Speaker 1: For me, I've been able. I mean yeah, I've just
Speaker 1: been able to not look like the people that I
Speaker 1: play on screen. And so I've lived this life where
Speaker 1: I've tried it one time where I've walked into a
Speaker 1: restaurant and go, yeah, we can't seet you. Hey, do
Speaker 1: you know who I am? And they're like nope, And
Speaker 1: I'm like, yep, that worked well, because yeah, why would
Speaker 1: you know who I am? I don't look like you really,
Speaker 1: I am Mark Baul Gostler, and I am completely off
Speaker 1: the beat. They like that, don't you. Brian? You like that?
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everybody. You right now are exactly where you
Speaker 2: should be. You're here listening to Off the Beat with me,
Speaker 2: your host, Brian Baumgartner. Today I have with me a
Speaker 2: truly fantastic actor who also happens to be my friend
Speaker 2: and my neighbor, Mark Paul Gossler. You all, most definitely
Speaker 2: if you are between the ages of eighteen and fifty eight,
Speaker 2: know him as the teen heartthrob Zach Morris from Saved
Speaker 2: by the Bell. Yes, the very guy whose picture was
Speaker 2: probably ripped out of an issue of Tiger Beat magazine
Speaker 2: and taped to your bedroom wall or your sisters, or
Speaker 2: your girlfriends or boyfriends, at least if you're of a
Speaker 2: certain age. My producer, Emily actually, and this is true,
Speaker 2: squealed when she heard that he was coming on the show.
Speaker 2: He's got that kind of effect on people, even thirty
Speaker 2: years later. But to be clear, Emily has never squealed
Speaker 2: because I was going to be on the show. Since
Speaker 2: he left the Halls of Bayside High Mark Paul, he's
Speaker 2: worked on a really wide range of projects. Detective John
Speaker 2: Clark on one of my favorite shows which I can't
Speaker 2: wait for you to hear about today, NYPD Blue, Peter
Speaker 2: Bash in the legal comedy Franklin and Bash. He's done
Speaker 2: political dramas like Commander in Chief, The Captain of the Padres,
Speaker 2: un pitched Stay at Home Dad on Kenya Barris' comedy
Speaker 2: Mixed Dish, and most recently and currently, he is exploring
Speaker 2: some downright creepy stuff as a deranged kidnapper on NBC's
Speaker 2: Found He is fantastic and it has just been given
Speaker 2: a season two. He's been in the business since he
Speaker 2: was five years old and he's still finding ways to
Speaker 2: challenge himself and show his versatility. I admire him so much.
Speaker 2: He may be Zach Morris and Emily's heart, but guys,
Speaker 2: he's a lot of other things too. And another thing
Speaker 2: he is is a great podcast guest. I know you're
Speaker 2: gonna love hearing from the talented, the handsome, the neighborly Mark,
Speaker 2: Paul Gossler.
Speaker 3: Bubblin Squeak, I love it, Bubble and Squeig, Bubble and
Speaker 3: Squeaker cook get every month lift over from the night before.
Speaker 2: What's up, neighbor?
Speaker 1: Hey, what's going on?
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing all right? I mean are you? Are you actually?
Speaker 1: Are we in the same airspace.
Speaker 2: Or were we are in the same airspace? Yes? If
Speaker 2: if a helicopter passes above you, you will hear it
Speaker 2: ten seconds later.
Speaker 1: For me, if something were to go wrong in our area,
Speaker 1: two national treasures would go down, what would what would America?
Speaker 1: What would the world do? What?
Speaker 2: It would be very very sad. I think you're a
Speaker 2: national treasure. I'm I don't know what I am, but
Speaker 2: I don't know about that. How are you liking it
Speaker 2: down here?
Speaker 1: You know? I I I can't put it into words,
Speaker 1: which is not great for a podcast, But we feel
Speaker 1: so fortunate that we are here. I am born and
Speaker 1: raised in Los Angeles. I love California. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, there's a lot of negatives we could
Speaker 1: point at California, but there's also a lot of positives.
Speaker 1: And I think where we are down south here it
Speaker 1: just embodies all the positives. Beautiful air, less people, more space.
Speaker 1: My kids surfed during the week, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: a you know, going to the beach when you were
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles took pretty much the entire day. I
Speaker 1: sometimes go, you know, after drop off of dropping our
Speaker 1: kids off at school, I go do a session real quick.
Speaker 1: I'm back by ten thirty. It's amazing have the rest
Speaker 1: of the day to do other things which would take
Speaker 1: a full day in Los Angeles. It just you realize
Speaker 1: once you're out of there, out of the it's a city.
Speaker 1: You know, we we forget that that Los Angeles because
Speaker 1: it's so so suburban and it's so vast. You forget
Speaker 1: you're actually in a city. It's why it feels that way,
Speaker 1: It's why there's so many people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you told me a story when I first saw
Speaker 2: you down here, which I was shocked about. But I
Speaker 2: do want you to tell it here because I think
Speaker 2: it's it's very very interesting. You and I were at
Speaker 2: a fan convention together a number of years ago, and
Speaker 2: as I'll set it up and and and you take
Speaker 2: it from there my recollections. We arrived at the airport
Speaker 2: and you were like, are you on you know, my
Speaker 2: flight back back to.
Speaker 1: LA And I, oh, the connection. That that's why the connection.
Speaker 1: It was the connection. We had to make a connection,
Speaker 1: I believe in Dallas and okay, all like there were
Speaker 1: there were a few other people with us, and we
Speaker 1: all went to the gate for La X. You went
Speaker 1: somewhere else and I was like, wait, you not come
Speaker 1: with us, so go ahead? Is that is that the story? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I said, no, I'm going to San Diego.
Speaker 2: I've moved down south. I don't live exactly in San Diego,
Speaker 2: but you know, we lived down here. It's easy to
Speaker 2: fly in San Diego. And I said it was the
Speaker 2: best decision I ever made. Yeah, And you referenced this
Speaker 2: story when we ran into each other and I had
Speaker 2: heard rumors that you lived down here, but we hadn't
Speaker 2: seen each other yet.
Speaker 1: Well, because you told me the exact spot you were
Speaker 1: in and I said, oh, yes, I'm familiar with that.
Speaker 1: I've stayed in that area. There's a there's a beautiful
Speaker 1: hotel in this area, and I've stayed at that hotel,
Speaker 1: and that was you know, I worked here in San
Speaker 1: Diego in twenty sixteen. I was on a show called Pitch.
Speaker 1: We were the San Diego Padres. So we did a
Speaker 1: lot of work at Petco Park, which is a phenomenal
Speaker 1: park to watch a baseball game, concert venues like it
Speaker 1: is state of the art, right, So you go there.
Speaker 1: You could just go there for the food and drink.
Speaker 1: It's just a great place. Getting in and out is easy.
Speaker 1: It's just an easier lifestyle. And so in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: my wife and I we rented a house while we
Speaker 1: were filming and love the area. My two older children
Speaker 1: from a previous marriage were too young for us to move.
Speaker 1: We wanted to keep them in the schools that they
Speaker 1: were in in La But I fell in love with
Speaker 1: our particular area a few years after that and said,
Speaker 1: you know, so when I saw you, you said you
Speaker 1: were going there, and I'm like, one of these days, Brian,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be your neighbor. And so sure enough
Speaker 1: last year when when I saw you, you know, we
Speaker 1: made it work. And yeah, again, We just feel so
Speaker 1: fortunate that we were able to make it work. My children.
Speaker 1: My son graduated and he's now in college. My daughter
Speaker 1: is going to graduate her senior year this year. But
Speaker 1: our two younger ones are ten and eight year old,
Speaker 1: go to school out here, and yeah, they're they're thriving,
Speaker 1: and the sports programs out here are amazing. You know what,
Speaker 1: we really shouldn't talk about San Diego because I don't
Speaker 1: want people moving down here.
Speaker 2: It's awful. It really looks out the window right now.
Speaker 2: It's tear it's raining and cold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so many people out here, there's there's too many.
Speaker 1: It's it's traffic. You can't get anywhere. The food sucks.
Speaker 1: That's another thing. It's so funny. It's like in La.
Speaker 1: When I tell people I move, they're like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: how's the food? And actually I've eaten some really great restaurants,
Speaker 1: more so here than I do in La, because in
Speaker 1: La it was just such a chore to get to
Speaker 1: the restaurants that you would have to have. You know,
Speaker 1: if you went to Craig's, right, you got to know
Speaker 1: Craig to get in.
Speaker 2: It's but you do have to know Craig, that's right.
Speaker 1: And here. It's like you go to these great restaurants
Speaker 1: and you just call and they're like, oh yeah, we
Speaker 1: can totally get you in. You're like wait, really, like
Speaker 1: I don't I don't need an hour in an hour
Speaker 1: in an hour. It's just again though, you don't want
Speaker 1: to come down to San Diego, SA.
Speaker 2: No, it's terrible. Well, you've had to spend a little
Speaker 2: time away working on your new project. I want to
Speaker 2: talk about that and a little bit. But I do
Speaker 2: want to go back and hopefully share with some people
Speaker 2: some things that they don't know about you. Now. You
Speaker 2: you mentioned you're born and raised in l way Ye
Speaker 2: to a Dutch Indonesian family, so you have three cultures
Speaker 2: going on in your household as a child, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was the only one out of my out of
Speaker 1: the four of us my siblings, I have three siblings
Speaker 1: that was born in the States. I came. I came
Speaker 1: way later. My mother was thirty five when she had me,
Speaker 1: which back then, you know, I was born in the seventies.
Speaker 1: Was like, oh boy, right, he's going to come out
Speaker 1: with a horn on his head, which is fine. They
Speaker 1: just shaved down, you know, you can't tell they put
Speaker 1: makeup over it. They can't tell you, but I was
Speaker 1: definitely an oops baby. We had that culture. My mom
Speaker 1: is all Indonesia and my father is Dutch. He actually
Speaker 1: I was talking to Stephanie Seymour yesterday as Stephanie Seymour
Speaker 1: Jane Seymour. Sorry, my apologies, Jane Seymour. And I'm currently
Speaker 1: doing the rounds for my show. Because of the strike,
Speaker 1: we weren't able to do press for my show, so
Speaker 1: as seven or eight episodes in now we're doing press.
Speaker 1: And anyway, she was at a talk show that I
Speaker 1: was going to do and she's Dutch as well, like
Speaker 1: her mother is Dutch. Her father, I believe, is British.
Speaker 1: The connection that we have is that my father his
Speaker 1: family did a lot of work in Indonesia. My father
Speaker 1: and his whole family were taken into internment camps during
Speaker 1: World War Two and kept in Indonesian Japanese internment camps
Speaker 1: in Indonesia. Jane Seymour's mother was in what was in
Speaker 1: the same camps that my father was, and we were
Speaker 1: just talking about it because my father passed away a
Speaker 1: few years ago and we never talked about his experience.
Speaker 1: It was just one of those things like you just
Speaker 1: never brought up. It was my father was in it
Speaker 1: from nine till I believe he was twelve. He was
Speaker 1: in the boys camp. Jane had told me, she's like,
Speaker 1: your father was actually in a boys camp and when
Speaker 1: they turned twelve, they aged out and they went into
Speaker 1: the men's camp. Can you believe, like twelve year old
Speaker 1: boys going into a men's camp where the women were
Speaker 1: kept together. So the mothers and the daughters were all
Speaker 1: kept in the same camps. The fathers were obviously in
Speaker 1: the men's but we never talked about it, and her
Speaker 1: mother logged through sketches her experience, but we had that connection.
Speaker 1: So my father, being Dutch, was in Indonesia. My mother
Speaker 1: during that time, I believe they moved to Holland, and
Speaker 1: then my father mother connected in Holland, actually not in Indonesia,
Speaker 1: and then in the late sixties he's moved to California.
Speaker 1: They moved to the valley San Fernando Valley. I don't
Speaker 1: know why some people actually I actually have Indonesian family,
Speaker 1: a Dutch Indonesian family that came on that same trip
Speaker 1: on the same boat basically, and they resided here in
Speaker 1: San Diego and Poway, and my family went to San
Speaker 1: Fernando Valley and there's a little pocket there that we
Speaker 1: were Dutch indows.
Speaker 2: Huh. Your mom also worked for an airlines. So during
Speaker 2: this time were you traveling a lot? Were you seeing
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, we would go quite a bit. She worked
Speaker 1: for KALM, which is the Dutch airlines. She was a
Speaker 1: lounge attendant, so she ran the lounge for KALM, and
Speaker 1: I believe, I mean, we would go even before she
Speaker 1: became a lounge attendant. We would always spend summers and
Speaker 1: chriss during that time. So I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: my time in Holland. I believe Dutch was my first
Speaker 1: language growing up. Really, Yeah, because we that's all we
Speaker 1: spoke in the house and my you spoke Dutch, just Dutch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's always our secret language. You know, there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of duchies out there. And uh, you could talk.
Speaker 1: You can talk shit about somebody in the in the
Speaker 1: grocery line until they turned around and then and they
Speaker 1: looked at you and they were Dutch too.
Speaker 2: They were touched too. You started performing at the age
Speaker 2: of five, Yeah, probably. What are you doing at five?
Speaker 2: Are you doing commercials? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Modeling, Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, my mother had
Speaker 1: a friend who was a print model. You know, back
Speaker 1: back in those days you do with them for Seers
Speaker 1: or may Company or Mervins, and it's that typical story
Speaker 1: of of somebody going to your kid's cute.
Speaker 2: And that's a typical story. But only in Los Angeles
Speaker 2: anywhere else well or.
Speaker 1: No, But I think that happens everywhere, right, because I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're in the if you're in the you know
Speaker 1: they call them fly over states. I mean, you have
Speaker 1: a cute kid, you start doing local trend work, right,
Speaker 1: you just go, Oh, your kid's cute. They should be
Speaker 1: in front of the camera. And then people tell you that,
Speaker 1: and then as a kid, you're like, yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to be in front of a camera, you see. I
Speaker 1: mean at that time, I think my Annie had come
Speaker 1: out and I'm like, wow, there's a there's a kid
Speaker 1: on the screen. That's pretty cool. Eight is enough. I
Speaker 1: think it was around my time. Yeah, happy days, you know,
Speaker 1: so you're seeing all these things. It just happened that
Speaker 1: way where you should I'll introduce you to my agent,
Speaker 1: you should do print work. It just turned into you know,
Speaker 1: like an after school kind of fun thing, like we
Speaker 1: do with our kids, with soccer, baseball, and then I
Speaker 1: just kept progressing.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the first time you're in front of
Speaker 2: the camera.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I have I have really bad memories.
Speaker 1: Uh sorry, not bad memories. I have a bad grasp
Speaker 1: of my memory of that time. I was very much
Speaker 1: into sports and motocross and probably hit my head one
Speaker 1: too many times. It is, there's a there's a lot
Speaker 1: of moments of my life that I've that are just
Speaker 1: not there. But I have little little things come up,
Speaker 1: like print work, you know, the flashes you know from
Speaker 1: from that and standing there and doing different poses, and
Speaker 1: you know, people telling you what to do. Commercials. That
Speaker 1: was the next progression, was going from print to commercials,
Speaker 1: and I remember being on set for some of those.
Speaker 1: I remember one that I that I got hired to
Speaker 1: do and then I got fired. When I got there,
Speaker 1: my consolation prize was just it was for Whammo. So
Speaker 1: I got a big box of Whammo toys. Uh, that
Speaker 1: was my consolation. Also, the guy who basically replaced me
Speaker 1: was Paul Walker, and wow, yeah, Paul, Paul and I
Speaker 1: would Paul and I would again. During that time, you know,
Speaker 1: I grew up with Alfonso Roberto, I grew up with
Speaker 1: Paul Walker. I grew up with later on. You know,
Speaker 1: you would see like Toby Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. They were a little bit younger than me,
Speaker 1: but there was always a group of us that would
Speaker 1: see each other for every audition. You know. It was
Speaker 1: kind of like that your baseball team. You were just like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: you know, and you'd you'd compete against them, and I'd
Speaker 1: say Paul would always beat me because he was like
Speaker 1: the quintessential sort of California kid, you know, the hair,
Speaker 1: the blonde hair and the blue eyes, and he was
Speaker 1: he was just he was Paul Walker.
Speaker 2: Right right. I It's always fascinating to me because you know,
Speaker 2: my journey in was so different for me. It was
Speaker 2: about theater. It was sort of an activity that that,
Speaker 2: but that that professional side of it for me truly.
Speaker 2: I mean this wasn't in my consciousness till after college
Speaker 2: and what I wanted to be was an actor. But
Speaker 2: that business side, that working with professionals, that rejection, that
Speaker 2: getting hot, you know, getting a box of toys like
Speaker 2: that wasn't a part of it for me. I mean, sure,
Speaker 2: I would audition for a role and maybe I wouldn't
Speaker 2: get the role I wanted or whatever. But you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't about money first off, and it wasn't about
Speaker 2: a business. It wasn't about a business. And so I'm
Speaker 2: always fascinated to talk to people who, like you, started
Speaker 2: way earlier, like on the business side. Now, was there
Speaker 2: a moment you talk about it being just like our
Speaker 2: kids playing soccer or whatever else. You're making money, but
Speaker 2: it's an activity. It's something you're doing and you're seeing friends,
Speaker 2: or you're working with people and meeting other kids or whatever.
Speaker 2: Is there a moment for you where you go, this
Speaker 2: is what I want to do.
Speaker 1: That came way later. That came probably after Saved by
Speaker 1: the Bell actually way later. For me. It was never
Speaker 1: about the money. I was having fun. There were times,
Speaker 1: I mean my mom pushed me. I'm not you know,
Speaker 1: I think she. I have to push my son to
Speaker 1: play baseball sometimes, and he loves baseball. That's what he
Speaker 1: wants to be. He wants to be a baseball player.
Speaker 1: Yet I still have to tell him, you know, we
Speaker 1: got to go to practice and he's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: want you know, he wants to hang out with his
Speaker 1: friends or play Xbox whatever. So you know, my mom
Speaker 1: had to push me at times. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of I'd say the biggest negative through that initial process
Speaker 1: before saved by the Bell and I think I got
Speaker 1: saved by the bell and I was twelve, Miss Bliss,
Speaker 1: and then it went on. The biggest negative was the rejection. Right,
Speaker 1: so you talk about going in for auditions, and for
Speaker 1: people who aren't in the business, going in for an
Speaker 1: audition is a job interview. You go in, you sell yourself,
Speaker 1: you show your resume, you show what you can do,
Speaker 1: you tell them why you're the right person for this job,
Speaker 1: and you don't I'd say ninety percent of the time,
Speaker 1: even more, you don't get the job. And as a child,
Speaker 1: that was the biggest negative, you know, trying to explain
Speaker 1: to your kid, they don't like the way you look,
Speaker 1: You shit the bed on your dialogue, you were terrible,
Speaker 1: you're a bad actor. There's a whole plethora of things
Speaker 1: like why you know, and some of it are completely
Speaker 1: out of your control. They just they just went a
Speaker 1: different direction. Trying to process that as a child is
Speaker 1: probably that was the biggest negative and probably the biggest
Speaker 1: hurdle to get over because it's just not easy. You know,
Speaker 1: it's competitive. I took it as exactly what I said
Speaker 1: was I was going in to compete against my peers,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to win this job. So that first
Speaker 1: time that I was replaced by Paul Walker, that really hurt.
Speaker 1: I mean trying to understand you were replaced, you got
Speaker 1: the job, and then another kid comes in and takes
Speaker 1: your place. I could not process that. And I'm a
Speaker 1: very competitive person. It's the reason you and I don't
Speaker 1: play golf together is because I don't want to play
Speaker 1: bad poorly. I can't do things just for the sake
Speaker 1: of doing things like I have to. I have to
Speaker 1: be good at something otherwise I just I'll do it.
Speaker 1: But I'm doing it by myself and no one's watching.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a masturbation, Joe. Yeah, yeah, I said.
Speaker 1: But the thing with you know, I didn't take it
Speaker 1: as a business. I understood the importance of what we
Speaker 1: did as as as a child like I remember walking
Speaker 1: on to the stage of Save by the Bell and
Speaker 1: one of our directors, Don Barnhart, who directed the majority
Speaker 1: of them, said, the minute you open this door and
Speaker 1: walk on this stage, you are no longer a twelve
Speaker 1: year old. You are an adult. This is a business.
Speaker 1: You have to treat it like one. I was fully
Speaker 1: aware of that. I didn't need to have that conversation,
Speaker 1: and I think he was just you know, reiterating that
Speaker 1: and just making sure that I understood it. But I
Speaker 1: knew the importance of the business, never under did the
Speaker 1: money aspect of it, which you know, I mean, looking
Speaker 1: back in hindsight, that's something I wish I'd probably taken
Speaker 1: more interest in. But we had nice things. We had
Speaker 1: a you know, nice cars, and we lived in a
Speaker 1: nice area. We were very middle class. And yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: sure what I did for a living sort of paid
Speaker 1: for some of that stuff. It just happens, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: you see these stories. I was part of that story.
Speaker 1: It's just I think because I didn't want and also
Speaker 1: I was doing it just because I liked it and
Speaker 1: not because I wanted to be famous, and not because
Speaker 1: I had some goal. It wasn't until after Saved by
Speaker 1: the Bell that I said, oh, I guess this is
Speaker 1: my career, that this is what I should be doing,
Speaker 1: and I'm in a position to continue and making a
Speaker 1: lot of money, might as well keep going.
Speaker 2: You just mentioned you made some bad deals. You've said
Speaker 2: it before on that show and despite all of its
Speaker 2: success and it making you America's sweetheart, like for the
Speaker 2: entirety of your life, you don't see a ton of
Speaker 2: residuals from that franchise. Does your experience specifically, And we
Speaker 2: don't have to go too deep onto this, but did
Speaker 2: this color your take on this recent strike?
Speaker 1: Uh? No, there were other things about the recent strike
Speaker 1: that I was more concerned with. Ai, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's a big one. Yeah, the wages and also just
Speaker 1: relocation fee is a big thing for me. We currently
Speaker 1: film our show in Atlanta, and the way they get
Speaker 1: around you know, these incentives and local hires is it's
Speaker 1: a joke. It's a joke. So there were other things.
Speaker 1: But for me, the merchandise was was just poorly handled
Speaker 1: by my representation At the time. There just wasn't any
Speaker 1: precedent for a Saturday morning show with with you know,
Speaker 1: live live audience and no one. We never thought the
Speaker 1: show was going to be the success it is today.
Speaker 1: It was a small success. Back then. There was there
Speaker 1: was no metrics that we could rely on like social
Speaker 1: media now right that you could say, oh boy, there's
Speaker 1: a whole audience out there that that follows us. The
Speaker 1: only way we would ever gauge how successful things were
Speaker 1: going is if we did a mall tour. We go
Speaker 1: to Mall of America and there'd be a line of
Speaker 1: two thousand people waiting to get your autograph. It's it's
Speaker 1: no different than these fan fests.
Speaker 2: That we do right, right, right, and you're going, Wow.
Speaker 1: People actually are watching, are watching? This is insane.
Speaker 2: You and I are about the same age. I didn't
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't do a check. But we're we're close.
Speaker 2: I think you're probably ten years older, but.
Speaker 1: I'm actually going to turn fifty next year.
Speaker 2: Brian, congratulations, welcome to the club. A lot of people
Speaker 2: don't know. You mentioned it briefly. Saved by the Bell
Speaker 2: started as well in a way Good Morning Miss Bliss.
Speaker 2: You played Zach Morris. It lasted one season, and you know,
Speaker 2: I had several actually long conversations both on the podcast
Speaker 2: and not with Kevin Riley, who was our savior at
Speaker 2: NBC once he became chairman and kept the office on
Speaker 2: the air. He was at least a big part of
Speaker 2: the decision to change up Good Morning, Miss Bliss launch
Speaker 2: it into reimagine it and launch it into this new show,
Speaker 2: Saved by the Bell playing on Saturday mornings in front
Speaker 2: of a live audience. Were no cartoon owns anymore, and
Speaker 2: to try to hit this tweener audience that had sort
Speaker 2: of you know, or the idea being, we've graduated from
Speaker 2: Tom and Jerry and Sylvester the Cat whatever it is,
Speaker 2: and now we're going to watch something that's more about
Speaker 2: kids our age. So, first off, do you remember auditioning.
Speaker 2: You're auditioning for a ton of shows at this time.
Speaker 2: You've done shows like The Twilight Zone and Wonder Years,
Speaker 2: a Punky Brewster and blah blah blah. Do you remember
Speaker 2: the audition for Good Morning, Miss Bliss.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I actually had spent this summer at a Marine
Speaker 1: Military academy camp in Harlingen, Texas. I wanted to go
Speaker 1: to high school. I wanted to be a Marine. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be a Marine to play football. So I
Speaker 1: went to this camp to go through the initiation process
Speaker 1: of being accepted to this school in South Texas. I
Speaker 1: came back my hair was buzzed, for the lack of
Speaker 1: a better turn. The boot camp to get into this thing,
Speaker 1: and I started growing out. My mom put in highlights,
Speaker 1: blonde highlights and stuff like that. So there's the the
Speaker 1: sort of over the top blondish hair go in for
Speaker 1: the audition. I don't remember my process, but I do
Speaker 1: remember going in and seeing Dustin Diamond really, you know,
Speaker 1: reading the script and knowing what screech he was seeing
Speaker 1: Dustin Diamond, and I just went, Yep, that's the kid
Speaker 1: that he's going to get this. He's not going out
Speaker 1: for Zach Morris, so I'm good there. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: do remember seeing him. I don't remember much about Say
Speaker 1: By the I mean Miss Bliss, other than Hayley Mills
Speaker 1: was very nice and Dennis Haskins and the rest of
Speaker 1: the cast. I do remember where I was and where
Speaker 1: I read the script for say by the Bell. So
Speaker 1: again we do Miss Bliss and it moves on, and
Speaker 1: then you know, we get a call from Peter Ingle,
Speaker 1: who was the creator said by the Bell and basically
Speaker 1: says I'm going to spin it off and wanted me
Speaker 1: to read the script. I lived in this three bedroom
Speaker 1: house actually was like a two bedroom, but my bedroom
Speaker 1: was sort of this open area that we had, like
Speaker 1: one of those partitions that blocked it off. So there
Speaker 1: wasn't like a quiet area for me to read it.
Speaker 1: So I went into the bathroom, the powder room, and
Speaker 1: I read the Save by the Bell script in the
Speaker 1: powder room and I remember reading it and it opens
Speaker 1: up with Zach Morris and he's talking to the camera
Speaker 1: and I just I was, wow, this is a mate.
Speaker 1: I'm Ferris Bueller. I get to do what Ferris Bueller did.
Speaker 1: And that's all I can remember was this is exactly
Speaker 1: like I. That was my favorite movie growing up, right.
Speaker 1: I was like, I just and the character Ferris and
Speaker 1: his friend and Sloan and oh, I'm like, this is
Speaker 1: I get to do this? And between Miss Bliss, I
Speaker 1: think and Saved by the Bell, I had just done
Speaker 1: a film with Alan Arkin. His wife had written a
Speaker 1: book he I believe. I don't know sure if Alan
Speaker 1: directed or if she directed it, but anyway, it was
Speaker 1: a family movie and we shot it and I lived
Speaker 1: with Alan for about a month while we were shooting it,
Speaker 1: and I became really good friends with Alan Arkin, and
Speaker 1: he was a mentor. And I read the script and
Speaker 1: I called Alan next day and I said, Alan, I'm
Speaker 1: I've just been offered to do this sitcom and he
Speaker 1: is don't do it. And I was like, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: you don't understand. It's it's a sitcom. I get to
Speaker 1: play this Character's like, don't, don't, don't, don't do a sitcom.
Speaker 1: You're you're you're gonna do film. You're gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: Just trust me. You just want to stay on this
Speaker 1: path that you're going You did, you did that, Keep
Speaker 1: doing film. You're gonna be You're gonna be fine. And
Speaker 1: I obviously didn't listen to him. I I didn't understand
Speaker 1: what he was talking about. I didn't know that you
Speaker 1: had to make a choice right right, But back then
Speaker 1: there was a definitive line. You either were television actor
Speaker 1: or you were a film actor. You definitely didn't do commercials.
Speaker 1: You didn't do you didn't sing. You could do Broadway,
Speaker 1: you could do theater, but you did not cross the
Speaker 1: lines in television and film. Which now you know, it's great,
Speaker 1: it's amazing for creative people like us because we can
Speaker 1: do everything right. But then I understand what Alan was
Speaker 1: saying was like, you're going to not typecat, but you're
Speaker 1: going to pigeonhole yourself pigeonhole. Yeah, but that that was
Speaker 1: the thing with to say by the bell was it
Speaker 1: was is that is so crazy?
Speaker 2: You're fifteen?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: Did you feel prepared for a lead role like it?
Speaker 2: Were you nervous at all? Or were you just like
Speaker 2: I'm freaking Ferris Bueller now let's go.
Speaker 1: No. I mean that character was how I perceived the
Speaker 1: people in my school, like the popular people in my school,
Speaker 1: like they they had this swagger they had. It was
Speaker 1: everything I wasn't. I was a very quiet kid. I
Speaker 1: I think if you asked people in my school that
Speaker 1: I went to up in Valencia, California, you know who
Speaker 1: I was. They probably didn't even know I went there.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a jock, although I wanted to be a jock.
Speaker 1: I wasn't, you know, one of the sort of art
Speaker 1: artsy kids, and wasn't a slacker. I kind of just
Speaker 1: went around. I just I had. I didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of friends and and sort of sort of was
Speaker 1: in the shadows a lot because also I was working,
Speaker 1: and so if I worked, I was just away for
Speaker 1: a little bit. But Zach Morris was just I just
Speaker 1: really enjoyed playing him because he was everything I wanted
Speaker 1: to be. Right. I had the cool clothes, he had
Speaker 1: the shoes, he had the phone, he had the girls,
Speaker 1: and it just was it wasn't me at all. Like
Speaker 1: I didn't like being in front of a camera all
Speaker 1: that much. I didn't like rehearsing. I you know, I
Speaker 1: had bad skin at the time, and so I was
Speaker 1: conscious of that. And uh, you know it's like Zach was,
Speaker 1: Yeah everything I want to I wanted to be at
Speaker 1: that at that moment.
Speaker 2: How much school did you go to once that launched?
Speaker 2: And did you feel a change? Nothing?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, I mean, you know, you go to set school.
Speaker 1: I mean we had a great teacher's name was Sydney Sharon.
Speaker 1: He's passed. He was amazing. He was he was a
Speaker 1: great educator. The problem was is that I you know,
Speaker 1: I look at my kids too, and it's like school.
Speaker 1: You know, if I can, if I could be playing
Speaker 1: sports and do other things, sure, school. So I manipulated
Speaker 1: a system. I mean, when you do homeschooling, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a lot of worksheets and things like that.
Speaker 1: And I would I would find the codes for the
Speaker 1: worksheets and just put them in and manipulate my scores
Speaker 1: or whatever. I mean, yeah, we for anybody ELSEO that
Speaker 1: doesn't know the process. You need fifteen hours of school
Speaker 1: per week, and what happens is you start banking time.
Speaker 1: So for us, we would film on a Friday, and
Speaker 1: so Monday through Thursday was probably our biggest amounts of school.
Speaker 1: You would maybe do four hours on Monday and then
Speaker 1: four on Tuesday, and then three and then two and
Speaker 1: then one on Friday. So you just needed to do
Speaker 1: one hour a day was the minimum, but you could
Speaker 1: bank more hours during during the week to total fifteen
Speaker 1: because Fridays were our biggest day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, because you weren't going to school. Once
Speaker 2: this goes, you're not feeling yet. Like I did that.
Speaker 1: I went to I did go to sort of a
Speaker 1: what what they call it a vocational school. I mean
Speaker 1: it's basically a school for either your I mean, you
Speaker 1: just don't have the capacity to go to school, so
Speaker 1: you go to this sort of you know, it was
Speaker 1: it was in these bungalows off to the side of
Speaker 1: the school, or you were a working kid because of
Speaker 1: some reason, like your parent is a stay at home
Speaker 1: for some reason. But I would go there. I had
Speaker 1: normal friends, I you know, I hung out with the
Speaker 1: neighborhood guys, and no one seemed to care. It's it's
Speaker 1: really weird, Like I don't have this thing of oh,
Speaker 1: walking into a room and everyone going, hey, that's a
Speaker 1: guy on it just I yeah, it didn't. I never
Speaker 1: had that. So I walked around for you know, my
Speaker 1: childhood is is just feeling like, oh, I have a
Speaker 1: job and I come back and I'm just the guy
Speaker 1: that lives on that street and you know, goes to
Speaker 1: school there. And it was no different.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating. Unless you went to a mall, unless you
Speaker 2: went to a signing, unless it was like here's Zach
Speaker 2: Morris's correct.
Speaker 1: A specific event that I would go to. Then it
Speaker 1: was oh, you know, but other than that, because again
Speaker 1: I didn't have blonde hair when I wasn't sure, when
Speaker 1: I wasn't working.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny, you know, like this experiment that happens.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean it's so genius in a way, right,
Speaker 2: Like how do we keep people watching the network? Well,
Speaker 2: they're aging out of these shows. Let's find something else.
Speaker 2: And I think for people of my hour, a little
Speaker 2: bit younger, a little bit older, like which of course
Speaker 2: is totally different. Now it's YouTube and YouTube kids and
Speaker 2: stream whatever show they want to stream. But at that
Speaker 2: time you had grown up with, before soccer, before baseball.
Speaker 2: Whatever happens, Mom and dad are sleeping off a bender
Speaker 2: or whatever, and you're gonna get up and watch Saturday
Speaker 2: Morning cartoons and everybody is watching exactly the same thing
Speaker 2: at exactly the same time. And suddenly here are people,
Speaker 2: meaning you, who are our age that we're now seeing
Speaker 2: on TV. Sort of this, I mean, I didn't even
Speaker 2: want to This is such a weird parallel. But it
Speaker 2: is like the office, like in a way where you're
Speaker 2: like seeing an experience that you have that you can
Speaker 2: connect with on some level. Right, you work in an
Speaker 2: office or you go to school, and you see this dynamic,
Speaker 2: you feel the relationship dynamic, the love dynamics, the friend dynamics.
Speaker 2: Here's a model, here's a I can't think of the
Speaker 2: word of, Like this is the popular guy, and here's
Speaker 2: the but everybody's friends and everybody gets along, like there's
Speaker 2: nobody who doesn't know that show from that that grew
Speaker 2: up in that timeframe. Right, do you feel that? Do
Speaker 2: you experience you? Obviously you do. It's a stupid question.
Speaker 2: You must feel that.
Speaker 1: I Mom, you talk about a person that didn't grow up.
Speaker 1: My wife My wife never watched the show. No, she didn't. No,
Speaker 1: never watch the show. Yeah, as she grew up in
Speaker 1: England until she was twelve and then moved to Montreal
Speaker 1: and she made a way down here. But even while
Speaker 1: she was twelve and in Canada, she didn't watch the show.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's interesting though, Brian, because I look back
Speaker 1: on my career and I've been very fortunate to play
Speaker 1: characters I changed.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: It's it's weird you wouldn't think of me. And I
Speaker 1: don't consider myself a character actor, but I've played characters.
Speaker 1: I I played Zach. Zach was a character. I mean
Speaker 1: I dyed my hair for that every every week. Once
Speaker 1: I finished that, I didn't work for three years. I
Speaker 1: didn't work. We were about two years and it was
Speaker 1: for another NBC movie the Week, remember those things in
Speaker 1: those movie of the Weeks, and auditioned for it. It
Speaker 1: was with Candace Cameron Burret and my hair was was
Speaker 1: it's natural color and people were like, hey, where's the
Speaker 1: blond hair. And then shortly after that, I did some
Speaker 1: other things for Dick Wolf, and then I did NYPD
Speaker 1: Blue and with with with the way I looked in
Speaker 1: that and then you know, I've always been able even
Speaker 1: on television, which does not push in the direction for characters. Right,
Speaker 1: Like when they when they hire Brian Baumbaguner, there's a
Speaker 1: specific they want Brian bar mcguner to play this role
Speaker 1: because they have this vision of you playing this role.
Speaker 1: For me, I've been able. I mean, yeah, I've just
Speaker 1: been able to to not look like the people that
Speaker 1: I play on screen. And so I've lived this life
Speaker 1: where I've tried it one time when I've walked into
Speaker 1: the restaurant and go, yeah, we can't see you. Hey,
Speaker 1: do you know who I am? And they're like nope.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yep, that that worked well, because yeah, why
Speaker 1: would you know who I am? I don't look like you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that I have.
Speaker 2: I have an advantage there, you do, like exactly advantage there? Yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure, I love this conversation and that we're having
Speaker 2: it because see, I am a character actor, right, and
Speaker 2: whether it's you know, I mean people have said it's
Speaker 2: weird to talk about yourself and the third person, but
Speaker 2: like you're so unlike this character that everybody knows you as, right,
Speaker 2: and I play the bad guy or I played that
Speaker 2: this right, But you are. You're exactly right, you are
Speaker 2: a character actor. But you started so young, and so
Speaker 2: the assumption is at that young age, oh, that's that's
Speaker 2: who he is.
Speaker 1: That's who I was.
Speaker 2: Certainly he's not. He's not putting that on. That's he's
Speaker 2: got the blonde hair. He's the cool guy California surfery.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating. We have to move to truly one of
Speaker 2: my favorite shows of all time, and certainly what I
Speaker 2: would put up there with anything at least before this
Speaker 2: sort of what they call the Golden age of television
Speaker 2: recently is I mean, I was an enormous NYPD Blue fan,
Speaker 2: and for me, your work on that show was spectacular.
Speaker 2: Was intense, dark, understated, but playing opposite Dennis Franz and
Speaker 2: simple wits the way that you guys worked together so much.
Speaker 2: And I and I say this with all sincerity and
Speaker 2: not to undermine it, because I'm not the first person
Speaker 2: that has has said that about your work. But you know,
Speaker 2: you had the Caruso years, which sort of started it,
Speaker 2: and then Jimmy Smith sort of became the Jimmy Smith's thing,
Speaker 2: and obviously his his departure from that show became sort
Speaker 2: of a huge iconic television moment. But your work on
Speaker 2: that show for such a long time was spectacular and
Speaker 2: for me, being ignorant and not knowing that you were
Speaker 2: playing a character when you were a kid, for me,
Speaker 2: that launched you for me in my consciousness in an
Speaker 2: entirely different way. And I just remember because right, I mean, Dennis,
Speaker 2: he gets the firework, got he got, he got the
Speaker 2: f But I remember watching that show and just being like,
Speaker 2: you know what heat meaning you is doing was so great.
Speaker 2: Talk to me just a little bit about your experience
Speaker 2: on that show and did you feel that in terms
Speaker 2: of the consciousness of America whatever that means, that that
Speaker 2: it was, it was redefining you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for all those kind words. And just
Speaker 1: to be clear, NYPD Blue was a project. I've never
Speaker 1: acted less on that show. I mean, I look at
Speaker 1: my work and and when you're given and you know this,
Speaker 1: when you're given dialogue like that, and by the way, dialogue.
Speaker 1: When I say dialogue like that, I mean that was
Speaker 1: with the Milch era with Stephen Bochco. So Stephen Bochco
Speaker 1: being you know, at the top and sort of controlling
Speaker 1: Milch who could get out of control. But produce some
Speaker 1: his characters, and his words were just poetry. You had
Speaker 1: to say every single word the way it was on
Speaker 1: the page, and you never questioned it, you know, you
Speaker 1: just you just did it. So for me, I just
Speaker 1: I remember Denna said to me, you know, probably the
Speaker 1: first month or so, at some point he says, less
Speaker 1: is more. You need to just give less. Our cameras
Speaker 1: are right in your face. And yeah, I just feel
Speaker 1: like I gave so little in that role. But leading
Speaker 1: up to it, the anxiety that I had walking onto
Speaker 1: that set my journey was that I auditioned for the role.
Speaker 1: I auditioned for a project called Philly. Kim Delaney had
Speaker 1: left NYPD Blue. She went to go to her own show,
Speaker 1: which was Stephen's show, and it was called Philly. I
Speaker 1: don't know if she was a DA or if she
Speaker 1: was a public was a lawyer in Philadelphia, something like that.
Speaker 1: And there was a role a younger, you know, a
Speaker 1: partner of hers or whatever and attorney. And I had
Speaker 1: just finished a film with Tom Evertt Scott and I
Speaker 1: go in for the audition. Again, very competitive, right, You
Speaker 1: want to get everything. You think you're right for everything.
Speaker 1: You have to have that mentality in this business, so
Speaker 1: you have to go in and go I'm right for this,
Speaker 1: even when you know you're absolutely all right.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I remember sitting on the Fox lot. I was in
Speaker 1: the parking lot and I got a message from my
Speaker 1: manager saying, you don't need to go in there to
Speaker 1: offered it to Tom Evert Scott. You know what Tom
Speaker 1: Everts Scott for this role. I go, we're completely different.
Speaker 1: I got this is I'm right for this. Why would
Speaker 1: they offer it to him? Did he go in? Did
Speaker 1: he read? They're like no, it was a straight up offer.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, that's bullshit. I'm I go, I gotta
Speaker 1: I'm going in and they go, well, yeah, okay, just
Speaker 1: go in and meet Steven. And so you know, nothing
Speaker 1: against Tom. It just it doesn't matter who you are.
Speaker 1: I want to beat you. And so I go in
Speaker 1: and Steven's there, and I'd never met Steven, and I'm
Speaker 1: not a business guy. I don't know these people. I'm
Speaker 1: in my late twenties, and but I walk in. I
Speaker 1: see this man, white hair, sol sitting there, tennis shoes on,
Speaker 1: and I don't know the history of you know, an
Speaker 1: NHYPD Blue. I've heard things, you know, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: wasn't my wheelhouse. I go and I do the audition.
Speaker 1: After the audition, he and I know this. I know
Speaker 1: they've already offered this to Tom. And he looks at
Speaker 1: He looks at me, and he goes, you know what,
Speaker 1: You're really good. And I said thank you, sir, and
Speaker 1: he goes, I'd like to work with you someday. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, there it is. I already know that.
Speaker 1: You know they've offered it as a Tom. This is
Speaker 1: a nice way of him saying, you know you didn't
Speaker 1: get the job, son, because I want to work with
Speaker 1: you one of these days. And well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: It was a pleasure. Two weeks later, got a call,
Speaker 1: you know, mister Botchko would like Mark Paul to be
Speaker 1: a part of NYPD Blue. Didn't say the capacity, didn't
Speaker 1: say like I'm thinking oh, And we jumped at it. It
Speaker 1: was during pilot season. You know you're you're jumping at
Speaker 1: things like this. We had heard rumors that Rick Schroeder
Speaker 1: who was going to leave, so in your in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I get to play a beat cop.
Speaker 1: I get to play a uniform, right, And that's all
Speaker 1: it was. Was would he be interested. Of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: we jump on it. Then to come to find out
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna be Sip what's his partner? Are you
Speaker 1: kidding me? I mean I auditioned for Philly. I never
Speaker 1: played a cop, so he doesn't see me as I'm
Speaker 1: playing in New York Detective Like, it doesn't make any
Speaker 1: sense to me, Like, I'm like, what is this a joke?
Speaker 1: Like why are you putting me in this position? I
Speaker 1: haven't done anything to warrant this position. And at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, the internet's kind of going around. I believe
Speaker 1: there was a critic named Alan Steppenwall that had a
Speaker 1: blog about, you know, because people were passionate about NYPD Blue.
Speaker 1: I mean, oh yeah, right, it's like the Office. It's
Speaker 1: it's I mean, people the rabbit about things. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you say, not only am I going to
Speaker 1: bring in a child actor once, I'm going to do
Speaker 1: it again the guy who played you know, Silver Spoons,
Speaker 1: and now the guy who played Zach Morris on on
Speaker 1: Save by the Bells coming in to play Sip what's
Speaker 1: his partner? I happened to read a lot of the
Speaker 1: blogs that were going on, or a lot of the
Speaker 1: posts and it was not pretty, and I just had
Speaker 1: so much anxiety to walk on that set. The first
Speaker 1: time I met Dennis was at a you know, before
Speaker 1: the season, you do the photo shoot and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is, but they do this
Speaker 1: every season for shows, where you come in and you
Speaker 1: you take these photos and you do these like, you know,
Speaker 1: little bumpers and teasers and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Whirls, yeah, put it. They put it where they are
Speaker 2: about to go to commercial or yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and so that's where I met Dennis.
Speaker 1: And I remember him walking on the some lot and
Speaker 1: I see him walking towards me. And of course, before then,
Speaker 1: I wasn't a fan. I never saw an episode of
Speaker 1: NYPD Blue. So before that I'm watching the show religiously.
Speaker 1: I'm like getting as much information as it possibly can.
Speaker 1: And so I'm seeing this man's work and like, this
Speaker 1: guy's a beast, right, I mean, he's he is the
Speaker 1: real deal. Nine times nominated for an Emmy, four times
Speaker 1: he wins. I mean, this is an actor. I don't
Speaker 1: consider myself an actor at this point. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't consider what I'm doing. I'm just like it's like
Speaker 1: we I'm having fun, you know that trying to make
Speaker 1: a living. I see him walking up to me and
Speaker 1: there's sipoets, you know, this sort of being, you know,
Speaker 1: and he just has his arms outstretched and he just
Speaker 1: gives me the biggest bear hug you can possibly imagine,
Speaker 1: and he just says, welcome to our family. I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to work with you. I can't wait. And I
Speaker 1: was like wow. And that was Dennis from the very
Speaker 1: beginning until the very end, just the most lovable guy
Speaker 1: you would ever want to be on cameras with, or
Speaker 1: or or you know, in a casual situation. His work ethic,
Speaker 1: approached his work with the same sort of intensity and excitement,
Speaker 1: you know when when he got his dialogue and how
Speaker 1: he went to his approach and knowing his dialogue, and
Speaker 1: I learned so much in those four years that that
Speaker 1: was the he shaped me. And and that process with
Speaker 1: Stephen Boschko who became a mentor as well, and everyone
Speaker 1: on that Mark Tinker, Bill Clark, that was a moment
Speaker 1: in my journey that I will never forget. And I'm
Speaker 1: so thankful that I had that, because you're right, that
Speaker 1: was the start of my adult career. That I think
Speaker 1: that's that's not even I don't want to say adult career.
Speaker 1: That was the start of my career really of understanding
Speaker 1: you know, what I was doing and and and the
Speaker 1: impact you could have, and yeah, just just working with
Speaker 1: the best it was.
Speaker 2: It was amazing, you know the office, particularly as you know,
Speaker 2: by the way we were we were not a Saturday
Speaker 2: morning show, and we were shooting sixty plus hours a week.
Speaker 2: Don't cry for us. We were doing thirty episodes a
Speaker 2: year some seasons.
Speaker 1: Wow, Andy, how many days would it take to film
Speaker 1: one episode?
Speaker 2: Five?
Speaker 1: But you guys were a single camera, right, say it
Speaker 1: was a single camera, so it was five okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so like twelve to fourteen a day. You know,
Speaker 2: by the end of this these seasons, when you get
Speaker 2: into episodes twenty two to twenty six, sometimes the scripts
Speaker 2: come a little bit late.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: It is famous as genius as the writers in milch Is.
Speaker 2: You guys would get scripts very late at times. Yet
Speaker 2: as you said, now, we could mess with the words
Speaker 2: a little bit, and we could mess with the timings,
Speaker 2: but you guys could not. How difficult was that or
Speaker 2: did you just consider it a challenge, a exciting challenge, a.
Speaker 1: Well, so I was fortunate and unfortunate because I would
Speaker 1: have loved to work with Milch left the year before
Speaker 1: I So I came on. Yeah, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: but it was a it was a thing that I
Speaker 1: came on, uh, season nine, because it was going to
Speaker 1: be the last season we ended up. It was, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like nine, that's it, Milch is leaving. Milch
Speaker 1: went on to do something else for ABC. They were
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, nine, and you know, it just it
Speaker 1: just the show became very expensive to shoot and licensing fee,
Speaker 1: you know how th stuff works. And they were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll just we got a we got we got to
Speaker 1: season twelve. Milch was kind of there, but not writing
Speaker 1: the script, so the process became much more refined. They
Speaker 1: didn't have to rely on Milch. It's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I believe that I think I don't I hate talking,
Speaker 1: you know, putting words in his mouth, but I believe
Speaker 1: that's why Smith's left was because of that process of it.
Speaker 1: He just couldn't take it with With Milch. They had
Speaker 1: pagers on like they would come on set, they would
Speaker 1: rehearse something, which you know, they had words and pages,
Speaker 1: and then they would rehearse it. Milt should see it
Speaker 1: and say nope, everybody'd leave, I got to rewrite this.
Speaker 1: They would all have pages on them. They would just
Speaker 1: be out and about and then they would get a
Speaker 1: call saying, you know, come back in, and they would
Speaker 1: do something again, and or they'd film an entire scene
Speaker 1: and spend you know, three four hours on it, and
Speaker 1: Milt would see it and go, nope, I gotta we're
Speaker 1: gonna redo this, and so.
Speaker 2: You but it wasn't quite like that.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, when I came on, it was a
Speaker 1: well oiled machine. It was like that the year before
Speaker 1: with with Schroeder, and then Schroeder left and Milch left,
Speaker 1: and then when I came on, Botch go really, you know,
Speaker 1: clamp down on that, and was very it was. It
Speaker 1: was a very yeah. And I was always told and
Speaker 1: and you know, Dennis, Dennis was okay with that. Dennis
Speaker 1: being a theater actor, you know, he was able to
Speaker 1: to you know, take the pages and process it and
Speaker 1: get it out there. But there's some certain actors I
Speaker 1: can't do that. I completely understand. I actually would have
Speaker 1: been fine with it because coming from sort of that
Speaker 1: sitcom you know, where you're you're given lines alts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well you got four years out of
Speaker 2: it and finished finished it up. Talk to me a little,
Speaker 2: just a little about when it ended. How difficult was
Speaker 2: that to you? I know that myself as well as
Speaker 2: much of the television viewers in America, there were not
Speaker 2: dry eyes in people's houses. How difficult was that for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I I it was. It was terrible. I mean
Speaker 1: I feel like we could have continued with that show.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't really know why. I think, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a point where it's completely out of our control, but
Speaker 1: there's you know, people that are above us that just
Speaker 1: decided to move on with things. I would have liked
Speaker 1: that show to continue. I'm not sure if Dennis was done,
Speaker 1: but if that was the reason. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of speculation that the show could not survive with without Dennis,
Speaker 1: and there's some truth to that. I think for me,
Speaker 1: I felt that way. Looking at it now, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe we could, you know, maybe you
Speaker 1: could do it. I mean you see how Low and
Speaker 1: Order has has reinvented itself over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: But that's not the show that NYPD blue was. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: I mean, at its core, I guess it's a procedural,
Speaker 1: but it was so much more than that.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Yes, the relationships and character building and
Speaker 2: the rawness. Yeah, and weird. I mean, it's funny. I
Speaker 2: was such a huge fan of that. That shaky camera.
Speaker 2: That got a whole lot of press. However, many years
Speaker 2: later for a comedy, our shaky camera got a lot,
Speaker 2: got a lot of press when we started out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's uh, it's funny how that stuff works.
Speaker 1: We we were so the way they filmed that too,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's it's shaped how I direct
Speaker 1: and understand how to direct. Mark Tinker directed the majority
Speaker 1: of our shows, and he was an executive producer as well.
Speaker 1: And that style and how Tinker would sort of edit
Speaker 1: in his mind while he was shooting. He would be
Speaker 1: looking at the screens and we'd have like three cameras going,
Speaker 1: and he would sit there with a microphone, and each
Speaker 1: of the camera operators and the focus pullers would have
Speaker 1: earbuds in and he would you know, say dirty words
Speaker 1: to them in their ears as we're filming. But also
Speaker 1: he would basically tell them going closer, pull out, you know,
Speaker 1: go to go to Dennis, go to Henry, you know,
Speaker 1: so he was editing while he was filming, and that
Speaker 1: that's why you would get those camera swings and zoom
Speaker 1: ins and and things like that. So it was a
Speaker 1: really cool process. And I think I haven't worked with
Speaker 1: Tinkers since, but I do believe he incorporates that into
Speaker 1: shows that he is either show running or directing. It's
Speaker 1: just a really cool way of getting what you want
Speaker 1: and being really efficient. And I think his record was
Speaker 1: filming an episode of NYPD Blue, a full episode in
Speaker 1: under six days. That's insane because it became that way.
Speaker 1: You know, it's towards the end of the run. You're
Speaker 1: like trying to challenge yourself as a director as well. Right,
Speaker 1: you've done twelve seasons of this, so you know, trying
Speaker 1: to trying to be as efficient as possible. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Although I will say, you know that moving camera is helpful.
Speaker 1: It is what I but not only efficiency, but for acting.
Speaker 1: I really love when you know, it's like being in
Speaker 1: theater right, like you're on you think you're in the background,
Speaker 1: and I and NYPD Blue and same with the office
Speaker 1: would do that, like it pulls focus to the rear
Speaker 1: of a reaction that you give. I love that that style,
Speaker 1: and as an actor, you don't get bored, right, You're not.
Speaker 1: Oh it's it's Steve's you know coverage. I I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna sit here and just give him kind of of
Speaker 1: what I would do.
Speaker 2: You'll get caught for sure. Yeah. I could talk to
Speaker 2: you about all this all day, but uh, you you
Speaker 2: have such an amazing mix after your career starts comedy drama,
Speaker 2: Franklin and Bash, raising the bar, Truth be told, pitch
Speaker 2: down here in San Diego. The passage, by the way,
Speaker 2: mixed dish. I don't even know if it's fair to
Speaker 2: say I was up for I don't remember. I think
Speaker 2: you and I are like, there are details that go away.
Speaker 2: Your best friend, I don't even remember who got it,
Speaker 2: And I went to and I don't remember the character's name,
Speaker 2: and I went to when I was going to talk
Speaker 2: to you, I went to research this and I was like,
Speaker 2: what was it? Gary Cole? And then I was like, no,
Speaker 2: that was that was older. It was your best friend.
Speaker 2: That's all I remember. Yeah, and I'm sure the actor
Speaker 2: was spectacular, but would have been it would have been
Speaker 2: better for you.
Speaker 1: You were too expensive. You seriously, I'm telling you that
Speaker 1: it really comes down to the because and I forgive
Speaker 1: me the minute I do. The minute I'm done with something,
Speaker 1: even a day's worth of work, I tend to forget,
Speaker 1: like it's just I have to That's this is the
Speaker 1: way my brain works. I have to process other things,
Speaker 1: and I don't have the capacity. Uh. But the actor
Speaker 1: I remember, I see his face. I don't know his name.
Speaker 1: He was really good, completely like you and him are
Speaker 1: not alike. I do remember them going out for names,
Speaker 1: and I consider you obviously a name, but I know
Speaker 1: that there wasn't any money in it. You know, there's
Speaker 1: so many other things. You can't make me feel better now.
Speaker 1: I don't feel bad still, but that would have been
Speaker 1: a lot of fun to work with you. And I've
Speaker 1: now seen and remembering what the kind of character was,
Speaker 1: that would have been a lot of fun to be
Speaker 1: He was a bit of a slacker, that guy.
Speaker 2: Like Okay, I don't even remember. Yeah, I don't remember.
Speaker 1: I think I think you know that happens when when
Speaker 1: a project comes up. They always do this, every project,
Speaker 1: they shoot for the moon, right, They're like, we want
Speaker 1: Brian for this, and You're like, Okay, great, Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: go for Brian. And then it settles in of like
Speaker 1: Brian gets this much per episode. You're like, yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: we won't go for Brian. And then you go to
Speaker 1: you know, you go to your next tier and you're like,
Speaker 1: we want them, and then you realize like, oh, they
Speaker 1: live in Europe.
Speaker 2: Oh right right? Comedy drama, you don't care. It's about
Speaker 2: creating a character, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I don't mind. I prefer drama. I think
Speaker 1: comedy is really tough. I struggle with comedy a little
Speaker 1: bit more than I do with drama.
Speaker 2: Your new show, hit show I just read this morning.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was announced a while ago. Season two is
Speaker 2: coming on My mothership. On the mothership NBC new show
Speaker 2: Found so different. Interesting talk about NYPD blue, Like there
Speaker 2: is some depth to this show and issues that are
Speaker 2: being discussed in this show that you don't typically see
Speaker 2: in network television. You are playing not just drama, but
Speaker 2: you your character incredibly dark but so well done as usual.
Speaker 2: How what has your experience been like on Found.
Speaker 1: It's been it's been a challenge that's been rewarded with
Speaker 1: the second season, which is always our intention. I mean,
Speaker 1: I never go into I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: you never go into a project going, I hope it
Speaker 1: only gets one season, you know, pitch truth be told.
Speaker 1: I mean all these projects you go into going, I
Speaker 1: want seven season and I want to retire, you know,
Speaker 1: I just want to I want to get that residual
Speaker 1: money that has been eluded. I didn't get it that
Speaker 1: much on NYPD Blue because I came in late in
Speaker 1: the in the game. Didn't get it on Saved by
Speaker 1: the Bell Franklin Bash. We did forty episodes and four
Speaker 1: years on TNT. I mean, you know nothing, you know
Speaker 1: mixed Dish. I was like, yes, here we go. I'm
Speaker 1: coming on. I'm going to ride these coat tails of Blackish.
Speaker 1: This is it. I'm done. I get to do this show,
Speaker 1: which I love, I like the people. I'm gonna this
Speaker 1: is it. I've made it. First season. We do twenty
Speaker 1: three and I'm like, yes, because I love working. I
Speaker 1: love I love I love the reward.
Speaker 2: I love.
Speaker 1: You know, you worked your ass off, you get paid great,
Speaker 1: and you know you get to take great family vacations.
Speaker 1: What's not to love? So bring it on. Like when
Speaker 1: when they say you know you're gonna do twenty two
Speaker 1: or whatever, the next season on Mixed Ish, we did thirteen,
Speaker 1: so we found we did you know? We started with
Speaker 1: thirteen and now we're going to do twenty two this
Speaker 1: second season, and I'm just so excited. It's a very
Speaker 1: challenging role. It's a role that I haven't played. You know,
Speaker 1: I've played some darker characters, but nothing quite like him.
Speaker 1: The name of the characters Sir Sure and Sir is despicable.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's just a it's a gross He's
Speaker 1: a gross human being with not a lot of redeemable qualities,
Speaker 1: and I don't know that he deserves any redemption. When
Speaker 1: I asked the showrunner and Kidji, you know, I like
Speaker 1: to do research on my roles and understand where the
Speaker 1: writers coming from. And I asked her, I said, you know,
Speaker 1: is there anybody out there that I should model Sir after?
Speaker 1: And she's said probably, out of all the sickos that
Speaker 1: we've had in society, Ted Bundy was the one that
Speaker 1: you should probably base him off of. He was charming,
Speaker 1: he was, you know, decent looking guy. He was able
Speaker 1: to use those two qualities to disarm his victims to
Speaker 1: do some monstrous things. But that was who she wanted sir.
Speaker 1: You know, he was also a very smart man and
Speaker 1: uses intellect to sort of work his way into the
Speaker 1: lives of his victims. So that's who she wanted me
Speaker 1: to emulate. You know, not great people, but the show itself.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're right, it does stand for something that
Speaker 1: is often not approached on network television. I thought when
Speaker 1: I read it pilot season of twenty twenty two, this
Speaker 1: was one of the pilots of that season that was
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people wanted to be a
Speaker 1: part of it was so well written. Sheanola Hampton, was
Speaker 1: already attached her sort of history and pedigree and like
Speaker 1: who she is as a person. Everything was positive and
Speaker 1: you know, she's just she's like one of those Dennis
Speaker 1: Franz people. Right when you meet her, she's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is going to be an absolute treat to work with.
Speaker 1: She's the real deal. She was a producer on the show.
Speaker 1: She had a deal with NBC, so she was already
Speaker 1: attached working with Greg Berlanty. Like as actors, like, you
Speaker 1: see these things and the boxes are being checked and
Speaker 1: you're like, right, it lines up. Doesn't mean it's a
Speaker 1: guarantee for anything. You're still taking a risk with a
Speaker 1: character in this This was a definite risk. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was a character that you could get skewered on.
Speaker 1: But it seemed have worked and NBC loves it and
Speaker 1: I love being with NBC. Still, Mad Day canceled, saved
Speaker 1: by the Bill to reboot. But you know, I can't
Speaker 1: can't win them all. But I was bummed that we
Speaker 1: didn't get more than two seasons out of that. But
Speaker 1: I still, you know, I started my career here and
Speaker 1: hopefully this is the one that ends it. Always looking
Speaker 1: for that. Indeed, I want to start playing golf like you.
Speaker 2: Brian, do you ever have you? Have you? Has there
Speaker 2: been any discussion or have you talked about any similarities
Speaker 2: with obviously not a real monster, but Hannibal Lecter. Has
Speaker 2: there been any conversation on the team or in your
Speaker 2: own mind about that that character.
Speaker 1: I was a huge fan growing up of the Silence
Speaker 1: of the Lambs and some of the sequels as well,
Speaker 1: with Gary Oldman and Rayleota and some great stuff. I
Speaker 1: never proached it from that angle. Yeah, I never really
Speaker 1: approached it from there.
Speaker 2: There are similarities, yeah, And you know I'm attempting to
Speaker 2: not give stuff away I've been watching but an imprisoned
Speaker 2: if you will back, you can give it away.
Speaker 1: I mean we've been giving it away this entire time. Basically,
Speaker 1: I kidnapped a girl when she was sixteen. She escapes.
Speaker 1: Years later, she becomes an advocate to find people who
Speaker 1: are lost and in need of being found but don't
Speaker 1: have the means or funds.
Speaker 2: From marketized communities. Correct, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: And she has a band of she has a team
Speaker 1: that each has a specific role and ability to help
Speaker 1: in that process. You know, pr people, attorneys, ex military,
Speaker 1: and they help find these people that need to be found. She,
Speaker 1: like I said, it's escaped and starts this company. At
Speaker 1: some point she her kidnapper and imprisons him in her
Speaker 1: basement and uses his intellect and knowledge of what he
Speaker 1: would do given the situation of some of these kidnap
Speaker 1: people or you know, their loss, and I guess just
Speaker 1: using his knowledge to help solve the cases. But my
Speaker 1: character and people say, oh, he's doing it for redemption.
Speaker 1: He feels bad that he did it to her, and
Speaker 1: it's like, no, that's not it at all. I don't
Speaker 1: think my character and I've never played it that way
Speaker 1: where he's doing this for to find redemption. He's doing
Speaker 1: it because this is his entire journey with Gabrielle. And
Speaker 1: that's Shanola's character is he just wants to be in
Speaker 1: her company. He wants to be in her presence, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter that he's living in her basement and
Speaker 1: that he's falling ill down there. The fact that he
Speaker 1: just gets to be with her is everything that he
Speaker 1: ever wanted. And then you know he helps with the
Speaker 1: cases because he likes to see her do well, wants
Speaker 1: to see her do well. But yeah, when I think
Speaker 1: about it, like the Signs of the Lambs, like, there's
Speaker 1: nothing sexual about these two characters, even though you think
Speaker 1: because it's a male and female that there is some
Speaker 1: sexual component to it, but there there really isn't and
Speaker 1: it's not on our show. And I never felt that
Speaker 1: way with what the Signs of the Lambs either.
Speaker 2: Right, It's fascinating. It is the kind of show that
Speaker 2: network television should be doing. So I'm so glad even
Speaker 2: with the strike that it well, it's it's gotten, it's
Speaker 2: gotten plenty of attention because of the team assembled, as
Speaker 2: you mentioned, and and and it's good. So congratulations you
Speaker 2: season two back in hot Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'll tell you that's hard. I love Atlanta. I
Speaker 1: love Atlanta. It's I mean it is you filmed the
Speaker 1: Office in Los Angeles, right, Yes, it's tough. You know.
Speaker 1: It's anytime we're away from our family. And I'm am
Speaker 1: like you, We're just family men. You know if I
Speaker 1: consider my off a husband and a father and an
Speaker 1: actor in that order, and so whenever I have to
Speaker 1: be away from my family, it's really hard for me
Speaker 1: going back though. And again, at this point, everybody should
Speaker 1: turn off your however, you're listening to this because I'm
Speaker 1: going to endorse San Diego again and we don't want
Speaker 1: you to move down here. But the airport is amazing
Speaker 1: in San Diego, and yeah that I have to, I
Speaker 1: travel back and forth sometimes twice a week to be home.
Speaker 1: I could never do that in La at Lax. Neither
Speaker 1: what I ever want to. I would, I would, I
Speaker 1: would go out of my mind. But the fact that
Speaker 1: we have such a great airport here, I'm able to
Speaker 1: come back and forth between Atlanta and here.
Speaker 2: Oh, I know that flight very very well. Those flights,
Speaker 2: there's at least a few of them, So that's that's
Speaker 2: also rare.
Speaker 1: MP.
Speaker 2: Thank you so so much for coming on and being
Speaker 2: so candid and talking to me. I found it fascinating,
Speaker 2: and I wish you all of the best. I hope
Speaker 2: that this is the end for you. If you're ready
Speaker 2: for the end, let's make this be the end. Well,
Speaker 2: another seven years from now, another seven years from now,
Speaker 2: it'll be the end.
Speaker 1: But and I say that, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: I say that in jest. I've I've mean, look, I've
Speaker 1: had a long career so far. I'm it would be
Speaker 1: nice for me to In my head, I'm like, wouldn't
Speaker 1: it be nice if I could just say no, Like
Speaker 1: I'm always feeling like I'm still saying yes yeah to
Speaker 1: take things, and you know, get I get antsy, Like
Speaker 1: people say, oh, you constantly work, and I do, but
Speaker 1: that's my choice. Like I actively am out there really
Speaker 1: hustling because you know, we have kids and we have
Speaker 1: a certain lifestyle. We like having them and it's life, right.
Speaker 1: But so I'd love to get to that point where
Speaker 1: you're like, nah, I'm good.
Speaker 2: Nah. I know, well, you're on the road all the time.
Speaker 2: I'm on the road. It's funny because one of my
Speaker 2: producers was just asking me, like thirty minutes before we started,
Speaker 2: like much you guys hang out and I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: always so happy when I see him, but we were
Speaker 2: never here at the same time, and now he's leaving again.
Speaker 2: Well we'll figure it out. We'll go have dinner. I
Speaker 2: wish you all the best and thank you. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for coming on and chatting with me.
Speaker 1: Thanks Brian, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2: So great to talk to you, MPG. And yes, I
Speaker 2: will see you around the neighborhood everybody else. You can
Speaker 2: see him on Found airing Thursdays, my old night on NBC.
Speaker 2: But guess what, with the magic of technology, you can
Speaker 2: stream it any day you want. And I will see
Speaker 2: you next time right here on Off the Beat. Until then,
Speaker 2: have a great week. Off the Beat is hosted and
Speaker 2: executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer
Speaker 2: Lang Lee. Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers
Speaker 2: are Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris, and Emily Carr. Our talent
Speaker 2: producer is Ryan Papa Zachary, and our intern is Ali
Speaker 2: Amir Saheed. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by
Speaker 2: the one and Only Creed Brad