RONNY COX QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

By David Martindale

When casting directors are looking for someone to portray a villain in a business suit, Ronny Cox’s name is often mentioned.

He has played so many governmental and corporate cads over the years – from “RoboCop” to “Stargate SG-1” – he has lost count.  But Cox is fine with that.  “Because usually the good guys,” he says, “aren’t nearly as interesting as the bad guys.”

Still, Cox is also quick to note that variety is the spice of life, which is why he savored returning to his nice-guy roots in “Angel in the Family,” a Hallmark Channel Original holiday movie that puts a “Twilight Zone” twist on a traditional family Christmas drama.

“I’ve done so many bad guys in my career that it’s nice to play a sweet guy now and then,” Cox says.  “But the thing I liked most about this is it’s a really good family movie.  Just the idea of making a good family Christmas story is very appealing to me.”

What did you like most about your character, Buddy, the widower with two grown daughters who are estranged from one another?

The thing I liked about Buddy is that there’s a little bit of pre-Alzheimer’s, if you will, about this character.  I think we need to be aware of the aging process and what that does to some of our citizens.  At the same time, there’s just a hint that he might be exaggerating his condition a bit, so he can manipulate his daughter into getting what he wants.  I think there is a bit of that.  And it made it more interesting to play.  We wrestled with this a bit, because I didn’t want to minimize a disease.  But at the same time, my feeling was, “Let’s give him a little bit of spunk.”

Given that the movie is set at Christmas and all about family, is Christmas an important time in your family?

Yeah, this might sound kind of hokey or phony to a lot of people, but it’s really the biggest time of the year for us.  And we have a family tradition that you can’t give a present unless you wrap it yourself.  And also the thing is not spending very much money; the object is to find the exact thing that that person wants or needs.  A lot of times, it’s better to find something they don’t even know they want or need.  So in our family, people spend the whole year trying to figure out what that thing is.

What’s the best gift that you didn’t know you wanted or needed until you got it?

I’m a singer-songwriter and I’ve been a huge Mickey Newbury fan my whole life.  And both of my sons are musicians as well.  Sometimes they play with me at gigs and stuff.  But one Christmas – and this was when the boys were still in high school – the two of them got together with friends and rented some kind of recording equipment and made some tracks on a cassette of my favorite Mickey Newbury tunes, without a voice track, so I could pop the cassette into the player and play along and sing.  It was like early-on Karaoke, in a way.  They didn’t spend much money on it.  They did it on the cheap.  But it meant an awful lot to me.

How did you like working with the Hallmark Channel?

They were great.  They were terrific.  I was delighted to be working with them.  Their heart’s always in the right place.  And I love the fact that – and I know this is going to sound a little trite – but I love the fact that they make pretty movies.  They spend time making it look right.  Which is sort of the essence of a Hallmark card, if you think about it.  There’s something special about being in a film that you can send as a Christmas card to your relatives.

Is it possible to look back at your career and single out a favorite role or movie or TV show?

Can’t do it.  It’s like picking your favorite child.  Or a favorite parent. “Deliverance” means a lot to me, because it was my first film.  “RoboCop” means a lot to me, because it opened up that whole new bad-guy area of my career.  “Beverly Hills Cop” means a lot to me, because it’s always good to be in a big, huge, money-making film.  I love “Bound for Glory,” the story of Woodie Guthrie.  I love “Onion Field,” which was sort of the breakthrough for Jimmy Woods.  There are so many films that I can talk about that I love for different reasons.  I love the television series called “Cop Rock.”  It was so far ahead of its time.  I loved that show.  It was the only show I’ve ever been in where I went to work every day, whether I was called in or not.  Mainly perhaps because it was like going in and watching a train wreck.

You also have a thriving career as a singer-songwriter, true?

I do about 125 music dates every year.  I mean, I’m a serious singer-songwriter.  These days, they’ve got to beg me pretty hard and pay me lots of money to get me to go act.  But I’ll go play music at the drop of a hat.  And it’s not that I don’t love acting.  But I’ll tell you what music gives me that acting can’t.  In acting, no matter whether it’s a movie, television, a play, you name it, there is – and must be – an imaginary fourth wall between you and the audience.  Well, I’ve had some level of success as an actor but the opiate that brings me back is music.  When music is good, it can be a profound one-on-one sharing with the audience, one in which you shape the audience and the audience shapes your performance mutually.  And that’s an opiate that’s hard to deny.

When you do a live music show, are you often asked to play the “Dueling Banjos” theme from “Deliverance”?

People do demand it and I don’t play it.  Because there’s nothing really that challenging for the guitar to do.  The banjo has all the fun.  So that’s just how it comes down.  Plus, I’m just not into that kind of bluegrass music.  I’m much more into lyric-oriented material.  I do get requests all the time to play “Dueling Banjos” and I always hopefully have a gracious way of getting out of doing it.

- HALLMARK CHANNEL -