Gallagher goes 'Underneath' to taste truth in acting

Published: Friday, April 28, 1995

Actor compares experiences of film, stage performance

By Colburn Tseng

Peter Gallagher sits down at a table at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, and the first thing one notices is his smile. Gallagher's smile exudes confident charm with such disarming effortlessness it makes one wonder why he has portrayed so many slimeballs on film.

"I would love to do a romantic leading role," says Gallagher, who appears this month in the noir thriller The Underneath and While You Were Sleeping, a romantic comedy. "But I've never had the opportunity to do one that I found very romantic, or very funny, or very truthful, or you know I obviously don't get offered the pick of the litter, up until now, anyway."

Gallagher spends most of While you Were Sleeping in a coma. As the unwitting object of Sandra Bullock's affections, Gallagher is the man the audience hopes will not get the girl at film's end.

In The Underneath, Gallagher's Michael Chambers is a former compulsive gambler who returns to his home town, where years before he had abandoned his ex-wife to escape loan sharks.

Gallagher, perhaps best known for playing a yuppie sleeping with his wife's sister in sex, lies, and videotape, doesn't mind portraying unsympathetic characters. What's important is the story those characters reside in.

"I just realized that if I'm not excited about the story I'm telling, I'm just gonna do a lousy job, so it's not gonna do anybody any good. It's not specific to genre, it's not specific to budget, it's just specific to the script."

The Underneath marks the third collaboration between Gallagher and director Steven Soderbergh, who also directed sex, lies and an installment of Showtime's "Fallen Angel" series. Soderbergh recently voiced a desire to move away from the serious nature of his previous projects. When asked if he shared such desires, Gallagher's reply was enthusiastic.

"Well I've always said that I just hope when Leslie Nielson retires, I can inherit the mantle," Gallagher grins. "Honestly. There's nothing funnier to me in the entire world."

Would Gallagher and Soderbergh do a Naked Gun type film?

"Oh my God, yes!" he says, eyes wide with excitement. "Something just really funny. But still truthful. It's not enough just to sort of hold up a laugh sign. When you're laughing before you're even aware of it, when it's that kind of surprise that's what I adore."

When Gallagher talks about acting and the roles he's had over the years the word "truth" is used repeatedly. He talks about finding the truth in characters and giving honest performances. He expresses concerns about the craft of acting, thus it is not surprising to learn Gallagher began his career in theater.

Between his junior and senior years in college, Gallagher took time off from the Boston Shakespeare Company and attended summer classes at Berkeley.

"I was studying non-Western economic thought and statistics, and I realized I just had no future there," Gallagher recalls with a small laugh. "They were showing a Shakespeare series on film, these marvelous things, and I realized at that point that I had no choice but to pursue acting. I knew I'd be a failure at business."

Gallagher, uncertain of his chances for success, moved to New York. He planned to give himself seven years to land a paying theater job. In one month he was rehearsing for the Broadway production of Hair.

Though he is now a successful film actor, Gallagher has continued to perform in the theater because of the unique opportunities a live audience provides.

"You have the opportunity to be there when it happens," Gallagher explains, "to be the facilitator or agent of that moment. There is a moment that's just beautifully constructed, and with any luck it's played well. All the pieces just work and there's just a release from the audience.

"It's almost like saying 'God it's okay to be human. It's really okay. It's fun' ... When those kinds of things occur, whether it's a laugh or a silence you could just fall into there's nothing like it."

For Gallagher, this reward is worth the trade-off in size between theater and movie audiences.

"I think it all just makes the whole journey richer," says the actor. "I mean it is what it is. If you wanted to reach a big audience, and that was your real interest, then theater is not the way to go. But if you want to have an opportunity to be alive in the room with a bunch of other people ...

"It gives you something that no one could ever take away. It may not be huge, it may not be celebrated, but it's further down that road of encountering what is truly great about acting. And once you taste that, once you've had the opportunity to taste a really truthful thing, you can't get enough of it."