Graham Phillips: Making His Way Through Hollywood One Hit at a Time

By Ilena Ryan

Monday, 07 February 2011 16:50

It didn’t take long for Graham Phillips to know he wanted to perform. School productions provided a creative outlet for the young actor, however, his first professional gig as Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden triggered an intense love for the craft. The sheer spectacle of the show brought such a sense of magic to acting that Graham knew it was his calling.
Graham, who turns 18 in April, can currently be seen on the three-time Emmy-nominated series The Good Wife as Julianna Margulies’ son, Zach. And while the show is off and running to tremendous success, the on-set environment is a casual and positive learning experience where Graham has the opportunity to pick the brains of the actors and directors around him. His insatiable curiosity, which once got him into trouble on set, is now flourishing in an environment where questions are encouraged. “I’m a person who asks a lot of questions. [In A Christmas Carol] I was really curious about the technical side of everything: the directing, the lighting. I always got to do that in school, whereas professionally, most of the time, before a certain age, it’s not really tolerated for you to ask that many questions. But at a certain point, it is tolerated, which is why I really love being on The Good Wife – they’re so open about answering all of my questions. It’s such a dream come true as far as a learning experience goes and the crew and cast, they teach me a lot in there; they take me under their wing and embrace my curiosity,” Graham explains.
With a slew of directors in and out of The Good Wife studio, Graham is able to learn about the profession he dreams to master someday. “I’d love to be a film director; it’s great [here], it’s almost like taking a survey class in directing.” In a nurturing atmosphere and with extensive resources to learn from, Graham is taking full advantage.
Part of the learning experience is addressing and coping with personal challenges and Graham is learning to adjust. His biggest weakness is a tendency to be too self-analytical, something he has managed to curb over time. “Having to see yourself every week and not be too nitpicky about your performance is a challenge. You can’t be looking at yourself in the mirror and judging yourself while you’re doing something. That’s not how humans are. For a while I stopped watching the show altogether until the season was over.”

While he is managing his self-criticism, Graham’s exceptional level of attention to his craft is obviously paying off. In February, he will begin work on the film Goats, based on the Mark Jude Poirier novel, which also stars such names as David Duchovny, Minnie Driver, Vera Farmiga and Will Arnett. Fortunately, The Good Wife’s schedule allows him to pursue other projects while still offering him a time commitment of a few days a week. Graham describes the movie as a “modern day Catcher in the Rye, where my character isn’t the screwed-up one, it’s more my family and my situation.” His character’s transition from a hippie, progressive, Arizona lifestyle to East Coast prep is the basis of the movie, while introducing some very neurotic family members that add to the film’s complexity. “I’ve been excited about it for a huge amount of time,” Graham says, “Goats is a really solid role that I’ll be really able to sink my teeth into and have been able to work a whole lot on.”
At this point in his career, he’s looking to focus on more films, given his love for the industry. “There’s an art form to film that you don’t really get in any other mediums; you do get a little bit in theater and in The Good Wife you get it, too. I love the passion behind the filmmakers and the time you get to take with it and getting to be with the same people for two to three months. In film, you get to complete the story arc completely in a few months, whereas in TV sometimes it can take five years,” he says. Film and television give Graham the opportunity to explore all of the performance details that aren’t applicable to stage performances. “It’s been really fun for me to really be able to use nuances that nobody would ever see on stage whereas now, you can see every eye twitch.”
It’s refreshing to speak with Graham, who seems very intent on finding the work/life balance that allows him to remain grounded. He just spent New Year’s Eve skiing with friends in Utah and he enjoys downtime from the set of The Good Wife to golf, play tennis, relax with friends, and spend time with his family and pets (including three horses, dogs and a parrot). However, when asked what he does in his spare time, he immediately responds with “Sleep!”
Though in many regards Graham is a “normal” teenager, he does admit the transition from high school to home school was an adjustment. “I’d been going to the same school since I was 5. I spent 11 years at the school and so when I had to switch to homeschooling it was a huge turnaround for me, a pretty big change, and so adapting to that one-on-one environment, having no other kids at first was a little bit odd, but you learn to adapt. I didn’t really appreciate how great a social environment high school was with a plethora of kids and potential relationships until you’re in a school where you’re the only person.”
Graham admires the careers of those such as Jason Schwartzman, who balances his acting career with music. “I love his music. You can tell he does it because he really enjoys it; that’s something that I would love to do. I’d love to start writing songs, and singing is always going to be present in my life one way or another.” Additionally, he turns to the likes of Heath Ledger, Jude Law and Johnny Depp as inspiration for his own performances (he does admit that he would love to play Depp’s Jack Sparrow in a Pirates of the Caribbean remake “even though it’s already been done so well!”).
For now, Graham is at a flexible point in his career where he is looking to explore different genres to determine which path he will follow. “It’s about learning as much as I can and [soaking] up as much knowledge right now and figuring out what I’d want my career to be so I can start going after more specific roles.”