San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Mcdermott thrilled to play the good guy
After spending the past several years portraying pimps and crime bosses, the actor is trying on heroism in ‘FBI: Most Wanted’
Dylan Mcdermott was familiar with the darkness required to play Richard Wheatley, the sinister businessman and furtive crime boss in “Law & Order: Organized Crime.” He’d had people like that in his life.
But when Dick Wolf offered him the role of Supervisory Special Agent Remy Scott, replacing Julian Mcmahon as the lead on “FBI: Most Wanted,” on CBS, Mcdermott ran toward the light.
“I’ve been playing more questionable people for a while,” Mcdermott, 60, said recently on a rare day off, his brooding handsomeness cut by a quick smile and easygoing vibe. “And now, to play someone who’s more heroic and is a good person is necessary, because you can overstay your welcome as a bad guy.”
Mcdermott has described the childhood that followed his mother’s death, when he was 5, as Dickensian, marred by poverty and violence. Then when Mcdermott was 15, his father, who managed a restaurant in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in New York City, introduced him to playwright Eve Ensler (“The Vagina Monologues”), now known as V, whom his father went on to marry. She glimpsed the actor in him.
“I always say that you just need one person in life to love you and you can do anything, and V is that person,” he said. “She changed everything. She believed in me and she saw me. No one had ever done that before.”
After college, Mcdermott landed on Broadway as a replacement in Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues.” Before long, he was marrying Julia Roberts in the Southernfried rom-com “Steel Magnolias” (1989).
But his first bona fide starring role didn’t come until 1997, when he got the part of Bobby Donnell, a lawyer with a conscience in the David E. Kelley legal drama “The Practice.” The part brought Mcdermott his first Emmy nomination — the second came 21 years later for his performance as a gas station operator-slash-pimp in Ryan Murphy’s Tinseltown althistory series “Hollywood.”
“I don’t think I have another 21 years,” Mcdermott said, grinning.
As Wheatley, Mcdermott spent two seasons as the primary nemesis to Christopher Meloni’s iron-jawed detective, Elliot Stabler, before soaring off “Organized Crime” in March — Wheatley’s ex-wife drove herself off a cliff while Wheatley rode shotgun; her body was found but his was not. While he was ready to move on, Mcdermott is gratified, and occasionally amused, by the crime boss’s apparent staying power.
“I had this homeless guy the other day who was like, ‘Can I have a couple bucks?’ and I stopped to give him some money,” Mcdermott said. “He was like, ‘Oh, “Law & Order.” ’ He went into my character and stuff, and I was like, ‘Oh wow, only in New York could this happen.’ ”
Between bites from a macro plate at an East Village restaurant — no dad bod for this father of two daughters — Mcdermott discussed morphing into a quirkier leading man, connecting to his characters through loss and whether we’ve seen the last of Richard Wheatley. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q: You signed on for eight episodes in the beginning of “Law & Order: Organized Crime” but then stuck around for a second season. Why did you stay?
A: They came back and said, “Would you do another eight?” And I was intrigued by that. When you fall in love with a character, you want more. They’re like brothers or something. You don’t want to say goodbye.
Q: Was it actually goodbye? Your final episode left us hanging midair. Have we, and you, seen the last of Wheatley? A: Never say never. It hasn’t been discussed, but all I do know is that his body wasn’t found. So where is he? Like D.B. Cooper, right?
Q: And now you’ve been handed your first lead in several years with “FBI: Most Wanted.” Is there any fear in taking on a role like this at this stage, or is it more a challenge? A: They’re frankly not giving many shows to a 60-year-old guy. So I was like, “This is a good exercise for me to see if I can do it.” I think a lot of times actors, myself included, walk on a set, and you’ve got new actors and a new director, and you’re trying to prove yourself and you’re a bit scared. What happened was I started doing character work, which I’m much happier doing than leading man. Even when I am doing the leadingman role, I’ve tried to make it quirky so I don’t have that onus to be that guy. And once I started doing that, that’s when (the fear) started going away.
Q: You said you knew who Wheatley was when you first read him on the page. How so?
A: I think it was an amalgamation of all these different people in my life. My mother’s boyfriend was a bank robber. Growing up with him, and then coming to New York and waiting on gangsters as a young man, I think that really influenced me. I’d seen the Italian social clubs hanging out and the Irish social clubs after work when I was a kid. One of the things I did was to watch people and study them, and I was able to implement that into my own psyche somewhere. So by the time I read Richard Wheatley, I was like: “I know what he wears. I know what he eats. I know what he’s thinking.” It just came to me. When that happens, it’s miraculous, because you don’t have to search for it.
Q: Did you have a similar moment of recognition with Remy?
A: This never really happens, when you can create a character on the ground floor. I did it with Dick Wolf and (the showrunner) David Hudgins. But there was a certain thing I wanted about him — that he, like myself, had loss in his life. That was very important for me, because a lot of times on these shows, they’re just cops or FBI agents chasing people because that’s what they do. But I thought it would be more intriguing to have some kind of fuel, that he was doing this for a reason. He’s passionate about solving something inside of himself.
Q: What loss are you referring to?
A: Just the loss of my mother as a child. I think that changed the landscape of my life forever, and I think the imprint was so enormous that it’s something that’s very present, even today. So I put that into my character because it makes sense. It was like: “OK, I want to personalize this, because I may be here for a while. And I want to be able to stay connected.” I think a lot of times, the trap with these shows are that you lose focus and it gets stale, and it feels like you’re working in a factory.
Q: Why, then, make a multiyear commitment to a Dick Wolf procedural?
A: I’ve been doing this for five or six years now, ad-libbing and coming up with stuff. Changed the way I work radically. With Richard Wheatley, I was able to do that ... in “Hollywood” as well. I think that people have responded to me a little differently, because it is different. And now I’m doing the same thing with Remy, so that’s been really satisfying. No one’s saying, “Hey, you can’t say that — that’s not in the script.” They’re saying, “We want more of that.”
Q: You’ve recurred throughout Murphy’s “American Horror Story” and bagged your second Emmy nomination with his “Hollywood.” Any chance you’ll partner with him again?
A: There’s always a possibility. Whenever he calls, it’s an automatic yes. I don’t have to even read it. He lets me do characters that maybe others wouldn’t, and he gives me that freedom that I love, to create. I knew after “The Practice” CBS that I had to change. A lot of times, you do a big show like that, and that’s the end. So I knew that I had to reinvent myself. When I read his script for “American Horror Story,” I called my agent, and I said, “This is it.” It was exactly what I needed.
Q: You’ve had a long and varied career. How do you define success at this point?
A: I sometimes ask myself that, because it’s a funny thing. What is success to you is not always success to other people. You know where I come from. It’s not a mystery, so the fact that I was able to do anything in this life makes me a success. To carve out a career for myself has really been pretty remarkable. So I try to remember that. I think if you’re ever flailing in life, you always remember where you come from and you’re just fine.