Peter MacNicol
The 'Chicago' Lawyer is Unsettled Out of Court
Entertainment Weekly, June 30, 1995
recorder as it were a gun. "I'll pretend it's a kind of a pepper mill," he says quietly. A week later at a photo
session, it takes a few beers to get MacNicol to relax in front of the camera. Though he's veteran of
Broadway and films (Sophie's Choice, Ghostbusters II) and holds a stand-out role on the CBS hit Chicago
Hope, MacNicol seems oddly uncomfortable playing himself.
"Acting is about covering up traces of who you are and just being the character," says the boyish-looking
MacNicol, 37, a Texan who now lives in L.A. with his wife, Marsue. "I think it's easier to accept people in
roles if you don't know a lot about them."
The success of Hope has led MacNicol to speak up. As the fiercely combative yet personally insecure
hospital lawyer Alan "The Eel" Birch, MacNicol is playing one of the most intriguing characters on TV. But
when the series began, his character was barely in evidence. At first he resisted complaining to Hope
creator David E. Kelley. "I've not wanted to be one of those whiny actors," says MacNicol. "But in October I
went to David and just sat in a chair with my arms up in the air. It was kind of wordless cry for help:
Please, attend to me!" The writers came around.
During the Hope hiatus, MacNicol is subsuming himself in another unusual role, as the bizarre insectivore
Renfield in Mel Brooks' Dracula: Dead and Loving It. "Renfield has an alarming laugh," says MacNicol as a
waiter clears away the oatmeal. "I would do it here except that they would call security." And far be it
from Peter MacNicol to create a stir.
~B. Watson
