CURTIS ARMSTRONG: But my point is that I didn't consider it a burden because the truth is I didn't really do that much else like it. The Better off Dead, which I did shortly thereafter… that part was written for me based on Risky Business and Revenge of the Nerds by Savage Steve Holland. There was some element of it in that, but it was different. The character in "Moonlighting" may have had a bit of Risky Business in it. This is what I was told by the people who created it, that they were influenced by these things. But it's not Booger. I really never did that character other than that. I've had a really very good career for the most part of doing different things. Somebody like George Reeves… I was reading about him in the Film Facts this month; they have an interesting article about him. Somebody like him was a star, he was a leading man star who should have had a leading-man career, but no one could see him outside of the tights and it destroyed him, ultimately. It's terribly sad when that happens to people. As a character actor, I don't feel that it did anything bad for me at all. I think it did only good things. One of the other things that you never think about when you are doing these is that the kids who were watching Revenge of the Nerds and Better off Dead when they came out, are now making movies. At the time that the movies came out 20 years ago, they loved Booger and they thought how cool that was. Now they are making movies, they want to work with Booger because Booger is still around. I've gotten numerous jobs in the last few years from people who grew up watching those movies and just wanted to work with a character they loved when they were children. That's the advantage of staying with it, I guess. You get payoffs later on in life.
CHRIS NEUMER: Perseverance will overcome all obstacles.
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: Well, most of them.
CHRIS NEUMER: Yes, most of them, providing you can jump a little higher over certain things. Last thing I have for you before I ask if there is anything that you want to share, is that you had mentioned earlier that you wrote out a biography of Booger. I'm curious to know if you can recall any interesting details from this — maybe he went to prep school in Virginia or his dad was a fireman.
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: That's pretty close. I have it still, actually, around somewhere. I don't recall exactly what it was. I think his being ostracized for various reasons led to his taking refuge in books. That I remember. I don't remember much of anything else about it. It was a fairly lengthy biography, but I know that books came into it because, of course, this is something you learn once you do these things. You start writing these biographies for characters you are playing and you frequently find that bits of yourself are creeping in because that makes it easier to play.
CHRIS NEUMER: Middle name could have been Curtis.
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: Could have been. Dudley Curtis Dawson. That's the only thing that I remember, that he was a reader, which is something that you wouldn't think of ever when you would think of Booger. That was something that I chose to be part of him because that was part of me. I had felt ostracized when I was young and that was where I took my refuge. I said there's no reason, just because he's got disgusting habits, why he shouldn't be exactly the same or have that same outlet.
CHRIS NEUMER: True. Is there anything else we've missed that you would care to share, anything you want to spotlight or did we cover everything? From my perspective, I believe I have more than enough to make this a very interesting article. I just want to know if there is anything you wish to…
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: Promote, you mean?
CHRIS NEUMER: Sure, promote. I find that most people don't get an opportunity to say, "Hey, I thought this was a good point, or a good segment."
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: My understanding about the interview was that it was mainly going to be what's going on now, as opposed to what was going on then, but we wound up actually talking more about what was going on then, which is fine. I don't mind talking about that…
CHRIS NEUMER: OK, let me ask you this: what is going on now?
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: Well, there is the Ben Stiller movie, which I can't tell you anything about because they are changing the title and I don't know what the new title is. Probably the most interesting, for me at least, was a movie I did in the summer last year called Unchain My Heart, which is the Ray Charles story, which I did with Jamie Foxx, who was playing Ray Charles brilliantly. Richard Schiff and Regina King [are in it], and Taylor Hackford is directing it. And that will be out in the fall. What was fun about that was [that] it was arguably one of the most unusual roles for me, because I was playing Ahmed Ertegun, who is the legendary head of Atlantic Records. It's the first movie in which I am as close to unrecognizable as it is possible for me to be. I'm doing a straight dramatic role and working around all that great music. Like I say, Jamie is tremendous. So that's coming out in the fall.
CHRIS NEUMER: So when you say you were unrecognizable, were you behind makeup?
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: I was bald for it, because Ahmed is bald, and he was of Turkish descent; although he doesn't have an accent. He's an amazingly interesting guy, brought up in Europe and U.S. schools, a brilliant mind. In addition to Ray Charles, he also recorded tons of people, big Joe Turner and from Big Joe Turner to the Rolling Stones. The guy was all over the place. He's still around, in fact. It was really an experience.
CHRIS NEUMER: How did you come on to the role?
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: I went to audition for Taylor Hackford, actually, for a different role — for Gerry Wexler, who was Ahmed's partner. That was the character eventually played by Richard Schiff brilliantly. There's a lot of good acting in this movie I think. I went in for Gerry Wexler and Taylor, whom I had never met, directed An Officer and a Gentleman and White Knights.
CHRIS NEUMER: Didn't he do that piano in the Al Pacino movie, The Devil's Advocate?
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: Yes, right. I read this part and he asked if I would consider reading for Ahmed. I knew who Ahmed Ertegun was and I just couldn't imagine me as Ahmed Ertegun. He saw something in me that I didn't and I read the part and he gave me the part. I wound up doing it and it was a great experience.
CHRIS NEUMER: How long were you on set for — how many days were you shooting for?
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: I was there for about a month and a half, I think, in New Orleans, where we were shooting. I did another first for me, which is the new Tommy Lee Jones movie called Cheer-up [now entitled: Man of the House], which is an action comedy. I'm in about the first 15 minutes of that in this extended, quite unbelievable, action sequence with Tommy Lee. It winds up with my murder, which is then the starting point for the actual story in the movie. Tommy Lee plays a Texas Ranger and I'm this serious bad guy who is murdered. My murder is witnessed by a group of teenaged cheerleaders. Tommy Lee has to take them into protective custody as witnesses to the murder, and the rest of the movie is Tommy Lee with all these cheerleaders.
CHRIS NEUMER: Is it going to be better than The Hunted?
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: I didn't see The Hunted. The only thing I am hoping is that it is going to be funny. So those two movies are coming out. Another one I'm in is a romantic comedy that Will Smith produced about Hollywood called The Seat Filler. That will be out this year sometime. Those are the main things, and then I've been doing TV, the usual stuff. In fact I'm in "Joan of Arcadia" this week playing God. You don't turn down an opportunity to do that.
CHRIS NEUMER: Playing God seems like it has to be one of the easiest decisions ever.
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: Yeah, it would be bad luck to turn it down, probably.
CHRIS NEUMER: You would assume so. I wonder if Jim Caviezel went through any of that with signing up to do Jesus.
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: I don't imagine he will have a long career based on that, but that's all right.
CHRIS NEUMER: It would be funny to see some outtakes on that with him setting there reading The Da Vinci Code. So how was it playing God?
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: Oh, it's nothing really. God appears three or four times in each episode. They always cast him with different people.
CHRIS NEUMER: I only know what I think I saw on Super Bowl trailers.
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: So I'm doing all that kind of thing. Whatever comes along. Fortunately, things have been coming along the last few years a lot more than they used to.
CHRIS NEUMER: That's certainly good to hear.
CURTIS ARMSTRONG: The funny thing is that nothing that I ever do will be as well known or as well-loved as the things that I did in the eighties. There is a nostalgia to them now that overcomes any weaknesses they may have had as movies. That's something that you can't fight and I wouldn't particularly want to. If people want to feel warm and nice about some of those things, then I say that's great. That's the way I feel when I watch movies from the thirties. If people still enjoy them, that is the most important thing.
CHRIS NEUMER: That is the important thing, because it's all about the entertainment.
Chris Neumer
