Briefly ditching the cameras for the classroom, Emmy-Award winner Timothy Busfield joined the MSU staff as an artist-in-residence, sharing his professional knowledge with young filmmakers.
Born and raised in East Lansing, Busfield has always had a strong personal connection to the city and to MSU.
Though he isn’t an MSU alumnus, he insists that he bleeds green.
“I’m all green and white and I’ll always be green and white,” Busfield said. “This is the only school in my mind that I’ve had romantic attachment to.”
After living in Sacramento, Calif. for most of his career and commuting to Los Angeles when he had work, he moved back to Michigan and decided he was going to spend the rest of his career there.
When a position working with WKAR, along with teaching film courses, opened, he was given the job.
Busfield played Danny Concannon in the television series “The West Wing,” an American political drama that takes place in the west wing of the White House, where the Oval Office is located.
His role in the television drama series “Thirtysomething” earned him the Emmy for best supporting actor in a drama series in 1991. Busfield also played alongside Kevin Costner in the movie “Field of Dreams.”
He now works with students in the College of Arts and Letters and College of Communication Arts and Sciences.
His course teaches students how to create films without fundraising, getting scripts approved and other topics in film making.
“I want these young students to know they don’t need to push a boulder up a hill to get a movie made,” Busfield said.
He’s able to use his professional experience to show students what’s useful knowledge and what’s information in a textbook that they’ll never utilize.
Busfield also wants to increase the number of films students are able to make while at MSU.
Film students make one or two films during their time in school and are expected to be prepared for the working world, Busfield said.
In his class, his students will create roughly 22 films throughout the term, sometimes putting together an entire film in one day, he said.
“I really want to encourage these kids to develop a skill set based on repetition, not theory, and that’s what I can offer,” Busfield said.
Though he has a deep passion for acting and teaching, he loves spending time with his wife even more.
“My favorite thing is acting with my wife,” he said. “I’m just so smitten with her and she constantly surprises me as an actress and to throw the ball around with her is just so fun. We have such great chemistry that at this point in my life, if I could just do everything with her it would be really, really great.”
Busfield also has a passion for giving back.
After working with younger students during various charity event and nonprofit organizations, he isn’t new to teaching.
“It’s a great feeling watching someone turn a corner or make a breakthrough or figure something out that they’ll remember together,” Busfield said. “That satisfies me and I get a lot of watching them evolve.”
His plans for the future include making TV shows at MSU and on other forums, along with eventually retiring and being able to show others the state of Michigan.
