{"id":62,"date":"2001-11-07T15:12:06","date_gmt":"2001-11-07T22:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/?p=62"},"modified":"2001-11-07T15:12:06","modified_gmt":"2001-11-07T22:12:06","slug":"wonderland-therapeutic-for-indy-minded-actor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/?p=62","title":{"rendered":"‘Wonderland’ Therapeutic For Indy-Minded Actor"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Daily News<\/em>
\n‘Wonderland’ Therapeutic For Indy-Minded Actor<\/strong> Donovan offers alternative to mass entertainment
\nBy DONNA PETROZZELLOMartin Donovan hates cliche’.<\/p>\n

When he agreed to take on the role of Neil Harrison, a doctor in a Manhattan psychiatric hospital in “Wonderland,” he insisted that Harrison lead both an alternative professional and personal life.<\/p>\n

While Harrison’s work at Rivervue psychiatric hospital was different enough to hold his attention, Donovan said he also “fought and won” to make Harrison a fan of alternative singer PJ Harvey.<\/p>\n

“We’ll use her music at the end of the eighth episode and throughout the rest of the series,” said Donovan.<\/p>\n

Donovan’s already a Harvey fan. In his most recent collaboration with independent film maker Hal Hartley, he played Jesus Christ to Harvey’s Mary Magdalene in a 1998 featurette, “The Book of Life.”<\/p>\n

Starring in the ensemble cast of the gritty ABC drama marks Donovan’s first prime-time TV series.<\/p>\n

He’s best known for starring in “The Opposite of Sex” as schoolteacher Bill Truitt. This fall, Donovan will play the philandering Tom Buchanan to Mira Sorvino’s Daisy in an A&E production of “The Great Gatsby.”<\/p>\n

The subtle, in-control actor says it has never been his nature to play a role that’s meant to “appeal to a mass audience,” but “Wonderland” is offbeat enough to suit his taste.<\/p>\n

“There’s no way to go out and try to pursue a mass audience,” said Donovan. “I don’t know how to do it, and I’m not interested in it.”<\/p>\n

He is interested, though, in portraying a profession that he knew little about before studying for the role.<\/p>\n

Donovan spent time with real-life Bellevue Hospital doctors. He watched them work with criminally insane patients, seeing how the doctors kept their cool in tense situations and how the patients behaved.<\/p>\n

After walking into their world, Donovan recalls, “I realized I didn’t know anything about it, and probably most people don’t. I don’t think on TV we’ve ever seen the inside of a criminal psychiatrist’s office in a hospital.<\/p>\n

“There are areas of medicine and the law that come together that people know very little about,” said Donovan.<\/p>\n

“These doctors have to deal with medical issues, legal issues and high-profile patients locked up for committing major crimes. It’s fascinating.”<\/p>\n

Not that he’s simply going to mimic the real-life doctors. That’s a lesson he learned at 19 when he played Oscar Madison in a college production of Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple” and “just imitated Walter Matthau’s performance” from the film.”<\/p>\n

“I was naive, I was 19, and I hadn’t yet figured out that I shouldn’t be imitating someone else,” he said.<\/p>\n

Later that year, Donovan met Matthau and blurted out that he’d tried to lift his rendition of Madison, move for move.<\/p>\n

“He told me that I should be playing roles my way and shook my hand, but he was very nice about it,” Donovan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York Daily News ‘Wonderland’ Therapeutic For Indy-Minded Actor Donovan offers alternative to mass entertainment By DONNA PETROZZELLOMartin Donovan hates cliche’. When he agreed to take on the role of Neil Harrison, a doctor in a Manhattan psychiatric hospital in “Wonderland,” he insisted that Harrison lead both an alternative professional and personal life. While Harrison’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}