Interview with Raymond J. Barry: The Father of Hollywood

By Bob Doda

Whether it’s Tom Cruise, Vince Vaughn, John C. Reilly and now Tim Olyphant in the critically acclaimed Justified on FX, Raymond J. Barry has truly earned the moniker, 'The Father of Hollywood'. Veteran actor of the stage and the screen, Barry caught up with TheCelebrityCafe.com to discuss the past, present and future of his esteemed career.

TheCelebrityCafe: You got your start in a theater company in New York City in the 1970’s. Has the dynamic changed for aspiring actors in Manhattan?

Raymond J. Barry: When I was living there it was a very fortunate situation. I had a two floor loft down in SoHo which cost me $150 a month. Today, it’s so expensive to live there. It’s changed the tenor of the City. It’s a city for the rich now and the artists have moved to Brooklyn and Queens or across the river to New Jersey. The community of artists has changed as a result of the current economic situation in New York. You can’t live in Manhattan if you are young and want to be an actor. In my day, I could make $200 a month working a part-time job and live, study acting and write. Same thing for painters. There was a community that could survive in the city. Today, it’s all too expensive. I’m glad I’m not young.

TCC: When was the moment you realized that you could have a professional career as an actor?

RJB: I knew immediately without ever having acted that I was going to be an actor, and it precluded that I was going to make a living as an actor. I never stepped one foot on a stage. The age I was at the time was 20, and the major influence was a professor at Brown University where I was attending school who came up to me one day and said “we are looking for a football player to play the part of Hal in William Inge’s ‘Picnic’ which was a popular play at the time…After I took one his classes and I got hooked on it [acting] and I did the play. I was awful in it, but the same guy got me into Yale Drama School after I graduated from Brown. I knew that I was not going to do a normal job. That was something I was so sure of and I don’t know where I got that from. I just knew I wanted to do something that was personal and more rewarding than going to a 9 to 5 situation.

TCC: Tell me about your character Arlo in Justified.

RJB: It’s a terrific role. I like playing dark characters as well as fathers - Arlo is combination of both. He’s an anarchist, he’s criminal, he sells drugs, he’ll do anything for a buck and simultaneously, he’s a father. There is a certain degree of vulnerability in the character in that his wife has been shot to death and he misses her terribly, and he’s beginning to fantasize about her being alive. He has a case of dementia that I find very interesting as a character. He’s not just one thing.

TCC: You have played a lot of fathers during your career. Is it a role that you feel comfortable with or something you might shy away from in the future?

RJB: I love playing the roles of those fathers. When I was Tom Cruise’s father in Born on the Fourth of July – that was a plum role for me and I’m very proud of my work in it. I played the father of a murdered boy in Tim Robbin’s Dead Man Walking. I was an archetypal father and it was a wonderful role. On a more superficial level, I was Ashton Kusher’s father in Just Married, I was Brad Pitt’s father in a Tales from the Crypt episode before he was famous. Now, I’m Tim Olyphant’s father and I’m quite sure he is going to be very famous.

TCC: What other roles do you like to play?

RJB: Some of my favorite roles have been bad guys like the alleged second gunman who shot Kennedy in a movie called Interview with the Assassin. It was a wonderful role…It got a limited circulation in theaters and was never shown on television. There is no obscenity or anything like that and it’s an interesting film. It should be shown on television.

TCC: With more and more viewers gravitating away from the classic big networks, how would you characterize your experience at FX?

RJB: This experience with Justified on FX is an absolute, unequivocal pleasure, partly because of the quality of the writing which I never experienced before on a TV series. The reason for the quality is because of the producers who are willing to stop shooting and make sure things are worked out before we go on. Sometimes, that will involve sitting and talking on a day of shooting for an hour and a half making quick changes. The actors are all very skillful. I can memorize lines fast. They will change a whole scene and I’ll have to memorize it right there. Most of the other series I have been involved with, they don’t take their time. There is such a rush to shoot it. Because of that time pressure they don’t always take the care that is necessary to ensure that the quality is the way it should be.

TCC: You have appeared in over 50 movies to date. Do you have a favorite or most powerful scene that you have shot?

RJB: My favorite scene in the film Born on the Fourth of July is when Tom Cruise comes back home paralyzed. I actually came to tears repeatedly as we were shooting that. And I swear to god I don’t know how that happened. You can attribute it to technique and actor’s skill and all of that. Okay, that’s fine. If you think I’m a good actor, I’ll take it. But, in all honesty, I think the situation was so believable that it just moved me, and if you asked me to do the same thing on a different day, I doubt it would have happened. Sometimes, you are just in the zone. I did a lot of homework on that role. I substituted one of my daughters and did what they call ‘emotional recall’ on a daily basis. I’m very proud of that scene.

TCC: Do you have anything in the works right now?

RJB: I’m a painter and you can see my works on my website raymondjbarry.org. I didn’t want to mention that before because I don’t want to sound like some sort of ego-maniac that runs around proselytizing and all that. I don’t. I have four kids and I spend a lot of time teaching them basketball or whatever. And I’m 73 years old. I’ve had a lot of time to do a lot of stuff. You know what I mean?

TCC: Sure. I don’t think it comes off as pompous. I think it comes off more as creative expression.

RJB: My mother taught me that money is not important. Art is the only thing that matters. That is a very heightening and unique sense of values. I just wrote a play that ran in Los Angeles and five weeks in New York called Awake in a World that Encourages Sleep. It’s put together in a rhythmic way. It’s like a piece of music.

TCC: Like jazz?

RJB: Yes! You hit it right on the head. It’s not what you would call a sentimental piece where the actors are trying to feel things. It’s not didactic. It doesn’t instruct people how to think. I wanted to put a balance in the play that was not all one sided. The play has got excellent reviews. I’m looking for more venues to perform it in and that’s not an easy task.