Ted Danson

This interview originally appeared in the MIPCOM 2014 issue of World Screen.

Audiences around the world loved Ted Danson as Sam Malone, the skirt-chasing ex-baseball star who owned the bar on Cheers. The hit sitcom aired for 11 years and Danson went on to star in feature films and several TV shows. In 2011, he joined the cast of the long-running hit CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as D.B. Russell, the new supervisor of the nighttime shift of the Las Vegas CSI team. In a career that has spanned four decades, Danson has also found time to become a leading spokesman for Oceana, an organization dedicated to ocean conservation. Danson talks to World Screen about the acting skills required of a procedural drama and how exceptional writing is the key to any great drama or comedy.

WS: What appealed to you about CSI and the character of D.B. Russell?
DANSON: Like most things in my life, I kind of stumble onto them blissfully unaware of how great it will turn out for me. I really didn’t know that much about CSI. My friend Billy Petersen was in it and I had seen maybe the first episode because he was in it. So it was one of those crazy phone calls that came to me in the middle of the movie theater, right before the film was going to start. I was in Martha’s Vineyard with my wife, and I saw that it was my manager calling and I answered the phone and whispered, “Hello, I’m in a movie, so I have to whisper.” He said, “Do you want to do CSI?” And I said yes and then hung up! [Laughs] That literally was the amount of forethought. It turned out to be this amazing, very hard, but amazing journey to explore this character D.B. Russell and what he does in life. So I am thrilled that I took it but I don’t think I was really aware of what I was getting into!

WS: You stepped into a successful franchise that for several years has been the most watched show in the world—any pressure there?
DANSON: I highly recommend it; it almost feels like cheating! It’s an amazing cast. So many of them have been there from the very beginning: Jorja Fox, George Eads, Paul Guilfoyle and Eric Szmanda. A lot of the writers, most of the crew, so many people had been there from day one and were still there 11 years later when I joined. I owe so much to them for having created this amazing series, with an audience that has remained very loyal all these years. The writing has remained so good. It was a luxury to step into this part and find my way.

WS: How do the forensics and the science, which are a big part of the show, impact the acting process? Is there any special prep before scenes?
DANSON: I went to a real autopsy in Las Vegas before I started the show, the most adrenaline-pumped hour of my life! So I will do certain things to get a hint of what their life is like. We also have two former CSIs that write for the show, and one retired CSI that is on the set every minute. So you are constantly being schooled as you go. You begin to pick up things but there is someone at all times teaching you about blood spatter and directional blood spatter and what to look for. You are basically getting a CSI 101 every day you show up at work.

Your job as an actor, and it’s the most difficult work I’ve ever done, is to bring the humanity and the believability to a [successful television] formula. The job of the writer is to present in 45 minutes this very complicated forensic mystery, so as an actor you have to keep the audience instructed about what’s going on every second. Sometimes it feels like we are talking directly to the audience with our dialogue, so our job is to make sure it doesn’t come across that way, even though what you’re doing is informing the audience every step of the way about what’s going on. It has almost a soap-opera quality to it; you repeat things a lot, which you wouldn’t do in real life, so it becomes a real challenge to make it believable, and that’s our job.

WS: The subject matter on CSI is dark and intense. What is the atmosphere on the set? Is there any goofing around at all during takes or does the subject matter demand that you stay serious all the time?
DANSON: I feel that part of my job is to be a host to the crew and to make sure that everybody is going to work in a happy atmosphere. If that means being silly, I am and I will be, but my real job is to make sure I don’t take a long time getting my lines out so everybody can get home on time. So it’s a combination of being lighthearted but it’s demanding work. Believe it or not, it’s the hardest work I’ve ever done. So it’s not full of hijinks because everybody is doing a huge amount of work. We have two film crews going at the same time because a lot of the science is being shot on a different stage at the same time as we are doing dialogue. If an actor is looking down a microscope, the other end of the microscope is being filmed on another set with another crew. It’s a lot of work to fit into nine days to give that Jerry Bruckheimer [executive producer of CSI] look to it.

WS: CSI is a lot more complex and lengthy than Cheers was.
DANSON: Cheers was five days of coming to work and being silly with your friends and making each other laugh. I should have done this the other way around! In my 60s I should be making things a little easier!

WS: You have done both comedy and drama—is one more challenging than the other?
DANSON: It’s a different muscle. The hard part here is making scientific, procedural, plot-driven—not character-driven but plot-driven—material human. That is an amazing technique and it’s something I’m really glad I am learning how to do. It’s a different muscle and the drama usually comes from the director and the editor. They make things exciting and dramatic with the music and the way they edit. What you’re doing is showing up and trying to be real in the moment. Whereas in comedy you have a lot more control of the end result in that the actor has to be funny in the moment. If the actor is not doing something mildly amusing in the moment, then you can’t cut it or edit it to make it a comedy, whereas you can create a drama just by the way you direct and edit.

WS: Cheers was a multi-camera show?
DANSON: Yes, we were really doing theater. We rehearsed it and then brought in an audience. We’d shoot it in front of the audience but we were doing theater.

WS: You were Sam Malone for 11 years. For many actors in long-running series, once the show is off the air it’s difficult for the audience to accept them as anybody other than the character that they played for so long. Yet you have worked almost continually. How have you chosen your roles?
DANSON: Wow, I have been very blessed. I say this not with false humility; there are so many wonderful people out there and I’ve had a lot of luck and I have been very blessed for the work that I have gotten to do over the years. I haven’t played the wacky, crazy character in comedy. I have usually been the character who allows the audience to see everybody else. Sam Malone’s job was to love all the crazies around him. I was more of an everyman who took the audience around looking at the incredibly funny people around him. That tends to typecast you less. The other thing that I’ve learned after Becker is [to] look for incredibly creative people, don’t look to play the lead; don’t look at anything except the material. I was very lucky with Cheers and Becker, but just pick projects that have amazingly creative people around and ask them very nicely if you can be a part of it, no matter the size of the part. Then you are likely, not always, but you are more likely to be part of something that is authentic and new. Even if you have been around for a while, if you are part of something that is authentic and new and funny, then people accept you in the new part. They don’t accept you if the project isn’t any good.

WS: As an actor and as a person, what did you take away from the 11-year experience on Cheers?
DANSON: Writing, casting, people actively loving each other on stage. Writing really fun material works. It was the kind of funny that was human-frailty funny, it wasn’t topical, it didn’t depend on mean or stupidity, it was such bright, smart writing and that tends to be timeless. It had a great group of actors; every one of them has gone off and done amazing things.

WS: A lot of the comedy nowadays tends to be kind of mean-spirited, but you have avoided that.
DANSON: I was lucky. Damages I thought was almost funny, it was so wonderfully dark and everybody was so wonderfully devious and bad that it was almost a comedy—a very, very dark comedy. And then Bored to Death was never about being mean, it was about being just this strange character and being put in the most strange situations! But there wasn’t a mean bone in creator Jonathan Ames’ body. He is one of those unique people that is like a total innocent who hasn’t walked away from any perversion the world has ever presented him!

WS: And what about working with Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm?
DANSON: I have to credit Larry because I felt like I had stayed at the comedy party too long. I wasn’t amusing myself anymore and I was burned out and didn’t quite know what to do. He would call and say, What are you doing this afternoon, come on down. And it was that effortless improvisation that was so much fun. It was such a unique format that got me excited again. Anyway, he really did me a great turn as a friend involving me in that.

WS: How did your involvement in Oceana start? You lived in Santa Monica and were walking on the beach with your girls and there was a sign that said, “Water Polluted, No Swimming.”
DANSON: Yes, and then meeting Bob Sulnick who is an environmental lawyer. We got along and then we engaged Occidental Petroleum and prevented them from drilling 60 oil wells in the bay there. We enjoyed each other’s company and the subject and we decided to start an environmental ocean advocacy group and we did. Over the years, being around so many scientists, marine biologists, lawyers and campaigners, I have learned a lot and stuck with it. It’s been over 25 years and it’s been absolutely a fascinating part of my life. And I must say a hopeful one; things now at Oceana are getting very exciting and things are turning around. The problems are huge but there are now beginning to be solutions and we know what to do, so it’s very exciting.