Brian Damage
11-26-2010, 02:19 PM
Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-1999)—“Detective John Munch”
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999-present)—“ Detective John Munch”
RB: Well, Barry Levinson heard me on the radio and they brought me in. They had cast the entire show, but they couldn’t find a Munch. They had read a bunch of actors, and Barry wanted me. They called the network to say, “We’ve found our Munch!” And NBC said, “Great. Who is it?” And they said, “Richard Belzer.” And there was dead silence at the other end of the line. Finally NBC said, “Oh, he’s great, but we wanted a hunk. Like a Jason Priestley type for Munch.” And they said, “No, no. Barry wants Richard.” And they said, “Okay.” And that was 18 years ago.
AVC: And you’ve now played Munch on six, seven different shows?
RB: Ten. That we know of.
AVC: It’s interesting that they wanted someone hunkier, because one of Homicide’s hallmarkswas that everybody looked so natural and normal, and one of the criticisms later on was that the cast had turned over and had become younger and sexier.
RB: Yeah, I never got caught up in that part of it. Everyone who was on the show were all good actors. So if it was perceived that we were bringing in sexier people, I don’t think that was a conscious intent.
AVC: Were you privy to any of the battles between the creative staff on that show and the network, in trying to make Homicide more audience-friendly?
RB: I know that Tom Fontana, who was our reigning genius, was locking horns constantly with Standards & Practices, the censorship department. I don’t think there were any real compromises, frankly. Maybe if there were, the show would still be on. I dare not say. But we did 122 episodes, always under the threat of cancellation, as was St. Elsewhere, Tom’s other brilliant show. He’s one of the guys who always fights for what he believes in. I remember once, an executive who will go unnamed said to Tom, “On ER,the person lives and there’s an up ending.” And Tom said, “Uh, the name of the show is Homicide.” [Laughs.] Anyway, we’re all very proud of that show, obviously. Every once in a while I’ll catch a rerun and just marvel at how good it is. As everyone does to this day, whomever I talk to. Other actors genuflect when I mention it.
AVC: The show’s style was so bracing. Did you have a sense when you were making it of how it was going to look? Like when they did multiple takes of the same moment?
RB: Barry told me that his inspiration for the look of the show was Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, and documentaries, and shows like COPS, where the camera was in the middle of everything. He made the camera another actor. It wasn’t a big camera, a lot of times there would be no coverage, it would just be a scene where the camera was in the middle of a bunch of us, going from actor to actor, and it was certainly a different style, but I loved it. It helped most of us be more natural, and it felt really comfortable how he was shooting it. It was very intimate.
AVC: What did you see as Munch’s role in the mix of Homicide personalities?
RB: Well, as Tom Fontana put it, Munch was the spice in these dishes.
Munch was based on a real guy in Baltimore who was a star detective, in a way. He would come onto grisly murder scenes, start doing one-liners, because someone had to break the tension. So Munch served a very important function. Not only was he a dissident who said what was on his mind, he kind of had the gallows humor that’s needed in a homicide squad. Because they see the most horrific things you could imagine.
AVC: Do you think of Munch as the same character from show to show?
RB: Oh yeah, absolutely. He’s changing only by becoming more cynical, perhaps.
AVC: If someone gave you a script for a Law & Order episode that had you doing something you felt wasn’t very Munch-like, would you say something about it?
RB: That really happens so rarely, I’m happy to say. There are times when I say, “You know, I might say this differently,” and they’ll say okay, but it’s never a big issue. Writers really get Munch.
AVC: What do you think are the reasons for the enduring popularity of the Law & Order shows?
RB: I think part of it is that Americans are forever fascinated by crime and by the procedural, and the genius of Law & Order is that you get the procedural and then you get the trial part. You get this package where there’s a beginning, a middle, and the end. You don’t have to have known that five episodes ago, one of the characters got in the car accident. I think the genius of Dick Wolf is, these episodes are all standalone. If you watch it for years, you may pick up things about the characters, but you don’t really need to know that stuff. I live in Europe, and I travel a lot. And everywhere I go, people are addicted to the show, and they watch the same ones over and over again. I don’t want to say I’m mystified by it, but it’s fascinating to me that it’s so addictive, and that’s a credit to the writers, and particularly to the formula. Unfortunately, people will never stop doing bad things to each other, so we’ll always have story material.
http://www.avclub.com/articles/richard-belzer,48106/
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999-present)—“ Detective John Munch”
RB: Well, Barry Levinson heard me on the radio and they brought me in. They had cast the entire show, but they couldn’t find a Munch. They had read a bunch of actors, and Barry wanted me. They called the network to say, “We’ve found our Munch!” And NBC said, “Great. Who is it?” And they said, “Richard Belzer.” And there was dead silence at the other end of the line. Finally NBC said, “Oh, he’s great, but we wanted a hunk. Like a Jason Priestley type for Munch.” And they said, “No, no. Barry wants Richard.” And they said, “Okay.” And that was 18 years ago.
AVC: And you’ve now played Munch on six, seven different shows?
RB: Ten. That we know of.
AVC: It’s interesting that they wanted someone hunkier, because one of Homicide’s hallmarkswas that everybody looked so natural and normal, and one of the criticisms later on was that the cast had turned over and had become younger and sexier.
RB: Yeah, I never got caught up in that part of it. Everyone who was on the show were all good actors. So if it was perceived that we were bringing in sexier people, I don’t think that was a conscious intent.
AVC: Were you privy to any of the battles between the creative staff on that show and the network, in trying to make Homicide more audience-friendly?
RB: I know that Tom Fontana, who was our reigning genius, was locking horns constantly with Standards & Practices, the censorship department. I don’t think there were any real compromises, frankly. Maybe if there were, the show would still be on. I dare not say. But we did 122 episodes, always under the threat of cancellation, as was St. Elsewhere, Tom’s other brilliant show. He’s one of the guys who always fights for what he believes in. I remember once, an executive who will go unnamed said to Tom, “On ER,the person lives and there’s an up ending.” And Tom said, “Uh, the name of the show is Homicide.” [Laughs.] Anyway, we’re all very proud of that show, obviously. Every once in a while I’ll catch a rerun and just marvel at how good it is. As everyone does to this day, whomever I talk to. Other actors genuflect when I mention it.
AVC: The show’s style was so bracing. Did you have a sense when you were making it of how it was going to look? Like when they did multiple takes of the same moment?
RB: Barry told me that his inspiration for the look of the show was Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, and documentaries, and shows like COPS, where the camera was in the middle of everything. He made the camera another actor. It wasn’t a big camera, a lot of times there would be no coverage, it would just be a scene where the camera was in the middle of a bunch of us, going from actor to actor, and it was certainly a different style, but I loved it. It helped most of us be more natural, and it felt really comfortable how he was shooting it. It was very intimate.
AVC: What did you see as Munch’s role in the mix of Homicide personalities?
RB: Well, as Tom Fontana put it, Munch was the spice in these dishes.
Munch was based on a real guy in Baltimore who was a star detective, in a way. He would come onto grisly murder scenes, start doing one-liners, because someone had to break the tension. So Munch served a very important function. Not only was he a dissident who said what was on his mind, he kind of had the gallows humor that’s needed in a homicide squad. Because they see the most horrific things you could imagine.
AVC: Do you think of Munch as the same character from show to show?
RB: Oh yeah, absolutely. He’s changing only by becoming more cynical, perhaps.
AVC: If someone gave you a script for a Law & Order episode that had you doing something you felt wasn’t very Munch-like, would you say something about it?
RB: That really happens so rarely, I’m happy to say. There are times when I say, “You know, I might say this differently,” and they’ll say okay, but it’s never a big issue. Writers really get Munch.
AVC: What do you think are the reasons for the enduring popularity of the Law & Order shows?
RB: I think part of it is that Americans are forever fascinated by crime and by the procedural, and the genius of Law & Order is that you get the procedural and then you get the trial part. You get this package where there’s a beginning, a middle, and the end. You don’t have to have known that five episodes ago, one of the characters got in the car accident. I think the genius of Dick Wolf is, these episodes are all standalone. If you watch it for years, you may pick up things about the characters, but you don’t really need to know that stuff. I live in Europe, and I travel a lot. And everywhere I go, people are addicted to the show, and they watch the same ones over and over again. I don’t want to say I’m mystified by it, but it’s fascinating to me that it’s so addictive, and that’s a credit to the writers, and particularly to the formula. Unfortunately, people will never stop doing bad things to each other, so we’ll always have story material.
http://www.avclub.com/articles/richard-belzer,48106/