The evolution of Adam Arkin

October 3, 1997
Web posted at: 10:24 p.m. EDT (0224 GMT)

By Bonnie Churchill

HOLLYWOOD -- "Directing has taught me a lot about life," admits Adam Arkin, the caring Dr. Aaron Shutt of the hit CBS series "Chicago Hope."

Arkin, who directs the hour-long hospital drama, began directing 10 years ago.

"Directing yourself isn't that difficult," he says. "I've played Shutt for (four) seasons, so I've gotten into his skin. The only thing I request is a video playback of whatever scenes I'm in.

"I recall the first time I directed 'Northern Exposure,'" Arkin says and smiles. "The wind was blowing, the snow was building into a blizzard, and the pressure to get the scene before the weather took over was fierce.

"We made it."

Later he told the producer, "I think I'm beginning to get it. Everything is crucially important, and nothing matters."

The producer gave him a pat on the back and agreed: "You're a quick learner."

'It's all nonsense'

"You develop a willingness to remember the smallness of the details in which you can myopically immerse yourself," the actor/director continues. "I have the ability, even in the middle of caring very deeply and getting wound up about things, occasionally, to remember that it's all nonsense.

"You pick up the newspaper and learn they've just discovered, by the use of telescopes on satellites whizzing around our planet, that the universe is larger than they had originally estimated. It's larger by something like 100 billion galaxies -- not stars, but galaxies.

"Compared to that," he adds, "it's hard to blow a gasket over who's getting what role or who's drawing $5 million for a movie, or why isn't this happening to me?"

Trying to please dad

Arkin admits he didn't learn all this the first time he walked onstage or directed a TV show. The seeds were first sown by his father, award-winning actor Alan Arkin.

"My folks did a series of children's albums," Adam Arkin says with a laugh, "and I was on the cover in the buff on a bearskin rug." He quickly adds, "Age 9 months."

These "Babysitter Albums" continued for the first 15 years of his life. "Do you know I still get an occasional residual check from those books?"

When he was 12, his father directed Adam and his younger brother Matthew in a short film called "People Soup." It was about two kids doing experiments in the kitchen, one of which turns them into animals.

"Matt became a chicken, and I a sheep dog. We got paid and joined the union, and my dad got an Academy Award nomination for the short."

A few years later, Brooklyn-born Adam walked into an open audition and won the role of James Whitmore's son in the East Coast touring company of "The New Mount Olive Motel." When an agent came to visit one of his clients who was in the production, Alan Arkin asked him to keep an eye on his son's acting, because he didn't have an agent.

By the time the curtain came down, Adam had an agent. Soon he was in Hollywood doing TV shows, including "Busting Loose."

Rescued by improvisation

When the red-hot actor became lukewarm, he packed up and returned to New York.

"I really had a rough time -- no one would consider me for Broadway."

Finally, he got a role in a workshop production called "I Hate Hamlet" that was playing off-Broadway -- really off -- in Saratoga, New York. The critics loved it, and its young producers took it to New York, with Arkin staying on. It was a smash, and his Broadway debut won him a Tony nomination.

"The next day, after it opened to great reviews, the star, Nicol Williamson, called us into his dressing room and told us he was rewriting the play and wouldn't be onstage very much."

Arkin and a fellow actor had 10 minutes before the curtain went up to figure out what to do.

"We had to make up a play that we'd just opened in the night before," he remembers. "It was a scary, insecure environment, for you never knew what would happen. ...

"I had a lock on this character, and I knew how to play him. I wasn't going to let anything sabotage it. The whole experience was like being in a madhouse." After an experience like that, what more could happen?

Looking inward

So his career evolved. And Arkin can now confide, "As a kid, I desired attention, and I wanted my dad to be proud of my work. When I was able to support myself by doing what I loved -- that really equated success."

His definition of success, however, has changed. He's started to discover a deeper meaning to his work.

"I'm on a journey to grow and dig into myself, not only as an actor, a director, but as a person. Balance is the key. Everything is crucially important, nothing matters. If I can just remember to focus on that."

(c) 1997, Bonnie Churchill Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate

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