Speaker 1: It's nine o Gene Engine with Jenny Garth and Tory Spelling.
Speaker 2: He played Derek Driscoll, the con artist on nine O
Speaker 2: two and Oh he's here, Jen, I'm excited corn Nemic. Hello.
Speaker 3: Hi. Can we just go.
Speaker 1: Back in time. Let's rewind, because by the time you
Speaker 1: joined nine o two and now you had already had
Speaker 1: you already had a lot of success as an actor.
Speaker 1: You'd already done seventy three episodes of Parker Lewis Can't Lose.
Speaker 1: How did this happen? How did you get to the
Speaker 1: role of Derek Driscoll, the criminal on nine two and
Speaker 1: l Well.
Speaker 3: I was desperate for money, No, Tiffany Amberthiessen's money.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: I honestly, it was it just popped up through my
Speaker 3: agency at the time and they just called and asked
Speaker 3: if I was available to, you know, to do the character.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that it was that it had more
Speaker 3: than one episode at that at the time, but uh uh,
Speaker 3: you know, fortunately for me, I was available and it
Speaker 3: worked out. I was uh uh, you know, I thank god.
Speaker 3: I've always stayed very busy as as an actor, even
Speaker 3: even at the present time. It's been it's been one
Speaker 3: of the greatest blessings in my life for sure, besides
Speaker 3: meeting my wonderful wife and uh, good job, thank you.
Speaker 3: But so it was it was really exciting because uh,
Speaker 3: you know nine O two one oh and and part
Speaker 3: of Lewis they both launched at the same time, and
Speaker 3: I was around a lot of you all. In fact,
Speaker 3: you and I went to Israel together yea and which
Speaker 3: was which was very interesting. It was the first time
Speaker 3: I ever heard uh sirens in Tel Aviv for like
Speaker 3: incoming scud missile attacks and I was like, wait a second,
Speaker 3: am I even safe here?
Speaker 1: But we had a fun time.
Speaker 3: Who cares? Right right?
Speaker 1: We had a good memory.
Speaker 2: What about me?
Speaker 1: We didn't want to go, You didn't.
Speaker 2: Get to go. It's really hard for me not to
Speaker 2: call you quirky because.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it is hard to not call you you sorry.
Speaker 2: Because Brian and Green were best friends.
Speaker 3: So we were very close and we still are. We
Speaker 3: still are. We are good buddies.
Speaker 2: So I got to see lot we can. I ask
Speaker 2: the question, is this going to upset your wife? I
Speaker 2: don't think so. It's like thirty years ago. Do you
Speaker 2: remember ever kissing me once?
Speaker 3: I do? I have that recollection. It's very vivid as
Speaker 3: a matter of fact. Yes, yes, of course, howvid is
Speaker 3: it and vivid enough to recall. Yes, yes, those those
Speaker 3: were fun days. Back then it was you know, everybody
Speaker 3: that was on television at that time. You know, it
Speaker 3: was a much smaller world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all you who hung out with and that
Speaker 2: was an absolute blast.
Speaker 3: I think I think both you can agree that that
Speaker 3: with the industry being so which might knit at that time,
Speaker 3: you know there was, it was kind of a luxury
Speaker 3: being at nowadays it's you. You can be on a
Speaker 3: on a hit series, you know, on one of the
Speaker 3: platforms like Paramount Plus or TV whatever. You can be
Speaker 3: on like your your fourth season, fifth season, and nobody
Speaker 3: will know who the hell you are out in the
Speaker 3: real world except for people who watched that platform of course.
Speaker 3: Alf Soda Pop Club.
Speaker 2: Was like.
Speaker 3: It was like the place to be, uh when you
Speaker 3: were a young actor back day it was. But but yeah,
Speaker 3: that was where everybody hung out. It was wild. I
Speaker 3: have very vivid memories of being at that.
Speaker 2: Place and at the different locations I had such as you,
Speaker 2: but I like your friends, so I could never firt
Speaker 2: with you. And then one night, no, it was me
Speaker 2: and my friend Hammy and you and your friend and
Speaker 2: we had just gone out to some like nightclub.
Speaker 3: I think it was the Roxbury.
Speaker 2: Was the Roxbury? Yeah, so far drive back and we
Speaker 2: were staying at my parents' beach house which burned down
Speaker 2: the fires in January, but we were staying there and
Speaker 2: you guys like followed us back and the securities like
Speaker 2: your friends are here, and we took a walk on
Speaker 2: the beach and that's where it happened. And I'll never
Speaker 2: forget it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, mission accomplished.
Speaker 2: And then I was like, oh, Brian doesn't find out,
Speaker 2: which is weird because Brian and I weren't dating, but
Speaker 2: I still felt like it was me and Brian, like
Speaker 2: you know the type of girls guys are like, it's
Speaker 2: cool brown.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I have to ask you a question. You were
Speaker 1: nominated for an Emmy. Didn't you want it? Did you win?
Speaker 1: Or were your nominated? Seventeen years old?
Speaker 3: Well, I was actually while I was fourteen when I
Speaker 3: did I know my first name is Steven. And then
Speaker 3: obviously it took however long it took for it to
Speaker 3: come out, it didn't come out until I was fifteen
Speaker 3: late and then then sixteen when they did the actual
Speaker 3: Emmy nominations for it. So when when uh, you know,
Speaker 3: I was up against like Danny Glover and uh uh
Speaker 3: Arma Assanti and whoever else it was. It was it
Speaker 3: was a slew of of of of uh you know,
Speaker 3: grown grown ass men. So it was. It was pretty incredible.
Speaker 3: I think, if I recall correctly, I was the youngest
Speaker 3: person to be nominated for an Emmy at that time
Speaker 3: in that category, which was pretty cool. It was a drag.
Speaker 3: I would have loved to have won it because the
Speaker 3: real Stephen Stainer had had been hit by a drunk
Speaker 3: driver on his motorcycle the night before the Emmys and
Speaker 3: was killed. And and yeah, it was very tragic, and
Speaker 3: I really really I didn't want to win for me.
Speaker 3: I wanted to win so I could thank him and
Speaker 3: and and honor him, uh you know, uh and and
Speaker 3: and let the world know what a great guy he
Speaker 3: turned out to be. And so it was, you know,
Speaker 3: it was dually tragic that evening. It was a tough
Speaker 3: evening actually, because he was on set quite a bit.
Speaker 1: If that was the character you were playing, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, what what a what a terrible he
Speaker 3: lost his youth, you know, to a total pervert. And
Speaker 3: uh and and the fact that he turned out so well,
Speaker 3: you know, he was he was married, he had kids,
Speaker 3: He wanted to become a police officer. He was doing
Speaker 3: the police training thing and all of that, and and
Speaker 3: it was his his goal in life to you know,
Speaker 3: try to try to protect those he couldn't protect themselves.
Speaker 3: And uh. And that was, you know, a beautiful, you know,
Speaker 3: a beautiful outlook he had on life. So yeah, it
Speaker 3: was that was wild to be nominated that age. The
Speaker 3: Emmys were a blast as well. Uh, back then it
Speaker 3: was it was fun to go to them, even if
Speaker 3: I wasn't nominated. I went to them a couple of
Speaker 3: times after that.
Speaker 1: What a I mean, what a weird night. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: mix of like exhilaration and excitement and happiness and yeah
Speaker 1: and then.
Speaker 3: That Yeah, I know, tell me about it.
Speaker 1: Crazy timing, Yeah it was.
Speaker 3: There was another mini series Simon Windsor did. It was
Speaker 3: a Western one, Lonesome Dove Cleaned House that year, and
Speaker 3: oddly enough a number of years later I worked on
Speaker 3: a movie that Simon Winster directed called Operation Dumbo Drop
Speaker 3: with Danny Glover, who he had worked with on Lonesome Dove.
Speaker 3: And Radioda and Dennis Leary. That was that was a
Speaker 3: blast that came full circle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's
Speaker 3: funny how that works in the industry, how the industry
Speaker 3: does signs. It always goes like, you know, in weird
Speaker 3: circles like that, you know, you ended up working with
Speaker 3: somebody that you met somewhere or you knew in this
Speaker 3: project or whatever. It's it's very cool. It's it's again,
Speaker 3: you know, it's just I can't I'm I'm never more
Speaker 3: thankful in life than when I when I think about
Speaker 3: the fact that I'm still a working actor in Hollywood
Speaker 3: after starting in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: It is quite a vast career. You've had so many
Speaker 1: different roles, drama, comedy, sci fi. Your character Jonas Quinn
Speaker 1: in Stargate SG one Yes, was that one of one
Speaker 1: of your most memorable?
Speaker 3: For sure? I think, and you know, and you know,
Speaker 3: in more modern times oddly enough, you know, that was
Speaker 3: like two thousand and and four whatever when we shot that.
Speaker 3: When I shot that, that the couple of seasons that
Speaker 3: I was on, which is mind blowing right now to
Speaker 3: think about. But what was what's really cool about that
Speaker 3: is I was I was completely unaware that that these
Speaker 3: comic con things go on and these big you know,
Speaker 3: all the world, and there's there's these events that you
Speaker 3: can you know, go to that they'll they'll pay you
Speaker 3: handsomely to to to do an appearance at and all
Speaker 3: of that. And I was so ignorant of any of that.
Speaker 3: And suddenly I did that show and next thing I know,
Speaker 3: I'm being like flown to Australia, Germany, Belgium, the UK,
Speaker 3: you know, all over the world to you know, to
Speaker 3: do these appearances for that character.
Speaker 2: Will you hook me up with your person?
Speaker 3: And uh and and and still even to this day,
Speaker 3: I mean I I just got back from France and
Speaker 3: the UK a couple of months ago doing appearances for
Speaker 3: for Stargate as well as for Parker because Parker Lewis
Speaker 3: was a huge phenomenon in France, and uh it, you know,
Speaker 3: I still get brought over there to do appearances for
Speaker 3: for Parker Lewis and we In fact, a few years back,
Speaker 3: maybe four or five years ago, they flew over me
Speaker 3: and half the cast for a big reunion uh you
Speaker 3: know thing at one of their events in Paris. So
Speaker 3: it was like me and and Troy Slayton who played Jerry,
Speaker 3: and Billy Jane who played who played Mikey and Abraham
Speaker 3: Ben Ruby who play Kobiac, and Maya Bruton who played Shelley,
Speaker 3: my sister. They brought us all over there.
Speaker 2: Do you guys all still keep in touch or was
Speaker 2: that for some of you see each other in a while?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well I keep in touch with Troy uh and
Speaker 3: aber Ham and Maya for the most part. And Tim
Speaker 3: Stack a bit who played my dad on it. He's
Speaker 3: hilarious when he did Son of the Beach A Son
Speaker 3: of a Son of Son of Son of a Beach.
Speaker 3: I think that was it. But that was such a
Speaker 3: funny series. It was so good, great actor.
Speaker 2: Parker Lewis can't Ley is. I loved that show. I
Speaker 2: mean obviously new you in real life, but like as
Speaker 2: a teen and like watching that show, it's just such
Speaker 2: a good show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was. You know, they did Long Dimon and
Speaker 3: Clyde Phillips. They went and pitched a reboot at a
Speaker 3: series with Sony TV, but unfortunately they didn't pick it up.
Speaker 3: It was, you know, God blessed them. But I went
Speaker 3: and met with them with Lawn about about doing a
Speaker 3: reboot because I had a concept for it that I
Speaker 3: thought would be really good, but I didn't get to
Speaker 3: go in and pitch that that concept at all. They
Speaker 3: had a different idea, which was Parker Lewis's kids and
Speaker 3: Mikey's kids and all their kids were now, you know,
Speaker 3: in high school together, and so you know, and and
Speaker 3: it was sort of a similar show as the Earth one,
Speaker 3: except with twice the amount of characters.
Speaker 1: What was your what was your idea? Because that sounds
Speaker 1: like the like typical, let's do a reboot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, mine was. Mine was called Parker Lewis Can't Win.
Speaker 3: And it was Parker as an adult, and his heyday
Speaker 3: was in his high school years. And and miss Musso,
Speaker 3: who was the principal, has now become the mayor of
Speaker 3: Santo Domingo, and Lemmer, who was her little arch villain assistant,
Speaker 3: has become the sheriff. And my my sister, Maya Shelley,
Speaker 3: who hated me, was the local DA. And they thwarted
Speaker 3: every plan I had to try and be successful in life,
Speaker 3: you know. And so my my, my my years spent
Speaker 3: being the man in high school were now over. Or
Speaker 3: now everybody else, yeah, everybody else is successful around me,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, what, you know, so trying to like
Speaker 3: relive though still wearing the same shirts with the same hair,
Speaker 3: but you know, now my forties or whatever, and they're like,
Speaker 3: you know, and so that was kind of that was
Speaker 3: like flipping the that is so good. Yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think it would have been funny. I had I
Speaker 3: had a whole you know plan for you know, for
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 2: How many seasons was Parker Lewis Can't Lose On?
Speaker 3: Well, we did seventy eight episodes, but only three seasons,
Speaker 3: so we did some long seasons, but we were only
Speaker 3: ten episodes away from the from the minimum for syndication,
Speaker 3: which is like eighty eight episodes.
Speaker 2: Why didn't they do it? They could have done it?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, the big problem was is that I
Speaker 3: don't know if you recall that they they sold Fox
Speaker 3: to you know, Ruper Murdoch Company whatever. They sold Fox
Speaker 3: TV and kept Fox News. They sold Fox TV to
Speaker 3: two years into our show, and the new executives when
Speaker 3: they came on, they looked at because our show was
Speaker 3: very costly. We were as expensive as nine o two
Speaker 3: one oh and we were a half hour comedy, you know,
Speaker 3: with a smaller cast. But it was very expensive to
Speaker 3: make that show, and they and and our ratings obviously
Speaker 3: weren't quite as good as y'all's, you know, And so
Speaker 3: they were they were trying to make sense out of
Speaker 3: the budget, and they thought the new execution that came on, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the new executives who were hired on were like, well,
Speaker 3: what we need to do is make Parker Lewis more
Speaker 3: like nine oh two and oh but a comedy version
Speaker 3: of it. So our third season they changed the entire
Speaker 3: dynamics of the show. The shooting style, the clothing style,
Speaker 3: all of that was was was altered. No, yeah, really heavily.
Speaker 3: So our third season just didn't have the pizazz and
Speaker 3: the and the outrageousness that our first two seasons had.
Speaker 3: And that was sort of the nail, you know, the
Speaker 3: nail in our coffin. Unfortunately, if they had just left
Speaker 3: it alone, we I'm sure that we would have gone
Speaker 3: at least four or five seasons with it. But but
Speaker 3: they didn't. They just they just let a good thing.
Speaker 2: Lie, changing of the card, that's what happened.
Speaker 3: Yes, they always think they know better than the previous people,
Speaker 3: which yeah, necessarily true. Sometimes it is, yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, sometimes it helps, but yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, if you had to.
Speaker 1: Go back and say, what was your favorite character you
Speaker 1: played thus far in your career, what would you which
Speaker 1: one would you pick?
Speaker 3: I have a couple of them. One of them is
Speaker 3: definitely my favorite because it was my first time getting
Speaker 3: to really, really do do a true character role. And
Speaker 3: that was in the original Stephen King mini series, The Stand,
Speaker 3: when I got to play this character Harold Louder, who
Speaker 3: was a pivotal character in the overall mini series and
Speaker 3: uh and also had the biggest arc. He went from
Speaker 3: being this this really you know, introverted nerdy guy to
Speaker 3: becoming this sort of like extrovert villain, you know. And
Speaker 3: and it was that it was the first time in
Speaker 3: my career as an actor to really get to break
Speaker 3: the mold of what I was generally cast as, and
Speaker 3: that opened me up to a lot of other roles
Speaker 3: later on after that, getting to play villain characters that
Speaker 3: I never would have gotten to play. I don't think
Speaker 3: if I hadn't done The Stand.
Speaker 2: Guy's a question. I'm a huge Stephen King fan. I
Speaker 2: heard he's really hands on. Was he with the production well.
Speaker 3: In his later ones? Yeah, yes, I had to audition
Speaker 3: for him for he and Mick Garris for that role.
Speaker 3: And I read the character description is like this really overweight,
Speaker 3: you know, nerdy guy with greasy hair and dandriff and
Speaker 3: all of that. And and I'm sitting there going I'm
Speaker 3: not going to get this part, you know. But I
Speaker 3: understood that the character very well. And it turns out that,
Speaker 3: fortunately for me, Mick Garris had really liked me for
Speaker 3: another movie called Sleepwalkers that he had directed. I love
Speaker 3: that movie out, yeah, and I didn't get the role
Speaker 3: in it, but he really liked my audition that I did,
Speaker 3: and he was telling Stephen King that I was the
Speaker 3: right guy to play this character of Harold Louder that
Speaker 3: doesn't hurt, yeah, yeah, And Stephen King was looking at
Speaker 3: my head shot though, going no, he's not. He's not
Speaker 3: the right guy. Look at this guy. But they had
Speaker 3: tried casting somebody who physically fit the description of the character,
Speaker 3: and Mick Garris told me that they they auditioned in
Speaker 3: La New York, Chicago, San Francisco, even Miami, trying to
Speaker 3: find that, you know, the person that fit the exact
Speaker 3: description of the character that Stephen was in love with him.
Speaker 3: They just didn't find anybody, thank god. So when I
Speaker 3: went in there and auditioned for it, I mean before
Speaker 3: I walked out of the room, I could they were
Speaker 3: back there having their little quiet discussion. And it was
Speaker 3: one of those rare moments when by the time it
Speaker 3: was back when we still had answering machines. But by
Speaker 3: the time I left that audition and got home, there
Speaker 3: was a message for my agent saying that I had
Speaker 3: booked the job. Yeah. I was like, that's crazy. Because
Speaker 3: I walked out there, I felt good about it, but
Speaker 3: I thought they were whispering, like Stephen King was going,
Speaker 3: I told you this guy doesn't Eric, I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: there goes that one.
Speaker 2: But I love stories like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 2: They didn't want to see you because visually that's not
Speaker 2: what he saw. But you came in and he was like,
Speaker 2: he is the character.
Speaker 1: Wait, did you like play yourself down? Did you do
Speaker 1: anything to your physic to alter your appearance when you
Speaker 1: went in there.
Speaker 3: I mean, I you know, I just I just put
Speaker 3: like Gid.
Speaker 1: In shower for a few weeks or what.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh god, that would have been something there. I
Speaker 3: have some funny audition stories where I went too far,
Speaker 3: I can.
Speaker 2: Tell you that really tell us one.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, well I had two of them. I had
Speaker 3: one where I was. There was in Teluca Lake. There
Speaker 3: were where I had I had a house there. And
Speaker 3: up the street was this this store that sold all
Speaker 3: of the makeup and special effects stuff for the movie industry.
Speaker 3: I forget what it was called, but it was this
Speaker 3: massive store. No, I don't think that was it. It was.
Speaker 3: It was something like, you know, like Cinema Secrets or something. Yes,
Speaker 3: And uh so I used to go in there and
Speaker 3: you know, and just kind of just browse and check
Speaker 3: things out. And they had they had this whole collection
Speaker 3: of mustaches, you know, these really really awesome mustaches, and
Speaker 3: I couldn't grow. Look, I still can't grow a mustach.
Speaker 3: I don't know what this thing is doing on my
Speaker 3: face right now.
Speaker 2: It's cute.
Speaker 3: So I'm actually growing it out for a part I'm
Speaker 3: supposed to play next year.
Speaker 1: But you've got you got a long lead.
Speaker 2: Next year's not next year. It's like, whoa, it's gonna
Speaker 2: take you that long.
Speaker 3: But we're there. This is already like a month and
Speaker 3: a half. Okay, But yeah, so I so they had
Speaker 3: all these mustaches, and I was like, wow, these mustaches.
Speaker 3: Look at the characters I could play, you know. And
Speaker 3: so I bought like, I don't know, like four or
Speaker 3: five of these different mustaches, like the one that goes
Speaker 3: out like that, a big bushy one, some other, all
Speaker 3: these different mustache And I had this audition for this
Speaker 3: World War two mini series or film or something, and
Speaker 3: I was like a captain of like a B fifty
Speaker 3: bomber pot you know, bomber uh. And I thought, Wow,
Speaker 3: this is a perfect audition for one of these mustaches. So,
Speaker 3: you know, I applied this ridiculous mustache and had.
Speaker 2: The handle bars we now.
Speaker 3: Not handlebars, but kind of just like went out to
Speaker 3: a little point, you know what I mean, or like
Speaker 3: the evil villain mustache, you know, but it felt like
Speaker 3: nineteen forties to me. This mustache did dusterally do?
Speaker 2: Right? Is something? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I put this thing on and I went in
Speaker 3: and I did my audition and uh, my my agent
Speaker 3: to my agent calls and goes, accorn, did you did
Speaker 3: you put a mustache on for this audition? And I
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, I did. Did they like it? And
Speaker 3: They're like, no, they didn't like it. No, absolutely not.
Speaker 3: They couldn't they. In fact, they couldn't even watch your audition.
Speaker 3: They just kept staring at this ridiculous thing on your face.
Speaker 2: Oh man.
Speaker 3: And and I want to get back in and do it,
Speaker 3: but take it off. I'm like, no, no, no, they've
Speaker 3: moved on from you.
Speaker 1: That's the best.
Speaker 2: That's the best. That's good in auditions. Winter props too much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the second one is even worse. I was
Speaker 3: auditioning for some Vietnam miniseries or something, and uh, my
Speaker 3: character was like the captain of his platoon or whatever,
Speaker 3: and and he and in his in his hoot, in
Speaker 3: his hangout spot, he had a pet monkey that that
Speaker 3: that that his his guys had adopted. And this monkey
Speaker 3: was wore a little army outfit. Yeah. I have this
Speaker 3: whole scene with this monkey where I'm like talking to
Speaker 3: the monkey, I'm holding the monkey, I'm doing this, you know.
Speaker 3: And so I'm like, well, how do I do this
Speaker 3: scene without like a real monkey? Like, it doesn't make
Speaker 3: any sense. So I went to Toys r US and
Speaker 3: sell real monkeys.
Speaker 2: There you got like a round up monkey.
Speaker 3: I went to the doll section and I was like,
Speaker 3: just just in case, and I and I and I'm
Speaker 3: walking through and there's this little monkey that's in in
Speaker 3: like a Safari outfit that looked kind of like an
Speaker 3: army outfit. So I took the hat off of it,
Speaker 3: you know, and I was like, I thought it was
Speaker 3: like destiny. I was like, I'm destined to get this
Speaker 3: part because I found this monkey. It toys r Us
Speaker 3: and it's the exactly it's like wearing practically the outfit
Speaker 3: they describe and in the show. So I go into
Speaker 3: the audition. I've got it into my backpack, so I
Speaker 3: don't like, you know, like show everybody right off the
Speaker 3: bat when I walk in and I do the first scene,
Speaker 3: which is like a shorter scene, and then I get
Speaker 3: to the big scene with the monkey, and I unzit
Speaker 3: my backpack and I pulled the little stuffed monkey out
Speaker 3: and I could literally, I mean it was like somebody
Speaker 3: sucked all the air out of the room, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. It was one of those moments where
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, this was probably a bad choice,
Speaker 3: but did you just go with it? So I went
Speaker 3: with it. I did the whole scene. I was talking
Speaker 3: to the monkey, I was doing the little you know,
Speaker 3: tickling a little bit, all the all the stuff with
Speaker 3: the monkey, and and it was it was my same
Speaker 3: agent for the other thing too. I was probably later on,
Speaker 3: but but you know, so I do the audition and
Speaker 3: I leave and everything, and I'm like, you know, I
Speaker 3: felt good about it. I was like, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: I know it was weird, but what am I going
Speaker 3: to do? They're the ones who wrote the scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I get home and sure enough, my agent Calle
Speaker 3: is like, did you you take a stuffed monkey into
Speaker 3: the audition with you? I'm like, yeah, but I wasn't
Speaker 3: wearing a mustache, this sign this, you know. I figure,
Speaker 3: oh my god, you are so I didn't get the part.
Speaker 1: Sorry about that. The things we do, the things you
Speaker 1: remember you being this funny when.
Speaker 3: We were kids, I was hilarious.
Speaker 1: Dam yeah, he's always been funny.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was something else.
Speaker 1: It was just such a fun just get for us
Speaker 1: to have you on our show. I remember that. I
Speaker 1: just remember the vibe. Everybody was so happy you were there.
Speaker 1: It was like more fun than we were already having
Speaker 1: when you were around.
Speaker 3: Well, I know that, you know, I'm my my acting
Speaker 3: you know, I've always studied acting in acting classes since
Speaker 3: I was eleven years old. And then even even during
Speaker 3: Parker Lewis, I was I was studying with. Of course
Speaker 3: his name is gonna slip my mind right now. He
Speaker 3: was like this this big method acting teacher in Santa Monica,
Speaker 3: Larry Moss.
Speaker 2: Larry.
Speaker 3: I was studying with Larry Moss, and like he's all
Speaker 3: method and all that. And that's when I started doing
Speaker 3: all this weird stuff with the mustache and the monkeys
Speaker 3: and all this stuff, because I was all, you know,
Speaker 3: heady into the whole method thing, like I got to go,
Speaker 3: I gotta go extra far for the you know, for
Speaker 3: the job and for the character and all that. And uh.
Speaker 3: But then I ended up studying with a guy named
Speaker 3: Manutupo after you know, like in the in the early nineties,
Speaker 3: around ninety four Une nine, for after Parker Lewis canceled,
Speaker 3: and and uh he had he was the exact opposite
Speaker 3: of the method. He was like had this whole really
Speaker 3: really unique way of approaching creating a character, which which
Speaker 3: I absolutely loved. And but uh, I forget where I
Speaker 3: was going with this.
Speaker 1: What do you use now? I'm curious when you like,
Speaker 1: when you go in for a new role, like what
Speaker 1: are you going with method? Are you going with.
Speaker 3: No, it's not method. Well, his you know, Monotupo's technique
Speaker 3: was called the New Era acting technique, and it was
Speaker 3: kind of like a creationist way of approaching acting, where
Speaker 3: you know, where the character has to be one believed
Speaker 3: and so you're not drawing from your own life. You're
Speaker 3: creating a really detailed backstory of the character's life. So
Speaker 3: all the stuff that's not written in the script that
Speaker 3: that that you create a character. Oh, that's what I
Speaker 3: was getting. It was the props and all of that.
Speaker 3: But uh so, but you know, always working with props
Speaker 3: was a big thing to me. So, I mean, I
Speaker 3: know when I did note in too, and oh, I
Speaker 3: was like, I need a coffee cup. I need some
Speaker 3: coffee in it. I need to you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: I need a pan, you know. So I'm like trying to,
Speaker 3: you know, just like crush some type of reality into
Speaker 3: into the scene work and stuff. And yeah. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 3: in fact, on on on Stargate, I ended up being
Speaker 3: banned from props. Uh after like after like eight episodes
Speaker 3: or so. My character was from another planet and I thought, Okay, well,
Speaker 3: now he's here on Earth, what's he going to be
Speaker 3: interested in Well, it's gonna be like the food thing
Speaker 3: is going to be a major, you know factor for him.
Speaker 3: So all these different scenes I would introduce, you know,
Speaker 3: like like we did one scene where me and one
Speaker 3: of the characters are in a space ship and outer
Speaker 3: space and it's like a five and a half page
Speaker 3: scene of dialogue and we're just sitting there staring out
Speaker 3: at space talking and I'm like, this is just this
Speaker 3: scene is going to kill me, you know. And I
Speaker 3: was by the craft service table pacing around, going Okay,
Speaker 3: what can I do with this scene? What can I
Speaker 3: bring to it that, you know, so it's not too
Speaker 3: aliens sitting in space having a conversation. And I look
Speaker 3: over and there's a big fruit display there and I'm
Speaker 3: like a banana, a freaking banana and out of space.
Speaker 3: So I'm sitting there talking. I pull out a banana.
Speaker 3: I eat the banana. At the end, I realized, oh,
Speaker 3: I didn't offer the other actor a banana, so I
Speaker 3: pull out another banana. I'm like, without changing any dialogue,
Speaker 3: just all silent, you know, behaviors and uh. And the
Speaker 3: director was U was David DeLuise, dom Deluize's son, and
Speaker 3: uh and it was great that he was the director
Speaker 3: because he he I was trying to I was pitching
Speaker 3: him this thing. You know, I got this idea, got
Speaker 3: a banana, banana and out of space and everything like that.
Speaker 3: And He's like, h a banana and out of space.
Speaker 3: I like it, And so it's stuck in there. And
Speaker 3: it actually a big thing, yeah, a big thing for
Speaker 3: the fans. You know, Jonas's banana. There was actually a
Speaker 3: whole group of fans back in like two thousand uh
Speaker 3: five and six at the at the conventions over in
Speaker 3: the UK. I used to do that would wear these
Speaker 3: these brown robes with a big hoodie thing on it.
Speaker 3: It said OJB on the back and it was the
Speaker 3: Order of Jonas's Banana. And it was this whole whole
Speaker 3: group of really strange nerdy type that would walk around
Speaker 3: in these things and they look like Jawas basically. But
Speaker 3: and I was like, you know, Order of Jonas's Bananas
Speaker 3: sounds a little phallic. I don't know if you really
Speaker 3: want to roll with this one, but okay. And people
Speaker 3: will bring me bananas to sign, like autographed bananas.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you don't, that's wild all because you saw
Speaker 2: it in a fruit bowl. Oh my gosh. See.
Speaker 3: Yes, So I introduced you know, quite a number of
Speaker 3: different things in different scenes. And around episode six or so,
Speaker 3: six or seven, I we had this big scene in
Speaker 3: the boardroom. It's like, you know, shit has hit the fan.
Speaker 3: They're trying to figure out how they're going to save
Speaker 3: the world, all this stuff. There's like twelve people in
Speaker 3: the scene, and I have like one line of dialogue
Speaker 3: like near the end of the scene where I come
Speaker 3: up with, you know, like the solution to you know,
Speaker 3: whatever the problem is. But I have no other dialogue
Speaker 3: in the whole scene. And again, the damn fruit baskets. Right.
Speaker 3: So I'm standing there at this table and they have
Speaker 3: in the scene they have this big fruit basket, you know,
Speaker 3: fruit display and all this uf that that people, you know,
Speaker 3: need to snack on. And and so I decide, well,
Speaker 3: in the beginning of the scene, I'll start peeling this orange,
Speaker 3: you know, and I'll be peeling the orange throughout the scene,
Speaker 3: and when they finally get to my line of dialogue,
Speaker 3: I'll be like eating, you know, my bite of orange,
Speaker 3: you know, like crush realities here. And it went over fine.
Speaker 3: Nobody said anything, but when they got into the editing room.
Speaker 3: Every time they would cut to one of the wide
Speaker 3: shots or whatever, all you see is me over there
Speaker 3: peeling this bright orange. They're just like, and you're completely
Speaker 3: out of the scene. Now You're like, what is he
Speaker 3: doing back there?
Speaker 1: You're you're basically upstaging everyone with your orange.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent upstaging everybody with my orange. And that
Speaker 3: was the point when the writer producers were like, Corn,
Speaker 3: we love what you're doing, but if it's not in
Speaker 3: the script, you're not allowed to do it anymore.
Speaker 1: My god, you need to be you need to be
Speaker 1: kept in the you know, you need to.
Speaker 2: Have some security. I can't win.
Speaker 3: Totally totally.
Speaker 2: One last question, do you still do your grooffin the art?
Speaker 3: I do absolutely, Yeah, yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. I've
Speaker 3: never I mean, I've never really stopped ever. I was
Speaker 3: very prolific up until the whole COVID thing when a
Speaker 3: lot of my traveling went went under and all of that.
Speaker 3: But I would take advantage of all of these events
Speaker 3: that I would do all over the all over the world,
Speaker 3: and I would extend my stay a little bit. I
Speaker 3: really got into street art heavily as well, Like stencil art,
Speaker 3: and what's called like poster art. The nickname for it
Speaker 3: is wheat paste art. But it's when you when you
Speaker 3: do like a graphic or stencyl type poster and all
Speaker 3: painted and then you go and glue it up someplace
Speaker 3: and all of that and uh and then the sticker stuff.
Speaker 3: So I would anywhere I would travel, I would just
Speaker 3: take my kit with me. I'd stay a few extra
Speaker 3: days and I'd go around and put up my street
Speaker 3: art and do all that, or or I'd hook up
Speaker 3: with another graffiti artist and uh, and I'd go and paint,
Speaker 3: you know, a legal wall or sometimes in illegal one,
Speaker 3: but mostly legal walls, and uh, you know. And even
Speaker 3: now I do more mural type stuff. I've done some
Speaker 3: murals in La too that are still there on Melrose
Speaker 3: in the back alleys at pos Poser's Punk rock Store.
Speaker 3: On the back side of that, there's a big painting
Speaker 3: I did of sid Vicious that's still there, and a
Speaker 3: couple other paintings back there.
Speaker 2: What year did you do that?
Speaker 3: Oh, that was probably like twenty sixteen or so.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, everybody go, look, yeah, we're gonna be hunting
Speaker 1: that down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, take your pictures in front of it guys.
Speaker 1: With robes and bananas, They're going to be looking for me.
Speaker 3: Yes, But I just did one recently that won Best
Speaker 3: New Mural in Tampa Bay at a coffee shop that's
Speaker 3: here in my area called bell Air Coffee. I did
Speaker 3: a big, huge coffee plantation mural on the side of
Speaker 3: the of their building, and then and then another one
Speaker 3: of like an old coffee farmer drinking an espresso and
Speaker 3: it turned out really awesome. It's cool. The pictures are
Speaker 3: on my Instagram. I am corn Nymic on Instagram if
Speaker 3: anybody wants to scroll down and find them, or I
Speaker 3: have my graffiti Instagram site which is at the one
Speaker 3: six nine THHG one six and nine. If anybody's wait,
Speaker 3: wait at what it's at V one six nine THHG
Speaker 3: and then the numbers one six and nine D one
Speaker 3: six nine is my graffiti? Did you get that, lucky? Well,
Speaker 3: My my graffiti name is Pike one six nine and
Speaker 3: one six nine was my art room at North Hollywood
Speaker 3: High That was where they where we did our art
Speaker 3: class and I was in there with a bunch of
Speaker 3: other graffiti artists, and so I chose that as my
Speaker 3: kind of because back in the in New York, a
Speaker 3: lot of a lot of graffiti artists would use their
Speaker 3: street that they lived on or whatever to signify like
Speaker 3: where they were from, like Tacky one, three eight or whatever,
Speaker 3: and they'd have their and I was like, like, I
Speaker 3: need a number, you know, But I didn't live on
Speaker 3: a numbered street or anything.
Speaker 2: Were you and Brian the same class?
Speaker 3: We weren't in the same class. We were at North
Speaker 3: Hollywood High together though, but I I left. I'm like
Speaker 3: a year and a half.
Speaker 2: Older than him, but he both went there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yes, we went there. But I left in
Speaker 3: eleventh grade and went over to Excelsior School, which was,
Speaker 3: you know, like the school for ornery working.
Speaker 2: Actors to get it done the actors.
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, I mean I was at that school with
Speaker 3: the I mean what.
Speaker 2: It was that school in Lese, right.
Speaker 3: I can't remember the other one, but I went at
Speaker 3: that one. I was there with like Christina Applegate, balls Argetti,
Speaker 3: Seth Benzer from crazy Town unfortunately passed away. It's very sad,
Speaker 3: and Sleigh Moonfry and Mili Joviovic and Jenny Lewis and
Speaker 3: crew and Johnny Whitworth and I mean this the list
Speaker 3: goes on and on, Ernie Rays Junior, a whole bunch
Speaker 3: of folks. It was. It was a hilarious experience. We'd
Speaker 3: only go to school from I think it was like
Speaker 3: eight forty five to twelve noon every day. This one
Speaker 3: teacher named mister Van who was an avid surfer, and
Speaker 3: he would lock the principles out of his room and
Speaker 3: change his clock if there was a big surf that day,
Speaker 3: and he'd leave. He'd leave school like forty five minutes early.
Speaker 1: He's gotta he's got to get to the waves. That's
Speaker 1: what happens in California with the people.
Speaker 3: They have to get to the ocean totally.
Speaker 1: You are so multi fascinated.
Speaker 2: Is that the right word? Multis fascinating?
Speaker 3: I'll take fascinated either one. Right.
Speaker 1: Such an interesting career you've had and just so many
Speaker 1: you know, just like you were the nineties guy.
Speaker 3: It was fun, Yeah, the guy.
Speaker 1: And it was just such a thrill to have you
Speaker 1: on our show. And I know that we both love
Speaker 1: getting to know.
Speaker 2: It's excited to see you and.
Speaker 3: Catch Yes, it's great to see both of you again too.
Speaker 3: It's so cool. I love it. It's it brings back
Speaker 3: a lot of memories, so.
Speaker 2: Great to see you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on with us today.
Speaker 3: It's my pleasure you too.