Profile : Fresh ‘Exposure’ : PAUL PROVENZA, ONCE A RAUCOUS STAND-UP, NOW A DOCTOR SAYING ‘AH’
Hidden inside a converted sporting goods warehouse at the far end of a wooded industrial park in Seattle’s eastern suburbs, exists the parallel universe of Cicely, Alaska, a pop-up town at the edge of the Zen frontier.
All the interior sets for “Northern Exposure”--the cabins, the tavern, the doctor’s office, the radio station and the general store--are set up just beyond the reception area, which is, quite frankly, a fairly odd sight in itself. A life-size wax replica of cast member Barry Corbin, who plays Maurice Minnifield, and a prominently displayed assortment of Bucket O’ Blood red-hot bubble-gum balls, are just a couple of items to note.
Paul Provenza, new to these parts and trying to explain how he got here, is sitting in his dressing-room trailer, the ever-present Seattle rain pelting the roof. Along with actress Teri Polo (who plays his wife), Provenza faces the formidable task of replacing soon-to-be-departed Rob Morrow. To shed a little light on who he is and where he gets his inspiration, Provenza reaches into his back pocket, pulling out the only photo he carries in his wallet. It isn’t of his mother, his girlfriend or even his cat.
It is a picture of Provenza, smiling. And sticking his finger in Jerry Lewis’ nose.
“When I was a kid, I had a lazy eye, and because I had to wear an eye patch my depth perception was less than stellar. So I was always knocking things over, falling into things, tripping and breaking stuff,” Provenza says, explaining why the chance to shove his finger into Jerry’s nostrils proved to be a pivotal moment in his life. “I watched Jerry Lewis movies and thought, ‘He does the same things I do. Except he trips and falls and gets laughs. I might as well try that.’ ”
Which is how Provenza, 37, became a comedian and actor and the newest ingredient in “Northern Exposure’s” cosmic soup. His path to Cicely has been filled with left turns. He was a smart kid from the Bronx who went to the University of Pennsylvania and could have been a doctor or a lawyer but decided to be a comic instead. He started hanging around the Improv in New York when he was 16. At Penn, majoring in pre-law and minoring in biology, he did dorm lounge shows for his friends and worked clubs on the weekend.
His fate was sealed by a chance to study in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. His career ever since has gone back and forth between serious acting and outrageous stand-up, everything from off-Broadway theater to hosting a cable talk show called “Comics Only” (where Provenza once opened a holiday broadcast by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas “and a Happy Hanukkah for those of you who killed our Lord.”)
“I gravitate toward things you can’t really categorize,” he says, asked how he makes the shift from his often-confrontational stand-up to the subtle weirdness of “Northern Exposure.” “I want to be as eclectic as possible.”
Both Provenza and Polo found themselves in Seattle barely a week after learning they’d been cast, leaving precious little time for either to adjust to the cultural rhythms of the Pacific Northwest.
“I grew up in the Bronx and I live in Los Angeles,” Provenza says. “So I need crime nearby, which is hard to find here. I need to be able to walk down the street, get a cup of espresso, a quick bite to eat and some crime.”
“People actually drive the speed limit here,” says Polo, 25, a Delaware native who has lived in New York the last eight years. “And everywhere you turn there’s an espresso sign. They have espresso at the local bait and tackle store. Seriously.”
Until a couple of years ago, Polo seemed to be building a feature film career of her own. (She played Meryl Streep’s daughter in “House of the Spirits.”) But she grew weary of auditioning for the string-bikini parts that inevitablely are offered to blond actresses in their 20s. “I didn’t want to play 17 year old bimbos ... I’ve done that and it’s time to move on.
“I was willing to wait until the right thing came along,” she says. “And this was it.”
Unlike Rob Morrow’s character, the perpetually disgruntled Dr. Joel Fleischman, Provenza and Polo’s characters, Phillip and Michelle Capra, move willingly to Cicely from Santa Monica, seeking adventure and escape from urban life. But, like Fleischman, they will be outsiders, unfamiliar with the assorted peculiarities of greater Cicely.
“I get a lot of scenes where at the end I just go, ‘Ah,’ ” says Provenza, whose last steady gig on network television was on the considerably more linear “Empty Nest.” “It’s like, I don’t know what planet I’m on, but I don’t want to be rude, so ... Ah.”
“And on the most superficial level, I’m going through the same things in real life that my character is. It’s identical. Here I am coming into a situation where everybody has known each other for years and I’m the new guy, just trying to figure things out. And this is so different from what I’m used to doing, sitcoms where everything is just joke, joke, joke. Here we’ll go through an entire script, with not one joke in it, and yet we’re all laughing. Sometimes the whole joke is that nothing happened. Nothing.
“And that’s when I go, ‘Ah.’ ”
“Northern Exposure” airs Monday nights at 10 p.m. on CBS.