“No idea how risky it was”: Harry Hamlin explains why playing gay in '80s became an impactful moment
“In the film business, if you look a certain way, you’re a leading man,” says Harry Hamlin. Yet, despite the veteran actor having the marbled profile of a star from Hollywood’s heyday, some may have a difficult time placing exactly where they know him from. Hamlin has had so many memorable, boundary-pushing roles in film and television that the brain short-circuits trying to sort through all of his credits at once.
Whether it be in his breakout role in 1981’s “Clash of the Titans,” his long-running arc on “L.A. Law,” or his maniacal turn on “Veronica Mars,” Hamlin is a standout whenever he’s onscreen. His latest scene-stealing role is in the AMC series “Mayfair Witches,” where he plays Cortland Mayfair, the patriarch of a long line of powerful sorcerers trying to survive in modern-day New Orleans.
It’s the ideal part for Hamlin, who says that, from the beginning of his career, he fought against being pigeonholed as a leading man to seek smaller, more challenging roles as a consummate character actor. “If I can find something that’s out of the box, I’ll go for that before I go for the guy wearing the tie, carrying the briefcase, the suit and all that,” Hamlin tells me during a recent episode of “Salon Talks.”
Ironically, it’s that very buttoned-up image that some might know Hamlin for best. He was nominated for an Emmy in 2013 for his recurring role in AMC's “Mad Men,” where he played the enigmatic, unpredictable ad exec Jim Cutler. Though it scored him awards recognition, Hamlin says that he’s just grateful to have been working for almost 50 consistent years in the industry—a feat, considering that his radical early work got him trounced from the list for studio films.
When I ask him about the 1982 melodrama “Making Love,” a film I first watched on YouTube as a teenager scouring the web for halfway decent gay movies, Hamlin exhibits some well-earned pride. “We had no idea how risky it was at the time,” he tells me. “After I did ‘Making Love,’ I didn’t go up for one more studio feature until three years ago.”
But whether by force or necessity, Hamlin enjoys his character actor industry status just fine. He's happiest making his own way through the Hollywood chaos, which has allowed him to experiment and detour between acting, fatherhood and entrepreneurship. Along with the second season of his cooking show “In the Kitchen with Harry Hamlin” on the horizon, Hamlin is also adding new products to his line of Harry’s Famous pasta sauces and embarking on a podcast with his wife, Lisa Rinna.
Watch our “Salon Talks” here, or read about it below to hear more about “Mayfair Witches,” the gamble of playing gay in a pre-AIDS crisis world, his response to Bethenny Frankel’s comments about his pasta sauce, and being a “Real Housewives” husband.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
To list even the most notable of your credits would not even be skimming the surface of your extensive resume. Is that a free pass to feel a little bit of pride and hubris, or does that just feel like it's coming along with the work?
The word that comes to mind is “gratitude.” This is now just under 50 years I've been doing this, and I've raised the family and sent my kids to school. Thank God they're doing a lot better than I've ever done, which is great. It’s very, very fortunate to have been working this long.
Let's dive into “Mayfair Witches.” This is the second show in AMC's expanding Immortal Universe. You play Cortland Mayfair, who isn’t just the patriarch but one of the most fun characters on the show.
You’re right to say that he's the patriarch of a family of witches. People often ask me, “Are you a warlock? Do you have powers? What's your deal?” Well, actually, I'm immortal. I don't have powers the way the witches do, but I do have some job security with AMC because they've made me immortal on the show. So if I can't be killed, then I can't be killed off, right? Very happy about that.
Cortland Mayfair, the way I envisioned and developed the character was a little bit different from how they originally envisioned it. We actually had to go back and reshoot my entrance in the first season because they wanted something a little hotter and more interesting, and I decided to have fun with this character and make him kind of a bon vivant. He's also not the nicest guy.
He's a little mischievous, a little debonair.
Definitely, in the first season, he's mischievous. In the second season, which is on right now, I'm a little more contrite. They make me a little bit nicer, but that's because something amazing is going to happen to my character over the next three episodes, which are the last three of this season. I can't tell you what that is but it's going to be amazing.
At the end of the first season you had turned to stone, so we thought that that might be the end of Cortland for a little bit —
Which was, by the way, an homage to “Clash of the Titans.”
I noticed that! Turning the Kraken to stone. Was that written into the show?
No, it was not written that I was turned to stone. It was written that Alexandra Daddario’s character froze me because she can't kill me. Because I'm immortal, she froze me and sent me off into some netherlands somewhere. But the idea of freezing me into a stone came in post when they said, “Oh yeah, ‘Clash of the Titans,’ remember? Stone.”
What was it like filming Season 2 versus Season 1? Sometimes in the first season of something, you're not sure if it's going to find its fan base. Now, you've got this established fan base, you've got opportunities for crossovers with “Interview with the Vampire,” and the show is ratcheting up in plot lines and intensity each week.
Season 1, you're right, everybody's getting their footing, you don't know if the show's going to work or not. Look, Alexandra Daddario is headlining it, it's going to work.
When they got to Season 2, they decided to shoot half of it overseas, over in Ireland. The last three episodes were shot entirely in Ireland [standing in] for Scotland because we take the [story] over to Scotland, which makes it really interesting to change the location now. Shooting Season 2 was easier than Season 1 because we kind of all knew where we were headed with our characters. Though, Alexandra was pregnant throughout Season 2, so that made it a little bit of a challenge.
Did she travel to Ireland as well?
She did, of course. She was a trooper. She never missed a moment.
You said in Entertainment Weekly that this season features some of your favorite work and scenes that you've ever done in your career. You've been in the business for almost 50 years, that's got to be a high bar.
"If I can find something that's out of the box, I'll go for that before I'll go for the guy wearing the tie, carrying the briefcase and the suit."
A highlight was working with Ted Levine. Of course, Buffalo Bill from “Silence of the Lambs,” a very intimidating character to begin with, just because we've all seen that movie, and the way he talked about skinning the girls, it's a little creepy. When he arrived on the set, everyone was like, "Oh, that's Ted Levine." He turned out to be just a fantastic actor.
He plays my dad in the show, and we had some of the most fun scenes I've ever done. He was able to somehow enter my consciousness in the scenes that we did. There's one scene where I actually feed him part of myself, and I had no idea how that was going to go when we arrived on the set, but he was so forceful. I actually felt like my father was dressing me down and telling me I was no good.
Those sequences are so terrifying because you're reduced to this sniveling child character, and it felt different from the types of characters that we usually see you play, which are so headstrong and confident. It felt like a different mode for you.
It was, and like I said, I had no idea that that scene would have that effect on me. I thought I was going to go in there and be a strong opponent to him, the father-son thing; and the way he did it just reduced me. I was a blithering idiot.
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Your career has had so much variety. Is that something that you look for when you're taking on new roles or looking for new roles, the chance to try something new like that?
Absolutely. I trained for a long time, longer than I want to talk about, before I ever got a paycheck. The whole idea of going to acting training was to learn to be a classical actor and to become a character actor. I actually trained to be a character actor, and then I got into the film business, and in the film business, if you look a certain way, you're a leading man. You're not a character actor. I was going, “But no, no, I'm a character actor.” So I'm always looking for characters to play, and if I can find something that's out of the box, I'll go for that before I'll go for the guy wearing the tie, carrying the briefcase and the suit and all of that.
You’ve taken so many risks throughout your career, and the film “Making Love” was one of those huge risks, playing gay in 1981, pre-AIDS crisis. You've said it damaged your leading man status for a while, right?
It didn't damage my status as a leading man, but what it did do is, before that [film] I was on the list for all the feature films that were being made by the studios. Warner Bros. had been my main studio up to that time. Every movie they were doing, I was up for. But after I did “Making Love,” I didn't go up for one more studio feature until three years ago when “80 for Brady” came up. That was my first studio feature in 40 years after playing a gay guy.
"I was not aware that I was going in there to play a killer to begin with, but it was delicious at the end of the day."
At the time we knew that it was maybe somewhat risky. We had no idea how risky it was, but look, not a week goes by when someone doesn't come up to me in a market or a store and say, “Hey man, thank you so much for doing that movie. You helped me. I took my dad to it. It helped me come out. It gave me my life.” If I've been able to have that kind of an effect as an actor, come on. That's it, right?
It really was ahead of its time in the way that it presents gay characters as loving and as having lifestyles as viable as any straight lifestyle. It was such an important film to be made at that time. I don't know that it would've been able to be made after the AIDS crisis either.
No, I'm sure. When I first meet Michael Ontkean in the film, he plays a doctor and I'm there because I've got an ingrown hair under my neck. This is before anybody knew that that scourge existed. Now if you did that, they go, “Oh, death sentence.”
“Clash of the Titans” was your breakthrough and it was an archetypical hero role, but you’ve also taken on more villainous roles like Aaron Echolls in “Veronica Mars,” and now Cortland Mayfair. What is it about playing a villain that's an intriguing opportunity for an actor like you?
With “Veronica Mars,” I came on playing a movie star and the father of one of the main characters on the show. They didn't tell me that I was the killer. I knew that the show was about a killer, about a girl who'd been killed, but they didn't say that I was the guy. Then after a few episodes, they said, “Oh, by the way, the show's kind of about you.” I go, “What?” So I was not aware that I was going in there to play a killer to begin with, but it was delicious at the end of the day.
On the not-so-villainous side, you've also got “In the Kitchen with Harry Hamlin.” You say in the first episode that you had never seen a cooking show prior to doing the series. Is that really true?
I still have never seen a cooking show. I am not interested in the least cooking shows. If I was, I would've seen them.
Have you watched your own show?
I have watched my own show. I saw two episodes from Season 1, but I haven't seen all of the episodes. I've seen one rough cut for Season 2. It's amazing what these guys do. They take all this raw footage and they put it together, and then you get a half-hour that looks like we knew what we were doing, but we didn't.
It certainly is a show that seems like it's got its own flavor. Do you feel like this is uniquely you? Is this a fun opportunity after so many years of playing characters?
You know, I have not thought about it that way. AMC asked me if I would be willing to do a cooking show, and I said, “Excuse me, why?” I guess one of the wives of one of the executives had seen me cook some stuff on the “Real Housewives” show that my wife was on, and she thought it would be fun to do that. I said, “If I can do it with my niece [Renee Guilbault] who's a certified Cordon Bleu chef and has been in the food industry for 30 years, then I at least have some guidance in the kitchen to know what I'm doing.” So they brought her in and I guess it just works. The chemistry between the two of us seems to work.
"The first sauce is magnificent, I love it, I created it. The second sauce created by my niece is even better."
You are cooking with your family; your niece, your wife Lisa Rinna, and with your daughters. I imagine that that makes your home and your kitchen a very special place. What has it been like watching the amount of devastation that's been occurring in LA over the last month with the wildfires?
My son's house burned down and he's been dealing with that. It's been pretty traumatic. He actually asked to borrow a special reciprocating saw so he could saw through some drywall that had fallen over on his office. I guess they got the fire out before it burned everything, so there was still some stuff left. He was trying to go in and see if he could find his office and find his hard drives because all of his artwork, which is digital art, was on his computer and he made it before the cloud, so it wasn't backed up. It's been tough. Los Angeles has been through it in the last few months.
Living there, you'd think that you might be prepared, but you never think it's going to happen to you. I remember seeing you on one episode of “Housewives” running fire drills with Lisa Rinna.
Right! [Laughs.]
Are the fires something you feel like you're prepared for, or does this always take you by surprise?
We know that we live in what's considered a fire zone because our fire insurance has quintupled, of course, but I do have this fire hose. I've got a fire pump for the pool, and I've got a system on the roof that'll soak down the house, and we keep a suitcase near the front door that has all of our important stuff in it. That's been there for 10 years, that suitcase. Sort of sits there.
We just mentioned “Housewives.” I want to talk about your bolognese sauce, Harry's Famous sauce. It became a hot topic on “Housewives.” What was it like to get pulled into the drama for something so innocuous as pasta sauce?
Who knew? They asked me to throw a lunch for the girls. Normally what they do is they'll hire a caterer and hire a party planner, they'll come in and they'll fluff and puff your house and cook all the food, and I would just disappear. I didn't want to spend all that dough on that. I can cook, right? Why don't I cook bolognese for them?
I did that thinking, oh, then maybe we'll get through this day. Then, all of a sudden, they just loved the sauce on the pasta. We've always loved it, it's been part of our family for years and years, but they took it to another level. Then Garcelle Beuvais took it to even another level, and she and Lisa got into it. Now everywhere I go, people say, “God, I love your wife. Where can I get your sauce?” I always say, “Well, I love my wife too, and you can get my sauce on Amazon, and you can get my sauce at harrysfamous.com.” But soon we're hoping to have it on store shelves as well.
I know that you've got one flavor already, but you might be gearing up to release a second?
We have sauce number two, which is vodka sauce, and it's called Spicy Tarragon Vodka. I have to tell you, the first sauce is magnificent, I love it, I created it. The second sauce created by my niece is even better. It's so good. Lisa puts it on everything, not just pasta. Whatever we're having, she'll say, "Oh, I want some of that sauce," she'll put it on there because it's really good.
When you're moving into a new business, there are always going to be people who do like it and who don't like it. Being in the “Housewives” by proxy, I know that Bethenny Frankel tried the sauce and posted a TikTok reviewing it, and she was not a huge fan. Did you happen to see the video at all?
I have not seen the video, but I did hear about it. I'm very fond of her, we've known her for a long time. There's no accounting for taste. That's an old saying. Some people have good taste, some people don't. The sauce is doing great. 99.9% of people love it. If someone doesn't like it... [Shrugs.]
You’re very transparent about the ingredients; what goes into the sauce, how it's made. Why was being so transparent an important thing for you?
What my niece and I are trying to do is enhance the world. Let's not say change the world, but enhance. I'm a huge proponent of fusion energy. I started a company in 1998, which is now the biggest publicly funded fusion energy company, and I think that fusion is going to enhance human existence because it's a way to make electricity that is completely clean. It'll be cheap, it'll be abundant, it'll be affordable, and around for hundreds of thousands of years. No more burning of fossil fuels.
What my niece and I wanted to do was take that paradigm and move it into the whole food world. We look around and we see how many people have diabetes today, how many people are obese today, how [many] illnesses caused by affluence are out there, and we said, “Well, the root problem of that is what people are eating. They're eating processed foods that are making billions of dollars for huge food companies. Why don't we put out food that is absolutely clean?” You can make it at home if you want, we'll give you the recipe, we'll tell you how to cook it. You can go to the market, you can buy the stuff to make the vodka sauce. You can buy the stuff to make the red wine sauce, and you can spend an hour making it on your stove. Or you can go to the market and buy it, or go on Amazon and get it too. The whole idea is if we can get a foothold in this business, if we can get our products out there, we can do our part to clean up the food industry.
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