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MARK
HARMON stars on CBS’s NCIS, the two-hour Season 5
finale airs on Tuesday night in North America. He has
appeared on The West Wing,
Chicago Hope,
Moonlighting,
St. Elsewhere—and
The Love Boat. He and his spouse, Pam Dawber,
have two sons.
I’m
shocked by the network’s order for 27 episodes for next
year.
This
schedule, we’ve been working six-day weeks since the
second of March. We’ve done that before here. This group
is somewhat used to it. And in some ways, the crew is
able to make up some of that lost revenue from the
strike, which is good...260 people on a crew who know
now they have a job to come back to in June. So that
part’s important! When you get right down to it, for so
many here, this is about a job.
You
yourself have had a lot of jobs.
Well,
you too, probably, huh.
I’m
getting there.
That’s
what actors do. Different jobs, you know. If you’re
lucky.
So are
things running more smoothly there, after what everyone
was calling a “showdown”—very dramatically! —between you
and creator Donald Bellisario?
I never
called it that. I think [executive producers] Charles
Johnson and Shane Brennan both have done a great job in
transition here. Show creators, they move on; they do
other things. This show is doing so well, in its fifth
year. Better in its fifth than fourth, better fourth
than third. This is a big group of very, very talented
people who are all doing their job....It’s not really
important here who’s No. 1 on the call sheet. We all do
this together. That’s the way it works. You couldn’t
work here if you didn’t want to be here. That’s held
true for everyone. This is a show that’ll show actors
through the door and has and will again. And the same
for crew members. The result is you have a place you
like to work.
You
sound like you should be running a set yourself.
No, I’m
a team guy. I know what being a team guy is, you know.
In 2014
are we going to see you pull a third act—a Clint
Eastwood? When a man’s kids go off to school, he thinks
about new things.
Oh, I
don’t know. You’ve got to get there first. I have no
idea. I will be part of this as long as it’s—I don’t
have any plans to ride this into the ground, so to
speak, into its last breath, so to speak. You’re part of
this as long as the work is good.
You’ve
been playing cops and soldiers and presidents and
womanizing doctors for so long. Don’t you ever just want
to put on a dress for a part?
I
haven’t yet! I guess if this was 25 years ago we’d be
talking about westerns. It runs in genres. I like the
challenge of playing different roles, and I’ve tried to
spread that around some.
Do you
have any delicious Angie Dickinson stories from the set
of Police Woman?
I just
remember her being really nice. I just recall her being
professional and kind when she had no reason to be—the
first one to come up to you in the makeup trailer and
introduce herself. The things she didn’t have to do.
From the
outside, we hear about TV sets as places of trauma and
horror.
Well, it
might not be different from where you work! Some I guess
are. But others aren’t.
Many
refer to the curse of being People magazine’s Sexiest
Man Alive. Well, that was back in 1986. Have you been
cursed ever since?
I think
it made me laugh more than anything. And maybe in 1986
it had a different touch than what it has now. Now it
happens every year. Then it was humorous to me. Still
kind of is.
It’s
pretty weird, right?
Well,
it’s surprising to me when some people take it a little
more seriously than I think they should.
Do you
have any tips for people in exhausting crazy work
situations?
I think
we’re all pretty lucky to have a job. I ask a lot of the
actors who’re coming on as guests—I ask them how it is
out there. A high 90 percent are saying this is their
first job since the strike.
It
sounds like tough times for actors.
Look,
you’ve got a job, too. There’s a lot of people who’d
like your job. |
