Craig Hurley delivers fascinating glimpse inside Hollywood life
Exclusive Interview by Michael Aaron Gallagher of StayFamous.Net
“Fascinating, gritty and undeniably entertaining, ‘27 and All Washed Up’ is like re-living the adventures of a Hollywood actor straight from their personal diary.” – StayFamous.Net
Craig Hurley
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s really like to be friends with a celebrity, Craig Hurley‘s new book 27 and All Washed Up strips away the glitz and glamour of showbusiness to reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly side of Hollywood life in the ’80s and ’90s.
From contract negotiations to actual letters and photographs, his personal account is like a time machine that transports you back to the days when shows like Beverly Hills, 90210 ruled the television airwaves. With stories about fighting Luke Perry on set to sharing laughs with Adam Sandler as he heard “The Chanukuh Song” for the first time, Hurley reveals his own personal struggles and successes as a working actor in Hollywood and the people he met along the way.
Throughout his career, Hurley has had roles on numerous television shows. His many acting credits include guest starring as Bobby Falcone on Beverly Hills, 90210, playing Danny Larson on the television series Nasty Boys (alongside Benjamin Bratt, Dennis Franz, and Nia Peeples) and parts on 21 Jump Street, Life Goes On, Highway to Heaven and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Actor Craig Hurley (left) and actress Katie Barberi (right).
Now as a writer, director and producer with more than 30 projects currently in the works (including a film called Crazy), Hurley is the Founder and President of ScrappyCo Productions. He is also still dating his longtime girlfriend, actress Katie Barberi, who was recently nominated for a best supporting actress award for her work on Telemundo.
In a recent interview with StayFamous.Net, Hurley talked about his long career as an actor and his revealing new book.
Michael Aaron Gallagher: “Why write this book now, at this point in your life?”
Craig Hurley: “I didn’t want to write 27 and All Washed Up. I didn’t plan on doing it. An actor friend of mine, while I was doing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest… would come up to me and be like, ‘Tell me about beating up Luke Perry on 90210.’ And I would start telling that story and inevitably there would be 18 members of the cast standing around listening to me tell the story….And he kept bugging me throughout the run of the play, and he was just like, ‘You need to write a book, Craig.’ … I didn’t really want to do it, but all these other people around me pushed me to do it, so it got done.”
Michael Aaron Gallagher: “Working in the entertainment industry is a journey with ups and downs and a lot of discouragement. What in your career has kept you motivated to keep trying new things?”
Craig Hurley: “I’m an artist and it really started with me as a kid. Besides doing my first commercial when I was 4 years old, it really started with music, literally outside singing in the rain, when I was like 2 years old. That’s what I always did. I was performing in one way or another… so to me it’s just about being an artist and being able to shift gears if you need to and shift into another facet of your own art. If you’re not succeeding on one level in the entertainment business, shift over into another…. It’s not just about acting and it’s not just about singing or directing, it’s about a combination. I think there’s a lot of artists out there that are like that, where they can’t shift. I don’t know if they choose not to or they get locked into something and they’re happy there. It’s different for each individual artist.”
Michael Aaron Gallagher: “A lot of young stars start out and they’re very dedicated and they go on a lot of auditions and then over time, they seem to put less effort and energy into their performances and they fade away. In your experience, is that something that you’ve seen in Hollywood or is there more to it than that?”
Craig Hurley: “I personally have been on 10,588 auditions in my lifetime and I counted them all. Because I don’t know how many people out there really go on 10,000 job interviews. A lot of actors go through that. They’re going on job interviews all the time. It can wear you down. With me, I try to memorize every single piece of copy that I get in front of me. It just makes for a better performance for the audition. And if they’re out there trying to do the same thing, that means I’ve memorized 10,000 pieces of copy, the majority of which I never did the job…. It can be extremely exhausting and the rejection factor can really get to somebody, if you’re worried about being rejected. I never really worried about that. I never really worried about competition either. I just figured if I’m the guy for the part then I’m the guy for the part, and I’m going to try to give them the best performance that I possibly can.”
Perhaps, one of the most interesting parts of Hurley’s book is the “naughty” and “nice” list at the end. Unlike, many actors, Craig doesn’t pull punches when he talks about what celebrities were good to work with and who wasn’t. In fact, you may be surprised by which 90210 cast members made the lists.
Actors Craig Hurley, Dennis Franz, Benjamin Bratt.
Michael Aaron Gallagher: “Were you worried about any backlash from the studios or people you mentioned in the book?”
Craig Hurley: “Not at all. I know what my rights are as far as what I can say and what I can’t. If you were nice to me in this lifetime, I made sure to treat you nice in the book. And if you weren’t so nice, then I made sure to tell everybody that you’re not a nice person. Most of the people in there that I bashed, everybody already knows that this person is that type of person. It’s not like I’m not saying anything that hasn’t already been heard. I’m just kind of validating that that’s exactly what the situation is.”
Michael Aaron Gallagher: “What do you tell people who ask you for advice about how to make it in Hollywood?”
Craig Hurley: “Read 27 and All Washed Up… I looked at it more as a text – that if people are climbing the same ladder in the entertainment business (or any ladder for that matter), they can take one of the people’s names that I have put in there, it could be any of them, and associate it with one of the people’s names that they’re dealing with today and they can see what rung of the ladder they’re actually on at that point… So that’s one of the things that I would definitely recommend. That’s kinda why I wrote 27 and All Washed Up – it’s to give people that path.”
Although Hurley says he will not be writing another book like 27 and All Washed Up, it doesn’t signal the finale of his Hollywood story. With the experience of a veteran actor and the tenacity of a fighter, one thing is for sure, Craig Hurley is about to add some of the most intriguing chapters to his career in the coming years. After all, if he lands another big on-screen television role someday, there’s a good chance that the next printing of his book will have a line drawn through the words “all washed up.”
“Craig Hurley delivers fascinating glimpse inside Hollywood life (Exclusive Interview)”
Copyright 2012 by Michael Aaron Gallagher
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