JUSTIFIED: Talking with Michael Rapaport

Jeri Jacquin, Movie Maven

This season on the FX hit Tuesday night at 10:00 p.m. series JUSTIFIED there have been some changes. Of course with Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins still in the mix, having Michael Rapaport join the cast has made things very, very interesting.

Rapaport isn’t a new face to television and film. He has performed in such films as THE BASKETBALL DIARIES, COPLAND, DEEP BLUE SEA, and LIVE FREE AND DIE HARD. His talents have also led him to television with roles in such series as Boston Public and a stint on Friends as Phoebe’s boyfriend. He has also appeared on My Name Is Earl and Prison Break.

Now, on JUSTIFIED he plays Darryl Crowe, Jr. a member of the Crowe crime family who are also gator-farmers. Hey, even the criminal element has to have fun right? This season everyone will be tested and Michael Rapaport who plays Darryl talks about his role.

Do you think Darryl turns a blind eye when it comes to family?

I think that he’s turning a blind eye to them because they’re family.  I think in his head he thinks he’s doing the best thing for his family.  He’s running the family and he has taken on this responsibility.  So I think in his head he thinks he’s doing the best thing for everybody, but as the season keeps going on we’ll see how that plays out. But it’s definitely been a lot of fun, and I think there are a lot of big twists and turns at the end that are going to be, I would say, kind of shocking.  There are a couple of scenes that are like crazy.

You play to Boyd played by Walton Goggins, can you tell us what it’s like to play against a character that is similar to yours and have you talked about that?

We haven’t had discussions—well, yes, we did have a couple of discussions about it.  Walton is honestly one of the best actors I’ve ever had a chance to work with.  It’s been a real pleasure working with him, and him and Tim’s insistence and persistence on pushing the envelope, not just for them but for the show and for all the other actors, has been a real pleasure and just a real—it’s just been a lot of fun. It’s been challenging and creative.  Those guys, they’re just really good, and they really care about what they’re doing.  It pays off in the end result, but they really are team players and very welcoming and encouraging for everybody to do good. And as far as the characters, yes, we’ve talked about it a little bit.  Obviously Boyd is the most fleshed out of all of the bad guys, and I think he’s very humanized.  So he’s really a bad guy you could get behind in the character.  He just brings a lot of color to the character. I think there was a scene that was in last night’s episode—yes we did talk about that.  Darryl wants the same thing Boyd wants.  They’re both criminals.  They’re both criminals, and at the end of the day they’re just trying to find their way and make their way.  So that’s definitely something we talk about. 

With great performances on the show, was it intimidating or motivating for you?

That’s what attracted me to it, because I know the pedigree of actors that they’ve had on the show and I’ve been a fan of the show before I got there.  So it made me excited and want to be a part of it.  I think they have a really good standard and a bar that they set so far.

What has been the most challenging and favorite thing about playing Darryl?

My favorite part is just being able to say and do things that you can’t do in real life and behaving in a way that’s just not really acceptable in the real world.  And then when I see the episodes, I get off on the little things, the little sort of things, the lines in between the lines of dialogue. So that’s been my favorite part and just really being able to—it’s like playing cowboys and Indians.  When you’re playing this bad of a character, it’s obviously not reality for someone who’s not living that life.  So that’s been the most fun.  The challenge has been just the intensity of the work schedule, the accent and my own personal standards.

It’s easy to like your character, how has it been for you?

It’s been fun.  It’s been one of the more fun jobs that I’ve had in a long time as an actor.  To be able to play somebody that says and does pretty much whatever he wants, he’s manipulative and I think he’s very self-serving, although I don’t think he’s aware of it.  It’s just been a lot of fun, and sometimes it’s been like venting.  You go.  You scream and yell.  You punch people.  You smack people and all that stuff.  So it’s fun to do. 

Do you want this role to continue?

I know that I had to accept my fate going into it.  I know that a character like this is living on the edge.  So it’s really week-to-week.  You didn’t know what was going to happen, and I didn’t really know what was going to happen until we finished shooting.  So I finished shooting.  You don’t really get a heads up, but I knew that the way that he’s behaving and the fact that I’m a bad guy stepping into a world of other bad guys that there was a risk to take, but I didn’t have any problems with it because it’s just been fun while it’s lasted. 

Is there something that particularly drives you as an actor?

Part of it is the same in terms of you just want to do the best you can do.  It sounds sort of cliché.  You just want to do a great job every time you get in front of a camera, every time you’re in a scene. But as you get older and do more work, you want to try to variate yourself and you want to try to different things and bring different colors; try to just—I think about more stuff than I did when I was younger, in terms of a performance.  And I’m more, as an actor on film or digital these days, whether its TV or actually movies, aware of the technical aspect of that acting, where the camera is, sort of pacing yourself to sort of create a performance and color a performance using the camera. So I’m more aware of that and I’m conscious of that, but at the end of the day my sole goal, when I go into any scene, is to try to be as honest as I possibly can, and then everything else is second.  But the most important thing for me is to just be as honest as I possibly can. In this performance, the accent was important, but at the end of the day the honesty and the believability has always been my main goal as an actor.  That’s always my first thing, just to be as real as possible.

Was learning the accent difficult?

It was a lot of work.  It was a lot of work.  It was a lot of time.  I feel like I did a good job and I’m proud of it and it was a great opportunity to do something a little bit different for me.

When Raylan and Miller walk in the room with all the other guys, what was that like? 

It was a lot of fun.  Everybody was aware of the amount of talent in the room and the body of work of the collective group of people.  We were all sort of very excited to work with each other.  I’ve been friends and a fan of Wood Harris for a while and Steve Harris, and then of course Eric Roberts has done some of the most great work in films.  He’s had a handful of really, really, really special performances.  So we were all excited to work with him. So it was a fun day.  It was an intense day.  It was a lot of people and a lot of opinions, but I think everybody was really excited to be working with each other, especially all in one bowl of soup.  So it was fun.  It was a good time.

Was there something you personally wanted to add to the scene?

For me, I was just trying to find a time to do a monolog from The Pope of Greenwich Village for Eric Roberts, which I never got around to, but I wanted to do my monolog for Eric Roberts for a couple of scenes from The Pope of Greenwich Village. There were a lot of pictures being taken.  Everybody was taking pictures of each other because everybody was kind of like, “Oh, …, I’m a fan of yours.”  It was just kind of like a fun environment.

When Dewey runs off with the truck can you hint at to what Darryl will do when he discovers that?

Darryl is not playing around.  I can just say this, he’s not playing around.  He’s not taking any [unintelligible] prisoners going forward.  He’s getting more and more impatient as things go along.  So the best I can tell you is that Darryl Crowe Jr. is definitely coming in—he’s ready to get what he wants to get.

Can you tell us what you think of the writing of Justified?

It’s a lot of fun to get the scripts and to read the scripts.  One of the things about the show is that it’ll have long, four, five, six-page scenes and they’re almost like a play within the episode.  It’s not something that you get to do a lot on television. And to be honest, it’s not something you get to do a lot in film, just have a scene, have a beginning, middle and end without a lot of exposition.  And I think that the writers do a really good job of when there is exposition they color it to the characters and they try to make it a little bit more specific, as opposed to just sort of giving information to the audience and trying to fill in the blanks. So it’s really fun and exciting, and I think it keeps you on your toes.  Every time you get a script, you look forward to opening it up and starting it, whereas sometimes that’s not the case with other shows.

What do you think makes the show so popular?

I think the thing that makes the show so popular first comes from the writing and the world that’s set up, and then I think it’s the actors and I think it’s Tim and Walton.  I think they’ve just created really, really fun characters.  I think it’s like good versus evil, but then the lines are skewed. And at the end of the day, I think it’s a world that’s a modern day Western.  From a time when you were a little kid it’s like cowboys and good guys versus bad guys, and I think that it’s really relatable.  And I think the backdrop of Harlan, obviously it’s a heightened world that the Justified people live in, but it’s just sort of a heightened fantasy world of good versus evil and cops and robbers. 

How is it for you to get in and out of this character?

It hasn’t been that easy to get into.  It was easy to get out of because you’re so in it for the time when you’re shooting that by the time you’re done—I know that some of the other actors talk about it.  Walton, I know, by the time the season’s over you don’t want nothing to do with it because it’s very intense.  Those guys are intense, and I mean that in a good way, and you push yourself; they push you and the writing pushes you. But Tim and Walton really set the tone of, I think, excellence.  They’re both great.  I hope that they get Emmy nominations and win them.  They both deserve them, and I think it’d be a little overdue.  I think that they’ve done as good of work as anything that’s been on television in the last five or six years.

Tell us about working with Alicia Witt?

I have to say that I’ve been enormously impressed with Alicia’s work and her intensity, and you’ll see in the last few episodes what I mean.  She’s done some incredible work.  We’ve had some days that couldn’t have been more intense, coming up in these last few episodes, and they’ve been a pleasure and very impressive. She really gives the show some really special talents and skills, as the episodes go along.  There are some scenes towards the end of the season that are just great, and working with her she was just really special, special work. 

And Jacob Lofland? 

He’s been great.  He’s a really sweet kid.  He’s a young kid.  He’s from Arkansas.  He’s a really kid.  We’ve had a lot of fun with him.  He’s another really good talent.

Do you prefer television or film?

I think that it’s just a matter of job to job.  Each environment is different.  Each job is different and each realm of creativity that they give you is different.  You try to do the best you can and put as much time into it as you can, but different jobs, different circumstances come about. Sometimes you know about a job four months in advance.  Sometimes you know about a job four days in advance.  So it’s all different, and my thing is I just try to stay prepared.  It’s like a boxer; you never know when you’re going to get your next fight so you have to just stay in shape mentally and physically and creatively. 

Do you have other shows you like to watch and would like to be on?

That’s a good question.  Right now, let me see, well, I was obviously a big fan of Breaking Bad.  Everybody was into that.  I’ve been enjoying True Detective.  To be honest with you, right now, I’m probably forgetting some stuff, but to be really honest with you the thing that I get the most joy out of on television, besides sports right now and since True Detective ended I’m really, and I wouldn’t say that I’m embarrassed about it because I’m actually a proud viewer, but I do watch a lot of reality television, for better or for worse, like a lot of Bravo television. It’s shameful, but sometimes I watch those episodes of television and I’m like, “That was a really good hour of television.”  I know, I know it doesn’t sound highbrow and geeky and all that.  But all these television critics and stuff like that, you can sit down and watch a couple of hours of some good reality television and it’s as entertaining as anything that they have on cable, HBO, Showtime or anything.  I promise you. 

Do you have a scene between Darryl and Boyd that you enjoy the most?

My favorite moment between Darryl and Boyd was probably the first scene when we met in the bar.  That was probably my favorite.  It was a really long scene.  It had ebbs and flows and twists and turns.  I’m a real fan of Walton, and he’s just really a perfectionist and great it is to work with Walton.  I can’t say enough about him.  He really just is a very intense, really pushing himself and pushing everybody else.  He’s very encouraging of all the other actors around him and just a real team player and a really inspiring actor to work with. 

Do you really like the Real Housewives show? Why?

I don’t know what it is about Real Housewives that I love so much.  I just find it really entertaining, and somehow or another they create these characters.  I don’t know if they’re characters or real.  The thing about it is I always try to watch it and I’m like, “Is this real?  Is this staged?”  You don’t know.  Is it fake?  Is it scripted?  But if you look at it, let’s just assume that it is all fake, there are some talented non-actors out there in the world. I don’t know what to say.  It sounds stupid and I don’t think it’s sort of chic and cool to say that you’re into these reality shows, but I’m all into all that Bravo stuff.  It’s fun and entertaining and it’s sort of a release from reality, my reality.  I laugh my … off.  Me and my lady, we sit in the bed; we watch that … and we have a good time. 

What made you think “yea, I have Darryl pegged”?

That’s a good question.  A lot of it is in the writing.  I think the thing that made it click for me is the idea of him thinking that he’s taking care of his family and that everything he’s doing is in the best interest of his family.  He says that a lot, but I think his actions, especially as we get towards the end of the season, don’t really live up to that.  But I think family and him thinking that he’s taking care of his family is the main thing.

Thanks for the insight Michael and we will see Darryl Crowe Tuesday nights at 10:00 on FX, as it gets better and better and crazier and crazier, and the blood soaks the streets!