Weekly: Dinah is crazy. What if she tries to lose the baby to get the
ultimate revenge on Cassie?
Wright: Then I guess we’ve got to deal with that. I would think
she would become attached.
Macdonald: What if all of a sudden she thinks she’s lost Edmund
and the only banana she has is that baby? Or the only way to get what she
wants is to threaten to do something to end the pregnancy? Then she shuts
the door, all alone, and cries and shows she loves the baby. All of a sudden,
the audience loves her.
Weekly: What about the Cadmund fans, who want you guys to be happy?
Macdonald: The audience wants you to get away with something. They
don’t want to see you eat a slice of pizza.
Wright: Well, they also said, “Edmund needs to tell Cassie about
what happened in the bard that night, from the beginning.” But then
we’d have no story!
Weekly: Do you guys hang out when the cameras stop rolling?
Wright: Dave and I will have tea.
Macdonald: I moved to a different floor years ago, so we’re not
on the same floor anymore. My dressing room is down with Ron Raines (Alan),
Justin Deas (Buzz), Robert Newman (Josh) and Michael O’Leary
(Rick).
Weekly: Did anyone move in with O’Leary when Grant Aleksander
left?
Macdonald: (joking) No, he’s on his own. I think everyone wants
it that way.
Wright: (also joking) Mikey’s a slob.
Weekly: Joan Collins was down there, too?
Wright: She had her own suite.
Weekly: Okay, back to business. Laura, what’s David’s best
quality?
Macdonald: I don’t think we have time.
Wright: He’s an incredibly giving actor. We could be doing a scene
and I could be struggling with something and he’ll say, “Are you
okay? Is there something I can do? Can I fix it?” His first instinct
will be to fix it or help you fix it. You don’t get that a lot. You
usually feel the stress that you’re not doing something and they’re
annoyed. We’re always prepared, always run lines. And we don’t
take it too seriously. It is what it is.
Weekly: David, what’s Laura’s best quality?
Wright: I’m fun.
Macdonald: (to Laura) Don’t answer for me. Clearly, her best quality
is not her need to not control the situation … You said “best”
quality? As there are so many good qualities…
Wright: I have to say, a year-and-a-half ago when Ellen Weston was (head)
writing, we didn’t have anything to do. I didn’t know what the
hell I was doing. I didn’t understand anything I ever did. I didn’t
know why I was there, where I was going. There was no story, there was nothing.
But I still had a great day because we were going to come in and have fun
no matter what they gave us. Working with David got me through a very bad
time of not liking the show at all, of not liking the work there. The best
part of my day was coming there and working with him, because everything
else sucked.
Weekly: How did you ride it out?
Wright: The paycheck.
Macdonald: I’m glad she feels that way. Sometimes I don’t ride
it out. Sometimes I get pissed and it feels like I’m backed into a corner.
And more often than not I can trace it back to the fact that I didn’t
sleep well the last few nights before. A proper diet, enough water and sleep,
and exercise really is the difference between hurling yourself in front of
a bus and going off and writing the great American novel. I get mad. I
don’t like it when I get mad. It’s perfectly human, but it never
solves anything.
Wright: He always thinks it out. You couldn’t find two more opposite
people, which is the funny thing. I don’t think we have anything in
common. He thinks more – I just go for it.
Macdonald: She’s a good girl.
Wright: If I put on music, I’m like, “Isn’t this great?”
and he’ll say, “I’ve never heard this before.” I’m
like, “Of course you haven’t.”
Weekly: What do you have in common?
Wright: We’re both from Maryland. We’re both married with two
kids. We both have one of each (a boy and a girl). That’s about it.
Macdonald: No, that’s not true. Your father was a policeman in
Washington, D.C. and I’ve had some run-ins with the police.
Wright: You skinny-dipped a lot.
Macdonald: We knew the houses in D.C. that had pools. We never did it
in people’s pools in the neighborhood because we didn’t want to
piss off everyone else’s parents. So we’d go break into the colleges
and go to other towns. I spent most of my teenage years naked in the pool
at 2 in the morning.
Weekly: Is that how you got the scar about your lip? Diving into a pool?
Macdonald: No. I was living in London in the summer of ’83. We had
taken a Europass and were in Bavaria. We were in a bar one night, and there
were prostitutes outside. These men were being quite brutal with them. It
was a Bavarian bar, with antlers everywhere and swords crossed on the walls.
I looked at my friend, and said, “This is wrong and it shall not be!”
I stepped outside with two of the swords from the wall and I threw one to
one guy and we dueled. We dueled for the woman’s honor.
Wright: He is such a liar!
Macdonald: Shut up! Come on! Okay, I was 4 ½ years old and my sister
was chasing me and I went straight through the glass on the porch doors.
The scar is from 1965.
Wright: I wasn’t even born yet.
Mark McGarry |
