TV Elite: Paxton uninterested in digital world, reading reviews

This is the second of a two-part series. Part 1 ran on yesterday's TV page.

The Hollywood Reporter gathered six fine examples of TV's new actor elite -- Simon Baker (CBS' The Mentalist), Bryan Cranston (AMC's Breaking Bad), Laurence Fishburne (CBS' CSI: Crime Scene Investigation), Michael C. Hall (Showtime's Dexter), Denis Leary (FX's Rescue Me) and Bill Paxton (HBO's Big Love) -- for a round-table discussion:

The Hollywood Reporter: Do you venture a lot into cyberspace to see what people are saying about you?

Leary: I have all their names and all their e-mail addresses! (Laughter) I'm working on their home addresses.

Paxton: For some reason, I just couldn't click over to the digital world. I just didn't want to. I don't read reviews either, because if you read the good ones you've got to believe them and then you've got to believe the bad ones, too. And I had an experience a few years ago when I directed a film and was really proud of it, and the reviews just peeled me. I did a Terry Gross interview a couple months ago (on NPR's Fresh Air). I wanted to hear the interview, and I had to go on the Internet to hear it, and all of a sudden there were all these responses, and the first one was that I was an apologist for the polygamist movement in this country and I was just taking a big paycheck. It really upset me. It's hard to separate the message from the messenger. We're the front line, we're the face of the thing.

Fishburne: For a lot of people, we really have become these characters that we play and it's very difficult for people to kind of separate that. That's really quite wonderful but it's kind of hard.

THR: What's the craziest thing you've read about yourselves?

Leary: I've got a million. I got accused of having an aging lesbian eye surgery. Aging lesbian eye surgery -- what does that mean? Unbelievable. Needless to say, I've never had the surgery. But actually I will at some point, if it makes me look like an aging lesbian and I need that part. There's no guarantee. Maybe I'll play Ellen DeGeneres. (Laughter)

Cranston: I don't read anything, I don't go online. I don't read tabloids. No one says anything about me. No one knows anything about me.

THR: How did you pull that off?

Cranston: Because it's not why I love to act. So I got what I wanted. I'm able to be this other guy and look completely different and just be in the woodwork. And nobody follows me. I don't have any paparazzi, there's nothing like that.

Paxton: You need a drug habit.

Cranston: I've been married for 20 years.

Paxton: That's the problem right there.

THR: What is the best thing about fame? Or the worst?

Fishburne: One of the best things is getting good tables at restaurants. And when people are really genuinely complimentary about your work.

THR: Instead of being mistaken for someone else?

Fishburne: Even when they mistake you for somebody else, it's cool.

Paxton: Dude, you were awesome in Pulp Fiction!

Fishburne: We all have that guy.

Leary: My guy is Willem Dafoe. I get mistaken for Willem Dafoe all the time.

Hall: Matt Damon.

Cranston: I don't get anybody. I don't look like anybody.

Baker: Fame. It's weird. I've been an actor for 16 years. You're not qualified to do anything. I didn't go to school, I sold time shares, I've worked in pubs. But you know what? I can pay the bills. My stepfather was a butcher, my old man was a mechanic, my mom worked at Kmart. I probably earn in a week more than what my family has ever earned in a year.

THR: Does it worry you to see actors being replaced by reality shows and NBC destroying the 10 o'clock --

Fishburne: I've got to stop you. I've really got to stop you. I've been an actor for, damn, 40 years, and it's really hard to hear you say that we've been replaced by a reality TV show. It's really hard to hear you say that. So you might want to rephrase that for me, man, please.

Hall: There's also a proliferation of shows and networks. As television goes, there's a lot more than was there back before reality programs existed.

Leary: I have nothing against Jay Leno, but that's five hours of shows. If Jay's thing works, they're all going to want to do it. It kind of makes you think, "----, man."

Cranston: I was reading something the other day about the girl who does this thing called The Hills, which I've never seen. And she was like, "I don't want to do it anymore. They've followed me around for the last five years." That would be my personal hell.