Greg Kinnear Was at a Career Crossroads—Then This Film Changed Everything

Newsweek

4 days ago

Actor Greg Kinnear.
Actor Greg Kinnear.
CJ Rivera/Apple TV+
"I usually have a terrible memory for so many things, but the experiences that I have making things is pretty visceral."
Lately, Greg Kinnear is just trying to keep his head on straight due to his embarrassment of riches, from Smoke on Apple TV+ and the film Off the Grid. "You kind of have to shuffle around the bottom of your proverbial briefcase to pull up this old project. Smoke, we did it a year ago, Off the Grid, we did last year. So there's always a little bit of, 'Who the hell did I play?'" For the arson crime thriller Smoke, Kinnear teamed up with Taron Egerton and Dennis Lehane. "Very CGI light on this. It was real fire. When we were playing with it, we were playing with the real thing." And in Off the Grid, Kinnear is the bad guy chasing down Josh Duhamel through the woods. "You want to punch the bad guy in the face. And who better? When they look at my face, wanting to punch is pretty much a universal reaction." While that's not necessarily true, Kinnear is happy to be playing against type in both projects. "It's a great thing about what we do...[when] the people who create these ideas and come up when it's well done, and craft a world, and you're allowed into that world."
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Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.
You know, one of the things that I respect about your career is that you started off as a personality on TV. You really were on that talk show host track, and then it shifted to acting.
It was crazy. I mean, it was unusual, particularly at that time. It was kind of weird to go from the TV to film, now I feel like people do it all the time. You don't think about it. You see people in commercials, and they do everything. But it was a very kind of weird environment in terms of separation of church and state back then, and how the hell Sydney Pollack [director of Sabrina] allowed me to climb over the wall and do Sabrina, I don't know, but credit to him.
I mean, that's Sydney Pollack and Harrison Ford. That's a nosedive into the film world.
Lot of people would say belly flop, yeah. But [you] got to do it whatever way you got to do.
So for a show like Smoke, when you're looking at a project like this, there's your character but there's also the story. What do you respond to first?
Well, in the case of this, I think I responded first and foremost to the fact that a couple years ago, I worked with Dennis Lehane and Taron on Blackbird, which we did in COVID and it was kind of a crazy time. But Dennis cast that show so well. It was a wonderful group of people and actors. The team that he had, the support team of directors and producers, were all excellent. And his writing, both as a novelist and as a showrunner, really, I think kind of blossomed. He had done some other stuff, but I think Blackbird, really, set the stage for Dennis. So listen, loved to be along for that ride. And when he was mumbling the idea of maybe another show, there wasn't a long conversation. I said yes way before he did and looked forward to the opportunity of working with [him]. And then, in this case, he got Taron, you have a lot of the same producing, directing team came over. The world of arson is not something I necessarily would [be] fascinated by, [arson] probably wouldn't have been the ticket I would have pulled. But that's true all the time. It's the great thing about being an actor. It's a great thing about what we do is, that the people who create these ideas go and dig and dive so heavily onto a subject matter and come up when it's well done, and craft a world, and you're allowed into that world. And in this case, it's a pretty exotic world. I mean, you think of crime, even serial killers, I feel they've been in front of us to a point where they kind of just wash off us. You see one serial killer, you've seen them all. Not the case with Blackbird, but I'm saying in general that subject matter is used a lot, and then you think of fire and arson, and how strange and what a distance I think there is from any typical viewer to what happens in that world, how it exists. But sure enough, you give it to a guy like Dennis and his great writing team, and they really, I think, unlocked it in a way where I was excited to be a part of it. It's kind of different sort of role for me. And again, working with just great people.
Greg Kinnear in "Smoke," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Greg Kinnear in "Smoke," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Apple TV+.
The fire itself is also kind of like a monster or the villain.
Yeah, I think you're right. Fire, strangely, it should be something made easily to create as the monster, but I don't think it is. Again, there's some sort of tax on the imagination that really forces, I think, the storytellers, in the case of Smoke, to make it visceral, make it real. There's, for the most part, very CGI light on this. It was real fire. When we were playing with it, we were playing with the real thing. And I think the intimacy and the immediacy of that really bleeds through on the show. You have a palpable experience with it in the show, and you feel it, I think, in a really effective way. But yeah, we got a lot of scary monsters in this show, whether they're fire or not.
Between Smoke and Off the Grid, how do you keep track of your projects when they're released so close to each other?
Well, you kind of have to shuffle around the bottom of your proverbial briefcase to pull up this old project. In the case of Smoke, we did it a year ago, Off the Grid, we did last year. These projects, they take a while before they ever come to life. So there's always a little bit of a process of saying, "Now, who the hell did I play? What am I doing?" That's just kind of the name of the game. And I usually have a terrible memory for so many things, but the experiences that I have making things is pretty visceral.
What about Off the Grid appealed to you?
I had met Josh before briefly, but I don't really know him. And he's like a 6'5" football linebacker, and when I heard the concept, they're like, "We're making this movie called Off the Grid, and Josh is the guy." I was like, "Oh, I understand that." So sure enough, Josh is a guy who has gone off the grid with a piece of technology, and the bad guys are trying to get it back, and I am playing one of the key bad guys who must do everything to get it back and doesn't particularly like the bayou or the woods where he is residing.
What I find interesting about you is that, if I saw you in the grocery store, I wouldn't be nervous to say hello, you seem nice. So when you play bad or evil, it's a bit of a plot twist.
Well, I have played some bad guys. And I just did—Disney's doing kind of a reimagining of Holes and played the Sigourney Weaver role of the warden, who's just this devilishly fun character. Off the Grid was, case in point, they sent it to me, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I never get to be the bad guy going after the guy." And I look at any of those movies that I've liked where you're the villain, and you're chasing the guy, and it just seemed like, "Okay, here we go. We're gonna put the bug repellent on and chase Josh, see where this goes." But it was fun to do.
And in a weird way, it makes you want to see the bad guy get it more. Because if you wanna like him, and he gets to be as bad as he is, it just makes the justice so much more sweet.
Yeah, you got it. You want to punch the bad guy in the face. And who better when they look at me, wanting to punch is pretty much a universal reaction.
I don't know if that's true. Which I think is partly why it works, because we don't start off wanting to punch you, we want to like you. But then, yeah, you're bad.
Yeah, I feel like, like I said, I don't get to do it very often, but when it's offered, it is fun to do. If I'm being honest, it does play against type a little bit. It's not necessarily a goal to want to kill or maim or hurt people, but you know, that's the great thing [about acting], that we get to do lots of stuff that we don't otherwise get to do. Where's the Great Western?
I think Kevin Costner has that locked up.
He's got the corner on that.
Greg Kinnear (L), Jack Nicholson (C) and Helen Hunt (R) film As Good as it Gets.
Greg Kinnear (L), Jack Nicholson (C) and Helen Hunt (R) film As Good as it Gets.
Mitchell Gerber/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
Well, I can't spend time with you without bringing up As Good as It Gets. That film seems like it changed everything for you. From an Oscar nomination to just being able to work with that level of talent: James L. Brooks, Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt. We're coming up on nearly 30 years since it was released. Did that film change everything for you?
Yeah, it's interesting. I had done Talk Soup. And I was doing a late night show. I had taken over for Bob Costas. And while I was there, I kind of went in, hat in hand, to Don Ohlmeyer, who ran the channel, and who was a pretty imposing tough guy historically in our business. And I kind of managed to ask, beg and plead to be able to do the first couple of movies that I was able to do. And I would come in and bank five shows, talk shows, in a day, and then go off and shoot a movie here or there. And As Good as It Gets came along, and Jim offered me the role. And I was really at a crossroads. I was like, "Well, it's going to be in L.A., it's a big role and a lot of time." And I was just suddenly faced with, wow, okay, so I've been on this trajectory of kind of a television host, interviewer, whatever. And the fork was there, to continue that, or I was going to really have to step over into acting. It really caused some soul searching. And I thank Jim so much because he handed me that role, which was an incredible, incredible role. And obviously the material is so amazing. It's got heart, and it's got laughs, and it's got something thoughtful to kind of meditate on and it's got Verdell the dog. So, I did have a lot of things there that allowed me to say, "Well, I'm going to give this a shot. Who knows where all of this goes." I ended up having to walk away from the talk show at NBC. That movie meant to me a great deal, because obviously it was successful, but you don't know that when you're making it. I mean, I knew I thought it was good, but I hadn't done enough movies at the time. Didn't know what we were doing was good. When I am [impersonating] Jack standing at a door going, "Don't bother me ever," and kind of just basically unloading a cannon into my face of Nicholson'isms, I was thinking, "All right, this is a life highlight." If this goes nowhere, but hopefully the audience will respond as well, and obviously they did. So it was a pivotal movie in a lot of ways, from that standpoint.
Well, there's also another aspect to it that I found particularly interesting. It was part of an era of portrayals on film of gay characters who weren't tragic, who weren't dying. Simon was able to just be Simon. And that was a real shift in film from films of the '80s and '90s that, rightfully so, focused on portrayals of violence or HIV/AIDS. Did that stand out to you?
It did. I read it and I thought, "Wow." I mean, first and foremost, the fact that Simon was gay was secondary to a racist, misogynist, really messed up guy [Jack Nicholson's Melvin] and his [Simon's] decency was right there in the page. And that's really, first and foremost, what I took note of and thought, "Wow, my gosh, this is so great." Because I know exactly what you mean. We had seen that role where we're going to get all sorts of yucks out of this guy. It's like a lever you can pull. The transition we're always going through in terms of big entertainment is so many things, they start as stereotypes, and then maybe they become just types, and then maybe they just become characters, and then they just become people. And I feel like, yes, that was happening at that time, but I felt, wow, what a leap forward with this script. What a lovely character that's been drawn up with Simon, and I just wanted him to find success and love and happiness like I do in every character.
It really was just such a special film and performance and certainly meant a lot to me.
Oh, I'm so happy to hear that. I'm so appreciative. And, gosh, I can't believe, it was Father's Day yesterday, and I showed my daughter, because it's like, the one day of the year I'm able to say, "Guys, I'm picking the movie." There's no conversation. It's not like we're gonna talk about it. I'm picking the movie. So I—and I don't know why, I guess because somebody was just telling me it's the 50-year anniversary, I didn't realize, but of [One Flew Over the] Cuckoo's Nest—and so we fired that up last night, and I hadn't seen it for years, and my kids had never seen it, and I was just like, "Oh my gosh, what a beautiful treasure of a film." I mean so much nuance and so many unspoken moments that are making people laugh in our little theater, which is our living room, but making my kids laugh that it wasn't even dialogue. Wasn't a joke. It was just so beautifully constructed. And funny enough, when I got As Good as It Gets, because my daughter asked me, "Oh, did you talk to Mr. Nicholson about that?" And I was like, "No, I refused to watch it because I was already so scared to meet this guy." The last thing I was going to do is go fawn over him, watch the movie and then show up and say, "Tell me about the scene where you and Chief were sinking baskets." I was way too over my head in that movie to begin with. But watching it now, I don't know, I'll have to hit him up with a couple new questions.