- [narrator] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation, and hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy and by klru's producer circle, ensuring local programming that reflects the character and interests of the greater austin, texas community. - i'm evan smith, he's an academy award nominated and emmy award winning actor best known for the tv series wings and ned and stacey, and films like sideways and spiderman 3. his latest role is soon to be ex-husband robert dufresne on the hbo comedy, divorce. he's thomas haden church, this is overheard. (pleasant music) let's be honest, is this about your ability to learn or is this about the experience of not having been taught? how have you avoided what has befallen other nations in africa-- hate to say that he made his own bed, but you caused him to sleep in it. you saw a problem and over time took it on.

let's start with the sizzle before we get to the steak. are you gonna run for president? just got an f from you actually. (applause) thomas haden church, nice to see you. - thank you evan. - may i say it is nice to see your mug back on television. - oh, in a, in a-- - [evan] in a series. - weekly fashion. - in a weekly fashion. - thank you. - 'cause you were there and then you left us and went into the big fancy hollywood thing and then you came back to tv. - yeah, a number of people have commented to me about that, that they're enjoying seeing me on a weekly basis. - right. - and hbo you know, it's sort of the premiere place-- - it's not tv, it's hbo right? isn't that the schtick? well also television has changed right? i mean this is a cliche almost, but tv and movies have flopped or at least tv has raced past movies as the place where you can really do high art. amazingly creative and interesting stuff. - yeah and i think that obviously hbo, but all the other premium cable netflix, amazon, there's just so much more freedom in the storytelling

because you can do, you can just expand it like as i've been promoting and doing a lot of press for divorce these last few months, to me it's a five hour movie. it really is. - just broken up into 10 minute pieces. - we, that's just the way, everybody's approach to it was not really as a series. it was just, we're telling a five hour story about this family. - well it seems to me that the freedom creatively, narratively, i mean you know the whole line about well on hbo you can curse, or on hbo you can show nudity. i'm thinking about the first time we see you in this series. first time we see you, we actually see sarah jessica parker, your co-star first. she's getting herself ready in the mirror, and you walk in and you have, i guess it's a coffee can-- - it is. - a coffee can. and you say to her didn't you hear me knocking on, she's in the bathroom. didn't you hear me knocking on the door for 20 minutes or 20 minutes ago, no. well you needed to get into the bathroom it turns out, and you went downstairs to the other bathroom and your daughter was in the other bathroom, and you come back up with this can into which you defecated in the garage.

- correct. (audience laughs) - so you're holding this can. that is the first we see of you. that's not some cbs or nbc material right there. that's only on cable do you get that. - they, sharon horgan is the creator and then paul simms, whom i knew from way back in the '90s on nbc. - [evan] right i mean a veteran of this whole-- - they, they had a different scene there and i suggested that to them because it's something that a friend of mine actually was forced to do. - has to be based on something right? - and i-- - who would come up with that? - yeah, so i... you know i just suggested it. they thought it was very funny, and i said you know do you mind if i just sort of like scheme it out? and then you guys can format it or whatever. you know i am a writer, but i didn't want to be that presumptuous, but i did. i mean pretty much wrote the scene. david, whom you've met.

david that i-- - your good friend. - yeah yes, that i when i did the hall of fame hosting. david and i wrote it, and they loved it exactly the way it was and just put it in, and then there was other, it was such a collaborative just jumpstart on the pilot. i mean i read it. sarah jessica sent me the script in a letter-- - you and she had worked together previously. - on a film called smart people. and she sent it to me. she said look, i know you don't do tv. you haven't done tv forever, but would you please read this and at least talk to me about it, and of course i was delighted. she's a delightful person. so i did, and i said you know, can, how collaborative will this be? and let's just start going through the paces of it, and they, hbo and everybody was just they were all in and i brought a lot of ideas. - you had notes and-- - correct. - how do i change the-- - not just about my guy, about just a lot of how the story would be told.

- are you a difficult person to work with do you think? you've done this long enough now that you're probably self-aware. - i'm very self-aware. i don't think i'm difficult, but i do and it is my reputation. i come with a lot of ideas. and i will defer. if someone presents something that seems more authentic, or or whatever just more, kind of more aligned with the human experience of what's going on with the individual or the family, in this case the family and the husband and wife. - i thought this first scene, i mean again you say well, it's based on something but-- - right. - i have to tell you, i thought that the tension in that first scene, i mean people who have been in long term relationships, married or not, you know the workaday realities of those relationships, i kind of thought you guys got it. i thought that first scene, i mean that's obviously a very specific thing, but that scene and every scene that i've watched since, it feels very real and it feels uncomfortable and that's how i know it feels real.

marriage is hard, relationships are hard, and you're getting at that. - we never set out to make the show just non-stop entertaining. - right for one thing it's called a comedy, but you know it's a comedy of a sort. - yeah, there's a lot of really dramatic, especially the episode that aired on sunday night. the christmas episode. - christmas episode right yes. - some, some... some fairly hostile exchanges, but there's also some very poignant moments i think. and you know we all agreed as i started to say, it was never going to be non-stop entertaining. we wanted it to be non-stop compelling. but we wanted moments and i think we're succeeding thus far. we wanted moments that were just too intimate and ugly or pathetic or, or or funny. just things that were almost, almost as you're saying you just kind of want to look away for a minute, and as i've gone through promoting a lot of people

that i've talked to about the show, have gone through divorce. and they're like, they have said it was difficult for me at first because i was afraid i might have to relive certain scenes in my own life. - people, and i have to be fortunate in that i'm not divorced. i've been married for a long time, you know 24 years, almost 24 years. 23 years, that now i'm dead now. - right, it's over now. that's the end. - now it causes uncomfortable conversations. i think this show actually is causing uncomfortable conversations in happily married couples, right? it's like oh my god. and it causes you to have, i think that's absolutely great. now the character you said you had done more when you gave notes, or gave suggestions where you then build your character, but in fact that character felt to me, i've known you for a little while. it felt like you. your dry sense of humor, your laconic personality which has been seen in other roles you played, feels like you so i'm wondering did you drive this character, or did it look like this on paper?

- i would say that from those early conversations before we shot the pilot, i would say that yes, i principally am the pilot of robert's story. - you're kind of playing you, sort of. - i don't think i'm playing me. - you've never been divorced yourself right? - no. - yeah. - but i do think at this point in my life, the sort of aggregate of observations, or the aggregate observations about divorced couples, about divorced friends, my own family. the divorces that have gone on in my own family. you know you just sort of, you have this fear or you know this rotation of observations and things that you've witnessed and it's just all in there. and i can't say specifically why i made certain choices in playing, in the way that i played robert in certain scenes, but it's just, again whatever, i just live inside this guy.

and that's the way it's been for me. - every role you've ever played right? - but really specifically started with sideways. because in sideways, we were given, paul giamatti and i were given the opportunity to rehearse for two weeks with alexander payne which is almost unheard of in movies. i'd never done it before. never been asked to do it before, and never told i had the opportunity. so this, the same thing again, a five hour movie. you spend a lot of time, and in new york, because i live in texas, in new york all i really ever, for four months i'm just waiting to work. - you just work right? - that's all i do. i'm just waiting to work, and i came home periodically to see my kids and you know, tend to the ranches and you know businesses and stuff that i have in texas, but for the most part when i'm there i'm constantly going over the script every night all weekend. it's, i do become sort of obsessed with it-- - and you become that guy. let me ask you about sarah jessica parker

compared to you as somebody to work with because you have been, it's wrong to say the quintessential character. i don't even know what that means, the quintessential character actor, but you play a whole variety of parts over time and you become those people and from one part to another, i don't have to shape my concept of you from the last part to this part. she's carrie bradshaw, period paragraph. a defining role of her career, a defining role of television and so to look at her now, after that, even though she's done things since then, i look at her and i go oh look thomas haden church is with carrie bradshaw, it's like hard not to see that, so i wonder what it was like to work with her and if you get any sense of her own approach to this character versus yours. - when we shot smart people, which is a picture that i did. it's dennis quaid and ellen page and sj and myself, were the principle characters. i, that was right after sex and the city had ended, or about the time that it ended,

and the but and they hadn't even shot that first movie. it was it was all pretty fresh. but i, that experience, i got to witness her completely build a different character. one that was completely removed from sex and the city, and in fact, the actress that was gonna do it was rachel weisz, and she had signed on and you know rachel weisz and sj i think pretty far apart in their career choices. but rachel had become pregnant, and it was just not gonna work out for her to do it. and sj stepped in kind of at the last minute, but i thought she embodied that character and maybe it's not a picture that's familiar to people, but she played this doctor you know who has this relationship with dennis quaid, completely different, more dramatic, more complex. much more dramatic than sex and the city,

and but i do agree with you that one of the challenges in promoting the show, and if you've read the reviews, a lot i think that the, not so much the audience, but a lot of critics have had trouble embracing this isn't bouncy, cheerful carrie bradshaw. and bouncy cheerful, playful, sex, sexy stories. - they almost want to make it out to be a sequel, like that somehow these shows are connected in some way and they're totally, they're just totally different right? - they bring up sex and the city, i would say in virtually every review that i've read. - critics are terrible, we can just stipulate that. - but i mean, but i'm just saying, i think it has been you know to separate from the umbilicus has been difficult. - well i think that again, we'll sort of stop here in a second on the show, but i think that the casting, the two of you is molly shannon from saturday night live, who is actually playing a very different character than you would expect molly shannon to play. - a terrific dramatic actress, i mean and i think that molly, she flirts

so closely with i think true genius. not just as a comedic performer, which embodied all those characters, but the dramatic work that molly does is so specific. - and in this show particularly, in some ways she breaks out of it-- - and she is this picture out right now, other people-- - which everyone says is one of the best pictures of the year. - yeah and she, she got huge buzz out of sundance when the movie premiered. - well good for her. - yeah and i really hope that it catches, it catches fire like-- - and of course tracy letts is in this. tracy letts is a pulitzer prize winning playwright of august osage county who people know as an actor probably mostly from homeland, but has acted a fair amount. and you know, nice to see robert forster working. - yeah, yeah. terrific. - he plays her dad. - we exchanged marlon brando stories. well his very first picture was reflections in a golden eye with brando in the mid '60s, and then i worked with brando eer in well his very first picture wa picture called free money.ye about a good 30 years apart.

- same brando? do you have similar stories? - very similar brando stories. but he worked with him when he was at the zenith. - how nice to be able to say i have a brando story. - yeah. - right, from a hollywood standpoint. you've been at this a long time haven't you? - it's gonna be... i moved to la in jan, it'll be 28 years in january. that i've been a professional actor. but before that, voiceovers, it's been over 30 years. - and i bet you've continued to do at odd times. - a little yeah. - well you have that voice, right? some people have that voice and some people don't. - i do. - yeah. (audience laughs) the world has changed. not only the literal world, but the world that you've worked in has changed. hollywood has changed. i mean we alluded to one part of it which is that the distribution channels for work are vastly different, but i'm just wondering as you look back on all this, how is your life now as an actor materially different than it was when you were doing episodic television or something like that? 25 years ago. - materially different, you know.

when i moved out there i moved from dallas, and you know it was the, it was kick it up. you know, tear up the streets and try to find work. and i, i principally went out there just to kind of get into the big game of voiceovers, but i had done a small part in a picture. not a small part, it was a lead in a small picture that i was cast in out of dallas, and so when i moved in january of '89 i slept on the couch in my buddy's apartment in long beach. - it's the cliche right? - yeah, and just started, but i was fortunate enough. i started getting voiceover work right away, and then i was cast in a tv movie in a lead for abc. horrible, horrible... - called what? - ready, you ready for this? - go go hit us with it. - to protect and surf. (audience laughs) - oh really, great. - we can all appreciate to protect and surf. - didn't they already make that movie as point break? - no no no, this was actually before point break.

- it was, okay. - we were undercover cops working the beach. - as surfers. - it was-- - like baywatch. right, or similar. - horrifying, horrifying. - come on everybody probably has one of those. everybody probably has one of those. - well i had hair down to about here, and there was, there was a scene where my partner and i kick the door, and i, i didn't even realize i was doing it and the director came you know cut, cut cut cut. he's like tom every time you step through the door, and i have my gun drawn, he goes every time you step through the door you're flipping your hair back over your shoulder. he goes stop doing that. (laughs) - was this a part you took and were there other people in this in a similar position that were sort of just getting started in the business? - there was only one actor, and god rest him, he passed away a long time ago, unfortunately. he was, he actually found out while we were shooting that he was hiv positive, and he died only three years later. he was a wonderful young actor named david oliver.

he was the only established guy. the rest of us yeah, just all neophytes trying to kick the door of hollywood, and but you know you get footage and you know and it was a tv movie that... it was the only thing that my grandmother, my father's mother, it's the only thing she ever got to see. she passed away right after the movie aired, but i actually got to fly back to harlingen and it aired and i watched it in the hospital with my grandmother, and i thought i want to say it was like august, september '89 but-- - she was a big surf cop fan? - yeah. (audience laughs) my grandmother, big proponent of surfing police officers, but you know literally go to the precinct you know with the zinc on your nose. - this but this is again, classic hollywood story. go out to the west coast, i'm gonna make my way.

you take a part in something crappy that's forgettable to most people, but of course you laugh about it all. but you know, but the percentage of people who actually make it is small, and the percentage of people who make it and who actually go on to be nominated for academy award or win an emmy, or do the kind of work. you've not done, i mean not every movie that you do like anybody else is high art, but you've done a significant amount of significant work, and that's actually something that again it's a percentage of a percentage right who get to do that. - yeah i, you know, again like all of those actors, i mean there was like 10 actors in that thing. i don't even think any of them are still in the business. i'm almost certain none of them are. i know one of them's a baptist preacher in nashville. so he's definitely not in the movie business. - yeah he's not making that hollywood money for sure-- - no and along the way you know it's like i was fortunate, it kind of started this downhill run from that. i started getting like 21 jump street

and then i was fortunate enough. i was cast in a, well it's actually i was cast in 10 episodes of china beach, and i was fired after the first episode for kissing dana delany a little bit too aggressively. and dana-- - this is a true story? - apparently dana had no problem with it. 'cause i just ran into dana at the premiere of divorce last month. dana had no problem with it, but she was secretly dating the executive producer of the show, and he asked her and she's like yeah you know, he was pretty passionate when he kissed me and that was it, but the good thing that came out of that, first of all they had to pay me for all 10 episodes. (audience laughs) that was good for a struggling actor, but my agent was like we gotta get you back on the horse. the very next audition he sent me to was cheers, which i got and they were casting wings-- - cheers led to wings. - and i-- - so if only you had not, if only you had not

over-kissed dana delany. - dana and i discussed this event one month ago. - is that right? the film work you've done is a preferred form of art to tv or not? what's your? - yeah i do. - if you could just pick, what would you-- - no i prefer film because i did from '89 to '99 it was almost singularly television. i mean i did wings for six seasons, i did ned and stacey for two seasons, and then i had a two year deal at abc disney to exec produce and co-create something with a great, great writer and partner, a guy named dave mandel, who's a legendary snl writer, seinfeld, and is still like a very very highly paid sought after hollywood writer. but dave and i worked for two years to try and get something on the air, and at the end i just i was like you know what? i'm gonna take a break from all this.

i just bought the ranch, and now i'm just gonna be a rancher and just see what i can do. and fell more into writing and then i was fortunate enough to direct, which led to other directing opportunities. rolling kansas, which was at south by southwest, but then i, they sent me sideways and so you know it's like, it's a great line in paper moon you know you just, you veer and then you think all right then i'm gonna veer this way and before you know it you just keep on veering. you know, and-- - it's a whole career of veering. - that's all it's been. - well one of the things about television is is there's not really an indie film version of television, or at least there wasn't back in the day. now we have as we said amazon and hulu and netflix and you can make things that are smaller-- - but true detective, or fargo. the fargo that's on fx or true detective, the first season, but you know it's-- - we don't want to talk about the second season. - well... although i will defend taylor kitsch, who is an austinite.

- [evan] famous for friday night lights. - who who was actually attached to another film that i might direct. - but your point is that the true detectives and the tv versions of fargo-- - to me those are indie film sensibilities. - 20 years ago would not have been on the air. they would not have been on a commercial networks. well you keep referring to the ranch and of course i know what you're referring to. you have a ranch in texas and you actually consider texas to be your principle-- - it's, it's only. - your only residence. i think about richard linklater, another texan who works successfully in hollywood but actually this is where he lives. once upon a time that would have been an obstacle. in fact, for a long time the cliche was that you had to pick. you couldn't have that life back in the states in flyover country. you had to be out on the coasts. and you've been able to make this work. how's that, how is that possible and why have you made that choice? - i made the choice in 2001. after my disney deal ended, there was a little bit of a drought

in getting like good roles and and, and so in 2001 my business manager, 'cause i had a big house in la. i had the ranch. and you know my business managers, we sort of like kinda gotta you know cut bait our fish on this deal, wanted me to sell the ranch. and i said you know what? i grew up all over the state of texas. when we moved to loredo, my very first job was working on a big ranch down there. the, one of the biggest ranches in webb county, and you know i said you know i didn't grow my whole life, you know, to this point to own a big house on mulholland drive in la. i've dreamt and lived my life and planned my future financially and otherwise to have a ranch in the texas hill country. so the choice was probably obvious to you all, and so i sold the house and i moved to the ranch,

and where i've lived-- - never looked back. - i've lived there since 2001 exclusively. i mean i have a home near kerrville, and then my daughters live in kerrville and... - but the point is you're not spending time on the west coast-- - never, i went last week. i can't get out of there fast enough. - yeah you described going to new york to do the show, and you said i work, and when i'm done working i come home. we have two minutes left, what have you not done? so you've built a great career that if you decided tomorrow i'm going to spend all my time at the ranch, nothing else, i'm done. people would go great job, but you keep working, you keep wanting to work. what do you want to do that you've not done? - i have a period film that we wrote that's about the origin of modern cancer treatment. it's a period film it's set in an experimental hospital in the late 1940s in louisiana, and the two key characters are a 35 year old white man and a 10 year old african american girl. - so you're gonna play the girl?

- yes, exactly. i don't think anyone will notice. no i'm not gonna play anybody in it. i'm just going to direct it. - this is your film. - we wrote it, and we had it set up. it's been set up over the years a number of times, but that to me would be the great thing for me to accomplish. - how wonderful, you know you've written, you've directed, you've acted, you've gotten to do tv, you've gotten to do film. not bad for... - a little bit of, a little musical work here and there on the boards. i've got, no i'm kidding. (audience laughs) never, i did one musical. - i was gonna go with it actually, i thought that'd be great. it's nice to see you, i'm glad you're still working and just like i say, you're prodigious mustache in that show and all the rest of your face, it's nice to turn on the television and there you are and get to see you again. good luck. - thank you. - thomas haden church, thank you very much. we'd love to have you join us in the studio. visit our website at klru.org/overheard to find invitations to interviews, q and as with our audience

and guests, and an archive of past episodes. - my brother was on the debate team. and i i said god i just that girl martha's killing me. he said then join the speech and drama club, man. he goes it's where all the hot chicks are. (audience laughs) there was only one, but it was the one i was pursuing, but it was my brother tex who pushed me in. - [narrator] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation and hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy and by klru's producer circle, ensuring local programming that reflects the character and interests of the greater austin, texas community.