"Royal Pains" finally gives Mark Feuerstein a TV hit

[Mr. Television]

http://www.examiner.com/x-3767-Celeb...th-Royal-Pains

Mark Feuerstein finds out what it's like to rule the TV ratings

"Royal Pains" star Mark Feuerstein had his life all mapped out: He was going to graduate from law school, join a prestigious law firm and live the life of a successful attorney. But things changed when he was a college undergrad, and Feuerstein decided to pursue the decidedly more uncertain career of being an actor. After numerous guest appearances on TV and after starring in several TV shows that bombed, it seems Feuerstein has finally struck gold with the comedy-drama "Royal Pains," the United States' highest-rated basic-cable TV series to premiere in the summer of 2009. "Royal Pains" was naturally picked up for a second season, and the show’s first-season finale airs August 27. (Feuerstein has also had roles in films such as 2008’s "Defiance" and 2000’s "Rules of Engagement.")

Taking a sudden career detour is the basis of "Royal Pains," in which Feuerstein plays Hank Lawson, a New York doctor who gets into legal trouble and is subsequently blackballed from the area’s medical community. During a getaway in New York’s upscale Hamptons region, Hank unexpectedly gives medical aid to a wealthy resident, and before Hank knows it, he has a thriving private practice catering to rich people in the Hamptons. Hank also finds the time to help the under-privileged, and he often struggles with where to put his priorities. During a recent telephone conference call with journalists, Feuerstein opened up about how long he thinks he would be able to fool people if he had to be masquerade as a doctor in real life; the parallels between his life and Hank Lawson’s life; and what viewers can possibly expect for the second season of "Royal Pains."



A lot has been made about your previous television series that short-lived, such as "Once and Again, "Good Morning, Miami," "3 Lbs." and "Once and Again." What’s different about "Royal Pains" and what’s the main appeal to you?

This is a perfect question to kick us off, because I have no idea what makes a show successful or not successful, as evidenced by the last five shows I’ve done. This one has been the perfect mix, combination, alchemy, synergy of so many different forces, both production-wise, executive-wise, timing-wise, network-wise, and then cosmically. So I can’t answer why a show hits, what it is about this role with me, what it is about this combination of characters in this world that the show is set in, and this time in American culture.

But I’m not knocking it. I’m so happy to be on a show that is well-received both critically and ratings-wise. And, you know, the executive producer who was hired after Andrew Lenchewski created the show — Michael Rauch, who is a fabulous show-runner — he and I drive to set and from set every day that we can.

And I remember sitting in the van with him at two o’clock in the morning after a long week, and he had created a show for CBS called "Love Monkey" that lasted exactly as long as the show that I was on called "3 Lbs." for CBS abut two years ago that was a total of three weeks on the air. Hello, goodbye.

And we were just bonding over the fact that there’s nothing we’re doing differently. We’re doing our jobs, we’re showing up, he’s writing scripts, I’m acting them. And yet in this particular case, the combination of the elements has just allowed for a big success instead of a quick failure, and we are literally walking on clouds. Well, not literally. OK, that would be a little weird. But, you know, just flying high. It’s awesome.


What do you like about this particular character and this particular cast?

Fundamentally, I love that there is a core of good values in the show and in my character, but I also love about my character that he is impetuous, spontaneous, thinks on his feet … I in my own life was on the track to become a lawyer. I was on my way from going to a good private school in New York to a good college to going to hopefully a good law school and on to a good law firm and just living the track that so many people who grow up in New York City live.

And a funny thing happened on the way to football practice my freshman year at college. I wandered into an audition, I got the part in a play called "Orphans," and my whole life changed. And I became an actor and I fell in love with the theater and telling stories, making people laugh and cry, and the high of being on stage and performing or on screen now.

And similarly with Hank Lawson, the guy was on the track to become the perfect prototype of a New York guy, a doctor in an ER in Brooklyn with the perfect, hot, fiancée. He would have had money and he would've had an attractive wife, and he would've been living "the life." And a funny thing happened to him when he tried to save the poor kid in addition to the rich guy on a particular day, and he got blackballed by every hospital in New York and his fiancée showed her true colors.

And suddenly there’s Hank Lawson sitting drinking a Heineken watching "Mask" in his doldrums in his apartment. And his brother comes to resuscitate him and take him out to the Hamptons for an adventure. And lo and behold, we have the series of "Royal Pains." And so I feel very similar to him in this life that I’ve chosen where it’s constantly just improvisation. And that’s exciting.



Given the things that you’ve picked up from playing a doctor on "Royal Pains," if we were to put you in scrubs and gave you a stethoscope and dropped you off at the hospital, how long do you suppose you could get away with posing as a doctor before you’d be found out as a fraud?

That is the best question. I love it. I think I could go like six minutes, maybe 10. Maybe 15 if they’re really stupid over at that hospital. It’s very hard to say. Maybe I’m thinking too in the box. Like if I were in a surgery room or the ER, I’d be screwed, but if you put me like sort of in a tame doctor’s office or maybe in receiving or maybe in a more low-key kind of injury section of the emergency room, I could probably make it like a half hour.

Honestly, if you are ever in pain, and I am right near you, skip right over me and go to a doctor, because I will be of no help. But I can say things like papilledema. In fact, I was so taken with the medical terminology that I have to say on the show to convey the idea that I know what I’m doing, that I decided in our final episode in an exam scene to instead of performing the exam normally, which I do in the episode for fun to shoot a rap video of me rapping the entire exam.

And for a little just fun in the middle of our little day here on this conference call, I’d like to give you a little taste of that rap, which I treated some of the viewers at "The Wendy Williams Show," too in case you had been watching that. But let’s face it, not that many people who are on this call watch that show. It goes a little something like this:

I saunter up to the girl playing my patient, [Alex Holden], and I say, "Yeah girl. That’s right, I’m going to examine you. This is Divya and this my ophthalmoscope. Oh, no signs of papilledema. No increased intracranial pressure. Say ah, stick your tongue out. Ah. No abnormality of the soft palette muscles and the uvula is midline." That’s just a little taste for all of you, wherever you may be.



Are you squeamish in any way around blood and guts?

Well, I’m clearly not shy, because I just rapped for a bunch of strangers, but squeamish? No, I’m not squeamish. I have no problem with blood and gore in my own life. And actually in doing research for the show, I asked a friend who’s a brain surgeon to allow me to accompany him in the ER, and I literally stood over the circle that was cut out of a man’s skull down into his brain … I stood over that cauliflower beating organ in the top of his head, and watched him literally dive down into the center of who this man was, that he was operating on. And it was very intense but I did not get squeamish.

If the slate were wiped clean and Hank wasn’t blackballed or anything anymore, do you think he would go back to his old life?

That is a very good question — very good plot question reflecting knowledge of our show and reflecting a tendency the writers actually had, because first of all there’s an issue in one episode that I think has already been on the air where Jill could get me a job at the hospital. So it’s not the same life; it’s the life in the Hamptons with a job at a hospital.

And I turn it down, because Hank Med has grown so interesting successful and fun for Hank Lawson that he chooses to stick with it and see it through. So that was one example where the scenario was similar to what you’re saying.

If you’re asking if he could clear the entire slate and there were no more lawsuits being held against him for what he did that day in the ER, I think the answer still would be, "No, he would not go back." I think there’s a slightly spiritual element to the events that have transpired and Hank’s belief that he’s on some sort of path and he’s not about to get off it just for the sake of stability and security and living the predictable New York track life. And now that he’s been set down the path less taken, he’s interested in seeing where it will take him.


So it’s like he’s been to the buffet and he’s not going back.

Exactly. Life is about what happens when it doesn’t go your way and how you react to it. He saw how his fiancée reacted to life not going his way, and he got to see how he bounced back. And in seeing that,, he has a taste of a deeper strength, a deeper resilience, and becoming sort of more in touch with the unpredictability of life. And I think he likes that. I think he realizes he was meant to live the life of a doctor who can improvise rather than just do the same operation over and over again, like so many stayed surgeons and doctors who don’t ever challenge themselves. This new life is filled with medical opportunities as well as social, financial, and experiential opportunities, and he’s into all of them.

In real life have you or would you have a concierge doctor on call?

Heck, yeah! I’ve got two kids, I got a third on the way. Would I have a doctor who I could call at any time and pester and bother and say, "My daughter has a 101 fever," or "My son has mucous dripping down his face, what do I do?" or if God forbid they should get into an accident of some kind, to be able to skip past the five-hour wait with the triage nurse, who I’m sure is a lovely, sweet, doting person at Cedars-Sinai? You bet your ass I would.

But they’re expensive. And, you know, though we at "Royal Pains" and Hank Med treat both the reach and the not-so-rich, concierge medicine is still, more of the time, the province of the more well-to-do. And I have not achieved a level of wealth where that is just something I can afford to do.

Although interestingly, in the New York Times, there was an article about how even in this recession, those with money and with concierge doctors, that was the one thing they did not give up in all of their budgetary restricting. They did not give up their concierge doctors, and I think that’s just a tribute to the importance of private physicians to the people that have them, and to general paranoia about health.



Can we assume that Season 2 will both air and take place next summer, if that makes sense?

It’s a very good question, because you obviously know about USA’s standard scheduling outlay, which is, like with "Burn Notice," they shoot 16 episodes, but I believe they air eight in January and then eight again in June. This summer of "Royal Pains," as it will go down in history, was such a great boon to USA. that I think [NBC Universal President of Cable Entertainment and Cable Studios] Bonnie Hammer’s feeling [is] she has expressed the thought, "If it ain’t, you know, broke, don’t fix it." So it worked so well in the summer — a show set in the summer time. we should do it again in the same way.

Now you guys who are on the inside scoop and know how TV shows are made, can imagine that I’ll be challenging in New York in anywhere from late February to mid-March, where the trees are like something out of a Tim Burton film to give the sense that it’s summer in the Hamptons. But that, you know, is one of the challenges of producing a show set in a particular time of year, and one of the challenges of producing 16 episodes of it set in one particular season in a part of the country where it’s very seasonal and the climate shifts.

I mean, we made umbrellas as a cast for the entire crew. That’s about 275 people. And they were umbrellas that had "Royal Rains" written across the umbrella, because that’s what we caused our show since it rained so much all season.



What do you think Hank is going to be doing all winter?

Hank is going to be scratching a little scratching post by himself in the corner, just waiting for the love of his life and for Boris to figure out his health issues. No, the truth of the matter is the big question going into Season 2 was will we wait an entire winter and come back to the following summer in Hampton Central, or will we pick up literally the next day in the life of Hank Lawson. And, you know, it is an eternal never-ending summer for Dr. Lawson.

You know, the very good question you’re asking is one that may or may not want to be addressed by the show and the writers of the show, because it would put such a big pin and halt in the flow of the story, and there’s so many little elements that are time sensitive and what would Boris’ health situation be nine months later. Where would Jill be nine months later? Where would Evan be nine months later? And that question is one that is a dangler, plot-wise, but you’ll have to watch the finale to understand what I mean.

So eternal summer is what you’re saying?

That’s what I’m feeling but I’m not saying that for sure.


What would you like to see Hank do in Season 2?

Yes, there’s one aspect that I’d like to see. And this is not a criticism of the writers. The writers are truly like incorporating so many elements from plot to character to sensibility of our network and of the world in which the show is set. Tonally, I feel like they’ve done such a bang-up job of incorporating so many different elements.

This is no way a criticism of anything they’ve done. It’s purely for my own actorly/my own human sensibility and my own pace in some of the TV I like to watch, that it wouldn’t upset me if we saw a little more in the chink open in the armor of Hank Lawson and got just a hair more of a taste of his vulnerability and possibly the mess that his life could be, given how impetuous and fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants [he is], and given the already fraught dynamics between him and his brother, him and the women in his life, and him and his father — which is a character that is talked about but hasn’t been seen yet — but I have a very good feeling we’ll be seeing him very soon come second season.

And I hope that that father thing plays out in a way that is true, honest, genuine, and poignant. I get a lot of opportunities to confront certain characters, to take a stand with certain characters, but I’m such a nice guy and such a well-adjusted, good-conscience person [as Hank], maybe there’s an opportunity for either a mistake or just a little more mess.

[catlover79]

Good for him. I had a bit of a crush on him when he played Caroline's boyfriend on Caroline in the City.

[browneyes106]

Slueth had a marathon on New Year's Eve of this show and I watched a few episodes and the show is pretty good.

[yasdnil]

This show is another one of my current favorites! The new season started on June 10th and I'm liking it.