After M*A*S*H
Lukáš Lancz:
It’s amazing that you were/are able to affect people live through the show, they just didn’t have fun, but the show helped them to get through some tough time in their lives, made some decision in their lives and that is amazing…
Mike Farrell:
Yes, it is amazing to know…I will tell you a story: I was in state of Michigan I think some years ago when I was doing the show and I’ve been there to appear for charity event. There was a break in the show and I stepped out of studio and walked down the street, kind of look around and there is man walking towards me and he looked up and he said heeey! He stopped, I stopped, and he looked at me and he said: How the hell are you? Grab his hand and shook his hand and I said: how the hell are you? He suddenly his eyes got big and he stepped back and he said Oh my god, I just realized I don’t know you! Laughs
And I laughed and laughed that’s fine I said I’m flattered its perfectly fine and no problems. He said: god how does it feel to have half relationship formed with million and millions of people? And I said: I will tell you it feels pretty good, thank you. It’s a remarkable experience to have this guy suddenly say hey I know you, how are you?
Lukáš Lancz:
You had a wonderful time working with such talented people like Alan Alda, Harry Morgan, David Ogden Stiers, Loretta Swit, Jamie Farr, Gary Burghoff. Sadly, Mr. Stiers and Mr. Morgan passed away, but the rest of you had a reunion on Alan Alda’s podcast, Clear and Vivid. What was it like to be together again?
Mike Farrell:
People talk about Are you ever gonna have MASH reunion, show and I say no…But we have reunions all the time, we made a practice getting together for dinner. Alan lives in NY, Loretta moved to NY but periodically Alan comes out here and when he does, he always lets us now and we all get together for a dinner or if one of us back in east we always manage get together. But when he comes this way, for the first few years, Harry, Jamie, Bill and David, Larry would join us and the whole bunch get together at the restaurant somewhere and we were laugh and…when we were doing the show, we would work hard, long hours Monday to Friday and then Saturday nights we would all get together for dinner, bring our wives, husbands and special people and sit down and laugh what happen week before.
Lukáš Lancz:
So we can say one big family…
Mike Farrell:
Yes
Lukáš Lancz:
And you are friends to these days and not only with people we just mentioned, but rest of the cast as well, that is something special…
Mike Farrell:
Yeah, you’ve talked to Jeff so you know about that, Kelly Nakahara – nurse Kelly was one of the great human being and she was always part of any gathering we had. The Mini MASH was a very much a part of the family, we would have party in the of the season and everybody would hug and kiss and say well see you in 6 months or whatever. We often saw each other sooner. But it was really a family and it’s been very sad that we lost or the years lost so many, I guess it’s part of the deal in this life. But its particularly hard, I was really close to Harry and David Stiers as well, they were hard loses to take I must say…
Lukáš Lancz:
You wrote 5 episodes of MASH and directed 4. And you also produced movies like Dominick and Eugene and Patch Adams with wonderful actors like Tom Hulce and Robin Williams. Do you have a favorite between acting, writing, directing and producing?
Mike Farrell:
Acting for me is like going on for vacation, it’s like holiday…Directing is tougher because you have lot of responsibility, producing is really about selecting properly appropriate talented group of people and the protecting them. Letting them do what they do. I can’t say there is one I prefer over the others, I love doing them all, you are part of creative process. If your face is on camera, that is one of the creative process but if you are writing something and people are able to get what you wanted to have portrayed, its very exciting to see.
Producing, I’m incredible proud of particularly Dominick and Eugene, I just…it’s a film that resulted from a story which was sent to me by a man when I was doing MASH. He wrote me long letter – he said you were in the marines, I was in the marines and I had this idea that I wanted to see if it might be a movie. So he wrote this very long complicated story about his experience in Marine corps. I wrote him back and I said you know it’s not a movie I don’t think, it may be a book. I urge you to look finding someone to publish it. It isn’t a movie, but you have a nag as writer if you ever come up with another idea I would be happy to see it.
And he probably in 6 months or a year later send me another story which was essentially about Dominick and Eugene – about these two paternal twin brothers, one of them was brain damaged…And I just felt in love with it. After MASH was over, I formed partnership with a friend and we set up Farrell/Minoff productions and we came very close…He said what do you got on your shelf, I’ve got some things on my shelf that I would like you to read and you’ve got some things on shelf I assume that I…I pulled out Dominick and Eugene and he loved it.
We had an idea, at that time I’ve met his Shawn Penn and knew his brother only slightly, but I thought Shawn and his brother could make interesting Dominick and Eugene.
So I contacted Shawn, I’ve told him the story and he was very excited about it, but he said: I don’t want to work with my brother… Which I thought that was funny…
But he said: I’ve got a deal at Ryan Pictures and let’s talk to them. We did and they were very excited, they gave us go ahead to get a script done. Shawn wasn’t happy with the script, Ryan was happy with it. So, then Shawn said he wanted to write itself and we thought oh god you know whats gonna happen, is if we don’t like what he does, I think we might lose him as an actor and he was the kind of connecting device. So we said sure ok, he run of and he wrote it and came back. It was a darker story, not the one I wanted to tell. We said, it doesn’t work for us and he said ok I get, but I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do your movie. We thought ok we gonna lose it now and we went to studio and they said oh no we love the story, doesn’t matter if Shawn doesnt want to do, we will find somebody else.
So we ultimately were able to find Tom, Ray and Bob Young – wonderful director. I didn’t act in a foot of it, but I was part of the rewrite, part of the process and it was one of the great creative experience as I’ve had in this business. Very sadly studio got into financial troubles, so they cheated us on opening, they really sluffed it, they didn’t give picture the support it needed.
At the same time that year Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise came out with film that had similarities of our story - Rain Man, about a man who was autistic and unusual. That was a big hit because Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise were big stars and ours didn’t get attention it deserved but I’ve always loved the film and actually I was talking in recent months to a fella who came up with the story, because he now thinks that there should a be a sequel to Dominick and Eugene and we are trying to figure out if there is a way to do it that makes sense, but I’m not sure. But it was fabulous experience, but on other hand Patch was not fabulous experience for me as produces because it got into more studio politics and director who didn’t had the ability to make it what it should be and the writer who also didn’t had ability…that was a shame, Robin (Williams) was a genius and he made it come to life but we had a very much deeper story we wanted to tell and they just didn’t had talent to pull it off. Patch who was a dear friend of mine, that’s how I got the rights to do it, he is thrilled. Patch isn’t the film you wanted to make, but it made me worldwide figure know around the world. I’m now invited to do these things he does in Russia, southern hemisphere and all kinds of things all around the world as the results of that movie. So, some good was done.
Lukáš Lancz:
Your book, Just Call Me Mike, is full of powerful and inspirational stories. For me it’s a guide for all of us on how to make this world a better place. Was that your intention?
Mike Farrell:
Well, you are very kind to describe it that way Lukas…I was working at that time, I guess it was just after launch of the war in Iraq… Fellow of name of Robert Greenwald, decided that I’ve should write a book and he had relationship with publisher, I guess he was part of the publishing company. He said: I’ve want you to write book and I’ll publish it. I said I do not know that I’ve story to tell, that people gonna care about. It feels a little self-conscious to me, but he insisted. Well, I said I can certainly talk about things from my point of view and if they mean something to people than ok. I sat down and I wrote a book that was an 800 pages long and I remember getting a call from his partner and he said: Mike, nobody is gonna read 800 page book and nobody writes 800 page book other than Bill Clinton and his book is not selling all that well. So, and what I’ve done, I talk about being in Somalia or Ruanda or being on my motorcycle, I’ve written journals about each of those experience and I’ve included them all in my book. I said here’s what I can do – I can take out the journals and note a website where people can see the journals if they would like. That condenses it to about, I guess it’s over 300 pages anyway. But it will give a taste of each all these things without going into all glory detail. So that is what we settle down. That what we have now.
M*A*S*H 4077th / Mike Farrell
Image: CBS, Wikipedia
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