Bronson Pinchot Dishes the Dirt

Posted by KAT in Perfect Strangers

October 21st, 2009, 03:28 PM

Perfect Strangers: Bronson Pinchot as Balki Bartokomous

Yo Perfect Strangers fans!  Did you know Balki Bartokomous was a huge shizz talker?

The Onion’s AV Club put out a long article with the loveable Bronson Pinchot, in which he spills the dirt on everyone from Tom Cruise to Denzel Washington.  Check out all the juicy deets:

On Risky Business and Tom Cruise:
We didn’t know it was going to be a big hit. We thought Tom [Cruise] was the biggest bore on the face of the Earth. He had spent some formative time with Sean Penn—we were all very young at the time, Tom was 20, I was 23. Tom had picked up this knack of calling everyone by their character names, because that would probably make your performance better, and I don’t agree with that. I think that acting is acting, and the rest of the time, you should be you, but he called us all by our character names. He was tense and made constant, constant unrelated homophobic comments, like, “You want some ice cream, in case there are no gay people there?” I mean, his lingo was larded with the most… There was no basis for it. It was like, “It’s a nice day, I’m glad there are no gay people standing here.” Very, very strange.

On Denzel Washington:
It’s just a different kind of animal, like a racing greyhound versus a mutt that sits in your lap. I guess I’m a mutt that sits in your lap. I don’t know what that is, but I’ve seen it many times. I think Denzel Washington has it—he’s one of the most unpleasant human beings I’ve ever met in my life, but he’s this mega-superstar.

He was really abusive to me and everybody on that movie, and his official explanation was that his character didn’t like me, but it was a dreadful experience. I spent my salary on time with my shrink just for helping me get through it, and what that led to was the very next big movie that I did. I should have said to the producers, “You get that guy in line, or I’m out of here.” Life’s too short.

On Tom Hanks:
He is a wonderful and genuine and lovely and down-to-earth person. I don’t know how he does that. I first met him when he was doing his spate of not-successful movies. There was a period in the ’80s when he did The Man With One Red Shoe and Joe Versus The Volcano and all those movies that weren’t doing well, and that’s when I first met him, and I would run into him on and off over the years. Then two years ago, I did a play with his wife, and there he was at his absolute height. He’s always been a delightful person, so it’s not really true that big stars need to be driven and repulsive, because he’s anything but.

Wow!  I coulda called Tom Cruise being crazy (who wouldn’t?) but Denzel?  My mind has been blown.

Read the interview in full.  You won’t be disappointed.

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