Well known to audiophiles, actor James Naughton has read such books as Clive Cussler's "Shock Wave", "Shadow" by Bob Woodward and "The Charm School", by Nelson DeMille. Having worked as an actor for 30 years, he has appeared in such film's as "The First Wives Club," "The Good Mother" and "The Paper Chase." Naughton is now branching out, working as a director and exploring his interests in music.

Recently, James Naughton spoke with Rochelle O'Gorman at the Manhattan studio of Harper Audio, where he was recording "In Her Defense", by Stephen Horn.

Rochelle O'Gorman: I hear you are picky about the projects you will work on.

James Naughton: Good.

O'Gorman: Why is that good?

Naughton: Because I did a lot of crappy material for quite a few years. It was just terrible, slogging through really, really bad writing. Doing these things is difficult enough. It's a lot of concentration over many hours; it's very hard work. So I just thought to be doing something that you have absolutely no respect for - I don't do that with anything else that I do in the rest of my life. I thought, "why am I doing this?"

O'Gorman: And why did you?

Naughton: I have no idea. Someone said, "Hey, you want to read a book on tape?" And I said, "Yeah, okay." So, I did it and I did a bunch of them. I would say to the producers - who are very nice people - at places likke Simon & Schuster or Bantam -- "Wow, this material is really terrible.." They go, "Yeah, but it sells."

I just couldn't spend two or three whole days doing that stuff. I finally just said, "Don't bother to call me any more or offer me any more material unless it's good." I did a couple of things that were so poorly written you'd end up spending a lot of time trying to correct the grammar and the syntax as you're going along in the reading.

O'Gorman: How do you screen it?

Naughton: I've worked with enough people to trust them if they say the material is pretty decent. I'll take a look at it and read the first 50 pages of the book.

The people I worked with, the producers, are all wonderfully bright, erudite, sophisticated, interesting people. Much more interesting than the material we're working on, in many cases. Both here (at Harper) and at the other places. I enjoy working with them and talking with them.

Anyway, I just wish I'd said it years ago. It blows your voice out and your eyes are swimming and you're staring at the pages and you've got to try to differentiate among the different characters. If you're doing interesting material it makes spending two days doing that an education.

O'Gorman: How is your approach to an audio job different from other acting jobs?

Naughton: I don't take the same kind of preparation. I guess there's some people who do. In fact, I ran into an actor who told me that he worked very hard and prepared very hard when he did one of these things and I just don't have the time. We started doing this on Friday. I finished shooting a movie on Wednesday in Phoenix, Arizona, with Stockard Channing. I got home Thursday night and was in here on Friday morning. I had read the book; I can't imagine doing it without having read the material beforehand. But basically it's kind of seat of the pants. You're looking at this stuff and coming up with ideas for the different characters' voices on the spot, pretty much.

O'Gorman: The producers provide guidelines, do they not?

Naughton: Yeah, sure. They have a list of the characters and a little thumbnail sketch of some of the guys. In this book, for instance, there are several Irish characters and then there's a judge and several different lawyers and a lot of different witnesses and a CIA agent. One guy might be a Chuck Yeager-ish, kind of southwestern, twangy guy.

O'Gorman: Do you attempt different accents, an Irish brogue, a Scottish burr?

Naughton: Some people are wonderfully facile at it. I don't claim to be. But, I've got a couple of different Irish accents in here, a guy and a woman. Doing women can be really difficult. Basically, I'll just try to soften it a little bit.

O'Gorman: What else do you do to create a vocal persona?

Naughton: I try to think of a little something to hang the character on, maybe just a suggestion of a regional accent. I'm not going to try to knock you over with the fact that there are 48 different characters here. It's me reading the story. It's my voice that usually is the protagonist in the story and the narrator is frequently the protagonist. What I'll do is not try to draw attention to the fact that I'm reading a different character. The other guy might be someone who just is a little bit harder edged, and maybe he's got kind of a sort of a regional sort of thing going on and then the young fellow might be kind of an eager guy. But, it's within a range.

O'Gorman: What books to you prefer to record?

Naughton: Frankly, I like non-fiction.

O'Gorman: Such as . . .

Naughton: "The Shadow" was interesting. I also did a biography of Abraham Lincoln maybe four or five years ago ("Lincoln," by David Herbert Donald). I'd love to do books on Roosevelt or Kennedy or Churchill or any of that kind of stuff. I'm interested in politics and history and studied them somewhat and thought that's what I was going to be doing when I was in college.

O'Gorman: Why didn't you?

Naughton: I was for a very brief moment an international relations major - which was political science, history, and economics. And then I took an economics course, and that was the end of that.

O'Gorman: You don't like recording poorly written material, but what about violent material? I find that violent stories are much harsher to hear than to read.

Naughton: That's interesting. Yeah, that's true. Well, in a way it's probably harsher because it's not as private. Someone else is saying this stuff to you and all of a sudden it's the material and you and another person who is trying to embody, I guess, all the violence. I hadn't thought about that, but I guess you're right.

O'Gorman: In another vein, I understand you are directing these days.

Naughton: I directed "The Price" at the Willimanstown Theatre Festival (in Massachusetts) last summer. It is on Broadway right now.

O'Gorman: Do you prefer acting or directing?

Naughton: I think I prefer to direct these days. I've acted for 30 years as a pro. That's a lot. The directing thing is really interesting, stimulating. And you don't have to memorize and you don't have to do it eight times a week.

O'Gorman: What about the responsibility that goes with being in charge. It's a lot of pressure.

Naughton: I don't find I have a problem with it. I hadn't directed until about three or four years ago. The first time I directed was "Filumena," (written by Eduardo de Filippo) up at Williamstown. And I didn't know whether I'd be any good at it. Or if I'd like it, or if I'd be bored to death sitting in the chair, watching the actors rehearse. Or if I'd be able to say the the right stuff to them, stuff that might be helpful or illuminating, or if I'd be able to let them have it, let it go, or if I'd natter them to death with little niggling details.

O'Gorman: How did it go?

Naughton: I loved it! I found that the day when flying by. And I didn't natter at them and I didn't micromanage them and I was given to understand right away by the actors that it was something that I should do again. They thought I was very good at it.

O'Gorman: Do you want to try your hand at directing films?

Naughton: Yeah, sure.

O'Gorman: Do you think you can go from the theater to film? It's quite different.

Naughton: Of course, one doesn't know until you do it, but it's basically storytelling. Only on film you have more tools to tell the story with.

O'Gorman: Don't you have a band?

Naughton: I put together this musical evening - me and a band - which I did last year for 10 weeks, which Mike Nichols presented at the Promenade Theater (in NYC). The concert is called Street of Dreams and it's the show that I wrote and conceived and kind of put together with a musical director. We have a band, a five-piece band.

O'Gorman: Can you sing?

Naughton: Yeah. I sing and the band plays.

O'Gorman: So, what's it about?

Naughton: Well, it's about me singing with a band.

O'Gorman: Does it have a plot?

Naughton: It's eclectic; lots of different kinds of music. Duke Ellington, Hoagy Carmichael, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mandel, Hank Snow, an Elvis Presley tune, the Mills Brothers.

O'Gorman: Was this something you've always wanted to do?

Naughton: Yes, and I finally put it together after talking about it for 25 years. It's been really terrific. Actors are pretty much passive. We sit around waiting for our agents to call and get us an audition. As soon as I directed "Filumena" for the first time, it somehow enabled me to be an initiator.

O'Gorman: You've been in show business for three decades. Of which project are you most proud?

Naughton: I guess I'm most proud of my family. My kids are both in the business, and they're great kids.

O'Gorman: That's a nice answer.

Naughton: Unlike some people, I've always felt that my career was a part of my life, and not my life. That's always helped me keep things in perspective.

O'Gorman: Let me rephrase. What part of your career makes you glow when you think about it?

Naughton: Well, maybe this production of "The Price" which was always a kind of under appreciated play of Arthur Miller's. And, I'm told that we got it right for the first time. It was done in 1968, on Broadway, and a lot of people who saw that, who are seeing what we did, including Arthur, feel that it was never done as well as this was done. And I guess I'm proudest of that. It's the product of 30 years of working in the business. I'm actually an intuitive actor and director; I follow a gut instinct. I think my gut instinct was right about this. Doesn't mean it always is, but....

Rochelle O'Gorman has been an entertainment critic for 17 years. She has covered movies, video, books and theater before finding her niche in audiobooks. Turning in her crown as queen of the B movies, she happily exchanged bad Mexican vampire flicks for her true love: literature. She listens to about 200 audiobooks a year as she cooks, showers, weaves, exercises and drives. Her biggest fear is that she will still hear voices once she turns off her tape player.

O'Gorman's audiobook reviews can be found in the Boston Globe, New York Post, L.A. Times, Oregonian, Seattle Times, Hartford Courant and Book magazine. She still reviews videos for Pulse! magazine and is a chief contributor to the Video Movie Guide, a yearly compendium. She and two insane cats share the hayloft of a 200-year-old barn on the East Coast.