Mark Feuerstein of 'Royal Pains' on Late Success and Jamming with Hoda on 'Today'

Mark Feuerstein has had a checkered career to say the least. Through the 1990s and the most of the 2000s, Feuerstein was in the same category that Paula Marshall and Jon Cryer once occupied, and where Alex O'Loughlin currently finds himself: talented actors who get repeatedly chosen as the lead in high-profile new shows, only to have the shows crash and burn.

But with USA Network's 'Royal Pains,' which is in its second season and airs Thursdays at 10PM ET, Feuerstein has a legitimate hit on his hands. And he's very appreciative of the show's success.

".. I truly count my blessings every day I come to work," he told me last week, "and I just can't believe that my story was written in this way where I got to feel like I was a star at times in shows that failed or a glorified extra in other situations, and everything in between."

Feuerstein and I talked about that success, working with Henry Winkler and Marcia Gay Harden, who he used to be mistaken for, and why he decided to bust out some Beastie Boys rhymes on the 'Today' show a few weeks ago.

Are you shooting today on Long Island, or are you in New York?
I am in Oheka Castle in my palatial suite that my kind producer procured for me because we were shooting until one in the morning last night at a house nearby in Huntington, Long Island where Oheka and various houses are. So we're shooting here at Oheka later today so it was expedient to allow me to stay here so we could just get sleep and get ready for another day.

Have you ever stayed at the castle before?
I have, it's unbelievably gorgeous.

Is this one of the interesting kind of perks to shooting in the Hamptons? In the last couple of seasons have you had moments like this?
Two moments. One, today, yes, I wake up in my castle, I put on some sweats, I go outside and jog around my golf course and the surrounding homes in the area, I jog back to my castle, alone on a stone piazza at the the entry at Oheka castle, I go upstairs, I change, go into an entire dining room that is empty, except for fully-set tables, fully ready-made coffee and all the juices and all the cereals and all the pastries. I pick out my cereals, and my pastry and my coffee, I sit out on the veranda looking out upon the manicured grass and gardens of Oheka castle and I read my script. And I wonder whether or not I am, in fact my character, what i did to deserve such a good moment, or if it's just a transitory moment that I should not get used to.



What was the other moment that was like that?
Well, the other moment where fact and fiction were slightly blurred, was my parents own a house in Bridgehampton, so I was staying there while we were shooting and I decided to go for a jog and as I'm out in the road, someone on the road walking said 'Hey Hank,' and I just kept jogging.

And I'm guessing that's kind of where the two worlds merged a little bit.
Well, I mean, the truth of the matter is, the worlds are merged in me, because I am not some farm boy from Iowa who happened to get the role of Dr. Hank Lawson, New Jersey boy turned Hamptonite. I am Mark Feuerstein, born and bred in New York City, who went to high school with lots of kids who had homes in the Hamptons, and who sort of looked slightly lustily or admiringly. I was a New York kid who was aware of the Hamptons and that world, and now later in our family's existence, we didn't have a house in high school or college. But now my parents were able to afford a country house in Bridgehampton and so I am also in my own real life a part of the very world that is depicted in the TV show I play on. So fact and fiction are merged both because of the show and because of the fact.

But your parents don't have a private doctor coming to the house, or do they?
They do not. And I want to assure you that I will never assume that role.

Well that's good. I would hope you would not go and be their doctor, because that would seem a little strange. You only play one on TV, like the saying goes.
Yes, as much as I'd like to think that i have the medical skills that Hank Lawson has, I am smart enough to know, I don't.

How far are you into the second season now, shooting-wise?
Oddly, before we started speaking, I was in the middle of our eighth episode of season two. And there is a character with your name, and I will share with you, is coincidentally, Doug Keller. so it is very timely that we should be speaking.

So the name should stick in your head as long as you don't call him Joel, it'll be fine. Or as long as you don't call me Doug.
I won't call you Doug, I'll call you Joel, but you can consider it a slight homage to you.

I do and I appreciate it even though the writers don't know who I am, I'll consider it an homage to begin with.
Let's be clear, it is 100% unintentional, but an homage none the less.

Given USA's track-record, when did you realize that this show is really taking off and we're going to be doing this for at least another year or two?
There is a moment that I will share with you that I've never really mentioned to anybody, but the executive producer with whom I shared it. But we were shooting episode 106 or 107, we were on a farm near the Bronx Botanical Gardens, and it was our third episode on the air and it was the first time a new show on cable had ever gone up in its rating from the second week to the third week. It's a very random and specific statistic but it's true and as nerdy as that stat may be, it means a lot to people like (NBCU cable president) Bonnie Hammer and everyone below her.

So it was this email frenzy of celebration about our ratings that day and there was this moment when I was standing there with Michael Rauche in an alcove of this sort of ramshackle, Bronx farm, with chickens running around and a barn of sorts that was being used as the artist's studio. And we just stood there and looked at each other, each of us having our share of misses, and we just marveled and reveled together at the reality that we might have a hit on our hands.

And even now as I use that word, I'm saying it was slight trepidation because I never want to tempt the fates. And even then we couldn't say, we would say something like this... very cautiously... "Are we, almost, like, i don't want to say it, but are we a hit?" and we would draw it out and hardly say it in fear that we were counting our chickens too soon.

Do you have a different perspective on it because of the way you're career's gone to this point?
That is a great question and the answer is quite simply, without all of the rejections and all of the close but misses and failures, I would never be able to appreciate this show the way that I do. And when I tell you that I show up to work every day pinching myself, thanking God for my -- well that's a little extreme, we should thank God for having our health -- but I truly count my blessings every day I come to work and I just can't believe that my story was written in this way where I got to feel like I was a star at times in shows that failed or a glorified extra in other situations, and everything in between.

I've been a very small part in a movie, and a big part in a movie, a small role in the theatre and a I've been a lead role in the theater and the same goes for television. I've had now, who knows, anywhere from twenty to fifty kinds of experiences on the showbiz food chain, and after all of that struggle and experience, I get to have my cake and eat it too. And it's just a dream come true.

For all those times that I was hiking Runyan Canyon, trying to learn lines for a network test that wasn't going to go well because I had just come off a show that didn't do well or because there was another guy that was hotter than I am or just fresher than I was. For all those moments of just pacing and stressing and hours without being able to think about anything but that audition, and what did they think and calling your manager ten times that week just to create a reason to talk and feel like you have a career. For all those moments, not everyone gets the B side of the story or the Hollywood ending but I feel like I have.



Before 'Royal Pains,' what did people usually recognize you for? Were you ever confused for someone else?
There are many interactions, Joel, that an actor like me has in public when he gets recognized. The best are "You're a great actor, good work," and move on. A very good interaction could be when they say "You were awesome on 'The West Wing,'" "Loved 'In Her Shoes,' great movie," "'What Women Want,' good job dude." Or even one of my raps on the internet, or some webisode series or something, whatever it was.

The more average or typical for me would be some yenta on a plane going to the bathroom and stopping by my chair and saying (in a yenta-ish voice) "Wait, I know you, where do I know you from?" "Uh, I don't know ma'am, 'The West Wing'?" "No." "'What Women Want'?" "No." "'In Her Shoes'?" "No." "Uh, 'Good Morning Miami'?" "No. Oh yeah, you're Ross from 'Friends.' OK, I don't like that show."

Or, more typically, this happened once with my wife, we were at a hotel and an old couple came over to us and they said "Hi, we know you" and I said "Ah, well you might've seen 'What Women Want,' which just came out." and they said "No, no, no. Doesn't your father go to Park East Synagogue?" I said, "Oh, yeah, he does," "You're Feuerstein, right?" "Oh yeah, hi, nice to see you." That's my more typical recognition exchange but now it's different now it's really different. I wouldn't go to far with it but I definitely felt a shift.

The show had some interesting casting this season, with Marcia Gay Harden and Henry Winkler. What other casting news can we talk about for this year?
We are so excited about both of them and Henry has been amazing to work with, he is of the best kind of people and of the best kind of actors that you could hope to work with. He is just pure goodness as a talent and as a man. He has become like our on set father as much as he's the father of Hank and Evan.

Marcia Gay Harden is the consummate professional but she also, like Henry, has a huge heart as a person. And we at 'Royal Pains' are a show with heart. Another (guest star) down the pipe I think tomorrow or today, is Michael Rauche's best friend and my best friend a guy named Michael Silver is coming on today to play your name sake, Doug Keller.



Let me wrap this up by giving you my admiration from one Beastie Boys fan to another, for your ability to break out with 'Shake Your Rump' on the 'Today' show. I guess you asked them to play that because you wanted to display your skills?
When I went on the 'Today' show, I had no idea Hoda was going to do the story about my story of being on 'Regis and Kathie Lee' ten years ago ... I always rued the day when I was forced to do my spin move with Regis and Kathie Lee and I thought I'd share that embarrassing story but little did I know that I would get a slightly more embarrassing moment that day when they would ask me what my music of choice would be, and in the moment, it just came out, "Beastie Boys."

And then of course, because it wasn't premeditated, they put on a song I love but do not know the words to, 'You Got to Fight for Your Right to Party." So I was there just kind of grooving to it but I like to know the words to my Beastie Boys songs and I like to rhyme with them so after a good awkward thirty seconds in which I was just trying to mouth the words to a song I don't know. I went over to the woman who was getting the music together and said "Can you find 'Shake Your Rump' and asked "Can you start it at 'I'm Mike D, and I'm back from the dead, chillin' at the beach like I'm down in Club Med.'" And she found it, she queued it up and then at the end she rocked it and I was thrilled to be back in my element jamming on Hoda to the Beastie Boys.