PLUME: How do you parlay success in such a transitory business as the New York stage? How do you build upon success in one role, to the next, to the next? It seems like it’s a hard ladder to climb.

SPINER: Well, you know, it’s funny… I was talking to my agent today, and I said, “I have this feeling that nothing has ever led to anything.” It’s always like starting over, unless you hit a certain part that’s a home run or an award winner - to me it feels like starting over every time. It’s like I’ve never done anything when I go tap dance in front of three guys sitting on a couch in their office.

PLUME: Is it proving yourself to them, proving yourself to yourself, or proving yourself to an audience? If you get that far…

SPINER: It doesn’t go that far. In the audition, it’s just you walk in hoping they’re going to see the light … The resume is irrelevant. I kind of compare it to the gymnastics events at the Olympics, because it doesn’t matter what kind of routine you do if you don’t stick the landing. When you’re in an audition situation, you better stick the landing or you ain’t going to get the part. Those parts that I have gotten, it’s because I happened to stick the landing that day.

PLUME: And the East German judge abstained.

SPINER: Exactly.

PLUME: How daunting is that, from a personal perspective, to have that sense that you’re always starting over, no matter what you do?

SPINER: It’s not daunting so much anymore, because my livelihood doesn’t depend on it. I can pay my rent, now, you know, thanks to Star Trek. But it’s tedious. It really is. I have to say, the last few years, most of the jobs I’ve done - if not all of them - have been from either just an offer or a meeting. I’d find an audition if it’s for something great, but it doesn’t come my way that often.

PLUME: So it’s basically people that know your work and want to work with you?

SPINER: Yeah, exactly.

PLUME: Which, for all the non-working actors out there, is not a bad situation to be in.

SPINER: No, it’s wonderful. My tendency is to take what I’m offered. If I don’t have to do the song-and-dance for it, and somebody just says, “Will you do this for us?” I tend to take it, just out of respect of “thanks for asking.” That’s why, basically, my oeuvre is so …

PLUME: Eclectic?

SPINER: Eclectic, and sometimes lamentable.

PLUME: As you said, if your livelihood doesn’t depend on it…

SPINER: Well, that’s something that all actors envy - and I did, too, when I wasn’t in that position.

SPINER: You know, I’m really reluctant to work in films that star wrestlers.

PLUME: Or professional sports people?

SPINER: Not all professional sports people, but generally wrestlers, and - that’s about it. I think I passed on a Hulk Hogan movie once.

PLUME: Would you ever do series television again?

SPINER: Yeah, I would, if it was something that I thought I could do for seven years. Very little of what one gets offered or auditions for in television goes seven years, but you have to kind of consider that it might. And you’ll have signed a contract that says you’ll do it.

PLUME: So, “Is this an atmosphere and/or material that I want to be doing?”

SPINER: Yes, exactly. I generally have - my rule of thumb, sort of, in choosing a rule, is three criteria: the role itself is number one, who I’m going to work with is number two, and are they going to pay me is number three. If one of those things is there, I’m likely to do the job. If two of them are there, I’m certain to do it… and three is almost never there.

PLUME: What is the one that seems to fall through the most? That isn’t present most of the time?

SPINER: Oh, I would think the money. Definitely, it’s the one call you always get. “We’ve got an offer for you for something, but they’ve already said there’s no money in it.” Often it’s fine - again, it’s about who you get to work with.

PLUME: Existing on the Broadway stage - you did some pretty big plays when you were initially out there. I guess the first one that comes to mind is Sunday in the Park with George. Was there any point where you thought, “I could just exist entirely on this level for the rest of my career”?

SPINER: No. Because when I did Sunday in the Park with George, I had a supporting role, and I knew I wasn’t going to be happy in the theater just doing supporting roles. I had done lead roles before that, but as far as Sunday in the Park was concerned, I did Sunday in the Park with George for three months. I had a three month contract, because it wasn’t a substantial enough role that I thought I could be good in the part for longer. I thought I would get really bored, and so I took a three month contract with less pay. As it turns out, the reason I’m in the video version is I did my three months and then I moved to Los Angeles, and I went back to New York to do Big River - I replaced Rene Auberjonois in that - and again just in a three month run, and while I was there they did the television version of Sunday in the Park with George for PBS. They wanted the original company, so they asked me to do it. I had, really, one of the greatest experiences in my life, because one of the days of shooting we decided to do the show from beginning to end, straight through. So we did a matinee of Sunday in the Park with George, and we finished in time for me to run across town and do an evening performance of Big River. I did two Broadway shows in one day.

PLUME: That’s got to be an interesting experience.

SPINER: Yeah, it was really great. One other Broadway show I did … I was in a production called The Three Musketeers, which at the time was the biggest money losing show in the history of Broadway. I think we ran a week and lost, like, 12 million bucks. It was an unbelievably bad show. It was based on the Rudolf Friml operetta - wonderful music but it just didn’t come together. At the end of the day, when looking back on it, that show would have worked much better on ice.

PLUME: A matinee on ice - a nice touring company with lights and everyone in full, plush costumes?

SPINER: Exactly… in those exact costumes.

PLUME: So when are you going to mount that? Prove your theory correct - now’s the perfect time in your career to mount The Three Musketeers on ice.

SPINER: I know, I know… exactly.

PLUME: Is it discouraging to be in, as it was called at that time, the greatest money loser?

SPINER: It wasn’t so bad, because it only lasted a week. I mean, we knew. We got to the night before previews, and we hadn’t finished staging the swordfights yet, so we knew we were in big trouble. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced, before or since then, the feeling of when the curtain went up, just egg dripping off my face - before I even spoke.

PLUME: Does it affect you as an actor, or do you know that there’s nothing you can do personally to save this production?

SPINER: I was one of the Musketeers, and so I knew there was nothing - and believe me, I was doing everything I could.

PLUME: So I guess in the end it comes down to, “I’m getting paid for this, and I’ll be looking for a job shortly.”

SPINER: What it came down to really is, “I said I would do it, I have a contract, and with any luck at all we’ll be out of this in a week.” And we were.

PLUME: What was the next production after that? Was it a quick bounce back into another?

SPINER: You know, I had done Park, and then I did that, and then I came out to LA I had already been out with Little Shop (of Horrors) and gone back to do Three Musketeers after Little Shop closed out here. I came back to LA and started doing guest shots and things like that.

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