Patrick Richwood Interview (Part 2 of 2)
The Rabbit costume is pretty awesome.
It is, isn't it? Ron Wild did the make-up, and his wife Karen. He designed it and Tish was the hair gal. They had a little crew of people. I had a dresser who was on set just for me to hold up a fan and water bottle, like between every take. But the teeth were glued in and the whiskers in my make-up were made of stripped feather bones. They did the prosthetic pieces and then they painted them, and then they corn-rowed my hair to secure the head piece. After they painted everything, which took forever, I'd dress and they'd put the head on.. I would get dressed in the muscle suit which was this white spandex thing with rabbit ponches that went into these pockets and zipped up. Then I'd go back in and they'd finish up and put on the head. They wouldn't glue the teeth on until we got to the set. Then the ears and everything and the head would go one. Then they would glue eleven pieces of yak hair- they had eleven pieces that were designed to be put on my make-up to make it look like hair growing out of it. They were made out of yak hair because it's the whitest you can get, so it was beautiful and soft and white, and they'd glue those on with spirit gum on top of the make-up. And the eyebrows, and everything. Then I'd go and get the fursuit on over the muscles, with the help of my dresser. Then, over that, would go the Rabbit clothes, like the vest and the rollerblades and the knee pads and all that stuff. The gloves didn't come off because they were underneath the wrist-guards, so you couldn't use your hands. You had to be handed stuff. It was really hard!
Rabbit's hands still seem pretty dexterous to me.
They were easy to make my hands move in, but they weren't so easy to eat with. Unless it was in the show, I couldn't just pick up food and eat on the side-table. I lost a lot of weight! I'm only about 140 as it is; I'm skinny.
*chuckle* One time I passed out from the heat exhaustion, we were doing a jitterbug number and all of a sudden I went down. I mean I got down flat on the floor and passed out. I woke up like a second later. I was lying face up, and they had my roller blades off, and they were cutting me out of the suit. And Patti, dear Patti Columbo the choreographer, was leaning over my face patting my tummy going "Patrick! Patrick, look at me! Are you alright?!" And they were going to call an ambulance, and the paramedics had to come... but I said "Patti?" And she said "yes?" while she was rubbing my stomach, and I said "I can't feel that." Because she was rubbing the belly of the Rabbit! We started laughing. People tend to forget that underneath this rabbit creature was a 130lb skinny dude.
Did she keep rubbing your tummy anyway?
No~ Everybody laughed.
I would have.
One of the things I find fun is when I meet people in their early 20's and they see in my resume if I'm working with them, they get really reverent 'cause I'm the Rabbit. And then they're like "I thought you were taller." "I thought you were older!" "I thought you were English!" It's such a funny thing, the world of pretend.
My mom came on to the set one time. The first time she came on to the set, honestly, she wouldn't have recognized me if she hadn't known the character I was playing. There's no way anyone would recognize me except for the voice, and if they really knew your eyes. It's just such a trip.
Rabbit and Hare have what I like to call "bunny tension", because they get on each other's nerves a lot. Were you conscious of this, were you inspired by it, and did you and Reece have a similar or different relationship?
Reece was great! He and I never got to really work super-together. Reece goes about his work in a different way than I do. I'm a little more loosy-goosy and he is just very professional and extremely efficient, like he will really always be right there for everyone, he really really will. I'm a little more like off doing my own thing. Reece was a great example to me; a constant source of inspiration to me of how professional you could be under the most difficult circumstances, because he had crappy make-up to deal with too. His head was not a head; it was a big wig with these ears, so he had a head-ache every day. They corn-rowed his hair and they'd pin this thing in so tightly so he could move around and his ears could flap around and such. It took something to keep that sucker on, and Reece would go "tighter, no, go ahead, do what you need to do, have it work." He was just like that.
But we didn't really get ridiculously close, but, like I said, everybody had a hard job ahead of them. But I love him; I actually really admire and respect him.
The thing that happened with the animosity between the Rabbit and the Hare -- I think it started with me putting it in just for fun. I started to have the Rabbit be kind of snobby, but also just over everybody. He was over the Queen, he just couldn't say so. He loved everybody, everybody loved everybody, but Rabbit was just always over them; he was over the Hatter, he was over everybody except Alice. I kind of like that. I liked that the Rabbit was always just like "aghh, God..." "Screw these people."
The Mad Hatter was mad, so you couldn't really blame him, but the Hare was just obnoxious, so you could have fun with that, and Reece would play it like "GHGOHGOHAGHA"! So it was great always being able to react to that. Basically, he set me up to react. One of the things about acting is when you strike gold, or you sort of hit something that feels just right, even though you didn't plan it, it just sort of happens. You unconsciously go "yep, uhuh, that's good. That's a good fit right there, let's keep that going."
I imagine the actors would inspire the writers a lot as the show went on.
That happened a lot with John. Yeah, actually, they happened with all of us. They got inspired by the way we were playing the roles and they got incentive based on what we were bringing that they hadn't thought of. There were episodes that we all loved that were special to everyone, I think because they were special on their own. Like, when we did the Christmas episode, that was special; that was the first time we had Wonderland depicted at night, and it was the one where it snows. We just knew that that was going to be special. It was going to be aired at night, and kids were going to want to see it. Even though it was Christmas, and it didn't embrace other traditions, and it didn't do all that stuff, which I had a problem with at the time, I still felt like "it's special. It's beautiful what we made."
Same with the Halloween episode, which was the last episode we shot, ever. It had different horror film spoofs, so the Queen had the Phantom of the Palace, and the Hare turned into a Werehare, and the Mad Hatter was the Phantom. And we were telling ghost stories around the campfire... It was sort of fun to have it be magical like that. It remains really special to me.
And we played a lot of tricks on each other, and goofed around a lot, and made fun of each other. Sometimes we got into tiffs with each other, like you do when you're working, and sometimes we didn't. Sometimes someone was in a bad mood and you gave them their space and let them do their job. If someone was dealing with something at home, the show would sort of be healing for them. It really provided something for all of us for two years. Now it's so rewarding when people go "I grew up with that show." You tend to forget; you go on to the next job and you do your next thing... I've never even seen all of [the episodes]. There are 100, one is never going to be aired... When we shot [the episode with O.J. Simpson], nothing had happened. In fact, I have really fun memories of us being really goofy with him... but O.J. Simpson on the show - what's going on?! But that was obviously never going to air.
Besides that episode, I've seen maybe 60 of them. Most of those are the ones that were earlier shot. The show gets better as it gets later in the production schedule. Like the Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum costumes get changed up so they're less dated. Before they were looking like MC Hammer with the chains and the harem pants and all that stuff. Then the company got wise and said "you guys, this is bad; we're dating ourselves. If we do this, we can never rerun the show." So part of the strategy was to have everything that Alice wore be sort of generic and generally speaking blue, because that way it had a possibility for a life, but they never did rerun them.
I don't know why they didn't.
I think it's because of the first 40 or 50 episodes - the Tweedles are really dated. You can pinpoint them to the early 90's. If they had made them a little more fantastical, they could've gotten away with it, but they made them kind of topical. They wanted the Tweedles to be really modern and hip. My biggest complaint probably with the show was that the Tweedles were really left behind, I think. They could've had really clever dialogue. Personally, I think they should've always spoken in rhyme, and I think they could've had some really great great great things. Also, they didn't look alike, so I always thought that was odd. I don't know which one I would've wanted them to look like because I love them both, but they didn't look anything alike but they were supposed to be like "brothers! The same!" Always dress the same and everything, so that was odd. I just felt like the production company's choices about Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee didn't work. That was my biggest complaint with the show. I have no idea, I might be making this up, but it seems like they got left behind because there were so many more things that could've been explored with those two. They could've really been allies to Alice. They could've really paid more attention to the Tweedle characters and had them fleshed out. When I say everybody got a lot out of the show, I'm not in any way excluding them. They both have said to me all the great things they got out of it, but when I look at it creatively, I think it's one of the reasons why it's never been rerun, because the Tweedles look dated and they couldn't really find a way to justify that. That's my theory.
It'd be great if they would rerun it. I think it'd be wonderful. I think the show still works and everything as far as I can tell. But they're always making new, and that's good, and Alice in Wonderland will never go out of style. They'll do another version of it.
I think all of us probably feel really proud of the show. I can't speak for everybody, but I know Armelia feels really proud of the show, and John, and I certainly do. Whether they rerun it or not, or if I see all of them or not, I'm really proud of them. I think they really provided something for kids, and I think they provide something for adults. You're an example of that; you found something special.
If it resonates with you, sometimes that's life. It's kind of great. It sparks your imagination, and makes you creative, and that's what it's about. You can't be too creative, not in this world. We need it; the planet needs creative. The planet needs creative and it needs it now. Be creative if you can be, that's my two cents.
Some people, but not me, at all, think that the Rabbit and the Queen have dating potential. What do you think about this?
You mean together? Nahh. No. Rabbit's too paternal to the Queen; Rabbit takes care of the Queen. And you know he's like 70 years old. Also, I think the Rabbit is completely asexual. I mean he gets crushes on the lady bunnies every now and then, but I think that's just in there for comedy. The general feeling of that character, I think, is sort of a non-sexual. His archetypal purpose is...he's the butler, basically. He sees all, knows all, and facilitates everything. And he'd throw himself in front of a truck for the Queen, like he lives for her. But it's not like that. It's more like... protector.
He gets annoyed with her like everybody gets annoyed with people they love, and he thinks she's full of it sometimes, but so is he. They're both complete chuckleheads when scary things happen. Rabbit always jumps into the Queen's arms, dives under the covers in her bed... I think it's like that. That's my view of it anyway. But I think that's funny! I thought you were going to say the Rabbit and the Hare.
No~! Hare has someone else.
Yes, exactly! Yeah, that's interesting, the apple of his eye is the Hatter. With Rabbit, the apple of his eye is the Queen, but it never occurred to me that way. I think of Armelia as my sister. As far as working with her, she is like my sister. We're very close, and she's an amazing woman, and I really admire her, and she's a source of a lot of inspiration for me. I've been able to source her as well. I'm so grateful she's in my life.
It's good to know that given how intimidating she can be to Rabbit on camera!
She's the sweetest, dearest person in the world. Armelia is gold, and everyone on the show will tell you that. There isn't a person on the show, I can guarantee you, who won't say they were in love with Armelia. She's just the best. Everyone was great, but I really got to bond with her, because, like I said, we were mostly together. I would say the two people I bonded with the most on that show are Armelia and Wesley. Wesley because he had the time when I was done, because he wasn't shooting that much, and Armelia because I worked with her. And her last name being McQueen and all, I called her Queen and she calls me Rabbit. To this day if I call her and say "Queenieee~" she says "RABBITTT." She lives in L.A. and I live in New York, but we talk. We talk a lot. And of course I see her whenever I'm there, or she sees me when she's here. She was just here to audition for some Broadway thing. You know her history, right, that she's kind of a Broadway legend?
She was in the original cast of Ain't Misbehavin' which won all of the Tony awards that year and kind of became the little chip engine that could, that show. Ken Page was in the ensemble too, and Ken was our Walrus. Armelia brought him on for that. And Ken is a Broadway legend too. The production company liked using theatre people. All of us were theatre people. Reece has the most beautiful, most magnificent kind of voice you've ever heard. He's really a baritone I guess, but he can soar up there in those notes. If he sang and you closed your eyes, you'd never in a catrillion years guess that it was the March Hare. The voice he did in the show was really something.
I saw him as Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera right after it opened in New York, and he was the romantic hero, and I saw him as Marius in Les Miserables which was the first national tour, and he was all those romantic guys in those musicals.
I guess he got a little tired of being perfect and wanted to don the suspenders.
*chuckle* I'll have to ask him!