John Marshall Jones (Communication ’84) came sweeping into Louis Hall on Tuesday night for a program sponsored by Kappa Alpha Psi, the African-American Theater Ensemble and Northwestern University Women Filmmakers Alliance. Upon meeting one member of the fraternity, the actor broke into a smile and said he knew the man’s father. “Your old man is crazy!” he said. The NU alumnus found time before presenting his program, Mastering the Audition, to talk with The Daily about the pros and cons of always playing a dad, the culturally diverse play he performed at NU and the most important advice on how to “make it.”
Excerpts:
Daily: One of your best-known roles was dad Floyd Henderson on “Smart Guy.” After being on a long-running program, did you find it hard as an actor to move on and distance yourself from this typecast?Jones: Yes. Hollywood defines you only by what you did last. And so you have to be very proactive after you’ve had something that has been successful at defining yourself. Now, you may want to define yourself further as that character because people get to know you as a dad and that can be very lucrative. Or, you might want to redefine yourself as multidimensional actor. I’ve spent the last several years doing theater and dramatic television and guest star appearances in an attempt to redefine myself.
Daily: Any favorite recent roles and why?Jones: Terrence from “The Guest at Central Park West” (an off-Broadway play) because Terrence is incredibly multidimensional. He’s tender and dangerous. He’s brilliant and schizophrenic. You never can really quite get your mind around it even after you’ve done it a hundred times. I’m still discovering new things, and I’ve been cutting this film for two years.
Daily: You also did a two-year stint at Second City and still do some off-Broadway work. So which wins out: television or the stage?Jones: Television wins out because it pays you a lot more. And then you go back and you do theater periodically to make sure your chops stay strong. But you know, if you want to live a lifestyle then nothing beats TV.
Daily: You’re here tonight for your program, Mastering the Audition. How do you want to see it help actors and why bring it here?Jones: Typically, your college program is going to prepare you with all the skills that you need to go out and make a living as an actor. What they won’t do is teach you how to apply those skills in a real-world situation. Mastering the Audition is vocational training for actors, and it is put together from the things that I learned at Northwestern as well as the protocols that I learned from 25 years in Hollywood.
Daily: Switching gears a little, can you describe your time as a Wildcat? Jones: I came to Northwestern two months after my 17th birthday and was very wild and immature. And Northwestern gave me an opportunity to grow up. And luckily I didn’t do anything so stupid that I didn’t get to finish.
Daily: Any favorite memories from your time at NU?Jones: We did a production of “A Raisin in the Sun” and there were a lot of challenges in getting it up. One of the main things was the theater department didn’t feel like there were any African-American classics, so they were going to try this to see how it was received and it was received with standing ovations and was the show of the year.
Daily: Any advice for NU’s aspiring actors?Jones: Get up every day and do something to further your career. Imagine placing a pebble on the ground and every day you place another pebble next to it or on top of it. The more pebbles you place, the larger that place becomes-a home, a pyramid, a castle, but it will never be nothing as long as you keep working at it.[email protected]
