A conversation with Corbin Bernsen
Back when Corbin Bernsen was playing bed-hopping barrister Arnie Becker on “L.A. Law,” he told me, “One of the great things about being on a hit television series is that people (in the business) get to know you, and you get to know them.”
Over the years, Bernsen has met a lot of Hollywood-honcho types who have come to appreciate him as an actor who never fails to turn in a solid performance, and as a result, the offers keep coming in, both for television (a recurring role on “JAG,” for one, and guest stints on “The West Wing,” etc.) as well as features such as the three “Major League” flicks, “Hello Again,” “Shattered,” “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” etc., etc. Currently, Bernsen is also starring on the daytime drama “General Hospital” as the mysterious John Durant.
Meanwhile, Bernsen began to expand his career from performer to producer. During a chat we had last summer, he told me, “I feel that, as an actor, I’ve had a lot of good stuff to work with. And I like the fact that it’s been a varied (offering).
But as much as I love acting, I also love being behind the scenes. I like being able to create projects that come out of my vision. And that’s why I started my own company, Public Media Works, so that I can work with some of the best talent around who can make that happen.”
Besides the creative team he’s gathered around him at Public Media Works (writers, set designers, et al.), Bernsen plans to use actors from both prime time and daytime. When we talked, we agreed that too often actors known mostly for soap work are overlooked when producers are casting for their films and nighttime shows.
“And that’s unfortunate,” Bernsen says. “These people have the training, the experience and the talent you want for your projects. Not to mention the discipline.”
Bernsen — whose daytime background also includes “Ryan’s Hope” and, more recently, a run on “The Young and The Restless,” on which his mother, Jeanne Cooper, has been working for more than 30 years — adds, “When you’re doing a soap, you are expected to come on the set knowing your lines, and delivering them as if you’ve had several takes to get them just right, although you never get a chance to do it more than once.”
One of the film projects Bernsen has wrapped for Public Media Works is “Carpool Guy,” a black-comedy feature starring several actors currently on soaps, including “General Hospital’s” Anthony Geary, Patrika Darbo of “Days of Our Lives” and, of course, his mom, Jeanne Cooper. (“She’s my good-luck charm. Whenever she’s in a film or on a show with me, it turns out to be a winner.”)
The film is about climbing the corporate ladder in Los Angeles, where your life and your ambition often depend on where you are on a freeway at any given moment.
Bernsen, who not only stars in the flick, but also directs it, says, “I’ve lived in New York, London and other cities, and believe me, none of them has the unique car culture of Los Angeles, where people are born in cars, live in cars and sometimes die in cars.”
Coming up for Bernsen’s company is a series of interactive television projects, with several already green-lighted for production this year.
“You always hear people say what they would have liked to see in a film or television show, and we now have the technology to make that happen,” Corbin Bernsen says.
In Focus
Martha Stewart lands in NBC Peacock’s nest. The last comment passed on to me from someone close to Martha Stewart before she started her five-month sentence for fibbing to the federal government about a stock market deal was, “Don’t you worry about her. She not only makes lemonade when life hands her a lemon, she creates a whole lemonade industry.”
Stewart is scheduled to leave prison in March and then spend several more months confined to one of her estates.