20 Questions: Michael Moriarty

When one high-profile prosecutor feuds with another, the dispute makes headlines. Michael Moriarty, who played Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone in NBC's "Law & Order," found himself in a real battle with Attorney General Janet Reno. The issue: television violence. Reno has strongly urged the television industry to curb its representations of mayhem, which, she feels, contribute to the violence plaguing the country today. Moriarty believes that police dramas and action movies do nothing of the kind. And he feels that Reno and some in Congress are proposing nothing less than censorship. He insists that the government will, if it succeeds, have legislated limits on both artistic freedom and the right of individuals to choose their preferred forms o f entertainment.

Moriarty holds no law degree, but he boasts impressive credentials: an Ivy League education followed by drama studies in England and 20 years of experience in film, theater and television. He received acclaim for his portrayal of a major league pitcher opposite Robert De Niro's terminally ill character in "Bang the Drum Slowly," and he later appeared with Clint Eastwood in "Pale Rider." He has received a Tony Award for his Broadway work and two Emmys for television appearances. He's written plays and performs both jazz and classical piano.

For the last four years, Moriarty starred in "Law & Order," which deals with issues of prosecution and punishment in New York's overburdened justice system. He has received three Emmy nominations for his portrayal of Ben Stone, the veteran who doggedly prosecutes on behalf of the people, but recently left the show as a result of the controversy surrounding his public battle with Reno.

Contributing Editor Warren Kalbacker met with Moriarty to learn what the activist actor had to say about Reno, violence, sex, drugs, alcohol and personal freedom. Reports Kalbacker, "Moriarty is mad as hell. He also seems to enjoy his outspokenness a great deal. He did a whole lot of talking during our session and at one point even remarked, 'I'm engaged in a tirade in the French tradition.'"

1.

[Q] Playboy: How did your row with Attorney General Janet Reno start?

[A] Moriarty: The event was a presentation where we stated our names and our feelings about television and the issue of violent programming. Dick Wolf, the producer of Law & Order, asked me to meet the attorney general. I asked, "What is this? Some stupid photo op? The television prosecuting attorney meets the attorney general?" He said Reno had testified before Congress and threatened legislation to censor television. If she got her way, shows like Law & Order could go off the air. So we went to this meeting assuming we would let her know we weren't Branch Davidians. A psychiatrist gave his expert opinion: No one knows the effect of programming on children, no one can absolutely say anything for sure about it. Well, Reno was having none of that. She said, "Those of you who do not agree that violent programming contributes to violence in America, write down your thoughts and submit them to me within five days. But I don't want to hear them now." When she said that, I felt I was being treated like a criminal, that my friends and colleagues were part of an industry that contributed to drive-by shootings.

2.

[Q] Playboy: You're not a prosecutor, but you played one on TV. Was it Michael Moriarty or Ben Stone who got so steamed at that meeting?

[A] Moriarty: He's me. We're the same. I've had four years of education in the criminal justice system through rehearsal and performance. The first year Dick Wolf told me to play myself, not to try to do a character. It was hard at first because I'm a character actor. But I stuck with it. My character came from New York University. But I could have been a St. John's law graduate. I constantly state I'm Catholic. The first half of Law & Order is a murder mystery. The second half is a moral mystery. When you get into the implications of dealing with the tragedies involved around crime--not just the criminals and the victims, but the families of both sides--it becomes incredibly complex.

3.

[Q] Playboy: What is your case against the views of the attorney general?

[A] Moriarty: I have taken an unequivocal stand. I'm totally unapologetic about the ability of dramatic artists, filmmakers and television people to use violence to tell a story. Dramatic violence is the most effective tool for telling the invisible tale of good and evil. Violent drama has been the hallmark of every major civilization since the Greeks. It goes from Aeschylus to the Elizabethans and William Shakespeare, to Paris in the Twenties with the Grand Guignol, to America in the Sixties with Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch. It is not a disease. It is an immunization against the disease. Infecting you with a bit of the virus allows you to understand your nature. You understand the violence within you and within other people. A good man is well-informed about himself and not afraid of his fantasy life. His angers and the images he has when he gets angry are fantasies. There must be an outlet for them. They are best brought out in art. This branding of the portrayal of violence as a disease is designed to make us ashamed of who we are. The government that would make adults ashamed of what they like is making a people ripe for blackmail, and that's what some senators are doing. That is an outrage.

4.

[Q] Playboy: More than a few people suggest that the depiction of violence leads to aggressive behavior. A good lawyer can argue either side of a case. Want to give it a try?

[A] Moriarty: Well, what is wrong with aggressive behavior? That's what a vibrant life is about. I see a romantic movie, I want to go home and make love to my wife. I see an adventure film, maybe I want to go have a big steak dinner and a few drinks and feel beefy and male and macho and dance, and then go home and make love to my wife. Playboy has gorgeous ladies on the cover. I take all that added spermatozoa and deliver it to my wife with great joy and excitement. Children see programs on television. They provoke aggressive behavior. How are kids going to learn to deal with their energies and their impulses except by dealing with them? Little Johnny, in an excess of aggressive behavior, punches little Joey. Little Joey punches little Johnny back. Little Johnny says, Wait a minute. This is the price for punching someone in the face. Lesson. Education.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Can we assume you deal quite well with your fantasy life?

[A] Moriarty: My fantasy life was a little intimidating to my first wife. The joy and security in my second marriage is my ability to say to my wife anything going on in my head, sexually or otherwise. And that freedom has kept me faithful for 20 years because I don't have restrictions. My imagination can go anywhere it damn pleases. My first marriage was not like that. And I think it's true of a lot of marriages. In most marriages there are secret, dark things the husband is thinking but doesn't want to tell his wife. I edit nothing. Hamlet said he could be bounded in a nutshell and count himself a king of infinite space because of his imagination. He, unfortunately, was confronted with bad dreams. If I have bad dreams, I treat them like thrilling movies. Violent movies.

6.

[Q] Playboy: And you're as well-informed about your anger as you are about your fantasy life?

[A] Moriarty: I think there is some Irish there. It may flare a little more quickly than most but I also know that it's a healthy part of my nature. My grandfather, George Moriarty, was a famous baseball player. He was a third baseman for the Tigers. He later managed the Tigers and was a major-league umpire. And he was fighting Irish from the South Side of Chicago. I have great affinity with him now. He took on five Chicago White Sox under the grandstands when they started calling him names for not calling the balls and strikes right. He broke his fist hitting the first one. He kicked the second one and then he finally went down to their greater numbers. The next day he showed up for work bruised and punched up, but only two of the five White Sox showed up for the game. Five. He took on five. And there in physical violence is a metaphor for the rhetorical violence I'm involved in now. The irony is that my first big successful film was a baseball film. No one doubled for me on that. I threw my arm out. Which I'm not going to whine about.

7.

[Q] Playboy: You've called Janet Reno a "mad lady." Isn't that making the debate a little too personal?

[A] Moriarty: I hope and trust that by the end of my life most people will say that when Michael Moriarty called someone a bitch, she must have been a bitch. But I have to take it away from the personality and show the issue, which is ignorance and power. She put a weapon to the head of network and cable executives. She was saying that if we would make her happy, she wouldn't censor. Dick Wolf played devil's advocate and asked if she would like control over television programming from three to five P.M. She said, "How about three to nine." And she didn't phrase it like a question. Janet Reno says she did it for the children in Waco. Those children were incinerated. Now she's going to storm television for the children. If I had only had the courage to stand up in that room and tell her that she treated us shamefully, but I was with corporate people who take this kind of thing all" day. They eat shit. In that situation you maintain a certain decorum, and that'show I behaved. That's how I would be if I were an assistant D.A.

8.

[Q] Playboy: Do you feel the film and television industries yield too easily when pressed to reduce depictions of sex and violence?

[A] Moriarty: Yes. They've all turned into wusses. They remain silent or they run an expensive ad in The Washington Post, like Norman Lear. They claim they don't want censorship, and at the same time they apologize. Well, they don't have a problem. They're feeding the American public what the American public wants. And if the public doesn't want it anymore, the public won't buy it. People vote with their fingers when they turn on a television set. They vote every half hour on what they want to watch on television, according to the ratings. They vote for alcohol. They vote for guns. They vote for NYPD Blue because it includes the ingredients people want in good drama--sex and dramatic violence. They vote for Playboy. I want to tell people to quit being ashamed of themselves and their appetites. Don't let someone make you ashamed because you enjoy your drinks and you enjoy a ripsnorting Clint Eastwood film.

9.

[Q] Playboy: Sometimes actors who speak out on social or political issues aren't taken seriously. Do you worry that some might consider you to be naive or self-righteous?

[A] Moriarty: Have you ever heard of an unrighteous district attorney? Can you think of that? I remember Katie Couric, whose husband is a defense attorney in real life, criticizing my Ben Stone, saying he's righteous. It'sa necessity. This experience has ignited me. I don't care what attitudes are about actors. I'm going to stand up and say things. I am a public figure. I do know how to run off at the mouth. I can be entertaining. I'm the only person so far, with the possible exception of Alec Baldwin, who occasionally stands up and says he doesn't apologize for the films he makes.

10.

[Q] Playboy: You have named a villain--Janet Reno. Can you cite any heroes in the struggle against censorship?

[A] Moriarty: Howard Stern is a hero to me. Stern takes the Constitution seriously. He spoke eloquently of the situation when I went on his program. Obviously he's tweaking the sillier inhibitions of this country, and the politically correct hate him because he is not discreet. He is socially embarrassing. No, he didn't ask me the size of my penis. Maybe next time. From what Stern said, everyone's is bigger than his. I make no major claims about the size of my organ. It's nothing to shout about. The size of my lusts, yes. I have large, insatiable, exciting lusts for life. And the Road Runner is a hero of mine. Not only have I laughed but I also have learned a great deal of wisdom from the Road Runner: You shouldn't throw anvils at people unless you're ready to have the anvil come back in your face. The government would like to throw anvils at me, and I'm throwing them back. I think I'm the Road Runner.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Do the people in Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office regard you as a colleague?

[A] Moriarty: Hardly. They hold most television programs in contempt. But our advisor from Morgenthau's office passed me in the street a year ago and said I was doing really well. I asked if I got a B-plus. He said, No, better than that. He gave me an A.

12.

[Q] Playboy: Given Ben Stone's high marks, why is Michael Moriarty leaving Law & Order?

[A] Moriarty: My leaving the show began with the Reno event and with the desires of the people in that meeting that they not be named. And for a while, I played the game. I didn't mention their names. But it became increasingly stupid and embarrassing. I realized how deeply intimidated these people were. I started seeing how worried Dick Wolf was getting, though he would say, "I'm not against your point of view, but I disagree with the way you're fighting what went on in there." My marriage took a lot of bumps while I was going through this nightmare. My wife and my son know what it is to be politically correct. They know how to slip through this quietly and not create waves. Why the hell Wolf invited me to the meeting, I'll never know. He knows my personality. I hate a bully. He could have taken Jerry Orbach and there would have been no problem. Orbach would have come back with a few jokes about Janet Reno and the whole thing would have been forgotten.

13.

[Q] Playboy: Beavis and Butt-head have been accused of inciting viewers to violent behavior. Could a Ben Stone in private practice take them on as a client?

[A] Moriarty: No. What I would have to do is face a defense attorney who blames. Beavis and Butt-head for his client's condition. You take responsibility for what you do, and the joy of freedom is involved with the responsibilities of freedom. The issue of character has been lost in a nation of victims, where nobody is responsible for anything they do. No one wants to talk about the issues of character and free will and how you learn. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. When you break the law, you go to jail. But until then, you are free to make your own mistakes.

14.

[Q] Playboy: It's no secret that you advocate the legalization of drugs. But wouldn't you have to draw the line somewhere?

[A] Moriarty: It has to be handled by doctors. You don't turn to drug bars. Doctors would have to prescribe cocaine or any of the other substances only to people over the age of enlistment. Prior to that age, you would enforce the laws against selling cigarettes to minors, selling cocaine to minors, selling guns to minors and selling certain pornography to minors. The kids are kept in a kind of womb. Watch over the kids, and let the adults pick their poison.

15.

[Q] Playboy: What are Michael Moriarty's poisons?

[A] Moriarty: Drugs scare me. I don't even take drugs doctors prescribe because I don't like them. I've never tried cocaine. I'd be terrified of trying that shit. I'm learning to love wine and white Lillet. It's an orange aperitif and it's right up my alley. I sit in front of my fireplace with my computer, writing in my journal or reading a book. I'm a caffeine addict. I drink that substance from Colombia and am rather heavily addicted to it. I've tried to withdraw from caffeine and it has symptoms. You get depressed and you have withdrawal.

16.

[Q] Playboy: How would you raise kids and teach them to make well-informed decisions about sex, anger and fantasies?

[A] Moriarty: There is a recipe, but you have to make it up. I don't want the government involved with the excitement and the thrilling, frightening, terrifying joys of parenthood. I want that. I have a son who was exposed to channel 35, the sex channel in Manhattan. My father subscribed to Playboy, and when he and my stepmother went out to dinner, I would take it out of his side table and masturbate in the bathroom. But the most thrilling women to me were in the magazine section of The New York Times. That's one of the reasons I fell in love with Manhattan. I thought there would be ladies there, just like them, in black lingerie, with this extraordinary elegance and refinement, yet a look in their eye that meant dark adventures. I fell in love the minute I saw Times Square. Boom. I said, "I'm going to that city." And I did.

17.

[Q] Playboy: Does the phrase "You'll never work in this town again" mean anything to you ?

[A] Moriarty: That's going to be interesting. I am a very good actor, and there aren't all that many running around. Louis B. Mayer used to say, "You're fired until I need you." I will be hired. So far the blacklist hasn't really rung down because they are ringing my phone and my manager's phone. I'm getting job offers now. The last major blacklist had to do with membership in the Communist Party. I don't think the American public really can buy another witch-hunt like the one in the McCarthy era. Now they say you must be afraid of your television set. I can't imagine a country being stupid enough to buy the politics of fear.

18.

[Q] Playboy: After your performance with Robert De Niro in Bang the Drum Slowly, critics pegged you, De Niro, Al Pacino and Martin Sheen as rising movie stars. Why didn't you fulfill that prediction?

[A] Moriarty: I made the decision when I refused to be typecast. Given my promise and awards, it would have made the lives of my friends and my agents a lot easier if I had had a normal career. You make the right moves and the issue is the size of your car. They wanted me to do the James Mason role in The Verdict. I said no. And he was nominated for an Oscar. I'm glad I didn't do it. I'm glad I wasn't nominated because once you're nominated that means you're going to get a hundred other roles just like it. I refused to become the in-house James Mason. So I went off and did Larry Cohen shock-schlock B films.

19.

[Q] Playboy: You wouldn't be thinking of Q, by any chance?

[A] Moriarty: That's one of my best performances. It's a takeoff on King Kong. The City of New York is terrorized by a bird. My character is a cross between Huntz Hall from the Bowery Boys and Frankie Machine from The Man With the Golden Arm. He's an ex-addict, a would-be tough guy trying to hustle his way through life. He's always on the edge of everything but nothing works out. So I'm a guy who knows what this bird is, and I'm not giving the city the information unless they pay me a million dollars. There's this rather nice scene in the mayor's office in which I take the city for a million bucks in ransom. Q showed these ancient rites, that primal mystic thing that Larry loves to put in his films. And the imminent possibility of violence. Violence and nightmares. You have to see it. It's a terrific performance. Steven Spielberg even told me I should do a sequel. That man sees everything. I don't know how he has the time. But he's obsessed with film.

20.

[Q] Playboy: A cover charge and two-drink minimum occasionally buys a Michael Moriarty performance. Does playing jazz piano sets in a Manhattan club afford a respite from your tough day job?

[A] Moriarty: It's my first love. There's a definite primal connection in me between music and happiness. My big idol in my high school years was Miles Davis. To me he represented a sacred insolence, a boundless freedom. I was drawn to him as a sound the way the dog in the RCA logo is drawn to its master's voice. The dog's head tilts in awe and wonder. And that's what happened to me when I heard Miles Davis for the first time. I wanted freedom, and jazz allowed me freedom, and I liked the rhythms and the harmonies a lot. They were richer and more interesting and darker than the classical music my father played. Miles Davis knew what freedom was, and he gave me a sense of it, and I will not give it back. I won't give up a single inch of the freedom I have found through the artists I admire.

tv's feisty d.a. takes on janet reno, celebrates the symbolic power of violence and explains the basis of a good marriage