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EDGE MAGAZINE
Page 1|2|3
by
Dan
Gregory
"CHATTING WITH CHAD"
No Longer Riding The Range in Dr. Quinn, Chad
Allen Enters Stage Left in The Ambitious *change at Babylon.
EDGE:
How old were you when you started St. Elsewhere?
Chad
Allen: Eight,
I think? Yeah in retrospect I know it without a doubt, it
to be one of the best-written television shows. I'll catch
it on cable now and I'm just in awe of how good that show
was. How progressive it was. I mean, talk about a show that
dealt with AIDS issues was before it was ever P.C. or accepted,
and there it was. Strong fucking show. I have good memories
of working on that.
EDGE:
What prepared you to play an autistic child?
Chad
Allen: I
didn't know what autism was. Nobody really did. They had a
guy on the set who sort of helped me with behavior and stuff.
I did go to the Autistic Children's Foundation in Palo Alto.
But the most significant thing I remember is them telling
me that autistic people lived in their own world. And to me
in my eight-year-old mind, that made perfect sense. Because
I was a kid who spent almost all of my time by myself playing
pretend. I had pretended worlds everywhere I went. And I remember
it was like a game to me. Some kind of future space travel
game going on. It was fun. I got to throw glasses around,
and bang my head against the wall, and empty the refrigerator
one time, and hit people--it was great! (laughs) |
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EDGE: Ah how did
you get started acting?
Chad
Allen: I was four and I have
a twin sister--her name is Charity. And we used to do twin
contests--"Most Look-Alike Boy and Girl"--when we were children.
And people used to say to mom, "Oh, your kids are really cute.
They could do commercials." My parents weren't well off and
they thought if the kids could do a couple commercials and
get some money and sock it away for college, that would be
a good thing. It progressed from there. My sister hated it
and eventually she dropped out and got her own thing going
on. I was loving it for a long time until I was in high school
and then I hated it. I wanted to live, I wanted to be in sports,
I wanted to go on dates and go to dances and do all that shit.
So I dropped out of it after I finished doing the series My
Two Dads when I was 16 and said I didn't want to do anything
to do with it anymore for good, and I went back to school
and I was on the swim team. I did everything, every club.
I was part of everybody's little group and trying to figure
myself out and what the hell I was doing. And I also got into
theatre there and fell in love with acting which was a whole
new concept to me. Up to that point I was a kid playing pretend.
In the two years I was in high school, junior and senior years,
I didn't do anything [professionally] until they convinced
me to do the pilot for Dr. Quinn I was on my way to NYU. I
was going to have a whole new life. Study literature or theatre,
and when Dr. Quinn got picked up, it made me make a decision
whether I was going to go to New York--I was literally packing
my bags; I was a week away from moving--or staying here and
doing the show and I chose to stay for a while, thinking the
show would be done in a year. I was surprised it was so successful.
It was a damn Western. Westerns weren't supposed to be successful.
Nobody thought it was ever going to be much.
EDGE:
And here we are six years later. In high school, how did the
other kids react to you?
Chad
Allen: Well
it was weird because when I was 13, 14, 15, I was in teen
magazines all the time. and it was like this "teen magazine"
hell. I grew very, very resentful of the whole thing because
it was all about them telling you,"Here's what your image
is. You're the perfect kid. We're going to make a lot of money
selling this image to young girls across the country--and
for that matter, boys too--who will think that your life is
so great." In reality, what was I? Nothing but a 13-year-old
who's just as fucked up as every other 13-year old across
the country. So, I had a lot of issues with that. And when
I started high school, I was that: I was the teen magazine
guy. Half of the kids followed me around like disciples and
the other half were going to kick my ass. I was determine
to set out and prove myself as ordinary, which is an interesting
thing. I wanted nothing more than to prove that I could just
be a regular guy.
EDGE:
But you liked it?
Chad
Allen: Oh,
yeah, I fucking loved it. By the end of high school I had
such a good experience. And I had done all those things and
I felt like those were my biggest successes. You know going
to prom, being vice president of whatever. That's what I felt
good about. And doing little plays in high school that were
just awful. (grins)
EDGE:
My
Two Dads and Webster were sitcoms. Do you like comedy or drama
better?
Chad
Allen: I
really don't like doing sitcoms much at all. It's just a different
purpose. I was never the guy who mad people laugh anyways.
I was always sort of a straight sidekick. But I love drama.
I lo-o-o-ove drama.
EDGE:
What's next for the future, now that Dr. Quinn is over?
Chad
Allen: Right
now its all about this show, *change at Babylon. I'm producing
it. And figuring out what we're going to do with it. I don't
know. I'm reading a lot of scripts. I'm not particularly anxious
to jump right back into a television situation. I always said
that I never wanted to get bogged down in living "the lifestyle."
It's just all about whatever God has got in store. I'm trying
to figure out my life to figure how that works. Just to try
and not control everything.
EDGE:
Do
you want to do films?
Chad
Allen: Absolutely,
In fact it looks like they're waiting for me to do an independent
feature called Three Boys Named Mario. It's a very small project,
but again, for me it's all about script. I play a pool hall
hustler. A runaway kid who plays pool and hustles for money.
It's a fascinating script about three guys being forced to
confront their darkest demons. My character can't deal with
it and ends up dying from it Do you want to get behind the
scenes more? Do you want to direct? I don't know. I find producing
to be exceedingly satisfying although a tremendous amount
of work. One of my favorite things about doing this was, I
was granted the opportunity to take another young artist's
dreams--Brian-Paul Mendoza--and make it happen. He'd never
been produced before and we're making that happen. And I love
that feeling
EDGE:
So
which do you like doing better? Theatre or TV?
Chad
Allen: Theatre
is my first love, without a doubt.
EDGE:
Why is that?
Chad
Allen:
Without getting to poetic--and you know I'm going to if I
start a sentence with that--I used to have a teacher that
said, "Theatre is life, film is art, television is furniture."
I made my living on television, but it's like, you look at
a painting and a painting affects people when they look at
it. You have that visceral, emotional response to it. In film
and TV, you do the work you give it away to somebody cuts
it together, puts it up like a painting, and they you have
a visceral reaction. In theatre it's all happening at the
same time. I perform it, you watch it, and simultaneously
we experience those emotions together. It's one of the most
amazing things to me that can happen. You know, when my Dad
sat in the audience at Scooter Thomas last year and I made
him cry. I'm up there onstage crying and he's in the audience
crying and we're doing it together. To me, that's just fucking
amazing! I'm amazed by human beings and how we respond emotionally.
That's why I do it.
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