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THE ARTIST is a new miniseries that has its premiere on Thursday, November 27, on the new and free streaming platform thenetwork.stream. Created, written and directed by Aram Rappaport (who also founded thenetwork.stream), THE ARTIST combines historical figures and fictional characters in the first decade of the twentieth century. We know at the outset that wealthy Norman Henry, played by Mandy Patinkin, is murdered at a party in his upstate New York mansion. The story, shown largely in flashback, is narrated by Henry’s aggrieved wife Marian (Janet McTeer). Their social circle includes the inventor Thomas Edison (Hank Azaria), the French painter Edgar Degas (Danny Huston), and young celebrity Evelyn Nesbit (Ever Anderson), whose jealous husband (Clark Gregg) has just publicly shot and killed Evelyn’s ex.

Patinkin won an Emmy for his lead performance on the medical drama CHICAGO HOPE and was nominated for four out of the eight years he spent on HOMELAND. On the big screen, Patinkin has starred in RAGTIME, DANIEL, ALIEN NATION and, perhaps most indelibly, THE PRINCESS BRIDE (“My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die”).

On Broadway, Patinkin is a famed musical performer, a Tony winner for playing Che Guevara in EVITA, nominated twice more for SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE and THE WILD PARTY, and the star of many “in concert” shows, including one with fellow THE ARTIST performer Patti LuPone.

When Patinkin gets on a Zoom call the talk about THE ARTIST, it sounds like nothing could make him happier than discussing the project – except maybe for his experience of making it.

Asked what initially appealed to him about THE ARTIST, Patinkin explains that when the scripts for the first two episodes were sent to him, “I didn’t understand them. Then my manager Iris [Grossman] sent me a note from Aram Rappaport, explaining to me that it was a Russian comedy that had to be played not for comedy, but for reality. And then I reread everything and I went, ‘Oh, wow, now I get this thing. This is really interesting.’ It was really out of the box and something that I found very unusual.”

Not being familiar with Rappaport, Patinkin continues, “I asked him if he could meet with me. He came right over, and we had this extraordinary meeting, and then we had a couple more. I told him right off the bat that ‘I’m in.’”

As with most new projects, “There were some questions I had, some things that I wasn’t comfortable with, and he was completely open to adjusting them and making me comfortable and I quickly realized that I was in a collaboration with this human being, like with my piano player, and we would be able to make music together – forgive the metaphor, but that’s so much of my life, and that’s what I look for, someone to make music with, most of all, when it comes to my wife and children and people that I need to spend precious time with of my life, people that I feel safe with, and I felt safe with Aram.”

At this point in the discussions between Patinkin and Rappaport, “There were only two scripts written out of what initially were going to be eight, and then eventually became six, because he condensed things as we went along. And I loved being with him. I loved the whole process, I loved the people he assembled in the playground, who were some of the most gifted actors I’d ever had the privilege to work with. It was just glorious.”

It was also really fast. “There was an energy, because what should have been a four- or five-month shoot for a period piece, we did it all in twenty-eight days. We had so much to do each day that even though time was slower back then, sometimes it would get manic, but still, we had so much to do every day that it had that kind of explosive energy underneath every single actor, every single frame of the cameramen, of the crew, of Aram. We were just having a ball. We really, really worked our butts off and it was an amazing experience.”

How would Patinkin describe Norman Henry as a person?

Patinkin laughs and says, “Me?” as though it’s a possibility but not a certainty. “I think I’m attracted to aspects of characters that have aspects of me in them, or I can infuse aspects of me in them. He is a believer. He believes in the promise of the marriage [to Marian] to a fault. Even if it’s dysfunctional, he doesn’t quit on it. He believes in the truth, and he believes in the consequences if people don’t embrace the truth. And he believes in having fun and enjoying life and not wasting it and having pleasure.”

Then again, “He has aspects that are in his personality that I would like to think are not so much mine, like the need to be part of a world that you’re not born into and want to not necessarily think of yourself as a robber baron, but someone that can have a roof over your head and have some success and be thought of kindly by other people. I think that was a piece of my DNA and journey and wishing that I could maybe get involved in communities or the world in ways that I wasn’t sure I had the right to, or the ticket,” he gestures as though holding up a ticket and laughs, “to get on that train.

“And he’s a kind man. I want to be a kind person. And he has explosive, volcanic aspects of himself. I do, too. So, there’s a lot that we share, and a lot that is very different about us. Those are the kinds of characters I gravitate toward.”

Is Norman based on any actual historical figures?

Not so far as Patinkin knows, though he thinks this is more a question for Rappaport. “He might have. I never asked him that. I never thought of it that way.”

Patinkin did make some suggestions to Rappaport regarding Norman, “and added into the back story of him, which comes out later, what his vocation was, which we find out where he made his money. I don’t want to give that away right now, but you find that out down the road. And I thought that was important and that was a part of my own history as well, of my family history. And so, I shared that with Norman.”

Since Patinkin spent so long playing the French artist Georges Seurat in SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, and Seurat’s contemporary and peer Degas is a character in THE ARTIST, it seems worth asking if Patinkin ever developed an opinion about Degas, or at least that period of fine art.

“No. I never even thought about that.” However, Patinkin spends a lot of time contemplating artists, and art, of all kinds. “I’ve spent my life being with artists of all natures – painters, writers, sculptors, dancers, musicians, actors, directors, editors, business people who are artists as well, and in different ways, doctors, scientists. So, I’ve spent my life with humanity, and I consider all of humanity having artistic natures in different ways.

“So, that wasn’t just the Degas character, but all the characters in the piece to me, including the cook, out in the tent in the field, including the driver, who wanted to serve in spite of the great pain that he was going through from an accident, everyone. The dancer, who was willing to make all kinds of sacrifices to be able to dance in the arena that she dreamt of. One of my favorite lines in the piece was, she said, ‘I want to dance in Paris,’ and Norman said, ‘I’ll make sure of that, until I take my last breath. That’s what will happen.’”

Patinkin wants to make sure everybody can find THE ARTIST and reiterates that it is available at no cost.

The most important thing is, I need to tell people the real gift of this piece, because we did it for you. We did it for everybody to watch it. We didn’t just do it for ourselves. Thenetwork.stream is a new network that Aram Rappaport created himself, so that he could tell his stories. There are friends of mine who can’t afford the big, expensive platforms for wonderful shows that are on these other networks, but he wanted to make a platform that was free. And that is I think one of the great, great aspects of being a part of this company, this journey, this story.”

Patinkin is also active in movements for democracy, combatting worldwide hunger, and more. His advice for those who want to emulate him: “We all have to do everything we can, and everyone has to use their voice to speak their heart and their mind. Whoever you are and whatever you believe, speak your truth.”

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Article: Exclusive Interview: Actor Mandy Patinkin on new mini-series

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