Up Till Now: The Autobiography

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