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Juggling acting, family and the expectations of fans (including a cyberspace foot-worshipper) is a tough job.
JAG's David James Elliott gives it 200 percent.
By Darcy Rice, photography by Steve Harvey, Orange Coast, June 1999
click on cover for larger image There's something about a man in uniform, goes the old saw. And if the man in question is David James Elliott, legions of devoted JAG fans would cheer along in agreement. At 6 feet, 4 inches tall, the jaw-droppingly handsome Elliott wears his naval uniform quite well. Just ask any of the fans who are glued to their sets every Tuesday night at 8, following his adventures around the world.
Elliott, 38, is the centerpiece of the CBS military legal drama, now in its fourth season. "JAG" is military-speak for Judge Advocate General, the office charged with handling investigation, prosecution and defense of military personnel accused of crimes. Elliott portrays Navy Lt. Cmdr. Harmon Rabb Jr., a former "Top Gun" naval pilot who turned to law after losing his wings because of night blindness. Intelligent, intensely loyal, passionate about justice and truth, yet plagued by demons from his past, Harm is an action hero with a heart.
The Canadian-born Elliott was educated at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute, a Juilliard-style Canadian arts college, and began his career with a two-year stint at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario. After several years on the Canadian series Street Legal, he moved to Los Angeles in 1990 where he starred in the syndicated series The Untouchables, and guest-starred in a number of television series, most notably Melrose Place as Courtney Thorne-Smith's sex-addicted football player lover, and did an especially memorable turn on Seinfeld as Carl the moving guy.
When JAG debuted on NBC in 1995, Elliott was paired with Lt. Meg Austin, played by Tracey Needham. NBC dropped the drama after its first season, but CBS picked it up and gave Elliott a new co-star, Catherine Bell, who plays Marine Maj. Sarah MacKenzie. Although the unmistakable sexual chemistry between Harm and Mac has helped propel the series to its current high spot in the ratings, the focus of the show remains on the pair's professional adventures, which pleases some JAG fans and frustrates others.
DJE (as he is known to acronym-crazed JAG fans) has been married since 1992 to actor Nanci Chambers, with whom he has a 6-year-old daughter, Stephanie. We spoke with DJE while he was juggling his work on JAG, rehearsals for an upcoming feature film, The Shrink Is In, and the challenges of being a temporarily single father while his wife was out of town.
OC: I know you have a classical acting background. What's your favorite Shakespeare play?
DJE: Richard IIOC: You didn't even hesitate. What do you like about Richard?
DJE: The poetry. It's the only play in the canon that's written entirely in iambic pentameter, save for one or two speeches by the Welshman. It's like one long poem. It's beautiful.OC: Do you miss working on that kind of material?
DJE: Oh, yeah, whenever I go back and do scene study with a coach, I'm forever pulling Shakespeare out.OC: One of the big challenges of the one-hour drama is maintaining the individual character arcs and the overall story arc throughout the seasons. How do you feel about how Harmon Rabb has evolved over the seasons?
DJE: Luckily, at the beginning of every season I have a meeting with Don [Bellisario, executive producer] and the writers and I talk about my ideas, and they tell me where the character's going, and through the summer I like to think about areas of the characer that haven't been explored from my point of view and I incorporate that into their writing plans. It's a neat thing to be able to develop a character over a long period of time, it's a challenge, and it also gives you an opportunity to really find some true depth, unlike a film where you don't have a lot of time to pull it together, especially if you're cast late. So I'm forever looking. I don't want to get bored, 'cause I know if I get bored, you'll get bored. So I'm always digging deeper.OC: How much has the back story evolved since the beginning of the show? The audience is constantly being given new clues about the characters' pasts. Were those characters' back stories determined from the onset of the series?
DJE: A lot of that stuff comes up, whether or not it was written out in the [show] bible. A writer comes up with an idea, and Don says, yeah, that will work into the history of that [character]. So I say,wow, isn't that surprising? Had I known about that, that could have colored a lot of things.
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OC: Had you known that last season ...
DJE: Had I know that last season he had a long-lost sister or whatever, that's the kind of thing that makes you think, wow, that's interesting. I remember when [it was revealed that] Catherine [Bell, who plays Sarah MacKenzie] had a husband. That was a big surprise to everybody! "Wow! I did?" I think those things just happen on TV, and you just have to roll with the punches. As far as the obvious things that were set up long ago and dealt with, the ghost of his father and all that, the thing that I have suggested is, OK, now that we've dealt with that and we finally have some closure on that, how has it affected him? The loss of a life, really, that has been his total obssession. How did he pick up the pieces and go on?
OC: Speaking of obsessions, are you familiar with the term "shipper" as applied to JAG?
DJE: No.OC: Well, JAG has many ardent fans on the Internet. There are dozens of websites devoted to JAG, to you, and to the other actors. Many of these fans characterize themselves as either "shippers" or "non-shippers". The shippers are the ones who are entirely in support of seeing Harm and Mac get together and have a romantic relationship. That's the "ship" in shipper. The non-shippers are those who are opposed to Harm and Mac having a relationship. Both sides dissect each week's episode to look for clues to support their position. How do you feel about the relationship issue?
DJE: I think that to embrace that would be death. It would kill the show instantly. It always does, if history is any indication. Anytime a show does that, it dies. Superman gets together with Lois Lane: done. They [the show's producers] seem to be driving on that note, so someone I guess is paying attention. I know Don [Bellisario, executive producer] goes online. That seems to be the new thing for producers, to really pay attention to [online fans' opinions].OC:What's the best and the worst part of your job?
DJE: The best part of my job is that I get to practice my craft every day. The worst part is that sometimes the hours can be extremely brutal, and I don't get to see my little girl as much as I'd like to.OC: Is that your biggest challenge as a father, the time issue?
DJE: It's balancing my time. It's not just being on the show, I've got to stay in shape, I've got other things; I also need a little bit of time to myself. It's a difficult thing sometimes. Sometimes I feel guilty. I'll be out running and I think, I should be at home, but at the same time, there are so many levels that I have to maintain. I spent some quality time with my daughter today. I got up this morning, made her breakfast, got her ready for school. Dropped her off at school, spent about a half hour at school with her. I race home at the end of the day if I think I might have 10 minutes with her. Sometimes I'm disappointed, I get home and she's already asleep. That's the toughest part for me.OC: There's a lot of physical stuff n the show - fights, chase scenes. Is that a challenge for you?
DJE: Yeah, sure it is. The thing is, when I do that stuff I always get hurt. If there's a fight, I get punched in the face or punched in the stomach, or kicked. Because there's not enough time to truly choreograph it. A fight is a dance. And they never make time for it. It's like the last thing anyone is going to work on. We were doing a thing a while back, God knows what could have happened. I had to leap off this dock onto a moving boat. So the director says, "Okay the boat's gonna start going and you're going to jump. We don't really have time to rehearse it. We're just gonna shoot it."OC: Don't you have a stunt double for that kind of thing?
DJE: No, 'cause the camera's fairly close, and my stunt double, God bless him, is a lot older than me and he doesn't really look like me. If you shoot him from far away, you can get away with it, but when the camera is up close, you just gotta do it. I like to do as much as I can, but I still have to brace myself for the pain. "God, here I go." So I had to jump off, and the first time I went for it, we decided that I was going to jump from the dock onto this box, and then leap from the box into this cigarette boat. And I started to slip and the boat was too far out, and God was with me that day - I almost fell headlong into the ice-cold water, but I didn't. If I'd gone for the boat, I would have hit the side of it and fallen backward and cracked my head on the dock. Anyway, I finally got it. I did it. But then the camera didn't get it. So I had to do it again. That constantly happens in a fight.We had a fight a little while ago, I got punched in the face, I punched the other guy, he kicked me in the stomach, I'm thinking, "I'm getting too old for this." I would sooner fight a stunt man; stunt men are really great, very particular about their punches, they know how everything's done. But fighting another actor? Nightmare. The adrenalin starts flowing, he's in character, he's in the moment. You're truly fighting for your life. I hate that stuff. Anytime it happens, I'm thinking, they never did this in L.A. Law. They sat around a desk and talked! That's the job I want.
click for larger image OC: A few years back, People magazine named you one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. Do you think of yourself as attractive?
DJE: No, I see all my flaws. I don't know that I'm ... I'm reasonably attractive, I guess. I try to look my best. I don't think that I'm ... Who knows? Beauty is only skin deep; what's really attractive is inside.OC: Speaking of physical beauty, I'd like to share this essay with you, which I discovered on one of the JAG websites. It's written by a lady who's very devoted to you. She spends the first part detailing your various features, your eyes, your smile, etc. Then she gets to the point of the essay: "All these wonderful features pale beside the one feature I have decided I absolutely must adore: his feet."
DJE: [Long pause] Really? [Big, long laughter]OC: The writer continues: "We've only seen the feet naked on JAG briefly in passing here and there. But bless those magazines. They've done their homework ... In Style had pictures ... his feet in full naked glorious color. And in the April issue of US magazine, there they are, those feet totally bare!"
DJE: My God. A foot fetish! Where do these people find the time? That's interesting. Frightening, in a way. Wow.OC: When you're 75 or 80 years old and you look back, what would you like your career to look like?
DJE: I hope to leave some lasting work. I guess we all crave immortality. My object from the beginning has been to do the best work that I could do. I never took a job for the dough, really. I just wanted to be the best that I could be. I'd like to look back and know that I never held back. That I always gave 200 percent. I'd like to be able to close my eyes at the end and know that I never swayed from that, ever.
