In TNT's production of David Mamet's "A Life in the Theatre," Matthew Brod-e-rick and Jack Lemmon play a couple of actors whose lives are the theater.
And, while both are much more well known for their movie roles, both profess undying love for the boards as opposed to the camera."Well, my father (James) was an actor, and I watched him all through growing up, and I always liked it," Broderick said. "I didn't really want to be an actor, but I knew I wanted to be in a theater. I used to think I'd be a stage manager or something where I'd be in the theater, although I didn't really want to act.
"And eventually, I also wanted to act. I don't know what made me want to do it, but there's a lot of that in this movie. There's something I like about the little light over the script on stage left, with the woman going over the script with the headphone. And there's an atmosphere to a theater that I just have always liked.
"And, nightmare that it is, I feel relatively comfortable in that kind of situation."
Lemmon, who plays the veteran actor whose career is in decline to Broderick's up-and-coming youngster in "A Life," immediately added his agreement.
"While Matthew was talking, so help me, I was thinking of a phrase that actors will automatically use and how I feel," he said. "Very often, when they have not done a play for a while, you see them and say, `How's it going?' He says, `I'm going home again.'
"It's that simple. He's going home. He's going to the theater. There's is nothing in the world quite like it."
"A Life in the Theatre," which airs Saturday at 6 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. on TNT, is all about that love for the theater. Essentially a two-man play, it's about two actors at different stages in their careers who share their love for acting.
Unlike Mamet's harsher, later works like "Glengarry Glen Ross," this play - written when he was only 25 - is much more amusing, much gentler, even sentimental.
Mamet himself adapted his play for this cable movie, and is one of the executive producers.
Broderick found "A Life" one of his greatest acting challenges.
"For one of the few times in my career, it was hard to learn the lines," he said. "You don't usually do things witht he `uh' and stutters and repeats of phrases all written out for you.
"It's also very easy, though. It's hard to explain, because it has like a musical quality to it, so once you kind of pick it up - when you're in step with it - it's like a dance. And once you've got it going, it's really relaxing and really fun to do."
There are some very funny moments here as the two characters proceed through a series of plays - Lemmon and Broderick in bunny suits. Broderick forgetting his lines and his props.
And there are some touching, almost tragic exchanges between the two men.
"What it is that makes an actor tick - I don't know how to verbalize it," Lemmon said. "I'm no David Mamet. But I don't know of any writer who ever did it more successfully than I think David did it in this play and therefore in this film.
"And his understanding of the actor's psyche and the drive and his longing for the theater, I think, is so apparent."