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Kevin Pollak didn’t have to think twice when asked to name the craziest actor he ever worked with.
The “Tulsa King” actor singled out late Hollywood veteran Rip Torn, recalling a string of bizarre incidents from the set of “Canadian Bacon,” a film starring John Candy that was released after his death.
“Oh, jeez. It’s not even a competition,” Pollak said during an appearance on “The Rich Eisen Show.”
Torn, who died in 2019, kept his co-stars guessing, according to Pollak.
“Every day Rip would decide someone in the cast or crew was out to get him,” Pollak recalled.
Pollak, who also starred in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” said Torn repeatedly brought up his inclusion on former President Richard Nixon’s enemies list.
“If a day also went by without Rip Torn saying, ‘I was on Nixon’s list.’ All right, we got it,” Pollak quipped.
When asked what Torn had done to earn a spot on the list, Pollak replied, “Well, no one wanted to ask, quite frankly.”
But the Nixon references were hardly the strangest part of Pollak’s story.
Pollak recalled that fellow actor Kevin O’Connor and his new bride stayed in a room next to Torn at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto.
According to Pollak, the couple repeatedly heard Torn shouting at someone through the hotel’s thin walls. After weeks of overhearing the outbursts, O’Connor and his wife compiled their own top 10 list of Torn’s most memorable lines.
“The number one thing we heard Rip Torn yell at the hooker through the wall: ‘I said milk it like a cow,’” Pollak recalled.
The anecdote offered a glimpse into Pollak’s recollections of Torn’s off-camera behavior.
Torn built an acclaimed career across film, television and theater, earning an Academy Award nomination for his performance in “Cross Creek” and becoming a familiar face to audiences through films and television shows including “Men in Black” and “The Larry Sanders Show.”
His role as Artie on “The Larry Sanders Show” earned him six consecutive Emmy nominations and an Emmy Award in 1996.