welcome back to another segment of
behind the scenes of the waltons today i
am taking more of your questions in a
segment of ask judy a question here from
laura if you had a choice to play a
character on a tv show that you watched
what show would it be and who would you
play and why i thought a little bit
about this i mean there's any number of
shows that i've watched and loved and
seen characters that i thought would be
a lot of fun one of the ones that stood
out for me was i always loved downton
abbey
and it would have been fun to play lady
grantham
uh she was american so although i can do
an english accent it might have been a
little intimidating to do an english
accent amongst all of those actual brits
i would have i think been a little
self-conscious there but she was
american
uh so that would have been fun but they
were just i think julian fellowes writes
wonderful and very witty material with a
lot of depth as well
i felt that the story lines were always
interesting i loved the layers to it the
scenery the house was amazing so to have
been part of a show like that and play
a wonderful character like lady grantham
it would have been a lot of fun a
question from dave judy i was wondering
you often say a person is a delight to
work with from the standpoint of the job
what makes a guest actor good to work
with as far as their qualities and how
they act on a set in your opinion uh
i use that term when i feel that someone
was not only easy to get along with both
on and off set
they also were very professional well
prepared
they brought interesting choices to the
character they really
brought it to life in a very believable
way and when people are great to work
with on camera they're right there with
you whether you're both on camera or
whether they're off camera while it's
your close-up but they really engage
with you
and when two actors have that happening
in a scene it it helps to bring out the
best work in both of them
we're trained to do that regardless of
what kind of performance is or isn't
happening opposite us but it's so much
nicer when you're working with other
actors who really care about the work
and
and want to make it a collaborative
process so that would be
my various different reasons for calling
someone a delight and often times
they're fun when the cameras aren't
rolling not that that's imperative and
sometimes if someone has a really heavy
uh
kind of character that requires a lot of
heavily
uh
emotional work
then
you kind of want to give them space so
that they can prepare however it is that
they need to prepare that sort of rolls
into this next question from hornet king
who says
i would love to know you and richard
specifically always captured intense
moments with tearing up was there an eye
drop that would be
would add tears like in a sequence with
jim bob during the dead guinea pig
sequence or did you process of getting
yourself emotional to tear up in certain
segments like in the typewriter where
richard and i had that emotional work
different actors
work differently and have a different
process
uh in some cases
uh glycerin or
would be put on a person's face so that
it would reflect
the light on that to show up as tears
some actors although they could produce
a very emotional scene didn't
particularly produce their own tears
so
that was something that could be done if
needed
as long as the emotional work was there
for some of us being able to create
tears
was easier
i i couldn't tell you why one person can
and someone else has difficulty with it
for me it's been it was something he
does ask
always wondered where you folks go in
your heads to hit those emotions since
they are always so believable
uh i had been doing theater from the
time i was very young
and
tv stuff where i needed to be able to
produce that kind of emotion
i would say that a number of things over
the years
were things that i used
most the time i would work to create it
within the scene
for instance in day of infamy
where that
letter is being read that kurt left
that daddy reads after he's gone
that was
much easier to produce that emotion
because the letter was so emotional and
the way ralph read it
so
generally if i can just buy into the
circumstances and really believe that
those circumstances are real then it's
much easier to do that
um
grief like any other emotion anger or
laughter is it's a kind of energy so
finding that energy and and when i was
coaching students sometimes i would have
them start with
with the breath
just as
a cue in i'd have them
you know start some you know get the
energy in their body moving in a certain
way because it's very it's like trying
to squeeze water out of a dry sponge if
there's nothing happening it's just
you're like trying to push a rock uphill
so getting your energy going
things like that i found made a
difference
once i
had my child i found that doing scenes
this was after the waltons because i
didn't have my son until after the
waltons i found that doing scenes where
as a mother i was upset about things
with my child was so much easier because
i could just completely relate to being
a mother and all those concerns and
fears and whatnot
so i think every actor will give you a
different
sense of what their journey is i know
you had another question here where you
said where are the houses used in
certain episodes like the tabor place in
the episode in season four where aj
covington comes back to shoot the movie
was that a dummy set facade
uh
so there were certain areas of the
warner brothers lot that were used a
number of times and i think a lot of
those houses were in various different
parts of
either what i referred to as midwest
street
or that was like where
uh
curtin mary ellen's house where dr
vance's house was where
mrs brimmer's boarding house was where
jenny where the pendleton house was so
any number of houses
there could be used now those did have
rooms inside but they were not rooms
where you could actually shoot in
particularly so those interior sets
would always be shot on the sound stage
the things on the back lot again there
was really virtually nothing inside they
were pretty much facades like godzi
store was pretty much a facade
and
there was a little kind of
cottage little house
that was right near drusilla's pond on
the other side that we frequently used
and they would just
change it up it was used in the in the
episode the ceremony for
the house that
that family stayed in
and it was used for various different
other things so there was houses along
the jungle area of the back lot that we
would use and
a lot of them were just
facades so thank you very much for your
questions next question is from
gary
uh let's see it wasn't until a few years
ago that i learned that tv shows and
movies aren't shot in chronological
order did it happen often that a
climactic scene was filmed way before
say the opening scenes i don't know if
it was regularly happened but it
certainly did happen
because you did have to shoot based on
location based on whether something was
an interior or an exterior if we
finished
shooting a previous
show because we shot six and a half days
we would often finish a show on the half
day so after lunch the new show would
start if we were on the back lot we were
going to start the new show on the back
lot so they
would if if those scenes were more
climactic than things inside the house
then
it could be that you shot it
uh if we
were inside then we'd start with inside
scenes so it definitely happened it
could be tougher sometimes i didn't find
it as tough on the waltons because
we were for the family for the regulars
we were always
playing
scenes so it wasn't as if you had to
come into a new show
getting to know new energy with a cast
and do
heavily emotional scenes right away in
that case
we were grooved in already so to do an
emotional scene
as a first scene of a new episode didn't
really make as much difference to me
as if it came towards the end of a
previous episode because the dynamics of
the family and the sets and the whole
crew everything was there for us i think
it would have been tougher for a guest
star coming in if that was their first
scene and i would find that sometimes
when i worked on other people's shows
if i had to come in and do
the really heavy scenes first
but it happens and you deal with it
alright another question you had with
the advances in filming do you think it
would still take six plus days to film a
44 minute episode
i wasn't totally sure so
i did some checking around and if you
look on the internet
it tells you all kinds of things but my
guess and which did seem to
be the most prominent answer was that
typically they are seven to eight days
even nowadays and certainly a show that
has a lot of action will take longer to
shoot than a show that is more
character driven in in that way in a lot
of just
interaction between characters without a
lot of
physical action to shoot last question
was were there ever any episodes that
initially the cast didn't like or you
didn't like
that you now see in a much better light
nothing specific comes to mind for me on
that
i do know i've talked about how i like a
lot of you felt that the first five
seasons were the strongest when
everybody was there and we were still
very young and the dynamics were such of
the parents raising young children
but
then i'll look back suddenly at an
episode from
season six richard thomas was gone in
season six and yet we had episodes like
the children's carol the first casualty
grandma comes home which were just
incredible episodes or season seven day
of infamy you know one of my
favorites the empty nest
another strong episode in season eight
the unthinkable you know we were dealing
with then issues relative to the war and
what was going on and for a young jewish
man
that was uh serving with jason to talk
about what was going on
with
the nazis and and the jewish population
it was just a really intense episode
and then even in season nine the outrage
that wonderful story about
harley foster being accused
uh and jailed
and then
the last 10 days which i thought was
some of eric's best work as a prisoner
of war in a
japanese prison camp so
when i look at those and remember all of
the great work and episodes that were
done
in season six seven eight nine
that's when i kind of think all right
maybe not every episode was great in
some of those later seasons but we
certainly had some standouts that's what
i have for this segment of ask judy i'll
be back with more of your questions in
another segment of ask judy and i'll be
back with more behind the scenes of the
waltons thanks for watching