Dogged Kinnear achieves success
Is it okay to compare an actor to a dog, when you mean it in the best way?
Because there’s something even more spaniel-like about Greg Kinnear these days, as he ages a little.
Kinnear is still, at 45, almost about to be someone’s idea of today’s Jimmy Stewart – but most times he’s just there for support.
That’s why they use him for cute-husband parts (“Ghost Town”), or use him for parts like the football coach who keeps his cool in a desperate season ( “Invincible”).
Kinnear stars in director/producer named Marc Abraham’s new movie, “Flash of Genius.” Kinnear plays Robert Kearns, a Michigan engineering prof who invented the intermittent windshield-wiping device in his basement in the 1960s, and then spent almost two decades suing Ford and Chrysler for stealing his idea.
Intriguing story, but tough sell.
“Bob Kearns (who died in 2005) is not a likable character, in the usual sense,” Kinnear says, sitting a spell in the Georgetown Ritz-Carlton. “Yes, he eventually won some money. Great. But this is clearly not the message. … The fight he had is all-consuming.”
There is no getting around the fact that “Flash of Genius” is about a prideful and enigmatic nerd. Also, you never really root for the hero, You’re glad for him, but it stops shorts of heroics.
“You could easily make that upbeat kind of movie out of ‘Flash of Genius,’ though, with the same story,” Kinnear offers. “All you have to do is play the music LOUDER in certain moments, change a few looks from people in the (courtroom) scenes and really leave people much more energized, skipping out of the theater in triumph.”
This is Kinnear’s first serious, meaty starring part since he played Bob Crane – the murdered, sex-addicted star of “Hogan’s Heroes” – in 2002’s creepy but intriguing “Auto Focus.” To play Kearns, Kinnear put on 20 pounds, a lot of polyester, and a sense of gloom.
Kinnear saw the script for “Flash of Genius” and cold-called Abraham. The two met over coffee and Abraham felt Kinnear understood the story and character exactly.
“I told him, ‘You’re too cute,’ ” Abraham said. “But you see him work, he just completely changes.”
Kinnear got his start at a cable outfit called Movie Time, in the late 1980s. No one watching Movie Time had any idea he’d be up for a Best Supporting Actor award just a few years later.
Movie Time was subsumed by what became E!, and Kinnear was hired to start a show called “Talk Soup.” It has since evolved into “The Soup” and is still on. Kinnear was among the first of a new species of humans who dwell on cable for the sole purpose of deadpan snark.
He followed “Talk Soup” by replacing Bob Costas on the wee-hours NBC talk show that followed Jay and Conan. When Sydney Pollack cast him in a 1995 remake of “Sabrina,” Kinnear became an actor and never looked back.
The birthday bunch
Singer Al Martino (“The Godfather”) is 81. “The View” co-host Joy Behar is 66. Musician John Mellencamp is 57. Guitarist Ricky Phillips of Styx is 57. Actress Mary Badham (“To Kill A Mockingbird”) is 56. Actress Christopher Norris (“Trapper John, M.D.”) is 55. “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell is 49. Singer Toni Braxton is 41. Singer Thom Yorke of Radiohead is 40. Singer Taylor Hicks is 32.