Mark Harelik aka Stuart gave Rory a job at the Stamford Eagle Gazette, but the behind the scenes story is the headline!
He shares his brutally honest opinion about being a guest star on Gilmore Girls!
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Did I say all that popcorn? All that stuff? Mark Herolic is going to be our guest. He portrayed Stuart Woltz for one episode on Gilmore Girl. Stuart was Rory's boss at the Stanford Eagle Gazette who she insisted on getting a job. Here's a little bit about Mark, film, stage, actor, playwright. He's appeared in the film's election, Jurassic Park three Eulogy, four Year Consideration, forty two year Old. Says various roles in television shows Seinfeld, Numbers, Wings, Grace Under, Fire, Will and Grace, NCIS, Boy Meets World, Breaking Bad Bone, Six Feet Under, and five episodes of the first season A Big Bang Theory. More recently appeared in Preacher and The Morning Show. Let's bring him In, Mark Harlick, Mark, tell us what thanks for joining us? Tell us how you got the role Gilmore Girls.
Well, we're talking about a gig. I got a very long time ago. All right, you should understand that I'm in a category as an actor and with guest roles like the editor of the Eagle Gazette in Gilmore Girls. I'm essentially a plumber. Somebody has one job that they need done, so they hire a plumber to come in. If your sync is stopped up, you hire a plumber to come in and stops the sink and goes without his job. That's just one stop on his day's work. So my involvement with a television show is basically that they have their regular characters that paint the house, paying the paintings, choose the furniture, live there. But I play a character that just pops in. They give me a name, They give my character a name and some lines to say, but essentially I'm there just to keep the water flowing through the sink and the water flowing through the sink. In this case was I believe Alexis was looking for a job at the Ego Gazette, so they needed somebody that was sort of a semifoil for her at the Ego Gazette to hire her. And once she's hired, my character is dispensable. So how did I get the job? I worked for Amy Sherman Palladino on her show of Veronica's Closet, and I was a I was a generic boyfriend, I think, to Kathy, to Jimmy, I believe so, of whom I was a big fan because of the Kathy and Mo show. So I played Kathy. I think it was Kathy and Jimmy's boyfriend for three episodes. I don't know why Amy hired me for Veronica's Closet because we had no relationship whatsoever. I mean I saw her every day on the set and we were involved in script changes and such, but she never remembered my name. And I found her, you know, fairly unpleasant to work with or neutral pleasant to work with?
Say that, why do you say that?
Oh, she just ignored me. So I attempted. I remember attempting chit chat. I think I complimented her on a scene as she speedily walked by me in her top half in job purse. You know it's okay, I'm a plumber, generic boyfriend. I did three episodes, and then some years later her other her one of her next shows, Gilmore Girls, comes up, and I recalled being offered the job. So somebody in Amy's world may have remembered me, or the casting director said, oh, this guy played generic boyfriend in Veronica's closet. Remember him? No, But if I hired him for that, let's hire him for this. So I was hired for this, and I have a certain amount of comic skills, which the casting director anyway, I was approved. I came in into one of the most uncomfortable gigs I've ever worked, which you may you may ask me about tell us more and I'm not painting a very rosy picture as it is. But so so I went through the I went through the Gilmore Girls hazing uh, which every actor does, which is you know what that is, talk faster, faster, talk faster, talk faster. I'm talking as fast as I can think, talk faster than you can think, which if you watch the show and the and the the actors that are really good at that, and they're you know, they're really good at that, they do in fact talk faster than you can think, which has you sort of rolling falling forward all the time, and and you you're laughing. You're always laughing in retrospect. So the humor doesn't even need to be that, it doesn't need to be joky, and it doesn't need to be particularly funny. It's wit that comes spitting out, and it's a great technical approach to comedy uh and and lots of writers use it, but I think it was used to the best effect on Bilmore Girls. Anyway, I had to confront that, even though I knew that was the esthetic going in UH. My biggest challenge was remember the lines fast enough to keep going and talk as fast as you can and move faster than you can think. Just let the words flow out. You have to drill the words a lot so they come out freely, and then you're sort of tripping forward. And then once you get a handle on that, you can put in little comic bills and results if you wish. And in preparing for this interview, I went back and I watched the episode and I kind of liked what I did. I feel like it was it was light and funny and tripping forward. But god, was it allacious to get into. Because on the set, it's not a suggestion, it is you will talk faster. You will talk faster than that. And when you do talk faster, you're not met with approval, you're met with geez finally, okay, let's move on. And you know, remember once again, I'm a plumber. So you know, the plumber doesn't get iced tea when he comes to the door. He doesn't have he doesn't have a little tray of crue de tay or dervs waiting for him. It's like, don't tramp your muddy boots on my floor and fix that drain as fast as you can so we can get back to our normal life. So this is the life of a guest star, especially when you're doing you know, just just one episode. So you know, I understand it's.
Always good to know your role, you know, on a set there and there is a pecking order, yeah, for sure, for.
Sure, and I'm not there to do any pecking. And I don't want to be packed though I am packed. I mean they you realize that that you must be packed as you come in the door, otherwise you'll straight over to the your dervs and the iced tea. So, no doubt, definitely this is the kind of job I enjoy. I do like sort of smoke jumping in doing a character that I have no relationship with and no relationship to the show.
So let's let's get to Alexis. You did, you did all of your scenes with her?
What was that like?
Axpreciating? Uh? And and here's why, here's why. For some reason, according to the schedule, Lauren Graham, all of her scenes came up first in the day because who knows why, but all of her scenes came up first. So uh so I was you know, guest Guest artists are called to be ready all day. So let's say I'm called at ten in the morning about Evan. In the evening, I'm called to work. So I've had two union meals. I'm in my I'm in my union uh honeywagon.
Uh.
So called because your bed is right next to the toilet and uh, you know I'm hanging today. He sure it even saves movements.
You wouldn't even have to move really if you were no.
You just lean over. It's like it's like having a bedpan while you're ending your life with a fatal illness. You just lean to the left and pee and I'll come in and clean later. Uh, even though you have to go outside and remind them to turn on the water and the electricity in your trailer. But anyway, in the evening, we're called in to do our scenes, and I think we had maybe three, three or four scenes after they go faster, go faster, go faster, they go relatively well. Last scene up in the day okay, And to this point, I have no relationship with Alexis, including no certainly no, no talking to Alexis. And and that's you know, some some regular cast members and the shows I work on go out of their way to talk to the day players, the guest stars. But she was not in the mood, and I could tell she was tired. She was grumpy, long ago. Who knows what was going on? Long day, young and immaterial.
After twelve hours, you don't want to be there anymore. You know, you don't want to do any more scenes, but you know you have to.
No, you don't want to do anything, and especially you don't want to do you know, the ancillary scenes like this are generally going to secondary memory. Your primary scenes that have to do with your characters and your character relationships. You memorize those first because you want to have flexibility in the scene. You wanted to be able to improvise scenes with the plumber, you don't memorize until the last minute. Well, she memorized at the last minute, and god, was it a explosion in a spaghetti factory. She did not know her words. She did not know her words. So we did many, many takes and she gets her words. We come to the last scene that we filmed, which if you're watching in the episode, it doesn't really look like any sort of a prominent scene, but it is what's called a walk and talk walking down a long hallway led by a steady cam. The steady cam is watching you as you're walking toward the steady cam. So the steadycam operator is backing up down this long hallway. I'm in first position, my stooge of an assistant. The actor's name a really nice guy, Dave Slanski Shapanski Slansky. Anyway, Dave is next to me. He's sort of an underling to me.
I hope it's not huh nothing, go ahead.
And Alexis is behind us. So we're a little triumvirate walking toward the steady caam operator. Well, we do one take, So we're walking toward the steady caam operator. I'm talking to Alexis over my shoulder, which is like, jeez, get off my back, I'll give you an interview. Jeez, get off my back, Get on my back. Okay, I hear you. He's doing all the talking. We get about halfway down and she's not there anymore. She ducked into a side room. She's got I don't know my lines. So we go back to what we call go back to one, which is where the tracking shot starts, over by the elevators or something like that. Steady caam operator, steadycam's assistant who is keeping him from falling over because steadycam is walking backwards, steady line up in our little triangle and action. I start walking. I have a couple of lines. Alexi says, one line gets it wrong. We look back, She's not there. She's ducked into a side room. Again, I don't know my lines. Okay, no fault, no blame. This was last in your short term memory. You're having a hard time.
We did.
Thirty takes. We did thirty takes and the scene is maybe twelve seconds long.
Uh.
I'm going over there. I'm trying to hang on. I had better not miss my cube, and the steady cam operator saying, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore. This is the last shot. I cannot do this anymore. And we're right up against midnight, which is, you know, we go into union double time. And so the producer is next to Amy Sherman Palladino saying this is it. Amy loses her but she can't yell at Alexis, so she yields it. Poor Dave next to me, who I think he tripped a little bit or he stumbled and he caught from her. And I'm sweating bullets because like I'm on the last bullet in my Russian roulette gun and that thing better be a blank. Alexis, please remember your life, and she got it. I heard her rehearsing. She wasn't rehearsing the sense of the line. She was rehearsing mnemonics, so, uh, I think she may have some She had some some line of I'm not nitpicking here, so which said, I'm not picnicking here. I'm not going to picnic. I go for a picnic. When I go for a picnic, I have fun. Okay, I have a picnic, I eat sandwiches. So what is the line, I'm not nitpicking here? So that's how she learned the word nitpicking. I don't know if that was the word, but it was something like it. And uh, we get that shot, A check the gate gates. Good, that's a wrap for the day. I dash for my dressing room as fast as I possibly can't and and uh, and I wonder I want to I mean, she gets we find at the end of the episode that I did. My character does hire her. But I was hired for this job as a possible recurring and this is always a contract designation. We're hiring you for one episode, but it's possibly recurring, which means, no matter what we pay you, come work for us, because if you're really good, we'll hire you for more episodes. And that definitely it does happen. I was not invited to come back. My character did not recur. I don't know what happened with her job at the Eagle Gazette after that.
It's interesting because the fans always ask that question too, Like Rory never went back to that job after that episode, and so the fans are always like, this job was such a big deal, where did it go? And it's like one of the great answered questions.
In the next episode, which I wasn't in because I checked. He does she is doing some gig filming something for the for the Gazette. And she has a because there's one scene where she talks with a friend of hers who's in the newsroom at the Gazette. But then after that crickets.
Yeah, she has a line like I have to send something in or something like that, and then that's that's the end of the Gazette.
Sorry, let me interject something here. It's interesting. And this happens on sets, on television sets, on film sets, this kind of thing. This is the point is is this show was so demanding, uh, and the days were so long, and it was just nothing but memorization, short term memory and talking, talking as fast as you possibly can. And it was physically and psychologically and psychically taxing. And the level of exhaustion that you reach after ten twelve hours of this, you simply can't do it anymore. Everything starts to break down.
It's rae.
It actually is that.
It's Roadge's road Rage on the set.
Yes, and it's and it's very, very toxic. And I really feel for Alexis. You tell the story, but I mean she was incapable of remembering anything, and she is in mind like a steel trap. I mean, she could remember anything all those long speeches, all those long scenes.
So my story must not be unique.
No, I mean it's happened to me, it's happened to everybody on that show. Where you just get so overwhelmed because you're so tired after ten twelve hours of that and multiple scenes and it's fast, faster and faster, and it's one hundred degrees out in burbank and you got to go to a town hall meeting and the next day and you're just like it becomes. I don't think fans understand how difficult these jobs are. And you know, absolutely absolutely money, the perks are fantastic, you know, all good, but it's it's a hard job. Gilmore Girls was a hard job.
That's well, I do job. My head is off to you and everyone. A good friend of mine played a recurring role, Mike Winters. Have you had a chance to talk to Michael.
Michael Winters is the best.
Yeah, he's the best.
He's Taylor Taylor Dozie just fantastic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's one of my best ties. And he always he always told me about working on Gilmore Girls and I and I was excited to get the job and and I realized this is this is you know, sometimes television is playtime. You work for a four camera show, you do like, uh, let's say Will and Grace. I worked a lot on Will and Grace.
I did an episode of Will and Grace. I did a Seinfeld. I know it is. It's so much fun. God, Yeah, the dream job is to be a series regular on a hit sitcom. That's the dream job. You know, so much fun. Yeah, you know, nine to five rehearsals. It's like going back to theaters and you're doing live theater in front of a live audience, and it's.
Just and you get to practice, you get you get a week to memorize your lines essentially. But but but my view of Gilmore Girls and and and I know that it's it's consistent around the industry and the yes, the audience wouldn't part take in it, but it's a it is a blender on high. You go in and and as happened with me, my first introduction was you better talk fast, just talk fast, and be relaxed and uh and be offhanded humorous, all of which I can do. But you know, coming at the as you say at the end of a twelve hour day, and I cast no aspersions on Alexis whatsoever.
Oh no, no, no, we didn't think. I just wanted to I just wanted to clarify for the audience, the listening audience. Just you know, everybody has their limits. And I think anybody can relate to this, because everybody's at their jobs every day and it's like it gets to be eight, ten, twelve hours in and you're like, I'm shutting down here and I need to just go home and like go to sleep, take a shower. While not in that order, you're so tired.
You don't even know what we're it.
And it's not as though it's not as though this job is involuntary. You know, we want to be doing this. We have we have we have creative urgence. We want to create characters, we want to perform. We want to work with other artists who are at our level.
But here's something that I will I will postulate it is acting is not meant to do that much.
Interesting.
And I think I think acting is you know, it's a it's a gift to God, it's it's it's it's almost holy, it's it's spiritual. If it's done right, I think there's nothing more vital than live theater when it's done right. I don't think there's anything more vital than uh, a great film when it's done well right. Television is a different animal. It requires you to, because of a level of exhaustion, compromise yourself at times just to preserve your sanity.
Mm hmm.
It's unfortunate, but people get so exhausted on those sets, on one hour single camera dramas or dramas, whatever they are, that it's like you start thinking in terms like and it doesn't happen often, but you sometimes you start thinking in terms like I just need to get the hell out of here, and I just need to sit here and I'll deliver the lines and then I want to go home. No, I'm not going to move over there. No, I'm not going to move over there. And I know I should and I know make a better scene, but it's like you physically cannot do it. So let's talk about Seinfeld, because I did a Seinfeld. I want to I want to compare experiences. Tell us about sign I wonder.
If I said, I wonder if I saw your episode, because I can't I can't recall it off hand.
I did watch sponge Worthy episode sponge Worthy episode sponge Worthy sponge Worthy. It's one of its apparently one of the No you don't you didn't see that one. No, I was like they wanted to Kramer went on an AIDS walk and but he wouldn't wear the ribbon. He goes, I don't want to wear the ribbon. She says, but you have to wear the ribbon.
Now.
But talk about your experience getting Seinfeld and being on the set and meeting though.
We had I had a great experience.
So you met so you knew Mark, You had a relationship with Mark Lieberman or Mark Hirshfeldt, sorry, the casting director Liebman Hirshfeldt, Nancy Liebman, Mark Hirshfeldt.
Yes, Yes, I did, Yes, I did. Thank you right there were they were the so so I right, so so I you know, I was in a like like they do with you know, there there are some of us that meet first with a casting director, and the casting director says, okay, I will put you in the second group and you'll meet with the director and the producers. Uh. I've been in the business even at the time I did Seinfeld. I was in the business long enough where I didn't have to go through the first meet with the casting director. So my I and a handful of guys came in and uh and met Jerry and the producers and I'm not sure, I don't remember who.
Director, David and Howard Shapiro or George Yeah, yeah, did you go to CBS Radford for that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
And and uh and sat in a very comfortable office and talking to Jerry, who's just as nice as can be. Uh, just relaxing. And you know, when you when you're that that was an example of somebody who is so confident in their job and their role and their week to week preparation that there's no stress whatsoever. You're not going to get any glad handing. Uh. It's that kind of job when when you know, when when you're an actor and you don't get the role, you think it wasn't because of any stress in the office. I just wasn't the flavor they were looking for. And that's fine.
So it went well, you got the job.
Well, it went well. The character required a generic Eastern European accent, which I had a generic, nice, nice, comfortable, generic Eastern European. Can you can you.
Do the accent still, can you give us a little taste of milosh?
Do you remember milosh?
Uh?
Somebody uh criticized me later because when I was using my when, I would say when they say no, you don't say when, you say when? When when? Uh? And I was and I was using this, I was using this kind of accent, Jerry says to me. He says, we had we had guests last week who had same accent, and all of his w's were these last week we had I don't want that this week. So when you say week, say lee. When you say when, stay when. And then later fans heavily criticized me for not using the v oh my institution, But it was because Jerry said, we had somebody last week that sounded that way. Can you tweak it a little bit? I also had shoulder length hair at the time god knows what. Oh no. I was doing a character on the single guy h Brad Hall's sitcom and I had long hair for that character. So I was keeping my long hair and Jerry said, who right. Jerry said, can you can you catch your hair? And I said no, I cannot, right, and he said okay, thank you. And by the time I got home. I had the job, so the hair was just I don't know he wanted he wanted something different.
So when you were on set, who were your scene with?
Who?
Who did did you meet everybody in the cast or was it.
Michael Kramer is an old friend of mine? So Rick Richards. Michael Richards is an old friend of mine. We've done we did theater together and I just love him, and so I knew him on the set. And Uh, I know Julia Uh and Jerry, Michael, Julia, h Jason, Jason, and Jason was my next door neighbor, so I knew all of them, even though I hadn't worked with Jason before. So I just felt so at ease and so comfortable. And I think maybe Andy Ackerman was the director. Yeah, and I had worked with Andy before on four camera sitcom, and so I just felt like I was I know these people, I know this job, I know this character. I feel so free and easy. And basically, Jerry and I just played a lot of tennis together.
Nice is he a good tennis But.
I don't know because I was playing with my left hand, so I would be bad. And I was a tennis pro who didn't know how to play tennis.
Gotch you go? So, so let's move on to the Morning show. You were with Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston. Tell us what it was like working with them.
I wasn't with Reese, but I was with Anniston. I was a lawyer on the board of directors under the first administration before Billy Crudup took over, so I had scenes. I had scenes with Billy, and I had scenes.
With Billy is one of my favorite actors. I think he's just a miracle. He's so simple and direct, he's so rights, he's so great. He cuts right through all the bs and just does the character. You know, his role in almost famous as a rock star. Yeah, Yeah, he's so good.
He's just he's just straightforward. Yes, he looks you in the eyes and with an unfurrowed brow, speaks his speaks his truth, which is an example of you don't have to do anything as an actor because you're already it. When you show up on the set, you're already it. You're already the character. You know some maybe there's an accent, maybe there's a maybe there's some sort of physical mannerism you'd like to play with, but be careful doing that. Mostly you arrive and by the time you've arrived, you're the character. You're in place. Then just listen and ignore the two hundred people around you that are waiting to get to the next shot.
There you go.
All right, We're gonna go into a segment we call rapid fire. And you do not have to answer these questions quickly. Okay, you do not.
If they're too fast, I'll spout obscenities. So I'm that's my that's my improptory fault.
I have the same knee jerk reaction having gone through seven years of that. Uh, that's as fast.
Scott?
All right, are you ready? Here we go and a one and a two or two?
Charming?
How do you like your coffee?
It's only one ingredient and the beverage that I call coffee?
Are you team Logan, team Jesser, team Dean in Logan good Man? Who is your favorite Gilmour girls couple Luke and LARELEI or Emily and Richard, Luke and Laurel? I would you rather work with Luke? Indeed, would you rather work with Michelle l or Kirk?
I much rather work with Captain Kirk. I just find him fuzzy.
And what would you order at Luke's Diner?
Oh, I'd order a club sandwich, hold the turkey, and I don't like that cheese they keep putting on. They say it's cheddar, it's American.
You Harord Yale, or you drop out and live in a poolhouse.
It would have to be Harvard by default, because I was directed by a Yale director who told me, anytime you're talking to another actor, you need to look in their eyes. And I said, what kind of behavior is that? I learned that at Yale. Sorry, I'm off to Harvard.
Somebody just told me that I'm not kidding.
I swear to the Mark Brokaw.
That's funny. Would you rather attend a DAAR event with Emily or a town meeting with Taylor?
A time meeting with Taylor? Because I would just like to travel with her, getting through the screaming crowds trying to get to the venue. I find it very charming when I when I see her sh in shots in the in the owner's booth, I found out she looks like a nice girl.
Gilmore, girl's character that you would want as a roommate.
I was a roommate with Mike Winters. Tell me the name of his character again, Taylor. Taylor, Yeah, Taylor.
Something in your life. You are all in on your beard.
My puppies. I know my beard is all in on me, but but yeah, my my, my puppies.
It's a fantastic beard. That is a to me.
What is this doing on my face?
I don't know, it's I don't know, it's it's working for you, buddy.
All right.
Really enjoying the unemployment line, enjoyed speaking with you you, Caly, Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us. I appreciate your time, appreciate your good work, and all the best to you. Take care of man, Thank.
You everybody, and off again.
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