Michael Moriarty was so great on the first four years of Law & Order. I mean, wow.
He did a great acting trick that not many can pull off: the angrier he got, the quieter he got. Totally opposite from what you expect from a lawyer in a courtroom. (Edward James Olmos comes to mind as an actor who also mastered this.) Just wonderful.
He later explained that Dick Wolf asked him to just “be himself” as Ben Stone. What he ended up doing was kind of a hybrid of himself and his version of Ted Koppel.
Because it turns out that “himself” is actually, well, quite eccentric.
Moriarty left Law & Order under controversy and it’s a sad story.
I was curious what he’s doing now and found this news interview from a couple of years ago which he did to promote an appearance in a little-seen western.
Strangely, he seems to be speaking with an English accent? He seems quite frail.
Here’s another one:
Interviewing him is Jeffrey Howard who I think wrote for us once or twice at Film Score Monthly? Small world!