TRANSCRIPT OF BEN MURPHY'S STATEMENTS ON TV PROMO, PART 2
Granada Plus (UK Cable Channel)
Aired March 2002

Alias Smith and Jones was a sort of a television version of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid so that relationship, I'd seen that picture, which was very popular, and so that relationship became obvious. There were some differences: he was a gunslinger, he was a man of few words as opposed to the Hannibal Heyes character which was a very loquacious character. So I made him a little stoic, a little quiet and sort of ironic and sardonic but a man of few words - as fewer words as you could have on television which is a very wordy media. That's basically how I approached him and a quick draw teacher who is still a friend of mine, Monty Laird, he was an old cowboy wrangler in the true sense. Not like us television actors but he was this wiry little guy that escaped the Koreans during the Korean War and he taught me but one of the problems I had was I would practice the quick draw all the time and I had this habit like children have of going 'ptchoo' (MIMES ACTION AND NOISE OF DRAWING AND FIRING A GUN). I'd pull out my, I'd practice and every time I'd make that sound (MAKES SOUND) you know, and the problem became when the camera would roll I couldn't stop making that sound so part of me would do the quick draw and a part of me, my mouth, would go (MAKES AS IF TO MAKE THE NOISE) and the problem with not making that sound on camera and I can remember take after take of me (MIMES AS IF TO MAKE THE NOISE) contorting my mouth trying not to go ptchoo because I'd make that sound all day long as I practiced.

AN OBVIOUS CUT

I can remember the first thing that hit me on the set is that when we went into wardrobe, I was a young actor, I didn't know about these things and you know how hot it can get in Southern California and we were filming in the summertime, was that they made my pants, they made my pants and shirt out of wool and I remember thinking to myself, 'Man, this is uncomfortable,' and the first thing I did was get everything changed to cotton. That was one of the greatest moves I ever made in that show. Go straight to cotton, get rid of the wool. That, that's what I remember.
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