It was only a few weeks ago that I was stunned by Steve DuMouchel's performance as the complicated, morally compromised policeman in Stageworks' production of Lobby Hero. DuMouchel's acting was so formidable that he seemed to exist in a dimension all his own, one where intelligence and authority and charisma all combined in a striking, unpredictable, utterly riveting totality. What I couldn't understand was why a thespian of his level was, until this show, unknown to me. How could I have missed this Dunedin-based powerhouse in the nine years I'd worked as theater critic for Creative Loafing?
So when I arranged, over the phone, to meet DuMouchel, I felt like a detective about to solve a baffling case. The main question on my mind: Why haven't I seen you on stage more often?
The answer, it turns out, is that DuMouchel, almost 57 (and a young-looking grandfather), has been acting in television and film instead. Committed to living in his cozy Pinellas home, which he shares with his wife Pam Stuart and their dog Monty, he's satisfied to take small roles all over the South and to make the rest of his income as a local home renovator and furniture builder.
As for theater, there was a time — before my time — when he worked for the Tampa Players, the Playmakers and a few other outfits. But it's the movies and TV shows that his Florida agents dig up for him that pay more of the bills (and guarantee his union health insurance).
You might recognize some of them: Contact with Jodie Foster, Marvin's Room with Leonardo DiCaprio, The Substitute with Tom Berenger and even Bachelor Party 2. His TV credits include recurring roles on I'll Fly Away and Ocean Avenue, as well as briefer appearances on Dawson's Creek, CSI: Miami, Walker, Texas Ranger and Sheena.
He's just agreed — though it hasn't been finalized — to play a role in Recount, about the 2000 presidential election, with Kevin Spacey and Ed Begley Jr., so he'll probably be out of the loop for theater jobs until early 2008. And though he loves doing theater — the emotional experience of living a story for two hours on stage is, he says, incomparable — DuMouchel usually can't afford to make the time investment. "I have to look past some shows that maybe I'd like to do because I just can't afford it," he says. "I have to go with two days on a movie set or something to get my pension and health." And even with all his film and TV activity, 70 percent of his income comes from his work outside the acting business.
So where'd he get his training? "I never really went to school for acting at all," he says. "I had, I think it was in high school, I had Acting 101 or something, and most of it's just been done on stage, community theater and like that. I just fell into it and really liked it."
DuMouchel attended St. Pete Junior College as a voice and music major, and it was there in 1975 that he saw an audition notice for Peter Shaffer's Royal Hunt of the Sun. "And I thought, 'Well, this might help me with my projection or something like that,'" he says. "I just was hooked; I loved it." He started searching for whatever acting jobs he could find, worked for college theaters, community theaters and professional companies: "I would just peruse the paper looking for auditions — I really didn't care what it was."
While performing with the Tampa Players in the 1980s, he obtained his Equity union card — the ticket to better-paying jobs around the state — but he never considered making a living as a performer until the early '90s, when he met his wife-to-be Pam, a fellow actor in Steve Tesich's Speed of Darkness. "She couldn't believe that I didn't have head shots and agents and stuff like this," he says. "I said 'I never really thought about it.'"
Spurred on by his new partner to consider himself a pro, "things started happening: TV work and some small film work and like that." At first, his television hires meant shows in Orlando like "Superboy, Swamp Thing, Super Force — all these little kitschy shows that were being done, you know."
But soon he was offered more satisfying parts: "I had a five-story arc with Sam Waterston for I'll Fly Away up in Atlanta — that was nice, meeting him and working with him. … He's just so relaxed, great to be around, very professional."
Film work followed, some of the movies well known, others less so. For example, about three years ago DuMouchel played August Strindberg opposite Clint Howard's Henrik Ibsen in Planet Ibsen. "They're still trying to market it," he says. "That was the biggest role I've had; that was a starring role for me, and you know, I really dug it."
Among directors he's worked for are such heavy hitters as Robert Zemeckis and Jerry Zaks. So why isn't he living in New York or Los Angeles? "I'm just not that type of guy," he says. "I wouldn't mind working either place, but I like where I am." Why not Orlando or Miami then? "Miami's another place I'll go to work, but I just don't like it down there, it's … I can't even put my finger on what it is that I don't like about it. It's too hectic or something."
Further, he worries that his home renovation business might not fly in other venues. And as for staking everything on his acting career, he says, "Well, OK, but I'm 57, and a lot of that is a young person's thing. And I talk to friends out in California and tell 'em I'm thinking about moving out, and they go, 'You working?' And I say 'Yes.' 'Then stay there. Stay where you're working.' And I seem to do quite well. Well enough. For me, anyway."
Before I leave DuMouchel's home, he gives me a tour, pointing out the shelves and cabinets he's built and the kitchen countertop he's installed. Everything's just about as professional as these things get, and they make me think about their builder: a perfectionist, a real pro, living in Dunedin of all places, with his wife Pam — who manages his career — and their dog (a Hungarian vizsla) Monty.
Or as DuMouchel says, "I'm satisfied with the way things are. I guess if you want that star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, then that's what you do; you go out there after that."
"But I don't necessarily want that."
This article appears in Oct 3-9, 2007.
