For Hutton, It’s All About Language and Style

Playing a streetwise sleuth decked out in neat pinstripes and spiffy spats suits Timothy Hutton just fine.

In “Nero Wolfe,” a new weekly A&E; drama based on the popular mystery novels by Rex Stout, Hutton portrays Archie Goodwin, the trusty assistant to the sizable crime solver played by Maury Chaykin. Last year, the two collaborated on A&E;’s “The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery.”

Hutton, who won an Academy Award for the 1980 film “Ordinary People,” is an executive producer of the stylish show, which premieres Sunday with a two-hour version of “The Doorbell Rang,” which he directed.

The adaptations are set during the 1940s and ‘50s in a New York brownstone, where the erudite Wolfe displays a voracious appetite for good books, grand meals and bright orchids.

Hutton, 40, is the son of the late Jim Hutton, a stage and screen actor who starred in “Ellery Queen,” a 1975-76 NBC series about the clever mystery writer.

Hutton’s role in “Ordinary People,” directed by Robert Redford, was followed by “Taps,” “Falcon & the Snowman,” “Q&A;” and “City of Industry,” among other films. On stage, Hutton has appeared in “Prelude to a Kiss,” “The Oldest Living Graduate” and “Babylon Gardens.”

At the end of this month, Hutton will begin production on “Gold Coast,” a film directed by John Sayles. He talked about “Nero Wolfe” on the phone from New York.

Question: Are you a fan of Rex Stout’s work?

Answer: I am, and I’ve become even more of one. I had read some of the books prior to doing “The Golden Spiders,” and since then, I’ve read just about all of them. There are about 72 of them.

Q: What do you like most about the books?

A: I guess what I like most is the use of language and how perfectly drawn the characters are. Even the most minor character has something very interesting about him or her. The use of language [by] Stout in the books and that are in the scripts are just great. It reminds me of “The Front Page” or “His Girl Friday” or “The Thin Man” movies. There’s a rhythm to the dialogue and a richness to the language that I like very much. And there’s something about these stories that is very much Damon Runyon meets Noel Coward.

Q: You like the banter?

A: Very much. There’s a use of language that we don’t hear, particularly from Nero Wolfe. There are a lot of people sitting before him in his office that just kind of shake their heads because they haven’t heard quite that vocabulary used.

Q: Define the relationship between Archie and Nero. What’s the most interesting aspect for you?

A: I think it’s a classic odd couple kind of situation that they have. There’s one book we did called “Champagne for One.” It’ll be the second book presented after “The Doorbell Rang.” In that one, Nero Wolfe says to Archie, “Our tolerance of each other is a reoccurring miracle.” That kind of sums it up. They get on each other’s nerves quite a bit. They come from different worlds and yet there’s a huge mutual respect and admiration and trust, particularly from Nero toward Archie. There’s nothing Archie can’t be privy to or be asked to do without Nero expecting satisfactory results, which is the way he would put it.

Q: You’re wearing three hats as actor, producer and director. Which was the toughest assignment?

A: It depended on the book. We did a total of six and I directed three of them. Once I became familiar with the books, I felt pretty comfortable about what the Nero world needed to look like and how the dialogue should be played and the whole kind of general and specific aesthetic of the show.

Q: Ordinarily, actors have a natural connection with their peers when they go behind the camera. Was that true for you?

A: Oh yes. That was very enjoyable, working with the other actors. I wanted to try this idea of having a repertory company of about 15 actors that would play different parts in each of the books because each book is its own story.

Q: Your father starred in “Ellery Queen.” Did that influence your decision to work on “Nero Wolfe”?

A: Well, no, it didn’t really. It’s something that I hadn’t thought of. I certainly see the connection, but I think that if a person were to read an Ellery Queen mystery novel or one of the serialized stories and then read a Nero Wolfe book or story, they would find that they’re very different.

Q: Your father had a very casual, easygoing persona on screen. He just made it look easy, right?

A: They all seemed to be having a great time doing it. And it was a very relaxed, easygoing set. My dad worked very hard to make sure that the dialogue came so easily to him, that he could appear to be casual and relaxed and very natural. But he was very intense in his approach, and then yet when you see it, it’s very laid back, in a way.

Q: And are you trying for that sort of feeling in “Nero”?

A: No, again, I never thought about it. If I’m going for anything, I’m going for things that influenced me. The things that I really spark to, for instance, [like] “The Thin Man” movies, [are] the way the characters interact, the banter, the rhythm, the music of the scene. If it hits that even a little bit, I’ll be happy, because those movies are so incredible.

Q: What did you learn from working with Robert Redford on “Ordinary People”?

A: I’ve never seen anyone quite so watchful as Redford is and can be in areas like behavior, a simple thing like a gesture, and how that can have meaning within a scene. It’s something that the actor wasn’t even aware they were doing. And how he can get them within a scene to tell a story through behavior as much as dialogue.

Q: Archie is a very snappy dresser. How much fun was it playing a sleuth in that wardrobe of pinstripe suits and shiny spats?

A: It’s very much part of the books. The wardrobes, the costumes, the fine taste that these characters should and do have. It was a big costume show. And it was great. People don’t dress like that anymore. These double-breasted suits and Panama hats and very colorful ties. If you saw Archie walking through Times Square today, you’d say, “Oh, I didn’t know ‘Guys and Dolls’ was back on the boards.”

Q: Could you ever see yourself as a real-life detective?

A: No. I think it takes a certain kind of person, an unbelievable amount of patience and willingness to pry into people’s lives and find out things that are maybe truly horrible and then reporting back to someone who’s paid you to find them out and experiencing their devastation at hearing the news. . . .

Now here’s the corny answer to it. When you’re producing and directing something, there’s a certain amount of detective work that goes into it, silly as it sounds. You are kind of putting together a whole scenario and seeing if it works. Certainly in editing, that’s what is happening sometimes. And then you solve it, or hope you come close.