MASH’s Mike Farrell on Cast Storyline, Script Suggestions Encouraged

War is war, Hell is Hell, and M*A*S*H is Heaven to Mike Farrell. 

The 87-year-old revealed that his experience on the long-running show was refreshingly collaborative. In fact, after he joined as Captain B.J. Hunnicutt in season four, he was thrown for a loop when after a cast read-through, director executive producer Gene Reynolds opened the floor to suggestions.

“Gene said, ‘Okay, page one.’ And I thought ‘Was I asleep? Didn’t we just do that?’” Farrell recalled on the April 20 episode of the Still Here Hollywood podcast. “He said, ‘Oh, Mike.’ He said, ‘Here’s where we go through the script page by page to see if you, the actors, have any thoughts, any ideas, any suggestions.’” 

As for how the Providence alum remembered feeling in that moment, he noted, “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Oh man, ‘Really? You want to hear from us?’”

And ultimately, the show, starring Alan Alda, Loretta Swift, Jamie Farr and more, ended up having a profound impact on him. “It was remarkable—and it never stopped being that,” Farrell explained. “It became for me a creative community.”