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[0:06] Gordon Cox: Welcome to Stagecraft, Variety's Theatre Podcast, bringing you behind the scenes with the stars and creators of the hottest shows on Broadway, off Broadway, and beyond.

[0:15] Gordon Cox: I'm your host, Gordon Cox.

[0:17] Gordon Cox: On this episode of Stagecraft, I talk to Tim and Tyne Daly, the real-life brother and sister now playing siblings on stage in Teresa Rebeck's Off Broadway play, Downstairs.

[0:28] Gordon Cox: Both Dalys will be familiar to listeners from their regular TV work, with Tim starring in TV shows like Wings and the current Madame Secretary, and Tyne appearing in series including Cagney and Lacey and the reboot of Murphy Brown.

[0:40] Gordon Cox: Both have done plenty of stage work as well, with Tyne winning a Tony for Gypsy in 1990 and starring in more recent Broadway shows like Rabbit Hole, Mothers and Sons, and It Should Have Been You.

[0:50] Gordon Cox: But this is the first time the two of them have acted on stage together, and in fact, have acted opposite each other in any significant way.

[0:58] Gordon Cox: And on stage at the Cherry Lane is about the only time you're gonna be able to see these two together these days, because they're both starring in the play, eight performances a week, while at the same time juggling busy TV schedules during the day.

[1:09] Gordon Cox: Hi Tim.

[1:11] Tim Daly: I'm glad to be here, thanks.

[1:13] Gordon Cox: So the idea was to try and get you and Tyne together in the same room so you could record this podcast together, but it turns out that that's basically impossible at the moment because not only are you doing this play every night, but you're both working pretty significant roles in TV shows, you and uh Madam Secretary and Tyne and the Murphy Brown reboot.

[1:30] Gordon Cox: So that sort of leads to my question of when actors who film TV shows in New York, which a lot of them do, they go to their day job on the set and then they do a show at night, and those are both TV and stage are extremely time-consuming things, especially when you're rehearsing for a play. So how do you even make that work as an actor?

[1:49] Tim Daly: Uh well the first thing you do is you have to beg everyone to work with you.

[1:56] Gordon Cox: Yeah, do you have to cajole your Madam Secretary?

[1:58] Tim Daly: You have to beg the people at Madam Secretary to work around your schedule.

[2:03] Tim Daly: And then you have to beg the people at the play to have a non-traditional rehearsal schedule.

[2:07] Tim Daly: And you just mean exactly sort of a lot of people.

[2:11] Tim Daly: It means that it's not all day. It's like sometimes you can work from ten in the morning till six in the evening, and sometimes you work from six in the evening till eleven at night.

[2:21] Tim Daly: And uh and your days off are different, and it just it's just an ongoing adventure of trying to get everybody in the room at the same time.

[2:30] Gordon Cox: And how willing are people to go along with that?

[2:34] Tim Daly: Did for instance at your TV show are they were they you know, well, I think I have I have some goodwill over there.

[2:40] Tim Daly: Okay, go ahead.

[2:40] Tim Daly: Um I I've been on I've been on Best Behavior.

[2:43] Gordon Cox: So uh I don't know, I hear you broke both of your legs, so I don't know.

[2:46] Tim Daly: Well, I well there is that.

[2:48] Tim Daly: Uh but I but I didn't do it did that at them.

[2:50] Gordon Cox: That's true.

[2:51] Tim Daly: I wasn't sorry.

[2:51] Tim Daly: I wasn't yelling at anyone over there.

[2:53] Gordon Cox: Well, I was breaking them.

[2:55] Tim Daly: Uh you know, I th I think it's um uh they they recognize that there's sort of uh uh unique and uh maybe even historical uh uh moment at hand here because Tyne and I have never been in the theater on stage together before.

[3:11] Tim Daly: Uh we did this play before at the Dorset Theater Festival.

[3:14] Gordon Cox: But uh and that was actually one of my questions. Did was part of the reason this was possible is that you had done this before and it was a little less of a lift for you to revisit it while you were shooting your TV show, or well you know or was that not part of it?

[3:28] Tim Daly: I I that's a good question because I went into this thing, oh, this is gonna be easy. We did this before. This is Cinchy. We'll just go here.

[3:35] Tim Daly: The line. It was a couple years ago, yeah.

[3:36] Tim Daly: It was a year and a half ago.

[3:37] Tim Daly: Year and a half, yeah.

[3:38] Tim Daly: And um the lines did not just come right back. It was uh it was quite kind of an adventure.

[3:43] Tim Daly: We did, though, understand the relationship of the people in the play, and there wasn't a lot of that sort of uh initial work of digging the mind of the people's psyches to try to figure out who they were.

[3:54] Tim Daly: We we had had that idea in hand. Uh that said, we d we had enough time to, I think, um, deepen our performances and deepen our understanding of our characters and of the play, which is great.

[4:05] Tim Daly: Um but uh I forget the the initial question was something about scheduling.

[4:10] Gordon Cox: Yeah, something about schedule.

[4:12] Tim Daly: The the basic answer is it's just shit show, you do what you can, you're you you try to pretend you're not tired, you know, and and then you do and you get out there and give her give her everything you got.

[4:21] Gordon Cox: Right. And tell the listeners a little bit about sort of how this play came about. You first worked with Teresa up at the Dorset Theater Festival, which is in Vermont, yes?

[4:29] Tim Daly: Yes. Uh Teresa has a a house in Dorset, and I have a house about 20 minutes away.

[4:33] Tim Daly: And um uh a woman uh named Dina Janice, who's the artistic director there, asked me to do a play, and I wanted to do something, and I read um the scene that Theresa wrote, and I did it and loved it.

[4:44] Tim Daly: And uh Teresa and I kind of loved each other, and she said, um Was Teresa involved in that production? Was she or did she just see it?

[4:50] Tim Daly: She was around.

[4:52] Tim Daly: She was she was around.

[4:53] Tim Daly: Um and she was around enough to answer questions, and um I'm not sure how much tweaking she did, maybe a little bit.

[5:00] Tim Daly: Um she said, What are we gonna do next? And I said, I don't know, why don't you write a play for me and my sister?

[5:05] Tim Daly: And she said, Don't say that unless you mean it.

[5:07] Tim Daly: And I said, I mean it, thinking there is no freaking way she's gonna write a play for me and my sister.

[5:12] Tim Daly: And about a year later, she presented me with a stack of pages that didn't even have a title on it, and she said, Here it is. It's called Downstairs.

[5:20] Tim Daly: I was like, No way.

[5:22] Gordon Cox: And did she at the time that you guys were talking, did you did she pepper you with questions about your relationship with your sister? Did she like how much how much digging did she do about you and your relationship with Tyne as she thought about characters that you would play?

[5:36] Tim Daly: If she did digging, it was uh so brilliantly disguised that I was unaware of it.

[5:41] Tim Daly: I mean, we were close, we're friends, and she knows something about my past, and I've told her stories about you know, mm growing up, and she's told me some stories about her.

[5:50] Tim Daly: So uh we know something about each other, and I think she uh put that stuff in her subconscious and then let it come out, and some of it made it into the play, and some of it didn't.

[6:00] Gordon Cox: And what do you feel like what does she get right about your relationship as you with your sister as as you were reading it?

[6:09] Tim Daly: Well, I think she gets um she understands love. You know, she understands love and she understands uh the will of siblings to protect and help and save each other.

[6:24] Tim Daly: I also think she understands that people in the same family can have completely and utterly different memories of the exact same events and and sort of uh feelings about what it was like to grow up in a certain place.

[6:39] Tim Daly: Um, you know, and and I've found uh that uh, you know, I have three older sisters, and I I know, and I say this without uh pride and with a little bit of uh not shame but concern about myself.

[6:52] Tim Daly: I have actually inserted myself into stories that I've heard so many times, and I remember them vividly.

[6:59] Tim Daly: I remember every single detail. I would pass a lie detector test if someone asked me if that story was true, and my sisters had to sit me down and say, Timmy, you were not born when this happened.

[7:10] Tim Daly: You there's no way you could remember it. And uh and I would swear it's true.

[7:14] Tim Daly: So uh she gets that right.

[7:16] Gordon Cox: And so and you you mentioned that you had not worked with Tyne on stage before, but you'd worked with her on screen previously, is that right?

[7:22] Tim Daly: Yeah, I mean she did a little thing on Wings back in the day, and I did a little thing on Judging Amy, and she played a part in a movie that I produced sort of as a favor, um but nothing significant.

[7:32] Gordon Cox: Yes, but nothing significant.

[7:34] Tim Daly: Yeah.

[7:34] Tim Daly: And you know, I'll tell you, I went into Downstairs thinking that it would be sort of a light, frothy sibling comedy, and it's funny, but it goes dark. Were you surprised by what I was surprised, I think because I was expecting a light frothy sibling comedy. Were you surprised when you read it about sort of what it tackles and how dark it goes?

[7:51] Tim Daly: Um no, not not really.

[7:54] Tim Daly: I I I wasn't surprised by it. I was actually delighted because I thought not not by the darkness for the sake of being dark, but by um you the the territory that it explored, and the interesting thing about the play is that it's a lot more resonant now than it was when we did it a year and a half ago.

[8:13] Gordon Cox: Um why? Tell us more.

[8:14] Tim Daly: Well, I uh one of the one of the themes of the play is sort of identifying and living with and dealing with demons.

[8:21] Tim Daly: And um for a lot of us in American society right now, we feel like we're living with a demon.

[8:29] Tim Daly: Uh I won't name any names, but uh we'll leave it up to the listeners.

[8:33] Tim Daly: And having having lived with a demon for a couple of years, uh we understand it better, and we we feel the the stress and the fear and the terror of that more.

[8:45] Tim Daly: So uh I think that our audiences are are understanding it and identifying with it more strongly.

[8:51] Gordon Cox: As you mentioned, this is the first sort of extended period of really working with Tyne uh particularly on stage. What what surprised you about how she works as an actor? Did anything surprise you in terms of how she works and what does she do differently than from what you do as an actor?

[9:05] Tim Daly: Well, um I think that uh I I I I'll say this. I mean when you talk to Tyne, she might refute it.

[9:13] Tim Daly: But um I think that Tyne uh this is what I learned from Tyne.

[9:19] Tim Daly: I uh what I what I've learned from Tyne is uh and I I share this, but but um it it r was reflected back to me significantly by her is her desire to never quit on the work.

[9:34] Tim Daly: Opening night happens and you keep digging, you keep looking for things, you keep trying to refine it and and make it better and uh make the experience for the audience better.

[9:44] Tim Daly: Uh and um I think I have that, but but Tyne certainly is a fantastic example of that.

[9:52] Tim Daly: I think um I've also helped Tyne a lot because I somehow managed to get um a lot of joy out of this work.

[10:02] Tim Daly: And Tyne beats herself up a lot.

[10:05] Tim Daly: And um I take her in hand and I say, Hey, it's me. Come on, let's have some fun.

[10:11] Tim Daly: No one's getting hurt.

[10:12] Tim Daly: And um and I think it's I think that's good for her, and I think she actually appreciates it uh because um it's a weird thing to do being an actor.

[10:22] Tim Daly: It's not really it's it's not really a healthy pursuit uh to to be a uh as a profession to say I want to do something where I go and have people tell me I'm wrong, I'm not enough, and you describe me physically, my physical attributes, my voice, my hair, my eyes, everything about me is wrong.

[10:40] Tim Daly: And then if you get lucky enough to do it, you get to be described all over again as the wrong thing.

[10:45] Tim Daly: You w weren't good enough, you were too this or too that.

[10:47] Tim Daly: It's just an odd thing to do, and it takes uh incredible amount of stubbornness or stupidity or uh or or ego or all a combination of those things to persist in this profession.

[11:00] Tim Daly: Um and uh so uh uh trying to find a healthy way to do it has been a goal of mine.

[11:08] Tim Daly: I I don't believe that you have to be uh an irresponsible, solipsistic disaster of a human being to be a real artist.

[11:18] Tim Daly: I I I think that uh a l a lot of times we love watching our artists self-destruct, but you don't have to do that.

[11:25] Tim Daly: Is there something in the genetic code of the Daly family that bred actors, do you feel like? Well, how did you how did you how do you end up with two actors? I mean like a congenital disease. Exactly, just like that. If you pass on from generation to generation. I think I think there must be. I really don't know. I mean, Tyne and I came to it in very different ways. She, when she was eight years old, knew that this was it. She thought it was glamorous and amazing and uh uh but that was her she's ten years older, so her experience of my parents being i i in the business was different than mine. Um tell the listeners what your what your parents did, just so they know.

[12:02] Tim Daly: They were both actors. Both actors. Yeah, my dad was a a successful theater actor and did a lot of television, live television especially, and and uh some network television that he was well known for. Um and my mom quit after having four kids, but she was always a student and and a hyper critic of uh the theater and uh people's work and the you know being an actor with a capital A so for all of us the the one thing that we do share is that if you were going to be in the theater in my family you were not to do it blithely there was no fucking around that was the holy place the temple of uh you uh artistic pursuit so if you went in there you better give it everything you had and you better be good and you better uh be um uh reverent about it because uh it was considered uh uh literally like a holy place um but anyway time came I came about it thinking that it was glamorous and I just thought that actors because they were walking around my house all the time were just drunken grown-ups who would not feed me.

Basically you know when I was eight years old it was like it's 10 30 I someone give me fucking dinner. I'm starving um because they were drunk and telling stories and smoking and and being grand. But I did have an overactive imagination and uh and I played really hard at things so when I uh decided I knew I could do it. I found out that I could do it in high school um that I had an aptitude for it but I wasn't at all sure that I had the personality for it. I wasn't sure that I could stand up and be punched in the face a thousand times before someone said okay I'm not gonna punch you in the face. And it turns out I did. So maybe that's the genetic part.

[13:59] Tim Daly: And so what is it that uh what is it about theater in particular that you feel the even desire to sort of carve out the time for in you know, for instance, in the middle of your busy production schedule for the TV show. So uh on Sunday night, we had a show on Sunday night, and I was in a car driving home with a the this guy who is an a uh an actor who drives to support himself, and he was said, what's the difference between TV or movies and theater? And I looked at the clock and it was 10 30, and I said, I'll tell you what it is. Right now there are someplace somewhere between six and nine million people, hopefully nine, watching me on television. And I don't know what they're doing. I don't know if they're in their underwear, I don't know if they're eating food, I don't know if they're asleep and the TV is just on.

I don't know what part of the country they're in, I don't know what what they're doing. But I just did a play for 175 people, and I know exactly the experience they had. I know what they felt, I know what they laughed at, I know when they got suspense when they felt the suspense and when they got excited, and I know that they clapped at the end. So that's why I carve out the difference. Because I like being in the same room as the audience and sharing an experience that isn't mitigated by anyone else, by advertisements or by editing or no one tells the eye where to go in the theater. It's up to the audience and to the actors.

[15:26] Tim Daly: So it seems like uh that's a thing you're gonna keep on doing, the theater while you're Oh god, I guess so. Yeah, I mean, you know, part of the idea is you do television also to stack up your chips so you can afford to do theater, which is um, you know, uh kind of a sad thing because it's not uh not a place to make a living, really. Uh do you are there any stage roles that you would like to first see your sister in, and are there any stage roles that you would like to play? Oh gosh, what would I like to see my sister do? I mean that's a good one. I'd have to think about that, um, because uh she could do anything. I would like to do Long Day's Journey in tonight with my son Sam. Wow. Um I think that would be a really interesting exercise.

It would be really intense, but um he is such a talented and good actor and such a great man. Uh I think that it would be it would be interesting therapy for both of us. And um I actually saw the play for the first time in London a few years ago with uh Lori Metcalfe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I I thought Sushay, maybe is that right? Yeah. And I thought this is a play. Uh it's the first time I ever thought this is a play I need to do. I'd read it a couple of times and thought, oh my god, Jesus Christ. But now I think I want to do it. All right. Well, we look forward to that happening when it happens. Thank you, Tim. Thanks for coming in. Nice to talk to you.

[16:55] Tyne Daly: Hi, Tyne. Nice to see you. Thank you. Nice to be here. So Downstairs was written for you and for Tim. What did you think when you first read it? I uh was in love with it pretty quickly. I like Miss Uh Theresa's work a lot. And um there was an opening, there was an opening thing that just made me howl with laughter. Um the opening monologue of t of uh Teddy's. Yeah. And um I actually sort of lost my composure, which was fun. Um yeah, and I thought, you know, I was first mostly just very surprised that she'd actually gone ahead and done it. You know, I've haven't that's not very often that I've had Mr. McNally made a play for me, which was wonderful to hear. Yeah, it doesn't happen that often for most people, but no, it's it feels real very privileged. Right, yeah. And what in the character did you find was very easy for you to find?

[17:48] Tyne Daly: Well, uh the re the reason I was attracted to her was because she was uh sort of against type, as they say, which is a disgusting phrase, but um she's sort of meek, and I have been accused of playing strong women all the time. I was kind of tired of strong women. Um but um I I know that gives offense, and I don't mean to give offense about the real world. It's just um I don't want to get stuck in that. And I managed to get away from that thing with uh with the musical with uh um what do you call it? Should have been you. Right. Which was fun to try. It was another new play, but it wasn't made exactly for me. Right. But uh but they were uh not they were properly grateful when I came on board. And I had a lot of fun with that. So it seemed to me it seemed to be some uh some different fields to plow. Right. And was there was there anything in the character that you found more challenging to really click into?

[18:41] Tyne Daly: Well, the word she's she's one of those wordsmiths, she's one of those real writers, yeah. Teresa yes, absolutely. And and uh so you're you best learn those notes for real and not try to approximate and not try to guess at them. It is um what Maria Collis called the strait jacket in terms of a score. And certain writers, uh really good ones for the theater, write scores. Uh or to me, the words become a a part of a of a musical experience. Yeah. And what do you feel like the play captures about the relationship between siblings that felt really accurate to you? Well, f the first of all thing is that everybody grows up in a different household. Everybody's experience of their parents, everybody's got different parents.

Tim said something very similar, actually. Especially siblings, perhaps. Yeah. And so that is something that that we'd noticed, we the Daly kids had noticed. Um in terms of having a chance to sit down and talk. We w m my sister Peggy and myself and my sister Glennis and Tim all went and interviewed and talked to my dad's older sister once and came back and had a long, long talks about what different families we'd all come from. What different parents we have, what different aunts and uncles, what different grandparents we'd have from each other.

[19:54] Tyne Daly: And so this is the first time that you and Tim have acted opposite each other in like a really significant capacity, it seems like, yeah. That's true. Um and so what surprised you about how he works as an actor? Um surprised me. He's very diligent, you know. Uh we would live together up in uh in Dorset at his farm, kind of on his farm for the first time too. We were kind of roommates when we were doing a few years. When you were doing this play, yeah. Yeah, uh but 14 months ago, 15 months ago now. And so that was an interesting thing. Uh that had not happened in our grown-up lives or our growing up. And uh I think we were good roommates.

[20:30] Tyne Daly: Um but we bashed we'd bashed the words together. We had a similar work work ethic about the words. Um and got to talk about stuff. Um pick each other's brains a little bit. Yeah, like you do when you're working with someone. Tim says he thinks working with you got him got you to sort of loosen up a little and maybe enjoy the process a little more than I don't enjoy acting. I'm sorry, I'm too old to lie about it anymore. I've I you're supposed to have fun. Are you having fun? Is like you know, uh, and I experience it as work. Right. And the longer I do it, and the more I know about it, and the more I've done it, the worse I get at it. So the harder it is to get to some kind of standard of accomplishment. And I'm I'm uh, you know, I feel like an old codger now, but I'm not um I uh many people experience this as a fun time. Yeah, right. God bless them.

[21:28] Tyne Daly: And you keep doing it, clearly. I mean too. Well, I like making a living. Yeah. And and that's always been nice. And I like supporting uh the people that I love. Uh so that's that's uh kind of a one of the finer reasons for being a professional anything. Um and uh I don't know, people keep asking me to do it, and I keep finding out that there are different stories to tell. I do like storytelling, but getting to the place where I'm good enough and uh practiced enough to tell that story well, it gets harder and bloody harder. Do you kids you should have seen me in my prime as well? No, I keep telling Timmy we should have done this play 20 years ago. Uh but it didn't exist, and nor did we in our present uh did did the fact of your relationship uh your and your sibling relationship did it make doing this play easier, do you think? Or I have no idea. I've never done another sibling play with another sibling of mine. How am I supposed to? I'm nothing to compare it to. Yeah.

[22:32] Tyne Daly: Um yeah, he's a he's a fun colleague, and so is so is John. They keep it light. John Fogacino. Yeah, we're a good trio. I think we balance well, and they've learned to just, you know, uh leave me alone.

[22:47] Tim Daly: To do my all my, you know, breathing and nonsense and warms up my my ritual. Timmy's got his rituals too, and so does John. But they're those are based on um being social and and funny and dear and uh kind to the apprentices and all that stuff. Um I can't be bothered.

[23:05] Tyne Daly: Not yours. Oh, are you and do you so do you need a lot of time to I don't know, breathe and meditate?

[23:09] Tim Daly: More than most of the yeah, yeah. I don't bring a phalanx of of uh uh people to you know talk me into it. But um I I do have to talk myself into it and it takes longer and longer.

[23:20] Tyne Daly: So you're supposed to talk yourself into it. You're not supposed to talk yourself out of it.

[23:24] Tim Daly: Right. That's one of the kids that's one of the key tricks.

[23:27] Tyne Daly: Right. Is does that get harder also?

[23:30] Tim Daly: Or yeah, sure. Gets harder to talk yourself out of bed, sweetheart. You know, you're just a baby, you have no idea.

[23:37] Tyne Daly: What what else can I do? So the Cherry Lane is a small theater compared to some of the Broadway houses you've been playing recently in particular.

[23:45] Tim Daly: Yeah. Well, exactly. Do you enjoy this very intimate um I do for this play, absolutely, and other plays. I think when we talked about coming into New York, which Jim and I and Teresa and everybody wanted to do, but they talked about Broadway night about houses and stuff, and I said, No matter whether it's a a dinkier one, whether it's a John Golden or the smaller old houses, this is play is not this play is the size for Off Broadway. And then when they said the Cherry Lane, I got very nostalgic about having started here a long time ago. And so I thought this is just right. And I think it is the right play for the right the right house for the right play. And I think that's an important choice to make because not everything, everybody the first thing they say to you if they come to see you in a new place, are you gonna move it? When is it gonna move? You guys want to move it? You know, and some of them should move and some of them shouldn't. And um I'm very happy for the for this play here.

[24:34] Tyne Daly: Yeah. Your your parents were actors. What did you think acting was as a kid, and what did you discover it was then growing up in the U.S.?

[24:43] Tim Daly: I thought acting was the holy of holies as a kid. And I thought it was the temple where truth and bravery and beauty and uh uh glorious um the words lived.

[24:59] Tyne Daly: Do you still think that?

[25:00] Tim Daly: Yes.

[25:02] Tyne Daly: Did your parents give you any advice about show business that really worked for you?

[25:08] Tim Daly: No, no, repeatedly, don't do it.

[25:09] Tyne Daly: Right. But you ignore them.

[25:12] Tim Daly: No, I listen to them sometimes. I often think they were right, absolutely right. I shouldn't have been, I should have wasted my life.

[25:16] Tyne Daly: What would you have done instead?

[25:18] Tim Daly: Um I would have been a translator at the UN.

[25:20] Tyne Daly: Oh, cool.

[25:20] Tim Daly: Or something that had to do with languages, people understanding. It's the same thing as I mean, trying to get people to understand what you're talking about, basically. But I would love to have had uh multiple languages. I'm just too lazy. I pretended though, very well, I pretended to speak uh uh French and Italian.

[25:38] Tyne Daly: Of course. That's the that's the job, right?

[25:40] Tim Daly: Yeah. How have you seen the entertainment industry shift over the years?

[25:44] Tyne Daly: Not much at all. Uh the what the traffic will allow. There's always a great deal more d stupid stuff than there is good stuff. There's a little layer of good stuff, and there's a tiny layer of excellent stuff. And that's what we can expect. I think maybe we're hearing more voices, you know. Uh um, it's less um restricted in many ways than it has, which is good. Um, but I think if I'd lived a hundred years ago, I would also have thought that the theater was getting less restrictive.

[26:13] Tim Daly: Right. And if I'd lived a hundred years before that, I would have thought it was the same thing. Um I love the way that that that human beings try to tell each other's stories. I really do.

[26:24] Tyne Daly: What felt uh right about returning to Murphy Brown?

[26:28] Tim Daly: Not a return for you, but Murphy Brown returning in this moment. And well, they uh, you know, those are very smart women, and they and they uh were ten years on television with a lot of of of influence and glory, and I was feeling very desperate about you know the condition of our world and all that stuff. And uh wiser people and I have said, you know, this is what we do. We're actors. What we do is acting. That's that's how we know how to say anything. That's our pulpit and our, you know, scrubbing the stairs and our work. And so it they they asked me, and I thought, well, that might be an interesting room to be in with those those women.

[27:05] Tyne Daly: Um was it?

[27:06] Tim Daly: I know you just finished your.

[27:08] Tyne Daly: Yeah, it was. It was it well, a whole different kind of work that I don't know nothing about. Although I did do one episode of Tim Daly's.

[27:14] Tim Daly: I was gonna say what part of the sort of sitcom, you know, the part where there's an audience and and machines.

[27:19] Tyne Daly: There's an audience of live people, and then in between the live people and the other live people is a phalanx of machines of people all doing their work.

[27:28] Tim Daly: Recording it, yeah. Yeah, and it's and it's a really kind of a bastard form. And I didn't but they were very handy at it. It was fun to watch them do it because they'd um managed to figure out how to do an under-rehearsed opening night once a week. I thought it was terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Even more terrifying than than regular film television series because you have the privacy of just screwing up in front of the entire crew. You don't screw up in front of the entire crew and a paying audience.

[27:56] Tyne Daly: Right. That's very embarrassing.

[28:00] Tim Daly: You've done theater throughout your career as busy as you as you are on screen, and uh what's kept you coming back to the stage?

[28:07] Tyne Daly: Well, I don't I think it's I um I think the work that I've done on film has has afforded me to be able to be on the stage, which is yeah, it's kind of first for actors it is. There's all these arguments about you know what's where does the real work go on. Oh, the work is all the same. You just parse out your energy in different ways. So and it's also there's when you're on film you're on frozen time. And when you're in this room with me, you're in live time.

[28:34] Tim Daly: Right. And it's simple and deep and profound as far as I'm concerned, difference. Yeah. Not that one's better than the other. One can last forever and they can look at it, you know. Uh uh there's there's a real value in that.

[28:47] Tyne Daly: Yeah. But um I you know, come some kind of uh cellular immortality.

[28:53] Tim Daly: Yeah. Celluloid, I mean.

[28:55] Tyne Daly: What have been your favorite stage roles?

[28:58] Tim Daly: All of them. Yeah. I've I've been in love with all of them when I was doing them. Do you know? Uh when I was at the Hoax It Theater, uh the China Dragon Theater in Hoax It New Hampshire, playing the second shopper from the left in uh in uh uh She Loves Me. That was my favorite favorite role.

[29:16] Tyne Daly: How was that when was that?

[29:19] Tim Daly: That was when I was cheating. That was when I was working in between years of school when you weren't supposed to do that.

[29:24] Tyne Daly: Oh, okay.

[29:27] Tim Daly: Yeah. Before this, uh or maybe after this experience at the Cherry Lane. I'm not sure. The first time around, the when you weren't here before. What was that show?

[29:38] Tyne Daly: That show was a a comedy from nineteen twenty five called The Butter and Eggman by George S. Kaufman. The only play he ever wrote by himself without a partner.

[29:46] Tim Daly: Yeah. And Bert Chevalov was the director.

[29:48] Tyne Daly: No. Wow.

[29:48] Tim Daly: We go. Yeah. I hope you mean that wow.

[29:50] Tyne Daly: I mean I thought it was a wow.

[29:52] Tim Daly: That's a name I know. Um and uh the girl that they had playing that Agenu was um wooed back to Los to Los Angeles because she had a contract with Warner Brothers or something, and they had to start a movie. And I was working as a human stapler in the village, stapling together cosmetic samples. And the agent called and said, Go to the cherry lane, they want you to read now. And I read and I went upstairs, they made me wait. And then there are four other women I heard read. And then I came down, they said, you get to start now. And I called my husband of a couple of months and said, uh bring me the right shoes. I don't have the right shoes. I can't step on the stage without the right shoes.

[30:33] Tyne Daly: Are there any stage roles that you've always wanted to play?

[30:37] Tim Daly: Um, well, there's ones that pass me by, you know, that I thought about, but I never really could answer the question. I could see that's my favorite one. I have to do this. Um the Shakespeare's kind of done, except for a couple of those mad queens, you know, that's uh um I'm I think I felt I missed my chance at the at the um Delacourt. Um although they asked a couple of times, it was all about timing. The actor doesn't have too much choice except to just either keep doing it or quit.

[31:03] Tyne Daly: One thing I asked Tim, and he was too surprised to have an answer was what role would he like to see you in on stage? And do you have an answer for him?

[31:11] Tim Daly: Ah I would like to see him do um I never sang for my father.

[31:20] Tyne Daly: Oh and I'd like to see I'd like to see him do a number of um uh uh American playwright things. I don't know what he'd do with O'Neal would be interesting. I think Timmer's in his prime, you see. It's different from men. So he's sixty-two and he's about to grow up. He's he's suffered from handsome most of his career. No, you just go ahead and laugh, but you can suffer from lots of different things, including assumptions about anything. But I think Timber's got a lot of chops. I saw him do um the um K Mutiny. And he was one of the only actors ago. Yeah. One of the only actors on the stage who could accomplish being from another era. Um there's a lot of wonderful actors who can play their own time in their own time and their own experiences and their own American training tends to do that. You play a uh uh regular fella who's quite like you.

[32:12] Tyne Daly: Yeah. So I want to see Tim play Kings and Princes and Villains and Richard the Third, I'd like to see him play.

[32:18] Tim Daly: Cool. And before we go, what's next for you? Do you know that's we're coming up on the holidays?

[32:23] Tyne Daly: Yeah. Christmas and a break, and I don't know how long I have uh uh three sets of of daughters and families to visit. Um I'm gonna take some time through February. And then I get to go to a big party in LA because of one of this movies I made.

[32:36] Tim Daly: So you see Oh, yeah, which one?

[32:37] Tyne Daly: Uh the Independent Spirit Award is for um birth um the bread factory parts one and two.

[32:42] Tim Daly: Oh, yeah, that's uh I haven't gotten a chance to see that yet, but it sounds like a really interesting thing.

[32:46] Tyne Daly: Yeah, it was people really have responded. The Independent Spirit Awards, you gotta make your make your film for under 200,000 dollars.

[32:56] Tim Daly: Right. And God Patrick Wang had 108 speaking roles and two full musical movies. That's the last musical I did, although I don't have a number. I don't have a number, I kind of glued the thing together.

[33:05] Tyne Daly: Right. But uh anyway, so there's there's uh the Independent Spirit Awards, yeah. And uh the uh screenplay is nominated, I am nominated.

[33:13] Tim Daly: Yeah, and I want to go to the party on the beach at Malibu in February, don't you?

[33:17] Tyne Daly: Absolutely. Have a great time.

[33:18] Tim Daly: Thanks.

[33:19] Tyne Daly: Have a good holiday. It's nice to talk to you.

[33:22] Tim Daly: Thanks, Tyne. Nice to talk to you.

[33:29] Gordon Cox: That was Tyne Daly and Tim Daly, starting together off Broadway in downtown at the Cherry Lane Theater. If you like what you've heard on this and other episodes of Stagecraft, don't forget to rate and review us on iTunes and subscribe wherever finer podcasts are dispensed. Stagecraft will be taking a couple of weeks off for the holidays, but I'll be back in January with a new year of conversations with the people who make the shows happen on Broadway, off Broadway, and beyond. Until then, see you at the theater.