Harry Hamlin

Harry Hamlin eases in the role of Billy Flynn like it's a custom-fitted tuxedo. Talk about savvy casting: An actor best known for playing a slick, handsome, tough-guy lawyer in television's long-running L.A. Law now plays a slick, handsome, tough-guy lawyer in Broadway's long-running Chicago. There's another Hamlin-Flynn link: People magazine once named Hamlin, to his enduring chagrin, the Sexiest Man Alive, and now he's playing a guy who croons that all he cares about is love. Hamlin's wry sex appeal glints from the stage like the pinky ring the actor affects for the role, and the post-performance scene at the stage door of the Ambassador Theatre speaks volumes about the fantasies of middle-aged female audiences. But the ladies had better watch their steps, because Hamlin's co-star is none other than his wife of a decade, Lisa Rinna, familiar to TV audiences from her starring role on Days of Our Lives and as co-host of Soap Talk. Hamlin and Rinna played a memorable married couple on Veronica Mars, but their Broadway partnership is the result of their appearances on two different seasons of the hit TV series Dancing With the Stars. Not surprisingly, there's a palpable chemistry between the two onstage, a sense of play and engagement. Though musicals were never on Hamlin's radar as an actor, he's no stranger to the stage: Regionally, he's played Hamlet and Henry V; he made his Broadway debut in the 1984 Circle in the Square revival of Awake and Sing and starred as the rugged doctor opposite Mary McDonnell in Summer and Smoke 12 years later. On screen, his credits range from Perseus in Clash of the Titans starring Ursula Andress, the mother of his oldest child and a gay writer in Making Love to his long run as Michael Kuzak in L.A. Law. We caught up with the blunt, low-key Hamlin—who's happily spending the summer in New York with Rinna and their two daughters— before a Chicago matinee.

It looks like you're having a good time in Chicago.
It's a blast. I'm somewhat surprised by being in this show, having not done a musical in 35 years, when I played Jud in Oklahoma! in summer stock. I was a sprout when I did the part. Ironically, the fellow who plays the piano in Chicago, John Johnson, played the piano 30-some-odd years ago in Oklahoma! So it's like we've come full circle.

How did you wind up playing Billy Flynn?
Actually, this show is sort of Lisa's gig. She had wanted to do this part for years. She had auditioned years ago but it didn't work out. The dancing was the issue at the time; she has great singing voice, so that wasn't a concern. Then she did Dancing with the Stars. When the producers saw that, they re-invited her to come in, and she blew them away. They hired her immediately. Then she and I had to think about how manage this logistically. We have two kids in school [Delilah Belle, born in 1998, and Amelia Gray, born in 2001], and she didn't want to leave them for two months. The Chicago people said, "Why don't we have Harry do the show?" That way, the whole family could come to New York and we could be together. Funny thing is, they never asked me if I could sing. I guess they took that on faith. I hadn't sung a note in 20-some years. But I figure life is nothing but challenges, one after another. If you approach them with diligence, usually you can overcome most of them. So I decided to give this a shot.

How did you prepare for your Broadway musical debut?
I started to work on my voice a few months ago—explore my range, really sing these songs. I had a good teacher in L.A., who has helped a lot of people who come in to do Chicago. I wouldn't have thought I could cut it if I had sung for the producers a while ago, but now it's okay.

So this whole thing is a bit of a fluke.
It has never been ambition of mine to do a Broadway musical. When I have the ambition to accomplish something, I prepare for it. From that perspective, preparing to do a musical has been nerve-wracking. I was in deep weeds that were unfamiliar to me.

And now?
Now I'm having a good time. The first day we started performing, I was a wreck. We rehearsed without a microphone, and the first day we did the show was when we put the mic on the first time. There was a lot to assimilate. I soon realized that I wasn't going to have to push quite as hard as expected, that I could ease back vocally in some places. My training was to work in big theaters with no mics, so I was not sure about what adjustments I'd have to make vocally.

Did you know the show before you came in?
Sure, I had seen the show. I was in Movie, Movie with [Chicago choreographer] Ann Reinking in the '70s, so we knew each other. We stayed in touch when she was putting this show together. I had seen James Naughton play Billy Flynn. He was fabulous.

What do you think of the timeliness of this show, its depiction of American justice and obsession with fame?
Amazing, isn't it? A bunch of us were crowded around a TV at the theater watching the run-up to Paris Hilton getting out of jail. The ironic twist is that she hadn't blown anybody up or done anything substantial, but her fame factor has been raised to the stratosphere simply for going to jail. US magazine announced that its issue the next week was going to be "100% Paris-Free." So maybe people are realizing it's enough with the focus on this one girl. It's a Paris backlash! [Laughs.]

You and your wife have a following, to judge by the bustle outside the stage door.
Yeah, the fans. We make a point of greeting them after the show. Indeed, it usually takes a few minutes to go through that. They are very nice, mainly tourists. The show has been running so long that everybody has seen it a couple of times. So now the people who come are out-of-towners. It's exciting for them.

So, what's it like, working with your spouse?
We have found out over the years that we work well together. We enjoy it. Onstage or doing a picture or whatever, we are professional actors working with the scene, not husband and wife. What's also great is that usually it means the family can be together. That's really how we have designed things. We decided that we were not going to leave Los Angeles for work—which is difficult, since most stuff is being shot in Canada or wherever. The career slowed way down when our kids were born, and that was intentional. We decided to work as a team as much as we can. When we went on the road touring in Dancing With the Stars, it meant that we could all travel as a family. The people at Dancing With the Stars really loved Lisa, so they kinda had to invite me to come along. And that's sort of what happened here with Chicago.

The two of you put a lot of focus on your children.
Well, you know what? They are our legacy, a lasting legacy—our kids and their kids and their kids' kids. How we raise these kids and the values we instill in them will be passed on from generation to generation. When my son was growing up, I was more focused on career and less focused on him. I had a second chance with our daughters to think about how to be a father, and try to do get it right.

You had your son with Ursula Andress. It sounds like you might have a few regrets.
His name is Dimitri….It would have been better had I been able to see his soccer games and his school plays and be around more. [Pause.] But it's good now, our relationship.

You've performed on Broadway now and then for 30 years. Any overview or big-picture thoughts?
What I notice is that there are still exciting things being done, which is great. The trend in film is for huge "tent-pole" movies, and if one is successful, then there are sequels. You don't see many fresh, wonderful things coming out of the studios. Those tend to come from independent filmmakers. Given that, you would think all of the exciting work would be off-Broadway, that the scene there would be more vibrant than on Broadway. But there are wonderful, challenging things being done on Broadway. That's reassuring.

Do you keep up with the theater scene?
I do. We come to New York once a year to see theater, usually three or four things. Lisa's great love is musical theater. She and I are polar opposites in…well, pretty much everything, which is great. We'll see a lot of the big shows and then I'll sneak off and see some of the dramas. This visit, we've been spending most of our time with the kids.

In addition to acting, you and Lisa are also entrepreneurs—you've got a clothing store, Belle Gray, with two branches in Los Angeles.
The store is a joint effort. I design and build the store and run the business, and Lisa selects the clothes we're going to sell. She has the taste; she's the editor. We are looking to diversify and have other businesses, too. I also have an alternative energy business that's gaining ground now.

Harry, are you going green on us?
That's probably the key thing for everyone to do. I have been interested in global climate change for a long time. In college I had a friend whose dad worked in Antarctica; he was studying polar icecaps in 1971 and even then he anticipated huge changes. I am working on an environmental business project that will be revealed when the timing is appropriate.

You're also a blogger, with a MySpace page and the whole deal.
I was blogging consistently for quite a while. I would write these long, intricate blogs and then they would disappear—just go off into cyberspace. I wasted hours over a two- or three-month period. So I threw up my hands. I might revisit the blog.

Why were you blogging?
The blog was an experiential thing while doing Dancing With the Stars. That show was so intense, there were so many emotions and feelings that I wanted to share. On MySpace, you know who's reading your blog, which makes it interesting as compared to television or film, where you don't really know who is out there.

On your blog, you wrote, "My body is killing me," during Dancing With the Stars.
I joined the show because I wanted to get back in shape. At 55 years old, I didn't know what was going to motivate me to get back into shape. But having to get up in front of 25 million people—live—and hold my own was very good motivation.

So how are you hanging in there?
I'm still in pretty good shape. Being in Las Vegas during the Dancing With the Stars tour was amazing. When else do actors get to perform in venues with 15,000 people who applaud and carry on? It was like being sports stars or rock stars. It was very cool. However, I picked up a suitcase the wrong way and my back got thrown out a little bit. That put a hitch in my gitalong, so I went to a chiropractor and said, "Just fix me." Turns out I got a pinched nerve, a herniated disc. I have haven't been able to do quite as much as before the back problem. It doesn't bother me a great deal, but I can't do much that's gymnastic. Fortunately, that's not an issue in Chicago. Listen, I never would have thought of doing musical on Broadway. This thing is completely out of left field [laughs].

Which of your acting roles mean the most to you?
The experience of playing Hamlet was stratospheric, and I think most actors would feel the same way. It's such a challenging role, and to translate that piece of literature on the stage, to hit enough emotional buttons so that the audience connects with it, was huge. I was 30 when I did it, and I think you have to have a couple of years on you to tackle the role. I did it at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey. Number two on the list would have to be Henry V, which I did about 10 years ago at the Folger Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C.

What made King Henry appealing?
He's very heroic. Unlike Hamlet, who is introspective and more psychological, Henry is very out and in your face. He thinks about things, and then he charges right in. I had always wanted to do the role.

Any particularly meaningful film roles?
The first film you make is always near and dear to one's heart. And the first one I was in was Movie, Movie. Stanley Donen directed, George C. Scott was in it, Larry Gelbart wrote a very funny script. It was quite an experience.

Making Love was ground-breaking for 1982, the first Hollywood picture to deal with a gay romance.
I'm proud of having done that film. It has had an impact. In certain parts of the world, it was accepted and understood, while in other parts of the world people were throwing tomatoes at the screen. At least I've done something that gets a reaction.

How did you feel when Brokeback Mountain hit the screens a year or so ago?
I didn't really have too many thoughts about it. I thought it was a good movie. It's a different story—though both pictures were love stories. The interesting thing about the two films is that they weren't pulling any punches. It's a different world today than it was when we made our film. That's all.

Now the obligatory question: How did you feel about being named the Sexiest Man Alive?
You know…[laughs]…It think it's a double-edged sword for everyone that it happened to. It comes out of left field as a total surprise. And you think, that's not who I am. But you take it in stride, and you can be happy they picked you and not somebody else. It's not anything that got me excited.

You've done a lot of television and film. What's the difference between the media for an actor?
They are completely different animals. Doing a television series is exciting when the writing is great—and fortunately, on L.A. Law, we had David Kelley writing for us. It was always consistently good and interesting, and we were blessed because it was a great group working together 15 hours a day. No stinkers in the group. Television is very hectic—you have to be a samurai actor. With feature films, you have a tremendous amount of time get everything just so. You take hours discussing a scene before you get in front of the camera. On television, you have to get it right in one take. It's "Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am."

You and your wife seem to get a kick out of the audience reaction at Chicago.
They go nuts for this show. The last play I did that had the same kind of audience response was the West Coast premiere of Equus at the American Conservatory Theater in 1976. I was the boy. That play was written in such a way that the audience was able to go on a ride with us. Equus is a very different show from Chicago, but it's clear that audiences appreciated the two-and-a-half hours they spent sharing this experience together.

Which do you prefer: theater, film or television?
The stage will always be my first love.

See Harry Hamlin in Chicago at the Ambassador Theatre.