BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. _ Being married to an actor can be difficult, says British actor David Morrissey. "It's a profession where you can't plan anything. Talk to my wife about planning a holiday _ forget it. There's always a job coming up or if it hasn't, you think a job MIGHT come up. So it's that sense of living in a very insecure atmosphere. You don't know who's coming home."
Sometimes the role stays with him long after they've called "cut" on the set, he says over a Caesar salad in a restaurant here. The Liverpudlian has portrayed everything from a taxi driver to a politician, but is best known as the devious mastermind, The Governor, in "The Walking Dead." He costarred in shows like "State of Play," three "Red Riding" films, and "The Other Boleyn Girl," but his latest role in Starz's "The Missing" is one of those that dogs his footsteps.
"It's a very heavy story of a family going through a very traumatic situation," says Morrissey, who's wearing a light grey suit and a navy shirt with tiny flowers on it.
"So I'd come home at the end of the day and wasn't ready to sit down and watch some light TV or chat about the garden. You do bring it home with you. So my wife's a saint in that sense of trying to deal with an actor. It's really tough. It depends on the project _ some you go to work, you do it, go home, and it's fine. But not this one."
In "The Missing," he plays the father of a daughter who was abducted 11 years ago and suddenly reappears. Her return shatters the family dynamic. Morrissey is no stranger to that. He grew up in a working class family where his dad held down two jobs and his mother had three (among them was selling Avon products). His father, a shoemaker, died when David was 15.
"I became an adult quite quickly at that time," he says in his perfect BBC accent. "That is the time in any life when they realize they're not immortal and it depends on when it happens to you. And I think I realized at 15 that death is going to happen, and you're not immortal."
He is the youngest of four and says his two older brothers helped ease his loss. "My oldest brother is 12 years older than me. They stepped into that role really, so I never felt like it was absent. They were around, and they were great for me growing up. They took on the parental role very quickly. My grandmother lived with us as well, and an uncle lived near. Family all rallied around, and they were all very close. It was very traumatic, but I didn't feel alone in any way."
Morrissey, 52, was also 15 when he first stepped foot on a stage. "It sort of saved my life in a way. I was in Liverpool and was knocking about and didn't know what I wanted to do really. Then I did a play at school and I loved it. I wasn't very academic, wasn't getting along well at school, my studies were not good, and I didn't know what I wanted to do.
"Then I got on stage for this play, and I thought, 'This is really giving me something. I love it! I love what it's giving me. Not just an ego boost but learning lines, being in a different character, all those things."
Married for 10 years to novelist Esther Freud, Morrissey has three children, two boys, 22 and 12 and a daughter 19. He's very proud, he says, that all three attended his wedding. In fact, he and Freud dated for 13 years before they married. "I think it was to do with the fact that whenever we talked about it, it was WHEN are we going to do it? Then we had kids, so it took a while. I have to say having my children at my wedding was one of the great things � all three children at my wedding. They all made speeches. That was great. It was great to be there. Also the friends Esther and I had at our wedding were OUR friends � not her friends and my friends. They were friends we made together. It was a very communal thing."
In spite of his success, Morrissey still recalls his early days scrubbing floors and peeling potatoes in the canteen at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts where he studied. "What I remember about the canteen was the ladies who worked there. There was a wonderful woman who ran it called Lena, and they looked after me. They were great people; they were really kind and generous � not just to me � but to all the students. I would come in in the morning and they would give me breakfast, a sausage roll or something, then they would give me my lunch free ... I'd go to my bag at the end of the day, and there'd be three or four sandwiches they'd made.
"You've got to go through that," he adds after a pause. "It's important that you struggle to get what you want, then you appreciate what you have."
PETE HOLMES 'CRASHES' ON TV
Comic Pete Holmes and Judd Apatow have devised a unique comedy for HBO called "Crashing." It's about Holmes' pre-standup years when he was desperate to find work. And in these days of cynical TV, it's refreshing to follow an innocent abroad. "The show is certainly inspired by my real life," says Holmes, "so I'll try not to blur the details of my own experience and the show ...
"There is just this really interesting time _ it's about five years. I remember I opened for Bill Burr, and that's the number he gave me. He goes, 'It's five years of just _ there is no polite way for comedians not doing well _ I'll say "bombing."'
"You do badly for five years. And that's where you're grinding it out in the open mic scene, and the 'bringer' shows, where you have to bring the audience with you, or the 'barker' show _ something we explore here _ where you hand out flyers in exchange for stage time ... There hasn't yet, to my knowledge, been a show about what it's like in those five raw, very amateur, exposed years of standup."
BILL PAXTON TURNS ROGUE
We're so used to seeing Bill Paxton as the sweet, sometimes misled guy in shows like "Big Love," and "Texas Rising," it's refreshing to find him the antagonist in CBS' new "Training Day." "I think the thing that I really dug about this whole thing _ besides that it has been a lot of fun to play such a rakish, rogue character _ it kind of plays to all of my strengths," he says.
"I like to be entertaining. That's what I do. I'm an entertainer. And Frank Rourke, if he's anything, he is at least entertaining ... There's a real Western ethic involved in this character, ethos, I should say. He's a throwback. He's a gunfighter. He's almost been pulled out of a time-capsule and put in modern times, because he has this old kind of gunslinger code of honor. He's tough, but he's fair. And he's kind of woken up in this digital age, and he doesn't really know quite what to make of it. I can relate to that as Bill. And it's just a lot of fun."
'BONES' CONNECTED THROUGH CHEMISTRY(
Fox's "Bones" is winding down to its finale on March 28 after riding the network for 12 years. What made it so lasting? Star Emily Deschanel thinks it's more than the cool chemistry between her and costar David Boreanaz. "We have such an amazing cast, and it's not just David and me," she says.
"People watch the show because of these characters and their chemistry with each other. And our chemistry altogether, I think, has always been really important. We've been lucky enough to all get along so well off camera as well as on camera. I marvel at the casting director's ability to cast people who not only are great actors in their roles, but also are such a great fit. There's fun, interesting, funny people and talented actors all over this town, but to find people that really fit into this group has been incredible, the way they've done that. I think people come and watch the show as much because of those characters and their relationships, and those actors bringing all they are bringing to their characters, as much as they come to watch us."
