Mel Harris: From thirtysomething to Going Home. The late eighties and early nineties was something of a golden age for heartfelt character-driven ensemble dramas on broadcast network television. Two exemplifiers of the form were
thirtysomething (1987-91) on
ABC and
Northern Exposure (1990-95) on
CBS. Mel Harris was nominated for a
Golden Globe Award for her role as Hope Murdoch Steadman on
thirtysomething.
Cynthia Geary received two
Emmy Award nominations for playing Shelly Tambo on
Northern Exposure. This season the two industry pros can be seen together in the second season finale of
Going Home, the character-driven hospice-set dramedy starring Geary as Sunset House Head Nurse Charley Copeland that’s
currently streaming on Great American Pure Flix. In the episode, Harris plays a dying writer of horror stories.
JWK: So, tell me about your role on Going Home.
Mel Harris: I play Hannah Reese who writes horror novels under a pseudonym. She has gone to the hospice to die. She’s one of the most prolific and successful horror writers in the history of the world. She is carrying a lot of guilt, grief and responsibility about the characters she wrote about (and how her novels) affected the cult that follows her everywhere.
JWK: Interesting story. What do you hope people take from this episode? What do you take from the episode?
MH: There are a number of things actually, as I look at it, to take from the episode which is one the things that interested me. Rich Cowan, who is one of the producers on it, I had done a film with him a number of years ago called Hangman’s Curse with David Keith. So, I was very interested in doing the show for a couple of reasons.
The script has a few things. My character comes in bearing all these weights that are exactly that. They’re weights – and they only get heavier for her. Being in the hospice, in the environment there, in the nurturing place, helps her let some of them go and it helps her to have some hope that maybe where she’s going isn’t as dark – or even darker – than what she’s been writing about. That’s one of the things.
Also, for me, there’s a lovely sub-story in other people fearing (Hannah) and what (she) had written – particularly the stories about (her) that weren’t true – and how that fear in one of the staff people reflects that it’s important to note exactly what you’re reading and what you’re hearing and whether that’s true or not. I think we live in a time and a world where that’s very true these days.
JWK: What’s it like to play a dying person?
MH: I hope I’m doing it right. I don’t really want to find out if that’s true for a very long time. I died a couple of times before but this one was different because I think one of the interesting things about hospice, if you have your cognitive abilities about you, is that you know you’re dying and you are there. My characters has a brain tumor (that’s) incurable – and pain from that. Yet, how do you balance that with like, wow, I’ve lived this life (and) it’s been great, it’s been bad, it’s been good, whatever it has been for you – and it’s gone in a matter of usually days? What does that mean? (How) does that play in terms of a person’s psyche, a person’s thoughts, a person’s being? I just think it’s really interesting. So, playing someone who is dying, I play those things in my mind. I put them in my mind and they help to take the character where I think that she would be. It’s different for every character because every character that one plays is different.
JWK: What was it like playing opposite Cynthia Geary?
MH: Cynthia is fabulous. First of all, she’s very talented. We all know that – but she incredibly kind, incredibly capable. She’s one of the producers on the show as well. It was just lovely. Almost all of my scenes were with Cynthia – but not all of them. It was just great. Instant rapport! It was really nice. It’s always nice to have that.
JWK: You became famous on thirtysomething and then a couple of seasons later Cynthia came along in Northern Exposure. Both shows are emblematic of late eighties/early nineties television. How has the medium changed since then?
MH: How hasn’t it changed I guess would be the better question maybe. When I started in the business there were three networks. ABC, NBC and CBS. Fox was like a twinkling. Then Fox came along and maybe you’d do a Fox show. Then it just expanded from there (with) cable and all the production that went into that. From there, came streaming which has revolutionized the business. It’s changed it. The network pilot season isn’t what it was. There are all these wonderful creative outlets for things. I generally think it’s a great thing. I think it’s disturbing for a lot of people who are used to a norm – but, for me, I see that there are opportunities to do things and, as a viewer, to see (things). For me, I think it’s probably a good thing.
JWK: Of course, the number of episodes produced for a typical series is fewer now. That’s a bit of a double-edged sword, I guess.
MH: Yeah, that’s a network thing. They still them for syndication. The syndication part – that financial part – hasn’t disappeared but it’s different. There’s also something nice about shooting ten episodes for a season. You get a lot more time to do that, generally speaking. It depends on the show. It depends on the budget. It depends on all those things. Creatively – as an actor and a writer – I think that it opens up places to go.
MH: A very true story. When it first came out, it was my first big, big break. I had a good break the year before that but this was a series. It went to pilot and the pilot was picked up. When it first came out fifty percent of the reviews I would say great and fifty percent were awful. I hung all the negative reviews on my refrigerator. I tried to be realistic about what I was doing because I was new to it and I didn’t really know. It turned out to be an interesting thing – not that much (about) me but (about) all the the people that reviewed it negatively because it became such a hit, was so revered and people who liked it wrote good things about it that the many of people that didn’t like it to begin with felt compelled to go back and re-review it, rewrite about and re-talk about it. It added a whole other layer of conversation to our show.
JWK: And many of them came around to liking it?
MH: Some did, some didn’t…That’s everything. Some people will like your thing and some people won’t.
JWK: I guess that’s the way it is in life. How about psychologically for you? Did seeing the negative reviews hanging on your fridge affect you? Did you find it disheartening? Did you find it challenging? I guess it helped you in some way, right?
MH: It helped me a lot in terms of staying grounded, staying real. For me, also, I love what I do. I am so blessed to have this job, to have had success with this job, to work with the people I worked with. It’s just beyond fantastic – but it’s also my job. It’s not my family. It’s not my friends. It’s not other things that interest me. For me, it’s always been a business. That doesn’t mean I don’t love it, respect and want to be in it. It’s just my take on it. I think reviews are just a part of what it is.
One thing that I do if I go to a meeting or I go to audition or a taping, when I leave – on my way out – I throw my sides, my pages, my script away and I move on because regretting or saying “Oh, I should have done this or that!,” while you can use that to make it better next time, it’s not gonna change what you’ve just done in the room. For me, that has been freeing for years and years and years.
JWK: There was talk for a while of a thirtysomething sequel series. Is there any chance of that still happening?
MH: My understanding is that we had one –
thirtysomething (else). We literally read for the network and between reading for the network and going to the network dinner they pulled the plug because of covid – as happened to many, many shows that got caught up in that. For a couple of years the networks have not made a lot of shows. They didn’t make a lot this year. It’s owned by
MGM which is now owned by
Amazon. Amazon is not going to make it but they have given permission to
Peter Horton,
Ed Zwick and
Marshall Herskovitz who were our producers/writers on the the original TV series to go out and sell it. So, we’re very hopeful that there will be a show – and very hopeful that the original
thirtysomething will be somewhere available for streaming. I hear from people every day (who ask) Why they can’t stream it? They don’t understand.
JWK: It’s true. It’s one of those that has quite a reputation, people remember it – but you don’t see it rerun that often.
MH: After we finished the show it went on Lifetime and a number of places through syndication. You could see it around the world but when it came to the DVDs, for instance, that was challenging because Ed and Marshall had used a lot of wonderful original music and that was harder to get the rights for – but that eventually happened. Following that, in terms of streaming, you could get it on Netflix when you could order the DVDs (but it never really made the leap to) streaming. We’re trying to change that.
JWK: I guess a new show would look at the characters in another decade of their lives and, perhaps, their children and that kind of thing.
MH: Yes, exactly…Our children are adults and relationships have changed or have mutated as they always do, no matter how many years (go by). It happens in a year. It happens in ten years. It happens in fifteen years.
JWK: Aside from thirtysomething, is there any type of show or movie that you would particularly want to do?
MH: Oh, man! That’s a really hard question. For me, my work has always been about the story, the script. Where are we shooting it? Who’s in it? All of that kind of thing. Because I’m very athletic, I particularly love to do action and things that involve stunts. I’ve done a lot of stunts in my time in films and in movies of the week, not so much in series. I’d just a really love a great character that has some physicality to it. I think that would be super. I mean I’m always up for a challenge. That’s what I like best.
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