A nice-guy actor? That’s a helluva thing

I’ve interviewed a number of celebrities over the years. A short list would include Bob Newhart, Cab Calloway, Carrie Fisher, Robert Altman, John Laroquette, George Carlin, Jay Leno, Greg Louganis, Aidan Quinn, Robert Bly and… Carrot Top ? Add in the group interviews that I’ve participated in at film festivals and movie junkets and the list includes Steven Spielberg, Holly Hunter , Benicio Del Toro, John Goodman, Johnny Depp and Richard Dreyfuss.

Add in the night that I saw Morgan Freeman walk into the bar of an upscale Beverly Hills hotel with a statuesque woman on each arm, his face so filled with a grin that it appeared he was a walking set of teeth, and… well, I think you know what I mean.

It’s never easy to tell what a person is like in an interview, especially if said interview takes place over the phone. But you can usually tell is the person is a genuinely nice guy (Newhart) or someone so closely guarded (Laroquette) that you’re going to achieve anything resembling rapport about the same time that that Sherman Alexie writes a novel titled “The Plains Truth: My Life-Long Love Affair with George Armstrong Custer .” So let me say right here that Tony Shalhoub belongs among the Newhart crowd.

I say that on the basis of a 20-minute phone interview that I had with him a week ago. Twenty minutes isn’t a long time, I know. But consider: Shalhoub was in the midst an afternoon of phone interviews, calling back critic after critic, reporter after reporter, talking not only about his television show “Monk” but the movie “Made-Up,” which makes its Northwest premiere Friday in Spokane (and which represents Shalhoub’s first effort as a director). And yet he was open, friendly, willing to talk about most everything, quick to share credit with others for his success and, maybe most important, unafraid to criticize those in his industry who are too concerned with making movies that are terminally “hip.”

Sometimes celebrities are the good guys. From what I can tell, Tony Shalhoub is one. Either that or he’s a much better actor than he’s ever shown in the movies. Even “Galaxy Quest .”