ONE OLD HAND TO ANOTHER: McShane gives Johansson a few pointers.

Johansson plays it close to her much-celebrated chest, calm and unrevealing. Like most American actors, she professes a lifelong desire to work with Allen, following his films "since I was way too young to be watching them." The onscreen repartee between Johansson's cub reporter and Allen's bumbling magician was patterned after their relationship on the Match Point set. "That banter is our lunchtime conversation," she says, recalling how she'd drop hints to Allen during the Match Point shoot about how great it would be to work together onscreen rather than as director and supporting player. Allen took the bait, and has been quoted calling Johansson "sexually overwhelming." She downplays the compliment without exactly dismissing it: "I think he's probably being quite facetious about it," she says. "And I certainly find him overwhelming at times. Maybe not sexually, but definitely overwhelming. Especially before he's had his muffins in the morning."

Before McShane sunk his teeth into Al Swearengen three years ago, it's doubtful most Americans would have known his name. But he's been around the block a few dozen times, and has the stories to prove it. He recalls breakfast with Richard Burton on the set of 1971's Villain: "a couple of salty dogs and looking at kippers. Not eating them, mind you. Imagining what they would taste like if you could get near them." And rehearsals for 1973's The Last of Sheila, which he calls "one of the last real Hollywood movies" — "We met at Cannes, 15 weeks. Everybody's got their own car, everybody met at a table with seven books on method acting and freshly minted pencils. And you're all sitting around going, 'What the fuck are we doing here? It's a movie!'" In other words, McShane is one of those old-school pros who treats acting as a job, not a mystical calling. He recalls the words of the painter Chuck Close, evidently a personal maxim: "Amateurs wait for inspiration. The rest of us just go to work every day."

Deadwood, McShane allows, is special. (Details for a pair of movies to wrap up the recently cancelled show are being worked out, with shooting to start next May.) A Woody Allen movie is just a good gig. "You were home for sandwiches and tea in the afternoon," McShane says. "You go to work, have a good time. If it turns out people like it, great." He recalls landing on the set with a bunch of confused day players who assumed McShane might have a line on the director's thoughts. "I said, 'Well, he's cast you, you look all right in your costume. And if you know your lines, you'll be fine.' That's really how it was." (sam@citypaper.net)

Scoop opens Friday at Ritz Five and Ritz 16. See Sam Adams' review on adjacent page.