Recently, I had a special treat when I learned my brother (in-law), Richard Topol, had been cast in two significant upcoming television projects.  Having known each other most of our lives, it was relaxing, and fun to talk with each other on a more professional basis.  In addition, it is great to share the news of his participation on two significant shows — one for the National Geographic Channel, the other for Showtime!

In addition to these two roles, I suspect there is more Rich will be able to share soon about future stage roles, upon his completion of his current work abroad for National Geographic.

Carolyn Topol Talk:  I understand that you recently signed to do a new show for the National Geographic Channel. Is that correct?

Richard Topol:  That is 100% correct.

CTT:  Please tell us about that.

RT:  It’s Nat Geo’s first scripted series. It’s a scripted dramatic series — hour long episodes — being executive produced by Ron Howard. It’s called Genius Einstein. It’s the story of Einstein’s life. It’s a 10 episode, limited series. I think the idea, but I’m not sure — I don’t speak for the National Geographic Channel, is that if it’s successful, then they might do Genius Copernicus or Genius Edison. But for this season, it’s 10 episodes about the life of Albert Einstein and what made him a genius.

CTT:  What is your role in it?

RT:  I play Fritz Haber who was a Nobel prize winning chemist, and friend and colleague of Einstein. Geoffrey Rush is playing Einstein (pictured above) and Emily Watson is playing, I think, one of his wives. I think she’s playing his second wife. For my character, I’ll be in six out of the 10 episodes. My character was a really, really interesting guy. He won the Nobel prize for figuring out how to turn the nitrogen in the air into ammonia that you can use for fertilizer. Basically, he’s credited with transforming the way agriculture is done in the world. People say one of the main reasons why this earth can support 6 billion people as opposed to 4 billion people is because of his discovery. Agriculture was transformed — you could grow more on each acre and you could make each acre more fertile.

CTT:  It sounds like the series will open up knowledge about significant people we’ve never heard of before.

RT:  Certainly! Nobody knows about this guy, but everybody knows about Einstein. However, they may not know the story of his [Einstein’s] life. I don’t know the story of his life. Actually, the first episode is sort of a flash-forward and flashback episode. You see the two actors who play Einstein — one when he’s about 18 to 25 and then you see Geoffrey Rush play Einstein from about 40 to 60 or 65. You learned about what sent him on his way from a normal life to a crazy, brilliant life, and what he went through. He lived during some really interesting times. There are other people you meet, at least in the first episode, who you may not really know about, or at least I didn’t know too much about.

Haber was interesting.  He was born a Jew, he converted to Christianity when he was 25. It seems that that’s what a lot of people did in the late 19th-century when they were trying to be accepted into German society. There were a lot of German Jews who converted. He was a great nationalist — a great believer in the German nation. And, in fact, during World War I, he figured out how to create the poison gas — the mustard gas — they used during World War I. That was also his invention.

CTT:  Really?

RT:  So here’s the guy who is responsible for, on the one hand, making it possible for millions, billions more people to live on this planet earth, and yet he was also responsible for basically creating the first chemical weapons. I haven’t completed my research yet, but it seems from, what I understand, that his discovery and invention led to creating the poisonous gas that led to Zyklon B, the gas that was used to kill millions of his fellow Jews not long after he died. He died in 1934. He ran the scientific institute for years under the Weimar Republic and was run out by Hitler and the Nazis.

CTT:  Are you filming this in Germany?

RT:  It takes place from 1880 to 1940. I’m in the first episode, then the fifth through the ninth episodes, so I don’t know exactly when the tenth episode ends. At least the first nine episodes take place before World War II, and mostly take place in Germany. I would imagine some on the tenth takes place in Princeton where Einstein eventually moved to. A lot of it takes place in Berlin, but Berlin doesn’t exist as a city the way it looked 100 years ago. We are shooting in Prague, in the Czech Republic.

CTT:  And that replicates it better?

RT:  I guess there are places that look more like it. Who knows?  Frequently production companies will find the cheapest place to shoot that looks like what they want.  Some shows shoot in Toronto instead of New York because they could make it look like New York. It’s a big enough city that they can make it seem like New York, for the most part. A lot of shows can shoot in New York again because of the tax breaks offered. So now, it’s no more expensive to shoot in New York City because of the tax credits. I’m not completely sure of whether it’s just cheaper, or maybe the crews are less expensive, or whatever to shoot in Prague.

CTT:  Now, you said you’ll be in the first episode and the fifth through the ninth episodes?

RT:  Right.

CTT:  So will you be staying there [in Prague] the whole time or do you go back and forth?

RT:  They already started shooting the first episode [in September]. They’re shooting the parts without Geoffrey Rush because he was not available until November, or some other date beyond when they wanted to start. They’ll be shooting the first three episodes in the next seven weeks [end of September through October]. Then, starting in November, I’ll be there until Christmas. Then we have a hiatus for two or three weeks, then I’ll be shooting from the beginning of January till the middle of February. They finish shooting by the end of February.

CTT:  What other things will we see you in on television or film?

RT:  Well, you’re about to see me in a couple of episodes of Billions on Showtime. That’s the Paul Giamatti-Damian Lewis show.

CTT:  So you’ll be airing in season two?

RT:  Yes, season two, which is being shot now. You haven’t seen me on that yet, but you will.

CTT:  Are you one of the good guys or one of the bad guys? [Laughs]

RT:  I think that show is pretty clear that it’s not clear who the good guys and the bad guys are. It seems like I might not be a good guy. I’m not really sure.

CTT:  Do you think you might be revisiting this role?

RT: I don’t know. When I shot the first episode they [indicated] we should have you back. I was like, “Great, have me back.” Then a couple of weeks later they expressed that they wanted to have me back. I don’t know how long the storyline will go. I’m spying on somebody for Jeffrey DeMunn‘s character who is the father of Paul Giamatti. So I’m spying on somebody for him.

CTT:  Just so you’re aware, I actually follow that show. [Laughs]

RT:  So, what do you think? Is Jeffrey DeMunn’s character a good guy or a bad guy?

CTT:  [Laughs] I sort of think he’s a bad guy. [more laughs]

RT:  But he’s a bad guy in the way big shot, power brokers, in the big city are. They wield influence in a possibly corrupt way. And you probably think Paul’s character is a good guy?

CTT:  Yes, most of the time. In his character’s personal life he’s probably worse than he is in his public life.

RT:  The father and son have a sort of a strange relationship, so it’s not clear whether I’m spying for a good purpose or not. But, do we think they want to have a better relationship — what do we think?  Are they just estranged, or estranged and antagonistic?

CTT:  I see them as polarized magnets; they start coming together but fly apart right away.

RT:  I can’t talk about anymore, but I just want to let you know, you will be seeing me on at least a couple of episodes of Billions.

You’ve seen me before, and not known that you were seeing me, in Lincoln. That’s probably the biggest thing that I’ve done.

CTT:  What did you play in Lincoln?

RT:  I played Attorney General James Speed. I was in Lincoln’s cabinet.

CTT:  We’re talking about Spielberg’s Lincoln, correct?

RT:  Yes, [Steven] Spielberg’s Lincoln, written by Tony Kushner starring the Academy Award winning performer, Daniel Day-Lewis. He was brilliant in that. He was amazing to work with! He also made you want to be better than you think you can be. A lot of people in that movie were really great because they aspired to be as good as Daniel Day-Lewis and were inspired by him to bring their A+ game.

By the way, you wouldn’t recognize me because I have a crazy beard. It was several parts, and a wig, so I don’t even look like myself. (Pictured below with Steven Spielberg)

CTT:  How do you get these roles? Do you seek them out?

RT:  Sometimes it’s my agent, sometimes I know somebody, sometimes somebody has seen me in something. Most of my work has been in the theater. A lot of casting people go to the theater. The woman who cast me in Lincoln said that she found me in the show she saw me in at Lincoln Center. I was in a really beautiful play called When the Rain Stops Falling (Image of Playbill below). She saw that. The way I got the job is that the actor who had been cast in that role had things happen between when he auditioned, when he got hired, and when the film was being shot that made him decide he didn’t want to be in the film. The role was way smaller than he thought it was going to be the way they presented it. So they [the film Lincoln team] were scrambling. It was about three weeks before the shoot, so I got called in because the woman who saw me in the play [thought of me]. I did a great audition. I was actually doing a play at the time at the Public Theater. I was doing King Lear with Sam Waterston.

I walked out of the play and the casting woman said she didn’t want to send the tape to Spielberg because he’ll hire me so she didn’t want to do this unless she knew I was totally available. I had to go race over to the theater and talk to the director, and the stage manager, and producer and ask if they would let me out for the days of the shooting. It was during a really complicated schedule because it was during tech so they would have to let me go for a few days during tech and then the other days were for the end of the run, but they were willing to let me out so I got that job.

Now the Genius Einstein — I read about it. The show runner [and co-executive producer] on the show, Ken Biller, and I both went to Brown [University] and I had done a couple of episodes of the show he created called, Perception on TNT, that Eric McCormack was the star of, so I had worked for him recently. I emailed him and said, “Hey I heard you’re doing this show and there’s a part for me. Would you put in a word for me?” He said he would and to get my tape to the casting people and he’d make sure that it didn’t end up on the bottom of the pile. I put together a tape and sent it. They looked at it and made sure Ron Howard saw it; it was good, so they [agreed], yeah great. If [Ken Biller] hadn’t done that, I don’t know if I would have gotten the job. Maybe I would have or maybe not. [The tape] may have just fallen into the bottom of the pile. There are hundreds of people who audition for these roles and there are so many different gatekeepers along the way.

In Billions, the casting director had just seen me in a show Off Broadway called Indecent — producers are trying to move it to Broadway. So [the casting director] saw this show and said let’s bring Rich in for for a role on Billions. The character’s name was Angel Vargas and he was supposed to be this broad shouldered ex-FBI guy. If you look at me you know they’re definitely changing the name of this guy. [Laughs] Clearly, when they had the idea for this part they were not thinking of me but then for whatever reason they thought, “What about Rich?” So casting works in all different kinds of ways.

My first big break in New York was to be cast in Awake and Sing, an Odets play, that Lincoln Center produced on Broadway with Mark Ruffalo, Ben Gazzara, and Lauren Ambrose. I got the part because I was right for the part, but also because I had worked with the director a couple of times before, so he was willing to take a risk with me on a Broadway show — he had worked with me out of town a couple of times and Off Broadway, and knew I would do a good job.

CTT:  Of all your stage roles, what was the most challenging?

RT:  A few years ago I did a show called Bronx Bombers about Yogi Berra and the Yankees. I had done a workshop of the play for a week in Colorado, with Primary Stages, an Off Broadway theater company that develops a lot of new and interesting plays. When they asked me to do that part–it’s the lead part, the guy is on stage the whole time — I thought, “I’m not Yogi Berra.” I could have played Billy Martin. If I was to cast myself in the show, I would tell them to have me read for Billy Martin. I could totally do that. That’s in my wheelhouse. But they asked me to read Yogi because I had worked there a few times, and they trusted I would help getting through the process, and they thought I might be right for it. The show went Off Broadway and I did not get a call because they had hired Joey Pantoliano, who is a fairly known person. You know him from the Sopranos. He’s more right for [the part].

The day before the first preview, I got a call at 8:30 in the morning from the director of the theater saying, “I need to talk to you. We want to let Joey go, [for whatever reason] would you be willing to step it? We canceled the first two shows.” They canceled Tuesday night and Wednesday night shows and I would go on with the book Thursday. It’s a 115 page play, the guy is on stage the whole time, and I would have basically two days of rehearsal. I would go on as a lead role in the play with that.

If you know anything about Yogi Berra, you know he is famous for saying many things exactly wrongly. His Yogi-isms are really convoluted sayings. A bunch of those are in the play so I’d have to learn those and have to learn to say them his wrong way. So I said, “Give me five minutes; I’ll call you back. I have to talk to my wife.” I talked to Eliza [Fpss, Richard’s wife] about the craziness of this and it’s what we’ll be doing for the next six or seven weeks, and figure out a way to make it work. I said, “Yeah, I want to do it.” I’ve been a Yankee fan forever–actually that’s not true — I’ve been a Yankee fan since I was 10, I was a Mets fan before that, then we moved to a new neighborhood.

CTT:  Then you became a traitor. [Laughs]

RT:  No, no, but my next-door neighbor was a Yankees fan and I wanted to make a new friend so I figured, I could be a Yankee fan. It was a very bad time to make that switch because it was around 1973, 1974 and the Mets were winning World Series, and going to the playoffs, and the Yankees hadn’t been in the playoffs in over 10 years.

It was a great challenge to learn that role, and to learn it fast, and to do him [Yogi Berra] justice. And it was a total physical transformation. He’s sort of shorter and pudgier and less intellectual then I am — certainly less intellectual than I present. That rarely happens. You usually get cast as your type, unless you’re a superstar who says, “I want to try this out.” If you’re like me, a middle-class actor, you don’t get those chances. This was a great challenge. I’m physically transforming; I’m transforming in every way. It’s also knowing that people know who he is. It’s not like transforming to some character that someone has made up. You are playing an icon who is alive. [Yogi Berra] came to the opening night (pictured left). You’re playing a person who is is going to see it. That was challenging, and daunting, but exciting. It was thrilling to be that challenged, actually.

I felt like I was skydiving.

When I teach acting I tell them to put themselves in a position where they’re willing to take as big a risk as possible because that’s what’s exciting about a good performance. It’s amazing what people are willing and able to do. It’s scary to do that as an actor. It’s scary to try, and do that, and maybe fail.

CTT:  As someone who got to see you in Bronx Bombers, I have to say I went in also very familiar with Yogi Berra — not only for his Yankees history, but also his Mets history, and was fortunate enough to meet him once. I went in thinking there was no way someone who I already knew, and who I totally did not see as his type, could take on that role. Just five minutes in, I was already able to suspend belief, and you became Yogi Berra. You really owned it!

RT:  Thank you. That’s good to hear. But it was really challenging; really scary. By Friday night, I had learned 100 of the 115 pages. By Sunday, I had learned the whole thing.

CTT:  What was your most challenging screen role?

RT:  I have to admit, the roles I have gotten to play on screen have not been so meaty.  I did two episodes of Law and Order SVU over the winter. It was an interesting part. The role I got to play on Perception and the role on Covert Affairs were good too. Usually I’m in one episode or a couple of episodes and I’m usually cast as someone who’s a pretty close version of me, so the challenge of either transformation or of carrying a big load, in terms of the script — I haven’t had that too much.

I would, maybe, say Lincoln, because it happened so fast. Often times you have more notice than I had, and a longer process. What I had read for [the audition] wasn’t even the actual script, so I had no idea what I was going to be up for. Then to be in the room with—it’s like in Hamilton, you want to be in the room where it happened — to be in the room with Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis, and a lot of great character actors… I didn’t want to screw up. [Laughs]  I didn’t want to be the one to slow the train down. Also challenging, I was doing some sort of Kentucky accent, but I had come up with it.  It felt like I was acting without a net, on a high wire. Once again, this was a time I was a replacement. To use a baseball metaphor, it’s like I was called out from AAA right into the playoff race, and you have to pitch five innings. I’ve spent a lot of time in it my career like the seventh inning relief pitcher. You spend most of the game in the bullpen and then you’ve got to get the three guys out. If you don’t get those three guys out your team loses, and if you get three guys out your team will probably win. I sometimes feel if I ever had a biography, it would be titled, Third Guy From the Left. [Laughs]

CTT:  Just a little aside, for the soap fans who follow these interviews, I remember years ago you were briefly on a soap opera.

RT:  That’s right. I was on One Life to Live a number of times as different characters. The one I remember the most was being a middle eastern freedom fighter. Another time I played a rabbi at a wedding. The bible that they used — inside it had some handwriting. I realized, while I was shooting, that the handwriting was from my friend, Camryn Manheim, who many people know from The Practice and The Ghost Whisperer. She was a classmate of mine at NYU. She had previously been on the show, also as a rabbi at a wedding. So both of us used the same prop. That was about it for soaps.

CTT:  Back to the Genius Einstein — you’re going to be in Prague for a while. How is that going to work with your family life?

RT:  I’m very excited! I’ve been wanting to go to Prague since the wall came down about 26 years ago, and never made it there. Eliza and I have talked about going to Prague, and Berlin, and Budapest. Her family is from Berlin. She’s really excited because during the Christmas / New Year break, she and [our daughter] are coming, and we’ll travel. As far as my daughter, she doesn’t really know what it means. I imagine somewhere later in her life she’ll be like, “That was really cool, to go to all those places.” She’s not interested, really, in acting, or the business — thankfully — for now. It will probably be cool for her to be on the set and meet some of the actors. Although it may not mean that much to her. It was really cool for her to meet Alexis Bledel because I had been on a couple of episodes of The Gilmore Girls and then Alexis and I did play Off Broadway a few years ago (pictured above with entire cast of Regrets). My daughter’s now a junkie for The Gilmore Girls now that it’s on Netflix. Her friends have seen the episodes I did. I think that scores her some points with them. [Laughs] I don’t think I’ll score points with her friends for the Genius Einstein, but who knows? We’ll see.

*****

You can follow Richard Topol’s career, and upcoming projects on his Official Facebook Page:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/33361489882/

(Photos Courtesy of Richard Topol’s Official Facebook Page)