Actor Stephen Root on Barry, Office Space and more

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

NPR

Society & Culture

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2019

⏱️ 32 minutes

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Summary

Has Stphen Root, the actor, had a million parts? It's not a million, right? Ok. It's 236. Still: wow! Root is is the kind of character actor that can take even the most basic, dreary TV show or movie and light it up. One or two scenes with Stephen in it, say a by the book police procedural or a saccharine sitcom, and that's all you'll talk about. He'll joins us to discuss some of his most memorable roles: He'll tell us why his voiceover role in "King of the Hill" was one of his favorite gigs. Plus, he'll tell us how he got the part in his most recent project HBO's "Barry," and how he helped flesh out his character's role.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.
0:13.2	I'm Jesse Thorn, it's Bullseye.
0:22.5	Steven Roots the kind of character actor.
0:24.3	You take even the most basic dreary TV show or movie and light it up.
0:29.7	It doesn't even take that much.
0:31.5	One or two scenes with Steven in it, you know, like a, say it's a police procedural or
0:37.2	a regular kind of saccharine sitcom.
0:40.1	And all of a sudden it's really something.
0:42.3	It's an amazing talent to have.
0:45.9	Lucky for us, Root works in a lot of acclaimed films and TV shows too.
0:50.5	News radio, he played billionaire Jimmy James.
0:53.8	Man so nice, they named him twice.
0:56.2	Office space, he was the meek mumbling, stapler obsessed Milton.
1:01.3	On HBO's Barry, he plays fuchs, the hit man's screw ball boss, who also maybe is evil.
1:08.7	It goes on.
1:09.7	He's in King of the Hill, get out, O'Brotherwear, Art thou.
1:13.7	He's even on Star Trek, the next generation one time.
1:17.0	But before we kick off my interview with him, I want to talk about one of those scenes
1:20.7	that I mean, I guess it just, it's just a perfect illustration of how brilliant he is.
1:24.7	It's from the Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the recent film by the Cohen Brothers.
1:30.0	It's basically six short films set in the Old West.
1:34.0	Steven stars in the second one alongside James Franco.
	...

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