October 2002

Evil Made Easy

Michael Rosenbaum loves to entertain. Good thing, too, since he’s one of the busiest young actors in film and television. This year alone he wrapped a season of Smallville, the WB Network’s most promising and critically lauded freshman drama, was seen as the unforgettable crossdresser Brandon in the forgettable weeper Sweet November, and provided the voice for Wally West and his alter ego The Flash on Cartoon Network’s innovative cape cartoon, The Justice League. Not bad, for a native New Yorker who grew up in Indiana, idolizing television comedians.

He spent years on the verge of success, transitioning from theater roles in college and summer stock in North Carolina to the off- and off-off-Broadway scene in New York, then to memorable roles in films like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Urban Legend. In the meantime, Rosenbaum honed his on-the-spot delivery by guest starring on sitcoms and appearing in skits on Late Night With Conan O’Brien.

Rosenbaum spoke with Show Business when he made a rare fan appearance at the Wizard World Comic Book Convention in Chicago, Illinois. It’s an ironic backdrop for a discussion about the craft and business of acting, but wherever Rosenbaum goes, he’s in his element, and when acting’s the subject, he can talk for hours.

SB: So you’re not filming right now, since your hair’s grown in.

MR: No, I finished filming Smallville and I jumped into this movie with Steve Martin-I got to work with Steve Martin!-called Bringing Down the Houze. I play this cocky, mean lawyer. It’s coming out either spring or this Christmas, we don’t know yet. It was fun, I mean, I got to hit on Joan Plowright, I got beat up by Queen Latifah, and then there’s Steve Martin…

SB: The Queen-you worked with the Queen. That’s amazing.

MR: I got to work with the Queen.

SB: My first question was going to be: Do you believe a man can fly?, but we don’t have time for jokes. . .

MR: Um, I believe he can. For a few seconds.

SB: What first drew you to acting?

MR: I guess [it was] when I was a kid watching Saturday Night Live, and I just started doing every impression the cast did. I would do Fernando and Hans and Franz and the Church Lady and Robin Leach and I was just so entertained by it. And my parents would come home and ask, "so what was on Saturday Night Live?" And I would do the whole one and a half hour show for them. I would do all the impressions, I’d know who the guests were, all of that. I’ve always been a bit of an extrovert, to say the least, and when I get going I just love to entertain, I love to be the center of attention, it’s just a part of me. Last night I was at my friend’s wedding, and he’s like, "Mike, you gotta get up there with the band and do something, people are falling asleep here," and I got up there and I started entertaining them, and I said this is what I was meant to do, I was meant to entertain.

SB: After you discovered that this was what you wanted to do, what was your training?

MR: I went to high school, I took drama classes all through high school, went to college--Western Kentucky University, which had a great drama department, although I refused to be part of the dance program. They’re like, "it’s a prerequisite, you must take dance 101," and I said I’m not taking shit.

SB: So you’re not a triple threat?

MR: You know what, it’s funny, they can move like trained dancers, you know, but I can get down. I can breakdance, I can backspin, I can disco, all my black friends look at me and go, man! I’m part black, part Jewish, I got it all going on. Is that racist? I’m not racist. [general laughter] But uh, what was the question?

SB: Your training and education.

MR: Yeah, I started taking everything, Shakespeare, Chekhov, I did it all, I did theater in North Carolina, I did off-off-Broadway in New York, I took acting classes at HB Studios in New York City, got an agent, started doing TV and dramas, things you’ve never heard of--just climbing the ladder.

SB: What were those first years like?

MR: I had been in New York about two months, and my hair was down to my shoulders, and I had this leather jacket that was,well, pleather--I got it at some thrift store--and this was who I was at the time. I didn’t have an agent, and I was working in telemarketing. Emergency Skills Incorporated was the name of the company. ‘Hi, do you have uh, does your staff have trained CPR, you know, because we can come there and train you. Super.’ Dial tone, over and over. There was this guy, Frank, the loudest telemarketer ever. Probably the loudest individual ever, he talked like [in a booming voice] "HI, HOW ARE YOU?" He was this animated guy, and one day he goes, "get me your resume." And, you know, what was he going to do for me? He goes, "Hey look, I’m doing this off-Broadway show, Dracula, down at the Grove Street Playhouse and uh, Jonathan Harker, the lead, they’re looking for a replacement because they’re extending the run for two weeks, and it’s sold out every night." So I said okay.

SB: So how was the audition?

MR: So they’re holding auditions and I went down, and I was nervous as hell, and the director comes up to me and says, ‘would you put your hair in a ponytail?’ Sure. ‘Would you shave?’ Yeah, I’ll shave. ‘Can you do an English accent?’ So I started going into this English accent, and he said, ‘Can you memorize your lines and go up tomorrow night?’ And I was like, you’re crazy, you’re out of your mind. I had one day to learn all my lines, and I remember walking down the street and--I had asked him if I could have five minutes to decide-- and I walked over and got my cell phone and I just called my dad, and I said dad, this is the situation, what should I do? My dad says fuck it, they’re never gonna see you again, who cares? What if I bomb, I said, what if I can’t do it? He says who cares, go for it. And that was all I needed, was for someone to say hey, it’s okay. Anybody. So I said okay, I’ll do it.

SB: Were you able to learn your lines in time?

MR: Well, I went up the next night and I was learning the blocking before the show started, and I went up a couple of times, but you know, you cover, you improvise, and I was backstage going, where am I supposed to be? "Onstage, get out!" And I was freaking out. And at the very end of the show I come up and I’m supposed to do this monologue. And I come up and go, "Not long ago my small family was blessed by a visit from Professor Van Hausen, Dr…" and I start to go on, at the end I’m supposed to go on into a long monologue, and my final line, at the end of this big speech, was, "But I believe professor Van Hausen can sum it up." That was my line, at the end of this whole speech. So I go up and I say, "Not long ago my small family was blessed by a visit from Professor Van Hausen, but I believe Dr. Van Hausen can sum it up better than I." I just cut the whole speech. And the spotlight comes on and he’s not there and [the actor] just jumps into the light , looks at me and goes, "SO," beginning his speech out of nowhere, and oh my God we were all laughing and I nearly had a heart attack. It was just one of those things you remember. It was great. And I got through it.

SB: Can you walk me through a typical day on the set of Smallville, for people who have not done TV acting and want to see what it’s like?

MR: Let’s say it’s a seven o’clock call for actors to be on the set. I have to be on the set an hour and a half before everyone else, so if it’s an eight-thirty call I have to be on the set early, because they have to shave my head and put makeup on my head, so six o’clock I leave, because I’m always on time, and I drive to the set, and I sit in the makeup trailer, and they bring me breakfast, which is cool, and they shave my head with an electric razor and then with a Mach 3, and I’m going to stop saying Mach 3 if they don’t start sending me free razors.

SB: It’s a good razor.

MR: It is. Triple action. So they shave my head and put makeup on it to even it all out and by the time they’re halfway done, we have a blocking, and it’s about 8:30. I go on with the director and the other cast members, and we block the scene, and after that I go back and finish up [with makeup]. Then I go to wardrobe, Steve in wardrobe meets me there, sometimes he helps me get dressed, [for instance] if I hate a shirt, he says, ‘let’s get you another shirt.’ Then me and maybe Tom [Welling, who plays Clark Kent] will go over lines a few times together, then walk into the set, and we’ll do it once as a run through to make sure the cameras are going in the right directions, and then we’ll do it. And we usually have to pound out about six to eight pages a day, so it ranges from good days like 12 hours to bad days, which are around 15 hours. A lucky day is 7 or 8 hours.

SB: Is there no room for craft in all that getting in and doing a scene? Are you drawing on any kind of training or method, or are you just getting the material and going for it.

MR: I guess you grow accustomed to certain styles and in the theater, it’s everybody together, you have the rehearsals and it moves from the beginning to the end. Television is different, it’s usually out of sequence--I could be shot in one scene, and the next scene is the first day of the [action in the script], so you have to remember where you were. I like little notes that say where I was, like my hands were shaking in this scene, I was nervous, I just witnessed a death, or whatever happens in the episode, so I have to kind of follow that before and after, and then piece it together. So it’s longer hours, it’s tedious, it’s ridiculous, it’s rewarding at times and sometimes it’s not, and it’s just a team effort.

SB: I’ve got to ask you about voiceovers, because you’re great on The Justice League, you play one of the funnier characters.

MR: You watch that?

SB: Yes, of course I do.

MR: The Flash, I play the Flash.

SB: You started doing voiceovers on your agent’s suggestion?

MR: When I first moved to New York I had an interview with an agency, and the agent liked my voice and she said, ‘Hey, can you read this copy?’ and I was so animated, I read: [the way your voiceover teacher always told you to read -ed.] ‘introducing new band coffee. If you like yummy things like peach parfait, you’ll love this.’ And she was like, okay, you can totally do this, and I started making money doing voiceovers like, ‘Get real. Trojan condoms.’

SB: So we’re in an odd setting. Is this your first convention?

MR: No, this is the first convention I’ve done as a guest, but I used to go to the thriller conventions in New Jersey.

SB: Nice.

MR: Yeah. At the Hilton Hotel, and I used to go there all the time, so I was one of those freaks. So I’m a freak. I’m a freak of nature, you know.