Susie Anderson
Staff writer
Actors Tony Shalhoub and Brooke Adams joined author and podcaster Kelly Carlin onstage at 10:45 a.m. Friday in the Amphitheater, closing out the Chautauqua Lecture Series Week Two theme “Comedy Now: A Week Curated by Lewis Black.”
Adams is best known for her role in “Days of Heaven” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” In 2015, she performed in a web series with her sister, Lynne Adams, titled “All Downhill from Here.”
Shalhoub is a Golden Globes, Tony, and four-time Emmy Award-winning actor known for his roles in “Wings,” “Monk” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Carlin serves on the National Comedy Center’s advisory board and hosts the podcast “Waking from the American Dream.”
The conversation highlighted the pair’s extensive careers, differences between comedic and dramatic acting, the role of humor in their relationship and the role of comedy in a divided America.
The lecture opened with clips from Adams’ and Shalhoub’s varied careers, from Shalhoub’s appearances in the sitcom “Wings” to the animated film “Cars,” and Adams’ work from “Days of Heaven” to “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” The compilation concluded with the couple’s joint appearances in the hit television series “Monk.”
When Carlin asked the couple how they met, Adams said she joined the cast of the 1990 theater production The Heidi Chronicles to play in the lead role alongside Shalhoub, but Shalhoub had a girlfriend at the time. At that comment, Shalhoub stood up from his chair and walked away from Carlin and Adams, sending a rumble of laughter throughout the Amp.
“I kept suggesting that he just dump her, but he did not listen,” Adams said. “And we did not get together until about a year later… and we’ve been married for 33 years.”
“Eleven of the happiest years of Brooke’s life,” Shaloub quipped.
Shalhoub shared that growing up the second youngest of 10 children in Green Bay, Wisconsin, he found creativity and inspiration from his siblings.
“I steal from them, I imitate them, I draw from them, and you know, it was interesting growing up in that kind of environment because it was always a built-in audience,” Shalhoub said.
Adams was raised in New York City with her sister and first fell in love with acting at her father’s summer theater, the Flint Musical Tent in Flint, Michigan.
“We did musicals, and my sister and I just sat in the audience and watched for hours,” Adams said. “We knew every line and every step to all of the plays.”
Carlin said, “And you got bit by the bug early, it sounds like, sitting in the audience memorizing every moment.”
“Every single one,” Adams said. “In fact, I became a problem, because if somebody hesitated for a minute before they said their line, I would jump in with the lines.”
For Shalhoub, the inspiration for acting, despite living in a community with few local theaters and a home without a television, was inspired by two events. First, Shalhoub said that he was struck by his mother’s fascination with an improvisation by an actor in one of his sibling’s plays.
“My mother told the story with such relish and reverence, and it was this beautiful heartwarming thing,” Shalhoub said. “… I thought, ‘Wow, whatever this actor did, it just impacted her and that impacted me.’”
The other inspiration for Shalhoub was the film adaptation of Herb Gardner’s play A Thousand Clowns. He described the performance as out of the ordinary.
“I think something hit me at that moment … because I did not know what the hell and how my life was going to unfold,” Shalhoub said. “Unlike Brooke, I was not growing up in that kind of theater environment.”
In 1991, in a full-circle moment, Shalhoub met Gardner while performing one of his plays on Broadway.
In discussing breakout roles and first experiences, Adams shared that in her first time on a set filming a television series when she was 14, she could not muster the ability to cry for her scene.
“Finally, somebody who was actually a very sweet and lovely man — the director — came and slapped me across the face and said, ‘Roll it!’ and my tears came flowing,” Adams said. “People think that is an abusive story, but in fact I was so grateful!”
Adams said that after a few stints on television, her biggest breakout role was “Days of Heaven,” for which she auditioned without reading the script, but knew that it was going to be a big deal.
Shalhoub said his years at the Yale School of Drama — where he first met Lewis Black and actors Joe Grifasi and Mark Linn-Baker, who performed The Deal on Thursday at Chautauqua — trained him for theater acting and led him to join the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he experimented with all forms of acting with an eclectic group of playwrights, directors and actors.
Carlin then showed a clip from “Wings” with Adams and Shalhoub and asked the couple how their approaches differed between comedic and dramatic acting.
Adams said she thought comedy was much harder, particularly with timing and delivery.
Shalhoub shared that he looks for comedy in every drama role he receives, and vice versa.
“When I am approaching and working on a dramatic role, the first thing I do is try to look for the joke. I try to look for — no matter how dark or serious this person’s predicament might be — what is funny, and what would this person find funny?”
In another clip from “Monk,” Shalhoub’s titular character drives Adams’ stewardess insane on an airplane flight. Reflecting on “Monk,” Shalhoub emphasized the advantage of serving as a producer on the show.
“When you are doing a play and it is a comedy, let’s say, you are the delivery point to the audience,” Shalhoub said. “In television, you can work and you can do your best, but then they edit it. And they edit your timing, and it can be very frustrating because it is really not your work.”
The process involves many hands, from directors to producers to editors that change the initial performance, said Shalhoub. Ultimately, the final television episode or film is more of a “comedy by committee” than a performance of the actor.
When joining “Monk,” Shalhoub asked to become a producer to maintain the timing and delivery of the comedy performance. He said he felt a bit guilty about yielding the advantage of such creative control over the final product of “Monk.”
“When it came to award shows and things like Emmy Awards, I felt like I was cheating (since) I was cutting my own performance,” Shalhoub said. “Other actors in my category were not doing that.”
Adams shared that, with age, she has begun to prefer theater to film. Carlin asked if she feels the pressure of having to deliver a performance in a single continuous experience onstage, rather than have the benefit of several takes on a film set.
“It is terrifying,” Adams said. “But that is part of the thrill.”
When Carlin asked about the role of humor in their own relationship, Adams said whenever she gets mad at Shalhoub, he has a way of turning a joke that diffuses the entire argument. Shalhoub shared that Adams, often without trying, uses humor as a way to be direct, if not cutting.
“She just takes no prisoners. And it is fun and refreshing and it is disarming, really,” Shalhoub laughed as he answered. “She can be incredibly — incredibly cruel is the wrong word — biting! Caustic? How is that? And sometimes you cannot believe it is coming out of that gorgeous face.”
Carlin then asked the couple whether or not they believe comedy can bridge the divide between Americans, or if that is a fantasy.
“I hope so,” Adams said.
Shalhoub said that he felt conflicted about the parodies of late night shows, such as impressions of President Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live.”
“You may be doing a Trump imitation, and on one hand, I love it because it feels so spot on, and on the other hand, I feel like ‘Shit, is this normalizing really, really aberrant and dangerous behavior?’ ” Shalhoub said.
“The other thing,” Adams said, “is that Trump and his cohort are so ridiculous and say such outrageous things that it is hard to do ironic comedy.”
Carlin said that discussion emerged in the talkback with the couple and Lewis Black on Thursday after their reading of his play The Deal, when Black said that people can’t laugh at things they used to laugh at.
Shalhoub said that when Trump pawns off outrageous statements by saying, “I was joking,” he uses “a constant exit ramp that has come all giftwrapped like it’s all about comedy.” The result, Shalhoub said, is that “there is no real way to make anyone accountable, really, and so that is screwed up.”
