BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. _ There's something so essentially American about actor Keith Carradine that he's found himself riding the trails of countless westerns, interpreting Will Rogers, running a rustic coffee shop in "Fargo" and singing folk music in "Nashville."
That's why Carradine seems so easy as the president in CBS' "Madam Secretary," returning Sunday. Though he's executing what he calls "make-believe," Carradine seems better suited to the Oval Office than either of the candidates actually running.
"I've never been a personality actor," he says, leaning back in a frieze banquette in a coffee lounge here. "I've always been kind of a character man, and I guess that's my heritage. That certainly was my father's."
Carradine springs from an acting dynasty: his father was character actor John Carradine, his brother, Robert, and late half-brother, David, both chose performing. His two daughters are actresses. Martha Plimpton, his oldest, is currently starring in 'The Real O'Neals' on ABC.
"They're all good kids. I told them all to forget about acting except for Martha. Martha had the bit in her teeth by the time she was 11. There was no stopping her. I've gently encouraged all of them to find something you can make a living at but also that gives you joy. I don't think there's anything more important in life than that."
In spite of his vast experience and collection of laurels, Carradine is still uneasy when he begins a role.
"I'm a little bit scared every day when I go to work. There's always the possibility for abject failure; that is always there. There have been moments when I felt I haven't lived up to the opportunity that I was given. That would be my sense of it, not necessarily the viewers' sense of it. I tend to be my own worst critic. I don't like looking at my work on film. The beautiful thing about theater is you can't. It's over. It's done ... We all have these garden-variety neuroses about the work and how to get better at it. Striving toward excellence is a worthy cause."
With films "The Duellists," "The Long Riders," "Choose Me" and TV shows "Chiefs," "Dexter," "Deadwood" on his resume, his career seems a slam-dunk.
Not so, he says. "There have been a couple of occasions when I've done something that I didn't necessarily feel that way about, but I had to because I needed to earn the money to feed the kids and pay the rent. I haven't had a life where I could only choose to do things that I was crazy about doing because I had the financial security or financial freedom to never have to work for the money. I haven't been blessed in that way," he shakes his head.
"There have been times when I've had no choice. I had to find a way to make some money. And on those occasions, you do things that aren't necessarily what you would've chosen to do if you'd had the financial freedom to choose otherwise. That's just the name of the game."
His longest siege of unemployment was after he made "Southern Comfort" with Walter Hill. "That film failed at the box office. It was a really good movie, but was not promoted. It's interesting how this business can work in that way. Sometimes it comes down to marketing. If you don't get the support, then the audience isn't going to know you're there, and they can't find it. That might've been the case with 'Southern Comfort.' All I know is it came out, it failed, and I don't believe I worked again for 18 months."
So Carradine, 67, did the unexpected. He headed for Broadway costarring with fabled theater actors Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy in "Foxfire."
"That was the beginning of a turnaround for me in terms of reminding myself what it is I love about being an actor," he recalls.
Married for 20 years to his second wife, Hayley, Carradine says: "She is the love of my life. I was talking to Martha the other day, she has a person in her life now. She says it's the first time it's been easy, that it's not work. She always understood that making a relationship work was hard work. And I think it's hard work if maybe it's not the right relationship ... But if it's right, it's kind of easy. My wife, Hayley, it's as easy as can be," he nods.
His wife is an actress on hiatus caretaking her father who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. "That's a big part of my life," Carradine confides. "He's at home with us. We started doing this six or seven years ago because Hayley's grandparents got to be where they couldn't be alone ... I looked into the situation, and we all agreed we would pool our resources, which is what we did. Hayley and I had a little house in Studio City. We rented that out, then her mom and dad and grandparents � all six of us � moved in together in a big house.
"We split the rent three ways, and began doing that sort of communal life, and it's worked really well. We lost her grandparents in the last couple of years, but mom and dad are still with us so it's the four of us, and it's a challenge and also an enormous gift and a beautiful thing."
SUPERHERO LANDS ON NETFLIX
The new superhero flexing his muscles is Mike Colter starring in "Marvel's Luke Cage," which begins streaming Friday on Netflix. The unique thing about this man-of-special-speeds is that he's black. "It's important in the landscape of television, and also I think globally _ as far as symbols and people _ when they look at black culture, it's important that we have positive images," says Colter, who's a positive image himself.
"We're just trying to tell a story about a superhero who's going through the same kind of changes that other superheroes _ who are not black _ go through. But because we are in small numbers ... we're kind of looked at differently, in a different perception," he says.
"But we're just trying to tell a unique story. And I think we've done so. And anything you can glean from that, then that's not something that we're trying to overtly do. We have no agenda. But I'm proud that people do think he's a good superhero. And I hope that the black community can feel good about him as well."
"Luke Cage" marks the third in the "Defenders" series landing on Netflix. Upcoming will be "Marvel's Iron Fist" and "Marvel's The Defenders."
ANTHONY HOPKINS KEEPS IT SIMPLE
"Westworld" will be headed in a new direction when HBO's version of the Michael Crichton tale arrives on Sunday. Sir Anthony Hopkins is onboard as Dr. Ford, but he insists he employed no mental gymnastics to play the part. "I don't get into the head space of a character I'm supposed to be playing," he says.
"It's all I seem to be cast as over the years _ a control freak. I don't know why, because I'm not that at all. I hope not. I have a kind of diffident attitude about things, which has come with age, I guess, over the years. But they are fascinating parts to play. So obviously I can tap into some ... I am only an actor. But what I can say is that I keep it really very simple: learn the text ... For me, the identity is just in the text, following common sense and logic, listening to the director, making some suggestions here and there." There you have it. Keep it simple and you too can be a Knight of the Realm.
SERIES RECAPITULATES HISTORIC EVENTS
One of the best shows of the new fall season is NBC's "Timeless," co-executive produced by Shawn Ryan ("The Shield.") This marks a time-shift series with a difference. Viewers are catapulted back in time to witness some massively historic event. The first, premiering next Monday, re-lives the devastating explosion of the Hindenburg.
Ryan explains, "I think we want to establish the basic parameters of the show, and then I think we'll have fun trying to break the parameters in certain episodes ... We think one of the things that makes our show unique and different is that we are going back to the assassination of President Lincoln, to 1962 Las Vegas. We're going to go to the Alamo. We're going to go to Watergate. We're going to go to Germany during World War II. We're going to the space race the day we landed on the moon. So those things, I think, essentially are the heart and core of our show. And I don't want to do episodes yet that abandon them."
And how far back will they travel? In geologic terms, not that far. "I don't think we're going back to Greek mythology," he says. "Right now, the farthest we go back at the moment is the 1750s, so that's pretty far back. That's during the French Indian War. We have an episode that we're planning that takes place then. So we'll go pretty far back, but I don't think we want to end up in medieval castles. I don't think we want to end up in the Coliseum in Rome yet. Talk to me in Season 3."
