Stephen Tobolowsky is my favorite character actor -- his most memorable role was as Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day. In a less memorable role he played Clayton Townley in the Alan Parker movie, "Mississippi Burning."
Alan Parker died the other day, and that triggered a memory of the Tobolowsky Files podcast -- Tobolowsky is a terrific story teller, and those mp3s were easy and entertaining listening during my jogging days. In one of them, which I can't find now, he told of how he got the part in "Mississippi Burning."
He described how the audition went. The other actors who auditioned went over the top with their portrayal of the KKK leader. But Tobolowsky calmly recited the lines as if he were merely stating the truth as Townley and the crowd believed it. He got the part.
Tobolowsky described it in this NPRinterview:
On getting the role of Ku Klux Klan leader Clayton Townley in Mississippi Burning
"I went back to the office, and this time I was sitting there, and I was fretting a little bit. The secretary looked over and saw me nervous and she said, 'You know, Stephen — they like you a lot in there. A lot of people have been reading this part, and they keep trying to be scary, but Alan [Parker] thinks you're scary just as you are' ...
"This is true with a lot of things in acting. You need to ask questions, and you need to ask the right questions. Alan asked me how I saw the man, and I said, 'I saw him as Abraham Lincoln — I don't see him as a villain. This man is a hero with his agenda, with his point of view.' I did not intend to play Clayton Townley as one chromosome short of a human being, like a lot of people will play various villains in movies ... In real life, everyone kind of sees themselves as the good guy, doing what they're doing. They see themselves as a kind of hero, and I wanted to make sure Clayton Townley ... wasn't played as some kind of genetic miscreant."
Anyway, RIP Alan Parker -- he knew his business. This was just one example.
P.S. He made a lot of good movies, but "Bugsy Malone" was my favorite.
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1:51 PM 8/1/2020
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