Announcer: From CurtCo Media: there's no place like Hollywood.
Jenny Curtis: Welcome to another special episode of Hollywood unscripted stuck at home.
Jenny Curtis: I'm Jenny Curtis and today I'm virtually sitting down with
Jenny Curtis: actor Jake McDorman who you've seen in Greek, The show Limitless,
Jenny Curtis: Lady Bird, American Sniper,
Jenny Curtis: Shameless, and most recently we got to know him as
Jenny Curtis: Alan Shepard in the Disney Plus series The Right Stuff.
Jenny Curtis: Jake thank you so much for joining me today.
Jake McDorman: Thank you for having me. Very very willing distraction.
Jenny Curtis: We are recording this the day before the election so
Jenny Curtis: hopefully by the time this comes out the world will
Jenny Curtis: still be intact. We have.
Speaker 4: I regret saying that I know every time you say
Speaker 4: anything optimistic I can only hear it. It fades away
Speaker 4: a horrible regret later. It's not even like. Well hopefully
Speaker 4: you know we'll know the results. I'm like oh you're
Speaker 4: going to eat your words never to get into the
Speaker 4: results for a year.
Jenny Curtis: So my first question then cause we're stuck at home
Jenny Curtis: specials other than the fact that it's an election year
Jenny Curtis: and you know the world has gone crazy. How has
Jenny Curtis: quarantine been treating you.
Speaker 4: It's seems kind of appropriate for such a cataclysmic kind
Speaker 4: of apocalyptic election cycle to have this once again like
Speaker 4: plague vibe leading into it. But I've been pretty good.
Speaker 7: Look my immediate friends and family are say that's kind
Speaker 7: of enough for 2020.
Speaker 8: I think I've been in L.A. the whole time pretty
Speaker 8: much and this is more turning I spent in L.A.
Speaker 8: and a really long time I shot the show last year.
Speaker 8: The Right Stuff in Florida and three shows this year
Speaker 8: that we're all in New York.
Speaker 9: So it's been OK. Being here.
Speaker 10: You know I moved here when I was 16 so
Speaker 10: I had a huge social circle in L.A. in those
Speaker 10: 17 years. People have gone to New York. They've gone
Speaker 10: all over the place. But I'd say most of them
Speaker 10: still not here in L.A.. So even though I can't
Speaker 10: see them it feels nice to be insulated in a
Speaker 10: familiar place.
Speaker 5: Good that they're nearby at least.
Speaker 11: Yeah yeah I've been doing a lot of walking outside
Speaker 11: that's new since Ginger closed been taking Bob such a
Speaker 11: huge development. Never was about guy all about the self care.
Speaker 11: It's all about me on a lot of podcasts obviously
Speaker 11: a ton of podcasts.
Speaker 9: So I'm having to overcome the medical hurdles of now
Speaker 9: being a listener of so many podcast giving this interview
Speaker 9: and not judging myself as a listener right now of
Speaker 9: like is this a podcast I listen to it this
Speaker 9: gets interesting if you.
Jake McDorman: Apart from you is going to love this podcast.
Speaker 9: I hope that me love that podcast.
Speaker 6: OK so let's talk about the right stuff which is
Speaker 6: on Disney plus and we'll have really six episodes by
Speaker 6: the time this episode comes out OK. In my mind
Speaker 6: the fun part of being an actor is getting to
Speaker 6: explore all of these lives that are so far away
Speaker 6: from our own. And it's such a fantasy of so
Speaker 6: many people to be an astronaut. So what was it
Speaker 6: like stepping into those shoes of someone who was going
Speaker 6: to space. Yeah.
Speaker 8: There's I'm sure that's true depending on what the role
Speaker 8: is depending on what the project is you might pick
Speaker 8: up a special skill here and there and getting to
Speaker 8: actually put on a spacesuit and sit in this space
Speaker 8: capsules that fly like a little bit of wish fulfillment
Speaker 8: for a younger person. I think most kids at some
Speaker 8: point imagine being an astronaut.
Speaker 12: So that was definitely part of it but for this
Speaker 12: story that the right stuff is about it's an adaptation
Speaker 12: of a book and then that book was adapted into
Speaker 12: a movie in the 1980s but I hadn't read or
Speaker 12: seen the book of the movie. So this was all
Speaker 12: an educational experience for me. And there was clearly not
Speaker 12: a shortage of research to do about this period American
Speaker 12: history right.
Speaker 4: You already have a book in a movie about it
Speaker 4: but just the whole entire world was watching the space
Speaker 4: race and I think for me and probably people in
Speaker 4: my generation especially people in younger generations are so familiar
Speaker 4: with Apollo and Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong and Buzz
Speaker 4: Aldrin Michael Collins those guys landing on the moon the
Speaker 4: Mercury program and even the Gemini program are kind of
Speaker 4: untold stories even though they have been adapted many times
Speaker 4: our book their movie it's still to me when I
Speaker 4: came into the project I had really only heard of
Speaker 4: John Glenn as far as the Mercury 7.
Speaker 8: And so to get to start to learn about this
Speaker 8: is definitely one of the perks of a job that
Speaker 8: you immerse yourself and hopefully you've got a good script
Speaker 8: which was something that we had from the get go.
Speaker 8: Mark Lafferty wrote such a great first episode and subsequent
Speaker 8: episodes but you know when we were auditioning we only
Speaker 8: had that first episode and it provided this kind of
Speaker 8: it was like since I hadn't read the book and
Speaker 8: seen the movie my introduction to the project was the
Speaker 8: script and I know there's other actors on our show
Speaker 8: that were obsessed with the book obsessed with the movie
Speaker 8: coming in.
Speaker 13: But I was grateful not to have Ed Harris's performance.
Speaker 13: Scott Glenn's performance sitting on my back judging me through
Speaker 13: the entire preproduction process I kind of got to go
Speaker 13: in with the framework of our script is the version
Speaker 13: that these men and the version to be stories that
Speaker 13: we're telling and then go out extra curricular and pull
Speaker 13: in all the research that I felt helped me as
Speaker 13: an actor believe that I was of the time period
Speaker 13: and of the ilk of the kind of people that
Speaker 13: do this and apply it where it belongs in the
Speaker 13: established framework of our script what kind of stuff do
Speaker 13: you use as inspiration for characters.
Speaker 5: Do you kind of dive into other mediums.
Speaker 14: You know it's weird it's dyed shades different. Every single
Speaker 14: project one of the more unique aspects of a project
Speaker 14: like this is that it's period and it is a
Speaker 14: highly publicized period of American history. So that provides different
Speaker 14: things that you can draw on. It also provides some restrictions.
Speaker 14: You don't have this blank canvas and you just are
Speaker 14: going to decide your character. This person is there's some
Speaker 14: clear outlines and limits based on who he is as
Speaker 14: the reality.
Speaker 12: But as far as pulling in other mediums I don't know.
Speaker 12: Probably one thing that we got to do when we're
Speaker 12: in Florida. So we shot this whole thing in Florida right.
Speaker 15: I always really like shooting on location. It kind of
Speaker 15: takes you out of your life routine and put you
Speaker 15: in a weird porn place for the sole purpose of
Speaker 15: making a movie or making a TV show. So we
Speaker 15: did that with this project when we were in Cape
Speaker 15: Canaveral Florida in Orlando right where these events actually happened.
Speaker 14: And apart from all the books we read leading up
Speaker 14: to production and apart from news footage podcasts interviews with
Speaker 14: these actual people we got to go talk to some
Speaker 14: of the astronauts who idolized and had met these people
Speaker 14: in real life so they had a lot of insight
Speaker 14: just anecdotally about oh when I met shepherd you know
Speaker 14: and you was playing on a golf course in Orlando
Speaker 14: and told me to get fucked.
Speaker 8: When I asked them for an autograph you know I'm
Speaker 8: like little things like that. You start the peripherally piece
Speaker 8: in OK.
Speaker 12: He was a little like that is like that or
Speaker 12: a story about him you know buying drinks for everybody
Speaker 12: at the bar at the Naval lounge and stuff like
Speaker 12: that I guess. Apart from the like hard record of
Speaker 12: what happened you'd get little pieces of info like that
Speaker 12: that came from just talking to people and talking to
Speaker 12: people who live in the area.
Speaker 5: How long did you get to be in the area
Speaker 5: before you had to be on set. Pretty long time.
Speaker 14: I know one of the actors Colin O'Donoghue who plays
Speaker 14: Gordon Cooper.
Speaker 15: He actually was replacing other cast member that for a
Speaker 15: variety of reasons wasn't able to do it. So he
Speaker 15: really had like zero time which I'd been in that
Speaker 15: position before. I did a movie called American Sniper and
Speaker 15: it was something like you get cast Friday or in
Speaker 15: Morocco Monday you're on set with Clint Eastwood on Tuesday
Speaker 15: and you're just like all right holy crap.
Speaker 4: So that has its own set of challenges and benefits
Speaker 4: but for most of us I think we were in
Speaker 4: Florida probably for me to an actor three weeks which
Speaker 4: is a good amount of time for how fast TV
Speaker 4: shows would now. And I took a road trip from L.A.
Speaker 4: to Florida instead of letting them fly.
Announcer: I wanted to drive just because as I said earlier
Announcer: like I've shot so many different projects in New York
Announcer: and in Florida and in Toronto and you run the
Announcer: risk of your life getting whipped up into a frenzy
Announcer: preparing to move somewhere for six months you get on
Announcer: a plane you land your slam right into the frenzy
Announcer: of unpacking and kind of getting your footing before you start.
Announcer: Then I thought maybe a road trip cross country would
Announcer: be a way to kind of unwind that time and
Announcer: slow me down by force. So on that road trip
Announcer: along with the time we had in Florida was the
Announcer: period of time that I used to kind of steep
Announcer: myself in the research to read the book to read
Announcer: the biography of Shepherd of light this candle which is
Announcer: really interesting because he's one of the only astronauts who
Announcer: didn't write his biography it wasn't an autobiography it was
Announcer: an actual biography written after he had died. It had
Announcer: a really objective look at the man and then obviously
Announcer: just familiarize yourself with your take on the character entrances
Announcer: and stuff like that. So I was it was nice
Announcer: to have that time I think anymore and that would
Announcer: have been too much time and any lessons that would
Announcer: have come to pass the Goldilocks time to prepare in
Announcer: the show we get to see the astronauts going through training.
Speaker 5: Did you do the training.
Speaker 4: We did some of it. I mean we didn't do
Speaker 4: as much as I know all of us would have
Speaker 4: liked to do.
Speaker 15: I mean we would have wanted to do all this
Speaker 15: stuff like zero gravity bomb and comments. We would have
Speaker 15: wanted to do the thing that goes round and round
Speaker 15: around to simulate G for I would have done anything.
Speaker 15: It's probably really hard to ensure in our cast of
Speaker 15: seven regulars at least being spun around that high velocity.
Speaker 15: There was a spinning thing right.
Speaker 16: Yes to that stuff that says Yeah I know. Don't
Speaker 16: worry we're getting this funny thing misstating things called the
Speaker 16: mastiff and what the spinny thing does is then which
Speaker 16: I guess you could call that ja and then it
Speaker 16: also pitches forward and rolls to simulate an aircraft spinning
Speaker 16: out of control.
Speaker 13: So me and Carl and got to do that. The
Speaker 13: other astronauts or actors did not get to do that
Speaker 13: and call them was supposed to be his character in
Speaker 13: the script and be very adept at it and because
Speaker 13: of my character and the real life Alan Shepard had
Speaker 13: me many years disease and inner ear problem in the script.
Speaker 15: Shepherd has a serious problem with it throws him off
Speaker 15: and he has to put the chicken switches what they
Speaker 15: call it where you just kind of emergency stop which
Speaker 15: worked out great for me because I had no experience
Speaker 15: and I was naturally pretty awful at it. So I
Speaker 15: didn't do much we just had to sit there get
Speaker 15: thrown around and suffer for about 12 hours a shooting
Speaker 15: on camera and it looked great.
Speaker 17: It did look great. So it was a great downside
Speaker 17: is great great Downs.
Speaker 13: Very little that I was warned not to eat anything
Speaker 13: I did not heed those warnings in the first half
Speaker 13: of the day very much heeded those warnings at last.
Speaker 5: I want to go back to the casting process because
Speaker 5: I know originally you weren't being called in for Alan
Speaker 5: Shepard right.
Speaker 13: Yes actually I was being called in for Gordon Cooper
Speaker 13: the role that Colin had played.
Speaker 8: And it had been a minute since I had auditioned.
Speaker 8: I was on a show for a year before that.
Speaker 8: And so being on that show was really unavailable to
Speaker 8: be on anything else. So it just had been a
Speaker 8: minute since I auditioned which is like a different rhythm
Speaker 8: to get into auditioning and you get into it or
Speaker 8: you hopefully snap into it after you get a few
Speaker 8: in a row to kind of warm yourself back into
Speaker 8: the process.
Speaker 15: Like all right you're going out and you're making choices
Speaker 15: that broadcast the character is a short amount of time
Speaker 15: cetera et cetera et cetera. But I hadn't done that
Speaker 15: for like a minute. And so I got called in
Speaker 15: for Gordo. I think there was an actor in mind
Speaker 15: to play Shepherd at the time. So when I read
Speaker 15: the script I was pretty honed in on Gordon Cooper.
Speaker 15: I wasn't even thinking about Shepherd and I went in
Speaker 15: and really thought I did that which I know is
Speaker 15: just such a tragic thing to hear an actor say.
Speaker 15: But it's real when you're halfway through and you're like
Speaker 15: this is very bad.
Speaker 14: And I was very much in that place. I had
Speaker 14: actually just flown back. So this was last year 20
Speaker 14: 19 I had just flown back to L.A. to test
Speaker 14: for this right after shooting some of HBO as Watchmen.
Speaker 14: So I was on an episode of Watchmen and they
Speaker 14: had to dye my hair bleach blonde and it was
Speaker 14: long and they'd given it like a 1920s parted haircut.
Speaker 14: And so all my actor friends that were back in L.A.
Speaker 14: and had auditioned for the right stuff and I was
Speaker 14: hearing all about it. So I flew in to test
Speaker 14: for it and not only was it out of shape
Speaker 14: auditioning I just looked like Todd Gary and trailer trash
Speaker 14: and something which is great because the director that was
Speaker 14: supposed to direct our pilot at first was David Nutter
Speaker 14: who I'd worked with on shameless but he directed excellent
Speaker 14: episodes of Game of Thrones. So I think he dubbed
Speaker 14: me a white trash Targaryen when I walked in.
Speaker 18: So I had this audition that felt really funky and
Speaker 18: weird and walked out just kicking myself and called my
Speaker 18: agents and said you should drop me which is terrible.
Speaker 14: They called them back before I could even get to
Speaker 14: my car in the parking lot of Warner Brothers. They
Speaker 14: were like No tell me to come on back which
Speaker 14: at that point I thought my agents had been like
Speaker 14: oh he thought he did bad. He'll come right back
Speaker 14: in and do it again which was not what I
Speaker 14: was saying. I was confiding in them that I was
Speaker 14: probably never going to act again let alone 15 minutes
Speaker 14: who all in the same room that I thought I bombed.
Speaker 14: I like went back in there kicking and screaming so
Speaker 14: embarrassed thinking that I was going to be asked like
Speaker 14: try again which happens. I've called them like that was
Speaker 14: a nice let me do it again. You make it
Speaker 14: self paper you go in again but that's not what
Speaker 14: this call was at all. It was like I never
Speaker 14: want to see those people again. This is a nightmare
Speaker 14: situation for me.
Jake McDorman: Why did you think it was so bad.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean I think asking the actors
Speaker 4: it's going a while without having a typical audition like
Speaker 4: already and audition is just a weird thing to do.
Speaker 4: You can have some where you feel like you nailed
Speaker 4: it and you don't hear anything you've never where you
Speaker 4: think you did terrible and you get the job so
Speaker 4: you're not the most trustworthy barometer all the time. It
Speaker 4: was just that I think and there is an action
Speaker 4: for Gordon Cooper. He's from I believe Oklahoma. And I
Speaker 4: was just coming from a job raising a trans Atlantic
Speaker 4: accent and so I have accent traffic in my mouth
Speaker 4: and like it was and I looked like an idiot
Speaker 4: for the blond hair. It was a lot of stuff.
Speaker 17: There's a lot of things I felt really good about.
Speaker 17: Yeah exactly. It just wasn't.
Speaker 4: Did you feel like something that was as important as
Speaker 4: this job you know. Nat Geo and Dave are happy
Speaker 4: in way. DiCaprio's a great script. You know you walk
Speaker 4: in there and you want to make sure it's your
Speaker 4: best foot forward it didn't feel like that. So they
Speaker 4: called me back in and sat me down to tell
Speaker 4: me like we think maybe you don't make the best
Speaker 4: Gordon Cooper but what do you think about playing Alan Shepard.
Speaker 15: So that was a really unique audition experience when you
Speaker 15: might care about where you think you did that because
Speaker 15: it offer you another job so it took me a
Speaker 15: minute to really wrap my head around what they were
Speaker 15: telling me. And also like I said there was another
Speaker 15: actor in the role of Alan Shepard when I wrote
Speaker 15: the script first. So I had to like replay the
Speaker 15: script in my mind even kind of homing in on
Speaker 15: who they were talking about. It was very exciting and
Speaker 15: they kind of mapped out the entire arc between Shepard
Speaker 15: and Glenn and I think the next day the actual
Speaker 15: official offer came through.
Speaker 14: That doesn't happen often obviously.
Speaker 5: Was it a conversation that said or did they have
Speaker 5: you go out and read sides.
Speaker 4: No absolutely it's just a conversation. You know David didn't
Speaker 4: end up directing our pilot Chris Long did our pilot
Speaker 4: Chris Long's great.
Speaker 15: But at the time it was David and David and
Speaker 15: I worked together on shameless so we knew each other
Speaker 15: we had worked together before and they'd seen some of
Speaker 15: my other work and then seen the audition that I
Speaker 15: just gave for Gordo which I think according to what
Speaker 15: they told me was the indicator that it was less
Speaker 15: about maybe not being a competent audition. It was like
Speaker 15: oh this has more of the traits of this character
Speaker 15: than that. So no I didn't have three and four
Speaker 15: Shepherd that's a great experience but it also has weird
Speaker 15: consequences with the two who never even hear an actor
Speaker 15: complain about being offered a role. But let me just get.
Speaker 15: Since I'm not used to that I'm still very much an.
Speaker 15: That is part of the audition process vies for roles
Speaker 15: that are competitive. It's just a shift of pace to
Speaker 15: all of a sudden have one that you never had
Speaker 15: that kind of experiment. Like if you think of an
Speaker 15: audition as a chance for not just them to experiment
Speaker 15: with this actor in a role it's also your personal
Speaker 15: experiment to try the roll on. And even though it
Speaker 15: is uncomfortable you're not on the set you're not in
Speaker 15: the wardrobe and all the pitfalls that come with the
Speaker 15: audition process are still their baseline. You start to either
Speaker 15: make a connection with that character or you don't and
Speaker 15: then you get a callback and you tweak it a
Speaker 15: little bit and then maybe another call to that. So
Speaker 15: there's a process that you start to at least get
Speaker 15: the roots in the ground.
Speaker 12: The choices I think you make it feel right and
Speaker 12: wrong in that character whereas it's just we trust you
Speaker 12: we'll see you on set. It's just a different kind
Speaker 12: of ballgame. So that's what this was. And obviously this
Speaker 12: for me at least way more research went into this
Speaker 12: and having a template of the real guy and reconciling
Speaker 12: that with the version of the guy in the script
Speaker 12: was a fun terrifying exciting process and getting the voice
Speaker 12: down and I don't have anybody in the military in
Speaker 12: my immediate family and just reintroducing that chain of command
Speaker 12: in your mind posture mannerisms things like that but all
Speaker 12: that had to be worked out to basically test run
Speaker 12: on the first day of shooting. And that was different.
Speaker 5: Was there a rehearsal process at all or you just
Speaker 5: showed up on set and had to work it out.
Speaker 14: There really wasn't. Luckily we've got a cast of actors
Speaker 14: that all love the process. They love the filmmaking process.
Speaker 15: We all have a tremendous amount of respect for what
Speaker 15: a team effort it is to bring script to life
Speaker 15: cast and crew alike. And so no there wasn't a
Speaker 15: big preproduction rehearsal phase. A lot of that was because
Speaker 15: our first episode was thrown into a little bit of
Speaker 15: turbulence because we lost our director. So there was a
Speaker 15: little bit of a scramble at the beginning which all
Speaker 15: the other things that had to be squared away before
Speaker 15: shooting on day one rehearsal which is something that kind
Speaker 15: of had the fall of the wayside because of scheduling.
Speaker 15: But as we got further into the series and realized
Speaker 15: that everybody we were working with Patrick Adams and Colin
Speaker 15: and Mike all the rest of the guys we started
Speaker 15: rehearsing on our own time to episode five. There's this
Speaker 15: big confrontation between John Glenn and Alan Shepard. It's something
Speaker 15: that Mark Lafferty our showrunner told Patrick and I about
Speaker 15: honestly from day one even when they pitched the road
Speaker 15: to me in that bad audition. Right. He said OK.
Speaker 15: So Shepard Story is this it's this rivalry between these
Speaker 15: two men. And that scene in there being 12 pages
Speaker 15: long you spent the entire day filming it and because
Speaker 15: we had at that point worked together on the episodes
Speaker 15: one through four. And we're familiar with each other's processes
Speaker 15: as actors on our own time. Patrick and I because
Speaker 15: we knew how under the gun the production was we
Speaker 15: would meet at his house and rehearse that scene and
Speaker 15: rehearse that scene rehearse that scene until we really had
Speaker 15: it down pat and we're ready to just come out
Speaker 15: of the gate swinging.
Speaker 7: It's also one of the scenes it's 40 pages long
Speaker 7: it's an entire twelve hour shoot and all the astronauts
Speaker 7: are in the scene basically watching Patrick and I have
Speaker 7: our little spat. And so you want to make sure
Speaker 7: if you're fellow actor you've got that scene down.
Speaker 12: So there wasn't as much rehearsal before the first episode
Speaker 12: but as we got in to production a lot of
Speaker 12: us relied on our own time to make sure we
Speaker 12: had big scenes down.
Jake McDorman: Did you shoot the whole show chronologically.
Speaker 14: No actually in fact that Episode 5 that I'm referring to.
Speaker 14: But that big fight we shot that last episode order
Speaker 14: was shuffled around a few times because of different directors availability.
Speaker 14: We would block shoot a couple of episodes together I
Speaker 14: want to say we did episode one and then we
Speaker 14: did episode two then three and four were blocked shot
Speaker 14: And then six and seven. I can't remember exactly but
Speaker 14: we did jump around quite a bit.
Speaker 12: And the one I remember the most because it didn't
Speaker 12: have that big fight and it was episode five which
Speaker 12: we shot last. Which was great because by that point
Speaker 12: this being penultimate blow out between these two astronauts we
Speaker 12: had had the maximum amount of experience working together. By
Speaker 12: that point. So we could get the maximum result and
Speaker 12: spending some extra time rehearsing it. But we were still
Speaker 12: reshooting scenes from episode 1 right into the like the
Speaker 12: last week of shooting. It's the big show then the
Speaker 12: VFX take a long time to be complete. So even.
Speaker 12: I know that we would lock episodes out of order
Speaker 12: because they'd still be trying to finish VFX lineups at
Speaker 12: one after they locked episode seven. So there was some
Speaker 12: moving around I think for the most part it was
Speaker 12: chronological with.
Jake McDorman: But when did you feel like you found.
Speaker 16: Shepard if the first day it was kind of shaky
Speaker 16: the last day it's always the last day.
Speaker 4: That's always the last day of the entire project when
Speaker 4: you go Oh okay let's do it again for real
Speaker 4: just that I don't know. No I think it was
Speaker 4: definitely a process.
Speaker 9: We had to do some ADR during the pandemic right.
Speaker 9: So they would say this these episodes and you have
Speaker 9: converge your closet into an ADR studio.
Speaker 12: So during that process I really watched these episodes a
Speaker 12: lot and similar to the audition process there were scenes
Speaker 12: that I remember thinking Man I really challenging. And I
Speaker 12: watched them after the fact and be like oh maybe
Speaker 12: not so much. And then ones that I kind of
Speaker 12: discredited that then I'd see later and be like wow
Speaker 12: that was really on point. So it's always kind of
Speaker 12: a guessing game but I think probably around episode four
Speaker 12: I felt pretty locked down.
Speaker 19: It was like a holiday episode you introduce Shepard's storyline
Speaker 19: to have his dad come home and there's some serious
Speaker 19: tension between his father and I think just emotionally seeing
Speaker 19: that other side of someone that otherwise is such a
Speaker 19: kind of a mad dog fighter jock you know seeing
Speaker 19: this side of him that you maybe understand why he
Speaker 19: can be so icy to certain people or expect unrealistic
Speaker 19: high standard for everybody else and himself. You kind of
Speaker 19: get where that stems from when you meet his dad.
Speaker 20: So I'd say probably if I'm being honest that's when
Speaker 20: most of the permanent decisions on three was a character
Speaker 20: settlement and then also I mean it's just a process
Speaker 20: you know and I think we were all grateful to
Speaker 20: have such a good script to kind of latch on
Speaker 20: to but it really is trying things out.
Speaker 19: Those first couple episodes that season it seems to work great.
Speaker 19: This doesn't seem quite on point just kind of fine
Speaker 19: tune those aspects like the tenor of your voice and
Speaker 19: just getting used to kind of the rhythm of someone
Speaker 19: else's speech and even like the deliberate way that somebody
Speaker 19: speaks when they've come from a military upbringing is so
Speaker 19: different than anything that I come from and getting used
Speaker 19: to that gruff edge that you pick on everything just
Speaker 19: takes some time. So I'd say episode four.
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Speaker 23: human flaws. But also talks about how everything being done
Speaker 23: is done for the good of the country between the
Speaker 23: public image and the human flaws. What makes a hero.
Speaker 10: I think there is an integrity I would have to
Speaker 10: say that even though these people are human and they
Speaker 10: are flawed they're rising to the occasion of something that's
Speaker 10: much larger than any of those flaws.
Speaker 12: It was very important for the space program at that
Speaker 12: point in American history to project an image of moral
Speaker 12: superiority cohesion amongst the astronauts kind of an infallibility of
Speaker 12: these seven guys and use that as the portrait of
Speaker 12: what a hero is. But I think watching them struggle
Speaker 12: with this overnight international level of fame maybe only on
Speaker 12: par with the Beatles at the time or Elvis navigating
Speaker 12: that when they really didn't have the tools to do
Speaker 12: so especially because the people in their field that they
Speaker 12: idolize people like Chuck Agar like Charles Lindbergh you know
Speaker 12: they were people that were famous within their community because
Speaker 12: they had accomplished something. You know Charles Lindbergh going to
Speaker 12: New York to Paris to the anger breaking the sound barrier.
Speaker 12: These guys all of a sudden became famous before they'd
Speaker 12: even done anything. And I think to rise to the
Speaker 12: occasion and try to navigate that to the detriment of
Speaker 12: a lot of these guys family lives and home lives
Speaker 12: and privacy just being an ordinary person doing something extraordinary
Speaker 12: I think is heroic. You know it's a pretty big
Speaker 12: question defines hero in this context I mean that was
Speaker 12: at least from my experience learning more about these people
Speaker 12: and learning more about their families because you can put
Speaker 12: them in that category too. It was a Herculean heroic
Speaker 12: effort to maintain any semblance of normal when you've got
Speaker 12: a member of the family vying to strap themselves to
Speaker 12: a rocket blast off in the space under public scrutiny worldwide.
Speaker 5: What do you think is the feeling of strapping yourself
Speaker 5: to a rocket and flying off.
Speaker 16: I don't know. Mine was pretty anticlimactic. Janice was way
Speaker 16: towards the end of the shoot.
Speaker 9: We were all ready to go home and I did
Speaker 9: not have mission control.
Speaker 14: My year I had all of us wanting to finally
Speaker 14: say we had done it. I have no idea. I
Speaker 14: know some of us on the show are really excited
Speaker 14: to find out. Patrick Adams is trying to get his
Speaker 14: pilot's license right now in 2020. Wow. So it really
Speaker 14: inspired him in particular to try to figure out what
Speaker 14: that feels like. But man I don't know.
Speaker 12: I have to imagine it just feels like everything is
Speaker 12: going wrong. I saw a documentary once and I can
Speaker 12: remember the name of it. They interview astronauts that had
Speaker 12: been to space. Buzz is on there. Michael Collins and
Speaker 12: other guys they talk about you know you think of
Speaker 12: a rocket and you're strapped in and you're on your
Speaker 12: back right.
Speaker 4: And then it blows and you go up and you
Speaker 4: think oh you're just going to be shooting straight into
Speaker 4: the air with all the Gs.
Speaker 14: They talked about how like no it has this feeling
Speaker 14: of like if you've ever tried to balance a baseball
Speaker 14: bat in the palm of your hand you know you
Speaker 14: have to keep moving your hand around to keep it up.
Speaker 14: It has that sensation under it which I don't know
Speaker 14: how technical this is or not and if there's any
Speaker 14: astronauts on this thing they're going to be like an
Speaker 14: actor that stuck out is like this sensation just to be.
Speaker 7: We did not feel as is how you would expect.
Speaker 15: I don't know how true that is now with things
Speaker 15: like space x and just leaps and bounds in technology
Speaker 15: from the Mercury program or the Apollo program to the
Speaker 15: shuttle program right but that always stuck out to me.
Speaker 14: And so my research is like oh that image because
Speaker 14: I feel like everyone's tried to do that to balance
Speaker 14: a baseball bat. You're right. All right you have to
Speaker 14: constantly move it around because if you were strapped to
Speaker 14: the tip top of that baseball bat you feel like
Speaker 14: you were going all over the place. Yeah.
Speaker 17: Not natural gas as a human being isn't supposed to
Speaker 17: feel good being shot out of the world that we live.
Speaker 17: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 14: Like this was not intended by most laws of nature.
Speaker 5: So I want to go all the way back because
Speaker 5: you mentioned you came to Los Angeles when you were 16.
Speaker 5: Is that what you said. Yeah I know you took
Speaker 5: classes when you were young but you never went through
Speaker 5: any professional training so you're training was really on the job.
Speaker 5: Is that fair to say.
Speaker 14: Yeah I'd say that's right.
Speaker 18: I definitely had extra curricular training going to a public
Speaker 18: school in Texas. Was a magnet school. They had a
Speaker 18: theater program a reformed theater among. They also had a
Speaker 18: communications magnet that I was in and that was about
Speaker 18: video editing and stuff like that. But I wasn't in
Speaker 18: any programs in school I was in acting classes outside
Speaker 18: of school that had been recommended to me through an
Speaker 18: agent that I was trying to sign with and those
Speaker 18: classes were my first introduction to their craft backing from
Speaker 18: knowing what that was beyond kind of what you see
Speaker 18: in a movie or television surmising your techniques on them
Speaker 18: also just some kitchen sink techniques.
Speaker 12: You know through somebody I met in that class I
Speaker 12: was able to meet out in L.A. an agent the
Speaker 12: manager that agreed to have me on for a pilot
Speaker 12: season which I don't know people listening. Now what that
Speaker 12: is anymore I think it still exists. It's kind of
Speaker 12: all year round now that this was a huge bond
Speaker 12: that people would flock to L.A. from January to May.
Speaker 12: My guess would be the whole breadth of it to
Speaker 12: try to get on any number one hundreds of pilots
Speaker 12: that were casting on the major networks. I mean now
Speaker 12: it's like streaming and cable it's all year round more
Speaker 12: or less.
Speaker 18: But yeah anyway they agreed to take me on and
Speaker 18: give me a shot for one of those pilot season.
Speaker 14: So neither of my parents were in the entertainment industry.
Speaker 18: So it was very much my thing. And they were
Speaker 18: really supportive of it. And so they did everything they
Speaker 18: could to that this idea with the people in L.A.
Speaker 18: that this idea with my acting coaches in Texas. I
Speaker 18: think they've been doing that. You know this is something
Speaker 18: that at that point sixteen I'd probably been really serious
Speaker 18: about it and known what's serious about it looked like
Speaker 18: three years. So it wasn't just something and I came
Speaker 18: home one day and heard something in class that I
Speaker 18: wanted to do. It was a conversation that was ongoing
Speaker 18: with kind of the verbal referrals of coaches that I
Speaker 18: was working with in Texas. So they found a way
Speaker 18: to make it work. When I was 16 I was
Speaker 18: in 2003. That was our first pilot season at that
Speaker 18: point because I was a minor and I came out
Speaker 18: with my mom and my younger sister and my dad
Speaker 18: stayed doctor and interests together and you stayed back in
Speaker 18: Texas tested for some things and then finally got a
Speaker 18: co-star role in a pilot that turned into one more episode.
Speaker 18: Once I got picked up so it was recurring and
Speaker 18: that was on the WB during the WB singing for
Speaker 18: long before the CW. So that was my first job
Speaker 18: and I think it was enough of a sign given
Speaker 18: the fact that I had tested for some bigger roles
Speaker 18: and stuff I didn't get them but I had at
Speaker 18: least gotten in the room there that it was enough
Speaker 18: of a signal to my representation at the time. And
Speaker 18: my parents to say let's make go at this and
Speaker 18: then the next pilot season I was 17 and I
Speaker 18: got on my first show to get picked up as
Speaker 18: a regular.
Speaker 12: And that was quintuplets as it was on Fox with
Speaker 12: Andy Richter. I mean I was a huge Conan fan
Speaker 12: growing up so I was just beside myself. I mean
Speaker 12: yet I was sitting in public school same public school
Speaker 12: district from kindergarten all the way to when I stopped
Speaker 12: going so I can come out to L.A. my last
Speaker 12: year in school is my sophomore year I was all
Speaker 12: of a sudden now walking on to at Warner Brothers
Speaker 12: lot of university auditions. So it was just such a
Speaker 12: dream come true to even try.
Speaker 24: At that age the first pilot season I think a
Speaker 24: few of those things they tested for one was like
Speaker 24: Bob McDonnell or somebody that I just idolized at the
Speaker 24: time didn't say anything at all. I was so nervous.
Speaker 24: So next year I was like I might never see
Speaker 24: those people again. I got to start speaking up and
Speaker 24: like first thing I did my chemistry with a director
Speaker 24: was just like vomit praise all over him from watching
Speaker 24: Conner and citing the exact sketches from accounting that I
Speaker 24: love and was really doing it under the auspices of
Speaker 24: my 17 year old brain being like you're not going
Speaker 24: to get this and you're never going to see him again.
Speaker 12: So just who cares. Said the word of advice is
Speaker 12: to tell everyone to just pray.
Speaker 4: Yeah you heard it here first. Just hearing worship shamelessly
Speaker 4: anybody you meet and that's the key to success of
Speaker 4: Hollywood would appeal to every actor's ego and you're going
Speaker 4: to make it really far.
Speaker 14: I mean I did do that and he ended up
Speaker 14: playing you know my dad. We did like a full
Speaker 14: season of that and that was enough at that point
Speaker 14: for me to kind of get out there on my own.
Speaker 14: I guess I would have turned 18 in doing that show.
Speaker 14: And so at that point I was out here on
Speaker 14: my own and had the stability from season that show
Speaker 14: to carry me through.
Jake McDorman: So you didn't go to college but you did do great.
Speaker 17: Yeah I loved to that self. How good was that
Speaker 17: like a college experience for you at all.
Speaker 12: Yeah. I mean I guess so Greeks kind of like
Speaker 12: the right stuff when the cast is an ensemble like
Speaker 12: that you build a tight knit family amongst the actors
Speaker 12: and it's not a show was like that. So you
Speaker 12: know if you're talking about brotherhood or sisterhood and a
Speaker 12: fraternity I'm sure we can relate to that. Navigating an
Speaker 12: experience that was unique to us and honestly out of
Speaker 12: any show that I've worked on we're all still super close.
Speaker 12: Scott you played Captain Scott like a bathroom down the
Speaker 12: street literally water transplants the other day. I think I'm
Speaker 12: watching the election with P.J. who played Calvin because we're
Speaker 12: kind of both political junkies and so we're going to
Speaker 12: create and buried together tomorrow. So yeah we're all still
Speaker 12: super close so I guess so you know I don't know.
Speaker 12: I didn't go to college so I can't really say
Speaker 12: you know exactly if that's accurate but you got to
Speaker 12: pretend to do the parties essentially.
Speaker 5: Yeah I did the parties I don't know how you
Speaker 5: shot the.
Speaker 4: Maybe a little bit of both. That was a wild time.
Speaker 5: So then shameless you mentioned it's very different feel from
Speaker 5: the other shows you had done. Right yeah. It was
Speaker 5: a big I don't know as a grown up step
Speaker 5: up but a grownup step.
Speaker 14: No I think I think that's right.
Speaker 18: Talking about coming out from high school and then being
Speaker 18: on set you know at that point probably into the
Speaker 18: first three four years of working in L.A. You're just
Speaker 18: so grateful to working out like you're grateful to be honest.
Speaker 18: We're grateful to have an agent. I have a job.
Speaker 18: And it's not like that gratitude fades or goes away
Speaker 18: at all. But I think at a certain point at
Speaker 18: least for me you start to carve out enough experience
Speaker 18: and competence in your work and your appreciation for the
Speaker 18: work and the process your relationship to your craft just
Speaker 18: kind of matures over time that I started wanting to
Speaker 18: do kind of exactly what you saw.
Speaker 25: If I could move into territory of projects that I
Speaker 25: was a fan of but I was watching work with
Speaker 25: people that I had admired or worked from the time
Speaker 25: I was a little kid. John Wells Bill Macy even
Speaker 25: the Emmy I'm just a show like shameless on a
Speaker 25: cable network like Showtime. What has this other exciting shows
Speaker 25: like great down to them shows that you're watching at
Speaker 25: the time was really where my heart was and it's
Speaker 25: a scary step.
Speaker 26: When I was really fortunate to have a supportive representation
Speaker 26: because you kind of start to have to turn down
Speaker 26: things that you know you're a shoo in toward based
Speaker 26: on your catalog of work previous and start to get
Speaker 26: ambitious about roles that people may not see you that
Speaker 26: way but you're also just going to be really competitive
Speaker 26: because they're on shows and networks and really wants to
Speaker 26: be on.
Speaker 27: That's not to say that the work that I've done.
Speaker 27: So if you use shameless as a barometer that those
Speaker 27: shows before weren't chosen I was proud to be a
Speaker 27: part of and that were invaluable to me as an actor.
Speaker 27: They were. But I think you just said there was
Speaker 27: a shift in I want to take some of this
Speaker 27: agency back where I can which is not always possible
Speaker 27: as an actor in fact it's got to be really
Speaker 27: possible especially at that point.
Speaker 12: It's just saying you know I've got enough stability that
Speaker 12: I can narrow my focus a little bit more and
Speaker 12: say noticing things that I might have previous and say
Speaker 12: yes to and really go after some more competitive roles.
Speaker 12: It is a shift and it's one that I kind
Speaker 12: of needed everybody on my team on the same page
Speaker 12: and so I had some meetings with them and this
Speaker 12: goes beyond shameless. It was like a meeting that took
Speaker 12: place just about trajectory in general to go like let's
Speaker 12: really go for these things. I trust the taste of
Speaker 12: my team in place. There are people who have represented
Speaker 12: me for a really long time and they know the
Speaker 12: kind of work that I want to do. They know
Speaker 12: the kind of actor I want to be. They know
Speaker 12: the kind of actors and directors and producers that I
Speaker 12: look up to and admire and they share that same
Speaker 12: enthusiasm about that community in Hollywood. So it was a
Speaker 12: team effort to say let's start to move this momentum
Speaker 12: even incrementally into a more focused direction. Shameless was one
Speaker 12: of the first projects I think that gave him back
Speaker 12: some of that validation of like you can play at
Speaker 12: that level you can play with these guys you can
Speaker 12: learn from these people. People like Bill like John Wells
Speaker 12: Marc Maron even David Nevins that Showtime by then and
Speaker 12: David Nevins was one of the people that Imagine Entertainment
Speaker 12: for quintuplets. So it was actually kind of crazy to
Speaker 12: work on shameless and be reunited with David like that.
Speaker 12: It was important and I learned a hell of a
Speaker 12: lot and most of my scenes with Emmy on that
Speaker 12: show and she's tremendous. And then inevitably makes you better
Speaker 12: when you work with someone tremendous. And so yeah I
Speaker 12: really really really loved my time on that show with
Speaker 12: all those people.
Speaker 5: Not only that but you've worked across some phenomenal actors.
Speaker 5: And are there any stories from like the big people
Speaker 5: who you've kind of stolen from them or learned from them.
Speaker 12: Oh yeah after sure there's a lot of I take
Speaker 12: Bradley Cooper. He's such a hard worker. He's such a
Speaker 12: diligent worker that is like humbled by the process. You
Speaker 12: know I met him on American Sniper which all of
Speaker 12: us were humbled to be on that movie including Brad.
Speaker 12: I mean that was one of the things that made
Speaker 12: him so accessible as a co-star and even just as
Speaker 12: a human being that he was clearly one of our
Speaker 12: leads on that movie. I mean he was carrying the
Speaker 12: movie on his shoulders but he'd still come back to
Speaker 12: the rest of the cast have moments like you fucking
Speaker 12: believe would work. So you know it's it's kind of
Speaker 12: a great way to meet some of my breath because
Speaker 12: it really made him feel like one of us and
Speaker 12: that that if there was any kind of barrier there
Speaker 12: that that was knocked down which was important for that
Speaker 12: movie about a team of Navy SEALs and brotherhood there.
Speaker 12: But it was also just important for being able to relate.
Speaker 12: Accurate accurate so to get back to your question I
Speaker 12: mean one of the things that he was so good
Speaker 12: at and he's had a similar career is a lot
Speaker 12: of actors and I'm friends worked where he got out
Speaker 12: of actors studio and kind of got these big parts.
Speaker 12: He was in my Jack and Bobby from the CW.
Speaker 12: You know he'd have a part in sex and the
Speaker 12: city and he'd have a show like Kitchen Confidential and
Speaker 12: I could cancel the Internet. So he had that kind
Speaker 12: of journey man evolution. So you felt like he got
Speaker 12: it fresh in his mind those days of waiting in
Speaker 12: line at auditions blowing a or something like that. So
Speaker 12: Bradley very relatable and then he was always key and
Speaker 12: reminding me especially in a movie like American Sniper where
Speaker 12: there's so much going on there's war there's Brotherhood there's
Speaker 12: the PTSD. I had a scene where I'm in a
Speaker 12: hospital bed and he comes to visit in the after
Speaker 12: I was wounded. And of course I just got so
Speaker 12: much riding on this scene in my mind this is
Speaker 12: the scene of the movie in my mind.
Speaker 15: And that's a really easy trap to fall into that
Speaker 15: you've got to watch out for when you lose perspective
Speaker 15: on where this scene fits into the bigger picture. And
Speaker 15: Bradley in that scene I remember would come up to
Speaker 15: me and urged me to let it go. Trust the process.
Speaker 15: And it was always a nice reminder of it should
Speaker 15: be effortless. You shouldn't be pushing. You shouldn't be telling
Speaker 15: people what this scene's supposed to be. You should let
Speaker 15: the scene be what it is and stop judging which
Speaker 15: way to go. And it seems like such a basic
Speaker 15: rudimentary lesson in acting and it is but it's one
Speaker 15: of those that can really be easily forgotten when you're
Speaker 15: competing with Sienna Miller and Bradley Cooper in Cleveland for
Speaker 15: a ruby. You want to make sure every time you're
Speaker 15: on the screen it pops it counts all this stupid
Speaker 15: noise that really has nothing to do with anything in
Speaker 15: fact it's the worst voice to listen to.
Speaker 12: It's like he got it and would always just gently
Speaker 12: remind you you're safe you're doing it right. Go for
Speaker 12: it and then we work together and limitless. And it
Speaker 12: was just the same you could just trust that he
Speaker 12: is a fan of the process and it doesn't even
Speaker 12: have to be a fan of his place in the process.
Speaker 12: He's a fan of watching actors act and working through it.
Jake McDorman: Do you have a way to efficiently get rid of
Jake McDorman: the noise when you're in that headspace.
Speaker 12: Not really. I mean it's really different every project. I
Speaker 12: think every project has its noise and its demons and
Speaker 12: it's all very particular to the actor probably even the director.
Speaker 12: Anybody in any department the anxiety around wanting to get
Speaker 12: it right. I've been told by a few people that
Speaker 12: I should probably meditate. Meditation sounds great.
Speaker 4: I'll let you know if I do it and it
Speaker 4: fixes it. Now right now I mean it's just really
Speaker 4: always boils down to trust.
Speaker 12: You gotta trust yourself and trust your instincts. That's not
Speaker 12: to say that you shouldn't do all the work in
Speaker 12: the world of PrEP. That's not to say you shouldn't
Speaker 12: think about the scene in a thousand different ways. But
Speaker 12: when you actually get there the only way to do
Speaker 12: it right is to really just trust the process and
Speaker 12: let it go if you try to do anything short
Speaker 12: of that or anything more than that you're just going
Speaker 12: to be disappointed. And that's never not been true for
Speaker 12: me on American Sniper.
Speaker 5: You said the process itself was so quick like you
Speaker 5: were cast on Friday and flew out on Sunday or
Speaker 5: whatever you said Yeah.
Speaker 14: I'm not actually in and of itself kind of fixed
Speaker 14: the noise for me because you didn't have time.
Speaker 16: Maybe that's it.
Speaker 13: Is this going to encourage a bunch of actors to
Speaker 13: procrastinate their homework until the night before.
Speaker 4: Yeah. That worked in a way that didn't give you
Speaker 4: a chance to do that. I mean like you know
Speaker 4: I could argue if I went back and watch American
Speaker 4: Sniper I'd see so many different opportunities to do something differently.
Speaker 4: I think that's always going to be true. But as
Speaker 4: far as throwing yourself into something without second guessing it
Speaker 4: and trusting yourself you're absolutely right. That is an example
Speaker 4: of one where you just didn't have the time and
Speaker 4: everybody on that movie was pretty much in that position.
Speaker 4: And that's pretty much how it works. One take on
Speaker 4: it next. You don't have enough time to psych yourself
Speaker 4: out about it which maybe is a stroke of genius.
Speaker 4: I have no idea. But that would happen even on
Speaker 4: limitless limitless Greek the right stuff. Those are ensemble shows limitless.
Speaker 4: We had a core ensemble of me and Jennifer Karvan
Speaker 4: during Hell Harper really nails with Master Antonio. But like
Speaker 4: other than us for it was mostly my character's show.
Speaker 4: You know he'd narrated the whole thing. He's the one
Speaker 4: taking the pill. He's kind of the Bradley Cooper surrogate
Speaker 4: from the movie you know so it was more of
Speaker 4: a one man show than a big ensemble show. And
Speaker 4: that worked in the same way.
Speaker 12: You know I think the first couple episodes you're still
Speaker 12: trying to control what this character is going to do.
Speaker 12: How do you think. Wouldn't this be cool would not
Speaker 12: be cool and it's not that those aren't valuable they are.
Speaker 12: But once you get into an episodic shooting schedule 13
Speaker 12: 14 15 22 episodes and you don't have time to
Speaker 12: second guess yourself you're really acting on instinct and then
Speaker 12: a lot of ways at least from my personal psyche
Speaker 12: does help because it doesn't give me time to be
Speaker 12: like Well you're what about this modified or you know
Speaker 12: just start second guessing things that don't need anymore an organization.
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Speaker 31: So it's limitless. It was a procedural but it was
Speaker 31: a different kind of procedural. But did that change the
Speaker 31: approach to the show. Because it was again a different
Speaker 31: type of show than you'd done before.
Speaker 9: Not really. I don't think I've had a show that
Speaker 9: my strength and comedic sensibilities and just personal quirks were
Speaker 9: so like Craig and all the writers on Limitless snapped
Speaker 9: into that real quick.
Speaker 12: They were able to write to my strengths and really
Speaker 12: custom tailor a character that wasn't me. But we all
Speaker 12: just were on the same page with who he was
Speaker 12: and how he acted. And that happened really fast.
Speaker 9: So that was kind of the thing that was most
Speaker 9: fresh about that show for me. Less so about the
Speaker 9: structure of it.
Speaker 12: I think honestly I worried a lot that it was
Speaker 12: going to be kind of your standard CBS procedural when
Speaker 12: I was deciding deciding I would say deciding whether or
Speaker 12: not to take it. I didn't have choice.
Speaker 4: I wanted it really bad. And they let me to it.
Speaker 4: But in my mind being like Oh God am I
Speaker 4: going to be happy on a show like this. I
Speaker 4: going to be creatively fulfilled on a show like this
Speaker 4: if it is just another genius helps the FBI case
Speaker 4: of the week show. And it had those elements and
Speaker 4: I think this was a deliberate choice on his part
Speaker 4: to hire writers that were from episodic television not from
Speaker 4: procedural television. Craig had a background in procedural television.
Speaker 10: He worked on elementary and medium and I think he
Speaker 10: was the case of the week kind of guy but
Speaker 10: knew that with this added element of a pill that
Speaker 10: makes you a genius and opens up all these doors
Speaker 10: of wish fulfillment. And it should be so fun and
Speaker 10: mashed in this guy's personality you know like all these
Speaker 10: Gen X and cultural pop references compared to the kind
Speaker 10: of icy opportunist that Bradley's character was in the movie
Speaker 10: the show having so much more real estate like twenty
Speaker 10: two hours or less would need comedy would need levity
Speaker 10: and the fastest way to that was through the heart
Speaker 10: of gold of this protagonist. So I was really thrilled
Speaker 10: that there was always a balance to the procedural elements
Speaker 10: and the episodic elements when you had the storyline. Eddie
Speaker 10: Morra Bradley's character from the movie Limitless.
Speaker 12: I think he did like six episodes which was awesome
Speaker 12: having Bradley come on and do that much.
Speaker 18: And then there was some supporting characters that had these
Speaker 18: season long overarching storylines like Who Killed Rebecca's father and
Speaker 18: sands origin.
Speaker 10: But you know all those things were kind of spinning
Speaker 10: those plates simultaneously which made it feel a lot less
Speaker 10: procedural even though there was always a case in the
Speaker 10: week that unique approach to how that case was going
Speaker 10: to get solved.
Speaker 12: Filtering it through the mind of this lackluster 20 something
Speaker 12: made it super fun and unpredictable which was huge. I
Speaker 12: mean it's honestly might be why it didn't survive. Maybe
Speaker 12: it's a little bit more pizzazz when whoever was in
Speaker 12: charge was comfortable with that. I'm super proud of it.
Speaker 12: I love that show. And I was like over the
Speaker 12: moon when I got the second episode and realized what
Speaker 12: direction we were going that it was like a lot
Speaker 12: less procedural we would almost kind of poke fun at
Speaker 12: the procedural format can parody and a lot of ways
Speaker 12: if it had kept going where do you think Brian
Speaker 12: Finch would be. Oh my God I have no idea.
Speaker 12: I would be so crazy. I know some loose plans
Speaker 12: we had for season two included in being at the
Speaker 12: top of the pile of the zone Task Force which
Speaker 12: I think honestly was a CBS move to ensure that
Speaker 12: if I got sick there were still parts of the
Speaker 12: show that we could film because if something happened to
Speaker 12: me there was like nothing we could fill that show
Speaker 12: just especially towards the end was Brian heavy all the time.
Speaker 10: So that might have been a more strategic move as
Speaker 10: a failsafe if something happened to me but I don't
Speaker 10: know what would Brian Finch be doing in ziti in
Speaker 10: the last four years of his presidency.
Speaker 12: I hope something solved it right. No idea. The interesting
Speaker 12: to find out.
Speaker 5: I'd love to hear about Lady Bird because it's such
Speaker 5: a special movie and I can't imagine just what was
Speaker 5: it like being a part of that cast and that
Speaker 5: crew Lady Bird is one of my favorite movies that
Speaker 5: I've been a part of but also just in general.
Speaker 15: I love that movie. It's so specific we from the
Speaker 15: time that credit grew up and credits I think maybe
Speaker 15: a year younger or older than me.
Speaker 14: So it's right on track with my kind of albeit
Speaker 14: truncated high school experience with cultural references and just being
Speaker 14: alive in that time. But it was special. From the
Speaker 14: page this is based on and I only know this
Speaker 14: because my girlfriend at the time went to the same
Speaker 14: all girls Catholic school in Sacramento other credit that not
Speaker 14: getting super crazy. So I hear all these stories from
Speaker 14: my girlfriend the time about Saint Francis. I wasn't allowed
Speaker 14: to say this. I don't know greatest amount said specifically
Speaker 14: it's based on St. Francis. Maybe it's not but it
Speaker 14: totally was.
Speaker 12: So St. Francis is an all girls college girl I
Speaker 12: guess in Sacramento and my girlfriend at the time had
Speaker 12: gone there and would tell me stories about it all
Speaker 12: the time just general stories from her high school experience.
Speaker 15: Mike too often she's an actress and Gretta is an
Speaker 15: actress and director producer so she was always kind of
Speaker 15: the star from that school. And so then cut to
Speaker 15: couple of years later I get the script.
Speaker 12: Or Lady Bird written by grata and I'm reading it
Speaker 12: realizing this is an entire story that takes place in St. Francis.
Speaker 12: So it was this weird Kismet kind of connection to
Speaker 12: that whole story in Sacramento and Gretta specifically that was
Speaker 12: kind of mind blowing but the scripts apart from that
Speaker 12: connection was just so cool and so fun. And again
Speaker 12: just the people involved. I mean that was Gretta search.
Speaker 12: Being you know being used like a household name right
Speaker 12: now getting to be on set and work with Feeny
Speaker 12: and seeing what nobody knew yet was amazing. She is
Speaker 12: hilarious such a genuinely warm person. Scott Rudin produced I
Speaker 12: mean it was really a special independent movie. It knew
Speaker 12: it it was great I knew it it was super
Speaker 12: fun to ad lib I played an algebra teacher it
Speaker 12: got me looking up Algebra I hadn't thought about algebra
Speaker 12: in a long time.
Speaker 10: And there was a story there where they were like
Speaker 10: so we're just gonna need you tomorrow is like before
Speaker 10: my first day that they always said we totally won't
Speaker 10: need you to do this but just in case. Which
Speaker 10: translates to like you're definitely gonna be doing this probably
Speaker 10: more than you can even anticipate. But they were like
Speaker 10: just look up the foil method of algebra first outside
Speaker 10: inside mass you know just so you can maybe if
Speaker 10: we need you to in the background again you won't
Speaker 10: have to do this but just in the background we
Speaker 10: look like you might know it's an algebra.
Speaker 7: And luckily I've worked on enough stuff to know about
Speaker 7: sounding red alarm that you will be full on doing
Speaker 7: algebra in the back and if you don't you're going
Speaker 7: to look stupid. So I the night before I crammed
Speaker 7: like I was taking a math test all these different
Speaker 7: formulas and things that I could write and say out
Speaker 7: loud that would make me look at these somewhat qualified
Speaker 7: teachers in a classroom. I got there and they were
Speaker 7: like All right. And anything you know would be like
Speaker 7: still out there right now because we're seeing you in
Speaker 7: the background like a lot. And I was like Yeah
Speaker 7: I know they can't teach you that and I think
Speaker 7: class that's just we're working on a lot of projects
Speaker 7: when they say you probably need to know this but
Speaker 7: just in case you'll definitely need to know.
Speaker 5: Have you had a time where you didn't know that
Speaker 5: lesson yet and you didn't show up knowing what you
Speaker 5: needed to know.
Speaker 4: Oh my God. You know yeah probably.
Speaker 15: You know that's why Greek was really great Greek was
Speaker 15: kind of like a giant acting class for those technical
Speaker 15: mistakes that you just can't learn without hours and hours
Speaker 15: and hours on set and familiarizing yourself with the dynamic
Speaker 15: of how set work and what things will fall through
Speaker 15: the cracks because the Navy's got so much bigger problems
Speaker 15: on their plate. They need everybody to rely on their
Speaker 15: own department you know and that kind of team effort
Speaker 15: to like show them play. I'm sure I made some
Speaker 15: of those mistakes on Greek and honestly those mistakes result
Speaker 15: a lot less than you looking stupid because if you
Speaker 15: look stupid the movie looks stupid. So I'll just cut
Speaker 15: you out.
Speaker 4: It's not usually the punishment for like Oh you didn't
Speaker 4: teach yourself Algebra. You're playing an algebra teacher you showed
Speaker 4: up with nothing. You just won't be in this part.
Speaker 5: Last year you did guest on what we do in
Speaker 5: the shadows which was so much fun. Basically you play
Speaker 5: a normal guy who has all of his past lives
Speaker 5: memories reinstated into his brain. Yeah. What was that like
Speaker 5: working with comedic geniuses and having such a fun role
Speaker 5: to play.
Speaker 18: What we do in the shadows. The movie I saw
Speaker 18: in theaters twice. I was already a fan of Jermaine
Speaker 18: complied the Conchords and that was my first introduction to Tiger.
Speaker 18: I think that came out in 2014. So cut to 2018.
Speaker 18: I met an audition for a different project. Also Scott
Speaker 18: Rudin project I think on that fact. It was like
Speaker 18: my third audition for this other project before Allison Jones
Speaker 18: casting director ask me like Oh my God would you
Speaker 18: cold read this small part for the pilot of what
Speaker 18: we do in the shadows. And I was like Oh
Speaker 18: my God they're making what we do in the shadows.
Speaker 12: And I was like you better have everyone on board
Speaker 12: those I guess Jamaican and they're like yeah he's creating
Speaker 12: everything else I can do yeah. He's direct it sounds
Speaker 12: like so much shit shows a gap cause. So I
Speaker 12: got just this one scene which was from the pilot
Speaker 12: episode where I want to say it's the scene like
Speaker 12: Naja and just walking down the road together so the
Speaker 12: breakdown of this character was totally boring guy average average
Speaker 12: dude and I knew it was going to be shot
Speaker 12: mockumentary or documentary style like the film. So that was
Speaker 12: just kind of my mantra going into this cold reading
Speaker 12: casting was like don't try to be funny you're not
Speaker 12: going to win and you're just not you hand this
Speaker 12: up or you act this up even a little bit
Speaker 12: it's going to be really obvious and it's going to
Speaker 12: embarrass you. So my whole thing was just to play
Speaker 12: as bland as humanly possible and as simple minded as
Speaker 12: humanly possible.
Speaker 14: And so I did that I found out later that
Speaker 14: day that I got it and then I think my
Speaker 14: first day with the next day met paramount. So they
Speaker 14: sent me the script and I don't know if anyone's
Speaker 14: seen the first episode of what we do in the
Speaker 14: shadows but my character in the first episode he gets
Speaker 14: stalked by Naja one of the vampires and she like
Speaker 14: floats up to the bedroom window to spy on him
Speaker 14: while he's masturbating in bed. So I had cold read
Speaker 14: through that with only one scene that was Mary uneventful.
Speaker 14: And then my first day on set with Tiger and
Speaker 14: Jermaine is having to simulate sex on myself.
Speaker 10: Yeah and the bed and the way they did that
Speaker 10: because this is all on the Paramount lot. They put
Speaker 10: a walkie talkie in the bed with me where I
Speaker 10: take it from video village was going to be walking
Speaker 10: me through the camera movements and giving my cue what
Speaker 10: I was supposed to start.
Speaker 14: So he'd be like All right. Action is a terrible
Speaker 14: new zealand action. Anyway he's called action and then you'd
Speaker 14: be like are the cameras coming to the window are
Speaker 14: we see you get the phone you start and go
Speaker 14: and go to town on yourself.
Speaker 4: It goes on a walkie talkie I'm by myself but
Speaker 4: he's like Oh my God multi multi yes.
Speaker 7: Now the angry angry know hate yourself hate yourself walking
Speaker 7: me through all the different rainbow of emotions that would
Speaker 7: happen from one masturbating in bed by themselves. And so
Speaker 7: finally I broke and was like fucking cut and on
Speaker 7: the walkie talkie You said all night we cut ages
Speaker 7: ago and that was basically the tone you set for
Speaker 7: the shoot is a blast.
Speaker 12: And honestly so there was that episode and the next
Speaker 12: episode I had I was in New York shooting another
Speaker 12: show and they called and sent that script of the
Speaker 12: episode that you were talking about where it's like all
Speaker 12: of a sudden you relive your past lives. Of course
Speaker 12: is made in France says Gregor or the warrior. I
Speaker 12: was like how on earth based on one episode of
Speaker 12: me was making small talk with a vampire and jacking
Speaker 12: off in bed where they're like you know what I
Speaker 12: bet you can do play like nine different characters all
Speaker 12: on display for us.
Speaker 16: But it was amazing.
Speaker 12: I mean those writers he said set the tone on
Speaker 12: the set. You know you're welcome to play. We're all
Speaker 12: having a follow on kind of a fearless encouragement to
Speaker 12: just act as stupid as you want. They're great. I
Speaker 12: mean I'll do that show as long as they'll have me.
Speaker 12: I love those guys.
Speaker 5: So when they do something like that nobody calls to
Speaker 5: check to make sure like Are you okay masturbating in
Speaker 5: bed on camera on day one.
Speaker 16: Not me. I don't know that maybe they just do it.
Speaker 13: That's not to say there aren't some very strict guidelines
Speaker 13: for other actors but not me. You know they're basically
Speaker 13: like you read the script. All right here's day one
Speaker 13: we'll see you at 10:00 p.m. on a completely different note.
Jake McDorman: I am a Christmas movie freak cause who doesn't love
Jake McDorman: the holidays and this upcoming holiday season. You're in THE
Jake McDorman: HAPPIEST season which is directed by Claire Devol and I
Jake McDorman: don't know. I love Christmas movies so I would just
Jake McDorman: love to hear a little bit about what was it
Jake McDorman: like getting to do a holiday film.
Speaker 12: It was great. It's wild. You think that we were
Speaker 12: shooting that movie this year. We were filming that in
Speaker 12: Pittsburgh and starting boy last week of January and then
Speaker 12: all the way through first week of March is a
Speaker 12: pretty fast rule but it's great. Die cast is insane.
Speaker 12: So just to be part of that cast was exciting.
Speaker 12: Kristen Stewart and Kinsey Davis and Dan Levy even Victor
Speaker 12: Garber and Mary Steenburgen and Mary Holland. She wrote the
Speaker 12: script I think with Clea she's in it now. ALLISON
Speaker 12: AUBREY I mean I could go on. Aubrey Plaza it's
Speaker 12: an incredible cast. I'm also a big fan of holiday
Speaker 12: movies like that. So they get to do that with
Speaker 12: those people is pretty great. I mean I'm excited that
Speaker 12: it's coming out soon. I think it was going to
Speaker 12: be in theaters but then obviously everything happened so it's
Speaker 12: coming out this month.
Jake McDorman: It's a great film.
Speaker 32: I guess we can't say much because it's not out
Speaker 32: but go see it go all the way to your
Speaker 32: living room and see a movie so easy these days
Speaker 32: you know like wow too easy really if you could
Speaker 32: go back and relive any day on set that you
Speaker 32: have had in your entire career what day would you
Speaker 32: pick to relive.
Speaker 12: Oh my God. There's a lot that probably a few
Speaker 12: women once it should be clear to not relive because
Speaker 12: I want to go change anything. But did you like
Speaker 12: our town kind of observation of a day. Yeah. Probably
Speaker 12: a lot on the M.S. I'd seen so many people
Speaker 12: I admire at that point be kind of top of
Speaker 12: the call sheet that kind of sets they ran and
Speaker 12: I've been really fortunate where all of those sites were
Speaker 12: around so warmly shameless really warm set and he sets
Speaker 12: the tone. She's a great actor and a great person.
Speaker 12: Bill Macy sets the tone complement a great person in
Speaker 12: the NEWSROOM. I work on Jeff Daniels consummate actor great person.
Speaker 12: So I have. BRADLEY You know all the all these
Speaker 12: examples of people who were kind of at the top
Speaker 12: of the pile on these incredible projects like shameless or
Speaker 12: American Sniper newsgroup and ran such great sets because in
Speaker 12: so many instances you know some of the top billed
Speaker 12: Catherine was a kind of set the tone actors can
Speaker 12: be moody sets can be uncomfortable.
Speaker 33: And if you don't have an actor who gets that
Speaker 33: and is grateful to be there and understands how they're
Speaker 33: part albeit important that still just one piece into your
Speaker 33: huge puzzle they can really set an uncomfortable tone on
Speaker 33: the set and after having example after example of that
Speaker 33: done so well under such pressure like these huge tentpole
Speaker 33: shows like The Newsroom on HBO or Shameless on Showtime
Speaker 33: you know remember it's like we like to get the
Speaker 33: opportunity to then put that good practice on Limitless.
Speaker 34: Well it's just a responsibility that take for granted and
Speaker 34: I think itself to some really just beautiful memories of
Speaker 34: all the people that worked hard on the show. I
Speaker 34: mean you know all those that I mentioned. I'm watching
Speaker 34: Jack Daniels have just pages of dialogue to deliver on
Speaker 34: the news and be like oh God I must have
Speaker 34: been 20 or something and just watching him just in
Speaker 34: jest and then piece around and get it down pat
Speaker 34: was just an amazing process to watch and then cutting them.
Speaker 34: Listen I've got pages of dialogue where I'm to sound
Speaker 34: like a goddamn genius. And I'm like How did the
Speaker 34: FBI you know talking about scientific concepts that I've only
Speaker 34: heard described on Radiolab.
Speaker 33: So I had my own chunk of impossible instrumental dialogue.
Speaker 33: Then I got to like make this massive withdrawal. Of
Speaker 33: these little deposits from all those experiences. And so it
Speaker 33: was a really great show. I could go relive any
Speaker 33: a day on this show and I'd be excited about it.
Speaker 32: So with all of those consummate professionals you've worked with
Speaker 32: what would you say to ask a super stupid cheeky
Speaker 32: question would be the right stuff for being in the
Speaker 32: entertainment industry.
Speaker 12: Oh my God. I think the love of the process
Speaker 12: it can be a grueling process for every department involved.
Speaker 12: And if you don't absolutely love it you're going to
Speaker 12: throw the whole thing off. I love the process. I've
Speaker 12: always loved the process. And it's like waiting to go
Speaker 12: on stage on some dinky play I was doing in
Speaker 12: Texas just to see a bunch of Broome people wearing
Speaker 12: costumes like what a bizarre process. I think the people
Speaker 12: that I worked with that I admire the most and
Speaker 12: that have always set the tone for my personal work
Speaker 12: ethic are people that just love the process.
Speaker 32: My closing question that I ask everybody what does it
Speaker 32: mean to you to have a life in storytelling.
Speaker 12: God I never really thought of it like that. Life
Speaker 12: and storytelling. That's pretty awesome. Timing is everything I guess.
Speaker 12: Now I feel like I'm getting a really really sappy
Speaker 12: right here at the end of the interview.
Speaker 6: I love that. OK.
Speaker 12: I love a good story. The medium that I think
Speaker 12: we've all chosen as the medium to tell stories to
Speaker 12: huge team effort. I mean I can't give really anything
Speaker 12: where more people have to come together to tell the
Speaker 12: story and all the various storytelling mediums than a film
Speaker 12: or TV show with a lot of people it's a
Speaker 12: lot of jobs to lot of hours. I just feel
Speaker 12: grateful to be a piece of it. Every time I'm
Speaker 12: able to be a piece of it.
Jake McDorman: Jake McDermid thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 11: Thank you so much for having me. Yes like I
Speaker 11: said Now I get to go just retire by doing
Speaker 11: scrolling the election. So thank you for that small reprieve.
Speaker 5: Boy I really appreciate it. Come back anytime because as
Speaker 5: you can tell I like to talk about film and TV.
Speaker 34: So do I. I would love to. Thank you so much. Thanks.
Speaker 34: Hollywood unscripted was created by Kurt Commedia. This special episode
Speaker 34: of the stuck at home series was hosted and produced
Speaker 34: by me Jenny Curtis. With guest. Jake McDormand. Co-produced and
Speaker 34: edited by Jay Whiting.
Jenny Curtis: Executive Producer of Hollywood unscripted as Stuart Halperin the Hollywood
Jenny Curtis: unscripted theme song is by Celeste and Eric dick. Make
Jenny Curtis: sure to subscribe so you don't miss any special episodes
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Speaker 35: Leave us a rating and a review. Tell us what
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Speaker 35: Stay safe and healthy and thanks for listening. Kurt Carr media. Media.
Speaker 36: For your mind.