In the research actor Robert Knepper did for his role as Robert F. Kennedy in the NBC miniseries Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot, he read again and again that “Kennedys don't cry.”
Then came the scene where grief-stricken Robert, staying in the Lincoln bedroom on the night of JFK's assassination, closes the door and turns to embrace his wife, Ethel.
On the set in Toronto last year, Knepper, who was born in Fremont and grew up in Maumee, hit his marks, said his lines, and reached out to put his arms around actress Lauren Holly, who portrays Ethel.
“As soon as she hugged me, I just lost it, I lost it,” said Knepper during an interview in Los Angeles recently. “I sobbed and sobbed. I could hear the director yelling `Cut.' As soon as he did, I let go of Lauren and I bent over as if someone had hit me in the stomach. The weight of this part and remembering people I loved that I lost, the memory of my mother and sitting at her feet watching John Kennedy's funeral ... I couldn't stop crying and I had to take a walk.
“The next morning, I went up to the director and said, `Thank you for letting me vomit out all this emotion, but you're not gonna use that, are you?' He said, `What are you, nuts? Of course I'm going to use it. That's gold!'”
The emotional scene stayed in, though it may be one moment in the miniseries that does not reflect what really happened. Knepper said director Larry Shaw and author J. Randy Taraborelli, upon whose book the film is based, paid much closer attention to the words spoken by the actors portraying members of the Kennedy family.
“Lawyers were on the set for every part of this,” said Knepper, who wears a wig and fake front teeth to play Bobby. “Nothing could be said without going through the lawyers. I couldn't change a syllable. Even the phone conversations were documented.”
Women of Camelot, covering the years between JFK's inauguration and Teddy's withdrawal from the presidential race in 1980, focuses on the Kennedy wives and their complicated relationships. The miniseries hints strongly at a romance between Jackie and Bobby after the death of President Kennedy. And it plays up the rivalry between sophisticated Jackie (played by Jill Hennessy, formerly of Law & Order) and rougher-edged Ethel.
Rob Knepper said the five-month postponement also probably cost him some acting work. “It was a different kind of Kennedy curse. The role of Bobby was so great, everything else looked bad. The only way it could have been worse from an actor's standpoint is if this show had been called Jack, Bobby, and Ted. Then I would have been more upset.”
Most actors would consider playing a leading role in a big-budget miniseries the break of a lifetime. For Rob Knepper, it came merely as another meaty character in a long string of good parts over a nearly two-decade career on stage, screen, and television.
Though not a marquee name yet, Knepper, who's slightly over 40, has built a solid resume that includes playing Julia Roberts' husband in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You, Julie Andrews' son-in-law in Blake Edwards' That's Life, and the English-accented rockhound who romances Ione Skye in Allison Anders' Gas Food Lodging.
In the theater, Knepper did a year-long stint at the National in London as Chance Wayne in a revival of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth, and had a Boston run as the title role in Pal Joey.
Not too shabby for a guy who started out singing to a beagle in a Maumee summer children's theater production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
“Acting was always his first love,” said Rob's dad, Dr. Donald Knepper, who has veterinary practices in Toledo and Perrysburg.
“He started acting in plays in the Maumee schools and his mother [Pat Deck] and I always gave him free range to discover himself,” Dr. Knepper said. “He's been on his own since he left for Hollywood [after graduation from Northwestern University]. He's self-supporting and very independent. I'm very proud of him.”
During a recent return home, Rob Knepper decided to help other aspiring young actors from his old neighborhood. He made a videotape that will be used to solicit donations to Maumee High School's theater program, which needs a performance space and new technical equipment. (He graduated in 1977.)
Even if students don't pursue careers in show business, Knepper said, performing in school plays is a vital part of their life experience.
“There is something wonderfully scary about getting up on a stage, no matter what you end up doing in your life. Being able to have that contact with an audience. Being able to tell a story. Years from now kids will look back on that and remember it.”
Just as he does.
No comments:
Post a Comment