Up Till Now (40 page)

I think what surprised everyone was the intensity of the relationship that developed between Denny Crane and Alan Shore. Their friendship has been called the best love affair on television. Certainly there has never been a stronger bond between two men portrayed on a series. David E. Kelley had planned for them to be law partners, close friends, and confidants, but what developed organically
from these two characters has far transcended those original intentions. What has become a hallmark of
Boston Legal
is the final scene, in which Denny Crane and Alan Shore relax on the balcony outside Denny Crane’s office, overlooking Boston, smoking their cigars, often sipping an aged scotch, and talking honestly and intimately in a way very few television characters have ever related to each other. At the conclusion of an episode in which the two of them had engaged in a charity wrestling match, for example, Alan Shore says, “You cheated.”

“I did not.” And after a thoughtful pause Denny Crane remembered, “Y’know...the first time I had sex with Shirley...it went exactly like that. I flipped her on her back and sat on her head.”

Alan took a long drag on his cigar. “I hope it was better for her than it was for me.”

“Better for me. It also lasted about four seconds.”

On the balcony at the end of another episode, in which Alan had defended a man who had been charged with allowing his terminally ill wife to die so he might be with his lover, Alan quotes a witness who testified, “Families often act to end their own suffering.” Then he wonders, “Is that what happened with your father?”

I rolled Denny Crane’s cigar in his fingers and remembered his father, and possibly my own, although Denny Crane’s had suffered from dementia and had lost his awareness. “He wasn’t exactly in pain. His appetite was good. In fact he was actually smiling more in the end than he...On the day, the day we told the doctor to up the drip, he was blissful. We put him out of our misery. And I often wondered, did that life belong to the man with the brain of a two-year-old? Or to the life of the man who preceded it? It certain...it didn’t belong to me...”

“How’d you get the doctor to do it?” “Denny Crane. I was still the real thing then.” “Denny, I’m gonna say this right now and then I’m going to memorialize it in my living will. If I ever end up with the mind of a two-year-old...”

“I’ll have Bev sit on you...My day is coming, Alan. We both know that.”

“It’s a long ways off. And in the meantime, live big, my friend. Live big.”

The always-humorous, usually poignant, amazingly popular, reflective balcony scenes were created by accident. David E. Kelley’s first script ended with Alan Shore on the balcony with his then-girlfriend, Sally Heath. On our balcony with a woman! That cad! But after several rewrites a romantic ending just didn’t work anymore, so instead Alan Shore ended up there with Denny Crane. It was not intended to be the kicker for each episode; in fact several of the initial shows didn’t end that way. But the feedback was enormous; people, men mostly, responded to their friendship. I’ve had to play some very difficult scenes on
Boston Legal
—believe me, it’s not easy to look good dressed as a pink flamingo, but one of the most intense balcony scenes ended a show in which Denny Crane had caught Alan being friendly with another man. Denny Crane was piqued, he was terribly jealous. It was a very fragile moment, I had to express the emotions of a woman who had caught the man she loved cheating on her—but in a very nonsexual way. If I went too far it became broad comedy; if I was too intense it became anger rather than hurt. When people talk to me about
Boston Legal,
this is the show they often cite. More than any other moment, this is the balcony scene that most accurately describes their relationship. “I don’t know whether you know this,” Denny Crane admits to Alan Shore, “but not many men take the time, every day, to have a cigar, a glass of scotch, to talk to their best friend. That’s not something most men have.”

“No, it isn’t.” “What I give to you, what I share, I do with no one else. I like to think that what you give to me you do with nobody else. Now that may sound silly to you. But here’s what I think is silly, the idea that jealousy or fidelity is reserved for romance. I always suspected there was a connection between you and that man. That you got something you didn’t get from me.”

“I probably do. But gosh, what I get from you, Denny. People walk around today calling everyone their best friend. The term doesn’t have any real meaning anymore. Mere acquaintances are lavished with hugs and kisses upon a second or at most third meeting, birthday cards get passed around offices so everybody can scribble a snippet of sentimentality for a colleague they barely met, and everyone just loves everyone. As a result when you tell someone you love them today, it isn’t heard much. I love you, Denny, you are my best friend. I can’t imagine going through life without you as my best friend. I’m not going to kiss you, however.”

The relationship between Denny Crane and Alan Shore never could have worked if James Spader and I hadn’t become friends. I mean, him I don’t love. But certainly I like him and respect him greatly. I remember the day we met, I extended my hand. “Hi. Bill Shatner.”

We shook. “James Spader.”

I asked, “Is it James or can I call you Jimmy?”

And he replied firmly, “No. It’s James.”

My kind of guy. “Well, in that case,” I told him, “perhaps I should be called William.”

Among the many things I enjoy about ...James, is that he makes me appear much closer to normal than might otherwise be true. Like me, he’s a sensualist; especially about food and drink and other people. He’s self-taught and extremely knowledgeable about a great range of subjects. On the set we have great rapport—and of course I enjoy teasing him. And perhaps he’ll tell you what I tease him about in his autobiography.

James is a very precise person. When planning a vacation in Europe, for example, he’ll book a reservation in a restaurant weeks in advance and actually decide what he will order. Unlike me, who simply goes into a restaurant when I’m hungry and eats... something.

But as far as I’m concerned it’s the very best something anybody has ever had at any time. Really, you have to try this something, I promise you you’ve never tasted something like it before. You have to try it, you must.

He’s a wonderful actor, an award-winning television and movie star known for the quirky parts he has played. What makes our onscreen relationship work so well is that the way we approach a script reflects the way we experience life. James’s desire is to set his performance, usually at home. By the time we start rehearsing he has already decided how he wants to read a line and what he wants to do physically. If he sets a move he doesn’t want to vary it: this is where I’m going to stand, this is where I’m going to be looking, this is how I’m going to read that line. And I’m going to do it that way every time.

Or so I thought. But one day James and I sat down—although not on the famous office balcony where we conclude each show—and discussed the technique of acting. It was fascinating for me to see how we both got to the same moment. “I meticulously prepare the text,” James explained. “I go over and over and over it for hours at a time. I don’t have to think about the words at all.

“Therefore, when I get to the set, because I’m so familiar with the character, I’m ready for anything my character might want to do. Anything.”

What James was saying, or perhaps what I heard him say, is that he spends a tremendous amount of time preparing to be spontaneous. That preparation allows him to inhabit the character. But the character is on his own.

I like to ad-lib. Not with the words—especially not with the words on
Boston Legal
because of the quality of our writers. Generally there is nothing an actor can do that will benefit those words, except say them exactly as they are written. I have noticed that when I do change a word or two it does make a difference; the lines are so beautifully crafted that if I say “we” instead of “I” I might change the rhythm. Maybe the joke is not quite as sharp or the timing is slightly off, so I learn the exact words and I say them exactly as they have been written. So my improvisation is in the emotion; in the way I recite the lines. Once I have the lines down I’ll experiment with variations. That’s the way I examine a role, I hear all the possibilities and within each one a slightly different meaning. For me, that’s the fun of acting. The words aren’t ad-libbed, the intent is.
The way a person says something that reveals not only the true meaning of their words, but the essence of their character.

For example, on the page the words “Don’t do this to me, Bill” are cold. But to hear Nerine begging me not to leave, “Don’t do this to me, Bill” as she exposed her very soul to me, has a hugely different meaning.

James and I also approach our roles with very different energy. He is low energy, he takes his time to ponder each word, and he’s very slow to respond. Me? High energy. Bust it out there.

Somehow it works. At the end of our first season James received the first of the two Emmys he would win as the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Series—the second and third Emmys of his career—while I would win my second Emmy.

There is at least one other very important thing I like about James—in some ways he reminds me of Leonard. We had a scene in which James was in a conversation with several other people. The action of the scene required me to go to one of those people and lean over. It occurred to me that while leaning over I could stick my ass in James’s face. The value of all my experience is that I recognize an opportunity to stick...to provide a prop for a fellow actor. I thought I was giving to James perhaps the single greatest straight line one actor can bestow on another: I was presenting him with the butt of the joke. There were many options; he could play it broadly for laughs, “Ah, I see there is a full moon on the horizon.” Or he could be acerbic, “Congratulations, Denny, you’ve finally gotten a bigger part.” He could be angry, “Denny, do you know you’re a bigger lawyer than you’ve ever been?” Or he could wax philosophical, “There is nothing like a man’s posterior in close proximity to make you consider your own mortality.” Instead, he chose to tell me, “You can’t do that.”

I was offended by his attitude, but I said nothing because I had instigated it and didn’t want to cause a problem. Instead I just stayed away from him for the rest of the morning. I was eating lunch in my dressing room when James knocked on the door, “Can I come in?” En-terrrr! “You’re offended, aren’t you? Let’s talk about it.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” I knew he was there to put my behind behind us. As Leonard had responded when I threw his photographer out of the makeup room, James insisted we talk about it. “What was the big deal? I leaned over.”

“Yes, and when you did your ass was in my face.” “Well, why didn’t you play off it?” There, another great straight line for him.

“I couldn’t,” he began, and explained why.

I listened, and then I said, “You know, James. What you just did is something I can’t do. Face a person. You got a problem, deal with it directly. I don’t do that, I let it fester for a day and then it’s gone.” James had opened it up, aired it out, smoothed it over. “That’s a quality I admire in someone. And I wish I could do more of it.” And in fact, I have learned that from James, and that honesty is a huge part of our relationship. “But what I get from you, James. People walk around today calling everyone their best friend...”

Candice Bergen plays my partner and former lover. The really interesting thing about Candice is that the qualities she projects through the character of Shirley Schmidt are her own qualities. She is a beautiful woman of great style and intelligence. She has more class than almost anyone I know, and has become a good buddy. But then there is that famous sex-doll scene.

Denny Crane has never lost his deep lust for Shirley Schmidt. In one episode, Alan Shore caught him in a storage closet humping a blow-up sex doll made up to resemble her. I remember reading that script for the first time, and thinking, “Well. Well. This could be... interesting.” On
Boston Legal
perhaps the most important point on which we’ve all agreed is that no matter how absurd the scene, how ridiculous you have to act, we will play it like it is absolutely real. Truth matters.

Fifty years as an actor and I had to hump a blow-up sex doll.

Me. Oh, believe me, I could play sex scenes. I definitely could play sex scenes. I’d done a classic sex scene with Angie Dickinson, I’d worked with some of the most beautiful actresses in the business. But this was the first time I had to make love to a blow-up sex doll.
As with all the other absurdities we are directed to do on
Boston Legal
, I knew that the only way I could make this work was to make it absolutely real. I remembered being a kid more than seventy years ago and watching a boy masturbating. I’d never seen anything like that before; his eyes were turned inward and he was totally self-absorbed. I can’t remember that kid’s name or the circumstances, but I’ve never forgotten that look. And so I tried to do that with the doll. I became totally absorbed in that doll, and anything else—the closet door opening and the one of us being discovered together— came as a shock.

What makes Denny Crane such a wonderful character to play at this point in my life is that we share so much. When Denny Crane talks about his own mortality and his recognition that he is older now and has lost some of his powers, there might be some of my life sneaking in. I do think about those things, I wonder about them. I’m never far from the fear of old age or senility or being incapacitated by a stroke. I’ve tried to bring the realities of my life into my performance. Fortunately, my ability to focus allows me to learn my lines as easily now as I did when I was twenty. So I don’t have any problem memorizing lines—although I do wish the producers would use cards or a prompter. For some of the other actors, of course.

There is a scene I had with Candice Bergen during which this once legal lion showed... well, at least hinted at his vulnerability. Denny Crane and Shirley Schmidt were in her office, sitting on her couch. Shirley just happened to ask me about the fishing waders I was wearing. “I may not be the lawyer I once was,” I explained. “But I can still fish circles around all of you. Sometimes I just like to wear them to—”