BRIDGING TV & THEATRE: Callie Thorne & NECESSARY ROUGHNESS
By: Pat Cerasaro Sep. 14, 2011
Today we are closing out our first season of interviews with the star players of USA's breakout hit series NECESSARY ROUGHNESS with the show's star herself - the endearing and scrappy Callie Thorne. In addition to all about the first season of the freshman smash - which has just this week has been greenlit for Season Two - Thorne illustrates what makes the show work so well and what initially drew her to her complex character and the show itself, as well as describing what working with show creator Craig Shapiro is like and how she has collaborated with him and her accomplished costars to help further shape her role on the sports themed dramedy. In addition to all of that, we touch on her rich assortment of cast-mates and the previous participants in this column - Marc Blucas, Scott Cohen, Mehcad Brooks and Andrea Anders included - as well as what she thinks the themes and ideas the show presents signify to men, women and the world at large in 2011. We also touch on her stage roots, having appeared alongside Sam Rockwell and Eric Bognosian in THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT, directed by InDepth InterView participant Philip Seymour Hoffman, as well as her extensive theatre training (at the Lee Strasberg Institute, no less) and how that background informs all of her work (and not just reteaming with theatre pal Craig Bierko), on NECESSARY ROUGHNESS and far beyond - and advice on how to endure big game-time injuries, as a result. Plus, comments on HOMICIDE, the final season of RESCUE ME, her new film MEET MY BOYFRIEND!!! and much more!
CT: Yes. But, I am originally a Boston girl. I moved to New York after college and stopped singing - so, I kind of lost my ear.
PC: Oh, no! It happens.CT: It does. So, it's like: I'm an OK singer; I'm an OK guitar player and you put them together and... it's just OK. [Laughs.]
CT: Oh, thank you so much. That's so nice of you.
PC: Do you enjoy the Southern gentility of shooting in Atlanta?CT: Everything is so much slower - even the music in Starbucks is slower here! [Laughs.]PC: It is! It's a whole different world.CT: It took me a little while to get used to it, but I have to admit that, now: I love it, I love it, I love it! I was very excited to get to do it here, too. You know, anything I've ever done has either been in New York or LA, except for my very first TV job. PC: What was your first TV role? CT: It was a cop show called HOMICIDE and it was shot in Baltimore. So, I lived two years in Baltimore and I knew the whole thing when I signed on to do this.
PC: What was that experience like? CT: Well, I was in the sixth and seventh seasons of the show and I really enjoyed it. PC: I know you are a little bit injured today. What exactly happened to you?CT: [Laughs.] Yes! It was a tragic onset unfortunosity!
PC: That's so funny. [Laughs.]CT: What's wrong with that?! What?!PC: Nothing! Nothing. Great word. CT: I was doing something that was really funny... I was going to do a belly-flop onto the bed. But, because I thought it was going to be so funny, I did it all-out, full-fledged.PC: Like any method actor would!CT: I took a running leap, jumped onto the box bed, did the belly-flop and then I feel something... very bad... happen! PC: Uh oh.CT: Not only did it hurt the lower back, but the arch of my back, because I hit so hard, sort of tipped my hips up. Then, I was like, "Well, that didn't feel very good!" (Laughs.) PC: Definitely not.CT: So, then, I was like, "That's not very funny, so I think I should just be kicking the pillows then." And, so, they were like, "Oh, all right." But, over the course of the week it got much, much worse and I ended up having a spasm on the set and I fell down and hurt my spine.PC: Wow.CT: Yeah, so, now, I have this little electrode thing that stops it from spasming.
PC: I was about to ask what kind of iPod that is?CT: [Laughs.]
PC: The build-up buzz for ROUGHNESS was so big. USA does such a great job with their promotion for their shows.CT: Oh, I know! I kept USA on all day yesterday while I was laying on the couch recovering - I love CSI reruns - and I saw this commercial for the show. I haven't been able to see a lot of the promotions for the show and I was just blown away at how... beautiful... the commercial is! PC: You can say that again!CT: I know! When I first saw it, I just thought the football looked amazing. Holy sh*t!
PC: Very ANY GIVEN SUNDAY - and should be, considering it has the same advisors.CT: Yeah, really! The racecar scenes were just the hottest of the hottest, too.
PC: What a cast you have, to boot! Marc Blucas, Mehcad Brooks, Scott Cohen - what a talented and dashing assortment!CT: I know! I know! I am so lucky. It is so, so daunting - although I do have a wealth of experience because of RESCUE ME and all the boys on that. So, I'm very used to the pretty when it comes to gentlemen. [Laughs.]PC: Tell me about working with Denis Leary on that show. I've heard very opposing things about him.
CT: Well, he is a very opposing sort of dude! [Laughs.] But, that's why he's so successful.
PC: What are your thoughts on the final season of RESCUE ME? CT: The last season of RESCUE ME is going to be very sort of half and half: it's how you think RESCUE ME would end versus something very outside the box. And, they do it in this sort of perfect way - it's only nine episodes, you know. Very stream-lined. It's not like everything gets tied up in a bow - because RESCUE ME would rather burn itself in Hell than wrap itself in a bow. [Laughs.]PC: Right.CT: But, I think that, especially with my character and with all the angst and stuff that, through the seasons, we've seen Sheila go through, what happens between her and Tommy - played by Denis Leary - is that she finally lets go of that horrific dream and lust of him replacing her dead husband and all the havoc she's caused everybody - including herself - and that there is more of a family thing that comes together because of her son's condition.
PC: How did you see your character on that show versus NECESSARY ROUGHNESS? CT: Well, the difference betwixt them is that Sheila is, like, bona fide bi-polar manic depressive. Then, we have this woman, Dani, who is coming from a completely stable, grown-up world - with her mother and her family and her life pretty perfect as is. PC: Indeed.CT: What the pilot introduces - and why I was so fascinated by it - is it is as equally hard to play a normal woman as it is to play a damaged woman; it's just like how it's as hard to do comedy as it is to do drama. You just have to touch on the right things.
PC: When does it cross over the line to camp or over-the-top?
CT: Exactly. It has to stay something you want to watch because it still feels true, you know?PC: Yes.CT: I think with Dani, it is like: where we find her is with the rug ripped out from under her. So, suddenly, everything that was perfect and normal is like a big slap in the face. PC: Totally.CT: She gets kicked in the face by the fact her husband is a cheater. Suddenly, she is a single mom. Suddenly, she is a divorcee. Suddenly, her job changes.PC: Upheaval.CT: Everything is being shifted into a gear that she didn't even know was available in a car. And, that, to me, was kind of beautiful considering that what I had been doing and exploring for seven seasons on RESCUE ME is very of another ilk - it has nothing to do with stability. It has everything to do with greed and hate and fear and all the darkest things of life that are encompassed in that character and, also, in the lives of everybody in the bubble of RESCUE ME. PC: A world of difference.CT: Yeah, so, obviously it shows you the differences between a network like FX and a network like USA and what you can get away with and story-tell with on FX - being not HBO, but not ABC - versus when you come to USA - which is a very sort of inspirational and motivational network with a focus on story.
PC: "Characters welcome." CT: Yes! That's their name and theme. Characters welcome.
PC: I should add that Lily Rabe did this column when she won the USA CHARACTER APPROVED Award recently. What a talent.CT: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Oh, I love her, too! I just love her.
PC: Have you worked together at any point?CT: No! Are you kidding? I would kill to, though! She is hot sh*t!PC: Did you see her with Al Pacino in MERCHANT OF VENICE?CT: Oh, yeah! Of course I did! It was incredible. Incredible.
PC: So you get to go back to New York to catch some theatre from time to time, at least - even with a hectic TV schedule headlining your own series!CT: Oh, yes! Always. I'm breaking my back, literally, to do it, though! [Laughs.]
PC: You can say that again! Tell me about how you got involved with NECESSARY ROUGHNESS and what working with Craig Shapiro and the whole cast is like - especially Marc.
CT: Aww, I just love Craig. It was interesting, though, because the stuff with Marc Blucas's character, Matt, and the romance is always going to be there - it is part of the true story and it comes from this woman's real life. This was going on; where she had met him and he had helped her sort of kick that new aspect of her work into gear - this new sort of celebrity athlete client part of her life. But, there is a boundary that is made that sort of puts it into a "Will they or won't they?" but, it's not in any kind of cheesy way.
PC: Definitely not.
PC: What about your husband on the show?
CT: Oh, well, like I was telling you about Craig Bierko - I've known him for a long, long time.PC: The Brooklyn Theater.CT: Oh, yeah! I love him! I love him! I love him! We don't get as much of him as I want - because, you know, the dude is a busy dude, so whatever.PC: He comes back sporadically, at least. CT: Yeah, we have a big, big thing in Episode 5 with him when he comes back. PC: I hope he continues coming back for the run of the show.
CT: Well, we also have something that keeps coming back that I don't think was necessary planned, with Scott Cohen, who plays Nico, the fixer on the show. There are flickers. Just flickers.
PC: Hints.CT: Yeah, it's nothing, ever, that the audience is being told, you know: "Here is what you are supposed to feel." It stays that subtle. Always.PC: I've always wanted to know what exactly Dani finds on the guest bed in the pilot that first sets her off? It's hard to tell.CT: It's something that I see - depending on how it is shot, it might just be an illusion. But, how we shot it is that: since my character is OCD, I do the corners and everything and I notIce That the bed is askew. That's what sets me off.PC: Tell me about the balance for Dr. Dani.CT: Well, it's really sweet actually because a lot of the stuff that is happening with me is, as you can imagine, occasionally happening with my clients - so, I am learning about my own life while I am learning about them. That's all part of a good story. But, it's also about the fact that her teenagers are starting to date and she is starting to date again. It's all this stuff where everything is new; everyone is discovering.
PC: You and the kids have the same new discoveries simultaneously.CT: Yeah. I know! I just love it.PC: It's like foils in Shakespeare, with subplots and that sort of thing.CT: Oh, yeah! It is. It is.
PC: Tell me about working with Mehcad Brooks.
CT: His character is so important. He is always part of why we are in that world - it's what keeps me connected to Marc's character. But, TK, Mehcad's character, is the string that connects everything. Though I am getting other clients, he keeps the story connected.PC: It's so great how the show covers so many different types of clients in addition to TK, as well. CT: Basketball, Nascar, war reporter... it's their tragedy and their troubles and their fears. What the show is really about is breaking something down to realize what they are fighting and the cognitive behavioral therapy part of it all - which is about changing in the moment. It's not about working through your past twenty years of your life and when you were locked in a closet - it's about what your patterns of behavior are now. I think that that's a really touching thing to watch people go through. So, I think that's where the angst is.
PC: Have you gone to therapy yourself?CT: Who? Callie Thorne? [Laughs.]PC: Is that a yes?CT: Many, many, many years ago... [Laughs.]
PC: Tell me about working with the real Dr. Dani.CT: I met with her and I am friendly with her now and I really love her. This is not a documentary of her, so me hanging out with her and talking to her was much more about the energy of her - I wanted to really sort of pick up on her aura. Otherwise, I wanted to do everything "as if" for me. I am sure that I can after the bajillion therapists I've gone to in my own life - including the one who fell asleep on me! [Laughs.]
PC: That happens to all of us, believe me. Do you personally think hypnotherapy is legitimate in lieu of medication?CT: I do think it works. I have done cognitive behavioral therapy and I think it is brilliant because one of the things about it that Dr. Donna said is that it is really about working with human behavior and recognizing stop signs to change. PC: What's next after NECESSARY ROUGHNESS Season One for you?CT: A short film of mine will be at the New York Film Festival. It's called MEET MY BOYFRIEND!!! John Ruocco directed and Liz Tuccillo from SEX & THE CITY wrote it and Scott Cohen is in it with me. I am really excited about it.PC: Thank you so much for this today, Callie. You deserve all the success you are having and the show is fantastic.CT: Oh, thank you so, so much, Pat. This was fantastic. Bye bye.
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