West Virginia University Libraries Exhibit
INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS SARANDON
While creating this exhibit, members of the WVU Libraries contacted WVU Alumnus Chris Sarandon. The following interview was conducted by WVU Libraries Graduate Assistant Makenzie Hudson.
To view the interview in its entirety, continue scrolling.
To view a specific question, hover over the circle and click on the question's link below.
Question 1
Makenzie: Who introduced you to the world of acting? And how did this person influence your life?
Chris Sarandon: Well, serendipitously since we are talking about West Virginia University, that’s where it happened. At the time, I think during my freshman or sophomore year, I had some room in my schedule. I was a very busy young man, very involved in all sorts of extracurricular activities on the campus. In my sophomore year I was a coordinator for the leadership conference retreat and homecoming weekend coordinator, and I was very involved politically. And I was on a fast track in the student government world as well as trying to fill in my classes, so I was very ambitious. But at the same time, I had no idea about what I wanted to do with my life. I had started out in a psychology major and then switched to a speech therapy major. I was all over the place. And I had always enjoyed…I was in the senior class play in high school, but I never thought of it as a vocation, being an actor. But I’d always enjoyed doing it and I had an opportunity to take an acting class and I figured “what the hell, I’ll take one.” And the instructor was Professor Charles (Chuck) Neal. And in class, Professor Neal was very encouraging about my abilities, and I initially brushed it off because I was a BMOC, Big Man on Campus, in my own mind anyway, and he asked me to be in a play. And I said, “Oh I just don’t have the time. You know I’m coordinating this and going to these meetings etc. and I’m going to classes.” And he said, “Oh it’s a small part. It won’t take much time. You’ll have a good time. You’ll have fun.” As I recall it was a class production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and I was playing some kind of small role, not a big role in the play, but I had a speaking part. And after the play was over, the next semester he was doing another play on another stage. Not in Reynold’s Hall but in a laboratory theater of a play by Moliere called Tartuffe. And professor Neal said to me, “I want you to play Tartuffe,” the title character of the play. I said, “Chuck I’m just too busy. I’ve got too much stuff going on.” He said, “Oh, and by the way, I’m casting this year’s Miss West Virginia” –I think her name is Diane Hunter. A lovely woman and a really good actress– “and I’m casting her as your opposite. You know, you’ll be playing opposite her.” And I thought, “well, you know…that’s not such a bad deal! I get to play the lead role in the play, I get to put on a false nose and wear a wig–which I always loved to do anyway. I always love to disguise myself–, and I said I’d do it.”
"I was just completely besotted with the idea of being an actor. I mean, it felt like it was overnight, but I think it was something that was coming for a long time." -Chris Sarandon
I finished that production of the play and when it was done, I said, "this is it. This is what I want to do with the rest of my life." I had absolutely no compunction about leaving everything behind, dropping literally everything that I was doing. I resigned from whatever committees I was on. I moved out of the fraternity house the next fall to an apartment with the grandmother of a friend of mine who had an extra bedroom in her apartment and we shared a kitchen. I was just completely besotted with the idea of being an actor. I mean, it felt like it was overnight, but I think it was something that was coming for a long time. And it was as a direct result of the encouragement of Chuck Neil, who kept telling me, “You know, you're good at this and it would be a shame for you to waste your talent." I owe him a great deal in that regard. He was a mentor in the beginning of my acting career and I have always remembered him fondly as a result of that. And whenever I went back to Morgantown, I would always go and see Chuck even when he retired, because he was so important to me in that regard. And also, he was a wonderful teacher and a lovely human being.
Question 2
Makenzie: What was it like growing up in West Virginia and how do you think it shaped who you are today?
Chris Sarandon: Well, I had an average small-town existence. I mean, Beckley is not a tiny town. So, at the time, I think the population was 18,000 and it was in some ways an interesting mix because it's the county seat of Raleigh County. There was a county courthouse which was directly across the street from my dad's restaurant, where I started working when I was nine or ten years old. And so, I was exposed to the kind of cross-section of what the population was in Beckley. There were lawyers who populated the courthouse across the street. There were a lot of doctors because of the three local hospitals, one of which was the Pinecrest Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Beckley. And at the same time, it is (or was) a mining town. I believe at one time, Beckley counted itself as the smokeless coal capital of the world. So, there were a lot of miners who came in. And when I was going to school,
even though I went to a local primary school, when I went to junior high, kids from the outlying community started going to school there. And when I went to Woodrow Wilson High, a lot of kids from the larger surrounding area came, too. So, it had a very eclectic kind of populace around it. It wasn't just Beckley. It wasn't just a mining town. It was the county seat and a place where there were professionals there as well as working class people. And so, it was a great kind of laboratory for somebody who does what I do, which is being an observer of human nature. And also, because I worked in a restaurant, and particularly as I got a little older as a teen, I was working out front. I was busing tables; I was cashing at the cash register. So, I had conversations with people all the time and that very much informed who I was as a West Virginian.
But then I also came from my father and my mother. My father came from a Greek village in Asia Minor. So, I was a first generation American. My dad was a naturalized American citizen. My mother was born here, but she was born to Greek parents: she spoke no English until grade school. She had to learn English at school when she went there because she grew up in a little Greek town in Florida with neighbors in a Greek community. So, there was this kind of duality in, on the one hand, being a West Virginian and on the other hand, being a child of Greek parents who are connected to their heritage and their food. So, at home we would eat Greek food and at the restaurant it was all American. And it's interesting because when I was a kid, I remember we would go to various little celebrations of the Greeks in our region, because there weren't a lot of Greeks. There was I think one other Greek family in Beckley. So, my parents got together with other families, sometimes there would be a Greek priest who'd come through and stay and they would stop in Welch, West Virginia. So we'd go to Welsh, there would be a church service in somebody's living room, and then there'd be a glendi (a party) with big food and dancing and what have you. And my parents taught me a phrase that they would parade me around, especially when I was very young. I wouldn't do it when I was older. I was just, you know, too embarrassed to do that. But they would bring me around when I was like five or six-year-olds and they would walk me up to somebody and they’d say, "Okay, now tell them who you are." And I'd say, "I'm 100% American and full-blooded Greek." And that phrase was very illustrative of who I was growing up in West Virginia.
"I was being an all-American boy when I went to school during the daytime, and when I came home at night, I was Greek." -Chris Sarandon
I think, to a certain extent, what informed my acting was that I had to be somebody else when I was with the American side, and I had to be a Greek when I was with the Greek side. And it wasn't that my parents didn't try to assimilate. They assimilated brilliantly. My dad was a director of the local bank. He was a member of the country club. He had a successful restaurant, not very wealthy, but he had become part of the middle class. Where he grew up, dirt poor in Asia Minor. He literally had nothing when he arrived in this country. He was a completely self-made man. So, I think that duality was one of the things that informed my putting on other characters, if you will, because I was doing it in my real life. I was an all-American boy when I went to school during the daytime, and when I came home at night, I was Greek. We spoke Greek at home. I stopped when I started going to school, to my everlasting shame, by the way, because I was determined to assimilate. I was determined to be like everybody else. And most of the people that I went to school with, and my parents hung out with, were English speaking all American West Virginians. So, I'm not describing this in a pejorative or detrimental way. It was just the way things were. And I felt sort of, you know, caught not quite in the middle, but I lived the two worlds. The one at home. The one outside of home. And I ended up assimilating well. When I was in high school, I was president of the student council and all that stuff. I was popular, and I was in a rock and roll band and did some touring and made a record and so there was a kind of... it was an interesting upbringing and I think to a great extent that's what informed who I became as an actor, which was in a way a kind of a shape shifter, you know, somebody who takes on other personas.
Question 3
Makenzie: I wanted to ask what it was like entering the Hollywood showbiz world as a West Virginian? And what was it like working with other native West Virginians in Hollywood and on Broadway? I had done a little bit of research on this topic because I was fascinated by it, and I knew that you had shared the screen with the voice of Chucky in Child's Play. And you also did a production in Broadway with Jennifer Garner.
Chris Sarandon: Oh, right! Yeah, Jen and I were in Cyrano together. We always spoke very fondly, both of us, of our upbringing in the state. Jen Garner is a lovely person, by the way, and has always been very, very strongly attached to her roots. She grew up in Charleston, I think, and went to Stonewall Jackson High, which was one of our archrivals when I was in school. Of course, when I was in school, I was at Woodrow Wilson. Beckley was like the perennial sports power. Beckley and Parkersburg, and to a certain extent the Charleston schools as well. But Beckley was always winning basketball championships and football championships, and we had a legendary coach, Jerome Van Meter, that I had the pleasure of being manager of a basketball team for one year. I love basketball and wasn't good enough to actually play but was a manager on the basketball team. This guy was just extraordinary. Just one of those, you know, legendary coaches. He was the Bear Bryant or the Nick Saban of West Virginia at the time. Jerome Van Meter, a legendary coach. So, it was always fun. Brad [Dourif] and I... I run into him occasionally because I do Comic-Con autograph conventions every once in a while. And I see Brad at these things, and we always talk about what things were like when you were growing up. And he's from Huntington, I think. And Jen is the same. She and I talked about being from West Virginia as well.
"So there is a real kind of familial feeling about things in West Virginia that I don't think a lot of states share." -Chris Sarandon
So, it was always a lovely experience to be involved with somebody because you share, I think, a unique perspective. Because we're not from a state that is heavily populated. People tend to know people if you're from a particular town and somebody is from another town, your parents probably knew somebody from that town. So, there is a real kind of familial feeling about things in West Virginia that I don't think a lot of states share. And also, part of it is that West Virginia is thought of the national conversation as being, you know, hillbilly and backward, which couldn't be further from the truth. But it's one of those myths that exists in national consciousness. And I think that people from West Virginia tend to, because we're from there, tend to think, not necessarily that we have an inferiority complex, but that it binds us closer together because we know that those myths are not true. And, when I wear my swish WV baseball cap, I hear people yell "Go Mounties!" I think a lot of that, too, is because a lot of West Virginians end up unfortunately leaving the state and transplanting to other places, but they never forget their roots.
Makenzie: So, what was it like going into Hollywood and showbiz as a West Virginian? Did it feel different than you expected it or was it an easier transition than what you thought?
Well, you know, it's interesting because when people talk about Hollywood, they think of it as being a state of being as well as a place. As far as I'm concerned, it was never a state of being. It was just a place that I'd go sometimes to work. It was part of my career. It had nothing to do with the mythic aspect of Hollywood and the history of movies. That to me exists somewhere else, that something is an artistic construct about the artistry that has come out of the film studios. And in reality, their headquarters aren't there generally. These days, it's changed to a certain extent because they're almost all owned by bigger companies with headquarters in New York. I have always been, for want of a better word, a New York actor rather than a Hollywood actor in the sense that I began in theater.
"I went into acting because I loved acting and wanted to have a career as an actor. I wasn't interested in becoming a movie star. I was interested in doing plays and I was interested in interesting roles, and that's kind of how my career developed." -Chris Sarandon
I started off working in a regional theater. My first theater job was in New Haven, Connecticut at the Long Wharf Theater right out of college. I was a graduate student at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and I auditioned for various theaters around the country after I graduated from Catholic U with a degree. And I got a job at the Long Wharf Theater and then from Long Wharf I moved to New York. So, I always thought of myself as somebody who comes from the East Coast anyway. You know, in West Virginia we have seasons. There are no seasons in L.A. and so I did live in L.A. for 14 years after a Broadway show that I was doing was a monumental flop. And at the time I was in financial straits and had to go make a living. So, I moved to L.A. with my wife, Joanna. And we lived there for 14 years. But we are creatures of the theater as well. And she and I both yearned for being back in New York and working in theater and ultimately came back. And so, we've been back on the East Coast since 2006. So, kind of a long answer to your question. But when I first started, I didn't go into acting to be famous. I went into acting because I loved acting and wanted to have a career as an actor. I wasn't interested in becoming a movie star. I was interested in doing plays and I was interested in challenging roles, and that's kind of how my career developed. I never really became a big movie star. There was a time when I was, right after I got an Academy Award nomination for Dog Day Afternoon when I was "hot" in Hollywood and was offered a lot of projects. But basically, I've remained a working actor and it's been very fortunate that I've been able to work with really good people and to have longevity in my career to the point where I'm sort of semi-retired. I'm not, you know, totally out of the business, but I'm 80 years old now and I've spent my life working as an actor, which is really quite extraordinary and that, I think, is attributed to the fact that I wasn't interested in the trappings of "Hollywood" or becoming a big star. I wanted to be an actor and I wanted to have a long career. And I've pretty much fulfilled that and that gives me great satisfaction.
Question 4
Makenzie: If you could experience acting in any role for the first time again, which role would it be and why?
Oh gosh. Hmm. Well, I guess it would be a couple of them. Certainly, Dog Day because that was just a great experience, and it was my first major motion picture. And while it was a small role, the company that I was keeping, Al Pacino and Sidney Lumet the director and the rest of the cast, which was Charles Durning and James Broderick and John Cazale. Cazale I'd worked with previously, I did a play with John at the Long Wharf Theater a few years before I did Dog Day. That was an extraordinary experience. I am in a Hallmark Hall of Fame production of A Tale of Two Cities that I did in England with a cast of actors that I had admired from afar for a long time. An all English/British cast and I was playing two roles in the same film and got to experience that. And I guess also The Princess Bride, which was great fun and had a great cast and a wonderful director and was just a heavenly shoot. The experience of shooting it was just wonderful. So, I think those, you know, three or four would be the ones. Although I've been lucky in a lot of other respects too. But with Nightmare, that's a totally different experience of doing voice work for an animated feature where you're basically in the studio with the director and you're going over lines, over and over doing different line readings. It's just not the same kind of experience.
Question 5
Makenzie: How did you get the role of Prince Humperdinck and what did you enjoy about the film?
Chris Sarandon: I auditioned for it. I auditioned for William Goldman, the screenwriter, and for Rob Reiner at Goldman's apartment in New York City. And I had been a fan of the book. I had been given a copy of the book, oh gosh, maybe 15 years before when Robert Redford had the option for the project. He owned the rights for making a movie of it but couldn't get anybody to make it. And I can't remember who, but I know William Goldman and his memoirs talks about...there was a possibility of the movie going to get done with his screenplay, but I don't know if it was Norman Jewison or somebody else. And that fell through because the person who had greenlit it at the studio was fired. And the new regime, as is the habit of this kind of transition, when one studio boss takes over for another, they completely sweep out all the stuff that the previous executive was doing, and they embark on their own. So, I was a big fan of the book, and I'd heard that they were making a movie of it. And then I got a call from my agency saying, "They want
you to come in and read for Prince Humperdinck." And so I went up to Bill Goldman in Goldman's apartment in New York City, and then Rob Reiner and Bill were there. And at the time, I was very angry about...I'm a sports fan and I became a New York Knicks fan from living in New York for such a long period. And the Knicks had just drafted a player that I thought was a big mistake. And so I'd reading about it in the paper on the bus up to the audition. And I walked into the room and I was still on fire about it. And they said, "How are you?" And I said, "Oh, I'm okay. Except I'm pissed off that the Knicks drafted Kenny Walker." And Goldman, as it turns out, was a huge Knicks fan. And he and I started talking about it and were just rattling away about the Knicks. And how badly they had managed to it, etc., etc.. And I'm interrupted by Rob Reiner, who said, "I hate to interrupt you guys, but would you mind..." And I said, "No, no, no, no, of course. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please forgive me." And so I read and at the end of the reading, Rob laughed hysterically. And it was a very serious scene. And that, first of all, may be the key to the character, which is: comedy's very serious business and Rob understands that. And that's the way he approached the movie, which is, you don't look at the audience and kind of wink and say, "Oh, we're making fun of this. We're having a good time." You play the character in very serious mode. Prince Humperdinck is a ruthless, evil man who wants to murder his is betrothed and take over the kingdom. I mean, he's not a nice guy, but the moment was funny because of that. Because Prince Humperdinck is who he is, not because Chris Sarandon is trying to play comedy. It's the scene with Buttercup where he says, "I hope you'll accept me as an alternative to suicide." It's a funny line but you can't play it funny. He was very serious about it. His objective in that scene is to convince her to fall in love with him and marry him because that will further his nefarious ends. And Bob realized that and he laughed riotously. And then I heard the next day that I'd been cast.
Question 6
Makenzie: What was it like becoming the speaking voice of Jack Skellington? I know that Danny Elfman originally recorded for the speaking voice, but how did you get the call saying that they wanted you to audition?
Chris Sarandon: It was just a regular call from my agency saying, "they're casting a speaking voice of this character." Nobody knew anything about the movie, just that it was a Tim Burton project which made it, you know, sort of high profile. And so, I went in and auditioned with a number of other men, and they played Danny singing one of the songs and showed me, I think, a clip of some footage that they had shot of the animation to Danny singing. So, I had a visual idea about the character and also, I had in my ear an auditory idea of the kind of voice that Danny was singing with. And I guess they felt it was a match. I mean, I think in some ways it was just serendipitous, that it was luck as it often happens in this business, that my voice matched Danny's. Otherwise, we wouldn't be talking about this. It's that simple. I don't think I necessarily brought any kind of unique artistry to the line readings because... I don't recall the exact scene I read but you know Jack does a lot of laughing and yelling and screaming. And he's perplexed and he's, you know, whatever he's going through, you're playing as real as you can, considering you're working in a very kind of a heightened reality. After looking at the storyboards and the footage they'd already shot, you realize you're in something that's really quite
unique to stop motion animation. And they hired me and I'm still surprised in a way. But I'm more than grateful because of the acceptance that this move in culture is just extraordinary. You know, just how many people watch this movie, you know, how kids grew up watching it who are now adults and they're watching it with their kids. And it's actually similar to the experience with The Princess Bride. They watched it when they were younger and now, they watch it with their kids. It's a generational experience for families to watch together. It's a great, great reward in my life to be associated with it. I'm thrilled. Thrilled and lucky.
Question 7
Makenzie: What was your experience like when reprising your role? I know that you've done a couple of Disney's video games and I think they also have a holiday ride or something in Disneyland.
Chris Sarandon: I don't know if it's a new ride. I just get calls to come into the studio and record stuff. I am often unaware of how they're going to be using it. And since I don't live in L.A. or in Florida, I don't get to see the rides or hear how they've used. But I do know that my voice is there. And in video games. I don't play the game, so I'm not familiar with that at all. When you're recording, you're working pretty much on a kind of blank slate. And you're on a phone call with the director or the producers of whatever a project is and working mostly in a studio. So, you're getting instructions from them in terms of what this is going to be like and how they envision it and how it's going to look. But I don't really have a sense of how they're being used. I'm just so happy to go back and visit Jack anytime anybody wants. I love it.
"I'm just so happy to go back and visit Jack anytime anybody wants. I love it." -Chris Sarandon
Makenzie: As I was doing research for this project, I had the opportunity to watch a video that someone took of the Haunted Mansion ride. That has your speaking voice in that also. And I was very surprised. I didn't know that they did that, and I thought that was a very fun way to continue the character, even though he was first made and on film in 1993.
Chris Sarandon: Actually, we started doing it in ‘91. I worked on it for two years. I would fly up to San Francisco where they were shooting it like once every three or four months and record a couple of scenes. And then they'd animate the scenes. And then I'd go back again three or four months later and record some more, almost always just with me and Henry Selick, the director, in the studio. I did one session with Catherine O'Hara where we did the Jack and Sally scene. But other than that, I was basically working alone the whole time. After everything was done, I went back into the studio with Tim Burton, and we re-recorded some of the stuff that had been animated. Just to make some little changes here and there, some line readings that I felt I could have done better, and some Tim wanted changed. So, I was in the studio with Tim for a couple of days, just doing some added work. And he's a lovely guy, really. Such a sweet human being.
Question 8
Makenzie: So why did you decide to donate some of your archival material to the university? And what do you hope students, people and aspiring artists might make of the artifacts within the exhibit?
Chris Sarandon: Well, answer this Makenzie. Where else would I do it?
Makenzie: I don't know.
Chris Sarandon: Of course, I would send it to... well actually, the idea first occurred to me because, many years ago, my friend Kay Goodwin, who at the time was the Secretary of Arts and Education for the state of West Virginia. And my other friend, Norman Fagan, was also working in the arts administration of the state. And they put together...I think Kay was the responsible party...put together a Nightmare Before Christmas display at the state capitol. So, I lent some of my stuff to them, some Jack heads I'd been given and a blackboard from the movie and a couple of other things. So, they returned them, and I realized I have all this stuff, plus I have scripts from movies that I've done. And I thought, "you know, this is where I started, started at WVU." So that's really where it would make some sense for it to reside, hopefully for the edification of future students, you know, so they can see that there are possibilities for you. If you're interested, go in and look at what’s there and see if acting is something that interests you.
Makenzie: What do you hope students, people and aspiring artists might make of the artifacts within the exhibit?
"I know I'm proud of where I came from. And it made me who I am." -Chris Sarandon
Chris Sarandon: I think to a certain extent, and we talked about this a little earlier, that there's a kind of, for want of a better word, of a built-in inferiority complex that some people have from West Virginia because of the way they're perceived by people outside of the state. And also, you know, we're not all as fortunate as some in terms of the avenues that are open for us as we matriculate through the educational system. And I think maybe hopefully it's a way of showing that, "here are the possibilities." And if this is something you're interested in and the materials are available to you to look at it and to peruse, to fantasize about perhaps, in terms of what your ambitions are and maybe to follow the same road. Or, if not, just for curiosity's sake. But that this is, I would hope, one little avenue of pride that somebody from West Virginia might feel seeing you for being from there. Because I'm proud of it. I know I'm proud of where I came from. And it made me who I am.
Question 9
Makenzie: What are some projects you're working on today?
Chris Sarandon: I'm very busy working on a podcast, the links for which are available on my website, chrissarandon.com. As I mentioned earlier, I grew up in my dad’s restaurant. I worked there from the time I was very young. So, a lot of my initial memories are attached to food. And the fact that I’ve cooked pretty much all my adult life and I have a son who's a trained chef. Both of my daughters are accomplished cooks and are very interested in food and are very creative in the kitchen. And I had been encouraged by my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, both of whom are in the writing and producing end of film and television. And they said to me...especially in a pandemic, I was just kind of sitting around doing nothing, lying fallow, as it were. And my brother-in-law in particular, who I'm very close to, said, "Why don't you do a podcast? You know, you grew up in a restaurant, you know a lot about food. Why don't you do something about food? And your Greek background, etc." And I thought, "Well, yeah, that's fine. But there's so many food podcasts out there. What's the unique vision I might have if I did one?" And I thought, "Well, I talk a lot about the fact that I grew up around it. What are other people's experiences like growing up at home or in school or whatever with food? What was it like in your house when you were growing up? Was your mom a great cook? If she was a terrible cook, what was the result of that? What was the talk like around the dinner table?" And so many stories come out of that.
So, the podcast is called Cooking by Heart and essentially, the logline is: we talk about the vivid memories of the food we grew up with and the people and stories attached to that time in our lives. I've already done ten of these and whenever I talk to people, stories always come out of talking about the food. There are always very vivid memories, for what's stronger than childhood memory? So that's essentially what I'm doing now. I do interviews with not just famous friends of mine. But also people who are other kinds of public figures: I interviewed my good friend Federal Judge Joseph Goodwin about growing up in Ripley and what it was like, what was his menu was like when he was growing up. And he ended up having some really great stories because he's also a gourmet cook. I just finished talking to the Emmy winning writer producer/director of all of the Sex and the City series who is an old friend of mine. He grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania in a mining town. The author Adriana Trigiani, who grew up in Appalachia. So, it's a lot about that, and what comes out is really quite wonderful and illuminating. And some of the stories are very funny and some are very sad as well, which is also part of growing up.
