, it’s still believable. And even though it’s realistic, it’s always exciting. A helicopter crash on a busy city street and a wild scene involving a bridge and a Leer jet have to be seen to be believed. There are no obvious computer generated shots here (and possibly none), and no crazy Matrix camera angles. Johnson’s tight direction and the capable cast make sure that getting the job done isn’t always about guns and gadgets. It’s about guts, and S.W.A.T.‘s got plenty.