ANDY DRACHENBERG: Tell us about your character in Gore Vidal’s The Best Man.
ERIC McCORMACK: I am playing Joe Cantwell, a candidate for the party nomination for President of the United States. The play is about a 1960 “democratic” convention where television, for maybe one of the first times, was a crucial part of the process. I am the television candidate. I’m the guy that knows how to embrace it. John Larroquette and I are the candidates vying for the head of the party, and my character, in particular, is such an ass. It’s great!
AD: What’s it like doing a Broadway play with so many major stars?
EM: When the offer first came in for this play, they started listing the people in it and I said “Stop. You had me at ‘Earl.’” The process has been unbelievable, getting to spend time with James Earl Jones and Angela Lansbury. I’ve got about ten minutes onstage just James Earl Jones and I, when we really start to get in it. At one moment, James stands up to say “now you’re going to get in the ring with an old-time killer,” and it’s Darth Vader and me at that moment. I am Luke Skywalker – it’s very cool!
AD: What can people expect at Gore Vidal’s The Best Man?
EM:
This play is amazing because it is 50 years old, and yet we hear laughs every day at yet another reference that seems like we saw it on the news last night. Gore was writing about his time, but being Gore Vidal, he was also pretty good at writing about human nature in general.
Things haven’t changed in politics that much, particularly because this is an election year and we’re hearing every day about yet another insane debate between the Republican candidates. It seems like this was written yesterday. People will get a kick out of the fact that a classic is in fact incredibly fresh and current.
AD: So do you see it as more of a comedy?
EM: The play is incredibly funny as well as dramatic. Angela Lansbury’s character is hysterical. And you’ve got John Larroquette, Candice Bergen and I, who come from a comedy world, so we are mining it for the laughs – and there are a lot of them! And James Earl Jones is hysterical! But it can also take great shifts. There’s not so much emotional drama as much as the intrigue — the political knives that come out in a convention like this. And it can turn quite vicious.
AD: What kind of audience is The Best Man geared toward?
EM: Who should see this play? Men, women, young, old, young, gay, straight, all religions and ethnicities should see this play. What are you waiting for? It’s a limited run, but strike while the iron is hot! See this thing. We run until July 8.
ERIC McCORMACK(Senator John Cantwell). was born in Toronto and spent his twenties in theatres across Canada, including five seasons with the Stratford Festival. He eventually made his Broadway debut starring as The Music Man, and returned to New York for the American premiere of Neil LaBute’s Some Girl(s).His film work includes Alien Trespass, the cult film Free Enterprise and My One and Only, opposite Rene Zellweger. His upcoming films include Barricade and the political drama Knife Fight .
On television, Eric has starred in countless series, mini-series and movies over the last twenty years. Highlights include The Andromeda Strain (A&E), Borrowed Hearts (CBS), Trust Me (TNT), the title role in Who Is Clark Rockefeller? for Lifetime, The New Adventures of Old Christine(CBS) and two seasons as “Col. Clay Mosby” on Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years. But it was his eight seasons as “Will Truman” on NBC’s Emmy-winning Will & Grace that earned him a Screen Actor’s Guild Award, five Golden Globe nominations, and the Emmy for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Next year, he will be both star and a producer on the new TNT drama, Perception.
Eric has hosted Saturday Night Live and the VH-1 Music Awards and sang both anthems at the NHL All-Star Game. Last year he received a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame. He splits his time between Los Angeles and Vancouver with Janet, his wife of fourteen years, and their nine-year-old son, Finnigan.