Thomas H. Mudge

Transcription

I think he got such a rave in The New York Times, they came back to see it and said, “Oh my God, Oh my God,” and I think a lot of people came to see him on stage and discover that he was a brilliant stage actor, but I don’t think—I don’t know how much stage work he had done before that, but I think that a lot of the people who have used him on stage since saw him first in that and discovered what an incredible actor. I was appalled that we had stooped to casting John Boy in Fifth of July on Broadway, and I was quickly disillusioned or re-illusioned or whatever when he went to see it, and he said, “I don’t want to see it again, because I memorize things too quickly,” so Marshall read half the parts, and I read half the parts, and he read his part just sitting in Marshall’s office, and not two minutes into the thing, I was quickly saying, “Oh my God, he’s perfect for it,” and not only that he has incredible instincts, and maybe it’s just instinctual, or maybe it’s with all of that writing episodes for The Waltons and directing episodes for The Waltons, and acting in all of them, which he did all of that. He knows how to tell a story better than just about any actor I’ve worked with, and so he just leads you through that story so beautifully. It was really, really interesting to see him tell that story.