JOHN CORBETT: Northern Exposure was this ensemble show.
CHRIS NEUMER: I understand the premise, I just haven’t seen it.
JOHN CORBETT: Okay. Here’s the deal, there were two leads on the show…
CHRIS NEUMER: Jane and Rob?
JOHN CORBETT: Right, and I was struggling to be the next breakout guy. They got all the attention, and then I got a publicist…
CHRIS NEUMER: Oh really? Who was your publicist?
JOHN CORBETT: It was a guy by the name of Jake Schwartz, down in L.A. I was on fucking Entertainment Tonight, on the cover of T.V. Guide and things like that where if you don’t have a publicist, it’s really difficult to get anybody to pay attention. I remember I did The Tonight Show and I’d been nominated for an Emmy, for a Golden Globe, and I was on The Tonight Show and I went home that night and watched it and the dude that I saw sitting there was a fucking liar. He looked like me, but he acted like he just really wanted to be liked. I found myself caring more about getting the cover of People Magazine, which I was in the running for at sometime than I cared about the fucking T.V. show that I was working on that put me in this eye. So, the next day I fired my publicist and I never did another press thing ever. I quit. I quit it. I never did anything else, I didn’t even pose for the cast photos of Northern Exposure. Every year they take a new one, and for the last two I’m not even in them. I just went, “You know what? I’m just here to act.” Since I made that vow to myself, it made me only want to go and do what I was really there for in the first place. It kind of saved me, because it made me realize that I wasn’t there for other reasons other than acting.
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s sort of the, “I don’t need to score myself, I just need to work the teammates in to get that championship” kind of mentality.
JOHN CORBETT: Yeah. Northern Exposure ended in ’95 or ’96, and then it was kind of dry. I did some T.V. movies and a couple pilots. Then 2000 rolls around and I get Sex and the City. It was a chance to do the same thing again—to hire a publicist and say, “I’m back!” I didn’t do one fucking interview. Two years on that show, and I didn’t do anything. Us Magazine even did a big piece on me and I wouldn’t even participate in it. It felt good. I was like, “Nope, I’m just here to fucking act. That’s why I do what I do,” I really like it, and I’m here doing this with you because I want Brian to have some success and this will help him. I’ve been doing every little thing to help him, and somehow not promote myself in it. It’s weird. I like this process now that I’m in.
CHRIS NEUMER: It’s a healthier impulse. I’m feeling more at ease now that I know it’s not for you. I know that I sound like a condescending ass, but it’s nice to hear that it’s not about you. If there’s one thing that I’ve found with actors and—good Lord—with actresses, it’s that it’s always about them.
JOHN CORBETT: Yeah, yeah. How uncool would it be for you to be a friend of Brian’s, and me to come down here and go—I don’t want to.
CHRIS NEUMER: In all fairness you were close [location-wise], weren’t you?
JOHN CORBETT: No, no. They told me they had a little interview for me to do. I asked who it was for. They said, “Stumped.” What’s “Stumped?” They didn’t know.
CHRIS NEUMER: They told you they didn’t know?
JOHN CORBETT: Yeah.
CHRIS NEUMER: Oh, that’s good.
JOHN CORBETT: So right off the bat I thought it sounded a little shaky—what’s the questioning going to be? “When did you first start jacking off?” Hey, we stumped a guy! I said I didn’t have time for those kind of crazy questions.
[break in the interview]
CHRIS NEUMER: The point is that now when I see these people—When they say, “Hey Chris, do you want to interview Tom Cruise?” I say, “Oh all right, I guess I’ll interview Tom Cruise.” But when they bring up
JOHN CORBETT I say enthusiastically, “Yes! We’re going to talk about screen presence!
JOHN CORBETT: [laughs]
CHRIS NEUMER: Since I started the magazine ten years ago, and since I’m the end-all be-all of this particular magazine, it’s very, very delightful to be able to see a movie, or a project or to get involved with somebody and go—oh, I want talk to that guy, for this reason. Sometimes it will be a location scout, and sometimes it will be a production designer. How to they get into that? It’s very, very interesting. So, I guess it’s the journalistic equivalent of what you were saying.
JOHN CORBETT: Yeah. When I looked at your questions I thought, “Fuck, this guy did some research! It’s right here, it’s not just, ‘How did you get into acting?’”
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s the thing I can never figure out with these journalists. I’ve started ranking their questions. The worst is, “Tell me about this movie.” They’ve seen it and they’re holding the production notes in their hands, and they’re not on T.V. either. Then they go, “How did you get into acting?” Oh, steel worker, or hairdresser! Do you know who you’re dating now?
JOHN CORBETT: Yeah…
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s the one where I go, Oh, Jesus. I would make the worst, even pseudo-famous person. I would get angry at everybody. It would be like… If they said, “Dude, it must have been so hot making out with Sarah Jessica Parker,” I’d have about ten of those [questions] in me. On that eleventh one I’d be like, there were about ten people with rolls of duct tape on their belts watching us, and the director’s yelling at me to stop blocking her light, and to make it sexy. It wasn’t that great.
JOHN CORBETT: Yeah, right. It’s so true, right? Especially when you have to do a junket.
CHRIS NEUMER: I don’t like doing those, and I’m on the opposite end!
JOHN CORBETT: I did one a couple of years ago, and I thought I was going to faint because I answered those questions, and I tried to answer them every time as if it were the first time, but at one point the room started to spin! It was like a torture. Am I actually saying this? You do say the same things and after about four hours of it you’re halfway through your speech and your mind sort of shuts on and off and says, “Wait, you’ve already said this!” You wonder if you’re repeating yourself, and wonder if it’s a case of Alzheimer’s—did you just repeat something you had said ten seconds ago, or was that the guy before you?
CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah, and you start wondering if you did wouldn’t he say something? The guy wearing broken sandals and holey sweatpants in front of you and then it hits you: no, he would not.
JOHN CORBETT: Yeah. I had to get some water. I remember thinking, “Maybe it’s like that when they take you into an interrogation for a crime.” They have those people in there for eight hours, and they go over it again and again. You crack after a certain point.
CHRIS NEUMER: There’s an idea for a reality T.V. show. Get some everyday people, and putting them through the press junket, or that type of thing where people come up to them while they’re eating dinner and go, “Oh my God, are you Cynthia from that new Reality T.V. show?” Seeing that progression—that would be something interesting. You’d have to get those same crappy people from those junkets.
JOHN CORBETT: [Laughs] Do you do those junkets?
CHRIS NEUMER: I really don’t. Once in a great while. I hate on-set visits as well. I’m in L.A. a fair amount, and I go to people’s homes—
JOHN CORBETT: Is the magazine Chicago-based?
CHRIS NEUMER: Yes. I live out in Oak Park, which is home to Frank Lloyd Wright and Ernest Hemingway. It’s like the Santa Monica to Chicago, but we can smoke on the beach in Oak Park… wait a minute… But I travel a lot. I go out there [L.A.] a lot. I’m going out there in a week or two because I’m doing something with Martin Landau.
JOHN CORBETT: Oh, I love him.
CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah, he’s great!
JOHN CORBETT: Did you see him on Entourage last year?
CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah! He’s very good in that.
JOHN CORBETT: When they shot that, do you know whose house he’s in? He’s in Robert Evans’ house.
CHRIS NEUMER: Oh that’s right, I do remember that.
JOHN CORBETT: Did you know that?
CHRIS NEUMER: I didn’t know until you said that and I realized I did remember that.
JOHN CORBETT: Have you ever been there?
CHRIS NEUMER: I have not.
JOHN CORBETT: It’s fucking great. It’s like an old haunted mansion, it’s neat.
CHRIS NEUMER: So, you’re off for home after this?
JOHN CORBETT: Yeah, you know I have a band.
CHRIS NEUMER: Ah, the passion project.
JOHN CORBETT: The passion project… Well, it’s turned into a real thing. In the last couple of years, we’ve done 150 shows a year.
CHRIS NEUMER: Really?
JOHN CORBETT: We’ve played Chicago about two times a year. A Saturday before this past I played down in Joliet at this great theatre called The Rialto, have you ever been there?
CHRIS NEUMER: I have not been there but I know of it.
JOHN CORBETT: Oh, it’s beautiful [he whispers this]. Then we drove down last Sunday to Louisville and played. It’s been an amazing couple of years. I got on country radio charts…
CHRIS NEUMER: Which is precisely why I don’t know what your music sounds like because it would require me listening to country radio stations!
JOHN CORBETT: [Laughs] Yeah. It’s been amazing. You ever heard of the club, Joe’s on Weed?
CHRIS NEUMER: Yes.
JOHN CORBETT: We’ve played joints like that all over the U.S. We sold it out. Joe’s holds about 700, 800 people.
CHRIS NEUMER: I’ll tell you this, but I shouldn’t tell you this. The last time I was at Joe’s on Weed was when Corey Feldman’s band was playing there. His people invited me to come down.
JOHN CORBETT: Did he rock?
CHRIS NEUMER: Yes. He his music did suck. That was what you asked, right? It was just a mess.
JOHN CORBETT: Oh god! Well, we kick butt. Now we’re in our third year of touring, so if you don’t rock the place once, there’s no way you come back three and four times and have the people come back. It won’t happen.
CHRIS NEUMER: I always find it interesting when people when people who are famous in one walk of life, and then they start doing something [else] over here, even if it’s just baseball players. Keanu Reeves did this with Dogstar way back in the day…
JOHN CORBETT: Yeah, I just did a movie with him. With Keanu… Incredible guy. I liked him a lot. Have you ever interviewed him before?
CHRIS NEUMER: I have no actually, but I am so fascinated by his time period from about ’88 to ’92 where he was quite possibly the worst on-screen actor in a mainstream movie, and then something happened right around Speed (1994) and somebody got it. The directors, or the producers got it, and figured out how to use him.
JOHN CORBETT: Yeah.
CHRIS NEUMER: Since then he’s been… decent. But from ’88 to ’92, it’s an era that should be recognized and appreciated for what it was. “I am an F...B…I… agent… Bodhi, it’s not going to happen!” It’s awesome! I cannot stop watching those movies.
JOHN CORBETT: What was that, Point Break or something?
CHRIS NEUMER: It was Point Break, I think I was fifteen or sixteen when that came out, and I thought Patrick Swayze was an amazing actor for the longest time. It wasn’t until just recently I realized that Patrick Swayze isn’t a great actor, Keanu Reeves was terrible! It was sort of like saying, that chick isn’t really hot she’s just standing next to a really hideous fat chick!
JOHN CORBETT: [Laughs]
CHRIS NEUMER: With Keanu, I have an enormous amount of respect for him and what he’s done.
JOHN CORBETT: Well, wait until you see him in this movie. It’s coming out April 11.
CHRIS NEUMER: What’s it called?
JOHN CORBETT: [Pauses] It was called The Night Watchman, which I loved.
CHRIS NEUMER: Oh, is this the re-make of the Danish one?
JOHN CORBETT: No. That’s why they changed the name. It’s like a comic book/superhero kind of thing. I think it’s called Nightwatch…
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s the one, that’s the re-make of the Danish film.
JOHN CORBETT: So, they changed the title to Street Kings, which I’m not crazy about. But, what I am crazy about is that it was directed by David Ayer who wrote Training Day, and he made a great little movie last year with Christian Bale called Harsh Times. He’s a ghetto kid. This is another Training Day kind of movie. It stars Forest Whitaker, Keanu Reeves. Forest is the commander, Keanu is in the police department with me, Jay Mohr, and another kid, he was on the show Prison Break. It’s the five of us and we’re just badass cops down in East L.A. Some of us are good [cops], and some aren’t. I just watched it with Forrest about a month and a half ago and Keanu turns in a really good performance. He hasn’t had a movie out in a while. I think the last one was The Lake House, which was pretty bad… but Keanu’s back, and Forest is great in this thing…
CHRIS NEUMER: Forest is great. Anything that could remind me of [the T.V. show] The Shield, that’s it. Do what you need to do, solve what you need to solve, just leave The Shield alone.
JOHN CORBETT: Okay, you’re going to love Street Kings, then.
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s what I was going to say, and not only that—Forrest was… I don’t know if you’ve seen The Shield…
JOHN CORBETT: I used to be on a T.V. show on F/X, it was called Lucky, and it was when The Shield first came out, so I ended up going to a lot of parties… I knew Michael Chiklis a decade ago…
CHRIS NEUMER: Back when he was sort of roly-poly…
JOHN CORBETT: Yeah. We were playing poker one night, and he was fucking eating doughnuts and drinking cokes, and he slapped hid big fucking beer gut, and he said, “I’m going to get in shape, I’m going to hire a trainer this week!” Fuck. The next time I saw him, when F/X was courting me for Lucky, they sent me the pilot.
