BRONSON PINCHOT: He's NOT Ridiculous!
When you meet Bronson Pinchot for lunch, it's hard to know what to expect. You're almost ready to see some silly guy with an accent shouting, ''Don't be ridikalus!'' like he does as Balki, the country bumpkin Mypiot shepherd on the hit TV show ''Perfect Strangers.''
Instead, you find a nice, low-key, very smart, normal kind of guy. Well, okay, make that sort of normal. In the course of the meal, he yanks at the waitress's apron strings, makes faces across the table, and giggles crazily at his own jokes. So, who is the real Bronson, you wonder: the calm one or the crazy one?
Read on and decide for yourself...
(''Should I wear my purple hi-tops or my Mypos clod-hoppers?'')
DA: Your character, Balki, is almost like a big kid. Do people often confuse you with the role you play on TV?
Well, yes and no. I don't think they really expect me to speak with an accent. But I'm pretty sure that people sense that when I goof around as Balki, that's the way I goof around when I'm alone with my friends. And they're right.
DA: Were you funny as a kid?
My whole family was funny. We spent a lot of time doing imitations of each other. Sometimes now, I'll call my mother's answering machine and leave a whole conversation as if she picked up. I'll imitate her saying things like, ''Oh my God, you brother's bankrupt again! And your sister's driving me crazy. What am I going to do-o-oo!!'' She gets a real kick out of it.
DA: Raising four kids who do imitations of their mother--that'd drive any mom 'rough the bend!
My mother was pretty funny herself. She was always doing weird voices to make us laugh. For example, my brothers and my sister all had troll dolls. And they all had names. My mother would tape interviews with the dolls like she was on ''60 Minutes.'' She would ask them questions about their country and they would answer in accents. She'd even create a national anthen for them. It was hilarious.
DA: I read somewhere that you weren't real popular in school. Is that true?
Yeah. Mostly in junior high school. See, at the time I didn't know anything about sports. I knew about Shakespeare and about Renaissance art because my mother exposed all of us to a wide variety of things. She'd read plays to us around the dinner table. But I didn't know the first thing about catching a softball. Consequently, coach put me on the softball team, the other kids on the team would get really upset becuase I couldn't hit a ball.
The first time anyone ever taught me the right way to catch a football was when I was 23 years old. I was on a film set and this other actor said, ''Let's go and throw a football around.'' And I said, ''I don't know how to throw a football around.'' He couldn't believe it. But nobody taught me how to do it. So this guy taught me.
DA: Did you have a girlfriend in junior high?
Yeah. Kathy Kramer. The funny part about it was that Kathy was really sporty. She was good at girls' softball. As a matter of fact, she was the only one who took me to the park and showed me how to catch a fly ball. Then we'd go back and kiss on her front porch. It was great!
DA: Were you fat as a kid?
Yeah. I was the fattest kid at school.
DA: Amazing, considering how thin you look now. Did you have a favorite dessert?
Chocolate eclairs. And my other favorite thing was a sandwich with chunky peanut butter with grape jam or strawberry jam on wheat bread dipped in chocolate milk.
DA: What about your happy dreams as a kid? Did you ever dream you could fly?
Sure. I used to dream all the time that I was flying around our Sunday school because it had an unbelievably tall ceiling. It was wonderful. It was like swimming through the air.
DA: What are your strongest dislikes?
I don't like violence. I don't like cruelty. I don't like phoniness or anything that messes up the environment. I don't like anything that's plastic or shiny.
DA: Nothing shiny? What about shiny tinsel on a Christmas tree or a shiny birthday ribbon?
Nothing shiny.
DA: That's weird, Bronson. What about glossy photographs?
Nope. I like matte finishes on photos.
DA: Chrome?
I hate it. Everything at my house is old, like weathered stone from old demolished buildings or old wood furniture from New Mexico that has been weathered by the sun. The only thing I like to be shiny is my car after it's been washed. But nothing else.
DA: To change the subject completely, is it fun being famous?
Well, I think my experience is much different than, say Tom Cruise's. Nobody faints or screams when they see me. They smile and wave and laugh as if they've known me for years. It's like I'm everybody's cousin. And I think that's really neat.
DA: One last question: If you designed a personalized license plate to sum up your philosophy of life, what would it be?
I've got one on my car. It says, ''Mypiot.''
DA: Balki is from the island of Mypos so he's a Mypiot, right?
Exactly. And Balki's point of view pretty much expresses my view of life, which is simply this: Ignore the ugliness. Look for the good things. And always look for fun.
-Celeste Fremon