Zorich Speaks Up for ‘Brooklyn’

Louis Zorich has been an actor for decades, but he still isn’t sure about this interview thing.

“Without sounding like a jerk, what am I going to say?” he says. “I once did an interview--I was in this small, independent film and one of the local papers asked me would I consent to an interview. I was eating and I was tired, I guess, and I just talked and talked. I said I’d always wanted to do King Lear. It sounded so pompous, to hear yet another actor talk like that.”

So what does Zorich--who plays the grandfather in the CBS sitcom “Brooklyn Bridge” and appears in the film “City of Hope”--want to talk about this time?

“I don’t know. Maybe what an experience being in ‘Brooklyn Bridge’ has been. But even that sounds corny,” he admits. “I’m not designing world peace, here.”

Zorich is happy to talk about his 29-year marriage to Oscar-winning actress Olympia Dukakis. He says it doesn’t bug him at all that she is more recognized than he is.

“Only one time it bothered me,” he says. “I was auditioning for a reality show. The producer says to me, ‘This is what the scene is about, do you think you can do it?’ sort of condescendingly, as if I wouldn’t know what the scene was about.”

Zorich says he was annoyed when the same producer called Dukakis and offered her another part without having her audition. “I thought, ‘Oh-ho, so that’s what it is. She wins a few awards and they ask her if she wants a part, while I’m getting humiliated by this producer.’ That was the only time I felt jealous.”