INTERVIEW WITH BILL SMITROVICH:

RGP: I wanted to begin by asking you about what you’re doing currently. I’ve certainly seen you on "Nero Wolf" and just talk a little bit about what you’re doing now.

BS: Well, presently I’m the chief prosecutor, Kenneth Walsh, on "The Practice" and we’re just finishing up this season. We’re right now filming the fourteenth episode of twenty-two and I am a recurring regular on the show, I would say. I have been for the last couple of years starting last year, but I love the character. He is a tenacious conservative prosecutor in the D.A.’s office and in fact he put one of the attorneys of the practice in jail for murder. He’s a very interesting character. Right now he’s coming out of therapy.

RGP: Are you filming that right now?

BS: Yes. "Nero Wolf" has ended its two year run, a little over two years. That was a lot of fun and that’s what I’m doing presently, working on "The Practice".

RGP: You know, we met at the Media Access Awards and I sent you that little update on these Trojan Horse medical thrillers and if you recall, the idea was to produce an entertaining movie or book and I really include both but an entertaining story line with some of the supporting characters being integrated into the story and having MS and through their behavior maybe doing some teaching and raising awareness, but all of that has to be entertaining. And really "Life Goes On" seems to me a very similar concept. Obviously it had to be commercially successful or nobody would watch it and yet there seems to be a lot of teaching that went on as well. How did that come about? How did you get involved in that?

BS: Like any other pilot or an actor looking for a job or looking for a good script, my agent sent me the script. Then it was called "Life Rope" and at that time I was doing the play Frankie and Johnny which has just had a revival on Broadway now and then we were doing it off Broadway and my agent sent me the script. I auditioned in town in New York because the producer was coming in and they auditioned a few actors in New York and I loved the script. I thought it was a wonderful character and wonderful story and great family. It had a great morality about it and strong characters and courageous characters, people that have fought through adversity and not lived a "normal" life. I responded to it in a big way because I had minored in special education when I was in college.

RGP: Oh, is that right?

BS: I taught Down’s syndrome kids in high school and they did not know this, the producer didn’t know any of this, when I was auditioning for the role. I liked the character of Drew Thatcher and what he was going through and I just thought it was a wonderful family show and coming off "Crime Story" after playing so many cops and villains and things like that it was a breath of fresh air. It was probably one of the most rewarding jobs as an actor I had ever had for many reasons, primarily because of the impact it had on families with Down’s syndrome and the impact it had on the siblings primarily with Down’s syndrome children and what a difference it made in their lives and in the public’s perception of people with Down’s syndrome or people with disabilities in general. A lot of the fan mail we got and such and response from people it was great on the street and people responding to the show in such a positive way and in so many different ways, siblings saying I never knew my brother or sister could do that, fathers who have Down’s syndrome children coming up to me saying I was a role model which was absolutely humbling because what they do day-to-day I can’t even begin to fathom. So, you know, it was great. It was a wonderful show.

RGP: It was an unusual show and there haven’t been many like it since. I am curious as to where it came from.

BS: It came from Michael Braderman who was the creator of the show. It is the story about this family who had a son who had Down’s syndrome. I think Chris Berg who played Corky inspired Michael Braderman. There was a movie that Chris had a smaller role in and another kid with Down’s syndrome had a larger role in it and John Savage was the lead and I forget the name of the movie right now. It was so many years ago, but I think it inspired Michael to write the series. I think it was something about John, the movie was called and another inspirational kind of story about showing what people are capable of and the kinds of misconceptions people have about people with disabilities and Down’s syndrome. You know, if you could go to one Special Olympics event you would be inspired. It is amazing. If people would just go to one Special Olympics they could see it’s so wonderful that day and it carries over into everyday life.

RGP: You know Gail Williams, of course, and she tells a story that I have heard her tell several times about the show and how it changed the way people treated her son. They started talking to him directly and that’s what we’re shooting for and so I think it’s a very unique show. That’s why I think it’s sort of an extension. The whole endeavor for me is an extension of patient advocacy because I think the way people are treated affects their health obviously and the way they look at themselves.

BS: Self-esteem is so big.

RGP: You know, I’m not an actor, I’m a doctor, but I’m curious. In doing the show, in doing the show and in putting yourself in that role, did you learn anything? I mean, do you learn things as you go along in doing the roles?

BS: The wonderful thing about being an actor is every role that you take, every role you play, there is some kind of learning that goes on, some kind of insight that you might not have had before no matter what it may be. But as far as Drew Thatcher goes, what I have learned as a person aside from compassion which I think most actors have or else they couldn’t jump in and out of people’s skins but as far as the compassionate aspect of it is concerned certainly that increases your compassion but also your insight into what day-to-day life would be like that. I’m absolutely not saying that in any way can I relate, or in a very, very, very small way can I relate to the day-to-day that goes on with parents that have children with disabilities, primarily Down’s syndrome. That is a day-to-day 24/7 situation and I can walk away from that and come home at the end of the day. I’m in no way comparing that, but you get a certain sense of what these people go through and every Down’s syndrome child just like every other child is a snowflake and very, very, very different from one another in their abilities and talents and what their possibilities are and what their struggles are and they are all so different. Chris Berg is certainly an exception in a lot of ways, but there are great similarities between what happens with Chris Berg and what happens with the general population with Down’s syndrome. What I have learned, what you also learn hanging around Frank and Marian, Chris’ mother and father, you learn from their character how your character should respond in situations of prejudice and bias and the glances and ways that your child is perceived. How when Chris was born he was perceived in the 60’s and they wanted to take Chris away from Frank and Marian. Well, you don’t have to keep the child. We can just take the child from you and institutionalize him and Marian wouldn’t hear of it.

RGP: I forgot about that. That’s right. That’s what used to happen.

BS: These children were cloistered and taken away and put into an institution and now the idea is, what the first thought is rather than institutionalize is how do we mainstream the child. A lot has happened in the last thirty to forty years in the perception of what you can do and how proactive you can be for your child. And the struggles and the pranks that are played on children.

RGP: That’s terrible.

BS: Chris when he was a child there were these kids who fed him a pinecone. He actually ate the pinecone and had to have it surgically removed. The physical problems that they have, the cleft palates and the bad hearts.

RGP: Well, there’s early Alzheimer’s disease.

BS: It’s not only a mental thing. There are other physical ailments and abnormalities that come with that condition. It’s quite powerful, but it’s powerful on many levels because they’re very special people. They teach people how to love.

RGP: I’ll only take another five or six minutes. I’m curious about your approach to acting. Now here’s the reason why. Because I preach to my patients often in that I tell them a story about when I was a resident and the first patient I had to treat on my own, I wasn’t really on my own but I had to go into the room on my own and draw blood and I had not really drawn blood before. I stood outside the door for about ten minutes sweating, knowing this guy was going to know I was some kind of phony, you know. But what I did that worked and has just convinced me that this is a good technique is I thought to myself, well, I picked my favorite attending and I copied his mannerisms and I just made believe I was him and I strode in there and I did my thing and that was the day I became a doctor and I tell that story and it was really role playing. I tell patients of mine that they could use this too and so I was wondering if you could give us just maybe some pointers on how you approach your job in terms of preparing and maybe that might help a few people.

BS: Well, observation. What you did was you observed someone doing what you were about to do and that is such a key part of what actors do. We observe humanity and the human condition so you not only do that physically but you try to understand emotionally what people are going through. It’s an intellectual and emotional and physical experience altogether and how you approach it. You can start with any of those three avenues and they are so interlinked that eventually they become one if you can give it a chance. You can start intellectually, you can start physically, you can start emotionally, and as you progress the other two or three elements will fall into place. When Chris started on the show, it took him…and this is very difficult. On television time is money and you’ve got a crew sitting around and you’re paying what might be $30,000 a day for the crew, the equipment, location, sets, props, and everything like that so we are timed and wanting to get the scene done and you have a schedule so the first day of the pilot Chris had to put down five glasses on the table and walk around the dining room table and say two lines, but that took a day and a lot of people were wondering if we could do this. Could this really happen? But as time went along Chris was given the opportunity and we became involved in his diet. You know, it was a long day. He couldn’t have sugar sodas. He’d have these big rushes and then he’d crash. So they hired a dietitian and that was all part of the process of him learning and watching other people and how they approached their day and they got him a tutor and they got him a coach and we all helped him with lines and things like that and as time went on he became more and more comfortable as the years went on. We did the show for four years and every year there was great improvement. They gave him more to do and he really understood it. Given an opportunity, anybody is capable of doing anything if they have the will and desire.

RGP: For most people, the shortcut method then might be modeling basically and finding yourself someone, finding a model, and mimicking that model.

BS: Absolutely. I think I had something to do with Chris’ development as well as other people as far as Chris is concerned. Down’s syndrome kids are mimics. They are looking for that opportunity to try to find their way into normal society.

RGP: Do you use mimicry a little bit in your approach as well?

BS: I look for the truth of my character. I’m past the time of development as an actor where I am comfortable with myself and what I can bring to it. Early on, I think younger actors are role-playing rather than embodying. After a while as you get older, as an older actor you start to embody your character and do a little less role-playing. There are many different types of acting. There is presentational acting and then there is representational acting. There are actors who constantly are presentational and then there are actors who can be sometimes presentational and then sometimes representational. It’s the process of how you find the truth. The truth is one of the paths of many. It doesn’t matter how you get there as long as you get there. So, yeah, I think there is a certain mimicry or copying that goes on. You know, we observe people and their behavior but what we ultimately have to do is make that behavior our own and own it rather than borrow it and use it and sometimes you can’t do it. You know, everybody’s got a different style and approach and technique. It’s hard to say.

RGP: The last question. I just actually wanted to ask a piece of advice. In addition to these productions and I am starting with a book which is actually largely done which is a detective thriller, I am also putting together what I hope will be a resource and I want to ask you a question about it and that would be a web site for writers and journalists and perhaps even actors that allows writers and journalists and actors to connect with people who have disabilities and chronic illnesses. For example, if you are writing a book or a script, and this will be a free resource on the web, or you’re doing an article as a journalist on a person with MS or lupus you could go to this site, plug in the disease, and what you end up getting are postings of letters from people (with their permission, of course) that describe what life is like for them and it has an e-mail address or a phone number or a contact of some way so you could now really connect with an actual person or a number of people who have this problem. You see what I’m saying? Do you think that will be useful is my question.

BS: Well, I think any sharing of information, experience, knowledge, insight is invaluable whether you’re an actor or artist or author or just another person with the same malady. Any kind of place you can go to as a resource for empathetic experience is wonderful. I can’t think of anything wrong with it. I can think of a multitude of things that are right with it. Whether you’re looking for inspiration or information it’s a good thing to have.

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