By Antony Teofilo
Tough Guy and The Cameleon : An Interview with Steven Root and Mike Starr
Greenie and Block are salt-of-the-earth guys. They get up each morning and work municiple jobs for the borough of Highlands. Most evenings, they flank Bart, the alpha male of their barfly herd, down at the corner pub where they drink beer and watch the game. Then, they go home, and get up to do it all over again. Greenie and Block have likely never seen the outside of their little world, and probably never will.
Conversely, the guys who bring Greenie and Block to life in JERSEY GIRL (Steven Root and Michael Starr, respectively) are about as worldly and well-traveled as an actor can be.
In addition to his status as one of today's hottest voiceover talents, Steven Root has lent spice to several perennial crowd favorite films. A chameleon-like character actor,
Root made flesh Milton Waddams, the greasy-haired, stapler-obsessed, whipping boy in OFFICE SPACE. You'll also recognize him as Lund, the blind manager of radio station WEZY in O, BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?
At six two, the barrel-chested, Bronx-brogued Mike Starr is a likely contender to play every mob heavy that's ever been seen on big or little screens. It's a role he was born to play physically, but unlike many who make a career of appearing as bodyguards, bartenders, and hitmen, Starr brings something new to the table each time he takes on the typecasting demon. Witness his humorous takes on otherwise dry villains in MILLER'S CROSSING and DUMB AND DUMBER.
With over two hundred feature film and television appearances between the two of them, it's not likely you've never seen these guys before.
Antony Teofilo: Audiences have seen both of your faces in myriad different films and television shows. Where are you from?
Steven Root: Mike's in Chicago, and I'm in L.A.
AT: Are you originally from L.A.?
SR: Oh god No. I'm actually a Midwest kid. My dad was in construction, so we moved around every couple of years. I've lived in Muncie, Indiana, Sioux City, Iowa, Kansas City MO, Glen Rock, Wyoming; all over the Midwest. My Dad moved down to Florida when I was in senior high. It was cheap to go to college in Florida, so I became a Gator for four years. That's where I started doing theater.
AT: College was your first experience as an actor?
SR: Yeah.. [Laughs] There was no [intention up to that point] to be in the arts in my family. They were all in construction.
AT: Mr. Starr, how did you get your start?
Mike Starr: My brother [actor Beau Starr] was my stage mother. My first exposure to the arts was when Joe Peck used to come through the neighborhoods doing Shakespeare. I saw Roscoe Lee Brown, [I saw] James Earl Jones in [Macbeth]. And I saw Cleavon Little do a rock version of Hamlet where he walked through the crowd and talked to everybody. I saw him one day by a Good Humor ice cream truck, and I asked him for advice about acting. I was about fifteen or sixteen. It was great...he took a lot of time talking with me.
SR: Didn't do any good did it? [Laughs]
MS: No. I ended up playing football under a drama scholarship.
AT: How did the two of you get involved in JERSEY GIRL?
SR: We were kind of lucky. Kevin [Smith] saw Mike and I as a duo in his mind. Basically, this was the casting that he wanted. We went through all the machinations, and he ended up with the three guys that he wanted: George [Carlin], Mike, and myself. [We comprise] a little Greek chorus, as it were. But I also knew Kevin because I'm a big comic [book] guy.
MS: I had met Kevin before when he was doing these Coke commercials. I remember taking the subway down [to the audition], and I was sick as a dog. They said I had a nice 'understated' look. What they didn't know was that I looked that way because I was really dehydrated and had a hundred and two degree temperature. [Laughs] So we wound up working on those [commercials], and had a great time working in Red Bank for a few days.
AT: What has the atmosphere been like for the two of you on JERSEY GIRL?
SR: Well, we've been here what, five, six weeks?
MS: Yeah, but we're in and out.
SR: It's been sublime.
MS: I mean, we've got George Carlin here, what more do you want?
SR: We get to hang out with George Carlin all day. There's no work involved.
AT: Each of you has performed in several films that have found cult-like followings similar to the movies in Kevin Smith's catalogue. Being character actors, is there a role that you've created that people who approach you on the street bring up most often?
SR: Oh yeah. It's definitely Milton from OFFICE SPACE. I can't tell you how many staplers I've signed. It's become such a cult movie that Swingline has actually put out a red stapler because they got so many requests for it. It's a beautiful retro red Swingline stapler. You should all order one.
AT: The real question, is have you ordered one...
SR: Oh, well, I have the original prop from the movie. [Laughs]
AT: Mr. Starr, you played a hitman named Mental who dies a messy death at the hands of some chili pepper candies and a little rat poison in DUMB AND DUMBER. When I was in college, at any time of the day, seven days a week, that movie was always playing somewhere on campus. Folks were pretty insane over that flick. Do people often ask you about that role?
MS: People more often ask me about GOODFELLAS...
AT: I've heard that fans can be a bit rabid when it comes to that movie, too.
MS: Some of the people who approach me in big urban areas can come on a little strong. They'll say, 'That's just like me.' Most of the time, though, like when I'm at a stadium, people will just yell out lines to me because they saw me in GOODFELLAS. There are more people, though, who just [praise the movie], and talk about the comedy of it.
AT: What's next for the two of you?
SR: Well, I'm continuing on KING OF THE HILL. We've finished recording season seven. We've got a huge amount of guest stars this year. We'll gear up to start recording season eight in February. I'm doing a cartoon for the SCI-FI channel called TRIPPING THE RIFT that's kind of a racy space opera, and a Disney movie called FINDING NEMO, in which I play Bubbles the fish. That's all happening at the same time really. This summer I did an independent feature called BATHROOM BOY with Wendy Malik and Justin Long, the kid from GALAXY QUEST. [Justin] played my son.
MS: There are a couple of things I've done that haven't come out. There's a noir film set in New Orleans, and there's actually a Little League thing that John Grisham wrote about a kid who plays who might be over- or under- aged, though it's really strange that Grisham wrote the script long before the controversy they had last year...so that's what's cooking right now.
