Dennis Boutsikaris has a little Leonard Zelig in him as he’s worked with just about everybody.
Don’t believe me? He was directed by Laurence Olivier (whom he called “Larry”), went to summer camp with Frank Rich, Julie Taymor and Arlo Guthrie, attended college with Ken Burns and was even in Carly Simon’s first band.
His career has spanned more than five decades, and he carries with him an undeniable level of respect. How else can you explain such longevity and so many credits?
You don’t appear in more than 100 TV shows and movies, and plenty of theater (including several stints on Broadway) unless you’re really, really good at what you do. That description fits the constantly in-demand Boutsikaris, who is currently appearing in the Apple TV+ drama Sugar, opposite Colin Farrell. He spoke to us from his home in Woodstock, New York.
How did you get into acting in the first place?
Well, back in the cave … (laughs) It was the only thing I did. Honestly, I did it in high school, and I was in every damn play and some of the musicals. And then I went to this artsy camp over the summers and learned a lot about theater there. Then I was in the first class at Hampshire College, and I was thinking I was going to be a film major.
The first class? That’s amazing.
Yeah, there were 250 of us and we had no desks for the first two months. When I left Hampshire, I joined the acting company out of Juilliard. I was one of the first people to join who didn’t go there. They had Patti LuPone, Kevin Kline, David Ogden Stiers, and they toured classical plays all around the country. I joined them in their fourth year, did that for a couple of years, which was good training. It’s stuff I’d never learned before. Then I did a couple of Broadway plays, did a television series in New York, something called Nurse with Michael Learned, then lucked out and got into this movie [called] Batteries Not Included.
Sure. An 80s classic.
It was a Spielberg film and a George Lucas film because it was ILM. It was sort of their last film that they did before there was computer CGI, so a lot of this stuff was puppets and, you know, strings holding things up.
I definitely did not appreciate what was happening, being around George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. I didn’t appreciate it enough. I think, in the same way that I did a play that Lawrence Olivier directed.
You worked with Olivier?
Yeah, and you know, I didn’t really know who he was, so I didn’t pump him for enough information at the time. Obviously, I was a young punk. We called him Larry.
It was in this play called Filumena, on Broadway. It came from the National Theatre in England. It was a big hit there. When we first started rehearsals, it was being directed by Franco Zeffirelli and it starred Frank Finley and Joan Plowright, Olivier’s wife.
Zeffirelli was incredibly lazy, and he had already directed it. When we got to Boston, it didn’t get very good reviews, and he quit. When he did, Olivier was there, because it was around Christmas time, and he said, I’ll take over. So there we were with Olivier in Boston. It was a great experience in many ways.

Did you take anything from your experience working with Olivier?
I did take one or two things. I played the intellectual son. I haven’t thought about this in years, but they gave me glasses. Because, you know, if you play an intellectual, you have to wear glasses.
I was constantly fiddling with them, every time I had a line. So Frank Finley, who was an amazing actor, yelled in a wonderful British booming accent, “If he continues to play with those glasses, I’m gonna go mad.”
It was horrifying. I was 29, and it scared me, but I also learned a good lesson. You don’t have to do extra things to sell it. He also told me, “Leave a five-pound note under your makeup table in case your wallet gets stolen, so you have a way to get home.” (Laughs)
That seems like a nice segue because I feel like the parts you play tend to be intellectual. Was that by design?
I would take the word “design” out of any actor’s arc. Here’s how it went. First, I was the boyfriend, then I was the sensitive husband. Then, I was maybe not so sensitive, like I had a secret. Then I was just an asshole. I was the asshole lawyer in a bunch of stuff.
Now, I’ve sort of fallen into the intellectual part, which I call “Jew with beard.” I’m absolutely serious. I was one of the first actors with a full beard. I was a trailblazer.
Have you had a favorite role?
Every decade has its own wonderful little thing. I’ve had a great time.
Laurie Metcalf and I did three plays together, and when I first met her, we did something called Quality of Life. We did it at the Geffen and then we did it at Act Up in San Francisco. That was a fantastic experience. Then we did Brighton Beach Memoirs on Broadway together, which lasted a very short period of time for producer reasons, not because of the play, but the production was great.
But in film and stuff, Better Call Saul I’m very proud of, mostly because it was such a great working experience. A lot of times you go someplace, and you’re gonna be on a show for a couple of episodes and you get to the hotel room and maybe the next day somebody calls you. When I got to the hotel the first day, there was a letter from Bob Odenkirk to welcome me to the show, and wow, people don’t usually do that.
Is there anything you haven’t done that you want to do?
I suppose I’d like to be the lead in a series one more time. Doing Sugar scratched that itch a little bit for me; being in something from beginning to end, as opposed to just coming in for something small.
Even Better Call Saul, when I had three or four episodes in a row, it was great. But it’s fun to get a jump on something from beginning to end. I’m not sure that’s a good answer, but there it is.
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