O’Connor wasn’t just an actor.
Being an intelligent person is one thing, but the best thing to do with that knowledge is to spread it along to others around you.
While Archie Bunker wasn’t much of an idol figure for Mike Stivic, Carroll O’Connor and Rob Reiner couldn’t be further from the characters they played.
According to an interview with The Huffington Post, Reiner said that he actually viewed O’Connor as a teacher while on the set of All in the Family. Specifically, Reiner said that he learned that in some cases, less was actually more.
“From Carroll O’Connor, I learned a lot about how you perform and how important the script and story are for the actors,” said Reiner. “So the actor doesn’t have to push things. You can let the story and the dialogue support you if it’s good.”
Reiner wasn’t just learning at the feet of O’Connor; he looked up to many of the actors he worked alongside. “I had great people around me and I took from all the people that were around,” he said.
Of course, one of the first people Reiner found himself learning from was his own father, Carl Reiner. Reiner was responsible for such hits as The Dick Van Dyke Show. Rob Reiner explained that he actually accompanied his father to work when he was younger and watched as he worked.
When I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, during the summer when I was off from school, I would go every single day with him to The Dick Van Dyke Show and watch him,” he said. “I watched him work with the actors, work with the writers. I saw the stage, the performances and where they put the cameras and all that. So that’s how I learned. It wasn’t so much from him sitting down, “Well, son, this is how you do it.”
