University Wire (1999)

Party of Five star discusses life after Columbia, on TV

It’s been three years since Matthew Fox made People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People in the World list, but the star of FOX’s Party of Five said he could hardly care less.

Speaking to some 20 students in Schapiro Hall at Columbia University last week, Fox revealed his love for acting and his zest for life, as well as his disdain for anything remotely related to glamour, glitz, and any other aspect of the Hollywood lifestyle.

The actor, who said he feels more comfortable on his parents’ Wyoming farm than on the Rosie O’Donnell Show, was as blunt as possible in decrying what he sees as two evils of today’s society: commercialized drama and the television we watch it on.

“It’s mind-numbing,” he said of television. “I don’t own one.”

The Columbia alumnus was equally cynical about TV drama in general, and Party of Five in particular.

“Television is about selling products,” he said. “We do an episode of Party of Five, we make 42 minutes of story to sell 18 minutes of commercial space … The content and how it is told is affected by the fact that it is being funded by advertisers who are trying to sell you Coca-Cola.”

This is not to say that Fox isn’t grateful for his current career. After five years of post-college struggle typical of many actors’ careers, Fox was asked to do a pilot for a show in Vancouver. He went there, signed a contract, and, as he put it, “got a big chunk of money … Thank God!”

What Fox didn’t know at the time was that the pilot would become a successful TV series and contractually obligate him to do 141 more shows.

“If there’s five seconds of silence where an audience member decides ‘Well, I got to go take a leak’ [FOX TV executives] are terrified. They stuff four or five stories per show, so if you don’t like two of them, maybe you’ll like the other two.”

Nevertheless, there are enough positive aspects of acting to make Fox content with what he does.

“First off, I don’t know what else I’d do with my life,” he said with a smile. “And second, I love, absolutely love, thinking about scenes and about stories and about people and about what the best way to tell a story is… And to get up and actually perform it has become incredibly fun, it’s the greatest thing in the world. To be in a room with other actors and have the opportunity to make something live and create something is incredible.”

Fox also had a great deal to say in favor of Charlie Salinger, the oldest brother and family caretaker that he plays on Party of Five.

“He’s been confronted with so much stuff. He was a tragic character at the beginning of the show, and has turned into a really positive, happy guy who is really happy, even though he’s never had a chance to live life for himself,” Fox said. “He wouldn’t know how to not be the father figure.”

Fox discussed his input in the greatest struggle his character faced: Hodgekin’s Disease.

“I did a lot of research for it, pushed for it, and that was the hardest year,” he said. Fox said that the show’s writers placed the character “in the most total depression that they possibly could, and taking him out totally changed him. Every day he looks in the mirror and says ‘I am so fucking lucky to be here.’”

While Fox is a bit uncomfortable with some of the fan mail he receives and with people interrupting him at restaurants to get autographs, he was kind enough to divulge a few vague secrets to the obsessed. Namely, that he lived somewhere in John Jay Hall as a first-year and later lived in EC.

Reminiscing about his years at Columbia, Fox explained that there are many things he would do differently had he the chance to do college again.

“I was so wrapped up in it all, in the future, in the past, that I didn’t get to enjoy it. My wife got a lot more out of the classes than I did, and she wasn’t even going here!”

Still, Fox looks back on his college years fondly. “First and foremost, the friends that you make in college will be the closest and tightest that you’ll ever make in your life… not to say that you won’t make friends, but not like that,” he said. “I was really consumed with football and that kept me from focusing on classes. Also, playing on a team that lost 44 games in a row…” Fox said, interrupted by audience laughter. “That’s not funny,” he added, smiling.

A budding acting career also kept Fox busy through his college years. At the suggestion of his girlfriend’s mother, who was in the modeling business, Fox, the cash-strapped college student, gave the show biz world a shot.

“I started modeling in a JC Penney catalog, holding-the-football kind of stuff, and then stumbled into a commercial audition, which was a lot of money for an afternoon’s work,” he said. “I met my wife between my sophomore and junior year. By the time it got to be the spring semester of my senior year, I saw all of my friends getting incredibly tight and anxious about their futures and about getting interviews with firms and corporations and doing that for the rest of their lives. That really didn’t feel like anything that I wanted to do.”

Instead, Fox figured he’d give acting a shot. “After I’d done the first commercial, I got an agent, I started doing more commercials, and was encouraged to take some acting classes and take it more seriously,” he said.

Over time, Fox started getting some acting work, but he said it wasn’t easy. “I’d spend four or five months between jobs,” he recalled. “I had decided with my wife that ‘I’ll pursue this ’til I’m 30 and if this doesn’t work out by that time, I’ll pursue something else.’” Fox finally made the audition for Party of Five, and the rest is history.

To aspiring actors, Fox stressed the need to stay true to oneself and to persevere.

“This business is about attrition, and when the opportunity comes, you have to be ready to take it,” Fox said. He also advised the audience to read fiction and to study the acting craft.

As far as Fox’s own future goes, don’t expect to see him on the big screen anytime soon. “I have no desire to become a movie star,” Fox said. The actor’s options are fairly open, because after years of struggling and saving, money is no longer a concern.

“I’ll fade into obscurity. Once I shave my beard off people have no idea who I am,” Fox said.

At the very least, students who are fans will have a good chance of seeing Fox at Columbia in the future. “I did this last year, felt great about it. I don’t know how much it helps you guys, but it was really flattering.”