A daily chronicle of creativity in film, TV, music, arts, and entertainment, produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from November 2014 – March 2020. Host John Horn leads the conversation, accompanied by the nation's most plugged-in cultural journalists.
There’s no dispute that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died Saturday at age 79, was a polarizing figure.
But the very things that made him so divisive — his forceful opinions, his colorful behavior during oral arguments, and his contempt for those he disagreed with — also gave him a theatrical aura. A play last year at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C., “The Originalist,” made a fictionalized Scalia its star character.
The man tasked with portraying the late justice was actor Edward Gero, who happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to Justice Scalia.
Still, Gero spent a year studying Scalia, attending oral arguments, reading the Federalist Papers and numerous biographies. He finally met the justice only after doing enough research to have a "substantive conversation."
"He had great mannerisms...his physical demeanor, he's predominantly right-handed — no surprise there — but he never really used his left hand at all," said Gero of his observations of Scalia.
Gero joined The Frame to talk about studying and becoming Scalia for the stage.
Listen to the audio above to hear the whole interview