Actor John Spencer.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: APRIL 05, 2000
Time: 12:00
Tran: 040601np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: John Spencer Discusses `The West Wing'
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:06

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TERRY GROSS, HOST: From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with FRESH AIR.

On today's FRESH AIR, actor John Spencer. He plays Leo McGarry, the president's chief of staff, on the TV series "The West Wing." The show just won a Peabody Award. Spencer was also a regular on "L.A. Law." He started his career as a co-star of "The Patty Duke Show," playing the boyfriend of Patty's identical cousin, Kathy.

John Spencer, coming up on FRESH AIR.

First, the news.

(BREAK)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

The TV White House drama "The West Wing" just won a Peabody Award. My guest is John Spencer, who plays the president's chief of staff, Leo McGarry. The series dramatizes the day-to-day life of top presidential aides as they deal with everything from averting potential wars to making sure the president is doing well in the polls.

Martin Sheen plays the president. In this scene from a recent episode, the U.S. is planning its retaliation after Syria shot down an American plane that was carrying U.S. officials, including the president's personal physician, whose wife just had a baby.

Plans are under way to blow up four Syrian military targets. The chief of staff thinks that's sufficient, but the president is arguing for more air strikes.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "THE WEST WING")

MARTIN SHEEN, ACTOR: He had a 10-day-old baby at home.

JOHN SPENCER, ACTOR: I know.

SHEEN: We are doing nothing.

SPENCER: We are not doing nothing. Four high-rated military targets?

SHEEN: And this is good?

SPENCER: Of course it's not good. There is no good. It's what there is. It's how you behave if you're the most powerful nation in the world. It's proportional, it's reasonable, it's responsible, it's merciful. It's not nothing. Four high-rated military targets.

SHEEN: Which they'll rebuild again in six months.

SPENCER: Then we'll blow them up again in six months. We're getting really good at it.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

GROSS: John Spencer and Martin Sheen in a scene from "The West Wing."

John Spencer's movie credits include "The Negotiator," "Twilight," "Copland," and "Forget Paris." He played Tommy Mullaney on the TV series "L.A. Law." He started his career as a regular on "The Patty Duke Show," playing Kathy's boyfriend.

I asked Spencer if he's met any current or former chiefs of staff. He told me he met the current one, John Podesta.

SPENCER: We had a private tour of the West Wing one of the times. See, every five or six weeks, we go to Washington, D.C., for a couple of days, and we shoot exteriors. And our first trip there we were given a private tour of the West Wing, and I got to meet Podesta. And we had a great time, he and I.

We didn't really get down and talk intimate details of shop. I don't think that would have been appropriate with him in his current position. But we talked about very interesting things, size of offices, offices bigger than mine. I think mine is better decorated.

I was interested to see if -- what his work hours were like, and what we determined is, we both work impossible hours. Basically, we both work about the same amount of hours a day, of course, open to change on both our parts, because if I have a heavy day I work longer, if I have a lighter day, I work less, as does he.

He has a little rose trellis outside his garden, which I think is nifty. He can go right outside and meditate or sit there, and I don't have that yet, so I'm thinking of asking Warner Brothers for that. (laughs)

GROSS: (laughs) How would you describe your character and how he's changed?

SPENCER: I think Leo is a man who is very impassioned about what he does. I think he's a politician in the best sense of the word, a caretaker, someone who is out for the ultimate good. I think he's a workaholic, I think he's a man who invests all of his passion and his time at the workplace and has very little left over for his family, which is why his marriage is in trouble.

The evolution, I think, comes week to week. I think some of the rude awakenings of the amount of compromise that is necessary to run an administration, how you often have to give up A and B in order to achieve C and D. And I think that frustrates Leo. I think it frustrates Leo often, the idealism of the inception of their ideas of what they want to accomplish, this administration, and the reality there of what they can accomplish. I think that often disappoints him.

GROSS: When you get a script, do you read through the whole thing straight through, or do you go just to your part first and see...

SPENCER: I read...

GROSS: ... what's up for your character?

SPENCER: I read through the whole script. I -- one of the things -- I was mentioning this to someone yesterday -- one of the really positive things about this show, and why I know it's as good as I feel it is, is, I and the rest of the cast, I mean, we get the new script sometimes hot from the oven. It's still -- the pages are still warm from the duplicating machine.

And we're immediately -- all of our heads are in the script, looking, what happens to our character? What happens to this person? So there's a great enthusiasm and interest in what's going to happen for the cast. And I can't imagine, if we're that interested, that other people who are not into the daily grind of making the show, wouldn't be interested.

So I take that as a good sign.

GROSS: I'm wondering if there's ever something in the script that you think doesn't work and has to be redone, rewritten.

SPENCER: With Aaron's writing, for the most part, I would say 99 percent of the time, there's nothing that I would change. Every once in a while in charting the characters' growth, I will have a question, like, well, why would Leo come out on this side of this, given all of that? And I'll usually talk to Aaron about it, and he'll explain it, and I'll understand it, or I'll not agree with it, and we'll talk it out, and either it'll be tweaked, as he puts it, changed a little bit, or he'll convince me that this is the way the character would behave.

GROSS: Let me ask you about something that happened in a recent episode. Your character is a former alcoholic...

SPENCER: That's right.

GROSS: ... who hasn't touched a -- you know, hasn't touched a drink for several years, I forget how many.

SPENCER: Right, eight.

GROSS: Recently, the fact that he had been to a rehab center was made public by a kind of new aide in the White House, so someone who is very young and very new to this kind of job. Was she an intern?

SPENCER: She was an intern, she worked...

GROSS: Yes, she was an intern, OK.

SPENCER: Yes, she worked in the administration office. She really didn't work in the West Wing itself, she was in administration. But that gave her privy to files.

GROSS: Well, so she secretly (ph) makes this file public, you know, that you were in rehab...

SPENCER: Yes, she leaked it to a friend socially.

GROSS: Yes, (inaudible)...

SPENCER: And who was in the opposite political party, and he took the football and ran with it.

GROSS: And it gets into the press, really big story, very...

SPENCER: Absolutely.

GROSS: ... very difficult for the White House to handle.

SPENCER: Absolutely.

GROSS: One friend of yours suggests that you resign. He's no longer your friend, I think.

SPENCER: That's right.

GROSS: And then when the story's traced back to the intern, she's fired. She comes into your office, because you've invited her in. You talk it through, and then you tell her to keep her job. And I was thinking, I wonder...

SPENCER: Yes, I...

GROSS: ... if the chief of staff would really say to the intern who, who, who leaks something like this, Go ahead, keep your job.

SPENCER: I read a thing in "The New Yorker" magazine where they felt that was one of the few elements of Aaron's writing on the show that they didn't totally buy, that we would hire this woman back, you know, that would -- might not happen in real life.

I had much less problem with it, because I think it's a quick transition. I think it happens in the moment. And being in recovery myself for 10 years, I kind of have an intimacy with the rooms, with A.A., and one of the precepts of the program is forgiveness and lack of proselytizing, share your story, don't do inventory on other people's points of view, love and forgive constantly.

And I think the turning point for Leo, which I had to find as an actor, I think it just -- you know, here's a conversation, he plans to fire her, he asks her why she's done this. And in questioning why she did this, when she comes out with the fact that her father was an alcoholic, and his irrationality and strange behavior was so aberrant to her, so horrifying, that this was the only other alcoholic she knew, and suddenly finding out that the chief of staff of the White House of the United States was also an alcoholic, her only point of reference was her old man, was her dad.

And I can't imagine how horrific it must have been for her, thinking someone with these mood swings, someone who might act like this, is in such a seat of power where people's lives could be affected.

And as she expresses that, I think myself as Leo have to realize, Well, the motivation is a positive one, the result might have been horrible for me and for my friend the president and for our administration, but this woman -- it was not kind of nasty, you know, water cooler gossip, it was someone who really feared that it would -- could be very dangerous and -- to have a man with this weakness or this problem in this important position.

And when I see that and I kind of note that she has a love of the government and a love of its responsibility, feeling that she was well motivated, I think I have to give her a second chance. And God knows, my character's been given through his life a lot of second chances. So how can you get and not give, you know?

GROSS: Was the chief of staff character originally written as a recovering alcoholic, or was that aspect of his character written in after you got the part because of your own experience?

SPENCER: Yes, good question, and often asked me. The truth of the matter is, it was not originally written that way. I have since, because I've been asked this question so many times, gone to Aaron and said, "Listen, how much did I -- how much did my life influence you there?" Because we've talked very rarely about it. I mean, I remember one time going into the sound stage, and I was yet struggling again with the cigarette-no cigarette thing, and we were talking about addiction.

And I said, "Well, this is the last threshold for me, and this is the hardest." And then I started talking about being in recovery. And I don't know if he knew about it before then or not, but it was a very light, casual conversation. And since the episodes have aired that cover this, I've been asked that question a lot, because I'm not anonymous, and people know that I'm in recovery.

So it seems like the obvious question. So I went to Aaron and I asked him if my life influenced his desire to put the character that way, and he said, absolutely not. He said, you know, it was part of his creative imagination, part of his own life experience knowing people in recovery, and I triggered it off by saying I was in recovery, but he was not basing it on my life.

GROSS: Do you think his obsession with work, which is ruining his marriage, is a replacement, in a way, for alcohol?

SPENCER: I think an addict is an addict is an addict, and I think a person with an addictive personality never loses that element of his personality. I think what you have to do is learn what addictions are functionable -- functioning -- can help you function in life and not get in your way.

Unfortunately or fortunately, I treat most aspects of my life with a kind of addictive love, so if I et into something that I really enjoy, i.e., gardening, I go all out, and I think addiction expresses itself in ways that are not harmful and in ways that are harmful, and you have to know the difference.

So the answer, that long-winded answer to that question, is yes. I think Leo's workaholic quality is absolutely due to his addictive personality.

GROSS: What episode has gotten the biggest response, and do you find that Democrats and Republicans respond to either different story lines or different aspects of the story?

SPENCER: I think Democrats and Republicans or people's political points of view comes into how they respond to the episodes. When our first episode went on, a lot of pundits sort of said, Ah, liberal left-wing Democrat writer Aaron Sorkin writing a liberal White House pro-left anti-right, and then, of course, Aaron, in his great talent, surprised everyone and turned around and made the liberal Democratic president want to bomb the Mideast after his friend went down in a plane.

So we take everything on. He took on the, you know, the Hollywood liberal agenda also, you know, these moguls who throw these fund raisers with their own agendas. So no one's safe with Aaron. He's taken on the right, the left, and the middle.

GROSS: My guest is John Spencer. He plays the president's chief of staff on the TV series "The West Wing." We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

GROSS: My guest is actor John Spencer. He plays the president's chief of staff, Leo McGarry, on the TV series "The West Wing."

How did you get the part as the chief of staff on "The West Wing"?

SPENCER: It's -- I had just done another -- a short-lived series for our executive producer, John Wells, a thing called "Trinity" that was shooting in New York. And it was not well received commercially. We couldn't get an audience, so we went off after nine episodes. Jill Clayburgh and I played the parents o this big Irish family.

And the experience was really good. I found John a great hands-on producer and a very decent human being, which is not often synonymous with producers. So I really had a good time with that experience. My agent called me and said, "I've just read a brilliant pilot." And I said, "Oh, no, not another hour drama, I just did that," and I wasn't sure I wanted to get involved again.

One or two films a year, you have time off in between, you can make your nut (ph), you get to play more than one character. So I wasn't sure I wanted to kind of, you know, sign on for the big ride again.

And he said, "Well, read it." And I read it, and I'll tell you, I got maybe a third into it and I just thought, This is some of the most brilliant writing I've ever seen for television.

And I loved the role. And that's when I decided I really want to go after this one. So I chased it down like a wild man, I really went after it. I worked it up, I read it with Aaron. And apparently, if I can take Aaron and Tommy's word for it, after I read for them, they saw no more Leos, and I was the first person cast.

So that makes me feel very good. I didn't know that at the time.

GROSS: Now, were the other people cast with you to see if the chemistry would work?

SPENCER: I -- we were sort of cast one at a time, I guess as they found the people they thought best suited for each of the roles. They told me I was cast first. I don't -- I think Josh, Brad Whitford, came along soon thereafter. Aaron says that this is the first time in his career that he got his first choice for all the roles, so that's very nice.

GROSS: And when was Martin Sheen cast as the president?

SPENCER: Martin was cast -- I believe he was one of the last people cast, and to start with he was going to be recurring. He was only going to do about five or six of the 22 episodes. And then after we did the pilot, they reconsidered, and they thought, Well, we really just don't want to be talking about the president with the audience waiting to see him each week. So they asked him if he would, you know, sign on for the whole ride, and he was only too happy to.

And here we are.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is John Spencer, and he plays the White House chief of staff, Leo McGarry, on the series "The West Wing."

Now, in your movie career, you have played -- you've played a lot of cops. (laughs)

SPENCER: Play a lot of cops, yes.

GROSS: Is that because it's the most common role available to a character actor?

SPENCER: I think so. I mean, I think we do just have to sort of look at it statistically. There are more roles written for guys than for women. One of the things that guys do are law enforcement, fire work, not that there aren't women in those situations also. But -- and cops and robbers have always been a great theme of drama. So there's a lot of that kind of material out there.

Also, I think I carry a little bit with me my working-class background, and, I mean, members of my family are in the first department or are policemen, or -- you know, so it's not something that's totally unfamiliar to me.

GROSS: Who in your family were policemen or cops?

SPENCER: Uncles, uncles and cousins and things. Nobody in my immediate family. But I was raised in New Jersey, and a lot of my distant relatives were in law enforcement and in fire work and that kind of thing.

So it fit very easily, you know, the shoe fit easily. And those were a lot of the roles that were out there. Of course, as an actor, what I find is, you constantly have to keep redefining yourself for -- I guess for the viewing public but much more for the suits, for the people who are putting together the projects.

Because it's a business where you're most remembered for the thing that you just did, and if it's good, it's usually a cubicle that they want to keep you in, because that worked, like, you know, if you wear a brown shirt and everybody says you look great, we'll never dress that character in anything but a brown shirt, because he looks great on it, and people are responding to it.

And it comes from that kind of point of view. And I think it's the actor's responsibility and his representation, his agents and things, to kind of look out for the different roles so you can constantly not only expand your craft as an artist but keep surprising people and showing the people who are hiring you that you can go in this direction or you can go in that direction, and keep reminding them of that, or otherwise you'll find yourself typecast, and, you know, only playing a certain kind of role.

GROSS: John Spencer plays Leo McGarry, the president's chief of staff, on the TV series "The West Wing." He'll be back in the second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "THE WEST WING")

SHEEN: Good morning, everyone.

SPENCER: Good morning.

ACTOR: Good morning, sir.

SHEEN: Sit down, sit down, please.

SPENCER: The point they're going to make is that the rules discriminate against bananas from poor Latin American countries.

SHEEN: Are we a poor Latin American country?

SPENCER: No.

SHEEN: Why am I having this conversation?

SPENCER: Because the bananas grown in most countries are sold by American companies.

SHEEN: I'm in trouble with Chiquita and Dole?

SPENCER: Well, it's not you so much as -- Yes, it's mostly you.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

(BREAK)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR.

I'm Terry Gross, back with John Spencer, one of the stars of the TV White House drama, "The West Wing." Spencer plays the president's chief of staff, Leo McGarry.

In TV, you're best known for your roles on "L.A. Law" and "The West Wing," but your first recurring TV role was on "The Patty Duke Show." (laughs)

SPENCER: It certainly was.

GROSS: As Kathy's boyfriend, the British identical cousin.

SPENCER: The British identical cousin. I think -- I for -- what was the role called, Henry Anderson, I think was the guy's name.

GROSS: You don't even remember.

SPENCER: Well, I was 16. I'm 53 now. So it was a while ago. Yes, what a lucky stroke. It was one of the first jobs I ever did in show -- in the show business. And it was a lucky break. I mean, they were basically casting -- what they saw was what they got. I had no training at the time, and I guess there was something in my personality that they thought suited that character, and they just hired the man to play the character the way they wanted. And that's what they got.

GROSS: Why don't you refresh your memory and describe the character?

SPENCER: Ah, he was kind of goofy. He was, you know, kind of a typical teenager in the '60s. I watch some of the reruns every once in a while, and I look particularly tall and skinny to myself, with very big ears, and the kind of voice that cracked as it got up in the higher register.

So (laughs) it's almost at times, if I see that, like I'm watching a different person, you know?

GROSS: Were you in it from the first episode, or was the character written in later?

SPENCER: It was recurring. I was in the first episode, and I say I would maybe did 10 or 15 of the 22 of the first two seasons. And then the show moved to California because Patty turned 18, and it was working codes and things. She was not under the (inaudible) child labor law any longer, so they could easily do the show in California. And they didn't take any of the recurring people with them to California. So I was only on the first two seasons.

GROSS: Did she get a new boyfriend?

SPENCER: Kathy? Kathy kind of played the field, as I remember.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: She was such a swinger, no, she wasn't. (laughs)

SPENCER: No, she wasn't. The other one was. Do you remember the theme song?

GROSS: Oh, of course.

SPENCER: Yes, I do too.

GROSS: Why don't you sing it? I'm not gonna.

SPENCER: Oh, I can't sing it. I won't go near that. But it's amazing how many people do.

GROSS: Now, you were in high school when you got the role?

SPENCER: I was. I was...

GROSS: Did...

SPENCER: Go ahead.

GROSS: Well, I -- well, could you walk down the halls of your high school without people singing the song to you?

SPENCER: Well, at that point I -- when I was about 16, I left my New Jersey home and moved into New York City, much to my parents' chagrin, and God bless them for ultimately letting me do this, as petrified as it must have made them. Now as a 53-year-old man, I look back and realize the horror I must have put them through. And I was pretty rebellious, and I was pretty sure of what I wanted to do.

I knew by 8 years old that I wanted to act. Why, don't ask me. It just seemed a certainty for me in my mind.

So I went into New York, and I didn't know the first thing about anything, let alone how to break into this elusive business that I wanted to be a part of. So I got a job as a -- I wasn't a waiter, they couldn't hire me as a waiter because I was too young and I didn't have working papers. So I was a busboy.

And then I found out when the summer was over that I had to go to school if I wanted to work, because I had to get things called working papers, and I needed that up to the point that I was 18. So begrudgingly, I sought out to go back to high school. I thought, you know, 16 you can leave high school, I'll just never see school again. I mean, that's how intelligent I was at that point.

And so I enrolled in this high school called Professional Children's School, not like the "Fame" high school, the high school portrayed in "Fame," which was called the -- really called the School of the Performing Arts. We were not taught craft things, we were not taught singing, dancing, acting. It was just academics, but it was academics for children, teenagers, high school students who had working lives.

I was in school with Pinchas Zuckerman, who at that time was a concert violinist. He's since become a very famous conductor. Famous ice skaters, ballet dancers, all of the New York City Ballet was in that school, actors. We had some rock singers. It was a very eclectic mix of teenagers.

GROSS: (inaudible) Pinchas Zuckerman perform the "Patty Duke" theme for you. (laughs)

SPENCER: That's -- I haven't seen Pinchas in years. Actually, the funny thing was, we did bump into each other. I was doing a year at the Guthrie, '79 to '80 at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and Pinchas came as guest conductor to the symphony there. And I went backstage, and we immediately knew who each other were. I mean, he was one of my closest friends in high school.

And it was a great reunion...

GROSS: OK, so you...

SPENCER: ... years later.

GROSS: So your circle at the high school included ballet dancers, a soon to be famous classical musician...

SPENCER: Liza Minnelli, Jennifer O'Neal...

GROSS: OK. So where in the ranking of everybody's aspirations was being on "The Patty Duke Show"? Was that seen as, like, having really made it and great work, or did people look down on that? Like, where did that fit?

SPENCER: No, and we were -- it's a very interesting thing. I think first and foremost, we were teenagers. We were very concerned with what girl was wearing what and how she looked and who we wanted to date, and, you know, cutting school, and all the things that teenagers did, except that we had this other life in the workplace. It was no -- there was no condescension concerning that. It was, Oh, my God, you got a gig, how great! you know. These little teenagers with a sort of professional actor outlook of, Oh, my God, I got the job.

GROSS: My guest is John Spencer. He plays the president's chief of staff on the TV series "The West Wing." We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

GROSS: My guest is John Spencer. He plays the president's chief of staff on the TV series "The West Wing." When we left off, we were talking about his first TV series, "The Patty Duke Show," in a recurring role as Kathy's boyfriend.

For a lot of people who grew up with "The Patty Duke Show," they probably thought that, like, one day they'd be old enough to go to the malt shop with a date.

SPENCER: Oh, I know.

GROSS: (laughs) I mean, did the whole idea of what being a teenager was on "The Patty Duke Show" affect your idea of what it meant to be a teenager?

SPENCER: We were kind of different teenagers, a little more jaded, a little more worldly wise, a little more out there, because we had no time to go to the malt shops. We were either at the studio or trying to make up homework.

GROSS: I'm not sure you could have found a malt shop like that in Manhattan.

SPENCER: We had a place called Rudley's, which was right by the school. It was a coffee shop. No longer there, the Gulf Western building is there now. And we would often talking -- I'm talking out of school here, Terry. We would often cut classes and hang out there and drink Coca-Colas and eat English muffins and smoke cigarettes, a habit that I picked up early on and I'm still trying to get rid of.

GROSS: It's hard, it is really hard.

SPENCER: Oh, boy. It seems to me my Achilles heel. I -- this is now by third attempt. I stopped for 18 weeks and then very cavalierly over Christmas decided, OK, I'm strong, I'll -- you know, I'll have a few cigarettes. I'm on vacation.

Well, there was a really stupid point of view, because within three or four days I was smoking completely again.

GROSS: So you're trying to stop again?

SPENCER: I've just been hypnotized. That was not the greatest tool. So I'm going to go back to the patch and Zyban, which I used and kept me free for 18 weeks. Actually I used them for 12 and six weeks I was totally clean.

GROSS: What...

SPENCER: So I know that to work, so I'm going to try that again.

GROSS: Your character on "The West Wing" doesn't smoke, does he?

SPENCER: Not at all.

GROSS: That's good, because you wouldn't have to smoke -- you wouldn't...

SPENCER: No, (inaudible)...

GROSS: ... that would really hurt to have to smoke to be in character.

SPENCER: Absolutely. I made that as a conscious choice. Also, the White House is a smoke-free area.

GROSS: Of course.

SPENCER: So we'd have to run outside to have one. Do you smoke?

GROSS: Oh, I gave it up a long time ago. I gave it up...

SPENCER: Really, how'd you do that? Cold turkey, or did you use tools?

GROSS: Well, I'll tell you what happened to me. I lost my voice twice on the air, because I had a cold and I was smoking right through it.

SPENCER: That'll do it, won't it?

GROSS: And I realized, you know, this is going to be really awful if I lose my voice again like this. So that definitely inspired me to stop. And I didn't -- I just stopped.

SPENCER: You did?

GROSS: Yes. I mean, I was sick when I stopped. I had a really bad cold, no voice. So it was easy to get through that and then keep going. But I had stopped, you know, an amazing number of times before that and started again.

SPENCER: It's a squirrely habit, it really gets you.

GROSS: It really...

SPENCER: If I had to do it again, one of the regrets in my life is ever starting. And I remember my father -- I was -- I guess I was 15. We were in an airport. And I was running to get something, and I gave him my coat to hold. And I came back, and his demeanor had totally changed, and he had obviously gone in my pocket and found this pack of cigarettes.

GROSS: Oh, yes.

SPENCER: And we had this huge fight in the airport, I remember. And, of course, nothing he said meant anything to me. He was an old man with no knowledge of what I was going through. And I remember his words ingrained in my mind today, "You will regret this day, John, believe me. You will come to the point where you will wish you had never done this." And he was right. Father knows best.

GROSS: There are some actors who did some pretty great bits of business with cigarettes. (inaudible) Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, I mean...

SPENCER: Absolutely.

GROSS: ... you just, you know, you remember how they looked when they smoked. When you were starting acting and smoking, was a cigarette a really good prop for you?

SPENCER: Absolutely. I taught myself, I stood in front of a mirror in the upstairs bathroom and taught myself to smoke. I smoked, and I thought, This doesn't look right, this doesn't look like other people.

GROSS: (laughs)

SPENCER: And so, you know, I kind of did that, holding them with the first three fingers...

GROSS: Oh, yes, right.

SPENCER: ... (inaudible) tough look, and then I thought, It still doesn't look right, what's -- and I realized I wasn't inhaling. I didn't know what inhaling was. So why isn't it coming out of my nose? And I took a deep breath, and it came out of my nose. The room started spinning around. I was sick on the bed. And the next day I started again. And with enough practice, I learned how.

GROSS: Do you have a favorite smoking scene from your movies?

SPENCER: From my movies. Let me think. Not really, but I love the concept that David Kelley wrote, my first episode of "L.A. Law." Mullaney was a smoker, and they often let me smoke on that show. I believe after a while, the character became very popular, and NBC got very worried that I was a good guy smoking, and there was some pressure from the network that I shouldn't smoke on the show.

But that came the second and third season. The first season I smoked like a fiend. In fact, there was one scene I remember where we were in -- McKenzie, Richard Dysart walked in my -- opened the door and, like, smoke poured out of my office.

But my first litigation, my first case, was a secondary smoke suit, where I got the client millions of dollars and attacked the cigarette companies, where in between scenes I was smoking like a wild thing. And I loved that dynamic. I thought that was so great and so David Kelley, that kind of, you know, complex situation.

GROSS: It doesn't seem fair, does it, that, you know, you've managed to give up alcohol and now you have to give up cigarettes.

SPENCER: Well, that's it, you know. When I went -- one of the things I went through, and it's just such adolescent thinking and neediness. But (inaudible) -- it amused me, but it was real. It was like at one point I was so frustrated with my inability to stop this and my desire to stop this, because my life is going great. The last thing I want to do is get in my own way, you know? I mean, so many aspects of my life are really cooking with steam now, and satisfying and gratifying, that why would I want to chance making myself sick or doing something that's not good for myself?

And I finally came up with, Oh -- I don't want to curse, but I used a few four-letter words and said, you know, Why can't this be good for you? Why does it have to hurt you? I mean, really stupid thinking. I was angry that cigarettes were bad. If only they were good for you, how great that would be!

GROSS: Yes, well, don't hold your breath. (laughs)

So listen, when you were a kid and starting off acting, did you do commercials too?

SPENCER: I never got commercials. I couldn't get them, for some reason. I've only gotten commercials since I've gained visibility, and not...

GROSS: Oh, which ones have you done?

SPENCER: And now only voice-overs.

GROSS: Oh, oh.

SPENCER: I was the voice of -- I won't do on-camera. I feel sometimes it confuses the issue artistically.

GROSS: Sure.

SPENCER: And as long as I can pay my rent and put food on my table and take care of those I love, I don't feel it's a need. Of course, let me tell you, if I couldn't pay the mortgage and I found that suddenly -- anything, any kind of acting is better than no acting at all.

But I never had a knack early on of getting these things. I never found the copy like I could -- I don't know, I guess you either can do it or you can't. I mean, but voice-overs and certainly now the years of abuse my voice has gotten kind of resonant, I've been offered a lot of voice-overs, and I try to fit those in. Because it's lucrative, and it's a way where you're not exposing yourself, overexposing yourself visually, and, you know, it's just your voice.

GROSS: Yes, it's funny, a lot of actresses complain when they hit their 40s the roles dry up. Your career really took off in your 40s and 50s.

SPENCER: Absolutely.

GROSS: I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about why that is.

SPENCER: I do. I was a character actor in a young man's body.

GROSS: (laughs)

SPENCER: I don't (inaudible) -- I don't think people knew what to do with me in my 20s, you know, because I wasn't Matt Dillon or I wasn't your typical young leading man, yet I also wasn't so much of a character actor that, you know, I could play the occasional really offbeat sidekick. I fell somewhere in the middle and therefore in the cracks.

As my face began to age and more meet the roles, things got better and better. I'm one of those examples of it getting better and better with time. The older I got, the better it got. And I think that's because of the character actor syndrome. Really, it's very hard for the industry to find what to do with young character actors. Men bad enough, women almost impossible.

And so we have to wait it out, you know, which is a hard dynamic. My real view about acting is, unless you need it like an opiate, unless you really -- I mean, you jones for it, you can't live without it, I would do something else. There are so many other things that are easier on the soul, more lucrative, more steady.

But if you need your art, and it's undeniable to you, then you don't have a choice. That's why when young actors ask me, do I think they should act, I say no. (laughs) Because unless they know they have to act, I don't think it's worth it. It's hard enough when it's going well. If it's not going well, it's impossible.

GROSS: Let me ask you, when you were auditioning for "The Patty Duke Show," and you had no experience, no acting training, did you feel like you were a fraud who was going to be discovered, or did you feel like you really deserved the part, and you belonged there at the audition?

SPENCER: I had -- you know, like the say, youth has no fear? I think of myself as a 16-year-old kid in New York City by myself. I would never do that today. (laughs) You know? With my knowledge as a seasoned adult. But there's a thing about youth that is wonderful, you know, no is not an option, and anything is possible.

And I just -- I thought, sure, it was possible. I didn't think I was great or not great, I just thought, I want to do this. Why can't I do it? You know, and it was -- I think you learn to -- life does its number on you, and you learn to fear, you learn to not be as confident, you learn that disappointment comes with time. Everybody has disappointments, everybody has things they want that don't -- that they don't get on many levels of their life.

And I think when you're enthusiastic and out there as a really young person, you don't have the life experience to show you that it's, you know, that you don't have a right to feel everything's impossible. Now, sort of philosophically, going back to that, I'm not sure that's not the best way to feel, that kind of childlike wonder, where anything is possible, why not?

So I'm trying to gain some of that back.

GROSS: Do you think you follow politics more closely or any differently than you used to before "The West Wing"?

SPENCER: I think I do follow them with my eyes a little wider open. I've always been what I call a political junkie, absolutely no desire to be involved in politics on the first-person level, but I've been fascinated watching them, like when I was in my 20s, it was when Watergate was happening, and I remember watching it every day, and then watching reruns on the public television station at night.

It was just incredible to see the government -- you know, the machine really working. And I felt the same about the impeachment hearings, even though I didn't agree with the process, it was fascinating to watch. Some of my favorite television are these talk shows, you know, like "Hannity and Colmes," "The Beltway Boys," I love the talking heads. And I always have.

Now I sort of watch it with a little -- I don't know, a little -- maybe a little more realism, a little more curiosity. But it's always been interesting to me.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you so much for talking with us.

SPENCER: What a great interview! I can see why people like your show.

GROSS: John Spencer plays the president's chief of staff on the TV series "The West Wing." It just won a Peabody Award.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: John Spencer
High: Actor John Spencer plays Leo McGarry, the chief of staff to the president in the TV series "The West Wing." The show, set in the White House and concerning a fictional Democratic president and his staff, has just won a prestigious George Peabody award. In this first season of the show, Spencer's character has had to deal with his former alcoholism becoming a matter of public scrutiny. Spencer previously was a regular on "L.A. Law" and began his career on "The Patty Duke Show."
Spec: Entertainment; Television and Radio; Politics

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 2000 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 2000 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: John Spencer Discusses `The West Wing'

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: APRIL 05, 2000
Time: 12:00
Tran: 040502NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Ken Tucker Reviews Latest Releases of Juvenile and The Goody Mob
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:52

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TERRY GROSS, HOST: Hip-hop music has brought about a return to musical regionalism, with distinct vocal and production styles emanating from New York and the West Coast. The South is now yielding music as distinctive as the sounds that the Southern label Stacks and High Records produced in earlier decades.

Among the current hot Southern acts are the hardcore rapper Juvenile and the group The Goody Mob. Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review of their latest releases.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, RAP SONG, JUVENILE)

KEN TUCKER, ROCK CRITIC: Juvenile's new release is called "The G Code," that's G as in gangsta, and its lyrics are the usual hardcore hip-hop blather about acting tough and being irresistibly sexy. Beneath the boasting, however, there's real music. Juvenile deploys his New Orleans drawl to make many of his more obnoxious lyrics nearly, blessedly, incomprehensible.

More importantly, Juvenile's audacious producer, Manny Fresh, uses his client's vocals as just another sound in a dense, roiling mix that includes intentionally cheesy horn sections, shrill keyboard riffs, and always, always an undulating, bumping beat.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, RAP SONG, JUVENILE)

TUCKER: Like Juvenile, The Goody Mob is from the South, in this case Atlanta, and its sound differs dramatically from East and West Coast hip-hop. For example, New York's biggest current star is probably DMX, whose CDs are stark showcases for his grave, gravely voice.

Out in L.A., the archetypal sound is that of Dr. Dray, who, whether he's producing himself or an act like the white rapper M&M, specializes in using hip-hop the way a movie sound track producer might, as background atmosphere that illustrates points in the verbal scenarios.

For a Southern act like The Goody Mob, however, the groove is as important as anything that's being said.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "GET RICH TO THIS," THE GOODY MOB)

TUCKER: That's The Goody Mob's "Get Rich to This." The quartet that composes this mob is less criminal than party-minded. Where gangsta rap continues to describe the brutal realities of ghetto life, The Goody Mob tends to lift its stories into the realm of wish fulfillment and fantasy. They're out for a good time, as is suggested by the title track of their latest release, "World Party."

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "WORLD PARTY," THE GOODY MOB)

TUCKER: The crucial ongoing weakness of this sort of hip-hop is its tedious use of obscenity and its persistent invocation of violence, not just over threats to life but to anyone, especially women, who disagrees with, or, in the genre's most overused word, disrespects the rapper.

The fact that there seems to be an endless appetite for such sentiment suggests just how bleak life seems to a lot of people, which only makes the buoyant music of Southern hip-hop that much more of a creative release.

GROSS: Ken Tucker is critic at large for "Entertainment Weekly."

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our interviews and reviews are produced by Naomi Person, Phyllis Myers, Amy Salit, and Joan Toohey Wesman, with Monique Nazareth, Ann Marie Baldonado, and Patty Leswing, research assistance from Brendan Noonam.

I'm Terry Gross.

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia, Ken Tucker
Guest:
High: Hip-hop music has brought about a return to musical regionalism, with distinct vocal and production styles emanating from New York and the West Coast. Among the current hot Southern acts are the hardcore rapper Juvenile and the group The Goody Mob. Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review of their latest releases.
Spec: Music Industry; Entertainment; Violence; Women

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 2000 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 2000 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Ken Tucker Reviews Latest Releases of Juvenile and The Goody Mob
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.