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[0:00] Paul Gross: Hi, this is Paul Gross and you're listening to Outrageous Fortune, the kind of official Slings and Arrows podcast. This is the season one finale. We've already started working on season two. Be sure to follow and subscribe to this podcast on your favorite listening platform to be alerted in the fall when season two is officially available. Thank you for listening. Slings and Arrows is a show airing 20 years ago. We love it so we're carrying the torch and we'll fill up countless stages with all men seven ages. No need to get the Shakespeare. It's only bloody Shakespeare. So welcome to Outrageous Fortune. Welcome to Outrageous Fortune.

[0:47] Paul Gross: And I was like, it's weird that we're talking about Hamlet. I went to school in Halifax and I was reading Hamlet when we had Hurricane Juan and a tree crashed through my window right after I read Enter Ghost. I was reading it by flashlight because we had lost power. So I was like in my bed under a window on a futon reading it and I got like Enter Ghost. And that felt like that same moment when you're talking about like Hamlet, the audience, you must be there. And then I hear this like lubbed up, lubbed up, lubbed up coming. That plays weird. That plays got some connection, right? Like it does something, the veil is thinner in that play or something, right? Like there has to be.

[1:33] Paul Gross: Yeah and it's also very, well, it's interesting and this isn't my own thinking. I was listening to Simon Russell Beale talk about Lear and he was talking about, somebody asked him a question about soliloquies and he's, well, you know, when you need, when like Hamlet talks to the audience because he needs them. And after he comes back from France, he stops talking to them. He doesn't need them anymore from England. He doesn't need them anymore. And I think in the case of Lear, he's never, he doesn't need, he never has, he's never needed anybody. That's the problem. You know, so that he, I mean, the hardest thing to, I didn't remember asking Bill that at one, Bill Hutt, when we were doing that third year saying, what was it, what is it about Lear that you think you always had? And he said, well, it changed over time, but I always knew that I stood somewhere between all of you and the gods.

[2:43] Paul Gross: He didn't really mean that, but he said, that's the thing you have to keep, you have to keep trying to figure out how to find that place that is above, that is the intermediary so that you can lose it. And yeah, and I guess that there's the, those are the things too, that a director can't give you. Director can point you towards something, but you have to find that somehow. And maybe the greatest of the great directors can put you into a situation that makes you find it, but I think that's something you, you're left in many ways, with those big parts, you are left on your own at a certain point. There's only so much someone can do to help you with it. And the only way to get to it is to just get to everything inside of you. So that it's, it's very different from playing, say, Romeo.

[4:02] Paul Gross: They really are bloodsuckers. I mean, I used to think about Hamlet and he's like the world's meanest therapist that you could ever go to. Way smarter than you. You'll never, you'll never reach it. And you won't. Nobody, there's, no one has been put on a stage with a brain like his. Hamlet's brain is crazy. Lear's on the other hand is pretty slow. But Lear's cosmology is huge. And you know, and I'm talking to you this, we haven't even started rehearsing. I'm talking like I know it.

[4:43] Paul Gross: No, I was going to say like, because I was like, Stratford, you can't have started rehearsals yet. But where are you at in your process? And you're comfortable talking about it. Like, what is it doing to your life to be staring down? Like, have you done Lear, have you done an Edgar or an Edmund or anything in?

[5:03] Paul Gross: Ah, I've seen a lot. Yeah. And it, you know, it is my favorite. Well, it's much of my favorite play, period. But I have a problem if I go to it. I start, there's a certain point somewhere in there where I start crying and it won't stop. And it's not triggered by anything in particular. It's sort of like going to see a crystal pipe dance. I start crying somewhere and I just can't stop. They're kind of the same feeling. And it's ridiculous too, because I feel like I should alert people that I sit down to next to in a theater. I'm going to start bawling at a certain point. It won't stop. I'm telling you beforehand, I apologize.

[6:06] Paul Gross: And it's that stuff that was in the show, you know, and I haven't seen it in a long time too, so it's kind of weird. I should actually go back and watch it with some distance. But one of the things I remember most clearly is doing that scene with Bob Martin. Who wanted to be the actor. And that moment of his discovery of, oh, oh, oh. That's it, isn't it? That's what you're after. Not just as a performer, but you want that in the audience. You want to be a part of the audience. You want to be able to give it to them in such a way that, oh. And getting that, is getting to that, is I think what Jeffrey was exclusively interested in. Because if you aren't going for that, then what are you doing?

[7:04] Paul Gross: And to go back to something you said earlier, it is the truth. For whatever that means, exactly. But in that moment, in that theater, at that time, with that energy going, you know, it'd be wild to put on some kind of scope that could track the subatomic particles racing from the theater to the audience and back. And that conversation is the one that gets you closest to something that is a shared understanding of a certain kind of truth that exists, maybe just like something coming up out of a vacuum and disappearing. But it exists at least for that moment, in that time, in that theater. This is not something you can achieve in film, as great as it is. And I think that's what Jeffrey was always after. If you aren't after that, then you really should just not do it.

[8:05] Paul Gross: And I think we all know that we see too many things that aren't, yeah, they're okay, but they're not driven enough somehow, or you're not. A lot of times, though, you know, we are talking also about trying to find something in plays that are monumental and have stood the test of 420-odd years now. It isn't like... I know when I did Hamlet, it was 400 years to the day, give or take, probably. At some point in that run, that day would have been the day when it was first performed. So every time I'd go to the theater, I think, this is the 400th anniversary. But, you know, you're living on something that has this huge weight that it does not need to prove itself. And we're asking other writers to somehow be as good. I think it's a bit crazy, since there is no artist ever in the history of human beings in any time, in any country, in any language, in any form that is as dominant as Shakespeare has been.

[9:08] Paul Gross: It's weird. How is that even conceivable? And what an incredible luxury or privilege it is to get to do it. And so, to take that Geoffrey side of it, and then put it up against Mark McKinney's character is so genius, right? Like, how do they go together? But they do. That's the thing that's crazy about the theater, is you can have nonsense right next to everything else.

[9:47] Paul Gross: As you're talking about Geoffrey's desire to always get at the truth, and it just really points out the difficulty he has with Henry Breedlove in season two, who is sort of going by rote now. He is too afraid to be in that space that William Hutt, even jokingly but sincerely talked about, that liminal space between the gods and the earth. He's not willing to even go there. And William's character is sort of being forced there. And because Luke's character is so new to it, he's willing to receive. But Henry isn't. And so, I'm just curious what you think about that relationship and that battle between those two men during that season, and what you think maybe Henry was afraid of that whole time as well.

[10:46] Paul Gross: Yeah, just to start with, there are a lot of actors that have been very successful, particularly in the theater. I mean, that's probably also true in film and television stuff, although maybe a bit less so. But they get themselves into a place where they're comfortable, you know? And then they're not challenged for a while, because what they do is good, and people still like it, and it serves the production, and nothing about it is bad. And then you get complacent, and then you get frightened. I think you start to get scared that you can't step out of it. And what if I step out of that, and it's embarrassing? You start to actually think about public embarrassment in a way you didn't when you were younger.

[11:36] Paul Gross: It's a little bit like, I mean, one of the, maybe an even better analogy is doing a television series for a few years. That is not like a Slings and Arrows series, but episodic. And you get very used to doing the same thing over and over again. In fact, that's actually required of you. It's not required that you come up with a different thing each time, because it's nonsensical. So you have to do the same thing, and then you find yourself, you think you're repeating lines, but it's just, it's a line that was said five episodes before, because it's a plot line. Where were the fingerprints? Didn't I just say this? Yeah, you said that two weeks ago. Oh, okay. And then you have, by that time, you've built up a toolkit of really bad habits, like habits that you just know that if I do that at the end of the scene, it'll be funny.

[12:32] Paul Gross: And you start doing that all the time and to try to get rid of that, it's really, well first of all, you have to be aware you're doing it. Most aren't, you know, so it takes a while to like deprogram yourself or something. And you need to have a good director. I mean, I had Hamlet to deprogram that, but I know that, you know, talking with Alan Hawko, he had a hard time when he first stopped doing Republican Doyle because there's a certain thing you just get really used to doing, and it's always been successful. Like, it's partly what made that show successful, so why would you ditch it? Except it's only for that show. So I think there's that feeling of, you know, as an actor, like, but Gara is playing you.

You need to encounter a director who's just going to say, you can't do any of that anymore. That has to stop now. And I think the compounding problem is if you're an actor who's reached that level, it's very difficult to find anybody who's younger or, you know, as a director to have the courage to say that to you. There's a kind of authority that you've accumulated over years and a respect that you were due. Therefore, why should you feel you can talk to me this way? So I think it's not uncommon for actors to get stuck in a certain kind of thing. It was interestingly with Maggie Smith, and one of the main reasons she had a lot of reasons, but one of the big reasons she came to Stratford to work with Robin Phillips was she had quite a fine career going.

She didn't have to. Partly it was to do with family life, but it was also she just needed to work and to work on a bunch. She just needed to actually concentrate with someone that she trusted, and it was Robin who kind of got her back into a love of acting that she had started to lose and a kind of bravery that she had also started to lose because everything she did was fine. So I think that's for all actors, it's a bit of a trap that you have to be aware of what you're, of the patterns you're falling into if you have any kind of success because then you'll get stuck.

[15:00] Paul Gross: Yeah, anyway, it's also just to talk about the Henry characters that, I mean, for what I remember of it is Jeffrey not sure how to get to him, but knowing it's worth the effort because he's in there. You are in there somewhere as a good actor still. You are not what you're doing right now. This might be painful, but you got to try it. I love that line that his friend says to him, you know, you're a good actor, but you're in danger of becoming a hack. Yeah, and it's like that really sums up what you're saying about Jeffrey's character trying to get in there because he's like, he knows the same thing. His friend knows that it's in there, but he's still trying to get in there. He knows the same thing. His friend knows that it's in there, but he's gotten by with being just okay for so long.

[16:06] Paul Gross: Well, and I think, you know, Gare himself, I would say that a couple of times on the set as a, why? I mean, I am a hack. Why am I playing this part? It's not, and nor, but to say that indicates like he had a fear of that becoming sure. I think we all do. I love that grace extended to Jeffrey that it comes out of a positive thing, that it's not punitive or him. I mean, there's a kind of battle with Henry, but that it is all in pursuit of this like great art that is what motivates Jeffrey. Yeah, and the better artist inside you. Yeah, and I think that's the, I'm trying to think, I mean, there have been some people that I've worked with that I haven't liked, but I think more than not, I've always, it's a shared collective, it's a shared creative experience, and you have to have a great deal of respect for everybody you work with and that you need them and they need you, and they're, everyone is trying to be good, okay?

You know, I don't think anybody goes and takes apart and says, all right, now what can I do to be totally shitty? You know, they're all trying their level best. Some of them just aren't great, and some of them are misguided or something, but I mean, it's, you know, I think that's why it's sort of a different work environment in a weird way. I mean, I don't think he doesn't really like Darren much. No, okay, fine, yeah, Darren's a dick.

[18:01] Paul Gross: But there's something, I mean, I think the spirit of the show is that ultimately positive humane thing of like it doesn't come from a cynical place. It comes from an aspirational place of like, let's do the best we can. That's why I'm pushing you. That's why I'm like this, you know, why don't you? And the conflicts come out of not fuck you, but you are different, you are this person, I am this person, and together we have to do this impossible thing. How will we like, how will we like? And that to me, I think really great writing always has that, even in antagonistic characters or, you know, that feeling of they're trying their best in some way, and it's so moving, and there's so much greatness in it, if that makes sense.

[19:00] Paul Gross: Yeah, yeah, and also even if it doesn't work, the process of doing it is better than the process of trying to kill each other. Yeah, you're not always going to have a great production, but the process should always be good. It's not like working on a trading floor. No, I mean, that is one of the great things about collaborative arts is you're all trying to become one organism toward some objective, and a lot of other fields, they're either just isolated or you're actually actively trying to kill those that you work with.

[19:45] Paul Gross: Yeah, what you said about Jeffrey, about Henry and Darren or those relationships, I was in a play with 49 other women. It was called To Come Out. It was in Toronto. I was in that 50 women show. I don't know if you've heard of that. Yeah, I said, yeah, but one of the women in that, I remember I was very young and I was very intimidated by everyone, and so many of those women are in Slings and Arrows, like Fiona Hyatt was, like all these people are. That's how I, my connection to the show. But I remember at one point one of the actresses was like so seasoned, and I was so intimidated. She sat with me at lunch and was like, how are you finding the process? And I was like, oh, it's really amazing.

I'm so lucky. How are you? And she said this thing of like, I'm loving it. I love everyone, and the people that I hate, I love hating them. And I was like, oh, that's awesome. Like that's collaborative friction, you know what I mean? Like you're pissing me off in a cast of 50. We're all gonna piss each other off because none of us take notes the same way. Like how are we gonna do this? But if you can get excited about, my God, if you do that one more time, if you can get excited and fueled by it, like what a fun way to live and like what a fun way to deal with how frustrating and weird this industry is. And that just made me think of that, what you said about, that's wild. Loving Darren, God, that's a gap fest. 50 people in one play. Yeah, it was sick. It was awesome.

[21:16] Paul Gross: I wanted to, I want to ask a question about the power dynamics between Ellen, Oliver, and Jeffrey, and how Oliver says that sleeping with Ellen was about power and not sex. I'm just thinking about like what you make of this and also like the continued sort of threesome that happens throughout the course of the three seasons where now Jeffrey is sort of hiding or trying to hide his relationship with Oliver and that he still talks to him from Ellen, and then she feeling like the outsider until he finally says he does see him. I'm just curious what you think about that.

[22:08] Paul Gross: Well, it's very common. So many people go through this horrible thing of a triangle with a ghost. I don't know. I mean, I always, I guess what I mostly thought was that they're always going to be together basically, and they'll be, you know, at each other's throats one day and it'll be fine the next, and eventually over time it'll settle down. And you know, but they're perfect, and that I suppose in terms of the power dynamic relationship that Oliver's presence is the one thing that could destabilize all of that, right? And that Jeffrey can't, I mean, it's gonna, Oliver's gonna have to come to an end, and he can't let her know that because then she, then he's still completely bonkers. So it's not even like he's rehabilitated to any point that makes sense to try to be with. But I mean, I also, I don't think, I don't think he knows he's not all that stable.

[23:43] Paul Gross: And you know, having a ghost visit you all the time is not really a good mark of stability. I do love that thing where he goes to the shrink. That he's there, I can't remember this, but I remember that scene being really just delicious. But yeah, and then that has to stop. And I know at the time that we were doing it was somehow, although we really started shooting that third one, that kind of went way out of sequence. We were doing the final stuff early. The play was up first, and I thought I'd really like be way bad, but just for scheduling reasons, so we couldn't do it in an order that was more sensible. But even then I sort of thought, well, he knows he's gotta leave. All or all of us to leave, like I asked to stop. But of course, at that time, there's no reason why he couldn't return. Didn't know he could bring him back, but he has to go away.

[25:03] Paul Gross: That that's somehow kind of related to the fool in Lear and you know there's a point where he no longer needs him and takes up with Edgar but then there's a point where he no longer needs Edgar and he's then I think it's that sort of there is some echo between those two things. Um and I think he knows he must be with Ellen and in whatever form that's going to end up taking but he that can't happen if Oliver's around.

[25:48] Paul Gross: It's kind of interesting as McCarthy book I just read it recently, The Passenger, that there's a character in it who's nuts. She's brilliant but she's also she is visited by these weird Victorian kind of people and they talked to her quite for a long time. She's a mathematician but she's had a crack up and she's kind of hiding out in her grandmother's attic. Uh and I think of that as being similar that there's Oliver's there to help him get him something, get stabilized. But I also thought you know and that's interesting too he says like he's really there so the question is is he in my mind yeah it could be a manufactured thing in my head but I didn't draw him. I didn't make him out of wool.

The reality of that is no different than the reality that I my senses are processing right now looking out this window so they are real. I didn't write him his lines but it is like having to say goodbye to a friend who's no longer helpful to you or nothing can happen, can continue with Ellen.

[27:21] Paul Gross: I was also thinking about that in terms of like Jeffrey seems to be um the person who is he's always grieving somebody who's been integral to who he is as a person. So like before the show starts um his mother has died and he mentions that when he's in bed with Ellen. Then of course Oliver passes at the beginning of the show and then in season three he's slowly watching somebody he's looked up to his entire life um die. And so I part of me was like is the holding on to Oliver also a little bit about like not having I mean honestly not even having the time to process all of this grief but and trying to hold on to something you know sort of like what you said earlier about um uh him sort of being or no maybe it was another interview you mentioned um Oliver also being like part of Jeffrey's brain like he's also like half him or something.

Um so I just wondered if you thought about or how you think about that the constant grief because it's not everyone who's constantly having to do this it's just it's Jeffrey really um as he goes through all these years with just losing people who are so important to him and then finally feeling like he's got the courage to be able to let this like last piece go at the end.

[29:01] Paul Gross: I don't think I'd ever really thought about it that way. I'm sure I didn't, I'm not that smart but I think it there is something but it is part of his brain with okay I'll do the Lear part first. So I you know when I was 12 or 13 and I went to see Bill Hutt do Lear and I thought I'd like to be part of that world and I knew him over years he was very close with Martha but we never worked together until we were doing Slings and Arrows and uh and it's Lear so that was weird and also he brought me into his uh trailer one day to say listen don't you can't tell anybody this but I am actually dying and okay so that I'm carrying Bill's I mean he didn't die right away obviously but he was you know he was on a variety of medications and so for that there was this immediate thing of being attentive to him that was all it was like I'll help him if he needs it at all whatever that meant I didn't really know but it it kind of erases anything else you're thinking.

I don't know if I thought that I don't think I really thought that way I did think about the Oliver way that it is part of his brain and that he knows he needs Jeffrey knows he needs he's lacking something there's a piece that doesn't work or it's not activated or he's made it go dormant or something's wrong or he's not doing it right.

[31:10] Paul Gross: And Oliver was that piece. I mean Ellen is also that the other piece so if we have our own Trinity inside ourselves the Ellen's one of them and the other leg of it was Oliver. So whether he manufactures Oliver to be with him or whether Oliver actually comes I mean we just decided for the sake of playing it you're just he's really a ghost. It's just easier to do it and it's funnier I think but at a certain point the experiment has to stop or you have to conclude it's a failure or you conclude it's okay and that's that he's been with me long enough now it's so good I think I can do I can walk on my own and I can take the training wheels off the bicycle.

[32:05] Paul Gross: But I also think there's a reluctance to do that because it's been so comforting to him to have him around for so long. I think we all sort of have somebody we kind of talk to inside a little bit whoever that person is you're talking to and you've written something I think is that working and you know you're waiting for the answer from whoever that is that part of you.

[32:43] Paul Gross: Yeah but I mean I think you are quite right grief plays a big part in people's in in a kind of way of stripping stuff down and so much becomes so unimportant. Do I really care that there's a guy with 12 items in the eight item line? Not really. I can stand here watch two extra items get scanned fine you know it does sort of you know it does sort of I think focus you closer to the things that really matter or should.

[33:27] Paul Gross: But it also I think too with with Oliver it was a way of delaying it. Well you put it on a layaway plan at some point you're gonna have to buy that sofa but you don't have to pay for it right now.

[34:01] Paul Gross: Um yeah I look like that's a great analogy is to like put it on put the grief on layaway and I think in I think in um by the end when he finds out he and Oliver are standing there and he's like and they're both like oh this was never about us there's also sort of like a finding his deeper purpose I think for always wanting um to get at the truth because it's oh right also like trying to get at the truth isn't about making sure that like things look good or whatever it's a it's it's not about me and so it seems like the letting go of Oliver also comes from that place of finding that um that grain of truth that that was always there that he couldn't quite see um for why he was so passionate about doing things the way that he he did them.

[35:14] Paul Gross: Yeah and I and I think that's that some of that has to do if you've got a you really the hardest thing to learn is how to get try and you know broom your ego out of the way as much as you can and for actors that's phenomenally difficult because and I don't mean ego like I want to be looked at I mean the you know you have to stand in front of people but a director doesn't. I also think in recent years has been a fair bit too much ego in direction that's all kind of about direction and concept stuff and there aren't very many auteurs you know there are a lot of we wish there were more people who were just very practical about how to make an audience receive what you're trying to give them through a play you've chosen to do for whatever reason and I think Jeffrey for all of his you know this and then we're gonna get to the truth there's a lot of ego in there still that struggle for him is to just go no no I know yeah I have to step up I have you have to step out I have to step aside it isn't about me it's about the people who sit down and watch us but it's also very that takes a long time to get there I think I don't think you get there quickly.

[36:53] Paul Gross: I mean I certainly didn't when I was in my well up until about a month ago.

[37:04] Paul Gross: But now you're there so you know that's done. It's all good now sailing.

[37:16] Paul Gross: Yeah I'm I'm stuck I'm not this is not a complete thought but this is why I've kind of been like slow to respond is that there's some connection that I can't quite make with that that feels also about death right of like death is in Hamlet, Macker's and Lear but but the way they confront it feels akin to like.

[37:35] Paul Gross: How Jeffrey and Oliver, you know, like it's a thing to battle against when you're young. It's a thing to like summon or use in the dark way in middle age. And then it's a thing you have to make friends with in older age or something like that. This is not a good theory. But you know what I mean? There's something that you're saying about ego. I guess that's like a lot of people say that like ego and death are related.

[38:00] Paul Gross: Yeah. Yeah. I don't really know how, but I like the sound of that. I think that, you know, those plays, because of the play, the plays deal with such grave matters. That it's hard not to then, it is the death of something. There's an enormous sadness of Oliver's second death or his final departure. And I mean, that's probably no different than, you know, my parents both died not very long ago. My mother was like four years ago. And I mean, she's still hanging around.

[38:50] Paul Gross: Yeah. Yeah. And when I, I won't, I'm not looking forward to the day when I go a week and I don't, and she doesn't pop into my mind, but it will come. And I don't, you know, I mean, it's interesting with those three plays, Hamlet's death is undesired and Macbeth says, well, you fucking deserve this shit. And Lear's is way more ambiguous in a way that the whole of Lear is a very contradictory kind of piece. It's a little hard to figure out. And actually that's what's most fascinating about it at the moment. But the death in Lear is he's going down hard. He does not, he's not a cuddly old guy. But I think what you see in him is these first, these steps, struggling, struggling towards some kind of understanding or state of grace, or what we might call, or they might call Christian redemption, or, you know, that sense of moving towards, but he doesn't get there.

He didn't get far enough. He didn't live long enough. And I think that's actually the tragedy. That's what makes us cry is that, oh, he's not going to get there. I mean, it's sad with Cordelia and all of those things are sad, but it's, this is different. It's like, you're weeping for the core of all of us.

[40:35] Paul Gross: And I think when it had, when you're in relief, or opposite that sort of weight on screen, it just is infected by it, which is one of those weird processes of juxtaposing things together in artistic format. It, you know, go back again to the kind of subatomic conversation that goes on between these two big thematic posts. They are having, they're talking to each other in a way that, I mean, for all I know, Susan wrote the scene with us, and then, you know, Bob wrote something else, and they end up next to each other on the page. But those are the ingredients of it that are so strong that make that plausible or possible. But I also say when we were shooting it, you could, I also say when we were shooting it, you couldn't help but have that in, and Lear is there, and we're, and also we kind of realized we may never work ever again together.

It was a kind of, there's a sadness anyway, so those scenes are all, they remain quite vivid to me of the atmosphere of doing. That's also kind of the, but that's sort of the nature of the theater. It's not fixed. You can't go back and look at anything. That's what I kind of love about it. People say, oh, wouldn't it be great if we could see Burbage? I thought, no, I don't think it would be. We'd think it was terrible. Everybody would have thought these were horror, people like this shit, you know, like.

[42:19] Paul Gross: Well, that day, the Stratford wanted to make a film of the Hamlet or do a more in-depth recording of it, and I said, no, I don't want to do that. It just should live as it does. I got to wander out on that stage the other day, actually, and I haven't been on it for 20, I was doing some photo thing there, and I said, oh, I should just go and check it out, see what it is the most phenomenal stage in the world. Have you been on it? Have you stood on it?

[42:58] Ebony: No, I've seen a couple plays. I think I've only seen one or two there.

[43:04] Paul Gross: If you want to come and see Lear, then get ahold of me, and I'll get you tickets for that. You just have to stand there once, and it's like home. It's a magical theater. And I think that most of us, well, Martha, me, Stephen, a lot of us, we've all been there. We've all been there. And I think that most of us, well, Martha, me, Stephen, a lot of us had something to do with that stage, that that becomes the, that's the world. Not really the history of Stratford so much, although we did have fun, I was trying, Stephen would do something, we'd have to guess which artistic director it was. He's merciless. But we, you know, we do know that, we know that place. And so that place, we had a commonality, too, that didn't have to be discussed. And I think there is a sorrow in there, you know, with Robin gone. And there's a lot of people that you, that's one thing about being in it, there's a lot of people you know are dead. These all start dying. And now it's our turn.

[44:25] Ebony: Yeah, it's sort of that one, it's that song, Put Away Childish Things, through Dressed Darkly.

[44:39] Paul Gross: Yeah. Yeah. That's it, too. He knows he's got to go, yeah, can't keep doing this. I have to stand up on my feet. I have to stand up on my own two feet.

[44:58] Ebony: Do you think Lear is close? You talked about him, you know, he starts to see it, but he can't put everything together. Do you think he's close? Like, is it a matter of hours or days? I'm thinking about how at the end of Slings and Arrows, Anna says to Richard, you are so close to becoming a real person. That's the tragedy of Richard, and how deeply, oh my god, right? And then I'm thinking of that in the context of Lear, and it's like, were you just so close, you know?

[45:33] Paul Gross: I think so, but there's a couple of things that happen, and they seem sort of small. He curses the gods in that scene, this is what I think he does. He sort of loses them altogether. He stops invoking them, and he starts to, it becomes much more kind of, well, atheistic, but not godless, I guess you'd call it. The elements are a real thing, but there's no Odin. You know, it's interesting, the first question he has for the new philosopher, Edgar, is what is the cause of thunder? It's funny, but it is, like, it's dead serious. Is there a god behind that, or am I just fucked, or is it just actual thunder? You know, he's picked the wrong guy, obviously, because Edgar's not a shaman or anything. But he says, so that relationship with the gods all falls to pieces.

But the thing that really struck me is the scene with Cordelia, where he says, come, let's await a prison. It's sort of seen as this pretty sort of thing a lot of the time. I think he's desperate. He's desperate to get her ready. You don't know what fucking prison is like. I do, because I built them. This is what's going to happen. We'll get through it by laughing, and we'll fucking outlive them. You know, he's trying to get her set. That's his first act of generosity in the play. Other than a little earlier, he does say to the fool, you go in first. Big move, King. And then the other thing that happens is the little one, where he says, come, undo this button. And he turns to a servant who probably never even saw anybody who served him, ever.

I think it's why he doesn't quite recognize Kent. He never really looked at anybody. He didn't need to. He's going to undo this button. Thank you, sir. Calls him sir. Yeah, I do think he's inching toward it. But he is being made to pay. And his suffering is not yet done. Also, I don't think he's a great person. He's a terrible fucking father. Now, Bill was a very lovable Lear. And particularly his last version of it was closer to Santa than anything else. Oh, wow. That's being so mean. He was great. But he wanted... He saw a way through it that made him more embracing and lovable.

[48:41] Paul Gross: Yeah. I just don't actually see that in there. I think it's much harder. Well, I think that right now. I mean, I don't know what I'm going to think later. But anyway, the... I shouldn't mean to be talking about that too much. Except that there is the thing of Lear's. In terms of how it gets you to Slings and Arrows, it's almost like... Lear can't do it, but we can. Let's sort of pick up where he stopped.

[49:30] Ebony: That's very beautiful.

[49:32] Paul Gross: Yeah. I mean, we keep coming back to... When the show came out, I was in high school, university. It was a big thing. We were all so nerdy about the show. And then I've gone back and forth. I was in my Hamlet years when that happened. And now I'm in my deep Macbeth period of murder and destruction and witches. But Ebony and I talk about this a lot. How we're in middle age or approaching middle age now and looking back.

[50:06] Paul Gross: In the same way that, like, you can keep returning to Shakespeare plays, you can keep returning to this show. There's so much in there. It is such, it is a bucket that holds the most amazing realistic stuff. And, like, all these interviews that we've done, they always get so profound. And I'm like, I think that's because, like, the show, the bucket is, is so good that it immediately makes people start talking about life, art, death, love, the self. Like, it's just, it's there. Yeah. And I think it had that capacity to make, for a lot of people that I've run into who weren't, you know, just liked the show. They didn't ever see Shakespeare or anything before that. And it was, many of them have said, you know, what an amazing introduction is.

It makes you, you realize it's all really, it's, it is just the stuff of life. And you don't need to be afraid of it. And I think there's a lot of bad teaching of Shakespeare in schools, I think, that have this weird thing of making it like, you gotta be a genius, you know, that stuff. But yeah, I mean, it had that ability to make it approachable. It was like, oh, I get it. Oh, that old guy's dying. That guy's bad. He's going to get killed. I think that, I think that was one of the wonderful things to treat it with. Like, it's something that can be kicked around. I had a teacher in school say that to me in theater school. So, you can just kick it around a little bit. You're treating it with like it's a, you know, a relic from the Euphrates Valley with little white gloves.

It's Shakespeare. He'll outlast anything you do. You're right. Instead of getting, you know, precious about it. That's what I think I liked about the show the most is that it was, it wasn't precious about, particularly about the work or the, or Shakespeare himself or, except when we needed to make fun of somebody. It was, it was really an enormous amount of fun to do. We laughed our brains out. So, so hard sometimes. And I can't tell you that with Steve and I don't know how many times we'd get laughing in those office scenes. Could we kind of do them back to back till you get, just get sort of punch drunk and we'd start, well, like with them, we couldn't do, we couldn't get through, we couldn't get through a take.

Okay, we're fine. Fine. Good. Action. And everyone's gone again and we'd have to walk around the block and, and that's really a joy actually, is go to work and really work hard. Howl with laughter and have a bit of a cry and go home. That's good. That's a good day.

[53:27] Alan Seales: Can I ask who that teacher was who taught you, who said that about kicking it around?

[53:32] Paul Gross: It was a man named Henry Wolfe. He had been in England. He was great pals with Harold Pinter. Oh, wow. As a younger man. And he taught, I think, at Regina and then he, then he ended up in Victoria, Vancouver. Yeah, Henry Wolfe.

[53:49] Alan Seales: Okay, thanks.

[53:51] Paul Gross: Yeah, he made, he made me do one scene with a German accent. He said, do you want to do one scene with a German accent? Yeah, he made, he made me do one scene with a German accent. He said, you're being ridiculous with this. It's, do it with a German accent. All right. There, you see? Oh, yeah. Well, it is funny actually. If you do something like that, it instantly takes all of the, all of it.

[54:17] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[54:19] Paul Gross: Singing the lines was big for me. They would say, like, we get stuck in stuff and they'd say, sing them and then you speak them after you sing them. It's like, oh, it's so easy. It's so great. It's fun. It is interesting with Lear, though, that, like, Hamlet is pretty straight. It's pretty, it's verse, but it feels like it's so weirdly confessional. Feels quite contemporary. Lear's stuff is really, it gets simpler as it goes along, but it's quite ornate to start with. And then I'm realizing as well, I don't think I can break it up too much because it starts to lose the sense of it. Yeah, it's trying to, it's a bit of a dance to figure out how to sit inside there and make it alive.

[55:07] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[55:08] Paul Gross: But at the same time, it's not, yeah, I mean, it's a little Yoda-ish. It's a little inverted. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speak and, what's his thing to Cordelia? Speak and, no, that's her line. That feels like a Yoda line. Speak and be silent. Some of the lines, the line, I get, I'm like, get killed every day. There's like a new line or every day I'm looking at it. There's one that, it's at the beginning, I do, and it's the brother-in-law, son-in-law, I do invest you jointly with my power, my preeminent, my power preeminence and all the large effects that troop with majesty. I mean, fuck, come on. Yeah, yeah. And that just is a line that's going to go.

[56:07] Alan Seales: We're just curious if you had any like anecdotal stories about Michael Pauly and Graham Harley.

[56:12] Paul Gross: They were, whenever they were on the set, they were, I would angle myself to get relatively close to them because they would always sit together and they were so fun. They were so funny. So completely supportive, but also really, really snide. They were hilarious. Yeah, they were wonderful.

[56:33] Alan Seales: And then the final question we always ask is why you think the show continues to resonate with people? We sort of talked about the other piece of that question, but I am curious what you think about that.

[56:52] Paul Gross: I don't know. It's a funny, I don't really know. I mean, I know it resonates with people in theater, film and stuff. And so it spreads out from that. Actually, a funny one where I was doing this quite bad show for Warner Brothers, we were shooting for ABC and I was on the Warner Brothers lot and they have this old, this family of teamsters work these lots and they all have to have their belt buckles facing the ground. And they're really kind of gruff, professionally gruff people. They're great at what they do, but there's a whole kind of code and ethos that goes with it. This guy sidles up to me at one point, he says, yeah, I just want to tell you, me and the guys have been watching this slings and whatever it's called thing.

We just fucking love it. Really? You guys are watching it? Because I didn't even think it was on TV. No, no, no. Somebody had it. I don't know where they got it from. And yeah, all of the lots is going on at Paramount and Fox. Everyone's watching it, passing around these discs. Yeah, Jeff, way to go. Fucking hilarious. And it's a lot better than this piece of shit you're working on now. Why? Right on. But that is what's strange about it. It was a very personal kind of dissemination of that show because it didn't have like huge immediate broadcast success, but it did get like people. I asked Richard, he said everyone he knew in the English theater has been watching it. He actually got into a huge fight with Judi Dench because Judi Dench stole two of the discs and ran up to his house and drove home with them.

So she could finish it because she had to go make some movie and she wouldn't have time. It had that kind of weird thing to it. And I think part of it probably is that it's very, it is almost a recognizable workplace story, but with mad emotional people. It's not like The Office. The stakes are all emotional. It's about your heart. And I mean, who pulls a sword out at a party, for instance? Theater people do.

[59:25] Alan Seales: Yeah, theater people do.

[59:27] Paul Gross: But even if you don't like the theater, you still get something from it because you just, you know what it's like to go to a workplace. So I think it had something to do with that. And then I also just think the writing was spectacular. And I think Peter Wellington did such a wonderful, very human job with all of it. No, he and I didn't get along at first, but I thought he became just one. He was a wonderful, I mean, apart from all of the things that are involved in organizing and directing, it's a lot to figure out how to shoot on the schedule we were shooting on. He was very good at that. But he had this great bullshit meter. You know, and I'd do something and I thought, yeah, I'm tired. That feels, that's good enough.

That feels pretty good. And he'd go, I don't know. I just don't buy that. Yeah. Okay, let's go again. You know, so he was having him as the eyes of, and also his, he was not a fan of the theater, particularly. He didn't hate it or anything. He just didn't really have anything to do with it. So it was great in that regard, too, to have somebody who didn't, you know, almost was like your audience.

[1:00:50] Alan Seales: Right.

[1:00:54] Paul Gross: Well, I first, when he set up a curtain call, that's when I realized, like, he really never have been to the theater. He had everybody, like, the main characters of the play at the back of the stage. What? That's crazy. But it does, you know, and I think, too, people respond to something where there's an alchemy that's indefinable that just happens, where there's a collective something that happens that sets it apart. Because you can have a lot of shows with all of those ingredients, and they don't quite click somehow, but this one just did. Of course, Don McKellar is probably central to all of them.

[1:01:42] Alan Seales: Darren would think so.

[1:01:46] Paul Gross: For sure.

[1:01:46] Alan Seales: Thank you so much.

[1:01:47] Paul Gross: Thank you. You're kind of wonderful.

[1:01:50] Alan Seales: Yeah, and seriously, get ahold of me, but later, whenever you guys want to come and see it.

[1:01:56] Alan Seales: Thank you for listening to this episode of Outrageous Fortune, a kind of official Slings and Arrows podcast. If you enjoyed it, please share this with your friends and any fans you know of the original series. You can also rate and subscribe to Outrageous Fortune on iTunes, or listen to it on your favorite podcast app. And as always, you can also subscribe to Outrageous Fortune on the Broadway Podcast Network, where you will find a ton of wonderful podcasts and exclusive interviews and content all about theater, Broadway, and performance. You can follow and find out more on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube using at Broadway Podcast Network, or on Twitter at BwayPodNetwork. Thanks. See you next time.