- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes of the Waltons."
Today, I am so excited,
because I have a very special guest,
someone I have been working to coordinate for some time,
but I am thrilled to say my special guest today
is Richard Thomas.
Welcome, and thank you so much
for agreeing to take time out of your tour to talk with me
and to talk with all of the viewers,
and we really appreciate it.
- Well, it's a pleasure.
I appreciate it too, I'm excited about it.
- Cool. How's the tour going?
- It's going great.
I'm speaking to you from Omaha, Nebraska,
a city and state I've never visited before.
We just opened here last night,
we're here for a week,
and it was a great audience, and really terrific,
and we had a good show.
And then we're here for a week,
and we go to Minneapolis for a week,
and then Appleton, Wisconsin,
another town I bet you've never been in. (laughs)
And then, I don't know, St. Louis, and Baltimore,
and then Florida, and Texas,
we're all over the place,
and we finish in July.
But it's going great.
- Oh, cool.
So you're on sort of the,
in terms of this overall span of it,
you're kind of into the final stretch, the last part.
- The last third.
Yeah, exactly.
It's like five months to go,
and it's basically a year-and-a-half tour.
So we've been doing it,
all we've done,
I think this week we will hit 350 performances,
and (laughs)
it's the road,
it's long and it's challenging,
but it's also very satisfying.
- Good, so you know all your lines now.
(Richard laughing)
- Yeah, I know everybody else's lines too at this point.
- I remember that,
even from the time I was a kid doing theater,
I would very quickly know the entire show, you know?
- Oh, absolutely.
Kids do.
It's a thing
that if you're a child actor
and you're in a scene with an adult actor
who forgets their lines,
you know exactly what they're forgetting.
And you have to be careful not to say anything,
because then you become like this sort of wise-ass kid.
And so you're like,
I know why you're doing this,
I know what the line is that you're not saying,
but I don't dare tell you,
because I'm gonna get in trouble. (laughs)
- Well, yes, I would pipe up at times (laughs) as a kid.
- Oh sure, well, I've done it,
I did it too.
You know?
Yeah, kids learn,
and they learn all of that stuff.
- Yeah.
So, I've heard you talk about this,
but the viewers haven't necessarily,
but the difference between doing film,
you know, something that's for television,
film, and theater,
and how do you see that difference,
and what's your preference?
- Well, there are areas of which I don't have a preference.
You know, I mean, acting is acting,
and the excitement of working with people
that you enjoy being with,
and sort of that conditional intimacy that you have,
and the experience of doing it,
and of course wanting to tell the truth
and give the best performance possible,
all those things are the same,
and one is not preferable to the other in that respect.
Great thing about film is that it's like detail work,
you know, it's like painting cameos,
very small, very specific details.
And there are things that the camera will see,
as you yourself have pointed out when we've been on panels,
that there are things that the camera will see
that you cannot see past the third row of a theater.
And also the camera is mysterious
in that it allows you to look at the face
without knowing maybe what the person is thinking at all,
which it can be very mysterious in that respect.
The idea of working in the detailed way,
over and over, take by take,
is very fascinating and interesting.
But my preference of the two always has been theater,
and always will be,
not because I think it's better or more virtuous somehow,
I just, I like the experience of it.
I love the live, I love playing with an audience,
I love doing the play from start to finish,
I love getting a response,
I love being able to go back night after night,
and refine it, and work on it, and check on it,
and, you know, learn more about it,
and add something that I hadn't.
You know, especially when you're doing a long play like this
over a long period of time,
you know, I've had many insights about the role
over the last few months
that I would never have been able to have
rehearsing and shooting on a set, doing a scene in one day.
And you gotta have material that's good enough for that,
but when you do, it's really an exploratory process,
it's very interesting and exciting.
And another thing I like about theater
is that we all come together in the theater
together at the same time in the evening,
and tell the whole story together.
I don't know how many times,
and I know you've had this experience
as many times as I have, you know,
you go to the rap party for a show, a movie,
you know, or an episode of a series, or a series,
and you meet people who are in the show
who you've never met.
Not only have you not been in a scene with them,
you've never met them.
But in theater,
even if they're actors who you don't have a scene with,
you get to watch them from the wings,
or you get to hear their voice,
and hear how the scene's going,
so that everybody is actually a part
of the whole story all the time.
And that's a thrilling part of it for me.
- Yeah, you definitely have that sense of community
with the whole group.
- Yes.
- It can.
For us of course, with the series,
you have that because we just --
- Of course you do.
- Sheer amount of time that we spent on it.
- I mean, probably more time,
we probably spent more time with each other,
week to week, or as much certainly,
as we did with our own families.
- Yeah. Often more.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
- So, Waltons,
let's go back to the beginning. (chuckles)
Here you were,
now --
- I gotta tell you, I gotta give you a real disclaimer here.
- Yeah?
- At my age, (laughs)
you'll probably be reminding me of things
that have gone way out of my head.
- It happens to me all the time too,
so we're gonna take some broad strokes. (laughs)
- That's perfect.
- You remember being cast.
- I remember, (laughs)
I remember being,
I remember I was in my parents' ballet school
on Broadway and, I don't know, 83rd Street, 84th Street,
getting the call, speaking with my agent,
getting the offer for The Homecoming.
And I was thrilled with that first phone call,
because I learned that Pat Patricia Neal was in it,
and I was very excited about the idea of working with her.
And then of course, you know, then they sent the script,
and it was fantastic.
And, you know, so I remember the phone call, actually,
about The Homecoming,
inviting me to be a part of that.
- So you were living in New York at that point,
so connection to playing,
what did you bring?
I know you have connections to Kentucky,
and so, creating this character.
I mean, I was born and raised in LA,
so what did I know about being a country kid?
I learned it on the show.
For you, I think you had some other things to pull from.
- I did, I did, Judy.
It was wonderful for me,
because I spent really the happiest,
some of the happiest times,
I mean I had a pretty happy childhood,
but some of the happiest parts of it
were spent every summer of my childhood,
and young early manhood,
going to visit my grandparents
on their farm in eastern Kentucky,
which is really out in the country.
Especially in those days,
now it's a little bit more suburban,
it's a little bit more,
there are more homes, and the roads are better,
and all that.
But it was real country, and they had a farm,
and I just went, my parents dropped me off
right after school,
and I stayed there three months
and just spent the whole summer there
with my cousins and playmates,
and we had horses, and we had all that stuff.
And I had the sound of it in my ear too,
of the accents, and the way people spoke,
and how they expressed themselves.
So, it was a wonderful opportunity,
really my first opportunity
to bring that whole part of my life into the work.
And I felt so comfortable,
I felt like I know who this kid,
and because he was an artist,
you know, because he was a bit of an outsider
even within that circle,
from his artistic viewpoint,
you know, watching everything and observing everything,
I felt like I got the country part of myself
that I could bring,
but also the artist part of myself that I could bring.
'Cause John Boy was that as well.
So it was a terrific opportunity to bring big parts of me,
that were sort of like in me, to the role.
- Do you have any recollection
of like first impressions in The Homecoming,
of this gaggle of siblings that you were handed? (chuckles)
- I do.
I just have the best,
I have the most wonderful memory.
I remember Jackson Hole as being just a wonderful time
for all of us,
and we weren't even there that long I don't think,
we really weren't there a very long time.
- Like a week, yeah.
- Yeah.
But it was very special,
because we were all,
and we got snowed in at one point in the hotel,
and I think that's when Edgar Bergen came down
and did his performance for us.
- [Judy] Yeah.
- With the puppets.
But I felt by the time we got back together
to do the series, all of us kids,
I felt so bonded with everybody all.
We'd already made a family, you know?
And then we did all those scenes at Radford at CBS, right?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah.
All that stuff in the barn.
And I just,
I think we all,
I think we got each other very quickly
and created a family very quickly.
- Yeah, I had that same sense.
- It was clear early on too
we were gonna do a lot of laughing.
(Judy laughing)
- Yeah.
- There was gonna be a lot of laughter involved.
- There was, yeah.
I always adored the relationship
between John Boy and Mary Ellen,
those were some of the most fun scenes for me,
the bantering, the teasing.
And yet there were so many wonderful scenes
that were important as well,
where we talked about important things, the characters.
- Oh, absolutely.
Oh, definitely.
I love one of,
it was such an interesting relationship,
because they were clearly devoted to one another
and were absolutely totally bonded as siblings,
but they had that wonderful friction
of getting on each other's nerves,
and sort of contesting each other,
and you now, Mary Ellen's assertiveness as a girl
was such a wonderful flavor in the show.
And when the two of them would be at loggerheads,
I just thought it was great,
because, you know, it's another example of how that show
wasn't just all sweet all the time.
You know?
There was some salt and pepper there,
and I thought it was really, really good.
It was a very special relationship.
- Yeah.
I always love,
as I am watching back on episodes
to talk about them for this channel,
scenes will pop up, and I'm like,
"Oh, what fun."
It'll just make me smile again.
It's like, "Oh, there they go again." (giggles)
- Yeah.
And you can remember,
and I haven't watched the show for a while,
but watching the scene again,
I remember playing the scene, doing the scene,
but also I can kind of remember
what was going on around the camera too.
It will trigger memories of the actual work process,
and being together that day, or where we were,
and then there's a whole other chain of memories
that are released as a result, you know?
Because it's the scene and the playing,
but it's also everything we were doing,
and everything we were up to,
and how our day was going,
all that kind of stuff.
- Yeah.
- Scenes that were shot up in Fraser Park.
You know?
I'll see them, and I'll just remember that ride
up the Five Freeway,
and, you know, staying at that motel in Gorman
if we had an overnight,
going up and shooting in those beautiful vistas.
It was really beautiful up there.
- Yeah, definitely.
I learned a lot working on the show, obviously,
and I learned a lot from you,
and I've talked a bit about how your professionalism,
and your commitment always to the work,
and your generosity with your fellow actors,
the sense that you were always right there,
you know, you were always right there with me in a scene,
whether you were on camera or off camera,
and those are things that I'm sure impacted all of us
as younger performers,
that work ethic of supporting and community
within the cast and stuff like that.
So I always really appreciated that,
that you weren't phoning it in off camera,
or you weren't like,
"Hey, I gotta go do literally take a phone call,
so, you know, Dick Chaffey, script supervisor,
is gonna read my lines off camera for you."
- That does happen I think.
That does happen.
I mean, I did guest star stuff on shows when I was younger,
where after the actor,
after the lead actor had done his part of a scene,
he'd leave,
and then you were speaking lines to a script supervisor.
Well, thank you, first of all, for saying that.
My memory of myself in those days
is just of kind of being a pain in the ass, (laughs)
frankly.
- But you were a lovable pain in the ass. (laughs)
- Oh, (laughs)
good, okay.
- I never thought you are a pain in the ass. (chuckles)
- Well, thanks, but you know,
I mean, you've got this part in a series, and it's a hit,
and all those things that happened to us
when we all became celebrities.
And I just thought, "Oh, Richard."
But then I have to remember, I was like 21, 22,
so I cut myself a little slack.
But I think what you're talking about
just comes from the fact
that I had already done a lot of work
by the time I got there.
You know, I had made movies,
and I had done a lot of theater,
and I've been an actor since I was seven years old.
Right?
My actor's equity card will be 65 years old this year,
or next year.
Who's counting?
So I brought,
I was already kind of like knew how to go to work,
but also my parents were very important in that,
because I was raised by ballet dancers,
and I had models at home
for how to go to work in the theater,
and how to be a member of a company,
which all dancers do.
So the sort of,
the showing up, if you will,
the kind of professionalism,
or just looking at yourself as one actor in a company,
that all was inculcated in me by my parents
as I was watching them work,
being a child, watching the dancers work together,
and then doing my own work as a kid.
So all that went together
to sort of create a sort of,
maybe a more disciplined approach, you know?
And also always looking at it just as work.
You know what I mean?
The ego stuff is all there when you're having a success,
but it's your job,
it's a job of work you're going to do.
And when you're playing a scene,
say you and I are playing a scene,
it's all focused on just that,
the presence of your partner
and making it real and true,
that's the thrilling part of what we do.
And so I was always able to just keep focused on that,
on the work aspect of it, you know?
You know, while my ego was being pumped up,
like you won't believe. (Judy laughing)
- We all went through it,
and we came out the other side, which is good. (giggles)
- Yeah, we did come out the other side, here we are.
It's true, Judy. (chuckles)
- Yeah.
I wanna thank Richard so much
for coming to be a part of this,
and I will be back
with more of that conversation with Richard very soon.
Thanks for watching.