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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN KERWIN

We chatted with Brian Kerwin about his work on REVENGE OF THE MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN, a performance TV Guide deemed "perfect" in its review of the movie this week.

HOW DID YOU PREPARE FOR THE ROLE OF 'NATHAN'?
BK: Preparing for the role of Nathan was primarily introspection. Since his job (newspaper editor) was not really the issue, I was faced with portraying a man struggling with falling out of love with his wife of 25 years. I personally have been married for over 14 years and have very thankfully never been faced with this problem. Thus, I simply had to imagine what it would be like. Sometimes that's all an actor can do--try to answer the question, "What would you do if...?"

WHAT WAS IT LIKE WORKING WITH CHRISTINE LAHTI?
BK: Christine is a delight to work with. She's sweet, and smart, and funny. And maybe most important, she seems to love to work--and that rubs off on everyone.

HAVE YOU HAD YOUR OWN MID-LIFE CRISIS?
BK: Just before I turned fifty I ran my first (and last?) marathon. All my friends said I was having a mid-life crisis--I thought I simply felt like running a marathon. But then I've always felt that my whole life has been one crisis after another. Getting through high school was a crisis. Starting a career as an actor was, and still is, a crisis. Quitting smoking, having kids, moving to New York and buying a house--they all seemed like crisises to me. So I guess when I finally keel over and die, you can just divide the number of years in half, see what I was doing at that age, and that will have been my mid-life crisis.

WHAT DID YOU DO IN L.A. WHEN YOU WEREN'T FILMING?
BK: While filming REVENGE in L.A., I was staying mostly alone at a friend's house in Santa Monica. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I was able to finish up a pet project that I had been working on for some time: sewing a quilt for my son, Finn.

WHAT WAS THE FUNNIEST THING THAT HAPPENED ON THE SET?
BK: All I know is that when we shot the bit in the park where Christine shoves a hot dog in my face--we had to shoot it about 15 times to get it right. That's a lot of hot dogs to have shoved in your face! (The extra playing the hot dog vendor was secretly pocketing all of the squished hot dogs after every take. He said they were for his dog.)