Television

Mr. Thompson goes back to Hollywood (and keeps his distance from ‘liberal’ mindset)

By Ed Bark
Dallas Morning News
02-12-2003

HOLLYWOOD Having left the legislative branch under his own power, former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson now is district attorney Arthur Branch on NBC’s seemingly eternal Law & Order. “Was my last day January 3rd or 6th? Do you remember?” he shouts to an aide after holding court with TV critics. So much for familiar sentiment after serving eight years in the seat vacated by fellow Tennessean Al Gore. Thirty years removed from a star-making turn as minority counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee, Thompson is re-flexing his acting muscles as a conservative “strict constructionist” whose real-life politics are largely in sync. “I may in the future be faced with the proposition of playing a liberal,” he says. “I have no problem with that. Most roles are written that way. But the only thing that I definitely would not have done is play a conservative as a buffoon.” In that context, he’s not particularly fond of Law & Order’s Wednesday night lead-in program, The West Wing. “For me, it’s another liberal show,” he says. “It’s a bit preachy sometimes to be of great interest. Maybe if they were preaching a different sermon I’d find it more interesting. But to have some staff person giving these long, flowery idealistic lectures to the president of the United States — always in the same vein — is just not that entertaining to me.” (Later the same day at an NBC party, West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin essentially replies, “So be it,” pointing out his program is “about a Democrat who’s president, and a Democrat staff. And oftentimes the heroes are going to have opinions that people at the other end of the spectrum are going to disagree with.”) At least neither show is going anywhere. Both West Wing and Law & Order already have been renewed by NBC through May 2005. The latter drama premiered in 1990, a year that also marked Thompson’s peak visibility as a feature-film actor. Then billed as Fred Dalton Thompson, he hit bull’s-eyes in three box office blockbusters — The Hunt for Red October, Days of Thunder and Die Hard 2. Thompson’s first screen role, opposite Sissy Spacek in 1985’s Marie: A True Story, had fallen into his lap when he agreed to play himself in a movie based on a client he had represented. He then worked gainfully as an actor before changing course and winning election to Gore’s unexpired Senate term in 1994.