Interviews

Citation :

ROBERT Joy auditioned for “CSI New York” when the show first started, but he lost the part as the medical examiner to Hill Harper. “That’s the actor’s life, you just go on and forget about it.”

But it seems that the veteran actor was destined to be part of the show. A little over a year later, when Hill’s character Dr. Sheldon Hawkes moved from doing autopsies to doing investigative work as a CSI, Robert got a call.

Since then, he’s done countless autopsies on “CSI New York” as Dr. Sid Hammerback.

Did you watch any actual autopsies to prepare for the role?

To be totally honest, I’m too scared to go to a morgue. I am absolutely terrified.

I grew up in the household of a doctor and that helps. My father was a pediatrician. I’ve worked in hospitals, I used to mix media that the bacteriologists test on. As for research for this role, I do all my research in the dictionary and the Internet and by asking the writers.

Are you very squeamish?

I don’t think I’m any more squeamish than you are.

That’s very squeamish.

Is it? (laughs) I think most people would stop short of going in and watching a dead body being cut open.

Why do you think your ratings have gone up?

There is something to be said of (how) when I came into the series, ratings shot up. (laughs) I think there was a concerted effort based on feedback from the viewers after the first season. They made a lot of changes. One that I’m aware of had to do with the visuals — the palette, the brightness of the light. If you watch “Taxi Driver” you will have a very different vision of New York than if you would watch “CSI.” The vision changed.

Was it hard to join the show when everybody already knew each other?

Because I’ve been in the business as long as I have, I was used to coming into a show and being a guest star. I’ve been in those situations a lot. I was quite used to that. I work two or three days with a group that might have been together for a year.

That didn’t really bother me. What helped in this situation more was the fact that my very first scene was one I had to shoot with Melina over a corpse and the writers gave me all kinds of references to ballroom dancing. I remember I had a line about the merengue so it was kind of flirtatious with her so the very first scene I had to do was fun for both of us. And it started us off on a good place.

What are your props made of? Is that edible? Is that ketchup?

I think once maybe we used an actual animal liver. But most of the time there’s a live actor on the stage who has been in makeup for four or five hours, having put on some kind of prosthetic device. Most times that’s an actor. Sometimes, if the camera has to follow me inside the body with a depth that the actor wouldn’t be able to tolerate, what we often have is a dummy and when they do that, it must be a very expensive project. When they do that, it’s always modeled on an actual actor or person and every freckle, the little tiny hairs on the hand, eyelashes one by one are added. It’s a little creepy on another level. And when you really probe it, it’s pretty convincing.

Don’t you get tired of wearing these gloves?

Not just tired. I get little rashes. I don’t like to waste plastic. I try to keep them on once I have them on so as not to waste them. They’re on for hours sometimes and the hands get all sweaty inside and you get a little rash there. If you have any tips for a cream I can use, I’ll be open to that.

How did you become a regular on “CSI New York”?

I started to notice that every episode, they’re calling me in and it’s a very interesting dynamic for an actor. Okay, I’m being called as a guest, but I’m being called as a guest on a regular basis. When do I become a regular? Let me assure you that the pay scale for a guest is very different from the pay scale of a regular. They have certain restrictions in their legal department and budget so I didn’t want to push it. When I was turning down other work so I would be available to them, I realized finally that I should ask them about being a regular. They were wide open to it and we negotiated and now I’m a regular and very very happy about it. One of the reasons I think I was invited back again was because my theater background allowed me to memorize all this jargon.

Has the show changed your relationship with death?

It has because it makes you think about it. It makes you think about it more than you would if you didn’t have this job. It’s a serious subject matter. And in the same way that a real coroner would have to make an adjustment to living in a world that’s overshadowed by death all the time. I as an actor had this similar adjustment period. In order to be faithful to Sid’s work, I had to make that adjustment to and become less bothered by it. I gather from talking to people that coroners often have a little bit of an odd sense of humor and the writers have been helping me with that. The sense that my character spends a lot of time not just with death but alone with dead bodies makes for an interesting springboard for a protective coating. That has served me as a private individual playing the part. I know some people playing dark parts who find themselves in an emotionally dark place but I’m not one of those people. Maybe it means I’m not as good as an actor but I’m happier for it.

Do people ask medical advice from you?

No, I’ve never been asked. They normally ask me, how do I get the glasses? I get more comments on the glasses than I get on my acting. Sometimes they do ask as a joke and I say, when you’re dead come to me.

Tell us about the glasses. Do you wear them in private?

Oh yeah. I was on a show called “MDs” and this woman there sold these glasses as a sideline. She gave me a pair and they became my everyday reading glasses. When I came to the audition to this show, I realized I had a challenge because in the audition, I had a dead body in front of me but in the audition room it’s usually a studio executive’s office and it’s very unclinical. How am I gonna create the impression of examining the body at some point? So I thought these would be helpful. (clicks his glasses together) That’s how I did it. Anthony loved it and when they decided to use me for the role, he made a point of asking me if I could bring my glasses to the set. You can get these at Amazon.com. They’re called Clic. I have a good story though. These glasses got me to Madrid. The distributors of this glasses in Europe approached me about going to an optometrist’s convention in Madrid. They paid my way over there, put me up in a hotel just so I could go and sign autographs and wear the glasses.

Talk about your life — what do you like to do?

My daughter is a big character in my life. She’s a student now at NYU. For fun, I play basketball twice a week. I’m too old to be playing basketball but I kind of have an exercise routine to avoid the injury of basketball. I do like California for the outdoor opportunities, I walk around and bicycle a lot. I also play the piano.

Quite a full life.

I would say so, I’m very happy.

Merci pour l'interview :)