Memories From The Set: Keith Carradine
keith-carradine-damages
DAMAGES
"I had no idea," Carradine says of the reveal that his character, Julian Decker, was actually just in the mind of Glenn Close's Patty the whole time he was onscreen. "In retrospect, I had a great time. Glennie is fabulous, and she and I had done a movie of the week together years before," he says. "When they finally revealed to all of us what the deal was, I thought, 'OK, well, I hope everything, all the choices I've made are going to work!'"
keith-carradine-deadwood
DEADWOOD
Carradine played James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickock in five episodes of David Milch's HBO Western, starting with the pilot, which was directed by Walter Hill (Alien) — who had a large part in getting him the role. "We did have a day where there was a lot of stuff for Hickock, and I felt a particular sense of responsibility to live up to Walter's wanting me to play that part," the actor says, noting that other people involved in the series had different ideas about who should play the gunfighter, but "Walter fought very hard to have it be me." At the end of a long day shooting in the bar, "I remember... Walter basically saying, 'That's a wrap,' and he pulled me aside and he said, 'Kid, you hit it out of the park,'" Carradine says proudly. "That was a very gratifying moment for me."
keith-carradine-dexter
DEXTER
When Carradine was approached about playing FBI Special Agent Frank Lundy, he hadn't seen the Showtime drama. But after a quick binge session, "I was hot as a pistol to be part of that," he says. He tosses kudos to his co-star for the warmth and believability of the Deb-Lundy romance, despite the characters' decades-wide age gap. "All credit to Jennifer Carpenter, because her performance, her attitude and what she brought to the screen really make it OK," he says. "There's such a possibility for a serious ick factor there, you know? I was well aware of that, and I was skittish about it... She made it acceptable, and that made the whole experience work."
keith-carradine-enterprise
STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE
"It seems to me, every actor worth his salt has to have at least one episode of some iteration of Star Trek on their resume," Carradine says. His was a Season 2 installment in which he played a cocky contemporary of Capt. Archer (played by Scott Bakula) who doesn't handle it well when an attempt to break the Warp 2 barrier goes awry. "Scott is just the best. We had a good time, and we had a knock-down, drag-out fistfight in a bar," he remembers. "Everybody was terrific."
keith-carradine-fargo-2
FARGO
How's this for verisimilitude? Temperatures dropped so low while filming the FX drama — in which Carradine played retired Minnesota state trooper Lou Solverson — "We had to wrap because it was too cold to film," Carradine recalls. "You know those orange cones that they put out to guide traffic? A crew member dropped one, and it shattered."
keith-carradine-kung-fu
KUNG FU
Carradine's brother David played the lead role of Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s martial-arts series; when the show needed someone to play the character as a teenager in flashbacks in the pilot, Keith got the call. "So they brought me in and put the bald cap on me and I learned some martial arts stuff with the bamboo poles," he says. "They used that footage over and over again. I think I still get residual checks for, like, 50 cents or something."
Night Watch
MADAM SECRETARY
Carradine has played President Conrad Dalton on the CBS drama since its debut in 2014, and raves about his co-star Téa Leoni, who also serves as a producer on the show. "She sets the tone. She's the best of the best. She's really good at what she does. She cares deeply about the quality of the show, the work, and she takes the work very seriously. She doesn't take herself seriously at all." As the fictional commander-in-chief, he's very aware that his series has become "aspirational" for Americans frustrated with the current political climate. "We all want to leave the world a better place than when we got here, and we all want to do what we can to enhance people's lives and fix problems," Carradine says. "This show gives us a fantasy world where that's still done with civility."
keith-carradine-material-girl-video
'MATERIAL GIRL' VIDEO
"That was me, yes," playing a director trying to woo the pop icon in the 1985 music video, Carradine says, chuckling. "I think it was at Madonna's request that they wanted me to come and play this role. Obviously, it was an homage to the whole Howard Hughes thing." He remembers Ms. Ciccone as "delightful" during the three-day shoot, but at the time, she wasn't a fan of her own hit. "I said, 'It's a great song,'" Carradine says. "She said, 'This song is terrible. I hate this song.' And I thought, 'Oh, OK. Well, so much for making conversation.'"
The Conjugal Conjecture
THE BIG BANG THEORY
As TVLine reported exclusively, Carradine will make one more appearance as Penny's dad, Wyatt, before the CBS comedy wraps for good this season. "I've known [Big Bang star] Johnny [Galecki] over the years," he says. "In fact, he worked on a movie of the week that I did. He played one of my kids years ago."
keith-carradine-the-complete-savages
THE COMPLETE SAVAGES
The Carradine-led ABC sitcom — in which he played a single dad of five sons — premiered in 2004 and aired for a single season. "That whole experience was a delight," the actor says. Betty White played his neighbor ("What a force," Carradine says. "She's smart as a whip, 100 percent there") and Mel Gibson was an executive producer who also acted in and directed a few episodes ("He's got a wonderful, kind of Chuck Jones sense of physical comedy"). Alas, the show didn't really gel with the network's TGIF lineup, which led to its demise. "It was a sitcom about this bachelor father with five boys, and it had all of that energy about it, and they sandwiched us on Friday night between two shows — 8 Simple Rules and Hope & Faith — that were really geared toward a feminine audience," Carradine says. "There's just no way you're going to hold that audience. We should've been on Tuesday nights," which at the time showcased dude-focused shows like My Wife and Kids and According to Jim. "I was sad it didn't click."