Ray Donovan: We talk Season 3 with Golden Globe winner Jon Voight

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Jon Voight as Mickey Donovan in Ray Donovan (Season 3, Episode 01). - Photo: Michael Desmond/SHOWTIME - Photo ID: RayDonovan_301_4802.R

“Whenever things get bad, they could always get worse: Mickey could show up,” grins Ray Donovan star Jon Voight — who thrills audiences weekly as Clan Donovan’s hustling patriarch — in a teaser for the show’s third season.

So now that his fortunes have changed, courtesy of a fine day at the horse track, does that mean Mickey with money is even more of a loose cannon than he was perpetually chasing it? “The more he has, the more dangerous he becomes to himself and others,” Voight confirms of the newly flush guy with his eye on becoming a prostitution kingpin. “He’s not a different animal. There can be a calm in the sea where it looks like it’s a calm, but it’s a whirlpool, really. You don’t get too close to it, or you’ll go down under with him.”

Still, Voight says, Mick’s heart is often in the right place — it’s his follow-through that seems irreparably warped.

“The things he does are really quite repugnant, but he does them for reasons we can admire in some cases — trying  to protect his family, or whatever,” Voight explains. “He’s trying his best to make amends and get back into his family’s graces, and we know he’s sincere in that. He’s just going to mess everything up — and we know that too.. The other aspect that I find shocking and humorous at the same time is that all these theatrics that are inlaid into this character. Mickey’s a survivor. He seems to be always in a survivor mode. He never gets out of it because he’s always putting himself into hot water that he has to get out of — so that becomes his personality altogether. That’s what you’re looking at, and that’s what his children have to deal with.”

None more so than Liev Schreiber’s bitter Hollywood fixer Ray, who — with his home life and his empire in a shambles — finds himself doing business with L.A. powerbroker Andrew Finney (Deadwood’s Ian McShane) and his beautiful, power-hungry daughter Paige (Katie Holmes). And though previews show Mick and Ray toasting each other poolside in matching tropical shirts, Voight says don’t be too quick to buy the sunny scene.

“I think Mickey would like not to be dangerous to his environment — especially to his family. But he is,” Voight says. “Ray’s got the same kind of thing. He’s somebody who’s going to be called upon by morally questionable folks to do morally questionable things. That’s how he makes his living. It’s very, very hard for either one of them to change.”

Still, Voight says, no one knows (and loves) Ray-Ray like his dad.

“The injury is great with Ray,” he explains. “Ray knows Mickey very well, because Ray, in a certain sense, is like him. They are both alpha males — but when you think about Ray, you may think about a strong structure, a great foundation. Mickey doesn’t seem to have that. But he takes the lead. He runs the show. Therefore, there’s this kind of standoff between Ray and I that, with me, comes from admiration. Mickey is proud of Ray. He thinks he’s like Ray. He’d like to be like Ray, but he doesn’t have the grace that Ray has. The poise. But he knows enough to see that this guy is a remarkable guy. I think he cares more for Ray than anyone else in life.”

Season 3 also brings complex story arcs for Mickey’s other sons. “We have big arcs for Terry, Eddie Marsan, and big arcs for Bunchy, Dash Mihok,” Voight says proudly. “And my partner in most of this season is Pooch Hall — Daryll — my African-American son. The boys have a lot to do with the story of this season. It’s great because they’re such good actors these guys; and their character’s are so unique. It’s a lot of fun.”

Voight says the changing TV landscape has created a quality, collaborative working environment that, for him, recalls early Hollywood.  “It’s almost like the days of Hollywood’s big studio system in Hollywood, where you had these clusters of talent that worked with each other all of the time,” he offers. “That’s what we have now in cable television, surprisingly. We have all these groups of people that do these episodic shows and it’s almost like doing a little movie every week. You’re continuously working and working with the same people, developing a relationship with the different characters and then we have these wonderful directors that jump aboard and are part of the family.”

But Voight saves his highest praise for Schreiber.

“Working with Liev — it’s a wonderful mystery,” he muses. “We have an interesting relationship. I worked with him in Manchurian Candidate, and he didn’t have much of a range in that piece because he was playing kind of a robotic character, but I found him to be extremely intelligent, and very talented. I watched him from that point and became very impressed with his work and wanted him to play the leading man. … I wanted him not to be overshadowed by somebody. It was muffling some of his power. He’s very, very intelligent, and he approaches the work both the intuitive level and a real intellectual level. When he comes to the set, it’s almost like you can see so many forces at work in his approach to how he’s going to do something. He has this inner battle, and the result is very rich and full of insight and strength. I really admire his work, and I love going to the set when I’m doing a scene with him. … I marinate a scene before I get to it, so I’ve got a lot of thoughts, suggestions that I make. Sometimes they’re right on, and sometimes they’re not. But I bring my thoughts and Liev brings his, and the directors bring theirs, and then it becomes something else. It becomes something better.

“It used to be that film and television were totally different animals,” Voight continues. “Now, it’s not so much of a difference. I’m able to work on this character with other great directors and actors.”

Then the man who plays Mickey chuckles slyly and adds, “I shouldn’t say other great actors. Makes me sound like I’m one of them.”

Ray Donovan Season 3 premieres Sunday, July 12 on Showtime

3 Comments

  1. Allan, you don’t know what the hell your talking about. Voight got porked and struggled for years to get a job. He went through hell because he allowed himself to be sodomized by some redneck. I felt really bad for Voight.

  2. Voight’s character was not “porked”; that was Ned Beatty’s character. “Deliverance” was released in 1972; he made numerous pictures right after, including “Coming Home” in 1978 for which he won an Oscar. He’s a phenomenal actor, with immense range and simply great in “Ray Donovan.”

  3. I remember when Voight had a hard time getting any movie roles after he was in that movie Deliverance because he was porked in the butt by a redneck. Back then you couldn’t do things like that in the movies. Today you can pork almost anything in the butt and it’s ok. Crazy world we live in.

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About Lori Acken 1195 Articles
Lori just hasn't been the same since "thirtysomething" and "Northern Exposure" went off the air.