Exactly one week ago, I had the pleasure of talking with actor, Raymond J. Barry who can be seen on Cold Case, Lost, and soon The Cleaner. He also has a numerous amount of films releasing this year and in 2007, Raymond was nominated for Best Supporting Male Independent Spirit Award for his role in Steel City.

I was lucky enough to chat with Raymond about everything from his recurring role on Cold Case to his experiences at Brown and Yale University. There is so much below and I hope you enjoy!

Getting right to Cold Case, did you regularly watch the show before getting this role?
No, I did not. I had no idea what the show was about. I actually don’t watch a lot of television. I watch the news at night but generally speaking, I am not into TV series. Sometimes I watch my own work just to make sure that the work is okay. I enjoy being on the show and it is a phenomenal cast. It is really a fun job.

Is your role in this show a recurring role?
Yes it is. I have done 6 episodes and I believe I will be back next time. While the show is on hiatus, I will be going into The Cleaner on A&E. Before talking to you, I was actually learning my lines. I am also playing the Grandfather of Jack on Lost.

I was going to ask you about Lost.

Do you watch Lost?

I love Lost.

Everyone who watches it loves it but they don’t know quite what is going on… and I don’t either. (laughs) It is kind of a cryptic plot. I have only done one episode but I am confident that they will call me back.

How long did it take to film that episode of Lost?
I arrived on a Saturday and we shot on Monday and I left Monday night.

So going back to Cold Case, what do you have to do to prepare to play the role?
The main thing that I do is that I make sure that I am totally prepared with my lines. I don’t want to hold up anybody because I cannot remember my lines. Then I personalize the relationship between myself and my daughter on screen with real life.

In this particular role, there is some guilt involved because in the storyline I deserted my daughter which I have never done in my own case. I am a father. I have 4 children, one of which was born 7 months ago. I have a 36 year old, a 17 year old, a 9 year old, and a 7 month old. So I know what it is to be a father. What I can bring to the role has a great deal with my own experience as a father. The guy is an ex-alcoholic and I was never an ex-alcoholic but I can imagine how that must be like. The relationship is a bit dysfunctional but there is hope because they become reconciled eventually.

As far as the alcoholism is concerned, did you do research such as go to an AA meeting?
Yes. I also grew up in a situation where there was some alcoholism. From having lived around alcoholics, I kind of know what that is and it is not a very comfortable thing to grow up in.

Talk about the episode that is going to air this Sunday, “Libertyville.”
I think in that particular episode we have an argument over her resentment of my having left her when she was about 8 years old. She was in a lot of pain about that. It comes out in an argument that we have in a park. It was difficult to shoot. In fact, I did a movie, Steel City. They referred to hat film, telling me that they wanted that kind of emotion for this scene. The writing was totally different from when I did Steel City but I did it.

Moving onto stage…You toured around the world a lot at the time that you were doing stage work, so what would you say was the most fascinating place to visit?
I did a play in Algiers. There is a village in Algeria that is so fascinating. It is a completely different culture. I would look outside my hotel room and there would be a person dancing with 2 drums tied to his waste. It was just magnificent. They are so talented. I would see farmers holding hands as they walked down the street. I found that to be such a statement about friendship. There was no condensation of homosexuality or anything of the nature. It was just plain old beautiful to see. The men were so elegant with their robes. I think that takes the cake as far as location. Berlin was also very fascinating. I performed at the time that the wall was there. It was very interesting. We were there in the middle of the winter.

I also performed in prisons in the United States in the 70s and I also worked in prisons doing theatre workshops. I had a company that was composed of ex-offenders and I had a truck that opened up into a stage. Ex-offenders would get paid to perform in the plays and have some shot at working at a craft that might bring them out of the ghetto and away from drugs. That was a very profound experience for me. There was a certain degree of frustration though. 95% of the people who I worked with are dead now because of the life. I also worked with the Puerto Rican Playwright Workshop and I had a similar experience in that setting. All of these people were enormously talented!

Which play has changed your life?
Well, going into theatre was the most unlikely choice I could have made as a young man. I hardly talked, I was not outgoing, and I was very insecure about communicating. As decades have unfolded, I have had the good fortune to get work. By getting work, I became more and more confident. By allowing myself to take on more, I would say that the transformation of who I was then at the age of 21 when I started acting, to who I am now is so profoundly different because of the craft and life of theatre that I have lived. I am actually outgoing now, I have ideas, and I am political. I am still growing. For me, this profession helped me grow as an individual.

What has been your most challenging role?
Probably because of the time that I was at in my life, I would say playing Tom Cruise’s father in Born on the Fourth of July, directed by Oliver Stone. The reason why it was challenging was because I felt enormous responsibility to pull it off, given that my son was going to become paralyzed from the waist down from fighting in the Vietnam War. I wanted to pull it off. I wanted to enter that emotional state and I put myself through hell to make that character. I did pull it off and I am very proud of it. I have to give credit to Oliver Stone because he was really hard on me and I needed someone to be hard on me. I am very proud of it.

Moving on, you are quite the talented painter & sculptor but have you had any art shows in NY or LA?
I have never had an art show in LA. I had 3 shows in NY in my 20s. But I don’t like it. I just paint. The reason that I am not into that is because you have to sell your work and I don’t like selling and going over prices. Also, I usually miss the stuff that I sold. So I am not cut out for that. I am actually staring at an unfinished painting in my studio right now.

When did you start painting?
I started painting seriously when I was 24 years old. My mother was a painter, my grandfather was a sculptor, and my sister is a painter. I was surrounded by paintings all of my life. It was natural to walk into a household with canvasses all over the place. It was bohemian setting in the middle of the suburbs in Long Island.

Can you tell me about your experiences at Brown University and Yale University?
I went to Brown because 2 athletes from my high school in Long Island went to Brown before me and I admired both of them. So I wanted to go where they went. I was also accepted into Dartmouth but I went to Brown and got a scholarship. I was an athlete so I was on the Brown track team, I played football, and I played basketball for 2 years. I majored in Philosophy. I don’t know exactly why. The word was kind of fancy and I was very naïve. It made me feel like I was intelligent or something. I did enjoy philosophy though.

Finally during senior year, a guy asked me if I wanted to be in a play. Of course I said no, I wasn’t interested. Long story short, he kept coming back. Then he invited me to his theatre class and long story short, I became interested and joined the play. I was awful and of course all of the football players came and laughed their asses off. But I was interested. Then, the same guy encouraged me to apply to Yale’s drama school. Yale accepted me. I went to Yale for one year and then left to work. I loved my experience at Brown. I can’t say that I loved my experience at Yale but I worked very hard at Yale, wondering if I should be there. The transition that took place at Brown is what education should be all about. Brown was a wonderful experience.

Tell me about your upcoming projects.
I play the lead in Charlie Valentine (just released in the 25th). The Shortcut is produced by Adam Sandler and his brother. I play the main antagonist. There is another film, Hotel California, where I play a gangster. I am working on Cold Case, The Cleaner, and Lost…I am busy. Life is good. I just turned 70 years old. At the age of 70, I have 3 movies, 3 roles on television, and my wife just gave birth to our 4th child, my 7 month old daughter. Life is good.

You are living the life.

I am living the life. I got no complaints.

Finally, being 70 years old, what do you want to teach your children that you may not have done when you were younger?
Life is spiritual. You will not get much out of life if you reduce your life to fame or materialism. It is about joy for what you are doing, joy for just breathing. You have to appreciate being alive. It is really something to think about.