‘Power’ player: William Sadler credits Geneseo experience for varied acting career

Actor William Sadler spent his childhood running around his family’s small farm in Orchard Park. He’d jump from the hay loft with a BB gun pretending to be Vic Morrow in “Combat.” He and friends would pretend to fly an old chicken coop around like the starship Enterprise from “Star Trek.”

More than two decades later, while filming a scene for “Die Hard 2,” Sadler – in his career-defining role as baddie Col. Stuart – and other actors surrounded the nose of a large transport plane and when the time came to fire their machine guns at the plane, Sadler unleashed a series of “tch tch tch tchs.”

After the scene finished, a sound engineer came over to Sadler – who laughed as he recalled the memory – and whispered to him: “Bill, you don’t need to make that noise. We’ll add it later.”

Sadler, 67, retains a child-like enthusiasm for acting as his career approaches 170 film or television roles, and dozens more on stage.

“Part of pretending to be is what works in all this,” said Sadler, a SUNY Geneseo alumn. “A lot of what is satisfying to me about acting is being able to explore these other nooks and crannies of the self. I love examining the way people work, what makes them tick.”

Sadler will next be seen in the Starz drama “Power,” which follows a New York City nightclub owner who has a double life as a drug kingpin. The cable series makes its fourth season premiere at 9 p.m. Sunday. Sadler joins the cast in the sixth episode, playing Tony Teresi. While little is known about the character – and Sadler won’t spill details – the actor has repeatedly said the series is a blast to work on.

Even if you don’t recognize the name of William Sadler, you will recognize the expressive face punctuated by steel blue eyes and a menacing stare. That frequent on-screener demeanor, however, is in marked contrast to the quick to laugh, sometimes reflective persona he revealed during an interview earlier this month at the Geneseo Riviera.

Sadler was back in Geneseo June 3 to receive the SUNY Geneseo Alumni Association’s Professional Achievement Award during the college’s annual Alumni Reunion. Sadler graduated from the college in 1972 with a degree in theater. The alumni event was his first time back for an organized activity, though he acknowledged passing through as often as he can when traveling from his downstate home to visit his mother, who lives in Hamburg.

“I enjoyed seeing the old places,” said Sadler, who was surprised with a visit from a former professor, Dr. Bruce Klein. “But for the most part, you can’t go home. What was magic back then to me was about having chemistry with the time, those people. It’s been fun coming back, though, and thinking about and revisiting those days.”

After signing autographs for an hour on campus following the award presentation and before a guided tour of the campus, Sadler talked about the influence Geneseo had on his career, his delight in playing the villain, why he’s appeared in a trio of Stephen King adaptations for director Frank Darabont, and about playing the Grim Reaper. The interview was conducted inside the Riviera – across the street from The Idle Hour, a favorite hangout of Sadler’s.

What follows is an edited transcript of the interview with Livingston County News editor Ben Beagle:

THE LCN: What brought you to Geneseo as an undergrad?

It was a Geneseo graduate named Bob Schultz who directed a play I did while I was still in high school in Orchard Park. About halfway through the rehearsals he asked me what I was planning to do with my life after high school. I told him I was going to go to Buff State and study industrial arts and be a shop teacher like my brother Gary.

I was going to study theater, but I was going to try and sneak in the back door and, you know, while I’m studying one thing, audition for the other.

(Schultz) didn’t think that was a good idea and introduced me to Geneseo …

So acting was a consideration from the beginning?

I had done two plays by that time. I’d been fumbling around with stand-up comedy and music – I was going to be a rock ‘n’ roll player. I didn’t know what I wanted to be. But the acting was interesting …

The play Bob Schulz directed me in was this Pulitzer Prize-winning play called “The Subject was Roses.” It was this wonderful psychological drama about a kid who comes back from the army and confronts his alcoholic dad and the wife, his mom, who gets abused. It was just this amazing thing. I didn’t know that sort of thing existed out there … A door got flung open when I realized that’s what theater could be.

THE LCN: What did Geneseo do for you?

I liked acting, but didn’t know it could be a profession. My dad wanted me to work at the water bottling plant in Buffalo.

Geneseo gave me an opportunity. It was this energetic, passionate place with an opportunity to spread my wings and grow as a person. I know I wouldn’t have the career I’ve had if I hadn’t spent those four years here.

THE LNC: How did Geneseo play such an important role?

I needed a safe place to explore myself. I grew up on a little farm, sort of a cloistered world, and coming to Geneseo was like moving to New York City … It was a different culture, different people, different food. Everything was new to me. I got Shakespeare, Beckett and Moliere and Chekov … I was challenged over and over again until by the time I got out, there was nothing they could throw at me that I didn’t feel I couldn’t do. I spent four years being challenged by professors over and over again. They stretched me, let me take up space in the room, and find my voice and direction.

THE LCN:What has stayed with you, or the most important thing you learned, from Geneseo?

It’s hard to pin down precisely what I learned while I was here that I’ve carried with me. But there’s a fair amount of confidence in knowing that anything they throw at you, you can take a shot at.

It came along for me at exactly the right time and it was this fertile energetic creative soup full of teachers and students and plays and energy. I just dove in.

… In Geneseo, I played a dozen and a half wildly varying roles in four years. It helped me be able to take on whatever role would come up. I wouldn’t have come up with the Grim Reaper in “Bill and Ted” without the roles that came before.

If I had gone straight to California, I might have broken in. But it’s quite likely after a few years I’d be playing the same character over and over. Maybe I’d have been successful, but (casting directors) wouldn’t feel capable of throwing me in Shakespeare’s “King Lear” or “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.” But I knew I could.

THE LCN: You’ve played a bunch of different characters in your career, but the most memorable are arguably villains or other less savory characters. Is that a conscious choice?

I don’t know why that is. I’m one of the nicest people I know. Maybe it’s the cheekbones.

If you can’t play the lead, if you can’t be Bruce Willis in the movie, be the villain. They tend to be very interesting people. They’re funny. They’re committed. They’re brilliant. They’re sinister. There are no rules. It’s always fun to be the villain; ask anyone who’s done it.

THE LNC: Like Col. Stuart? (Who is introduced in “Die Hard 2” practicing martial arts moves in a hotel room – while nude.)

He put me on the map. He’s a great example of, if he weren’t trying to do evil things, he’d be a great guy to have on your team He’s smart. He’s committed. He’s got courage. He’s got humor. They’re all admirable qualities. He’s just playing for the wrong side.

THE LCN: How do you decide which side, or role, to take?

I look at the writing and try to gauge how believable is this. Do these people sound like real people sound? Is there enough detail here to make me believe these people could actually exist?

So, I look at the quality of the writing, but I also look at the layers. Is there a way to play the role that no one’s seen before or that I could give it a spin that I hadn’t seen before? Is there room for the character to have other colors, for example, and not just be a stereotypical bad guy.

THE LCN: What led you to do three films with Frank Darabont?

The writing. Again and again it always comes back to the writing.

He came up to me on the set of “Tales from the Crypt” and said ‘I’m writing this script and I’d like you to be in it. It’s called ‘Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.’ ” He sent me the Stephen King novella and I thought, ‘Sure you are.’ Everybody in L.A. is writing a script and they want you to be in it … and it never comes. … But sure enough, he was as good as his word and he created this big piece of writing. The story is Stephen King. The characters were all created by Stephen King. But Darabont’s attention to the dialogue and the detail and so on was just impeccable.

He also, I think, responded to the fact that I had done so much theater. That seemed important to him. Everyone in that show had a strong theater background.

And what would you attribute to the ongoing popularity of the film? (“The Shawshank Redemption” was released in 1994.)

If you ask Frank…he’d say we caught lightning in a bottle. It was this sort of timeless story about hope and friendship and the fact that that cast came together the way that it did. Originally, they were doing table reads at Castle Rock with Tom Cruise. He was interested in doing it. . I heard stories about Charlie Sheen and Nicolas Cage and everybody and their brother. … This script was so powerful.

I guess Tom Cruise wasn’t thrilled with Frank, who had never directed before, and Frank didn’t want Tom Cruise, he wanted an ensemble. He didn’t want a star and so it didn’t work out.

Frank tells the story that Rob Reiner called him at home and offered him $2 million not to direct the movie: ‘Give it to me, I’ll direct it and you can do anything you want at Castle Rock and we’ll play you to do that.’ And Frank just said, ‘I’ll never get this good a script again for a first film.’ So he took the chance.

THE LCN: You’ve had roles in big blockbusters, theater, network and cable shows big and small. Do you make distinctions in choosing projects?

Some of them you do for money and some you do for love and some you do because you’ve always wanted to work with that director or that actor. There’s not really much rhyme or reason to it. They come along.

I also just love acting. I love the doing of it. When people offer me the opportunity to play, I sort of think about it like a baseball player: Every time you get a chance to get up in front of a camera and do that scene or up on the stage and do this play it’s sort of like another chance to get up at bat and everything else is forgotten. There’s only you and the ball and you can go back to the basics. Every time I do it, it’s a little different. And every time I go I think I’m a different actor now than I used to be.

THE LCN: How are you different?

I’m older? … I have more fun doing it now. I think maybe that’s the main thing. I used to fret a lot about the work, make myself crazy and unhappy about how it’s going. I’ve got to do this and try harder on this and that. Maybe I’ve been doing it long enough that it’s gotten intuitive and easy and occasionally beautiful.

THE LCN: We can’t end without asking about playing the Grim Reaper, or Death ….

The most fun (role) was the Grim Reaper because of the silly Czech accent. It was a chance to be silly … A lot roles given to me, required me to be menacing. This started as frightening and terrifying, but became this insecure little guy who just wanted to be part of the band. I got to go on this little journey with him, but I had to fight almost immediately because there was such disinterest in me playing the role.

No one wanted me to do Death. I knew I could. I did it before that … Geneseo nurtured this love for this work, acting … where I could say give me more, give me more. Without that, I’m not sure what I’d be doing.