Starring Julia Roberts, the eight-part drama “Gaslit” on Starz zeros in on the crimes that would ultimately take down Richard Nixon’s presidency, specifically the Watergate break-in that was conceived by former FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy, played by Shea Whigham as a man unhinged as they come.
After serving a prison sentence, Liddy later remade himself as something of a media personality, though his over-the-top personality remained intact. The series, of course, precedes all of that. “I was interested in who he was from ‘71 to ‘72 and how do we get that right, and not bring whatever I feel about him into it,” said Whigham. “You have to really start almost naively, I find, and then start to build. I’m really looking for the human being in there.”
Whigham first came to notice playing Eli Thompson for five seasons on HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” and his resume since has spanned the gamut with roles in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “American Hustle,” “Kong: Skull Island” and ”Joker.”
That list also includes the 2012 drama “Silver Linings Playbook,” and it was a day on set that came to mind when he was asked about a singularly embarrassing moment in his career.
My worst moment …
“We’re doing ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ in Philly, (writer-director) David O. Russell was coming off ‘The Fighter’ and he’s got this brilliant script starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. And I’ve got the chance to act with my hero, Robert De Niro.
“Bradley and I play brothers and De Niro is our father. If you remember the movie, it ends with this Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers dance competition (that Cooper and Lawrence take part in). Now, I hadn’t worked yet with Bob and I’m really nervous. He’s my hero and every time I look at him, all I see is (his ‘Raging Bull’ character) Jake LaMotta. I see Vito Corleone from ‘The Godfather: Part II.’
“To paint the picture: Bradley and Jennifer are upstairs at the dance competition, and Bob and I are downstairs in a bar watching the football game. The Eagles are playing the Cowboys and we don’t want to go upstairs yet because we placed this big bet. So that’s the scene we’re filming. Movies are usually shot out of order, so even though this takes place at the end, we shot it early on. And this was the first time I was in a scene with De Niro.
“So David says to me, ‘Listen, when the Eagles score, I need a lot of energy out of you, OK? Because this is going to carry us right upstairs into the dance competition, it’s going to be beautiful.’
“You know when you’re a kid and you hear about superhuman strength? This is the only way I can explain it, like if someone’s trapped under a car, in the moment you can lift that car and save them because your adrenaline kicks in? What they don’t tell you is that your adrenaline also kicks in when they call action and they ask you to scream because the Eagles just won.
“So De Niro is to my right and I turn and right into his left ear — I can picture it right now and I’m cringing — I screamed, ‘Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhh!’ and I see him reach up and cover his left ear, like a baby does when they can’t tell you they have an earache. And then he starts pulling on his earlobe and he starts pushing it with his index finger. And I’m thinking, no, no, no, no, no. I’ve just destroyed my hero’s ear.
“I feel David coming in. And Bob looks at me. And he doesn’t say anything. And I start to slink off. And I see him and David talk. And I’m thinking, this is it — I’m gonna get fired. I’m gone. I blew out my hero’s eardrum. It was just short of drawing blood.
“So David calls me over and we huddle up and he goes, ‘That was great. That was beautiful. But this time? We’re going to take about half off so we don’t kill Bob, OK? (Laughs) And I go, ‘OK!’ (Joking) After we got the medic in there. No, that’s not true (laughs). So I go back over and we do again, and it’s in the movie, you see it.
“That movie was a magical experience, but that was the first time stepping on the floor with them, and Bob is so quiet and I’m so quiet. But not knowing him yet and that happening? It’s frightening. It’s just frightening.
“De Niro and I went on to have a beautiful relationship. Toward the end of filming, he would tell these great stories about ‘Raging Bull’ and ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘The Deer Hunter.’ And I’m asking all these questions and I was like, ‘So when you and Christopher Walken were doing the Russian roulette scene in “Deer Hunter”…’ and he goes, ‘What?’— like he couldn’t hear me. And I said, ‘When you and Walken …’ and he goes, ‘Whah?’ And he was taking the piss out of me from two months earlier (laughs). He was like, ‘Sorry kid, I can’t hear out of this ear.’ He remembered.”
Part of being an actor is the willingness to be vulnerable. How do you remain vulnerable after doing too much and embarrassing yourself?
“Yeah, you learn to course-correct pretty quickly. You have to let all of that go and when they call action, it’s about relaxation and concentration. Just connecting with that other actor you’re in a scene with.
“I had to shake it off so we could get that shot, but believe me, I went home that night and I had a few drinks. This is Robert De Niro! You know what I mean? But that’s also the genius of David O. Russell, he always keeps you in the moment. It wasn’t like he said, ‘You screwed up here, man.’ It was like, ‘Listen, that was great. We’re going to go again, but this time let’s try this.’ To me, the whole story of my character is about getting his father’s approval, because he was so focused on Bradley’s character. I wanted to be seen by pop.”
And heard.
“(Long laugh) That’s good. Yeah, absolutely.”
The takeaway …
“When you’re in there with your heroes, you gotta be able to get it together pretty quickly.
“And honestly, the great thing about this story is when I thought it was all falling to pieces, Bob handled it so well. He made me feel OK about it. He knew, I think, the effect he had on a young actor like me. I guess he could have become upset, I’m a millimeter from his ear screaming, you know? Who knows what he could have done. But he’s magical.
“So that’s the takeaway — not what I did, but how he handled it. That’s a great lesson in life, how to handle things.”
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