Mandy Patinkin thinks Inigo Montoya would make a great partner for his Death and Other Details detective

My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to... be investigated for your crimes.

Mandy Patinkin is picking up the magnifying glass in his latest role, as legendary private detective Rufus Cotesworth on Death and Other Details. The show, which premieres on Hulu on Jan. 16, follows Rufus as he tries to untangle a case aboard a luxurious ocean liner, designed to have all the glamour of an Agatha Christie setting with the added bonus of modern amenities.

Rufus has one major rule — he never works without a partner. On the show, he recruits Imogene (Violett Beane), a guest on the ship and major figure in an old case of his. But what if Patinkin were to turn to one of his most famous characters? Sure, he's played law and order figures before — Saul Berenson on Homeland and Jason Gideon on Criminal Minds. But what about some of his Tony-nominated characters — Che from Evita or Georges Seurat from Sunday in the Park With George? Or arguably his most famous role, Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride?

He opts for the latter. "Che Gueverra was an uncompromising revolutionary, Who ended up losing his life at a young age, even though he was passionate and believed in what he was fighting for," he says. "He left us too soon and didn't have time, which is all we all hope we have more of."

"Georges was an obsessed artist who could not find the way to appreciate the profound beauty of allowing himself to glance away from his painting to pay attention to the love of his life, Dot, and the child," he continues. "He chose his work over all the other possibilities that exist in life beside the work that we choose to do, which are the other lives around us."

Sure, but Inigo Montoya is fairly single-minded too, no? "Why do I choose Inigo Montoya? Because Inigo Montoya says something at the very end of the movie that I didn't learn until I was 50 years old," Patinkin says. "I'm sitting in the window with the Man in Black; Robin Wright has just jumped out of the window into Andre the Giant's arms. Cary Elwes, as the Man in Black looks at me, and asks me if I would like to be the next Dread Pirate Roberts. Inigo says — my favorite line that Bill Goldman wrote and one that no one ever quotes from the movie — 'I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it's over, I do not know what to do with the rest of my life.'"

"We're living in a moment when the world is on fire and brokenhearted," Patinkin continues. "When Russia and Ukraine are losing lives every day, when Palestinians and Israelis are losing lives every day. And in most cases, it's driven by revenge. Inigo had the privilege to learn that revenge does not bring your father back. When he says, 'My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.' Right before he sticks the sword into the Six-Fingered Man, he says, 'I want my father back, you son of a bitch.' But he didn't get his father back. So, Bill Goldman gave us the lesson that revenge is a worthless quest. If I were to do a sequel to The Princess Bride, I would show that Inigo took that moment and lived the rest of his life absorbing that lesson, which is maybe one of the most important lessons imaginable to the human condition."

EW chatted further with Patinkin about his general lack of familiarity with mystery series, playing drunk, and why he loves working with younger actors.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Have you been a longtime fan of Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, and stories of this ilk?

MANDY PATINKIN: Not at all. Sometime in my long ago past, I'm sure I saw Murder on the Orient Express, the original. I saw the first Knives Out. Other than that, I know nothing about the genre. I just read the script and thought, "Well, this looks like fun." It was in the middle of the pandemic and my son Gideon kept saying, "You've got to do some fun stuff, Dad." And this came across my path.

Did you turn back to any of that to inspire your characterization of Rufus since he clearly is drawn from those types of characters? Or did you just start from scratch?

I based it on nothing. The only classic detective I know who I love, and I wasn't going to steal it, was Colombo, where he is patting his pockets. Every time he makes a move, he is looking for something before he leaves the room. And I loved him. But I sort of have dabbled in playing people on TV. I was an FBI-type detective in Criminal Minds. I was in the law enforcement spy area on Homeland. I've been on the fringes of that world, but not one of these guys.

Every detective has a weakness and Rufus's flaw is that he is an alcoholic. How did you prepare for that and how did you feel that impacted his ability to be a good detective? 

Well, I like to do research, but I don't drink, and I wasn't willing to drink a fifth of scotch every day just to see how I feel. I don't think I'm a very good actor at being drunk or lots of things that you don't see me do. I'm not prepared to figure it out. I've had to be drunk a little, but when I play somebody drunk, I try to be extremely clear. That's what drunk people fail at doing. But I did no preparation whatsoever. All I did, which was really appealing to me when I read the pilot, is it said that he had a Brighton accent. What I did remember from Murder on the Orient Express is that most of these people in these murder mysteries were eccentric and weird.

I got there to meet everybody, and I thought there'd be a lot of cuckoo, weird, eccentric people. There were some, but for the most part they were young and beautiful. So I then realized, "Okay, I'm the old one, and that's their version of eccentric." But it said that I had a Brighton accent, and I love doing accents. So that was what my fun was to play with the accent and find people to help me with that. I worked diligently at that. A lot of people don't know what the accent is. They think I'm doing a bad English accent or something, but in fact, I really am doing a Brighton accent, he said, patting himself on the back.

The show is very glamorous, but Rufus wears basically the same clothes the entire time. Were you jealous of everyone's wardrobe?

No, not at all. I hate clothes in my own wardrobe. My kids call me "high comfy cozy" because I go to EMS or REI, and I buy the same shirts and the same pants. And I just have different ones so that everything's clean. I'm not a clothes person. But Mike Weiss, the showrunner, cared a great deal about it and wanted Rufus to have a great passion for how he looked in the clothing. But I was a bad actor and just felt like, "Oh, I can't get into this." And then he was all about the shoes and the shoes were hurting my feet. I live in Hoka gym shoes, and you've got to be on your feet for a lot of hours every day.

So I said to the costume guy, I said, "Listen, get rid of these shoes, these fancy loafers and things. I can't walk." He said, "Well, Mike will go crazy." I said, "I'll take care of Mike. Just get [the Hokas] and paint 'em any color you want and tell the cinematographer to shoot me from the ankles up or whatever." There were a couple times where they needed me to put a pair of proper shoes on, but for the most part, I'm a 71-year-old guy walking in a pair of comfortable shoes. And that was my argument to them. Look, he may be a fashion guy in your mind, but he's also got 71-year-old feet and he needs to take care of his feet. That was my logic because if I can't walk, I can't do anything.

You've starred opposite some incredible leading ladies over the years, but Violett Beane is a relative newcomer. What was your working relationship like with her?

She reached out to me early on during the pilot. She was nervous, and it was a very touching moment. She asked me if I had any way to help her feel more comfortable. And I did. It was nothing different than the things I say to myself, that I would say to anybody — don't worry and believe in yourself. If you don't understand something and it's confusing you or whatever, just do the best you can. This was like day one or two, and I said, "Violett, you got here. This isn't your first rodeo so you know what you're doing." I was basically saying to trust yourself. Listen to your own voice, which is very hard for us all to do. I also said to her, "Don't be afraid to be afraid. You're a person in a strange situation in this story who's got a lot of baggage." Anytime in real life that I'm in front of someone who's frightened, I lean in. I try to help them. It's a collaborative art form. The best thing we can all do is the do the best we can every second.

Do you particularly relish working with younger actors?

I love being with young people. Norman Lear said to my wife once, "I'm as old as the person I'm speaking to." One of the best things that ever happened to me when I was a young actor in New York was Joe Papp, who started free Shakespeare in the Park and the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theater, asked us to come into his office. It was Meryl [Streep] and Kevin Kline and Chris Walken and myself and several other people. Maximilian Schell, the great actor, wanted to do Hamlet. We got to the "To be or not to be" speech, and Maximilian got frightened and he said, "I'm too nervous to do this." And without missing a beat, Joe said, "Do it in German," which was his native language. He put the script in his lap, and from memory, he recited "to be or not to be" in German.

I never got rid of that thought. And when I became a 50-year-old actor, I wanted to do what Max did. So I said to a friend, "I would love to do Hamlet." And the friend worked at NYU graduate school, and they put a whole cast together. We're almost through the play, and I have to go the bathroom so bad. With about five minutes left in the play, I went. I saw myself in the mirror and I just couldn't believe what I saw, because for those three and a half hours, when I was sitting in front of these young, glorious people, I was their age. It was at that moment that I really understood that it is the true fountain of youth to be a teacher. You are as old as the person you're speaking with. So if you're feeling too old, hang around some young people. It's the gift of life.

You haven't appeared in a professional stage production since 2011. Might we see you back on Broadway any time soon?

I do concerts. Since 1989, I've done solo concerts, and I'm on the road now as we speak. I'm doing concerts and I love doing them more than anything I do. If you told me I had to choose, of all the things I do, I would absolutely pick the live concert venue because there's nothing as rewarding to me. But when you say Broadway, because I grew up in the theater and I'm a theater rat, and that's where it started for me, that's my home. Indeed, I am working on a play that we did one workshop of a month or so ago. I'm doing another workshop of the same play at the end of April, the beginning of May. It's the most extraordinary piece. I'm hoping that we can get it to a place where everybody would like to do more than a 10-day workshop, do a whole production, put it up on its feet, and be back in the theater doing a play. So it's not just a hope, I'm at it.

After a pandemic of three years where we have been isolated from ourselves and the rest of the world, the most important thing is to just be together in a room — whether you're in the theater, listening to people do a play in a rehearsal room, in someone's living room — just be together.

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