Dan’s Papers October 1, 2010 danshamptons.com Page 35
Who’s Here By David Lion Rattiner Ever since he was a college student, Mark Feuerstein, star of the hit show “Royal Pains,” has been coming to the East End. It’s sort of impossible not to know who he is today—his face is plastered on Hampton Jitney busses, his face is on network television advertisements and his highly rated show, starring him, is going into its third season. How Feuerstein became an actor was pretty simple—he couldn’t help it. No matter how many of his friends at Dalton had their sights set on Goldman Sachs and law degrees, Feuerstein never once felt right about following that path, which was laid before him while just a teenager at Dalton as if they were saying, “Here, do this and you will be successful.” “I grew up in New York City, on 79th and York on the Upper East Side,” the actor explains. “I loved our neighborhood and at first went to PS 158 and got a taste of the way the world is. Kids in my class had single moms and not a lot of money and I saw first hand what it means to live a hard life. But then I went to Dalton where I had quite the opposite experience. I sort of feel like I had the opportunity to see both sides of the New York existence growing up.” “From Dalton I went to Princeton. I had been building a resume throughout my high school career because I wanted to satisfy the track that a New York City private school kid is supposed to be on. But I really wanted to follow my bliss, I really wasn’t feeling right about being on THE TRACK. When I got to college I decided to push away a little. I didn’t know what I was in for when I made that decision, that’s for sure.” At Dalton and at Princeton, Feuerstein appeared typically all-star—on the outside he played on the football team, joined Hillel, organized dances and joined a fraternity. “It took me some time to get to that decision. As I went through life, the various kids that I thought were cool, such as the jocks and people like that who all fit in and who were determined to get into the right school and the right job and then the right this and the right that, I felt an overwhelming sense that I was in the wrong place for myself and I trusted that feeling. Freshman year I was being very typical of a Dalton guy at Princeton. Besides Hillel and football, I was very active organizing school dances and mixers. But none of it felt like me. It felt like it was what everyone else thought should be me. Ultimately, it led me to what I wanted to do with my life, just by giving something a try, that I nor anybody ever expected me to try: Acting. “I auditioned for a play at Princeton, hoping to play Pale in Burn This by Landford Wilson. The play is a famous drama, and I had to read a monologue during the audition where a char-
Mark Feuerstein, Actor
fat French man who was telling me to be funny by making noises with a washing machine. I was sweating, nervous and not getting a laugh, and then there was this teacher with a heavy French accent telling me, ‘Mark. It’s not working for you is it Mark? Why is that? Why is this $#!T?’ “After coming back from London I sort of started my career in New York and began to get jobs here and there as an actor and making a name for myself, but I got to a point where I really wanted to work steadily. When Royal Pains came along, it was sort of the ultimate combination of forces in the universe. Royal Pains was proof to me that there are no coincidences.” Feuerstein got involved in the show when a friend he had worked with in the past got the green light from USA to make the pilot. “Twelve years ago I was getting my wisdom teeth taken out by Dr. Lewchenski. His son Andrew, who is now the writer for Royal Pains, was at that time a writer in L.A. While in the dentist chair, his dad told me to give him a call to see if there was anything that we could do together because he knew I was an actor. So I just gave him a call and invited him to my break fast at Yom Kippur and we met and became friends and ate together and just both sort of respected each other and the fact that we were both involved in this crazy business. Years later, Andrew got the pilot for Royal Pains approved for USA and so I called him and let him know that I was interested in trying out for the Hank role. I got an audition and went through testings and it worked for everybody at the network. When our first show aired, it got a very positive response.” Feuerstein had also crossed paths with show’s creator and executive producer, Michael Rauch. “In school, everybody knew about this kid named Michael Rauch. All of the teachers, coaches and parents knew him as an exceptional athlete and student. I never knew him as a friend, but I knew of him, and then all of a sudden he entered my life as the guy who created Royal Pains and I felt like that was really an omen.” Today, Feuerstein still loves the Hamptons and is ear to ear smiles about how things in his life. “My family never really went out to the Hamptons, but when summer came around at Dalton, suddenly my brother and I became aware of this mysterious paradise that everybody went to called the Hamptons. My brother convinced my father to rent a house in Water Mill. So when I was 20 we started summering in Water Mill, then at a place in Bridgehampton. Like everyone else, I love it out here. I stay in my family’s house in Bridgehampton when we shoot Royal Pains out here. It’s heaven to be out in Bridgehampton. I was jogging down Halsey Lane the other day and somebody said to me, ‘Hey Hank!’ and I waved back and just laughed to myself.
“Royal Pains ... was sort of the ultimate combination of forces in the universe—proof to me that there are no coincidences.” acter is leaving and finds a letter from his gay roommate, who writes about how he can’t take it any more. So I read this dramatic letter as a monologue, and did it sort imitating Rodney Dangerfield because when I was a kid, the only acting experience I ever had was imitating comedians at the dinner table—like him and Eddie Murphy and others. It went terribly. The director was in shock and so was everybody else that was trying out for the part, and I didn’t get the part. “But another director was there who was putting together a play called Orphans and he liked me. I tried out for that and got a leading role. From there I just never stopped. Acting became who I am as a person. I just made a decision to live that life. Needless to say, it surprised a few people.” Feuerstein went the route of actor in a scholarly way. “I ended up getting a Fullbright scholarship and studied acting and theater at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art at L’Ecole Phillipe in France. At one point I found myself in London studying clowning with a big
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