“He’s a bully, is what he is.”
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on June 28, 2007 – 12:24 AM10 Comments
McGee says that Leary, who declined requests to be interviewed for this piece, cultivates a public image as a bold, blunt, hands-on actor-writer-producer who loves collaboration, but is actually an insecure, controlling person who hogs the spotlight. (“The promos are all him — you’d think there was nobody else on the show.”) McGee also says Leary demands deference from costars, ostracizes those who don’t grant it, and avoids taking responsibility for unpleasant creative decisions, preferring to subcontract the delivery of bad news to his fellow executive producers, Peter Tolan and Jim Serpico.
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I misread the names and thought this piece was a paraody of an adult Jack McPhee lashing out about how Dawson Leery became a bitchy control freak who tried to project a collaborative artist image. It still makes complete sense if you read it that way.
Same here, Clare. Heh.
Have you heard the commentary on Season 1 of Rescue Me? His graciousness and willingness to give credit where it’s due seem to bely the statements above. Of course, it’s been a few years now…
Also, I watch the show for him. So having him appear in all of the ads seemed logical to me. I don’t refer to it as the Firefighter show. I call it the Denis Leary show.
Of course, even if he is an unmitigated ass, the show still rawks my socks off.
Damn, the person who this interview really reflects poorly upon is Jack McGee, not Denis Leary. McGee sounds worse than a junior high girl, with all the drama & hearsay he’s injecting into the situation. To my knowledge, the entertainment industry isn’t known for stability of employment; actors accept the risk of their role ending everytime they sign up for this kind of job.
God, what a bunch of crybabies. How does anything ever get done in Hollywood if all the actors and producers are wasting their time dealing with stupid shit like this?
While I was sad to see the Chief go, I am totally with Alyce. It is Denis Leary’s show, I love Garrity (and scary scary Tatum!) and the Probie, but it is all about the craziness that is Tommy Gavin. And all I could think while reading the article on TWoP was that Leary’s background is in stand-up and McGee was describing the ego and whacked self of sense that seems to go hand-in-hand with comics. In other words, it all seemed about right.
I found this piece to be weird… celebrity gossip/dirty laundry is not the sort of thing I expect from TWoP. One guy says Denis Leary is a jerk. Another guy says he’s not. And so…?
Love the site in general, but was disappointed with this one!
As someone who has met Denis Leary and who’s known a lot of folks in the Boston and Worcester areas who know him, have worked with him, and help with his charities…this reads, to me, like sour grapes from a guy who was written off a show. I’ve never really heard any of this from others who’ve worked with Denis – in fact, usually I’ve heard just about the opposite.
While it certainly stinks of sour grapes, I have to point out that Leary lifted heavily from Bill Hicks as a comedian, never giving credit, and continued to lift after Hick’s death. As much as I loved Denis Leary as a teenager (and recently had the bizarre experience of hearing 20 Inuit sing “Asshole” in Nunavut), I feel like there must be something inherently sinister about him. Stealing material is simply not cool, and makes me believe that must of the other stuff is probably true.
Does “Asshole” even make sense in Nunavut? Would “I like to park in handicapped spaces while handicapped people make handicapped faces” still rhyme?
Brilliant song. Hilarious and talented comedian/actor/writer/producer. And yes, a damned thief, and he should have apologized to Bill Hicks, or his family, long ago.
Not sure how this related to McGee, but there’s a sort of poetic justice seeing Leary get reamed for SOMETHING, I guess.