Speaker 1: Reddit had an entire thread after my first appearance about
Speaker 1: whether or not I was a pedophile because of the wig,
Speaker 1: literally because of the wig.
Speaker 2: Oh you think it was about the wig.
Speaker 1: I I'm Kelly o'coin, I'm bald, and I love whiskey.
Speaker 2: Give me too, Kelly, me too. Hello everybody, and welcome
Speaker 2: to my podcast Off the Beat, or if you've been
Speaker 2: here before, welcome back to Off the Beat. I am
Speaker 2: your host, Brian Baumgartner. Today I am talking to one
Speaker 2: of the worst, most despicable people in the entire world,
Speaker 2: or at least that's who he plays on TV. I
Speaker 2: have Kecoin, who is dollar Bill Stern from the show Billions.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately for us all I know you're going to be
Speaker 2: disappointed to learn this. In real life, he's a very
Speaker 2: nice man. He is not calculated and cheap and cutthroat
Speaker 2: as is his character. He is, in fact, unfortunately lovely.
Speaker 2: A lot of his non Billions characters are decent people too.
Speaker 2: He was the charitable pastor Tim in The Americans, the
Speaker 2: diligent detective Scott Gordon in The Girl from Plainville Scott
Speaker 2: Galloway and We Crashed and coming up next month, LA
Speaker 2: Clippers president Andy Roser in the new series clipped on
Speaker 2: Hulu see nice guys don't always finish Last. Kelly is
Speaker 2: doing just fine. We're going to get into his childhood.
Speaker 2: Kelly was the son of a congressman. We're going to
Speaker 2: figure out if we ever crossed paths on the region,
Speaker 2: theater circuit, and much much more. Here he is. Dare
Speaker 2: I say my new friend, Kelly o'coin.
Speaker 1: Bubble and squeak, I love it, Bubble and squeak on,
Speaker 1: Bubble and squeak, I.
Speaker 3: Cook get every mole lift over from the ninety before.
Speaker 2: What's up, Kelly? Hey, how are you? I'm good? How
Speaker 2: are you?
Speaker 1: I'm good? Thank you for having me on. This is
Speaker 1: so fun.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining me. I want to start this
Speaker 2: off by just saying, you know, I have a I
Speaker 2: have an extensive crack research team here that that does
Speaker 2: a lot of the heavy lifting for me. However, I
Speaker 2: like to look around on my own as well, and
Speaker 2: I found your usite and the thing that I assume
Speaker 2: you wrote yourself, which I found just delightful.
Speaker 1: Which part the about me.
Speaker 2: Did you not write? Yes, the about me you wrote it?
Speaker 2: I could, I did? You can't think that? Now?
Speaker 1: That was one of those things when you know you're
Speaker 1: between gigs and or as others like to say, unemployed,
Speaker 1: and to fill the void, you start writing stuff and
Speaker 1: it feels like creativity. It may or may not be.
Speaker 2: But as your eighties it is. I think I thought
Speaker 2: it was. I thought it was great, and weirdly, I
Speaker 2: feel like I learned more about you by reading it,
Speaker 2: which I guess is really the point. And what I
Speaker 2: what I mean by that is which is it's interesting
Speaker 2: because it's kind of what I'm trying to do here anyway.
Speaker 2: But you've sort of done it yourself, which is you
Speaker 2: can say these things about yourself for your wife or
Speaker 2: the work that you've done, or theater or in your
Speaker 2: case hair, and you, you know, you learn those factual things.
Speaker 2: But in terms of reading your tone, I feel like
Speaker 2: I picked up on your sense of humor and your
Speaker 2: sort of perspective and maybe just a few hints about
Speaker 2: your beliefs about the world. Anyway, I thought it was
Speaker 2: very well done. Oh thanks, well, yeah, and really like
Speaker 2: how it should be as opposed to like trying to
Speaker 2: turn yourself into this I don't know, weird third person,
Speaker 2: which I feel like I do too much. It's like
Speaker 2: you know he you know, did blah blah blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: and you're like, I'm speaking about myself and the third person,
Speaker 2: which is very odd. Anyway, it was very personal, so
Speaker 2: I wanted you to know that I appreciated it.
Speaker 1: There is always this tension when you're in a play,
Speaker 1: in particular where you have to write a bio and yes,
Speaker 1: either either you it's it's kind of sucks both ways.
Speaker 1: Either you get like, okay, in forty words, explain your
Speaker 1: career in life, or they give you too much time,
Speaker 1: so but then you start doing what you said. It's
Speaker 1: like Kelly o'coin was very active in the theater arts
Speaker 1: from a young age, and I was like, I just
Speaker 1: I'm Kelly. Why am I am? I?
Speaker 2: I know, but it's it's interesting. I had never actually
Speaker 2: had this conversation with anyone before because I guess because
Speaker 2: you did yours so well. The bio is a very
Speaker 2: odd thing to either write or have written for you.
Speaker 2: I'll actually tell I'll actually tell. I got this I've
Speaker 2: not talked about and I apologize if anyone who was
Speaker 2: involved is listening, but I recently did a fundraiser for
Speaker 2: a local thing. Just said yes and I did a
Speaker 2: fund fundraiser and I got asked the question will you
Speaker 2: say to bio so we can introduce you, which, of
Speaker 2: course I'm like, this is not there's no professional benefit
Speaker 2: for this bot. There's nothing, there's nothing that this will
Speaker 2: achieve for me. So of course, what did I do? Nothing?
Speaker 2: And I didn't do it, and I didn't do it,
Speaker 2: and then like a certain number of days went by
Speaker 2: and I got an email it said, hey, so I
Speaker 2: know we haven't gotten a bio from you yet. So
Speaker 2: I went to chat GBT and chat Chet wrote this
Speaker 2: bio of you, which you know, for me and yours
Speaker 2: would be the opposite, by the way, yours would be
Speaker 2: like he's an asshole and blah blah blah. Mine was
Speaker 2: like he's the lovable, whimsical blah blah blah from you know,
Speaker 2: he's known for playing golf and liking sports, you know,
Speaker 2: like it's like and I was like immediately like no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: we could do better than that. Please.
Speaker 1: So that was not read in front of the crowd.
Speaker 2: No, I got sent it and then yeah, I have.
Speaker 1: Had a couple of circumstances where because there are bios
Speaker 1: that are written to be read yes, not out loud,
Speaker 1: paper correct. And there's a way you phrase things that
Speaker 1: you know. There's a way you phray things. Phrasings also
Speaker 1: for bios that are written to be spoken. And I
Speaker 1: have more than once been at a place where I'm
Speaker 1: at an event where I'm introduced, not knowing they were
Speaker 1: going to read a bio and never asked me for
Speaker 1: a bio, but just read like the longest version of
Speaker 1: the longest bio I've ever written that they somehow found.
Speaker 1: And so they start and five minutes later they're finishing
Speaker 1: with this stuff like and he brilliantly portrayed, and blah blah.
Speaker 1: I I don't even know who wrote that thing. And
Speaker 1: then I have to get up and be brilliant.
Speaker 2: I know that is so true, because I do the
Speaker 2: college thing, and I'm because I can hear it. Of course,
Speaker 2: I'm like ding back, and my leg starts twitching and like,
Speaker 2: come on, no, no, no, just move skip to the end,
Speaker 2: skip stop, stop, skip.
Speaker 1: To the end, fast forward, fast forward.
Speaker 2: He then wrote a cookbook. Oh no, stop, please, I
Speaker 2: don't need no, we're not studied.
Speaker 1: Another language and maybe traveled more.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, well there you go. There's a first for you.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gents, the bio talk. It's not as easy
Speaker 2: as it looks. And that's the final thing I'll say
Speaker 2: is that is the other thing which should be mentioned,
Speaker 2: because exactly what you said, a bio must be structured
Speaker 2: for the event. If it's a lifetime achievement award, go
Speaker 2: on for ten twelve minutes, sure, why not? But the
Speaker 2: the like just the random email or text, Hey can
Speaker 2: you send me a bio? It's like, no, all bios
Speaker 2: are not meant exactly what he said. So that's work,
Speaker 2: and you have to think about how is this going
Speaker 2: to feel if this is said out loud?
Speaker 1: What's the event? How many people? What's the venue?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Exactly, exactly? All right, Well, speaking of bios, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I couldn't come up with a transition at all.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about you. Oh, you grew up in Oregon
Speaker 2: and your dad. I think this is another first for
Speaker 2: the podcast. And by the way, we haven't talked to
Speaker 2: just four people. We got two firsts right off the bat.
Speaker 2: Your dad was a politician, first the Oregon House of
Speaker 2: Representatives and then a US congressman in Oregon's first district.
Speaker 2: So how for you? First of all, one fascinating. How
Speaker 2: old were you when this was going on. I mean
Speaker 2: he was in politics your entire life or did he,
Speaker 2: you know, transition into that.
Speaker 1: I was three maybe not getting the months right. I
Speaker 1: was three when he was first elected to the state legislature.
Speaker 1: And he was there for two terms, so four years.
Speaker 1: He was the I can brag on my dad all
Speaker 1: day long. So just like pulled up a finger or
Speaker 1: like slashed the throat if you want to stop. But
Speaker 1: his second term, he was the House majority leader, the
Speaker 1: youngest House majority leader ever. And then he ran for
Speaker 1: US Congress and was the first Democrat ever elected to
Speaker 1: the first district, which is like half of Portland to
Speaker 1: the coast and the Washington border down to like Corvallis,
Speaker 1: which is where the status and everyone on the podcast
Speaker 1: is like, well, thank god he got the geography in there.
Speaker 1: And he was in the US House. We moved to
Speaker 1: d C. He was in the US House for eighteen years,
Speaker 1: nine terms. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow, So you were at that So at that point,
Speaker 2: you weren't going back and forth. You were you were
Speaker 2: like you went to school in DC, you were you
Speaker 2: were a DC guy.
Speaker 1: It was a little back and forth. We did the
Speaker 1: rest of grade school, second second half of second grade
Speaker 1: through fifth grade in d C, and sixth and seventh grade,
Speaker 1: junior high back in Oregon in the central Oregon area,
Speaker 1: and then high school back in d C, and then
Speaker 1: college in Ohio. I went to Oberlin, so I said,
Speaker 1: split the difference Midwest.
Speaker 2: Wow, So how was that for you one as a kid?
Speaker 2: I mean, you're you're quite young when he ends up
Speaker 2: getting elected and going to d C. So you know,
Speaker 2: obviously you have friends, but you're leaving. Like for you culturally,
Speaker 2: is there a big change for you in terms of
Speaker 2: the environment moving from Oregon to d C.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. This was a small town Forest Grove, Oregon,
Speaker 1: and it was as small as that sounds. Okay, great
Speaker 1: little town, but small. And then to d C in
Speaker 1: the mid seventies, and you know, East coast cities were
Speaker 1: going through a lot of difficulties in this evanies and
Speaker 1: d C was no different. But it was Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was bigger and it was louder. I think for me,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm an extrovert and it was kind of exciting
Speaker 1: to meet new people. My sister and I actually entered
Speaker 1: at the beginning of natural transitions.
Speaker 3: Like sixth grade or yeah.
Speaker 1: Like sixth grade and junior high, so a bunch of
Speaker 1: new kids were coming to a new place and same
Speaker 1: thing with high school. My sister had it slightly different,
Speaker 1: so it was a little bit harder for her, I think,
Speaker 1: but you know, I I loved it. I had a
Speaker 1: fun time in d C. We lived near Rock Creek Park,
Speaker 1: and if anyone knows d C, it's like this huge,
Speaker 1: sprawling wilderness area. So we got a little bit of
Speaker 1: Oregon there kind of. And in retrospect, I think it's
Speaker 1: great because I feel I feel comfortable in small towns.
Speaker 1: I feel comfortable in the mountains where my family's actually from,
Speaker 1: and I feel comfortable in big cities. They all have
Speaker 1: different joys, discover, so I thank my parents for that.
Speaker 2: Actually, do you feel like you are especially patriotic or
Speaker 2: like have a special affinity for your hometown or for
Speaker 2: the state of Oregon given that your dad went through this,
Speaker 2: or do you feel and that you went through this,
Speaker 2: or do you feel like from the inside there and this,
Speaker 2: that's a long time that he was in office and
Speaker 2: so you saw a lot of things. Do you feel
Speaker 2: more skeptical of government having seen it from that side?
Speaker 1: I'll work my way up to that answer. The first one,
Speaker 1: I do have a special I always have a soft
Speaker 1: spot for Oregon. The one sports team I am fanatical
Speaker 1: about is the Portland Trail Blazers.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've heard, Yes.
Speaker 1: You know, they won their they won their only championship
Speaker 1: a year after we moved to d C. Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: so that was special. It's like a little bit of
Speaker 1: Oregon saying it's gonna be okay, kid. And then I
Speaker 1: don't remember if I wrote this in the bio. I
Speaker 1: hope not, because I'll be repeating myself. But then the
Speaker 1: next year, the Washington Bullets won the championship, and so
Speaker 1: my two to my og team and my adopted second
Speaker 1: favorite team win championships back to back. And as a
Speaker 1: ten year old, I'm like, oh, this is this is
Speaker 1: fucking great. So this is how it works. You you
Speaker 1: you like teams and they win championships, this is going
Speaker 1: to be great. And neither of them have won.
Speaker 2: Sense I knew. I knew where the punchline was going.
Speaker 2: Yeah you know those teams? Yeah yeah, So.
Speaker 1: I love I love DC, I love Oregon, I love Portland.
Speaker 1: I you know, I hurt for it because it's going
Speaker 1: through some transitions just to like a lot of West
Speaker 1: Coast cities right now. In terms of government, I so
Speaker 1: it's not an either or. I am deeply patriotic and
Speaker 1: I am deeply pissed off of my country a lot.
Speaker 1: And I think where people get into trouble is assuming
Speaker 1: that patriotism means blind blind acceptance. I feel I am
Speaker 1: so deeply patriotic that I can criticize the hell out
Speaker 1: of my country when I think it's doing wrong it
Speaker 1: can do better.
Speaker 3: You believe that your dad did it for all the
Speaker 3: right reasons because you wanted to help him, to serve I.
Speaker 2: Do to hear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were there were. Honestly, the phrase fight the
Speaker 1: good fight was constantly used, and people use that as
Speaker 1: a joke or ironically, it was constantly used in my
Speaker 1: family by my mom and by my dad, because that's
Speaker 1: how they were raised and that's how they wanted to
Speaker 1: raise us. You can the only way you can make changes,
Speaker 1: to be involved. The only way you can ensure that
Speaker 1: change will not happen is to drop out.
Speaker 2: So that's actually that's true, not just in government, but
Speaker 2: in life and work, just totally. Your first role, I
Speaker 2: have been told, was a campaign commercial for your dad.
Speaker 2: Did you have an affinity for or an interest in
Speaker 2: acting prior to that that you did? Okay?
Speaker 1: I did? Yeah, I think I knew I wanted to
Speaker 1: be an actor since like second grade. Okay, certainly like
Speaker 1: fifth grade. But but that was my first screen job,
Speaker 1: that thirty second commercial.
Speaker 2: Yes, do you feel like And I don't mean this
Speaker 2: in a truly in a negative way at all. Most
Speaker 2: of the time when people say that, they actually do,
Speaker 2: but I actually I really don't. But there is an
Speaker 2: element of performance, whether you're whether you're fighting for what
Speaker 2: you believe in or not, there is an element of performance.
Speaker 2: There is public speaking, there is behaving differently around different people,
Speaker 2: whether they're electorate or you know, people you work with,
Speaker 2: other representatives, whatever. Did you watch that play out at all?
Speaker 2: And I, and I ask more because you know, for
Speaker 2: me as someone who I know you were interested in
Speaker 2: acting and the arts. Is this something that you watched?
Speaker 2: Did you watch this play out? Were you conscious of
Speaker 2: it or do you think you just absorbed it?
Speaker 1: I was definitely conscious of it. That's a great question.
Speaker 1: I my dad has always said that he wasn't. His
Speaker 1: natural habitat was not in front of a crowd, so
Speaker 1: he definitely there was you know, the mind was you know,
Speaker 1: I as soon as I got in front of a crowd,
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, this is awesome. But so yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw him and everybody does it. Even if you
Speaker 1: are comfortable, there's a different way you have to present ideas,
Speaker 1: your parent ideas when you are having a conversation versus
Speaker 1: you are speaking to a crowd of five, ten, fifteen,
Speaker 1: one thousand, whatever it is, And that's just common sense,
Speaker 1: and that means you perform differently. Yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: like the way you phrased it at the beginning, by
Speaker 1: the way you asked the question you said. I'm not
Speaker 1: necessarily saying this is a bad thing, because I do
Speaker 1: think when people are speaking of politicians performing or speechifying,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, yeah, because it's a speech, you know,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, we're not just sitting here having a beer together.
Speaker 1: There's there is.
Speaker 2: This is not how you would behave if you were
Speaker 2: sitting with your brother in a local pub.
Speaker 1: Yes, if you and I were having a beer and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden I pulled out a lectern, you'd
Speaker 1: think I was a little odd.
Speaker 2: Can we get that tell? Can we get that teleprompter?
Speaker 2: On please thank you.
Speaker 1: That's right, And so yeah, I would see him and
Speaker 1: other other politicians get up and go into a different state.
Speaker 1: That was an ironically, that is a way to a
Speaker 1: to achieve a certain a more honest truth. Given the
Speaker 1: medium or given the position you're in speaking to a press,
Speaker 1: you're not going to impart the information if you just
Speaker 1: sort of casually, you know, if you haven't written anything,
Speaker 1: you speak top of your head. I mean some people,
Speaker 1: some current politicians, like to do that. I would argue
Speaker 1: they're not getting any points across. They're just there's just
Speaker 1: some personality thing happening. But let's not go there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yes, there is a performative thing. And that was
Speaker 1: one that I always say. My mom used to sing,
Speaker 1: not hugely professionally, but she'd sing. I'd see her in
Speaker 1: front of groups every once in a while singing. And
Speaker 1: my dad was in front of crowds, parting ideas, working
Speaker 1: with scripts, which is what speeches are.
Speaker 2: Right, this is occurring to me right now. You said
Speaker 2: your dad wasn't necessarily gifted or the most comfortable in
Speaker 2: front of people. Who was the best that you you
Speaker 2: remember seeing?
Speaker 1: Well, he was very good. My dad was very good.
Speaker 1: Just it was something where it was I think it
Speaker 1: took you know, emotionally, when you get out in front
Speaker 1: of a crowd, you probably are like me, I'm guessing
Speaker 1: where it's like, this is gonna be awesome, and you
Speaker 1: get energy from the idea of it. So but he
Speaker 1: was very good, which was which is another thing I admired,
Speaker 1: working creating a strength out of something that wasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: an inherent strength, okay, or didn't feel like to him.
Speaker 1: The best I ever saw Bill Clinton was incredible, and
Speaker 1: Jesse Jackson I got to see live, and actually everything
Speaker 1: I said about having to prepare and not speaking semporaneously,
Speaker 1: I threw out the window because I don't think he
Speaker 1: had a single note, and he spoke for half an
Speaker 1: hour and everything made one hundred percent CeNSE. And the
Speaker 1: little little kernel's little seeds he planted in minute two
Speaker 1: reached fruition in minute twenty seven and a half. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just like he was. He's probably the best I've
Speaker 1: ever seen.
Speaker 3: You went to Oberlin, as you mentioned before, this was
Speaker 3: to become an actor.
Speaker 1: First of all, shout out to Oberlin. I just got
Speaker 1: back yesterday. My niece just graduated from Oberlin.
Speaker 2: So that was shout out Oberlin, congratulations. I always think
Speaker 2: of I don't know what it is if it's the
Speaker 2: name Oberlin, and I know it's very big in music.
Speaker 2: I always think of the Obo. I don't know why
Speaker 2: someone say, oh, I'm I I went to Oberlin, and
Speaker 2: the first thought in my head was, oh, you're you
Speaker 2: play the Obo. I don't know why that you're an
Speaker 2: oboe with I didn't know if that was a word.
Speaker 2: Shout out Oberlin. Did you go there for theater?
Speaker 1: So I didn't approach college in a particularly strategic way,
Speaker 1: I think, except that I decided that I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to go to a conservatory. Northwestern was very interesting to me.
Speaker 1: A couple other places were interesting to me. But I
Speaker 1: decided that going to undergrad I wanted. I wanted a
Speaker 1: liberal arts.
Speaker 2: This is me what you're speaking of, this is this
Speaker 2: is exactly my speech, exactly.
Speaker 1: I tried to model myself after you, Jenn.
Speaker 2: I figured you're a little older, simmer down kellywn Yes,
Speaker 2: you did somehow somewhere in your brain.
Speaker 1: Yes, so I, uh, you know, I'm going to wikipedia
Speaker 1: you later. So uh so Oberlin had I did not
Speaker 1: go to the con I was not going to be
Speaker 1: a musician. But the College of Arts and Sciences was
Speaker 1: really was a great school as well, and I was
Speaker 1: interested in history. I was interested in particularly at the time,
Speaker 1: in doing theater and Shakespeare and Moliere and historical plays,
Speaker 1: so the history kind of fed in with that. I
Speaker 1: was doing a Moliere play called The miser As I
Speaker 1: was studying about the French Revolution, which would have been
Speaker 1: one hundred years later, and I thought that was kind
Speaker 1: of cool, So I actually went in spite of the
Speaker 1: fact that I wanted to be an actor, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense. The great thing about that school at the
Speaker 1: time and probably still now, it's two things. We had
Speaker 1: a number of great professors and some great adjunct professors
Speaker 1: over the course of the time I was there in
Speaker 1: a great summer theater institute. But I didn't have to
Speaker 1: be a major to do any play. I could get
Speaker 1: into or take any class, so I didn't have to
Speaker 1: take all the classes, but I could take all the
Speaker 1: scene study, and if I wanted to do some tech
Speaker 1: costume design or lighting sign I could do that that
Speaker 1: I didn't have to and I could get my degree
Speaker 1: in history. And then if I was going to go
Speaker 1: to grad school, that's where I would more. I ended
Speaker 1: up not doing that. I ended up going diving right in,
Speaker 1: but which was Sometimes I think it would have been
Speaker 1: better to go to grad school, just because you come
Speaker 1: out with a showcase and agents and at least some
Speaker 1: connections and a chance to get signed earlier than I did.
Speaker 1: And I think I'm not unhappy with where things went
Speaker 1: for me. But I do think that the five ten
Speaker 1: years where I struggled would have been maybe a little
Speaker 1: easier if I'd gone the grad school groupe. But I'm
Speaker 1: not in debt, so there's that.
Speaker 2: Look, our stories are are very similar. I went, I
Speaker 2: did go to a conservatory school, but within a larger university.
Speaker 2: I went to SMU there in Dallas, and I began
Speaker 2: doing theater, and theater was all I thought that I
Speaker 2: would ever do. Our paths likely crossed. Maybe maybe while
Speaker 2: you were closing down, I was moving in in looking
Speaker 2: at your resume.
Speaker 1: Got another age, did geeze nothing well?
Speaker 2: Or maybe the other way around. But I would have
Speaker 2: been playing a young on ingenu. So yeah, so I wondered.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know you started doing a little work
Speaker 2: on guests daring on soaps, which I do want to
Speaker 2: hear about because I think, by the way, fantastic training
Speaker 2: for actors being thrown into the fire that quickly. But
Speaker 2: did you have interest in film and television or for me,
Speaker 2: all I ever thought I would be was a theater actor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had interest, but it was a very sheepish interest.
Speaker 1: It was like I didn't I thought it was so
Speaker 1: far beyond me. I didn't have any role models who
Speaker 1: were doing it or who went on to do it
Speaker 1: soon after I knew them, So it was an interesting phenomenon.
Speaker 1: I think another reason why things took a little while
Speaker 1: for me was that I wasn't even able to name
Speaker 1: that thing that I wanted. I wanted to do theater.
Speaker 1: I wanted, but I knew that. But I had I
Speaker 1: had faith that I could get there. I had more
Speaker 1: faith that I could get on Broadway than I did
Speaker 1: that I could get on TV.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And when I talk to younger actors, now, if I
Speaker 1: don't don't feel ashamed at your ambition, about your ambition,
Speaker 1: it's not presumptuous to have ambition. And I think there's
Speaker 1: a part of my brain that felt presumptuous even saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you know what i'd really like, I'd like to be
Speaker 1: a series regular on a television show, right, And I would.
Speaker 1: I just I felt embarrassed saying it because it was like, well,
Speaker 1: of course you're not going to be. And it took
Speaker 1: me a long time to get over that. And I
Speaker 1: wish i'd told somebody. I had a number of mentor
Speaker 1: types who I think would have been like, get the
Speaker 1: fuck over yourself and say what you want, right, because
Speaker 1: there are a lot of bad TV actors out here, son,
Speaker 1: so you could be one too. Just don't lose your
Speaker 1: hair and you'll be fine.
Speaker 2: I uh, yeah, it's it's that's fascinating to me and
Speaker 2: actually makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I think I just didn't even I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's a similar thing for me. It just was never
Speaker 2: a thought until it was until it was like, okay,
Speaker 2: maybe I should, maybe I should try that. But you know,
Speaker 2: for me, for a time, god, there's no way for
Speaker 2: this not to sound like a weird, humble brag, but
Speaker 2: like I was getting work in the theater, and so
Speaker 2: for me it was like, well, I here was what
Speaker 2: I was smart enough to know. I don't think I've
Speaker 2: really talked about this too much on here. I knew
Speaker 2: that moving or sorry, visiting Los Angeles for a pilot
Speaker 2: season was not for me, like the idea of well,
Speaker 2: I'll just go out for a couple of months and
Speaker 2: see what happens. And maybe it's my personality type. It's like, no, no,
Speaker 2: if I'm in, I need to be in like I
Speaker 2: need to be in. You know, when I finally had
Speaker 2: to turn down theater work because I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to try this, and I said I'm going
Speaker 2: to give it a year, but even in my head,
Speaker 2: I think I was like, I think like eighteen months,
Speaker 2: like it's probably more realistic, like I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2: But before that, I mean, I did a couple of
Speaker 2: commercials and you know, there was a movie that came
Speaker 2: through Minnesota when I was there and was in that,
Speaker 2: but nothing really And it sounds for you as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, you were on Broadway, you were doing major
Speaker 2: shows at Oregon Shakespeare and et cetera, et cetera, before
Speaker 2: you were ever on television at all.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, totally. At the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, we would
Speaker 1: pool our money together and bring in casting directors in
Speaker 1: LA and various other regional theaters. But the big you know,
Speaker 1: the big, sort of scary one was when we'd bring
Speaker 1: people from Los Angeles and sometimes they teach us, they
Speaker 1: give us little workshops, and I remember one casting person,
Speaker 1: I think it was definitely an acting coach as well,
Speaker 1: gave us a little on camera workshop and first it
Speaker 1: was this is gonna sound humble braggy too, I guess.
Speaker 1: But the first the first note I got was it
Speaker 1: was sort of to the the rest of the class,
Speaker 1: you're a natural, isn't he a natural? And it was
Speaker 1: a very strange thing where none, no one nodded an agreement.
Speaker 1: I was like, thanks, guys, and then she said, the
Speaker 1: only problem is you don't know how to make choices.
Speaker 1: You don't know how to do it. Like you're comfortable,
Speaker 1: but you're not acting, you're not creating anything. And so
Speaker 1: I went from feeling like, oh, this is great, I'm
Speaker 1: a natural, so I'm going to be a huge star
Speaker 1: and you are going to make me one, and then
Speaker 1: know you have so much to learn and you don't
Speaker 1: know what the fuck you're doing right, So that was
Speaker 1: it was a buoying thing in a sense in a
Speaker 1: lot of the lean years. It was one of the
Speaker 1: things that I remember hearing, Okay, but no, there's it
Speaker 1: because being being natural in front of a camera isn't easy.
Speaker 1: It's not natural to everyone. So that was something that
Speaker 1: I knew that was there. I just needed to know.
Speaker 1: And then you'd get the note that theater actors always
Speaker 1: get when they first start on camera. Be smaller, that's
Speaker 1: too big, smaller, less, less, And so I would I
Speaker 1: would do this and they're like, well not nothing. It
Speaker 1: was like I understand. I spent a lot of years
Speaker 1: grappling with that until just something turns like, oh, just
Speaker 1: be right now, You're not you're not being natural, You're
Speaker 1: just being natural if that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely, Well where were you?
Speaker 1: Where were you doing theater when you made that?
Speaker 2: So I was primarily doing the regional theater stuff. So
Speaker 2: I was in I was based in Minneapolis and started
Speaker 2: travel going around. But I see a number of theaters
Speaker 2: on your on your resume there that I was at
Speaker 2: as well at one time or another. Did some touring
Speaker 2: shows and a little stuff in New York, but I
Speaker 2: was never I was never based in New York like
Speaker 2: you were, which you know, Look, that was something that
Speaker 2: I never wanted again, sort of like the I'm not
Speaker 2: going to just go out for three months for pilot season.
Speaker 2: That New York life.
Speaker 3: I love New York, but that is a different actors
Speaker 3: life there that I.
Speaker 2: Wasn't entirely comfortable with. But you know, look for you,
Speaker 2: you're performing in large theater companies, and because you're in
Speaker 2: New York, you start guest starring on oh, I don't know,
Speaker 2: like the biggest shows in television, like The Sopranos, and
Speaker 2: of course if you're in New York, Law and Order
Speaker 2: and Gossip Girl and the Good Wife and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: So your early experience is just being on set. Did
Speaker 2: you learn a lot during that period of time? For me,
Speaker 2: the big adjustment is less about the work and more
Speaker 2: about what it means to go to and show up
Speaker 2: to work on a set, which is so different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean before I did any of those, Just
Speaker 1: to go back even further, my first year or so
Speaker 1: in New York, I was I was doing background work. Okay,
Speaker 1: well we were called extras then, which is.
Speaker 2: Not yeah, it's not that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Two things were good about that for me. We
Speaker 1: had dirt cheap rent. That was like getting a space grant,
Speaker 1: you know, like she wasn't the landlord wasn't giving us
Speaker 1: money but she was charging us so little that we
Speaker 1: could do things like I could work, you get one
Speaker 1: hundred bucks to extra one day, and that my two
Speaker 1: of those would cover my rent for our rent, my
Speaker 1: wife and me for the week. I met a lot
Speaker 1: of people sitting around in the back room getting to
Speaker 1: know the lay of the land of New York. And
Speaker 1: I got to watch how the you know, how the
Speaker 1: principles behave and how what what hitting your mark means?
Speaker 1: What the fact that, oh you do a master shot,
Speaker 1: you say, okay, interesting and then close ups and tighter
Speaker 1: and tighter and then over the shoulder, and what it's
Speaker 1: dirty if you're getting a bit of the person over
Speaker 1: the shoulder and it's clean. And so when I finally
Speaker 1: did get on the sopranos from my one line.
Speaker 2: I did, it was one more than me. That's one
Speaker 2: more than me, and that's a that's a career regret there.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I knew, you know, I I at least knew,
Speaker 1: Oh this is gonna be coming. Oh that's what this is.
Speaker 1: I had a lot to learn. I remember my first
Speaker 1: big Law and Order thing. It's my second time it
Speaker 1: was on Law and Order, but my first with a
Speaker 1: real scene where I was the focal point of the
Speaker 1: scene and I just kept flubbing something or not quite
Speaker 1: doing what the director wanted, and I was getting really
Speaker 1: oh god, fuck.
Speaker 2: Got shit.
Speaker 1: And the director actually came out and he was like,
Speaker 1: hey man, we're a big time TV show, We've got
Speaker 1: lots of film. Don't worry. We got this. And he
Speaker 1: went back and I was first I was embarrassed, and
Speaker 1: then I was like, that was so nice, and the
Speaker 1: next take was perfect, you know, right, of course, it
Speaker 1: was a long time before I had any major I'm
Speaker 1: the tortoise man, you know, and I like, embrace your tortoise.
Speaker 1: If it's slow for you, embrace it. It's it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you're not going to get there. I think that slow
Speaker 1: journey kept me humble. Certainly there was nothing to not
Speaker 1: be humble about. But I was proud that I was
Speaker 1: making a living, partially because of that cheap rent, but
Speaker 1: I was proud that I was making a living doing
Speaker 1: small parts, doing off off off off Broadway theater for
Speaker 1: years before I got the more quote unquote legitimate stuff.
Speaker 2: Well, you finally got a big break getting a recurring
Speaker 2: role at On at the time, an enormous show in television,
Speaker 2: A House of Cards. Do you remember how that How
Speaker 2: you finally landed that one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd been in a number of times the casting
Speaker 1: director during my tortoise phase. There were a number of
Speaker 1: independent casting directors, all women actually, who kept bringing me
Speaker 1: in for auditions and I would often get callbacks. But
Speaker 1: as my manager said at the time, the fact that
Speaker 1: they keep bringing you in even though you haven't booked,
Speaker 1: they're calling you back. These are essentially callbacks because the
Speaker 1: casting director is going to keep putting you in front
Speaker 1: of these people. They're going to advocate for you at
Speaker 1: some point and that's when the breakthrough will happen. And
Speaker 1: that is what happened. And this particular casting director had
Speaker 1: brought me in a number of times and it was
Speaker 1: a dummy script, so I didn't know what the character was,
Speaker 1: I didn't know who I was going to be working with.
Speaker 1: And it was great though. I was just like, well,
Speaker 1: this is obviously nothing in the in the in the show,
Speaker 1: but I want to do that show. I should I
Speaker 1: think I might have kept it. But a great seed
Speaker 1: for some for some film. But the the type of relationship,
Speaker 1: the emotional connection between the two characters mirrored the relationship
Speaker 1: that I was going to have once I got the
Speaker 1: part with Michael Kelly as his brother who played Gary
Speaker 1: Stamper or Doug Stamper. I was Gary or one or
Speaker 1: the other. Yeah, it was, it was, it was. It
Speaker 1: was great, you know it. I only worked with Michael Kelly,
Speaker 1: who is the nicest guy in show business, and he's brilliant,
Speaker 1: and it was. Yeah. The first time I traveled somewhere
Speaker 1: repeatedly and put up in the same place, the same
Speaker 1: teamster driving me to set, it was like, Oh, there's
Speaker 1: there can be continuity in this business. Yes, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like and I would go back my fifth time
Speaker 1: down at the at the Marriotte on the waterfront or
Speaker 1: whatever it was, sitting in the same spot at the bar.
Speaker 1: I knew what I wanted to eat. I knew I
Speaker 1: wanted that wine, and then I was going to go
Speaker 1: to bed and I don't It's just you were talking
Speaker 1: about the I think you were alluding to some of
Speaker 1: the mundane aspects of life. Being on set. Learning how
Speaker 1: to be on set, learning how to be on location
Speaker 1: is just as important as learning how to create a
Speaker 1: character really right continuity, and it was my first taste
Speaker 1: of Oh.
Speaker 2: I like this, Yeah, that's that's really cool that there
Speaker 2: is something. Well, you also feel like you I'm not
Speaker 2: saying like you have made it like you're a big
Speaker 2: star or anything like that, but like you're actually working
Speaker 2: almost like like an employee. I don't even know if
Speaker 2: that makes sense, like as opposed to a contractor like
Speaker 2: what you talked about, like, oh, I'm going to the
Speaker 2: same spot. I'm going I know them, they know me.
Speaker 2: Being a guest star is really hard. I mean that.
Speaker 2: The joke I always make is you're showing up expecting
Speaker 2: to in some cases, you know, be the central figure
Speaker 2: in a scene or in an episode or whatever, and
Speaker 2: you don't know where the bathroom is. Like this is
Speaker 2: like they're like exterior, complicated things that people don't think about.
Speaker 2: But yes, that like I have a relationship with you know, Tim,
Speaker 2: who is the transportation guy who drives me and helps
Speaker 2: me get here and there, and if I have an issue,
Speaker 2: I call him all of those things. It's uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's cool.
Speaker 1: And being and having relationships with the pas, you know,
Speaker 1: because like where's the bathroom? If you have to go
Speaker 1: to the bathroom, you have to let someone know it's
Speaker 1: like I'm going ten, one hundred or you know, or
Speaker 1: the other. But I never gave it to the other
Speaker 1: and you don't really know who to tell. And also
Speaker 1: that if you're meeting them for the first time, you're
Speaker 1: telling this total stranger, this young kid, I gotta go pee,
Speaker 1: and it's like it's nice, Yeah, I have. I had
Speaker 1: a taste of a bigger taste when I did The Americans,
Speaker 1: but it was on Billions actually, where we were there
Speaker 1: for you know, almost every episode for seven seasons, and
Speaker 1: that continuity. I think that experience is what made me
Speaker 1: finally realize that I love film acting or screen acting
Speaker 1: as much as I love theater. Because it was the
Speaker 1: first time that that family that that always happens during
Speaker 1: a play, you know, during the process. So the first
Speaker 1: time that continuity, that family really congealed, and I think
Speaker 1: that's what got me into it in the first place.
Speaker 1: Is like hanging around with other nerds you wanted to
Speaker 1: play pretend, you know, it's those like minded souls and
Speaker 1: U and I finally found that in in this group.
Speaker 3: So well, I want to talk obviously about Dollar Bill.
Speaker 3: By the way, when the email started coming around that
Speaker 3: I was going to talk to you. I think we
Speaker 3: had like seven people on the team. It's just yelling
Speaker 3: dollar Bill with an exclamation point, But I do want
Speaker 3: to talk about the Americans. You played pastor Tim there
Speaker 3: for four seasons. That then becomes, you know, before Billions,
Speaker 3: your most sort of significant role and time working on
Speaker 3: and you had a wig, which apparently got a lot
Speaker 3: of attention.
Speaker 2: On that show. Was this a choice that you made?
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: I am assuming they weren't going to go with my
Speaker 1: bald pace because at the time, in the mid eighties,
Speaker 1: probably you know, bald white guys were white supremacists. Essentially,
Speaker 1: shaved head headed guys were essentially unless they were military.
Speaker 1: It was not normal at that period of time.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we got a.
Speaker 1: Wig, and hilariously, apparently the wig master did not know
Speaker 1: they had a wig master. They had a show with
Speaker 1: a wig master. I love that man. The wig Master
Speaker 1: did not know I was going to be on for
Speaker 1: more than one episode, so she wasn't taking care, she
Speaker 1: wasn't taking great pains to make sure it was something
Speaker 1: that was sustainable. And that was when they all put
Speaker 1: that We put multiple wigs on me. When they put
Speaker 1: that one on everybody laughed because it was so goofy,
Speaker 1: including me because it was a goofy. And we used
Speaker 1: that one and then I'm back and I'm back in
Speaker 1: the back for the next season and the next season,
Speaker 1: and I think it did like fifty episodes or something,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it was a huge pain of the ass.
Speaker 1: They had to remake it too. They had to create
Speaker 1: a new one because the one wasn't made for that
Speaker 1: type of repeated use. Right, thought, oh great, I'm going
Speaker 1: to get a great wig now because they can remake
Speaker 1: it a new hairstyle, and they made it the same
Speaker 1: fucking things red. It had an entire thread after my
Speaker 1: first appearance about whether or not I was a pedophile
Speaker 1: because of the wig, literally because of the wig.
Speaker 2: Oh you think it was about the wig? Yeah, I uh,
Speaker 2: that's that's that's incredible. Now I do have to ask you, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you made a choice at some point to shave. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: well because I haven't. By the way, I don't know
Speaker 2: if you've known, I haven't.
Speaker 1: But you yours looks great. My I my hair was
Speaker 1: very thick everywhere except for where it wasn't, and where
Speaker 1: it wasn't it was gone. You know, people, some people thin.
Speaker 1: I didn't thin. It was like literally like somebody was
Speaker 1: golfing on top of my head and took out a divot.
Speaker 1: It was just like this, and my hair was very
Speaker 1: dark and my skin is very pale also.
Speaker 2: It just was on.
Speaker 1: And so we were actually over at a friend's house
Speaker 1: having dinner and a lot of wine, and he shaved.
Speaker 1: He had his own little shaving contraption before we left.
Speaker 1: We shaved each other's heads and that and from then on,
Speaker 1: yeah for you. Yeah, And I did go all the
Speaker 1: way to the skin. At first I had about half
Speaker 1: an inch. But then I started booking. I was I
Speaker 1: was always booking theater, but I started booking on TV
Speaker 1: more and it was kind of another good lesson don't
Speaker 1: fight it. And I oh, and I also went to
Speaker 1: a not a real gang guy, but the hair whatever,
Speaker 1: the big hair transplant place is okay, and met with
Speaker 1: somebody who was explaining the procedure and how they and
Speaker 1: they used the word harvest the hair out of the
Speaker 1: back of your head and plant and look how good
Speaker 1: it is. And then they said, well, then in you know,
Speaker 1: five ten years, you're going to have to do more
Speaker 1: because you keep losing your hair, which had never occurred
Speaker 1: to me. It wasn't one harvesting were gonna this was
Speaker 1: multiple harvests, multiple harvests, So it didn't.
Speaker 2: So you just said no, I just said no.
Speaker 1: Screwt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna shave God. God. I've definitely not revealed this.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I keep telling people that haven't
Speaker 2: revealed it. They either know I haven't or they don't.
Speaker 1: I haven't thought about the trustworthy face.
Speaker 2: I've thought about it. I've thought, I've thought about it.
Speaker 2: Do it.
Speaker 1: I don't know it'll come back. I mean that part maybe,
Speaker 1: maybe that part will maybe. I think I got a
Speaker 1: great shaped head. So you what, I think you have
Speaker 1: a great shaped head?
Speaker 2: Do you you can have it?
Speaker 3: I do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. You know what,
Speaker 2: Here's what I'm gonna do. If I know myself, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna think about it in another four or five years.
Speaker 2: Uh dollar Bill Dollar Bill Sterns the cheapest millionaire in America.
Speaker 2: How did you get it? Audition?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I auditioned for the pilot. Ady Kaufman, a casting
Speaker 1: director in New York who does a lot of pilots.
Speaker 1: I went in for a different role. The Breakdown said
Speaker 1: it described certain characters as potential recurring or co stars
Speaker 1: or guest stars. And I had a very good audition.
Speaker 1: I knew the audition went well. The word the feedback
Speaker 1: was that they loved the audition, but they were going
Speaker 1: with a different guy for that role. Would you come
Speaker 1: back and read this other character named Dollar Bill? And
Speaker 1: in the breakdown it just said co star. I think
Speaker 1: it was three lines, not even potential with the star.
Speaker 1: I think, so, yeah, yeah, I'm almost positive. And this
Speaker 1: was for the pilot, and I was not doing co
Speaker 1: star roles anymore. I wasn't doing just functionary roles. I
Speaker 1: didn't want. I wanted something that had I was even
Speaker 1: going to do a guest star. I was trying to
Speaker 1: push to just do something that that was integral to
Speaker 1: the plot, and this wasn't at the time. This is
Speaker 1: what I read on the page. So I said no, passed,
Speaker 1: And then over the weekend I was thinking about it,
Speaker 1: and I was like, don a Bill, Well, they've they've
Speaker 1: put some thought into that's a funny nickname, and he's
Speaker 1: described as the cheapest billionaire in America. It's like, this
Speaker 1: is this is kind of am I making a mistake.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, oh, my god, Damian Lewis
Speaker 1: and Paul G.
Speaker 2: Madier in it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, god, these guys did rounders. Holy shit. I
Speaker 1: think I made a mistake. And it was the pilot.
Speaker 1: You know, you you if it gets picked up and
Speaker 1: it's something it's not going to develop into something more
Speaker 1: than you could, you could back out. And so I
Speaker 1: called them the morning on Monday morning and said, can
Speaker 1: you still get me in? And they said, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you can be there in three hours, yes, So I
Speaker 1: went in and did the audition and I got it,
Speaker 1: and my god, that would have been the biggest mistake
Speaker 1: of my life. I think about how close I came
Speaker 1: to screwing that up. Anyway, So, yeah, it was. It
Speaker 1: was an audition and it started very small, but little
Speaker 1: hints of things. From the beginning, there were little, little
Speaker 1: moments that were fun. But it wasn't until late season
Speaker 1: one that I started getting some real meaty stuff. I
Speaker 1: didn't become a series regular until season three, actually three. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was recurring, and I think I was in literally
Speaker 1: every episode until then. But yeah, and I was surprised
Speaker 1: because that laid into a run. I wouldn't have expected
Speaker 1: to get that offer that bump, but I was glad
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 2: That was fun. Did you do any specific research in
Speaker 2: terms of finance or anything.
Speaker 1: No, No, because I'm a lazy actor. Now. The character
Speaker 1: was so specifically written, and particularly early on, I didn't
Speaker 1: have a ton of exposition or a ton of big
Speaker 1: descriptive well that's what his exposition is. I had small interactions,
Speaker 1: and we did have a guy on set who had
Speaker 1: been in the business before, and you could ask him anything.
Speaker 1: You could ask Brian and David, the show owners any thing.
Speaker 1: He even this other guy a couple times have be like, Kelly,
Speaker 1: do you know what you just said? I was like yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's like, mm no, this is what you mean.
Speaker 1: And so we had we had guardrails, and I knew
Speaker 1: I know less about finance than probably ninety percent of
Speaker 1: the people listening to this podcast, right, But I learned
Speaker 1: for the day and then it was out of my
Speaker 1: head again.
Speaker 2: Right. You've talked in the past about working physically on
Speaker 2: Dollar Bill, and that's something that's always really important to me.
Speaker 2: So I'm fascinated on a personal level about that. Is
Speaker 2: this something that you do for all of your characters
Speaker 2: you believe or was there something about him that you
Speaker 2: you felt like you needed something. There are I mean,
Speaker 2: to a certain extent, on every character. There's you know,
Speaker 2: there's some gestures or there's some ways of caring yourself
Speaker 2: or sitting or something that you can if you can
Speaker 2: key into it helps launch you. It's oh, set a
Speaker 2: crack a code.
Speaker 1: With dollar Bill. It was a little more acute, just
Speaker 1: because it seems so obvious. It's like, well, he never
Speaker 1: stands with his feet together, he never sits with his
Speaker 1: knees together. He's he's a man. He takes up space
Speaker 1: because he can. He's a bit of a bully. He's
Speaker 1: a blunt instrument. He does that when he speaks, at
Speaker 1: least initially, it's there's a there's an economy. That just
Speaker 1: felt like he was a blunt instrument. The shaved head
Speaker 1: helped that obviously. So yeah, I think there was a strut,
Speaker 1: there was a taking up space wherever he was, a
Speaker 1: lot of cross crossed arms, a lot of scowling, a
Speaker 1: lot of eye rolling at people he thinks are less
Speaker 1: cool than he is. Yeah, that was that. That was
Speaker 1: sort of it. Just it felt obvious. There's a scene
Speaker 1: where Spiros and I have couple's therapy in Wendy's office
Speaker 1: and Steve Knkan, who plays Spirosho's a great guy despite
Speaker 1: the character replays. And I sat on our couch. We
Speaker 1: just we both immediately on one end or the other.
Speaker 1: He crossed his legs and arms in a very prim
Speaker 1: way as Spiros would and I just sort of lounged
Speaker 1: out and took up half the couch. And the director
Speaker 1: was going to work with us and block figure out
Speaker 1: what the blocking of the scene was. And he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: well there it is all right, bring the crew. And
Speaker 1: because sometimes the character tells you what it wants, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you have some trigger? And I ask you
Speaker 2: because I did with the role that I played for
Speaker 2: a long time. Something with your jaw.
Speaker 1: I would come home sometimes with my jaw aching because
Speaker 1: it was a yeah, he was a jaw jutter. I
Speaker 1: don't think I did that consciously. I think that just
Speaker 1: came with the rest of it. Yeah, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: I remember going back and looking and was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the jaws way out there, but yeah it would or
Speaker 1: my chin is way out there, but my jaw would
Speaker 1: hurt at the end of some of the days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you said that, you're you worked that way too.
Speaker 2: You like to work with the physicality as well, Yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure. I mean it's interesting you you talked about,
Speaker 2: you know, just taking up a lot of space, and
Speaker 2: my thought always with Kevin was he was not aware
Speaker 2: of his size, so it was more you know, and
Speaker 2: for me also, there was no pivoting. Kevin's hips did
Speaker 2: not pivot, nor did his really his head, so if
Speaker 2: he had to turn to the right, his entire body
Speaker 2: would turn like the Titanic or something as opposed to
Speaker 2: any sort of nimble looking over the shoulder like that
Speaker 2: didn't happen very often, or at least that was sort
Speaker 2: of the thought.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's brilliant, and honestly, like little little things like
Speaker 1: that can unlock so much for you in the rest
Speaker 1: of the run of a show. That's great.
Speaker 2: I like that. Recently, you have popped up again with
Speaker 2: your friend Paul Giamatti in the Holdovers. Now was this
Speaker 2: did you guys work this out together or was this
Speaker 2: totally random?
Speaker 1: It was totally random, although come on what I had
Speaker 1: auditioned for. Yeah, I saw so I got the audition,
Speaker 1: and I saw that I saw his name attached to
Speaker 1: the to the breakdown, and I was auditioning initially for
Speaker 1: The Headmaster, which has three set of media scenes, and
Speaker 1: I didn't. I guess. I think I texted him and
Speaker 1: said something about there's a line in there where he
Speaker 1: calls me something about penis breath or something like that
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, or it says, I hope you
Speaker 1: get penis cancer something like that, okay, And I wrote
Speaker 1: to him and I was like, I made some reference
Speaker 1: to that that line, and he was like, oh, you're
Speaker 1: gonna you're reading for the Park great, And then I
Speaker 1: didn't get that, and they I got offered the part
Speaker 1: that I ended up playing, and I have to admit
Speaker 1: it's another example of almost fucking things up. When I
Speaker 1: read the scene on the page, I was disappointed in
Speaker 1: not getting three scenes in a film with Giamatti that
Speaker 1: would have been fun. And I got this other scene
Speaker 1: it was gonna be with him, but it was about
Speaker 1: a page and a half and it was just it
Speaker 1: didn't on the page. It didn't look like much, and
Speaker 1: so I was really thinking of turning it down, and
Speaker 1: Paul texted me and he was like, come on, come on,
Speaker 1: hang out, it'll be fun. And then so I did
Speaker 1: and it was great, and of course I should have
Speaker 1: taken it. I don't do a lot of movies. I
Speaker 1: do a lot of TV. I don't do a lot
Speaker 1: of movies. I love Alexander Payne. The script was brilliant.
Speaker 1: I got to work with my buddy. Didn't matter if
Speaker 1: it was small, it was. It was a great time
Speaker 1: and the scene ended up being I think, lovely. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there have been a handful of times in my career
Speaker 1: in life where I'm really glad I got out of
Speaker 1: my own way. He was brilliant and that wasn't.
Speaker 2: He He was good, just so good. Well, this role,
Speaker 2: I assume, based on everything that I have heard, is
Speaker 2: not just a small little scene coming out very soon.
Speaker 2: New show for you clipped get it because it's about
Speaker 2: the Clippers. I know you're a big NBA fan as am.
Speaker 2: I was that particularly make you. By the way, it's
Speaker 2: about the Donald Sterling mess. There was a thirty for
Speaker 2: thirty on that called The Sterling Affairs the podcast, and
Speaker 2: now this is that story. It's you, it's Ed O'Neil,
Speaker 2: Laurence Fishburn, Jackie Weaver. Were you excited about this because
Speaker 2: you were such a big fan of the NBA.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, I was. Literally we were just finishing an
Speaker 1: episode of Winning Time, and I turned to my.
Speaker 2: Wife, Oh yes, I was going to say that, and.
Speaker 1: I said, I want to get my basketball show. And
Speaker 1: two weeks later I had the audition for this. And
Speaker 1: now that I know I have that sort of manifestation power,
Speaker 1: you have to be careful how I wield this power.
Speaker 1: So anyone just wants to stay in my good graces,
Speaker 1: it's fifty bucks. So yeah, I got. I was absolutely thrilled.
Speaker 1: And the audition was this one really big scene between
Speaker 1: my character and Elgin Baylor, so such a delicious, like
Speaker 1: meaty scene, which I was happy to see was kept
Speaker 1: intact for the shooting script and the final cut of
Speaker 1: the episode. Actually it was about twice as long in
Speaker 1: real life.
Speaker 2: But it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did. The writing was so good, the cast
Speaker 1: was so great. I've I've literally I've had fun on
Speaker 1: a lot of shows. I've never had more fun than
Speaker 1: working on this project. Oh wow, everything about it. It
Speaker 1: was fun to live in l A again for a
Speaker 1: little while, like half a block from the Paramount Studio
Speaker 1: where I had literally one thousand rejections, And you know,
Speaker 1: working with Ed a lot. He's I know, people know
Speaker 1: he's he's a really good actor. I think he's an
Speaker 1: he's underrated. I don't think people know how great he
Speaker 1: really is because he makes it look effortless. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: so good in this. And and the other person I
Speaker 1: worked with the most was was Lawrence Fishburne, who's been
Speaker 1: an acting idol of mine for forever. So I had
Speaker 1: I was like a kid in a candy store and
Speaker 1: I got I had a wig.
Speaker 2: Hey, another wig.
Speaker 1: Significantly less peto wig.
Speaker 2: I will, I will. I am so excited to see it.
Speaker 2: I had the creator of Winning Time on here on
Speaker 2: the podcast before. I was a big fan of that show.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm the whole story, which I won't spoil
Speaker 2: it for those of you who don't who haven't read
Speaker 2: the news or know what we're talking about here. It's
Speaker 2: a fascinating story that goes across and I haven't seen it,
Speaker 2: by the way, this is just the story itself that
Speaker 2: deals with all sorts of social issues and well and
Speaker 2: basketball and the NBA and the Clippers franchise. It's a
Speaker 2: it's a great story. I'm I'm glad that you're so
Speaker 2: excited about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm really excited. And I did get to see
Speaker 1: the episodes, and you know, when you when you have
Speaker 1: so much fun on a gig, you're almost afraid to
Speaker 1: watch it because you have such high hopes and you're
Speaker 1: afraid it's not going to live up. And I'm I'm
Speaker 1: thrilled with how it came out. I'm just I'm thrilled.
Speaker 1: Gina Welsh is the great showrunner and writer, and I
Speaker 1: think she's just along with the directors, it's really created
Speaker 1: something special. I'm I'm thrilled with it. I'm thrilled, and
Speaker 1: I watched it a second time, which I don't usually do,
Speaker 1: and things I'm.
Speaker 2: In well that that is so so awesome. This week,
Speaker 2: in fact, June the fourth, it premieres. Everybody check it out.
Speaker 2: I will be watching for sure. Kelly, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for joining me. You're a delight. I hope we
Speaker 2: work together sometimes. You're an interesting guy.
Speaker 1: I was just saying the same thing, not that I
Speaker 1: was an interesting guy that I would like. I was
Speaker 1: thinking the same thing that I'd like to I'd like
Speaker 1: to work with you very very much. I'm a huge fan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I watched every episode of that of your show, like twice.
Speaker 1: Well stuff well, and it was a kid and it
Speaker 1: really was about that ensemble. Ensemble was what made it.
Speaker 1: That chemistry was what made that show better than just a.
Speaker 2: Really good comedy.
Speaker 1: You know, it's one of the Pantheon shows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you so much. I really appreciate that,
Speaker 2: and I appreciate you coming on here talking to me.
Speaker 2: You know, people love to hate that piece of shit
Speaker 2: Dollar Bill, so I know people are going to be
Speaker 2: excited to hear from from you, and uh to watch Clipped.
Speaker 2: It's it's Roser, Roser Junior and Roser okay who of
Speaker 2: course Donald Sterling's right hand man in the thick of things.
Speaker 2: Congratulations on the success and good luck with the show,
Speaker 2: and I'll send you my review when I'm done.
Speaker 1: Thank you please, point by point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, thank you Kelly for all of that. That
Speaker 2: was really really a lot of fun. Listeners, be sure
Speaker 2: to watch Clipped. It premieres today. If you're listening when
Speaker 2: this episode premieres June the fourth on Hulu, I know
Speaker 2: that I will be tuning in. Speaking of tuning in,
Speaker 2: don't forget to tune in next week right here, same
Speaker 2: Bat channel, same Bat time for another dose of me
Speaker 2: with another fantastic guest. Until then, have a spectacular Week
Speaker 2: Off the Beat is hosted and executive produced by me
Speaker 2: Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Ling Lee. Our senior
Speaker 2: producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes, Hannah
Speaker 2: Harris and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary,
Speaker 2: and our intern is Ali Amir Sahem. Our theme song
Speaker 2: Bubble and Squeak, performed by the one and only Creed Bratton,