Best known for his portrayal of Carlisle Cullen, the patriarch of the Cullen vampire clan in the hugely successful Twilight saga films, Peter Facinelli is also currently starring in the popular Showtime television series Nurse Jackie, opposite Edie Falco.
Juggling fatherhood (he and his wife, actress Jennie Garth, have three young daughters) with a film and television career, the New York native has proven his versatility, doing comedy, drama and action, on both the big and small screen. Getting ready to start filming the third installment of the Twilight saga, Eclipse, with director David Slade, Peter Facinelli spoke to IESB for this exclusive interview about what it's like to have the job security of a successful film franchise and a critically acclaimed TV show.
IESB: What initially attracted you to acting? Was there someone or something that inspired you to do it, or did you just know that you wanted to be a performer?
Peter: No, I was the opposite of a performer. I was really shy, when I was growing up. I saw a movie called Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in third grade, and I thought Paul Newman and Robert Redford looked like they were having a really good time, and I said, "That's what I want to do, when I grow up." I always was inspired by Paul Newman and Robert Redford to want to be an actor, but I never really did anything about it because I was shy. So, all through high school, I never did a play.
Not until college, did I start to do acting. I transferred into NYU from St. John's University and started studying theater. I was going to take law because it seemed to impress people in my family when I said, "I want to be a lawyer when I grow up." One time, I told them that I wanted to be an actor and they all looked at me like I had five heads. The next time they asked me what I wanted to be, I said, "A lawyer," and I got a lot of oohs and aahs in the family. When you watch movies and you watch Law & Order, it looks so interesting.
IESB: When did you realize that you were not meant for a law career?
Peter: I did one year at St. John's University, and I studied pre-law and I worked for a law firm, and I realized that lawyers spend most of their time trying not to go to court. They look for precedents so they don't have to go to court. They told me that court was the last place you want to be. I was like, "Well, that's what I want to do. I like the courtroom drama," and they were like, "Well, then you need to do something else."
So, I threw away the courtroom drama and just went straight for the drama, and I transferred to NYU. I told my parents, "To be a good lawyer, I have to be a good actor, so I'm going to take acting classes at NYU and study theater there," and they bought it. And then, I started working, right out of NYU. So, when my parents realized it was something that I could do, they were behind it.
IESB: What was the point where you realized that you could actually make a living and a career out of acting?
Peter: I don't think I ever thought I wouldn't make a living or a career out of it. I never had a back-up plan. For me, it was always a do or die kind of thing. When people ask me if there's any advice that I'd give them, I say, "Don't have a back-up plan ‘cause you'll use it." I didn't have a back-up plan. I started working, out of college, and I just went from job to job and never looked back. I always made my living, from that point on, as an actor. I never thought that I wouldn't.
IESB: You seem to constantly be working now, and yet you manage to successfully maintain a marriage and family in an industry where that seems impossible. Do you feel like you've succeeded at finding a balance between work and family, or is it a constant juggling act?
Peter: It's always a constant juggling act. While I'm doing this interview with you, I'm standing in the Empire State Building with my kids, who are hanging out, waiting for me, so I can take them up to the top. You're always juggling, back and forth. I just take it day-by-day, and then all those days add up, and you look back and that's your life.
IESB: How did you get involved with Nurse Jackie? Was it just a regular audition, or did they ask to see you? Had you been looking to do more television?
Peter: I had just finished Twilight, and I knew the writers from Nurse Jackie, so they called my agent and said, "Hey, there's a part in here that we like Peter for." But, I wasn't looking to do television. Also, because I have a family, I have a steadfast rule that, if a TV show doesn't shoot in L.A., I won't do it. But, the previous year, I had done Damages and I realized that, if it's a cable show and only has 13 episodes, I could do it because it's like going to do a movie. You're only going to work for two or three months and then you're back, and you can go back and forth.
I wasn't looking for a 23-episode commitment ‘cause then you're just gone for nine months out of the year. So, when they called my agent, my agent just told them, "Oh, he won't do it because it doesn't shoot in L.A.," and they passed on it for me, without asking me. And then, I actually got a copy of it. My agents told me, "Hey, we passed on this for you, but if you want to read it, read it." The cover of it said, "Untitled Edie Falco Project," and right there, I knew it was going to be special because Edie Falco was attached and, if she was coming back to TV, then it had to be good.
IESB: What did you think, once you'd had a chance to read the script?
Peter: I was already a fan of the writers because I had done a pilot with them the year before, called Insatiable, for Showtime, which didn't get picked up. It was very well-received, when they did the test scoring, but they could only pick up one show and they ended up picking up the David Duchovny show, Californication, over it. So, I had a relationship with the writers, I was a big fan of Edie Falco's, and I read it and it was unlike anything I had seen.
I'm not a huge medical television show kind of person. I've never seen Grey's Anatomy, E.R. or Scrubs. It just wasn't my genre of things that I watch. I just thought it was an interesting show, and I liked the concept that it was telling the hospital story from a nurse's point of view, and I liked the characters. I called up and said, "I'd love to meet with them," so they called the writers, Linda Wallem and Liz Brixius, and they said, "We're testing people for that role on Monday," and that was on Friday, so I thought, "Oh, well. That ship has sailed." So, I sent an email to one of the writers saying, "Hey, I just read your script. It's fantastic. If this show goes, give me a ring and maybe I'll come and do an arc. I'd love to work with you guys ‘cause I think it's a special show."
IESB: Then, how did you end up actually getting cast?
Peter: Well, none of the guys that they tested on that Monday were right for it, so they realized then, by getting my email, that I liked it and they came after me. I had lunch with them. I'm not a huge fan of auditioning, but in this case, I actually asked them if I could audition. They're friends of mine and I wanted to make sure that what I was doing was along those same lines of what they wanted. It's a very tricky tone. It's a tone that I had never seen before on a show, so I wanted to make sure that my tone of comedy and what I was going to bring to the table was something that was going to work for them. I didn't want to say, "Let's sign the deal," and then get on the set and have them be like, "This isn't what we wanted at all." And so, I went in and read with them. They put it on tape and were like, "That's what we want. That's perfect." And, they sent the tape to Edie and Edie put the stamp of approval on it and, within two or three days, I had the role.
IESB: Is it hard to find ways to identify with a character like Dr. Cooper, or to make him likeable?
Peter: If you play anybody who is seen from the outside from the outside as a bad guy or a jerk, nobody walks around trying to be a jerk or trying to be a bad guy. They always have motives. Maybe those motives don't line up and the end result is that their character is perceived as a jerk or a bad guy. So, I'm very careful not to try to play people as jerks or evil or bad. When I took on this role, I tried to look at the qualities in him that are likeable. Even though, on paper, the end result was sometimes unlikeable, I tried to find the reasons why he does things.
IESB: What, specifically, did you find likeable about Dr. Cooper?
Peter: For me, I find him very loveable. I like that character. I find him very sympathetic and I feel sorry for him, at times. Because he's so oblivious to his surroundings and because he's so unaware that people don't really like him, he thinks everybody likes him. He walks around thinking he's the most charming guy in the world, and everyone thinks he's full of it and dislikes him. He also has a lot of issues on the inside, which give him a lot of layers.
He's not as confident as he tries to be, and so, a lot of times, he overcompensates because he's not confident. I find that the most confident people don't have to try to be confident. You look at them and they appear confident because they are. And, he has to go the extra mile of trying to look confident because he's not. I look at those characteristics and, when he's around people and he tries to get people to like him and they don't, I feel sorry for him. He's very lonely. He doesn't have a lot of friends. I liken him to a puppy dog in a room full of people who don't like dogs. He's jumping all over people's legs and wants to be liked by everybody, wagging his tail, and everybody is kicking him.
When you look at him like that, I find him very sympathetic, very lovable and very likeable. He's fun to laugh at because he's so unaware of his surroundings. He has no idea that the pharmacist character, Eddie, doesn't want to be friends with him. My character, Coop, wants to be best friends with Eddie, and Eddie wants nothing to do with him, but he has no idea. That makes it funny to the outside public, but to me, as the character, it's pretty sad. It's a hard character to hate. Even Nurse Jackie wants to hate this guy, but she can't. There's part of her that just can't hate him.
IESB: How has it been to work with Edie Falco? What does she bring to the scenes, when you guys work together?
Peter: What Edie brings is that she's just genuine, as a person, and is so real and honest that it just carries over into her acting. Whenever Peter_facinelli_smallI'm acting with her, I don't have to do anything, but react off of what she's doing. When the scene starts, there is no break between action and right before action. She's just as genuine and real before as right after. It just sucks you in. I've worked with actors that are very special like that, like Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito and Burt Reynolds, and they all have this quality that, when action hits, they just suck you into the scene because they're so honest and real, and it makes your job, as an actor, a lot easier. That's how I feel with Edie.
IESB: Was it nice to have this to do, in between doing Twilight and New Moon, to give you a break from playing that character?
Peter: Yeah. I enjoy the fact that these characters are both doctors, and they're completely different people. The contrast between these two roles, when you put them side by side, visually and in personality, is so great that, as an actor, I'm proud to say, "Hey, look at these two people. Even though they have the same occupation, they're worlds apart." The fun of it for me, as an actor, is to be able to step into other people's shoes and play different characters. These two characters are so opposite that it's an opportunity to show people what I can do and the range that I have. It's a nice break because you have this one commercial franchise that's become this cultural phenomenon and, on the other hand, you have this great actor's piece that the critics love and it got great ratings. Nurse Jackie is a little bit more of a mature audience, so as an actor, it brings me a whole other audience for my work.
IESB: In regard to making the Twilight films, at what point did you get the sense that you were part of something that would become so huge?
Peter: Not until the premiere of the movie, did I realize how huge it had become. When we finished filming, it was an independent film that was based on a book that had a good size fan base. But, somewhere between the end of filming and the premiere, it just snowballed into this cultural phenomenon. I was on the beach, over the summer, that year and people were reading the books. I couldn't count, on one hand, how many people were reading the books on the beach. And, I thought, "Wow, a lot of people are into this book." People were coming up to me, before the movie was out, saying, "You play Carlisle Cullen." They were already on the Internet, checking out who the characters were.
I remember being on the beach in Hawaii and some fan of the books knew that I was playing that character, even before the movie came out. And then, when the movie came out, on the night of the premiere, it was just completely surreal. There were five lots of screaming fans, and I'd never seen anything like it before. It was really weird because they hadn't seen the movie yet, and they were screaming and cheering. I thought, "Well, this could become an angry mob, if they don't like the movie." But, thankfully, they did, and now it's only gotten even bigger.
I did a charity autograph session in West Virginia recently and people flew out from, like, Ohio to come to a signing, and that's pretty amazing. To get people on an airplane, to fly somewhere to go get an autograph from somebody, just shows the power of that fanbase, and how loyal and faithful and amazing they are.
IESB: Was there a certain comfort level, in returning to this character again for New Moon, having already played him before?
Peter: Definitely. It's like putting on an old pair of jeans, the second time around. You feel like you already know this character and you've created him, and you know the other actors and you know the relationships, but you're always looking to dig a little deeper and find more because you don't want to keep churning out the same thing. You try to keep finding different layers. With the first movie, I did a lot more research on how this character was. For the second movie, I worked more on his relationships within the family structure.
IESB: Does it help to have those other actors to go through this whole crazy process with?
Peter: Definitely. There's a definite comfort when you see the other actors. You feel like you're all in it together. It's a very family-oriented group. We go for dinners, and we like being with each other. I don't think there's one person who doesn't get along with the others, in the group, and it really has become a family. When you see the other person, even if it's for a non-Twilight event, there's a comfort level there. When you look across and see them, they make you smile. Some of my favorite scenes are when all of the Cullens are together. When I'm doing a scene and I look across and see that whole group of actors together, in one scene, it just makes me happy. It makes me feel like the whole gang is there and the whole family is together.
IESB: Does it make things more exciting to have different directors for each film, since they bring their own vision each time?
Peter: Yeah. I love Catherine Hardwicke. I loved working with her. She cast us, so we owe her a lot because she was the one who hand-picked us to play those roles. Then, we had another director, Chris Weitz, come in, who put his spin on it and gave us his vision, and came up with things that we hadn't thought about, in the first one. And, David Slade is going to do the same for Eclipse. It does keep it new and fresh. I'm used to it because I've done television and, in television, like with Nurse Jackie or Damages, we had different directors for every episode. The tone is always the same, with those shows, but the director brings a new flavor, and it keeps it fresh and exciting.
IESB: Have you been doing any research into David Slade and his work, to see what kind of director he'll be to work with?
Peter: I've seen Hard Candy, and I think he did a great job on that. And, I'm going to rent 30 Days of Night. Once he was hired, I sent him an email saying that I'm excited to work with him, and he sent me back one saying, "Ditto."
IESB: Are you looking forward to getting back into this character again so quickly?
Peter: Yeah. It's been a nice enough break. I had the summer off, to spend with my family, and now I hit the ground running. In August, I go straight into Eclipse, and then, after Eclipse, I go straight to Season 2 of Nurse Jackie, so the Fall is pretty busy. And, in between that, I'll be flying back and forth, playing the role of dad.
IESB: Isn't it nice, as an actor, to have the security of a successful film franchise and a critically acclaimed TV show?
Peter: I couldn't feel more blessed right now, especially in this economic period where I have so many friends and family members that it's really having an impact on. I have two jobs to go to. It's a nice time to be working. My family is always there for me. I try not to go more than two weeks without seeing them, when I am on location, so either they fly to me or I fly to them. There are ways that we make it work. I have Skype and we eat dinner together on Skype. It's important to me to keep it all connected.
IESB: You've done really varied projects, throughout your career, and played very different characters, that appeal to all different demographics and genres. Has that been intentional, on your part?
Peter: It's all been intentional. When I first started, I had the last name Facinelli and I thought, "Okay, I'm not going to do any Italian roles." When I first started, all the auditions I got were for The Sopranos, and I decided I wasn't going to do any Italian roles. I have this fear of being typecast as one thing or another, and I didn't want to be typecast because I wanted to continue playing different roles. And so, whenever I finished a role, I would always do something completely different.
I remember I did Can't Hardly Wait and I got offered a teen movie right after that, and I passed on it and did a movie, called Supernova, where I shaved my head, grew a beard, put on 20 pounds and was the main bad guy in this $60 million Walter Hill movie. I was like, "If they're going to want me to be a teen, I'm going to go completely opposite." If you look at the characters I've played, and you put the character from The Big Kahuna with Kevin Spacey next to Van Ray from Fastlane, and you put that next to the character I did in Riding in Cars with Boys, and you put that next to Damages, and you put that next to Twilight, and then you put that next to Dr. Cooper in Nurse Jackie, what I'm proud of, as an actor, is that they're all different visually, the way they appear on screen, and in their personalities.
That's all intentional, for me. I didn't want to be the actor where, when you walk into their movie, you know what to expect. As much as it was done on purpose, it's actually easier when you do one thing really well because studio executives look and say, "Oh that guy? Get him. He does romantic comedies." For me, I've always had to prove myself and say, "Hey, look, I can do the comedy. I can do the action. I can do the drama." I've gone back and forth so many times that, as much as I didn't want to be stereotyped, it hurts because I'm not put in a box and people don't know what to do with me. I have to continually go in and prove that I can play something. But, it's been a great career and I'm proud of the work. When you line up all those different characters I've played, I find that's what drives me, as an actor.
IESB: You seem to also have fans that connect to each of the projects you've done. Does that surprise you?
Peter: It's really funny to me. Because I've looked so different in things, a lot of times, people come up to me and say, "You look so familiar." And then they, realize I'm an actor and they'll ask me what I was in, and I have to look at them and guess what they would know me from. Sometimes, they completely throw me because I'll think they must watch Damages and they'll be like, "No, I've seen Can't Hardly Wait." It's fun to meet my audience and learn what think I've done that's connected with them. One time, I walked down the block and I met somebody who said, "Hey, I loved you in Can't Hardly Wait." And, a block later, someone said, "Hey, I loved you in The Lather Effect," and I was like, "You saw that?" It's funny to meet people and have them know me from different things.
IESB: Are there any types of roles or specific genres that you'd like to do, in your career, that you haven't gotten the chance to do yet?
Peter: One of my favorite things, and I know it didn't last, was Fastlane, only because I got to do action, drama and comedy, all in one. That was a fun show to do. I haven't done a romantic comedy yet. That might be fun to do.
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