Chris Messina appeared in Salome on Broadway. His Off-Broadway credits include The American Clock (with the Signature Theatre Company), Refuge (with Playwrights Horizons), The Hologram Theory (with the Blue Light Theatre Company), The Light Outside (with the Flea), Blur (with Manhattan Theatre Club), Good Thing (with the New Group), This Thing of Darkness (with the Atlantic Theatre Company), Faster (with Rattlestick Theatre Company), Far Away (with New York Theatre Workshop), The Seagull (with Second Stage), and The Cherry Orchard (with Williamstown Theatre Festival). Chris did Late Night/Early Morning as a part of the Downtown Plays which were first presented at the TriBeCa Theatre Festival and later at the US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, where it won the 2005 Live Jury Award for Best Theatre.
Chris’ film and TV credits include Rounders, You’ve Got Mail, The Siege, Ordinary Sinner, Road, Crooked Corner, and Bittersweet Place. Chris recently joined the cast of HBO’s Six Feet Under for its final season.
Chris studies at the Actors Center with Ron Van Lieu and Earle Gister. He is a lifetime member of the Actors Studio. More information is available at https://imdb.com/name/nm0582149.
My mom was a dance teacher, so she put me in dancing school really early. I loved it. I had danced up until ninth grade. Then I discovered girls and parties. I kind of realized that I wasn’t going to be the dancer that I wanted to be. I wanted to go to LaGuardia High School but my mom wouldn’t let me go. I grew up on Long Island and went to the public high school. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to be Baryshnikov. The girl I was partnered up with in dance class was so into it that she would drive into the City and study with these great teachers. That didn’t happen with me. But at my high school we had an amazing Theatre department. It was exceptional. I wish every kid had one. Living Theatre I was an English credit and then Living Theatre II was the company. We would improvise and put together plays about safe sex and drugs, and then put them on in front of the school. This teacher was taking football players and making them cry. They were opening up and crying. It was cool to be an actor. It was really cool.
I did so poorly in school and I was kind of searching for some kind of identity, like every kid I’m sure. Doing those plays allowed me to see that I could be all of those different people and kind of run away from myself and be somebody else. I remember doing a play where we would improv these characters. I improvised this really swishy gay guy. This was ninth grade so I did the stereotypical limp wrist kind of thing. The class laughed and I thought, “Oh, that’s good. They laughed.” I didn’t realize that the teacher was taking these characters and developing monologues and then they were going to be presented. I guess, as we were getting closer to them being presented, I went to the teacher and said, “Look, I don’t want to play the gay guy.” I was scared. I didn’t want to do it. And she was like, “Why? It’s a great character you came up with. I think you should pull it back—it’s getting a little cartoony—but it’s a great character.” She talked me into doing it.
I remember the first day. We’re sitting there. I’m in the ninth grade and there’s all these seniors and I started the monologue—and I had pulled it back to not-swishy at all—and if you were in the audience, it wasn’t quite clear if these kids were talking about themselves. So, the monologue was like, “I don’t know. I feel really weird sometimes—like I don’t fit in—because I’m gay.” The audience was silent and this was a packed room, a black box theatre, and some kid yells, “Faggot!” And in the monologue I said, “Fuck you.” The crowd went crazy. All the kids were clapping and yelling and there was this rush. I just kept going with the monologue. And afterwards all the kids backstage were like, “You said, ‘Fuck you!’ You said, ‘Fuck you!’ to the audience!” And the teacher wanted to talk to me. She said, “I liked what you did with that, you broke the fourth wall, but you did it in character. You stayed in character. You kept going. You used it. It was interesting.” Well, then the second period came where we presented it again—it was probably everybody’s lunch period—and I got to the part in the monologue where I said, “I’m gay.” Somebody just snickered. Nobody even said anything. And I screamed, “FUCK YOU!” I was looking for that same thing. It didn’t work. The teacher said, after, “Come here. You said it again and it was uncalled for.” We talked about repeating things and trying to hit things and that was the beginning of something really cool.
I went on to do those plays in high school and we weren’t doing Grease, we were doing these improv shows. It was great. I was doing so poorly in school. The teacher would turn around and I’d be standing on the desk or something. A lot of the kids took me as a funny guy and I’d get up there and try to do serious stuff and the kids would be laughing. These were really great lessons in learning to control your audience: “We’re going to be funny now. Now the material’s turning.” It was really hard to do with a bunch of kids who know you as “Messina, the guy who was doing a keg-stand.” But that’s how I got going.
I applied to one college, Marymount Manhattan College. I didn’t have good grades at all. My teacher had studied with the head of Marymount Manhattan College. They’d let me in if my parents would pay extra money to have a tutor constantly working with me. I got in on a theatre scholarship but I left after one semester. I dropped out. Because of the kind of background I had, I wasn’t into some of the stuff they were teaching. I felt like the kids weren’t as lucky as I’d been in doing all the improv in high school. I didn’t like “acting.” It turned me off. So I went back to Long Island and worked on a lobster boat and delivered pizzas and landscaped and saved money to become Jack Kerouac. I was going to come to California and smoke a lot of dope. And then by the time that whole phase passed, I remember standing outside of the pizza place waiting to do a delivery and it just hit me. I wanted to go back to the City and become an actor.
I first started commuting and going to the Lee Strasberg Theatre thinking that Lee Strasberg was still alive and teaching and that I would be in The Godfather: Part V with him or something. He would tell me about Brando. Of course, he wasn’t alive at the time and I found that out when I went there for my interview. So, I commuted in and studied there for two years. I learned some interesting stuff. I moved into an apartment on Gold Street, which is in the South Street Seaport. I lived there in a studio apartment—there were three of us. It was a bad lab experiment with one other actor and a photographer. I used to go see plays in the City every night or every other night. I’d be doing it to learn. I’d be studying. I wasn’t going to NYU or Juilliard; I was going to put myself through the Rocky Balboa School of Theatre. I was going to see everything.
I guess then I did a play in the City. The guy I was living with was doing this play and he told me to come join in. It was cool. This was at the St. Marks Theatre, which is still there, and it was a play called Plato and it was based on Plato in Rebel Without a Cause—the Sal Mineo character. A friend of mine was in it playing Buzz, the guy who challenges James Dean, and I played Crunch, the sidekick. I think I had one line: “Down there, Buzz.” I think I really milked that line.
How did you get your first agent?
My father called up and said, “A friend of mine’s father is Howard Feuer and he’s casting a movie.” I didn’t know who Howard Feuer was, so I looked him up: The Silence of the Lambs, Bad Boys, Dead Poets Society. Okay, so he’s a big casting director. So I went and met with Howard Feuer and I was twenty years old or so. He said, “Do you want to read for a small part in a movie with Meryl Streep?” I had never done any films. I had done this one play and had been studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre. So, I said, “Sure.” It was only five lines, but it was fine, perfectly fine. It was a Barbet Schroeder movie. I read with him in the office and he said, “Come back tomorrow.” Perfect. I came back the next day and I got the job. He sent me over to Paradigm, which is like God sending over one of the disciples. They signed me. They said, “Do a monologue.” I did Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? as Pacino. I think I slammed my fist on the desk and maybe knocked over some paper clips. I walked out of there and the whole office was like, “Who’s that idiot?” And I guess somehow I made it through the door—most likely because Howard Feuer set me up and because I was very excited and eager. I worked with Paradigm for seven years.
It was tough going though. Because of that movie—by the way, I was edited out of that film—I was going out on all this stuff I wasn’t ready for. I really wasn’t ready. I didn’t have the chops. I didn’t have the skills. It was frustrating because I was having these great opportunities and I kept blowing them. I first thought I was Ethan Hawke, I thought I was Johnny Depp. In my mind’s eye, I was Dean. I thought I looked like Dean. Maybe Dean’s distant cousin from New Mexico is more like it. I think there was a moment where I thought, “Oh, I get it. In order to work at my size and how I look, I’ve gotta be good. I’ve gotta go into the room and be real good. My goatee or a cool haircut is not going to cut it.” Some guys can work off the goatee. I was not going to be one of those guys. I had to get good.
I went to every acting conservatory I think there is in Manhattan—from HB to Circle Rep to Circle in the Square—I ended up with private coaching, some Shakespeare. I went to the Actors Center—I think I was there the day those doors opened and I’ve been there ever since, whenever I can. I was lucky enough to meet Ron Van Lieu and Earl Gister who really changed my life as an actor. They took what I was throwing out to the next level. Then I started booking. I think when I was with Paradigm I had done some Law & Order and a slew of studio films: The Siege, Rounders, You’ve Got Mail. But those were like glorified extras. Four lines. Work one day, two days tops. But then I started booking plays. The first Off-Broadway play I booked, I was blessed enough to be in the room with Arthur Miller and he cast me on the spot in The American Clock which was at the Signature Theatre Company.
From there, like anything else, it’s a clique Off-Broadway. The audition doors started to open. From there I did a play called Refuge by Jess Goldberg with a really great cast including Catherine Kellner, Chris Bauer, Mandy Siegfried. Neil Pepe directed it for Playwrights Horizons. It was a really huge lesson for me. I was really able to put this stuff that I was learning all these years and focus it in and figure out how not to say, “Fuck you,” twice and try to get the same reaction from it.
I was doing a lot of plays that weren’t getting received all that well. I kind of blew off pilot season every year. If I was in a play, that was where I was. I wasn’t going to be the type of actor who left a play to go out to TV or anything. Then I got into a play called Far Away, a Caryl Churchill play with Fran McDormand and Stephen Daldry and that was my first time in a play where they were lining up down the block. Then it got extended and it was one of those phenomenal experiences. That led to changing agencies. I went to Endeavor and got a management company and then did Salome on Broadway with Pacino and Dianne Wiest and Marisa Tomei. I played a very small role, I was just in twenty minutes of the play, but it was cool to work with those extraordinary people. The lessons are amazing. Right around Far Away and Salome, I started to get more into the cinema. My film auditions really had picked up, so I started to investigate filmmaking. I bought a camera. I’m very much into the theatre, always will do it, but I’m really into film acting right now: watching it, dissecting it. I’m really interested in that medium for storytelling, the size of it.
What made you choose New York?
I will always be a New York actor. This year is my first pilot season in LA. I came out last year to do a short film for a friend and I went on a bunch of pilots but it was like a two-week thing. This is the first time I’ve come out and I don’t know if I’ll make it the entire season. I have nothing against it, but I miss New York. It would be cool to do an interesting TV show, but I’d rather do films. Things have changed. When I did The American Clock and Refuge, they were offering some roles in those plays to star names, but it wasn’t as ridiculous as it is now. It wouldn’t surprise me if Paris Hilton was doing The Glass Menagerie next year. I wouldn’t be shocked by it.
How do you handle having come close on some really big projects?
The thing is, I don’t know. You’re catching me at a really interesting time where I’m really trying to find that balance. I’ve never had balance in my life. I’ve always been very obsessed and I’ve spent a lot of time really depressed and really angry and comparing myself. I think, it’s beginning to change and I think it has to do with some things going on in my personal life-slash-getting older. I used to say, “It isn’t fair!” But I started to realize that this business isn’t fair, that’s what it is. It isn’t fair. I think that having more of a life, whether that’s having a family or going on a hike or having other hobbies and other loves helps.
I love the craft of acting. I don’t love the business of it. You don’t succeed because you work your ass off or because you paid tons of money to study. I’ve been trying to figure out: “What is success?” I’m trying to change my perspective. It’s great that I’ve had really great near-misses. I can look at them as, “This could’ve been,” and “Why me?” I’ve done that. I’ve been practicing—and believe me, it’s not easy—saying, “I’m blessed and lucky to have those near-misses, to have these opportunities. I have great agents and great mentors and friends around to bounce these things off.” I work on that and I do go to the shrink as much as possible. If I die today, I had a lot of great moments. I guess the last thing I would’ve wanted to have said is, “Why didn’t I get that pilot?” I don’t want my last words to be bitching about that show I didn’t get.
What impact has acting had on your personal life?
It fucks with you. Being an actor, you’re just constantly looking at yourself in the mirror: “You’re just funny looking. You’re just too short. You’re not interesting. You’re boring. I wouldn’t buy you.” It fucks with your perspective of yourself. You’re constantly battling that. You’ve got to come out of that going, “I’m okay.” You’ve got to keep open. There’s that quote that you have to have the inner life of a rose and the shell of a tortoise. I think Stella Adler or Uta Hagan said that. But you have to have this open heart and this armor. It’s hard to have both, but you’ve gotta.
I’m recently separated and my wife was an actress. There’s a lot of things in there that I don’t need to get into, but acting was definitely a mistress for both of us and something that got in the middle of life. And certainly more for me. I think a relationship between actors can definitely work. It depends on the individuals, first of all, and then where they’re at in their careers. I ended up many times going to bed bitching about an actor and his career and then I’d wake up in the morning bitching about another one. I think somebody can only be attracted to that or want to be with that for so long. I know I don’t want to be with that. And I don’t want to be that guy. Who the hell would want to hang with that all the time?
Doing theatre, you miss weddings, you miss funerals. I missed a lot of stuff and had a lot of people become annoyed with me. In the past I was abiding by Uta Hagen’s Respect for Acting: shut off the telephone, take a long walk down the beach alone. I was very much: “This is my life. You want to be friends with me, you want to be hanging with me, this is what I’m going to do.” And I still feel like that when I have work to do. It’s hard when you’re playing a character to just let it go without shutting the world out like that. It’s not a nine-to-five kind of thing.
What is your favorite thing about being an actor?
The thing that I connect to most is getting to be other people. I’m not tied down to just being Chris. I think we all have a lot of people within us and we’re being allowed to have them come out and it’s somewhat safe. I’ve been under the title of “actor” for about nine, ten years. Now I’m beginning to play the role of “Chris,” which is an interesting role. I’m hoping to get some good reviews and play the part for a while.
This interview was conducted on February 7, 2005, and it originally appeared in Acting Qs: Conversations with Working Actors by Bonnie Gillespie and Blake Robbins, available at Amazon.