Eric had two heart attacks and a brain hemorrhage, so you’ve played comatose several times over the years. “I think everyone has had a coma or two in their on-going careers. Eric used to have a coma anytime Stephanie would come down the stairs. I got used to covering these small comas he used to have [laughs].”
Do you have a coma-playing mantra? “My joke about it has always been if you read it and you get past the fact that you’re not getting fired, you go, ‘Well, it’s good for the show because all the characters are looking at their immediate future with panic or with glee or whatever.’ ”
Is it difficult to constantly be as still as pretending to be comatose requires? “Yes! You lay there with nothing to do, with your eyes shut and trying not to fart or burp or anything to distract, and all the other actors, for days and days, have an opportunity to pull up a chair to your hospital bed and work on their Emmy reel. That’s my joke about it.”
It must be difficult to show no emotion when your co-stars are doing just the opposite. “I remember in particular episodes that I was listening to some really nice work. The writing was great, and I will not tell you who it was, but one of the actors touched me so much, and I’m playing asleep and in a coma, but a tear came to my eye and fell at the end of the take. We finished and Ed [Scott, supervising producer] said, ‘John, you can’t cry. You’re in a coma.’ I don’t do that very easily or very often, but I was so touched that it had an effect on me, which was totally inappropriate. That was the only time I’ve really blown it being in a coma.”
Do you talk about the bedside scenes beforehand? “Well, it’s not up to me to prep, but if the actor says, ‘I want to reach down and touch your face. Don’t jerk because I’m going to touch you,’ that kind of information is pretty important so you don’t flinch. That’s the only kind of preparation that the person in the coma needs to know.”
Have you ever fallen asleep in your hospital bed? “No, but I’m not surprised people do, because it’s warm because of the lights, and especially if it’s right after lunch and you have to stay there for hours. You don’t want to take a 10-minute break or something because it’s a pain in the ass for them to wait for you to get back into bed and get all the tubes back in place. So yes, it is an easy position to fall asleep in but I’ve never done that.”
Do you have any tips for regulating your breathing or not twitching or keeping your eyes from fluttering? “I think playing dead is harder than playing a coma because at least you get to breathe in a coma. You just have to talk yourself into staying calm and cool and let everybody around you do their work. It’s not a time for funny. It’s not a time to be silly together. It’s not a time to be cavalier about it.”
It must be nice to not go through all the hair and makeup and wardrobe. “Yes. You do not want to look your best. It needs to be alarming for viewers to see you, to see your character stuck in bed. You take all of that away from that palette right there, you’ve accomplished [something dramatic]. And, you’ve got your Levi’s under your hospital gown so there are no wardrobe malfunctions.”
How rewarding is it to play the actual wake-up moment? “Well, it’s about the writing and, of course, it depends on who it is there when the patient wakes up. The audience is waiting for that moment, and it needs to be as underplayed as it can be. It has to be as underplayed as possible, because that just really tugs at the heartstrings. I think the audience wants to see the drama of the comatose person coming to, and the comatose character is coming to not knowing what’s been going on for the last few hours or weeks or months or even years! They don’t know, and for them to be slightly disoriented, the ‘Where am I? What’s going on?’ needs to be very quiet, and that makes it a very poignant moment when people are trying not to squeal with delight and jump up and down with glee. They want to stay calm for the patient. Those are nice moments, always.”
What advice would you give to actors the first time their character is sent into a coma? “Enjoy the fact that you get to come to work and you don’t have to know any lines. Just enjoy that, and don’t give anybody else any s–t, because they have to work pretty hard while you get to lay there. Be in the scene for the work that needs to be done around you, because it is not about you. When you’re in a coma, it’s never about you. It’s about all the other people around you.”
