Beloved TV classic The Waltons returns Sunday, November 28 with the first original TV-movie to air on The CW – The Waltons’ Homecoming. Earl Hamner’s story of The Homecoming is retold with a new cast of Waltons, with Bellamy Young as Olivia Walton and Ben Lawson as the elder John Walton. Taking over the role of “John-Boy” is Logan Shroyer, but the original actor to play the role, Richard Thomas, is also present, taking the reins from creator Earl Hamner in introducing the film as well as narrating the beloved holiday story.
You can see a gallery of photos from the movie here – but today, what we’re sharing here at KSiteTV is an interview with an icon: Richard Thomas himself. An accomplished actor of films, television, and theater, Richard starred as the oldest brother, an aspiring writer, for over 120 episodes and three TV-movies, and now he gets to share that story in a new way. You can read our interview below.
Right. Of course it was. My affection and commitment to the show has never waned. I mean, I loved this when I did it, and It was such an important part of my life and my career. I learned so much, and it’s always held a place of really great affection for me.
When they called me and said “we’re doing it again! We’re doing The Homecoming!” It’s like, “what a tribute!” What a terrific compliment to all of us who made the original show, that people want to do it again, who are interested in that, and that legacy. And, of course, it’s a classic, and classics that redone, and remade, and reinterpreted. They always have been, and they always will be. And so to have been elevated to that field, where there’s that invitation, and that desire to keep the flag flying and try it again, I thought that was just a wonderful compliment to everybody. I was flattered and delighted. I’m really happy that they asked me to participate. That was a big deal.
Did they ask you early on in the process?
Yeah, pretty much. Obviously, they wouldn’t call me until things were coming all together, but yeah, it was early in the process. And originally, it was just like “we’d like you to do the voiceovers and narrations” and I just jumped, because I loved that. That was such an important part of the original series and Earl Hamner did such an astonishing job in his inimitable voice. But there was a part of me, being John-Boy, there was a part of me, in my early 20s, who was like “I want to do those voiceovers! I mean, Earl’s perfect, but why didn’t they ask me to do the voiceovers?” And now, 50 years later, I’m doing them! So it was a great outcome. And then they asked me to do a little introduction, sort of to pass the baton and keep the continuity going, and that was just the icing on top. That was wonderful.
What was your interaction like with Earl Hamner when you were working on the original show?
He was just wonderful. He was incredibly kind, really funny, super intelligent… I mean, he had written these wonderful novels about growing up in this country in a certain time and place – Spencer’s Mountain and then The Homecoming – just beautifully. The Homecoming is an exquisite novel.
There was no idea of a series. It was a one off. It was a Christmas special, and after it did so well, they decided to make it a series. But it wasn’t a pilot, no one was thinking ahead of that one thing. Bit the writing was so beautiful. It had the quality of great American… I use the word regional, not as to diminish it… some of our greatest writing in this country comes from a specific sense of a region, in a time, and a place, and I thought he brought that into the scripts.
And he was wonderful on the set. We did our cast readings every week before we’d shoot the show, and he listened very carefully, very attentively to our concerns, or our notes, or suggestions, or ideas, and incorporated the most of the time. He was a wonderful collaborator, and it’s just a real, true Virginian gentleman. I mean, really. Just a wonderful person. And of course, my gratitude to him is kind of inexpressible.
This new movie is based on his original script for The Homecoming, isn’t it?
It’s the same story as the novel, but with changes and shifts, as one would expect.
You don’t want to do a photograph of a museum piece; you want to paint your own painting based on something, and so, there are changes and differences in emphasis and tone. I think that’s not only appropriate; it is necessary in order to make something alive for now, and not just be a facsimile.
Are there iconic elements from the original series, like the Baldwin sisters or Ike Godsey in this movie?
Yeah, for sure. It’s the story – it’s The Homecoming, with variations and a sensitivity to certain things that we are now sensitive to, and it’s good.
I have to say, as a disclaimer, I read the script before we did it, but I haven’t seen the picture [when this interview was conducted], so I can’t tell you what’s in the box. I haven’t actually opened it, but I’m really looking forward to seeing it, and based on the script, I was very encouraged. And there’s John-Boy, who was a real mold-breaker for a male leading character in an American television series. The shift towards a sort of feeling-oriented, sensitive, artistic, you know, type of male… I don’t know if it was considered at the time, but, but it was a big change. You know, you had cops and lawyers and doctors, but this was a kind of a, this is a kid who wanted to be an artist, who was a part of this community, but also separate from it in his own way, as a budding artist who’s really interested in other people and his own feelings and his own inner development, as somebody who was part of also, in some ways separated from as a narrator… that had never even done, so it was a wonderful opportunity for me to play a different kind of male lead in a series.
On the original show and Homecoming movie, you were surrounded by several acting icons. Can you share any of the lessons that you may have learned from them?
I started really young. One of the great things about growing up and consistently working as a child actor, if you have a nice career as a child actor, when you get these people playing your parents, you get all these fantastic people to learn from. So that was my academy, really, growing up, because I was never trained, but the academy I was at was the academy of Barbara Bel Geddes, and Geraldine Page, and Paul Newman, and Jessica Tandy, and Joanne Woodward, and then when Pat Neal came up when they offered me The Homecoming, I was so excited, because I was a huge fan of hers, and I was so excited to work with her. And of course, this was the first job she did after she recovered from her stroke, so it was really inspiring to watch her work. She’s a language actor, and you can never get enough of listening to a great actor who really knows how to use the text. That was a great, not to mention that she had this wonderful quality that’s so perfect for the time and the place.
And then we had Edgar Bergen. We were snowed in one day in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We couldn’t shoot, so they asked all of us to come down into the lobby of the hotel where we were staying and Edgar showed up with a suitcase and opened it up… and there were his puppets! We were treated to a whole performance of his [with Mortimer Snerd and Charlie McCarthy] that day. I’ll never forget it. It was a wonderful thing. It was just fantastic.
Oh, I haven’t given advice. That would be appalling. I just wish them good luck. Logan [Shroyer, who plays the new John-Boy] is a friend of my grandson and we met to have dinner before he started, just to sort of give a hug and say “go for it and make it yours. Make it your thing.”
That’s the beauty of it. We all we all get to reinterpret these parts. As a theatre actor, when I when I did my Hamlet, I was under no impressions that I was going to be the last one to do that part, and everybody who comes forward to do it is going to bring something uniquely theirs. I can’t give advice, just “have a good time.”
On the subject of different actors taking on roles, can you talk about the new actors who joined The Waltons when it became a regular series? Did bringing in new people make The Waltons feel like a theatre company?
We did have different actors in the series, and I think they made fantastic choices with Michael [Learned] and Ralph [Waite] and certainly Will Geer who just became America’s grandfather. I mean, Ellen Corby is in the original, and I’m so glad that they retained her, but there was a wonderful chemistry that Michael and Ralph had. It’s a fantastic quality. They’re both theater actors, both with very high standards of the sort of veracity in the work and personal honesty, emotional honesty in the work. And I think it was fantastic that they cast them. I was happy about that, and I loved them both. Michael and I are still great friends.
You mentioned us being like a theatre company. One of the beautiful things about that show is that although John-Boy was obviously the central character, he was remembering his childhood, telling the story and his growing up and his metamorphosis was sort of at the epicenter of it. Nevertheless, it was truly an ensemble show. One week, John-Boy would be the main character with his story, and then the next week, he would support one of the other kids, or it would be Grandma and Grandpa’s story, or it would be Dad’s story, or Mom’s story, so the emphasis shifted and there was always this sense of ensemble. I think that was very important, because it gave everybody a chance to shine. Everybody felt like they were they were able to step forward, and have it be about them, too. There was a shared quality about it that I thought was really valuable, and it made for an interesting show. It wasn’t just the main character doing the thing every week. It was a very different format.
Were the different characters written to the strengths of the or interests of the different actors?
Not at first, obviously. I mean, The Homecoming was offered to me, was already happening, Pat was cast, and it was going forward. It was offered to me because Earl Hamner had seen me in a movie called Red Sky at Morning. He said that he had wanted me to play John-Boy, so there may or may not have even some influence as he was working on it, but I doubt it.
As for the series, I was reluctant to go to series because I was making movies at the time. I loved doing Homecoming. But they sent me four scripts and they were so, so beautiful, and the characters were also beautiful, but they were fully formed. But as we did the show, and as we came together every week to read the scripts, before we began filming them, as each of us had suggestions or notes or ideas, Earl was always so incredibly receptive to that and incorporated so many of our ideas and suggestions, and he didn’t when he didn’t think that we’re right, of course. But that I think over time, everybody was writing the characters, but they were also writing for us, which happens in a series.
It’s always a good time for The Waltons, because even in its changing phases and components, family is central to all of us, for better and worse. I remember Judith Crist did a review in TV Guide many years ago, and she said that The Waltons was the show you watch to feel bad about your own childhood. But I think that that family is always pertinent, and also, The Waltons came about at a time of great division and upheaval in the country. We had Vietnam. We had feminist activism and women’s rights. We had the beginning of the great story of Gay Rights. We had the Civil Rights movement continuing. We had Vietnam. We were going to have Watergate… these conversations just split the family dinner table right down the middle, and the whole country was torn up, and I think The Waltons was a great comfort, because it was one place where you could go, where you could see where people could find common ground, and their humanity, and meeting each other and supporting each other, not just as family, but as a community.
Even though it might have seemed aspirational at the time, because we were in so much turmoil, it’s a good aspiration. And now… I don’t have to tell you what we’re going through now, so maybe it’s the perfect time to have another show which talks about how good it can possibly be when people put each other’s humanity first, and try to live together, and help each other, and support one another. At a time of crisis is the time to hear those stories.
Which of your original Waltons cast mates do you think would get the biggest kick out of watching this new movie?
That’s a question I can’t answer. I don’t have any idea. But I certainly will, when I get to see it. I’m looking forward to it enormously. I think everybody will be excited, and have fun, and enjoy the differences and have nostalgic remembrance of our own experiences, and all that.
And for my last question, which is also a kind of silly question, if you’ve read the script, where did Ben disappear to?
[Laughs] I don’t know where he disappeared to, but I think he’s out there waiting to make his entrance. And hopefully, if we do well – and it would be a wonderful thing if there was a response appropriate to bring it back as a series, I would certainly hope that Ben, wherever he has been hiding, will come forward and make his entrance and take his place in the family.
If we do get more, would you like to continue to provide the narration?
I will always feel this sense of obligation and support for this show, and nothing would please me more than an invite to keep doing it.
The Waltons’ Homecoming airs November 28 on The CW. After this interview was conducted, we were able to catch up with Richard Thomas again for the carpet interview which you can watch below (and he has now seen the movie!) Browse our YouTube channel while you’re there for more Waltons interviews.
