COMMENTARY
Jeff Simon: Betting on the ‘break-out’ stars
Tracy Morgan had strong things to say about his old “Saturday Night Live” cast mates Cheri Oteri and Chris Kattan. Very strong things.
Put it this way: He used the well-known word that you probably wouldn’t use if you were introduced to the Queen of England.
The words are in Morgan’s new book, titled “I Am the New Black” (Spiegel& Grau, 224 pages, $25) and coming out next Tuesday. Go to the audiobook version and Morgan rather nastily asks, after his decade on “SNL,” “Where’s Chris Kattan now? Where’s Cheri Oteri now? That b----can’t even get arrested.”
Unlike Morgan who, no doubt probably could get arrested if he just put his mind to it (as could we all, if we only tried). Instead, though, Morgan, on this side of the law, is the resident self-proclaiming off-the-wall bouncer on TV’s most acclaimed and awarded comedy,“30 Rock.”
Which, I must confess, surprises me more than a little. Morgan would not have been one I’d have guessed to have a post- “SNL” career significant enough for a publisher to ask him to write a book. But then, nor would Oteri or Kattan, the ones Morgan now says “never treated me well” (unlike Will Ferrell and Molly Shannon, who apparently did, on their way to movie roles —significant, mall-conquering ones in Ferrell’s case).
It’s a funny thing about actors “breaking out” of TV ensembles. You can’t always see it coming.
Heaven knows you can sometimes. Every time someone would write about “Friends” and predict great things for Lisa Kudrow’s career, I thought them either deranged or chemically addled. As likable as she was on the show (and as self-evidently intelligent in life), she had “limited performer” virtually tattooed on her forehead. You had to be blind and deaf not to guess that the breakout players on “Friends” would be Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox (whose current sitcom “Cougar Town” is both shameless and more than a little shameful). And that if David Schwimmer had any major subsequent TV or movie career at all, it would be behind the camera— which it almost was. He almost directed a George Clooney movie, according to the Web site IMDB.com.
Please understand. Schwimmer may be quite a significant figure in California theater, where he now prefers to function. And more power to him if he is. It’s just that people could talk about Kudrow and Matthew Perry all they wanted, the only “Friends” cast members who were plainly fated for much bigger things were Cox and, especially, Aniston.
From SNL’s first days, you knew the movies would figure out places for Chevy Chase and John Belushi. You also knew that Gilda Radner’s extraordinary TV lovability would never entirely translate to the big screen. I must confess, though, that I was a little surprised there was a major career awaiting Dan Aykroyd. And even more surprised than that that Bill Murray turned out to be the pivotal star he did (in “Lost in Translation” he even succeeded in attaining a full and powerful adulthood).
Nor did I think Julia Louis-Dreyfus would be the only ensemble cast member on “Seinfeld” to have a durable starring TV career after the show—despite all her previous experience on “SNL.”
What’s especially sad about the post- “Seinfeld” life of its ensemble is that the most talented cast member by far—Jason Alexander—has never had anything close to a post-“Seinfeld” career to match even a fraction of his talent. And with the recent publication of Paul Shaffer’s memoirs, we learned that Alexander wasn’t even the first choice to play George Costanza on the show, Paul Shaffer was. (He just didn’t want to leave Dave.)
What no one could possibly have guessed about the “Seinfeld” bunch is that Michael Richards’ career would implode so completely in the era of the cell phone camera.
Obviously, ensemble casts are breeding grounds for festering resentments, rivalries, hard feelings and worse, just as stagnant ponds are awfully good at breeding mosquitoes. No one should be all that surprised, then, if a wild man like Morgan celebrates success by biting old cohorts who didn’t treat him very well.
It ought to go without saying, of course, that ensembles don’t work unless some members are—at least a little anyway— on the lookout for each other’s welfare. Somebody’s got to have somebody’s back, or sooner or later, everyone’s going to be staggering to bloody anonymity.
Anyone looking at “Grey’s Anatomy” would guess that whenever it is down the road that a priest comes in to give the show last rites, it’s unlikely that Ellen Pompeo has blazing movie stardom ahead of her. But nor, despite her success in Romcoms and Apatow-land, does it seem to me that Katherine Heigl is on her way to becoming the next Jennifer Aniston, much less the next Julia Roberts.
Which is why it might be very good news for everyone if Heigl could ever settle down and decide to be happy in prime time. If ever a show had the earmarks of one that would probably stay around a while, it’s “Grey’s Anatomy.”
It helps, I think, to consider all this current TV’s greatest reality show of all—The Ensemble Game:Who connives and back stabs; who gets voted off the island (goodbye Isaiah Washington from “Grey’s Anatomy;” is that Michaela Watkins going through “SNL’s” revolving door?); who wins the Big Career and the Big Money.
Who will not only survive but flourish? And last a few years, even? Place your bets —come one, come all.
Personally, I’m not the slightest bit surprised that an actor as good as Ed O’Neill— Al Bundy on prime time of yore’s “Married With Children”—is as funny as he is on a sitcom as good as “Modern Family.”
On the other hand, you might want to take what I’m saying with more than a couple grains of salt. After all, I’m still waiting for Jason Bateman to be a breakout star in a breakout movie.
It’s probably going to, uhhhh, take a while, you know?
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