Frank Rich - Interview

Interview, Dec, 2000 by Maer Roshan

MR: Do you find actors and politicians to be very similar?

FR: That's a little too easy, but it is shocking to what extent politics has become a branch of show business. You know the guy who directs the Democratic National Convention also directs the Tony awards! It's a sign of how much now they've become the same business.

MR: You recently cut back on the number of op-ed columns you do. Was it hard to give up a regular spot on the most powerful op-ed page in the world?

FR: I still contribute, and the stuff I write still has impact, but I didn't feel I had to comment every ten minutes. I wanted to write stuff that I hoped would have more depth, and be more satisfying to me as a writer. In fact, if it weren't for the Lewinsky scandal I would have left a year earlier. The Monica Lewinsky scandal is the perfect thing to write a column about twice a week. It's drama, it's farce, its endlessly fascinating. It's pure theater.

MR: Do you still believe in politics?

FR: I do. I do believe in politics. I'm not jaded about it, and there are people like [New York Senator] Chuck Schumer who really believe in public service. But it's changed, you know. Recently I was going through some old papers and I came across a convention handbook published by NBC News in 1960, in which I had assiduously written down how many votes were cast on each ballot in the convention that nominated JFK. I was kind of obsessed with that, it was so much fun. My youngest son is also interested in this stuff, but he had no idea that conventions used to be so suspenseful. He won't get to have that experience. I feel the same way about the theater that I grew up with, the theater of My Fair Lady and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I'm lucky that I grew up in that time, when these things mattered so much more.

Maer Roshan is Deputy Editor at New York magazine.