Chuck - New York Times: Adam Baldwin Interview

At the New York Times (New York, NY):

(Please follow the link for the complete interview.)



Television

No Grumpy Guy, He’s 46 and in Repose

By JOE RHODES
Published: January 30, 2009

NOW that Adam Baldwin has figured out how to make it look easy — this surly, deadpan, tough-guy thing he does every Monday night on NBC as the monosyllabic secret-agent sidekick on the action-comedy series “Chuck” — he doesn’t mind admitting how hard it used to be.

He was 18 when he got his first taste of movie-star limelight as the title character in the 1980 film, “My Bodyguard,” then roles in summer comedies like “D.C. Cab” in 1983 and smaller parts in prestige films like “Ordinary People” despite not having a clue about what he was doing.

“I was horrible,” he said of some of his early performances, particularly the one in “D.C. Cab” (in which his co-stars included Bill Maher, Gary Busey and Mr. T). “I didn’t know how to work. I didn’t know how to process a character, and, certainly, I wasn’t as funny as I should have been.

“But I did learn a lot of technical stuff, how to be on a set, where to stand, how to do a fight scene, things like that,” he said during a recent interview in a high-end Santa Monica coffee shop, one of those mad-scientist places where they grind the coffee in front of you and serve it in vacuum-sealed flasks on a silver tray. “But then I had to learn how to act. And that just takes some people longer than others. I’m no Leonardo DiCaprio.”

He can say this now that he’s 46, aware of his limitations, proud of the niche he has found. In “Chuck” he plays no-nonsense secret agent John Casey, protecting loose-limbed amateur Chuck Bartkowski (played by Zachary Levi), a computer nerd who has accidentally had the contents of a super-secret government computer downloaded into his brain. But even before “Chuck,” Mr. Baldwin had received sterling reviews and a growing cult following for playing similarly grumpy characters on “The X-Files” and “Firefly.”

... Now because of his “Chuck” fame, people no longer assume that he’s one of those other Baldwins (he’s not) or that he’s as grumpy as his characters. He envisions a future filled with playing strong, silent types, guys with enough experience to know how the world works, when to take it seriously and when to go with the joke.

“I always did think that when I turned 40, I’d start coming into my own,” he said. “Part of that is just growing and living, suffering and failing and going through the trials of life, having a wife and kids. It humbles you, and going through that humbling process lets you release that self-centeredness, and it’s a very liberating feeling. It lets you stop worrying. I’m enjoying that.”