The Delta Flyers - Armin Shimerman

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

The Delta Flyers is a weekly podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. This week’s episode is an interview with Armin Shimerman.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, Brannon Braga, Bryan Fuller, John Espinosa, & Ariana DelbarAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Chris Knapp, Janet K Harlow, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, E, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Jenna Appleton, Lee Lisle, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Lori Tharpe, Mary Burch, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Tae Phoenix, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Roxane Ray, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Michael Dismuke, Jonathan Brooks, Gemma Laidler, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Matt Norris, Stephanie Lee, David Smith, & Matt BurchAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Patrick Carlin, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Samantha Weddle, Chloe E, Nikita Jane, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Species 2571, Mary O'Neal, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Cindy Ring, Alicia Kulp, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Aaron Ogitis, Ryan Benoit, Megan Chowning, Rachel Shapiro, Captain Jak Greymoon, Clark Ochikubo, David J Manske, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Will Forg, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Christian Koch, Lisa Gunn, Lauren Rivers, Shane Pike, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Akash Patel, Jennifer Vaughn, Cameron Wilkins, Michael Butler, Ken McCleskey, Walkerius Logos, Abby Chavez, Preston Meyer, Amanda Faville, Lisa Hill, Benjamin Bulfer, Stacy Davis, & Mary JenkinsThank you for your support!“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail].”Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome, everyone to the Delta Flyers. You had another episode of Delta Flyers of Robbie and myself. And this week, our special guest, is none other than Armine Schimmerman. Welcome, Armin. Welcome, Armin. Thank you. Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

This is very exciting because, as a lot of you know, Armin's going to be joining us. We're still in the SAG After Strike. In the future, what's exciting is Armine is going to be joining us for part two of our episode rewatch. And we're going to be talking about a three-year mission. A three-year mission, yes, with the show that Armin was on. Yes. I have to say, I'm super excited. Yes, we've had Terry on right before, you know, we were able to talk to her a little bit in one of our Delta Flyer episodes.

And now we have Armin. and I'm so excited to have Armin because in a way, Armin was really my entree into the franchise that we were all part of because he was a very first actor that I met. And you were so scared in that episode. Oh, my gosh, I was. And not only in the first scene that I shot, but the first person that I met when I came out of wardrobe,

they brought me on to your stage and I met you. You were the first actor. Yes. And then that's when you said, hey kid come on back and let me tell you let me show you the ropes and that's when we went to your trailer and you told me about check your force calls check this check that accounting is hired that's when I was a union official yes but again you're your uh you're how personable you were to me how kind you were to me and then and then shooting that first scene when I was scared I was

literally about the poop in my pants I was that scared and you were just like a calm you were like a heavy blanket that was thrown across me where I felt like, oh, okay, I can do this. So I'm equally, I'm super, I think I'm more excited than anyone to have you as part of our team. So thank you so much. That's very sweet. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. Okay. All right. But for this episode, we want to dive into, you know, your formative years. And from what I can see off of Wikipedia, and you can correct any of this if it's wrong, that you were born in Lakewood, New Jersey. This is what it says. And neither of your parents were in the industry. Your mother was an accountant.

Your father was a painter, house painter. And then at the age of 15, you guys moved from Jersey to Los Angeles. And this is where the question begins. What predicated that move? Why did that happen? It was an incredible feat that my mother performed. My parents divorced when I was seven years old. And so my mom became a single parent bringing up two boys,

myself and my brother she had the help of her mother who moved from cleveland to uh new jersey to lakewood uh in order to help bring up her her grandchildren but i was up as you said 15 and it was getting time to think about college and my mother was really poor and uh she looked around the colleges in the east coast and and they were just too expensive for her she did a little bit more research and she found out that the UC system, the University of California system, was incredibly cheap, almost free. But in order to get that free entrance into the UC system, you had to be a resident of California. You had to be a resident for two years. So my mother, bravely and boldly, packed up her two boys, her mother, everything she had.

I don't know how she did it into a VW bug. Oh, my gosh. And drove herself and us across country from New Jersey to Santa Monica, California, and moved to California so that her eldest son could go to college. And eventually, I did go to UCLA. It's amazing. But when he talks about that move, that sounds like the plot to the beginning of the story with Ralph Macho in it, where Ralph Macho, the single mother drives across from Jersey to California, where he learns martial arts, right? He learns karate. I didn't learn martial arts.

No, you didn't learn martial arts when you came over. But still, for her to make that move, that is huge. It was huge. I look back on that and enormously grateful. She changed my life. It was an enormous sacrifice. As a poor working mother, she had three jobs. She gave up three jobs.

She gave up all of her friends. She gave up what was familiar to her. Yeah. And did this for the sake of putting her son into cars. college. And at the time, I didn't know that that really was the reason I came to find that out later on. That is so moving. But it was absolutely the best thing to do. It shows this was that you and your brother were paramount in your mother's mind in terms of that chess game that we call life. And she literally saw five moves ahead. She's like, okay, if I get him over here,

residency will be established and boom, we'll be able to get that amazing you know, low, low cost tuition. Yeah, I think at that time, UCLA costs per quarter $60 a quarter. We share the same alma mater. And when I was at UCLA, I was a 16-year-old freshman. And I was paying out-of-state tuition because I wasn't from California. And per quarter, it had raised more than $60 by the time I was a freshman in 85. It was then $400 a quarter.

So $400, and there's three quarters. That's $1,200 for your industry. entire year, right? Still, still very low for your tuition. But because I was out of state, it was four times more. So it was 1700. And so what I did was I petitioned, you had to be there for two years. And so I asked for, uh, I stayed for after two years. I came in and I said, hey, hey, I've been here two years. I want in state tuition now. And they said, well, because you're still a minor, it goes to your parents location. And they, and so I still had to pay the exorbitant. an amount four times more. So what my solution was, I'm only going to go part time. So I ended up going

half of the time and paying less than the 1700. But I was, you know, duped. I was such a young kid as a freshman that I was duped by that system of you, you are still a minor. So you are, even though you've been here for two years. Your parents are still in Tennessee. So you have to pay that. But it's cool that we both went to the same school, though. It is. We may have had this same teachers. What was your major, Gary? My major, yes. It was premed. when I got there and then I switched to Polyside, then I switched to Econ, then I switched to history, then I switched again to East Asian Studies. But I did all my upper division electives in theater, though. So I was there. And you were in the theater department the entire time?

No, sir. I was an English major who went over to the theater department on regular basis and auditioned for their plays and magically got cast. By the time you became a student there, they didn't allow non-theater majors to audition for place. I think I was the last, I think I broke the system. So because he kept giving me lead parts, and I wasn't a theater major, I think that pissed off a lot of theater major. Oh, yeah. No, they're not happy about that. Who was there when you were there? I'm trying to think of most important is a man named David Rhodes, who was my, my Shakespeare teacher at UCLA. He is the original inspiration. And ironically, he is also responsible for Patrick Stewart being Picard.

What? Tell that story. Just go into that. Okay. So David Rhodes is from Texas. I don't know for sure, but I think there may have been some oil money in his family because he always lived rather well. And one of the things he did at UCLA as an English professor was to bring in actors from

England to help with the teaching of Shakespeare at UCLA. And he would bring in every year, he would bring in some English actors. and i'm not sure what they did i guess they did some sort of performance in a classroom but uh bob justman who was roddenberry's co-producer uh came to one of these classes for what reason i don't know and uh saw patrick stewart performing in david's classroom and went back to roddenberry and said i think i found the captain oh my gosh wow so we have to thank david rhodes for that That's incredible. For the first six months, he lived in the shell of David's house that he was building in Bel Air.

He lived in the construction area. He, his wife, his kids, they all lived in that construction area for the first six months until they found a place to live. That wouldn't happen anymore. No. Wow. I had no idea. What a stroke of luck and timing.

And also a testament to David Rhodes' taste. and the kinds of actors that he brought in to inspire the students there. That's incredible. Yeah, I mean, I wish I had seen it because he had not only Patrick, had Ian McKellen, he had Judy Dench. They were all youngsters. They were all what we were when we were doing that franchise. And they were just starting their careers.

And so they were very happy to be paid to come over to California and think about their careers there while they were doing work for David Rose. So the theater department paid to fly these. Dr. Peter, but he's an English teacher. He was an English teacher. So the English department paid to have these actors flown over. I don't know whether they paid or David did because he came from money. That would make sense too. You know, if you have all this disposable income that at your disposal, you and you were a teacher, why not bring in the best, right? So, wow, what a great story. Let me go back to you. Your mother made this incredible sacrifice. I'm still touched and so moved by

that story of what your mother, her thinking ahead as much as she did. And as you said, sacrificing her friendships or everything familiar, incredible, incredible symbol of her love. It was an enormous act of self-sacrifice. Yeah. Enormous. It's so moving. And I'm so I never heard this story. Robbie. So, yeah. I was going to say, do you see in the Wikipedia? It says it was his mother who enrolled him in a drama group in an effort to expand his social circle that's what i was getting at what what happened yes so uh my first year in san an monica high school uh was rather lonely i was a new person there and we know what that's like when you're the outsider and uh my mother uh had a distant cousin who was a drama teacher in in los angeles he didn't work at school per se but he worked at an organization

And she suggested that I, that I join this acting group. It was just a class, really, that occasionally did productions. And she thought I would make friends there. She got me involved in that, and that's where I sort of got bitten by the bug. And then, in addition to that, in my senior year, my English teacher, not David Rose, but my high school English teacher, a man named Mr. Jensen, he asked me to audition for the crucible. And I had never read The Crucible, and I said, sure, I've done a little bit of that in my distant cousin's class. And when the casting went up, I saw that I was cast as the role of John Proctor.

And I hadn't read the play, so I didn't really know who John Proctor was. I found out that he was the lead in the play. And then I went on from there. I have a couple of comments I just want to share. First of all, my son, my youngest, graduated from Santa Monica High. So you're both alumni together of a fabulous high school, by the way. It's an incredible high school in Santa Monica. May I interject.

Was it called Sanmo back then as well when you were there? Okay, all right. Still Sanmo. Sammo. The other thing I want to share is, you know, I got into theater because of a move. We moved from Washington, D.C. to Atlanta, Georgia. and I didn't know anybody, just like you. It was very lonely.

I didn't have any friends. And my mother suggested that this little dance studio, where she had signed my little sister up for like ballet for four-year-olds, this little dance studio had a children's theater that needed munchkins for the Wizard of Oz. And she said, they need a hundred munchkins. And you should go do this theater thing because you'll meet all these kids. kids. It was the same, it was the same goal. Just like, go to this theater. Not because my mother cared about theater or, you know, had any agenda. She didn't want you to be lonely. She wanted

to have friends. Yeah. Yeah. And that was the beginning. It did exactly what she planned. Through my, my junior high school and high school years, that was my family. Those, those kids in the, in the youth theater, the children's theater, are still some of my closest friends to this day. And did your parents, both your parents, did they regret? having to see that way because my mother certainly did oh she did yeah no beginning of my career she was she was very worried that this was this was going to be a uh a fruitless sort of occupation for me and it was years after i graduated from college that uh i was lucky enough to do a broadway show and she came to the broadway show she said well maybe you could make a living maybe this is going to work out

you could but but arman that uh that hesitation from your parent your mother it's it's interesting because I do find that when it comes to Chinese families and Jewish families, there's a lot of similarity. And they're both looking at the arts as not the way to go. You either go into medicine or law or business. That's it. Those are your choices. All they want you to do is to be financially secure. That's it. That's not financially secure. Exactly. So we have that parallel. And I love the fact that you have the parallel with Robbie that both of your mothers were integral in having both of you be bitten by the acting bug without your mother's doing that. Neither of you would be doing this.

Absolutely not. And for the same reason, not really because of, not to get me into the arts. It was just to meet kids. To meet other kids. Yeah. The other thing I'll say, Garrett, off of that, I'm not from an Asian family or a Jewish family. Right. So the thing that my

family was concerned about me going into acting was the morals of action. It was the judge, yeah, because I came from a very religious religious household yeah and it was the morality of the theater oh my question that's what it wasn't money right it wasn't money it was debauchery that all theater actors get yeah there's a mythology a false mythology that people have about the arts

and theater especially that a lot of parents buy into because they don't know they haven't been educated otherwise it takes it takes in our cases children to educate them about what's the reality of being in the theater yeah yeah and nothing against my mom and certainly it's not pejorative perhaps it is but i don't think it's my mother at one point asked me so you're in the theater you must be gay you must be gay that's part of the mythology yes my my my mother had the same thought that she asked the same question yeah you're serious robby your mom asked you that yes oh my even though i have you know girlfriends and And, you know, but you're in the theater.

And all those theater boys must be gay. They're all gay, right? You're surrounded by you. You must, are they trying to convert you? Are they, yeah. Yeah. So that's part of the false mythology. And, you know, it's part of the mythology that all actors are, you know,

enormously rich and, and, you know, live the life of Riley. It's a mythology that people buy into that isn't true. When I was in college, Armand, I, I, I joined. joined a predominantly Jewish fraternity. So I got a call for my mom one day. And she was like, you know, she just promised me two things. I go, what? She goes, don't, don't convert to Judaism and don't turn gay.

Those are the two things that she had to throw out there. I'm like, what? I said, mom, if I want to be a gay Jewish Chinese person, I will be. And so I was very adamant about it. And you hung up. I hung up, yeah. All right. I have a question.

Getting back to, so you get to college, you're an English major. And I know about you, Armand, your love for Shakespeare, your passion for that in particular. Yeah. How did that connect for you? Where did that come from and talk about that a bit? Sure. It's sort of nebulous. I mean, that's a question that I get asked on occasion, and I should have a better answer for it.

First of all, David Rhodes was a phenomenal teacher. He inspired me about the language, the, I'm. ideas, the characters in these plays. And I just became infatuated. And I wanted to learn more and more. At UCLA, I was lucky enough to do two or three Shakespearean productions, which further influenced my desire to learn more.

And then there was a little tiny, lovely hiccup while doing one of those plays, Alswell at Enswell. I was playing a character named Lavash, doing a little research i i tried to find out who was the first actor who ever played lavash and it turned out the actor's name in shakespeare's company was a man named robert armand uh his his last name was spelt exactly the way my first name is spelled whoa oh my and i'm not mystical uh not in any way but i i thought that was a sign of some yeah that that i should i should uh because i was already interested in acting i was interested in shakespeare

perhaps this is a sign that i should follow that path and and become another robert arman and in fact years later one of my agents suggested i changed my name because shimerman was so bizarre and i thought for all of you know a month and a half that maybe it should be harman roberts just to acknowledge that that uh amazing connection but that said i continue my studies and uh prior to graduation just prior to graduation another david road story who was enormously influential in my life. It was my senior year. It was the last, the final exams.

I had a final exam in David's class, which turned out to be at exactly the same time that I had an audition for the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, which is a Shakespeare Festival. And it was exact same time. And I was convoluted. I really wanted to audition for that theater, but I had my test at the same time.

And I went to David Rhodes. asked him, is there any way that I can skip the test, take it on another day, another hour, whatever, which is convenient for you, David, so that I can do the audition. And I remember his words very clearly. He said to me, yes. He said, I've seen you perform in Shakespearean plays, and I think that's something that may be in your future. So we will arrange it so that you can take the test on another day.

Wow. I went and auditioned for the globe. I believe there were 800 applicants for eight roles, eight apprentice roles, and I was fortunate enough to be one or eight. And I got that job. And so again, this reinforcement that Shakespeare was my way into the industry,

that I had some sort of ability to be a little bit better than my competition in order to get these roles, just made me more interested in performing in Shakespeare. And then after that, after the, the need to find work was satisfied, I just became more and more interested in not just Shakespeare, but the Elizabethan period per se. And I had to study the two together. And in fact, when I teach Shakespeare, and I have taught Shakespeare for many years, including the stint as the adjunct professor

at the University of Southern California, I always integrate not just the performance, but the background, the ethos, the religion, the culture of that period so that you can better understand what's happening in the place. A Bruin teaching a Trojan Shakespeare course. My last David Rhodes story, when I got the, when I got the job at USC, I called David up. And I said, well, it'd be okay for me to do this? And for just the reason you said, Garrett. And yeah, I was a brewing teaching Trojans.

Yeah, the rivalry is, the rivalry is real, ladies and gentlemen. It really is a huge rivalry. Armin, you know, we just talked to Jeffrey Combs recently, and he also spent a summer at the old Globe as an apprentice actor, and that was a pivotal moment in his career as well. Yeah, Jeff and I have talked about that often. He had an incredibly good time working at the Globe. The Globe was a very fertile ground for nourishing actors that you all recognize it. Yeah. And I was very grateful for the people I worked with.

I sat in the corner and watched them perform and tried to glean as much as I could about how they did the things they did. I've worked with a director named Jack O'Brien, one of America's finest directors, and it was great to watch him work. It was lovely. And during that summer, the actors there convinced me to move to New York. I thought that I would have a career at the Globe. There was every inclination. Jeff went on to do several seasons, and I thought that that would happen to me as well.

Right. But unfortunately, or fortunately, and this is one of the lovely conundrums of life, sometimes the worst thing that happens in your life is the best thing that happens to you in your life. If I may take a moment to tell a little bit of a long story. Towards the end of the season, while I was an apprentice, the actor I was understudying,

for the plays, got a TV pilot and had to leave. And the artistic director, Craig Knoll, asked me if, didn't ask me, he told me that I was going to take that actor's plays. And I was going to move up in the company from Apprentice to an equity position. Wow. Related by this. I'm 22 years old. I'm beside myself happy.

In the last performance of Richard, no, of Mary Wives of Windsor. I had a costume in Mary Wives that was held by a string. I finished my first scene as Bardolph in that play and went up to my dressing room, which was way in the back, and just did a whole thing, just burst the costume because I thought I never had to wear this piece of shit again. And I, like Rumpel Stillskin, I jumped up and down on the costume, smashing it to the ground. And while I'm doing that, I hear on the loudspeaker that there's, that there are two actors on stage doing the scene that I supposed to be in in that costume oh no how I had forgotten that to this day I don't know how I could have forgotten that but I did costumes

and tatters on the floor oh my goodness I'm supposed to be on stage with the two actors I can hear them ad-libbing Shakespeare actor that's supposed to be there my apprentice role was not there um and I I slipped into something ran downstairs but by that time the scene was over they glared at me when they came off stage oh wow the artistic director called me into his office that afternoon and with me a new and told me if i didn't need you to um to to replace the actor that i was replacing that he would fire me on the spot wow my future at the globe was not going to be not good yeah and as i said before uh the actors had been telling me all summer the new actors were telling me all summer I should move to New York and when I realized

there was no future for me in San Diego I thought well maybe I should move to New York and I did and of course so much good stuff happened to me because I moved to New York so the worst thing that possibly happened I screwed myself at the globe but but because I did I did absolutely the right choice but to move to New York where my theater career exploded and And I was an enormously fortunate young man at that time. I did a number of Broadway shows, and I shouldn't. I'm not a singer.

I'm not a dancer. I did two Broadway musicals. I don't understand why they cast me, but they did. What are the Broadway shows that you did, Armin? I knew that you had been in New York and worked on Broadway, but I don't know the shows that you were in. What were you in? Well, the first Broadway show, you don't really, especially the parts I was played,

you don't really need to sing or dance. It's a very famous production of Three Penny Opera with Ronald Julia. Oh, of course, at Lincoln Center. That's right, in Lincoln Center. Oh, yes. And that ran for a year and a half. As I used to say, I was trapped in the hit. I played sort of a hunchback.

And to this day, when I hear Bobby Daring's singing back, then I could feel my shoulder sort of. Your physicality changes. That's incredible. That was when the public was running, the public theater was running Lincoln Center for a brief period. Precisely. So that was an exciting time and an incredible production.

It was an incredible production with a, with a conoclastic director, Richard Foreman, who was not interested in actors with credits, but was interested in actors with interesting faces. I had me one. And he cast me, and as I said, we ran for a year and a half. Two different venues, one, first at Lincoln Center and then in the park and met some of my closest friends in that production.

Were you at the Beaumont upstairs? You were in the big theater. So you and I performed in the same theater. I did six degrees of separation on that stage. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Lovely theater. And my dressing was the last one on the corridor.

If you remember the corridor, with all the dressing rooms. Yes. As you came into the dressing room, Mary, and mine was the first one after the door. Immediately, after Three Penny, I auditioned to the Circle and the Square, which was then a Broadway contract. And did St. Joan with Lynn Redgrave. And in both productions was a wonderful, wonderful actor who is my role model, who was passed away now, but was always. was always an inspiration. And that man was Phil Bosco.

Oh, yeah. And Phil Bosco took me under his wing and gave me lots and lots of wonderful advice. And because I did two shows with him, he played Mac the Knife after Raul left. Phil Bosco, just another connection there. His agent was a man named Alan Willig. Was Alan your agent by any chance? No, no. Because he was my agent in New York for a while.

And I met Phil Bosco quite a number of times. i never got the the uh good fortune to work with him but an incredible actor philbos incredible actor and in shaw which is with the st jones is a shabian play no one did shaw better than phil bosco agreed agreed bosco understood shaw better than anyone and i used to stand in the wings there was a particular scene in st joan with phil and two other actors and it was like watching These three actors were so in tune with each other. The language was so gloriously evoked and understood and communicated. And I used to stand in the bomb and watch these three guys work in awe.

I've had the good fortune to work with a lot of good people, a lot of good people. But that production of St. Joan with Lynn Redgrave and Phil and a ton of wonderful character actors was perhaps the best theater production. best theater production I ever did and will have. It was flawless, flawless. And Lynn Redgrave was super. What year was that, the St. Joan? 177. Okay. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh my gosh, so much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane. Trip after trip. You've been doing your impersonation of me. Yes. You know what doesn't belong in everyone's epic summer plans, though? What? Getting burned by your old.

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and hard about not going to the audition. I thought, what's the point? Why am I wasting my time? They'll never cast me. And so about an hour before the audition was supposed to happen, I was about to call my agent and say, I'm not going. I got a phone call from Santa Monica from a friend of mine and my acting teacher that I had while I was in college had she called to say

that the acting teacher had just passed away. Her name is Adrian Martin the teacher's name. And when I hung up, I thought again, I'm not mystical but I thought this is a sign I think Adrian probably wants me to go do this audition.

So I went I read they didn't ask me to sing or dance the first audition. They did it the second. You mentioning how you felt when you were doing that first episode, exponentially worse.

Oh, wow. Singing and dancing for Richard Rogers. I feel for you. I feel for you now. I do. Then I couldn't believe that they called me back for a third one. I went in and I had me read.

And then they said, can you do your song? And I started to sing, and I was very nervous. And the director, man named Martin Charmin, who's very famous for Annie. He wrote the lyrics and directed Annie. He got up out of the audience, out of the orchestra, and got on stage where I was, put his hand on my shoulder, and said, Armin, just calm down, calm down.

We're looking for someone to play this part. this part. You may or may not be the answer. So just calm down. Just calm down. And lo and behold, they did cast me for that. And I'll end this story with this anecdote, which is one of my favorites. On the first day of rehearsal, everybody was introduced. And after the introductions were made, the director, Martin Charney, came up to me again and put his hand on my shoulder and very nicely said, Armand, um, this character had a song, but we didn't have it. Wow. I thought you're going to say he wanted you to take singing lessons, but no, he took the whole song out. It just took the song away. Um, and, um, and, and, uh, to

wrap this story up, the leading man in that show was man named George Herman. And George and I he had a friend who he introduced me to her name was katherine swank oh wow and and so george introduced me to kitty and i've been married happily before well at least 39 happy years anyway that's that was worth it that was that was worth that's a good ending to the story i also think it's amazing what happened at the old globe to cause you to move to new york and it's it's something There's a book that I've talked about this on this podcast before. There's a book that I read. The basic synopsis is that every negative, massively negative thing that happens in your life

happens to set you up for something far greater, far better, because the universe, the universal energy of the universe is always conspiring on your behalf, not going against you. And you prove that. That's a perfect example of what happened because you missed your cue. You weren't even on stage. And you were the guy even said, if you weren't in, if you weren't here, we're playing, the guy that went to the TV show, I would have fired you on the spot right there, right? So and that, that extremely, because I know you must have felt like a complete cad after that

happened. Like, I can't believe this. I stomped on my, my costume. It's completely ruined. I stomped on my big dream. Exactly. And you just ruined your entire, you felt at the time that you ruined your entire career at that point. But what I do want to ask you is at any point before you got into acting, did you have in your mind another profession that you would have gone into? Yes, yes. When I went to UCLA, I, like yourself, I was a polysci major. That's how I started. Okay. I thought I was going to be a lawyer. And also, further back, as a young man in a small town in New Jersey, had a lot of religious institutions in it. For the longest time, my family thought, I never thought of it. But my family thought that I would become a rabbi.

That never happened. But I think, I think. some of that training from my youth is in my personality. I think I think when I look at myself frankly and see what are my pros and cons, my ability to listen and understand both sides of an argument I think is rather rabbinical. Yeah, I would agree. I'm sure that had a big influence on you. I wanted to just make another connection, Armand, between your life and mine. I I was good friends with Randy Charnan, Martin's son, in New York, and Sasha, his daughter. I know both of them very well. And I think that one of my first roommates, I shared an apartment with a couple other people.

And her name was Sash, not Sasha, her name was, she was in, she was one of the kids in. Really? In Mama, yeah. What's your name? I can't remember. She was, you know, you're young in New York. Can you run through some names? Can you... Yes, yes.

Elizabeth. Alyssa Wolf. Yes. Oh, my God. The first one you pulled out. Alyssa Wolf, we ended up getting an apartment on... Well, it was her family's apartment on 45th between 8th and 9th, right around the corner from you were at the...

That's right around the corner from where I lived from Manhattan Plaza. I lived in Manhattan, Manhattan. Okay, so I was in the Whitby with Alyssa Wolf. I can't believe you pulled that name out of the house. What a small world. So Wolf had an apartment, a two-bedroom apartment, and we, you know, I knew some friends of her. She was going to NYU at that point. So she was in Mama, and I remember the marquee was still up.

Even the show had closed, but that marquee stayed up for like a year, probably. Yeah, it was a horrible show. You know, offense to Marty or anybody else. And Marty got fired from the show three times. Oh, my God. Oh, that's funny. Bet Miller said about Mama, more people came back from Vietnam, that came back from, I remember Mama, because we lost about.

my God. 30 people were fired from a turn to course of this. Wow. Yeah, that's, I remember Alyssa, even though she was a kid in the show, she, you know, the stories of, it was a rough experience. Yeah. Armand, you talk about all the signs that you had and you're not a mystical person. I am a mystical person. And the fact that you pulled Alyssa Wolf out over any other name to me is a sign that this collaboration is the right collaboration. That's all. Yes. Yes. Um, Thanks to Alyssa Wolfe. Thanks to Alyssa Wolf. This podcast will be so successful.

Alyssa Woolf's father was my dentist. Oh, my God. No, I knew he was a dentist. But I did not go to see her dentist father as well. That would be crazy if you went to him. They were up in Scarsdale, I think, is where her family lived or something. It might be his office was in New York. Was in the city?

Yeah, he may have commuted in. And Alyssa Wolf, my roommate, a few years after we had stopped being roommates, I remember hearing from one of our roommate friends that Alyssa had gotten married or something and she had opened a pet shop on 9th Avenue, a pet store, pet supplies. So Alyssa was in the pet supplies. And she had opened that one and then open a couple more.

So in case you're wondering, whatever happened to Alyssa Woolf, the kid from your show, your Broadway show, she's a pet store owner. There, yeah. Or was the last time I heard. Small world. It's a very small world.

It is. These connections that you're telling me about that you have it makes it even smaller world i mean who knew that we had marty have both as a friend yeah i i didn't know marty that well but i knew randy really well we used to hang out a lot we go to the gym together and he he was awesome and then sasha the daughter yeah we were all when marty passed away i wrote a letter to sasha and she was very nice about writing me back and said that her father was very proud of my success and um and he's very instrumental obviously Yeah, I can't believe I've known you for 25, 30 years, and we've never made that connection.

That's what I love about this podcast. We've learned time, these kind of extended conversations that wander into places that we've never even touched on. I'm also glad you did not change your name from Zimmerman. You did not buckle to whoever that was that said, oh, that's the weirdest name. If you think of it, I've never, I don't know any other person of Jewish background with that name. That's like a unique unicorn last name. It's not Cohen. It's not Goldberg.

It's not, you know, Silverstein. It's not Zimmerman either. You know, many times people think it's going to be Zimmerman. Yeah, it's not Zimmerman. It's separate. It's Shimaman. So it's another, you know. And I wonder what Shima means in German.

I don't know what it is in German. My father was Polish. Actually, he was born in Poland, although now it's Ukraine. So it's a little of both. But he once told me that, shimmer means to paint. I may be wrong with, this is what he told me. He became a painter.

He was a house painter. So he was a shimmer mom. Oh, wow. So did he speak Polish to you as a child when you were? No, no. I don't, I guess, again, my parents were divorced at seven. I was, I was divorced from my father up until the time I was 22, 23, when I was forced in a good way to live with him.

When I moved east, I left the globe and went east. You stayed with your dad, then? I stayed with my dad. Ah, and that was eye-opening because you hadn't spent any time with him for, God knows how long, right? And I learned a great deal about his past. He was an immigrant who walked from the Ukraine to Greece and took the boat from, because he wanted to be a Zionist. And he was what? He was about 16, 17 years old.

He took a boat to Palestine. It wasn't Israel, then he took a boat to Palestine. And this is where I think my luck chain comes from from my dad. It is there was a boatload of people. The British wouldn't let any of the people on the vote on. But somebody from the union got on board and said, I need two guys to do painting work in Palestine. And he said, I'll take you and I'll take you.

And one of them was my dad. And so my dad moved to Palestine where he had a good life. In the meantime, all of Israel. I had six or eight uncles and a couple of aunts and a grandfather. All of them were wiped out in the Holocaust. Oh, my God. But the fact that they picked two random people. And right when you told us that, a bunch of balloons came across your screen.

I don't know why that happened. It was not me. It was full of hot air. That's right. Full of hot air. From the mystical standpoint, that was a sign. That was a sign again. It was like, where did the balloons come from?

I don't even know how we could put balloons on. the thing. That's bizarre. One last creative question before we sign out of here. How would you describe, Armand, your creative process when you're preparing to do a play or any role? Like, where do you start? You've gotten, your agent called, you got the job. We're sending you a script. The whole script. Finally, it's not just sides. It's the whole script. What do you start? That's a great question. And I would venture to say that there's different approaches for different plays. It's a language play, if it's a Shavian play or Shakespearean play or a period piece, then I look at how the language is constructed. This is out of my rhetorical studies to see that.

That aside, that's the easy part. To unpack that even a little bit more. So you look at how the language is constructed, how does that inform your creative choices of direction? Sure. It's a great question, Robbie. What I mean by that is, if it's a good playwrights, good playwrights know that different characters from different backgrounds speak differently. Speak differently. It's a different voice for each of those characters, and they construct sentences in a different way. So there's a difference between the clowns in Shakespeare, the way they speak and Hamlet. They're two different hierarchical members of society. So how does the way they speak tell me get clues about who they are and what where they come from the culture of, yeah, that that language has been constructed to represent a class or a certain archetype in a way or maybe or...

Precisely right. So that's why in a classical play, that's the first thing I look at is what is the language telling me about this? character. Once that's informed me, then I began to think about the, as we all do, I think about the intentions of the characters, what are the relationships, what is it that my character wants as an overarching intention. And then, of course, that's the homework you do before the first day of rehearsal, and then rehearsal comes and you meet the other actors in the play, and their desires, their needs, their reaction to their characters, will. inform you about what you do um my background the side from classical theater is neighborhood playhouse

technique so the mantra there is all life comes from the other actor and so i see what the other actor is doing and then i respond to that other life in a way that is real and and either helps or hinders my intentions yeah so the neighborhood playhouse is um is a sandy miserard technique for the most part which I know Garrett took some classes there. I had very little training in that. But, yeah, it's a lot about coming, you know, feeding off of what you're getting. Intense listening in the moment. Yeah.

Intense listening. And indeed, feeding off with the other actor is giving you. And so, one of the nice things is it takes the onus off of you as far as, oh, my God, I have to come up with everything. You don't enjoy the play a half technique. you just have to respond to what the other person is giving you're an autopilot pretty much you you are not creating anything except for just listening so hard to what's being given to you that's it right so it feels very it becomes a partnership as opposed to a solo performance correct yes it feels very close to like comedy improv like you know UCB kind of you know upright citizens

brigade or or groundlings the kind of listening and reacting in a comedy improv techniques and the tools that they use there yeah it seems very similar to that and because of that I would always label myself an ensemble player I've never thought of myself as a solo actor I am part of an ensemble and also part of what my approach to a character is how does my character fit into the entire piece how do I help tell the story the story's not about me although I always think I'm lead no matter which I may have three lines in the show but But I am the lead.

But how does my character fit into the telling of this story? And that is part of my approach as well. Do either of you utilize that one technique where you do massive backstory homework, where you create this whole life that's not even in the play or the script? I wish I did that. I don't. It's something I'm bad at. I don't do that. I just get my hints from the script.

and then from the other actors. But I don't do backstory, although ironically, the novels that I've written in this enormous amount of words about the backstory for the characters of 12 months. Okay. Yeah, it's funny for backstory for me. I don't think I did that as an actor.

That was not a habit or a practice. It wasn't part of your process. It wasn't. Big backstory stuff. But as a director, when I get a script I will do one of my first things I do

I know we're interviewing you Armand this is about your creative process but it makes me think about my problem so go yeah I take a script and I start I'll take a highlighter of a particular color whatever happens to be handy and I'll start underlining facts

it has to be a fact not a character's opinion not their feelings you know I'll make notes of facts because the facts of that script are what everything. That's the foundation that everything grows from. And it also, knowing the facts, helps me with actors when we're in a scene. And they're like, I just don't know how to play this. I'm coming in the room and I'm supposed to be angry.

And I'll go back to my facts. And I'll say, well, you know, I'm supposed to be angry with this other character, for example, making this up. But I'll say, well, we know the fact is the scene before you. receive surprise information. We know the fact is you say, you know, you had so much work today. Sorry, you're late. So we know you had a long day at work, stress at work. You've been stewing on this information since yesterday. That's just facts. So I tend to like try to rely on facts more than backstory can have a lot of bias and a lot of opinion. And I can start to imagine things that have nothing to do with this particular script. It's just my

fantasy life going off right that's why i tend to in fact when actors come in and often will say well you know i was thinking the backstory is his mother abandoned him and his father and i'm like that's not in our script yeah it's too it's too subjective isn't it it's just yeah yeah like if that's what you're relying on to to fuel you know qualities of this scene right that's all made up what we need to use is fuel is the facts that we know that's why i think your your attraction to Shakespeare and this classical language, Armin, makes so much sense to me, because what I know of it, you know, when Shakespeare wrote his plays, no one, no one had thought about Freudian neuroses or psychiatry or any of that. So characters didn't speak from their subconscious

because Shakespeare didn't know that existed really, not in the way we know it. So when they spoke, it was from a conscious discovering in the moment these thoughts and ideas. They weren't thinking and feeling something and then having their neurotic childhoods interpret it into words they were speaking it because they were that's what i love about shakespeare is that it's it's you know they didn't have the same baggage that we modern you know that modern humans have with knowing what we know about how the brain works how emotions work how therapy works they didn't think that way it was it was just what you see is what you get right and unless they were being nefarious, they usually spoke from the heart.

Oftentimes, when I'm dealing with Shakespeare, either as a teacher or as a director, and an actor will say, well, so-and-so, I feel this because of this. And I say, well, where's that in the text? Where is that in the text? And if they can't give that to you, then you say, then you just made it up. Let me give you a very clear example, one that might shock you. So we all know the play Hamlet, and we all. all assume that hamlet is in love with ophelia people for centuries have thought that

there's no place in the text that says that he says two things about his relationship with ophelia yeah he said i did love you once okay uh so that's a possibility but immediately after that he said i loved you not so which is the true one which is the true one yeah You can't assume that Hamlet is still in love with Ophelia. He may have loved her once, but he may not be loving her now. As a wonderful teacher once said to me, Hamlet's gone off to college. We all know the experience of somebody in high school going off to college. Yes.

And when he comes back from college, or when she comes back from college, the relationship between his high school or her high school lover is not the same. Right. Yeah. yeah yeah so great great if it's not in the text then like you're saying robbie let's not let's not cut it out not that's not count it's a distraction it is now if an actor if i'm directing and an actor is using whatever they're using and the story is being told and it's working i leave it alone like i if that's how they want to yes you don't take it's how they want to get there yeah but when it is not working that's when i go back to the text it's got to be a fact of

this script that comes out of this text, not out of our fantasies and our made-up, you know, backstory. You have to play what's there, not what you want it to be. Correct. The playwright is the primary creator. Yes. The playwright or the script writer, the script is what comes first. Sorry to the actor, sorry to everybody else, but the script is what comes first. Yeah. And then we can embellish it, we can improve it, we can we can denigrate it,

we can do anything to the script, but the script comes first. And as you're saying, look at the script, see what's there, and either work for the playwriting and give him or her what they want or find a new interpretation and say, I'm going to go in a different direction. But be aware you're doing that. Yes, absolutely. I do find that I feel that actors who do extensive backstory for their character, and I'm talking about not just paragraphs, but pages upon pages, I find that they feel that. they will come off as having more life when they're on stage. And the reality is you will have more life if you're so intensely listening to what the other person is saying. That's enough.

You don't have to think about. And then my character was abused when he was six, you know, and then my character did this. And I find it it's a bit of a waste of time. So, you know, and so anyway, I just want to share the sentiment that I also as an actor never did extensive backstory like that. But I was just curious to see if either of you had done. agree more and and what you're talking about i i took one or two classes in the method the method and that's what they focus on i always thought that was just too egotistical for me i just me me me and not about yeah i was in an acting class once and i was doing um scenes from

an australian play called the sum of us and this character had an australian accent and the teacher felt like i was getting too caught up in the technical side of you know I was self-conscious of my, my accent and my, it wasn't, it wasn't flowing authentically. So she said, I want you to do an exercise, sit in the chair from class, tell us a story of your childhood, just off top of your head, pick a moment in anything, doesn't have to be important, just a story. So I start telling a story. I'm telling the story about my real childhood as Robbie for like, I'm telling the story for

three, four, maybe five minutes. And then she stops me and she says, okay, stop. She says, now I want you to jump to the kid. character and tell me a story from his childhood in the accent with everything. And I, because I had experienced in my body a few minutes of telling a story, getting lost in the story, being as natural and as much Robbie as I could be, and then having to immediately do the same thing with an accent as this character, I was able to sort of physically and internally sort of experience owning this character, owning the accent. So the backstory was all made up.

I just made up a story about, you know, it wasn't, but it was an exercise. I wouldn't have used that backstory. It was an exercise for the process of kind of making this character, his, you know, his dialect,

his way of speaking, all of that to making it mind, to owning it. It was just about that process. It wasn't about the story or the backstory or any of those facts because that had to go back to the play. But that was a great exercise of the, It's coming from your heart and not from your brain.

You weren't showing the audience how smart you were. You were just simply making it your own. Yeah, just making my own. And that was a great creative practice. It was just practice. But the backstory, whatever words came out of my mouth, had no value to the play. We've come to the end of our podcast. We just want to say, thank you again.

And yeah, we have really, we've dug up some things that we didn't know anything about regarding you and the parallels that not only, only Robbie, but myself, have with your life and the people that you have interacted with and Robbie has interacted with and I've interacted with. We have a lot of parallels there. So super, super cool. So thank you so much. And the fickleness of fortune as well, of what sometimes happens that seems ill, but turns out to be something that's great. A good thing, exactly. All right. Well, thanks, everyone for tuning into this episode of the Delta Flyers. For all the Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material.

I'll see. ...you know, ...toe ... ... ... ... ...

... ... ... ... I'm going to be able to be.