Best online poker games on Launchpoker.com

  There are some shows on television that you can go your whole life without seeing and consider yourself lucky for dodging an ugly media bullet. Knight Rider and Baywatch come immediately to mind. Then there are some shows that folks should have their televisions repossessed if they do not tune in. The Closer on TNT is one of these types of programs that should only be missed by people who found Battle of the Network Stars quality entertainment. Tony Denison currently stars on this show and has helped make it one of the top programs on cable television.



  Mr. Denison resume also includes Crime Story and the Fox hit Prison Break. Considering how busy he is, we are pleased and grateful that he took some time to talk to us about poker, acting, and life in general. We hope you enjoy our interview with Tony Denison.



LaunchPoker: You have had a very successful career as an actor, what is it that first drew you to this profession?

Tony Denison: It was more like a sort of curiosity. I was a newspaper editor. The newspaper joined up with another paper. Well, the other editor-in-chief became the editor and I got let go. I was out of work for a while and my wife at the time suggested that I take an acting class or a photography class at the college that I graduated from, because I lived upstate in New York. Photography class was too expensive, and I didn't want to spend the money on a camera, plus I always had a curiosity about acting. So I took the class and did a presentation one night at an event where there was a dance recital, an orchestra recital, and then there was a scene from Death of a Salesman. The moment I walked out onto the stage and spoke the first line I knew this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I might add to that I was nervous out of my mind.



LP: Much of your career is dominated by characters that are either on one side of the law or the other. Which ones do you find more interesting to play?

TD: That's an interesting question. You know, I would have said that playing a gangster is more interesting, but at the end of the day if you have a really good script, and you have a good team producing the script, it really doesn't matter. In all fairness to Crime Story, my first big break show, I played a gangster on that but there was also a cop lead and they were both incredibly interesting characters. So either one would have been fun to play. So now playing the cop on The Closer, I find it to be incredibly interesting because it is so well written. That's the only thing you hope for as an actor. That you wind up with a show that has a certain amount of integrity towards character and plot. When that happens, as an actor it is incredibly interesting to be involved in.



A lot of times when you're doing a feature film, it's a whole completely different discipline. Sometimes a feature film can be very character heavy and the plot is incidental. Sometimes it's the plot that is really intriguing and interesting and the characters are kind of marionetted throughout it, and those are interesting to do. Every once in a while you will get a script, whether it be a television series or a movie, where the plot and the characters and the reality and the life of both are so intertwined that you really can't even tell the difference between whether you are watching an important character piece or an incredibly intricate plot piece. When those come along, they are amazing to be in.



LP: So is the criminal or the cop closer to who you are in reality?

TD: Probably the cop. A lot of people say I'm sort of like a boy scout in the way I deal with things. To tell you this, when I was a little kid growing up in New York, I remember one time I saw some gangster thing on the TV or something, I don't know where it was, and I said something to my mom about how that looks tough. My mother said to me, "Oh, you don't want anything to do with that life." I asked her why not and she told me that when they go to sleep every night they sleep with one eye open and one eye closed. I thought about it. That night when I went to bed I tried to go to sleep with one eye open and one eye closed and it was miserable. I thought, "Oh my God, how do you do this?" So in my mind there was always this idea that your never going to sleep. I mean it's funny, but there are certain things that stay with you and you suddenly think, "Well that really isn't a lot of fun." I tried putting the pillow over one part of my face, tried putting my hand over one part of my face. I figured anyone in that lifestyle must have the most miserable sleep cycle in the world.



LP: We have just gone through the death of Heath Leger, and rightly or wrongly some have suggested that the emotional toll that playing the Joker in the upcoming Batman film took on him was a contributor to his death. Have you ever taken a role that you just couldn't leave at the studio? One where you just took it home with you?

TD: Crime Story. This was my big break role. What happened was I used to start getting into character by the time I had left my house in the morning, or when I was staying in Chicago, it would be my apartment. By the time I got to the set, we would do rehearsals, and then some waiting time, and then I would be in the make-up chair, and I would still try to stay in character. By the time we actually got to the set to shoot some stuff I was exhausted, and I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the day. I would call my acting coach up and she said that I have to pace myself; that I had plenty of time to work myself into character, otherwise I would knock myself out everyday doing that. There are some actors I know who can stay in character all day long, I mean I used to do that, but I find it to be too physically exhausting. My technique now has taught me how to turn it on and off just so I can have some sort of sanity. The actors who stay in character all day long, God bless them; it's just not something I can do anymore.



LP: What role pushed your skills as an actor to the furthest?

TD: I don't know. How do I answer that? There was a television movie I did one time with Susan Day back in 1989 I think. Something about the script really touched me. It was called "I Love You Perfect." It was the true story about a woman who died of cervical cancer because the lab where she went to get her gynecological check ups screwed up. I remember that when I did that role there was something about it that just touched me: the script. Susan and I we haven't worked together since, and I think I have only seen her one time since then - and that was like very early on. We bonded in this incredible way. I remember there were a lot of sad scenes, a lot of crying, and a lot of emotional outlay. When the movie was over I was exhausted; I mean literally exhausted from the experience of that. She was too. It wasn't a big giant feature film that got nominated for a lot of academy awards or anything. It was this little, small television movie. What I have to say is that it was an incredible experience.



I did this other movie called Little Vegas. This was a feature, and independent feature. One of these sort of small scoped movies with people just trying to figure out how their lives got so screwed up. I enjoyed that, and that movie affected me a lot because it was about people who dream, and their dreams go sort of sideways. Then when they try to make sense of it they realize that what they were seeking was right in front of them anyway. They were just seeking too high or too far away. That movie I liked a lot. Other than that, I don't know. I love what I'm doing now on The Closer, playing this Lieutenant, this cop.



LP: You have played a number of completely original characters in your career as well as a couple of the most infamous pop culture figures: Jon Gotti and Joey Buttafuoco. What is the difference in preparing between playing a made up character and playing somebody who is real?

TD: Well if you're playing a made up character, you play every character not like they are a bad guy, but like a guy who has their own particular point of view and he's trying to get his point of view across. Some people do it in a way that is uncompromising and other will do it in a way that is incredibly compromising. It depends on the situation.



When you're playing someone who is well known, then the problem is that you don't want to get into a thing where you're doing an impersonation. If you're doing an impersonation then it's just like sort of acting out. There're people who believe that acting can be presentational acting or representational acting. The people who do presentational acting, they are really good at that kind of stuff: using the masks in certain ways. I'm more into representational acting which is something inside that I've got to feel first before I can bring it up and out. So when you're playing a guy like Gotti, or Joey Buttafuoco, you can see all the footage about these guys and pick up some of the mannerisms but in terms of the emotional stuff that you are trying to do when you are doing a scene, there's always a little quirk that is uniquely who you are that you bring to the interpretation of a character. Like if you are playing George Washington, there's no film on George Washington you can just imagine he was a tall guy: six foot four, so he towered over everyone in the army and in America at the time; he was one of the tallest dudes around, but who knows how miserable he was.



Apparently he had false teeth that were wooden teeth. God knows what kind of agony this guy was in all day long or whether he kept his teeth in his mouth. Ulysses S. Grant was a stone cold alcoholic. How do you play him? Do you have to bring all those things through?



Gotti had a motivation and so did Joey Buttafuoco have a motivation. You have to figure out a way to play that motivation while at the same time have some sort of physical resemblance to who they are.



LP:We have all seen what is happening with Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, etc. This seems to be giving Hollywood a minor black eye. Are the behavior problems in the entertainment industry getting bigger or is the era of 24 hour news just making the issues bigger than they are?

TD: No, it's not going to give Hollywood a black eye. The only thing is that in Hollywood we all live in a fishbowl. I could take you to an electronics convention in Las Vegas and you'll see a bunch of people in the electronics business who are about to lose their lives or fold up like a cheap suit because of their drug addiction or their alcoholism. I can show you bakers, the military, the police force, politicians, it's just more of what we do in L.A. is emulated or wants to be emulated and there's always been this fascination with actors even if they are not drinking or destroying their lives. When they are doing these things it just makes it that much more interesting for people to see. It's like a car crash. Have you ever driven on the highway when there's a car crash? The reason why there's traffic is because everybody's looking. I just wonder why? Because they want to see the suffering? I always think that if you are going to slow down, get out of your car and help.



LP: Has the press become too invasive in the lives of celebrities?

TD: Well I don't think that is the case. We have 24 hour news cycles and people are hungry to fill up those twenty four hours. When I was a kid growing up there were ABC, CBS, and NBC. We would have Wide World of Sports on the weekend and a couple of Sunday shows like Meet the Press and whatever, and that was it. With the advent of cable you have from six in the morning until nine or ten o'clock at night a constant barrage of talking head shows. On CNN, the Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. Some of them are great, some of them are just... you know. But all of them need to be fed information. So as a result of that there is this increased voyeuristic quality going on by a lot of different people. In fact now, on your cell phone you can make movies of something that is going on and send it into a television station and it's on the air instantaneously. That's a problem too. Of all those shows my favorite show happens to be Keith Olbermann - that's my favorite show.



LP: It is hard to ignore the attraction that the game of poker has had in Hollywood. What attracts you to the game?

TD: I look at it this way, about gambling, okay? A lot of it is about bragging rights. Poker players are like lovers: everybody wants to think they are the best in the world. At the end of the day it is about bragging rights. After the bragging rights it's about the thrill. If you went to a casino, and every time you threw the dice you rolled a seven, once you start amassing a lot of money, it wouldn't be interesting anymore. The thing that makes getting a seven that much more exciting is know that you can also crap out. It's the same thing with poker. It seems like there is more skill involved than just throwing some dice or counting up to twenty-one. This is seemingly about some skill and the art of deception and you put all those things together, and again the phenomenon in gambling is action. In poker, there is a certain amount of intellectual prowess: you have this sharp mind and ability to pull a bluff but at the same time the thing that makes it so exciting is that you can possibly lose the hand.



LP: Finally, do you think that an actor is better pulling off a bluff than an average player?

TD: Well it depends on how much time the actor has put in playing poker. If you're a professional poker player, at the end of the day you can play against people who are "lucky" and win a lot of hands even though they may not see the difference between their ass and a hole in the ground. Then you may run up against some actor who can put on that poker face and really be quite good at it, but a professional who spends all of his time doing this particular thing will win more times than lose playing against non-professionals.



  LaunchPoker would like to thank Mr. Denison for his time and insights. It was truly a pleasure for us to talk to this gifted performer.