Tom Sizemore Talks ‘Barbee Rehab,’ Working With Kathryn Bigelow, And Hanging Out With Princess Diana

Tom Sizemore started his onscreen acting career in the late ‘80s, and while he started out playing characters with such less-than-specific names as “Mugger #2” and “Wool Hat,” it didn’t take him long to graduate to significant supporting roles in such films as Born on the Fourth of July, Strange Days, and Saving Private Ryan. Although Sizemore spent some time battling personal demons, he’s since bounced back, doing so with enough of a sense of humor that he’s now starring in Barbee Rehab, a comedy series which actually revolves around rehab. Mind you, it’s a very different type of rehab than the one he once experienced firsthand, but… Well, we’ll let him tell you about it. In addition, he also took the time to regale Decider with stories about his obsession with Taxi Driver, convincing Carl Franklin to cast him in Devil in a Blue Dress, and the time Princess Diana visited the set of one of his films.

DECIDER: My first question about Barbee Rehab – which I was able to watch in advance of chatting with you, thankfully – is how you found your way into the project in the first place. Did they reach out to you?

Yeah, Vanessa [Bednar] and Derek [S. Orr] both got a hold of me – they’re producing it together – and I met with them, and that was it. Very simple.

They should all be that easy.

No kidding!

So how was the experience of doing it? You’re not necessarily a guy known for the comedy in your back catalog. Did you enjoy having a chance to spread your wings on that front?

Yeah, I did. I did a lot of comedy when I was a younger actor in the theater, but my movie career… It wasn’t something that predominated at all, and I’ve always wanted to do it, so this was a good opportunity. And it was fun. It was more like sketch comedy. It was cool.

That’s actually how it struck me: interconnected sketches.

Yeah, that’s what they intended it to be.

Was there any hesitancy on your part about playing the whole rehab thing, given your history with it? 

There was some, but it was so goofy and so not like rehab that I got over it. [Laughs.] Plus, it wasn’t about drugs. It’s about obsessions and compulsions and…Barbees!

Had you ever worked with anyone else in the cast before?

Yeah, I’d worked with Bai Ling before, and…I’d never worked with Janice [Dickinson] before, but we were good friends. 

I think you and Janice share as much screen time together as anyone.

Yeah, she’s terrific in the show, and she’s been a great friend of mine for years.

As far as doing comedy goes, I actually interviewed Barry Sonnenfeld a few months ago, and he mentioned working with you on Big Trouble. 

Oh, I was really funny in that, wasn’t I?

You were, but he said that on the first day, he gave you the most important rule: “Don’t play the comedy, play the reality.”

Yeah, that’s what Barry’s like. “Play it straightforward.” 

He said he assured you, “Play the reality, and it will be funny.”

And it was! Barry’s terrific. And he was right: you’ve got to play it for what it’s worth and don’t think about it being funny. If it’s funny, it’ll be funny.

In the case of Barbee Rehab, it’s definitely a concept that’s larger than life. 

Oh, yeah. [Laughs.]

How much of it was ad-libbed on your part? Because there are definitely some voiceover moments where you’re reacting to things where it sounds like you’re riffing.

I’d say 70% scripted, 30% off the cuff. I’ve always been good at improvising, but…not too much. It’s got to come out of the work. I like having a template first rather than total improv.

You mentioned how you’d done comedy in the theater when you were younger. How did you find your way into acting in the first place?

I was a young kid in Detroit, and I fell in love with movies. My mom was a big movie buff in the late ’60s and early ’70s, and she would take us kids every Saturday to the triple feature at the Six Mile Theater. And there was a TV station in Detroit – Channel 50 – and every Tuesday and Thursday, I think it was, they’d have a classic movie on. The first time I was really, like, “Wow, what is this?” was The Wizard of Oz. I was blown away by The Wizard of Oz, and when it was over, I asked my mom, “The next time they show this, is there any way I can be in it?” I didn’t know what a movie was. I thought they were just doing it right there! [Laughs.] She thought it was funny, and she explained what a movie was and when they’d originally made it, and I was just blown away. I was, like, “Where are all these people now?” She said, “Well, most of ’em are dead!”

But from there I started watching movies with my mom every week, and when we saw a movie called Beckett, with Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton, I guess I was probably 11 or 12, and…I didn’t understand the movie so much as I got that the relationship between Burton and O’Toole was special, and I got into the drama of that. And then a few years later, when I was 14, I saw Taxi Driver. And that was the first time I remember wanting to know who the actor was, who the person was playing this part. I was so taken with the Travis Bickle character that I wanted to know, “Who’s the guy doing this?” And I got obsessed with it. I saw that movie every week for, like, two months when it was playing in the theater. I saw it eleven weeks in a row. That’s when I first started thinking, “Whatever that is they’re doing up there, I want to be part of it. I want to do that.” And I started to figure out how to become an actor, and I started doing some investigating, and my mother helped me.

So it must’ve literally been a dream come true for you to actually get to work with De Niro later in your career.

Yeah, it was. And I got real close to him. Extremely close. We’re still friendly. So, yeah, it was a dream come true. It was a trip. I had his poster on my wall for ten years!

When I told people I was going to be talking to you, I had a bunch of requests for things they wanted me to ask you about. One in particular was the experience of working with David Lynch on Twin Peaks: The Return.

Oh, I can’t say enough nice things about that guy. He was so unique. He thinks outside the box. He’s so inclusive. He’s just a unique intellectual and filmic wizard, and he has his own specific take on movies and life in general. I loved working with him. I’d do anything for him. He was great. It was a great experience. 

Your scenes with Dougie were particularly great.

[Bursts out laughing.] Kyle [MacLachlan] is something else in that show, isn’t he? I mean, he’s doing that part since…1990, right? And then we did that, what, five years ago? But he was just – bam! – Dougie. He was just terrific. It was a great character he created.

I’ve since re-watched that season three times, and I appreciated it so much more on second viewing because I spent so much of the first viewing waiting to see Agent Cooper pop back up. But the whole thing opened up so much more when I watched it again, and I could better appreciate his various performances.

It’s good, isn’t it? And I agree with you: it’s better when you watch it a second and third time. Definitely.

They haven’t yet released it on DVD, unfortunately, but some kind soul has uploaded Robbery Homicide Division to YouTube.

Isn’t that a great show?

It really is. It doesn’t even remotely feel like a CBS show. It feels very ahead of its time. It’s darker than I was expecting.

Yeah, that was a great show, man. Michael [Mann] and I had a great time doing that. It’s my favorite job I’ve ever had.

I’ll be honest: I could absolutely see that show getting a second life. Just start it up again, same characters, 20 years later.

That’d be great, wouldn’t it? And it could easily be done. In fact, I’m going to suggest it to Michael!

I know when you first worked with her, but how did you first cross paths with Kathryn Bigelow?

Funny you should mention that, because she’s doing a movie about the Detroit City Riots, and I was born and raised in Detroit, so I’m going to talk to her the week after next. [Ed. Note: Kathryn Bigelow’s feature film about the Detroit riots, Detroit, was released in 2017.] I met Kathryn… Actually, my first bona fide movie audition was for Blue Steel, a movie she did with Jamie Lee Curtis, Clancy Brown, and myself. I was going to be going in to meet Oliver Stone for Born on the Fourth of July, but he was producing Blue Steel, and the Blue Steel thing happened first. 

So I went in and met Kathryn, and she had me come back a couple of days later, and I read that one scene with Wool Cap. That was the character’s name, because I had a wool cap on. [Laughs.] And we hit it off. So I did that, I did an unbilled cameo in Point Break where I played DEA Agent Deetz, and then Strange Days, which was a great movie but just didn’t get seen because we opened the same week as Se7en. Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman… A colossal success. We just got blown away by that, and nobody saw Strange Days. But I think it’s a gem.

It is. And it’s still a well-remembered cult film. 

Yeah! And she’s done a couple of movies since then that I wasn’t right for, but she’s a great filmmaker. 

I’m sure you can’t talk enough about the experience of doing Saving Private Ryan. Talk about a great film.

As good as the movie was, the experience was just as good. It was just a great experience. We worked… I think it was 58 days of principal photography, and we had a boot camp before that and a two-week rehearsal period, so it was five weeks prior to the movie. And we’re all together, shooting in Ireland and outside of London. It’s Steven Spielberg and Tom [Hanks], who I thought was in his prime peak as an actor and physically as well. It was a terrific experience.

The only bad thing was that it was the summer that Princess Diana died, right at the end of production. She had actually been to the set to visit a few weeks before that. She was luminous. Just wondrous. And I was at my then-wife’s brother’s house in Ireland, outside of Dublin, when we got the news that she’d died. It was really a bummer for all of us on the movie, and then we still had two or three weeks to go. But outside of that, it was just a great experience. One of the seminal experiences in my life.

How did I never know that Princess Diana visited the set of Saving Private Ryan?

Yeah, she was in and out, but she came to say “hello.” She was friendly with Steven and Tom. They went the funeral. They were there when Elton John sang “Candle in the Wind.”

This will probably be the most obscure thing I ask you about, but one of our readers asked, “Does he remember anything at all about doing Penn and Teller Get Killed?”

[Laughs.] I did that with…a guy I just worked with again recently! He was Mugger #1, I was Mugger #2. You know Robert LaSardo? Guy who’s got tattoos everywhere?

Absolutely.

Yeah, I just worked with him two weeks ago. But Penn and Teller Get Killed, that was actually my very first movie, the very first time I appeared onscreen. I just remember they said, “You’re gonna meet your costar on the corner of 42nd and 11th Avenue.” We were gonna get picked up to drive out to New Jersey. They said, “You can’t miss him: he’s tattooed from neck to feet.” And here came this guy with shorts on…and damned if he wasn’t! And…who’s the one who doesn’t talk?

Teller.

He was terrific. And he talks. [Laughs.] I saw their show on Broadway, actually, before I even knew they were going to make a movie, and they were both really terrific. But Teller in particular was a really nice guy.

What do you remember about Arthur Penn? I know it was the last film he ever directed.

I know I talked to him about Bonnie and Clyde.

How could you not?

Right? I had to. He directed it! He told me all these stories about Warren [Beatty]. He was an oracle on the young Warren. Young Warren was busy! 

That’s the word on the street.

Busy collecting data. [Laughs.] I ended up becoming friendly with Warren later and told him about talking to Arthur. I just said, “Wow…”

Do you have a favorite project you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

Yeah, I do. It’s called The Last Lullaby. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever done. It was with me and Sasha Alexander.

What do you remember about the experience of making Devil with a Blue Dress? That’s another one of those films that became a bigger cult hit than an initial box office success.

I had a great time doing that movie. I read the script… A friend of mine, John McGinley, had the script, and he said, “You need to read this.” So I read it, and the character that I played – Dewitt Albright – was described as a 55-year-old Southern gentleman. I called my agent and told them I was interested in this character, and they said, “They’re gonna go with an older person than Denzel!” I said, “I can do this role. I can’t do it like that. But I have an idea about how to play this part.” So they said, “We’ll call.” And they called, and I was initially shot down. They were, like, “We love him, but…he’s 31 years old! It’s a 55-year-old guy!” 

So they were gonna hire Harvey Keitel. In fact, they did hire him. But it didn’t work. The deal didn’t come together. So they opened it up a little bit, and they called and said, “Carl Franklin will see Tom, but on the downlow, it’s not gonna work. But if he wants to come in here…” I’m, like, “Well, I don’t want to go if they’re already saying it’s not gonna work!” They said, “No, go in. But you’ve got to blow ’em away!” So what I did was, I went to Western Costumes with this friend of mine who’s a costume designer, and we got… Well, the outfit I wear in the movie, basically! So I went to the meeting, I was off-book, I walked in like I was really doing the scene, I came in and didn’t say “hi” to anybody, just walked in and did the two scenes – bang, bang – and left. And by the time I got back to my condo, I had the role.

Nice.

Isn’t that a trip? And it was a great experience, too. Carl’s a great direction, and Denzel was also in his prime. Don Cheadle’s first big movie, and he was great in it. Yeah, it was great, man.

To bring it back to Barbee Rehab to close, if the series takes off, are you all in on doing another season?

Oh, yeah. Definitely. I like these people! [Laughs.] 

Barbee Rehab is now available to stream on Tubi.

Will Harris (@NonStopPop) has a longstanding history of doing long-form interviews with random pop culture figures for the A.V. Club, Vulture, and a variety of other outlets, including Variety. He’s currently working on a book with David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. (And don’t call him Shirley.)