NEED TO KNOW
Robert Sean Leonard narrates the two new episodes of New York: A Documentary Film, exploring the city’s evolution before and after 9/11
Director Ric Burns praises Leonard’s talent and highlights New York’s resilience and inclusivity as a global city
Leonard says he loves the city but chose to raise his kids in a small town instead
Actor Robert Sean Leonard, narrator of new episodes 9 and 10 of PBS’s New York: A Documentary Film series, is a fan of New York City — but he says there’s a good reason why he no longer lives there.
The Dead Poets Society and House star, 57, who was born and raised nearby in Ridgewood, N.J., moved (alone!) to the Big Apple when he was just 16.
“I dropped out of high school because I was Matthew Broderick’s understudy in a Neil Simon play, but then he had to go do a movie called War Games, and I took over the play for him,” Leonard explains.
“And yeah, I had my own apartment when I was 16, on 10th Avenue and 29th Street.”
He still got his diploma and went to Fordham University and stayed in the city while working in films and on Broadway, until he decided to pursue a television career out in L.A. He portrayed Dr. James Wilson on House for eight seasons, from 2004–2012, but once he and his wife Gabriella Salick began having kids (they now have three daughters, born between 2009 and 2018), they had to think about where to permanently raise them.
“I knew I couldn’t do it in New York,” he says. Turns out, there’s no place like home.
“My wife told me, ‘You need nostalgia. You bathe in it,’ ” he adds. So they went back to New Jersey, where he says he now relishes being a total school dad to his three daughters.
“I cherished all the times I had there,” he says of his idyllic childhood. “Now I’m handing out pizza on Thursdays at the same grammar school I went to. I’m watching my daughter cheerleading on the same high school field I went to. And I love it.”
Robert Sean Leonard in the ’90s in New York City.
Credit: Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty
However, he says plenty of his actor friends grew up in the city, and there’s something great about that, too.
“Cynthia Nixon did, Josh Hamilton did,” he says. “We both had things we envied about each other’s youths, but yeah, I need a screen door and to see kids running around in the backyard. But you don’t get much more real than growing up in New York — it probably does a lot more for you than living in a homogenized suburb does.”
Of course he still spends a lot of time in Manhattan. He just wrapped starring in Wendy Wasserstein’s play An American Daughter, and he says he relished narrating the new chapters of New York: A Documentary Film, which Ric Burns and James Sanders directed. (The 10-part series premiered in 1999 and, until now, had been on hiatus since 2003.)
The two new episodes, Shadows of the Past (Sept. 21) and The Future of Cities (Sept. 22), explore how New York changed before and after 9/11.
New York City in 1963.
Credit: Walter Leporati/Getty
Shadows of the Past explores the city’s decline, with the steep rise in drugs and crime in the ’70s, “only to rise again, thanks to a stunning drop in crime, to regain its place at the vanguard of world cities.”
The episode concludes in the summer of 2001, just before everything changed once more after the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center.
Present-day Manhattan.
Credit: Getty
The Future of Cities then begins just after 9/11 and follows New York’s efforts to recover under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
Through rare archival footage and interviews, the episode traces the aftermath of 9/11, the financial crisis of 2008, Superstorm Sandy in 2012, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and ends with the inauguration of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City in January of 2026.
Director Ric Burns tells PEOPLE he gained a newfound appreciation for the city while working on the episodes.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
“What makes New York such a special place is that — more than any other place in the world — it’s a place where everyone in the world belongs,” he says. “It’s a tough place, it’s a driving place, but it’s a place that doesn’t ask you where you’re from, or what your religion is, or anything else for that matter.”
“It’s a home for everybody,” he continues. “That’s what has made it not only the birthplace of American capitalism, but the birthplace of American democracy, but the most creative, resilient, hopeful place in the world.”
He notes that it was a thrill to have Robert Sean Leonard narrate the most recent episodes.
“I’ve had the enormous good fortune to work with Robert for nearly 30 years now,” he says. “He is such a spectacularly gifted and brilliant actor, extremely funny, and a joy to work with. He read F. Scott Fitzgerald in an earlier episode of our New York series. On stage, on film, on television, he’s just a marvel.”
New York: A Documentary Film is now available to stream on PBS and Prime Video.
Read the original article on People