- Welcome back to another segment
of behind the scenes of "The Waltons."
Today I'm very happy to say I am back
with more of my conversation with Richard Thomas.
So please welcome back Richard.
But then there was the fun side, which we said,
a lot of laughing and a lot of bloopers
and a lot of intentional,
and you and John Ritter trying to crack each other up and...
(Judy laughs)
- Oh, I know. We were so bad.
John Ritter and I were so...
If it had been a classroom,
we would've been absolutely separated.
They would've put us in different sides of the room.
We were so much trouble.
And then when John and I went on to do "It" together,
years later we made the movie of "It,"
we were the same way.
We were impossible.
We just couldn't,
we couldn't stop.
And John was such a...
I remember how we all looked forward
to him being on the show every time he would come.
It was always so much fun to have him on the show
'cause he was not just funny and talented.
He was really sweet
and delightful to be around as a person.
But we did laugh.
We had the best gag reels, I think.
I mean, I didn't see all the gag reels from all the shows.
None of us have seen those.
But I suspect "The Waltons'" gag reels
were way up near the top
because it was such a wholesome show,
and the gag reels were so (laughs) off color
and blue and naughty and...
I mean, it was Grandma going into the root cellar
to light up a joint, you know?
I mean, that was Ellen Corby.
I mean, that was... (laughs)
What's better than that?
And me and Will Geer mooning the camera
at the end of a scene.
I mean, oh, it was fun.
They got a little...
As the years went on,
they got a little raunchy if I recall, in terms of...
We would put in edgy clips from other things to make it...
It was one year maybe where it was a little like,
oh, that's a little...
I don't know about that.
But what we did was always funny.
- Well, some of it was legitimate, just fumbles,
and then there were the-
- Those were always the best.
- The creative ones like Ellen
or you guys mooning the camera or things. (laughs)
- Yeah, and Sissy Spacek and me
with the whips and chains in the bedroom. (laughs)
That was a funny one.
I mean, I don't know how a lot of that
would play these days.
Maybe it's better we leave it in the archives.
I don't know.
- Well, I think it would be fun for us to see,
but perhaps it's not-
- Yes, for us.
- It's not meant to be shared broadly. (laughs)
- Exactly.
- Well, with all of that,
what's interesting is that I don't remember ever talking
about the scenes per se
or how we were gonna play them.
It's nice if there was a guest on
who I had some scenes with.
We might step aside and talk about some things,
but we just kind of did it.
- We did it.
We learned our lines, we got together,
and there we were.
There was Richard and Judy,
but also Mary Ellen and John Boy right there,
and you step right into it.
And I think we would work,
the director would have ideas,
and then we would sometimes agree
and sometimes not agree and wanna have our...
We would have discussions about what we thought was,
would be a good way to play the scene.
But there wasn't ever any like,
let's discuss the meaning or the value,
what is the intention.
I think we all knew that and understood it.
We really just were those people.
We just put the costume on and there you were.
There we were - "Waltons."
And admittedly, television writing
and screenwriting very frequently is the kind of writing
where you can just jump in and play
because there's not a lot of layers.
This is what this character wants, this is what this,
this is the obstacle,
and then we just play it.
There are not a whole lot of levels
to try to discuss and reveal.
And it's a simpler kind of text, you know?
- Yeah.
- But it was most of the time really fun.
- Yeah. - Really.
And we were terrible at those dinner scenes.
It was like...
Remember what chaos that was?
- We got in trouble so often with the...
We got yelled at for... (laughs)
- We did.
It was never bad trouble.
- No.
We were just making it difficult for the crew to talk
and hear each other to do-
- Do their job.
- We kept saying, "Well, send us away."
And they're like, "No, no, no, we won't get you back."
- Exactly.
- We would just scatter like bugs.
- I know.
Sometimes I felt bad for the guest stars
because - we always treated them well.
We always immediately treated them
like members of the family.
But I would picture myself as a guest star
coming into this really fully formed
and bonded group of people,
a family basically.
It was like coming to visit somebody in their home.
And we were joking and laughing and this and that.
And these poor actors are trying to figure out
who they were, what they were doing,
and they were in the middle of this affectionate, fun chaos.
And it must have been wonderful
and challenging at the same time for them.
- I imagine.
But we never-
- We were friendly, though.
- We were respectful of guests.
We didn't mess around
if they had important emotional work to do.
People weren't making fun and making it difficult.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Speaking of directing,
you did direct a couple of episodes.
Was that something that you wanted to try your hand at?
You chose not to continue with it?
- [Richard] Yeah, I didn't...
I never envisioned myself as a director,
but I did realize that I...
The safest opportunity you could possibly have
to experience being a director is
if you are on a show with a crew
and a director of photography and assistant directors
and producers around you who you know
who will really, really make it hard for you
to do anything really terrible. (laughs)
It's a safe place to be a toddler.
And I thought, okay,
have the experience of directing because you can.
They'll let you direct,
and you don't know what you're doing,
but you've been in a lot of stuff.
But I was never like, oh, I'm gonna now have my,
I'm gonna launch my directing career.
I was never ambitious for that.
So after I'd had the experience of directing the shows,
which were okay, some better than others,
I thought, okay, you've had that flavor.
One of the most important things about it
was putting yourself in someone else's shoes.
So after having directed,
when I would work then subsequently,
I would really be able to have a clearer picture
of what the director was actually going through
or the challenges of being a director,
having to make all those decisions,
one right after another,
people coming at you with questions.
Just say, "Okay, this is what it's like to do that job."
So I had,
I always had respect for directors,
but I think after that,
I had a greater understanding of what they're up against
and what their process is.
And also, I mean, I was so...
That first show I did,
John Walton went and got a job in the city
in an office or something,
I had it all set up, as everybody does,
this big master shot.
It was gonna be one take.
The camera's gonna move around and every...
It's the ultimate cliche of a first-time director.
We're gonna do this shot with...
And I could see the crew just looking like,
"Oh no, he's gonna do that.
He's gonna do that to us."
And I thought, it'll save time.
We don't have to do different cuts.
It's all gonna be in one thing.
It took longer to shoot that one master
than it would've taken to shoot that scene three times over
if we'd done the standard cutting
and masters and closeups and overs.
So I really learned that lesson.
They were very patient with me.
And actually it was kind of cool when I saw it,
but I would... (laughs)
It was just such a typical thing for a first timer to do.
And that was a thing in those days, remember?
That was a thing that we were gonna do a master
that we weren't gonna have to cut into,
break that mold,
that classic mold of master, over,
over, single, single, whatever.
And people were doing that.
Ralph did it when he directed.
- Yeah, there were definitely...
It was a thing that we saw in some episodes,
and then other times not at all.
Sometimes it is,
if you can do it in one...
When I initially got a chance to direct for TV,
I was very fortunate to work with a DP
who had spent years and years
on the "Star Trek" incarnations.
And so when I went in my first day, I was really nervous.
And he's like...
I said, "I haven't really done this before."
And he was like,
"You know everything you need to know to do this."
And he said, "And I have walked many first-time actors
through their first time directing,"
actors who were directing for the first time.
He said, "Gotcha."
And he was brilliant 'cause I'd go in and I'd go,
"Well, I'm kind of thinking this and this."
And then he'd go, "Okay, well so how about if we do this?"
And he'd give me great suggestions and just-
- Right, exactly.
- Make it all work.
And there were the points when we had to,
we were running out of time and we had to get something.
It's like, "Well, let's figure out
how to just do this in one."
We didn't wanna do it all the time,
two talking heads standing next to each other,
or a walk and talk.
Let's do a moving shot.
- Yeah, that's the learning experience
when you're working with people
who really are gonna take you by the hand.
And I think you learn a lot
about not how to just make those scenes,
but how to be in them for having directed.
- Yeah.
- It was really valuable.
I'm glad that I did it
and I'm proud that I was able to push through
because it's a hard job.
I mean, because people are always coming to you
with questions.
I was in my twenties.
I was like, "Okay, well."
I mean, there are a lot of wonderful directors
in their twenties,
but they're real directors. (laughs)
- Yeah.
But with theater, it seems like...
'Cause I started directing in theater and-
- Well, you've done a lot more of that than I have.
- It would seem that
that might be a really great medium for you
if you were interested in it,
because you understand it so well
and you don't deal with the same technical elements.
- That's right.
That's right.
The only thing I ever directed for the theater
was a adaptation of "Red Badge of Courage"
for the Young People's Theater program at Lincoln Center.
I mean, not the Lincoln Center,
at the Kennedy Center in Washington.
And it was really fun.
I really, really enjoyed doing it.
And I did a halfway decent job and I liked it.
And then it went on tour all around the country
for years actually, that production.
But that was the only time I ever did it.
And directing a play,
I think would be something I would enjoy a lot.
It's less fragmented
and what I think would sit better with my...
Would be less anxiety provoking for me. (laughs)
- Yeah.
Thanks for joining us
for this second part of my conversation with Richard Thomas.
I'll be back with more behind the scenes of "The Waltons,"
more ask Judy and more with Richard Thomas.
Thanks for watching.