LOS ANGELES _ Actors often call on elements from their own life to help them in playing a role. That's definitely not going to be the case from his early life as Bradley Whitford takes on the role of a former music professor who agrees to help a small-town church choir in the new NBC comedy "Perfect Harmony," debuting Thursday.
"I was actually raised Quaker, and bizarrely, one of the things I disagree with Quakers about is there's no music. So I didn't grow up in a church musical tradition. We sit in the silence and love each other. Not a great television show," Whitford says.
Whitford did have exposure to music away from church, as he performed in high school and college musicals. He also got to do some singing while attending Juilliard. That is how Whitford will handle the role of a music teacher in the series, which also stars Anna Camp, Tymberlee Hill, Rizwan Manji, Will Greenberg, Geno Segers and Spencer Allport.
Along with the music, Whitford's focus is making his character as cantankerous as possible while trying to help the group in dire need of fine tuning. The character's rumpled look was inspired by one of Whitford's teachers.
"There is a certain kind of beloved theater professor who I had, who was not a snob but always looked like kind of an unmade bed, and so I'm sort of going for that. ... I know a lot of people in academia, so I know that sort of, kind of pretentious mind set," Whitford says.
Despite his lack of music exposure as a youngster, Whitford became excited about the show as soon as he read the script. He found the story to be personal, specific and genuine. Plus it was about something he is certain is helpful now _ how music can bring different kinds of people together in a lovely way. He laughs and adds that he says all "that pretentious stuff knowing that all that really matters is that it's funny as hell."
Whitford's first big role was on the political drama "The West Wing" from 1999-2006, where his performance as John Lyman earned him a 2001 Emmy Award plus Golden Globe Award nominations in 2001, 2002 and 2003. You can take the actor out of the political arena, but you can't take the politics out of Whitford. He's involved in an assortment of causes, but his focus right now is getting people registered to vote.
There has been buzz in regards to a "West Wing" reboot and if that happened, Whitford would be happy to be part of it. He knows no matter how many cast members would return, the only way a new "West Wing" would be as good as the original would be if series creator Aaron Sorkin was running the operation.
He calls working on "The West Wing" a phenomenal experience.
"A show of 'The West Wing's' aspiration used to be an anomaly, and I actually think we're living in this amazing time where those kinds of aspirations are no longer anomalies, and I think network TV is sort of reacting to that sort of elevation of aspiration," Whitford says. "That's my sort of main observation about how this business has changed."
Since working on the series, Whitford has gone on to appear in a wide variety of TV and film projects including "Valley of the Boom," "Flack," "The Handmaid's Tale," "The Post," "Get Out," "Godzilla: King of the Monsters," "The Unicorn Store" and "A Happening of Monumental Proportions."
Whitford feels "so embarrassingly fortunate" about the acting opportunities he has received. Jordan Peele's "Get Out," was a game changer for Whitford because the box office hit came along when he was pushing 60. That opened up doors he knows would have otherwise been closed.
"What Jordan did was amazing. We had no idea how it is going to turn out when you are making it but just knew it was an interesting movie," Whitford says. "When I read the script, I was like 'Whoa!' I had never read anything like that. You look back at how it turned out and you assume that it would always turn out that way. We did not.
"It was a dangerous script because if you get that tone wrong it could be a disaster."
And now, as the star and an executive producer of "Perfect Harmony," Whitford is optimistic the tone of the comedy is just right and will end up being another hit on his resume.
