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Speaker 1: When I've done work in Los Angeles and New York,

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Speaker 1: and I've never lived in either of those cities, but

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Speaker 1: I spent a good amount of time in them getting

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Speaker 1: to work. When people found out that I was based

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Speaker 1: in Chicago, they were always kind of gobsmacked. I was like, well,

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Speaker 1: why did they fly your dumbass in here when there's

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Speaker 1: there's so many talented actors here. So there was always

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Speaker 1: like a certain amount of, you know, low key glee

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Speaker 1: that I had kind of beat the odds just by

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Speaker 1: getting a seat at the table from Chicago. But I

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Speaker 1: also felt like a representative of what the city has

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Speaker 1: to offer. Chicago is lousy with incredibly talented actors. Hi,

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Speaker 1: my name is John Hogan Acker, and I'm just a

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Speaker 1: guy doing acting stuff.

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Speaker 2: Hi, everybody, I'm so excited to welcome you all to

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Speaker 2: this week's episode of Off the Beat. I am your host,

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Speaker 2: as always, Brian Baumgartner, and I'm also very excited to

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Speaker 2: announce that the incredible John Hoganacher is joining us today.

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Speaker 2: Just like me, John has an extensive theater background, working

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Speaker 2: on productions like Anthony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and one of

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Speaker 2: my dark dark favorites, Killer Joe. He of course, didn't

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Speaker 2: stop at theater. Since those good old days, he has

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Speaker 2: taken the film and television world by storm, jumping into

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Speaker 2: some very intense and very impressive roles on shows like

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Speaker 2: Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, Dope, Sick, and Waco The Aftermath.

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Speaker 2: Now he is here to go deep into his life

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Speaker 2: and his career from his commercial days. Dilly Dilly, anyone

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Speaker 2: to working on Jack Ryan with some guy named John Krasinski.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if you got I have heard of him.

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Speaker 2: I definitely haven't. All jokes aside, this is a great conversation.

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Speaker 2: So without further idea, John Hoganaker, everybody.

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Speaker 1: Bubble and squeak. I love it.

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Speaker 3: Bubble and squeak. I know, bubble and squeak.

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Speaker 2: I cook, get every mole left over from the night before.

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Speaker 3: What's up, John, hey man?

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Speaker 1: How you doing.

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Speaker 3: I'm great. How are you?

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Speaker 1: I'm good, I'm good.

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Speaker 3: I'm sorry.

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Speaker 1: I'm not wearing the headphones. We tried to figure the

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Speaker 1: whole thing out, and of course it all fell apart.

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Speaker 1: The wheels came off to trolley at the last minute.

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Speaker 1: So here we are.

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Speaker 3: Listen.

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Speaker 2: I know exactly what that's like every every day, every

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Speaker 2: day of my life.

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Speaker 3: It's so nice to talk to you.

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Speaker 2: I really am such a big fan of yours and

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Speaker 2: what you have been doing here man be hanging out. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: we have a lot of things in common. Some are

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Speaker 2: mostly manufactured by me, but we do have a lot

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Speaker 2: in common. You grew up, I understand in the South,

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Speaker 2: right in Charlotte.

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Speaker 1: I sure did. In fact, I'm actually in the South now.

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Speaker 3: Oh, you're right. So you're in the South right now?

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Speaker 3: You live in the South.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: family in the mountains. So I was coming up here

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Speaker 1: a lot as a kid, and we moved back to

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Speaker 1: the Asheville area during the pandemic.

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Speaker 3: Really, yeah, you do you love it? Oh?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, I love it so much. A lot

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Speaker 1: of stuff that I needed to kind of take care of. You,

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Speaker 1: needed to be closer to family, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: I don't know if this is the way you're your

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Speaker 1: experience of this, this job being an actor is but

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Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of stuff for me comes

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Speaker 1: down to taping. Anyway. When I was in Chicago, a

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Speaker 1: lot of the jobs that I was winning or that

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Speaker 1: were filming around the country were from tapes. And you know,

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Speaker 1: when we got deep into the belly of the pandemic,

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Speaker 1: my wife and I were kind of like, I went,

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Speaker 1: let me back up. I went to do Dope sic

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Speaker 1: which filmed in Richmond, and my wife and the kids

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Speaker 1: came out for the month of March and we spent

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Speaker 1: the whole and you know, in the South, it's like

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Speaker 1: the flowers are on the trees in March, it's like

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Speaker 1: spring everything, you know, the birds are singing. And then uh,

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Speaker 1: we finished and she went back home and the same

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Speaker 1: two feet of snow was on the ground that was

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Speaker 1: there when she left in Chicago, and it was, you know,

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Speaker 1: going to be winter for another couple of months. And

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Speaker 1: she smummed about it. And I was like, well, what

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Speaker 1: if we just went ahead? And what if we just

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Speaker 1: went ahead and did it? Made the move? So it has.

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Speaker 1: It's been wonderful, wonderful change of pace. It's a it's

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Speaker 1: a gentler rhythm. I feel like when I travel, like

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Speaker 1: I live in a yoga studio and I take that

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Speaker 1: yoga studio with me. People in New York are like, dude,

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Speaker 1: you're so chill.

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Speaker 3: It is a beautiful area.

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Speaker 2: There's a little town called Greenville, South Carolina, which is

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Speaker 2: not overly far from you, which I had relatives that

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Speaker 2: lived in green I was in Atlanta and I had

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Speaker 2: relatives that lived in Greenville. When I was a kid,

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Speaker 2: Greenville was nothing. I'm just gonna see, I'm just gonna

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Speaker 2: say it straight out. And now it is a booming,

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Speaker 2: mid size, mid city metropolis with great food and places

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Speaker 2: to go and river walks and it's beautiful.

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Speaker 3: It's beautiful.

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Speaker 1: Greenville has that Asheville does not have is a costco.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's the little thing right we want you.

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Speaker 1: I want six worlds of toilet paper. I'm going to Greenville.

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 2: Well, And to finish this off, yet another weird connection.

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Speaker 2: I am lying tomorrow this is this is not a joke,

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Speaker 2: and this was not playing. I am flying tomorrow morning

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Speaker 2: to Chicago. I had several weeks ago been in Wyoming

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Speaker 2: and I was like, we're done with the winter. I

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Speaker 2: packed up all my winter coats, I packed up. I'm like,

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Speaker 2: I'm done with the winter. I'm flying. It's we're in

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Speaker 2: late April here, We're definitively in late April, and I'm

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Speaker 2: flying to Chicago tomorrow. The high is going to be

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Speaker 2: forty on Saturday and Sunday. I can't even believe that

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Speaker 2: this is happening. I mean, I'm gonna have a great time,

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Speaker 2: don't get me wrong, but yes I am.

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Speaker 3: I can't believe it.

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Speaker 1: You're getting on that plane under your own steam, brind

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Speaker 1: So you did it to yourself and no, yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: you know the thing on One of the things that

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Speaker 1: I'm proud of myself for is that I every time

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Speaker 1: the weather's beautiful here in Asheville. I don't take like

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Speaker 1: a screenshot of the weather app and send it to

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Speaker 1: my friends in Chicago, but I fight. That's a daily

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Speaker 1: that's a daily battle that I'm always fighting, right, Yes,

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Speaker 1: you know the dogwood trees are blooming right now, beautiful

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Speaker 1: or so it's going to be like rhododendrons and mountain

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Speaker 1: laurels and yeah, it's just a lovely part of the world.

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Speaker 3: Do you golf?

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know what. I've been a golfer my

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Speaker 1: entire life, but you would not know it.

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Speaker 2: Watching There are great courses. I play a lot of golf.

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Speaker 2: I it's funny when I get homesick for the South.

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Speaker 2: Is the masters being from Georgia, And it's because of

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Speaker 2: what you're talking about it's the azaleas. They got it

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Speaker 2: time perfectly, man, the beginning of April, the azaleas come

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Speaker 2: out the dogwoods and I'm like.

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Speaker 3: Oh, man, yeah, that is that is really beautiful.

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Speaker 2: Enough about weather. Well, so another thing you and I

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Speaker 2: have in common. You did the forensics thing. I state

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Speaker 2: and district champion of I was I I was stay

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Speaker 2: champion there two three four years or something there in Georgia.

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Speaker 2: Is that where you started performing or did you have

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Speaker 2: an interest in it and that's what brought you to that?

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Speaker 3: Well?

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Speaker 1: You know I did. So. My dad did commercials in Charlotte.

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Speaker 1: He was a life insurance and he did you know,

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Speaker 1: voiceover and television commercials, and he was a real like

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Speaker 1: funny guy. He was a life of the party. And

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Speaker 1: you know, so I looked up to him and I

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Speaker 1: wanted to emulate him. So I got in trouble all

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Speaker 1: the time in school. I was a class clown. And

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Speaker 1: when I was in like fifth and sixth grade, I

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Speaker 1: started doing plays at the children's theater in Charlotte, and

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Speaker 1: then I got braces. And I had braces for a

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Speaker 1: few years and my dad was like, well, there's no

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Speaker 1: market for a child with braces, So then around early

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Speaker 1: high school. I think I got into debate around like

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Speaker 1: probably sophomore year, because at that point we still had

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Speaker 1: Junior high, you know, which was through nine and then

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Speaker 1: you had ten through twelve for high school. And my

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Speaker 1: debate coach, I don't know, did you compete in like

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Speaker 1: humorous interp and dramatic intermsmatic? That's right, yes, well cool, yeah,

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Speaker 1: And for the listeners who don't know what Brian and

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Speaker 1: I are talking about, it was like you would basically

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Speaker 1: pick a play or it could be a TV show

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Speaker 1: or it could be a movie. You would do a

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Speaker 1: ten minute cutting and you had to have an introduction

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Speaker 1: somewhere in there. You had to basically keep your feet planted,

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Speaker 1: but you could play all the characters. And I went

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Speaker 1: after Monty Python because I was like, surely everybody wants

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Speaker 1: to hear my rendition.

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Speaker 3: And debate.

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Speaker 1: It's like Monty Python never wins, but knock yourself out, uh,

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Speaker 1: And Monty Python did not win for me. Then I

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Speaker 1: started doing different plays and had a lot of fun

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Speaker 1: with it, and yeah, I got to be it was

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Speaker 1: a state champion two times and I was a district

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Speaker 1: champion two times, so that was a lot of fun.

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Speaker 1: But that kind of strengthened the audition muscle, probably more

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Speaker 1: than anything else, because then, you know, when I was

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Speaker 1: towards the end of high school, kind of on a lark,

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Speaker 1: I auditioned for the theater school at DePaul University, and

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Speaker 1: you know, I didn't even go for Juilliard because it

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Speaker 1: seemed unattainable, was more expensive the audition process, and Chicago seemed,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, it seemed tamer at the time than

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Speaker 1: New York City. I got in, which was very cool.

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Speaker 1: The school was a super intense program. Did you do

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Speaker 1: like a theater conservatory or anything like that for college?

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Speaker 3: I did. I went to SMU in DAWs, Oh.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, solid school.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So the program for us, I don't know. Did you

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Speaker 1: guys have a cut program too? At SMU?

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Speaker 2: You know, there were no cuts, but people cut themselves.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think we started out with fifteen actors

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Speaker 2: and you know, by the end, you know, seven.

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Speaker 3: Or eight, Wow, would make it four years? Yeah, it was.

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Speaker 1: It was the same same percentage that we lost. They

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Speaker 1: brought in seventy some our first year in ninety five.

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Speaker 1: Then they cut half of us after the first year.

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Speaker 1: They cut the remaining after the second year, and then

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Speaker 1: if you made it past the second cut, you were

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Speaker 1: in the casting pool for your junior and senior year. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so so that the NFL thing, the debate, the

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Speaker 1: forensics thing always helped me when it came time to

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Speaker 1: get in front of you know, a team of producers

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Speaker 1: and a director or something kind of walk in and

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Speaker 1: try and own the room, because I've had been doing

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Speaker 1: that in front of fellow teenagers for you know, three

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Speaker 1: or four years, getting a stink guy from competitors.

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Speaker 2: You know, that's interesting. I have never truly, I have

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Speaker 2: never made that connection before. But of course you're right,

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Speaker 2: because that experience with you know, three judges and some

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Speaker 2: other a few other people watching, which does you're exactly right,

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Speaker 2: It does mimic that the audition experienced later on there's

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Speaker 2: three or four judges. Yeah, that's very interesting, John, I'd

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Speaker 2: never really thought about that before. But the advantage for

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Speaker 2: having just done it, whether you've done it well or not,

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Speaker 2: just getting comfortable walking into a small setting. It's much

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Speaker 2: easier to perform I think, in front of a thousand

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Speaker 2: or two thousand people sometimes than those really small rooms.

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Speaker 1: Right, Oh, yeah, absolutely, you've probably done the black blocks

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Speaker 1: theater thing too in your life. Yes, I had a

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Speaker 1: lot of opportunities to do that in Chicago, a lot

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Speaker 1: of great spaces. There's nothing like that live experience. And

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Speaker 1: as we move into the AI age, I think the

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Speaker 1: craziness is it'll be the theater actors at the end

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Speaker 1: of the day who are the only ones. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: the ability to kind of go into a room of

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Speaker 1: people and you're all live being, sharing space and you

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Speaker 1: kind of start to cast a spell that whips everybody up.

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Speaker 1: It's a really really amazing thing to get to be

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Speaker 1: a part of.

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Speaker 2: So you when you go to De Paul, have you

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Speaker 2: decided in your mind that this is what you want

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Speaker 2: to do, that you want to be an actor?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I just was positive that I was going to be.

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Speaker 1: I was going to go to Second City and do

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Speaker 1: the whole thing. I you know, in high school, especially

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Speaker 1: because of the hi thing, I humorous interp the debate thing.

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Speaker 1: I thought I was going to do stand up. And

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Speaker 1: I had a first year acting teacher that I absolutely

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Speaker 1: revered kind of pulled me aside one day and he

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Speaker 1: was like, you know, John, you remind me of Robin Williams,

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Speaker 1: And I was to me that was like nobody could

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Speaker 1: have said a kinder thing to me and then drop

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Speaker 1: the other, which was to him that was not a compliment,

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Speaker 1: and it crushed me. And the school was very very

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Speaker 1: hard for me in that regard. It was like, you know,

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Speaker 1: they always talk about when you joined the Marine Corps,

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Speaker 1: boot camp is about stripping away the individual and turning

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Speaker 1: you into this one thing that doesn't really think. You

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Speaker 1: just complete the mission. You're part of a team. And

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Speaker 1: in a very odd way, that was what going to

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Speaker 1: college to be an actor was for me.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 1: I remember going for the audition and being surrounded by

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Speaker 1: all these kids in leotards doing like vocal warm ups

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Speaker 1: and being like, what the fuck is going? Like, I

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Speaker 1: had no idea. I had no idea. That was why

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Speaker 1: I was sure. I was like, well, I'm not getting

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Speaker 1: in here. So I feel like a lot of my

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Speaker 1: career has been about trying to tap back into some

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Speaker 1: of that fairy dust, you know, that I had in

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Speaker 1: my soul before I came to a theater conservatory.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that even answered your question remotely. No.

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Speaker 3: Well, one, I don't know either.

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Speaker 2: But two, that's very very interesting because I think that

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Speaker 2: you know, I mean, I am tremendously grateful for the

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Speaker 2: experience that I had and the training that I have.

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Speaker 3: But I think that you bring up an interesting.

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Speaker 2: Point, which, by the way, at least at SMU, the

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Speaker 2: teachers talked about, which is you're learning all of these

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Speaker 2: tools and movement and voice and action and objective and

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Speaker 2: all of those things, and then eventually you are supposed

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Speaker 2: to just let it go and go back and have

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Speaker 2: it be a part of your training, but not what

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Speaker 2: you're focusing on. And I think especially young actors get

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Speaker 2: wrapped up in that process as sort of falling in

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Speaker 2: love with the process, which then you know doesn't enable

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Speaker 2: you to perform. Yet you mentioned something you talked about

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Speaker 2: boot camp, and I do want to touch on this

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Speaker 2: because this is well unique and by the way, this

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Speaker 2: is not a place we connect. You spent a bit

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Speaker 2: of time at that Naval Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps.

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Speaker 2: Now one, what is this and how old were you?

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Speaker 2: Was this a potential path for you early on?

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Speaker 1: Man, that was a deep dive, bro, I'm so glad

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Speaker 1: you asked that question. That's really really cool. Yes, it

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Speaker 1: was a potential path for me at one point. So

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Speaker 1: my dad, as I mentioned was selling life insurance. When

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Speaker 1: I was in seventh grade. The group of people that

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Speaker 1: my dad was selling life insurance with dissolved, and to

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Speaker 1: me as a kid, I thought, oh, no, my dad's

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Speaker 1: out of work. I have to secure my own future.

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Speaker 1: And that was, you know, in a way, that was

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Speaker 1: kind of true for a little while. But at Carmel

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Speaker 1: Junior High where I grew up in Charlotte, in your

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Speaker 1: ninth grade year, you could begin in JROTC. In high school,

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Speaker 1: they have JROTC and it can be you know, typically

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Speaker 1: it's Air Force, Army or Navy. So I believe maybe

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Speaker 1: there are some Marine Corps schools. But in the eighth

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Speaker 1: grade year, the master sergeant who was in charge of

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Speaker 1: our ninth grade year would bring in a small group

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Speaker 1: of eighth graders that he would kind of train alongside

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Speaker 1: the ninth graders and then they would become the for

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Speaker 1: lack of a better term, the cadet commanders of that

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Speaker 1: ninth grade year when they became ninth graders. So that

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Speaker 1: was me. I went up to Master Sergeant pageant. This

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Speaker 1: guy wore a smoky and had gotten into the Marine

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Speaker 1: Corps at age seventeen from a very poor background. At

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Speaker 1: Tennessee and parental consent and got to go to Korea

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Speaker 1: as essentially a child. Came back and became a drill

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Speaker 1: instructor at Parris Island, and then became the head of

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Speaker 1: the drill instructor training school at Paras Island. So this

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Speaker 1: guy was like Lee Ermie from Full Metal Jacket.

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Speaker 3: I mean, he was a.

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Speaker 1: Real thing, and he was being a super intense character.

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Speaker 1: I learned so much about how to comport yourself in society,

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Speaker 1: how to be a responsible grown up, how to wear

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Speaker 1: a suit, and about decorum. So I started to discern

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Speaker 1: a path to college for myself. But I was also

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Speaker 1: beginning to see the clicks in high school, and I

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Speaker 1: was seeing the ROTC click and seeing myself as being

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Speaker 1: a part of that clique. And I was beginning to

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Speaker 1: think of it in terms of you know, this is

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Speaker 1: in retrospect, Brian, but it was really a role that

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Speaker 1: I was playing, and I was not ultimately cut out

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Speaker 1: for that. I did not want that to be my life.

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Speaker 1: I was I think I was wise enough at that age,

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Speaker 1: not that I was super wise, but I was wise

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Speaker 1: enough to know that that wasn't I wasn't ready to

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Speaker 1: commit to that for the rest of my life, and

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Speaker 1: I wanted to experience more so halfway through ninth grade,

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Speaker 1: I backed out and got a pair of birkenstocks and

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Speaker 1: here I am.

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Speaker 2: You joined the you joined the click across the cafeteria

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Speaker 2: like that was on the other corner of the cafeteria.

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Speaker 1: I mean to tell you, man, within like a year

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Speaker 1: and a half, my hair was down to here and

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Speaker 1: it was like Kaki Sack every morning. But again, it

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Speaker 1: was like, I'm very glad that I had that experience.

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Speaker 1: It was it's good to kind of feel like you're

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Speaker 1: being a part of something civic minded, especially if it's

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Speaker 1: not to the detriment or to the exclusion of any

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Speaker 1: one group. That's the main thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what, I think that it's you know,

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Speaker 2: I don't have that specific experience, but I think that

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Speaker 2: what you're talking about is so valuable that you have

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Speaker 2: a variety of experiences, go through a variety of different

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Speaker 2: groups if you will, or I mean it sounds like

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Speaker 2: you being civic minded and choosing something of a civic

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Speaker 2: minded that's well a plus to you. But just having

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Speaker 2: that experience to pull from as an actor later on

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Speaker 2: is invaluable. And it never makes sense to me, when

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Speaker 2: you find that click or you decide, oh, I'm you know,

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Speaker 2: a theater kid or whatever too early on, and you,

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Speaker 2: you know, turn your nose up to other experiences or whatever.

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Speaker 2: I think you're doing yourself a disservice for the thing

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Speaker 2: that you ultimately want to do.

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Speaker 1: One hundred percent, Brian, And I think that's what you're

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Speaker 1: to me. What you're saying is really about you need

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Speaker 1: to kind of experience as many different walks of life

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Speaker 1: as you can right on your way to being a

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Speaker 1: well rounded person. And that's what really childhood, ideally and

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Speaker 1: adolescence and young adulthood are all about.

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Speaker 2: You mentioned before you thought Second City was your path,

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Speaker 2: that's what you were going to do. Look looking doing

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Speaker 2: a little dive into your resume, it sounds like that's

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Speaker 2: not exactly what happened as you left to Paul uh

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00:21:29,280 --> 00:21:36,080
Speaker 2: Anthony and Anthony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, The Iceman, Cometh, Tracy Lets,

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Speaker 2: Killer Joe by the Way, which nobody is going to know,

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Speaker 2: or they did make a movie of it.

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Speaker 3: That play blew my mind. So you become.

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Speaker 2: Fairly quickly a working actor in one of the theater

379
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Speaker 2: hotbeds in the country, Chicago, talk to me a little

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Speaker 2: bit about your experience and did you then think that

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Speaker 2: that was your life.

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Speaker 1: I've always dreamed of having a path kind of like

383
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Speaker 1: what I envisioned the like the English actors path to be.

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Speaker 1: They get to have this great theater background and then

385
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Speaker 1: they sort of at some point in their careers they

386
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Speaker 1: graduate into getting to also concurrently do film and television

387
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Speaker 1: and that's so that's on the bucket list too. I

388
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Speaker 1: want to be a detective in western North Carolina.

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Speaker 2: All right, you've come close, by the way, we'll talk

390
00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:36,240
Speaker 2: about that. You've come pretty close, but all right, go ahead.

391
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Speaker 4: No.

392
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Speaker 1: So yeah, that was like the Anthony and Cleopatra was

393
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Speaker 1: an audition that I did when I was still in college,

394
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Speaker 1: and I got to play the role of Skaus, which is,

395
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Speaker 1: you know, like a guard, like not a big role

396
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Speaker 1: at all, but I got to be on stage with

397
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Speaker 1: Larry Yando, Kevin Goodall, Lisa Dodson, Bradley Armacoste, Scott Parkinson,

398
00:22:57,040 --> 00:22:59,840
Speaker 1: and Barbara Gaines was directing These are like luminaries of

399
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Speaker 1: Icago Classical Theater and theater in Chicago, and it was like,

400
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Speaker 1: holy shit.

401
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Speaker 4: Anything can go wrong on this stage in real time

402
00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 4: while we're doing Shakespeare, and one of these geniuses is

403
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 4: just gonna fix it, like we can just pull and

404
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:21,680
Speaker 4: we can ride this, and we're all together and we're

405
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:23,679
Speaker 4: gonna support each other and we'll get.

406
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Speaker 1: To the end. And the crowd, even especially if they

407
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:29,600
Speaker 1: see the fuck ups, they're gonna love it. Well, good banana.

408
00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:34,439
Speaker 1: And it was like I had spent four years learning

409
00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:37,880
Speaker 1: all of this stuff in an institutional environment, but it

410
00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:40,879
Speaker 1: wasn't until I got on stage with these pros that

411
00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 1: it was like my education truly began in earnest. So

412
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:49,359
Speaker 1: that was going on, and then after I mean, I

413
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 1: did that first production, and then in the February of

414
00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 1: two thousand, first year out of college, the production that

415
00:23:57,160 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 1: Mike Shannon had taken to New York with Tracy Lett's

416
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:04,159
Speaker 1: play Killer Joe came back as a four like as

417
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 1: a profit production, and the rules were at that point

418
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 1: that they had to hire two kids in their twenties

419
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:12,159
Speaker 1: under union contract. So I had to join the union

420
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:16,000
Speaker 1: at twenty three years old in Chicago, in a city

421
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Speaker 1: at the time which was lousy with dudes my age

422
00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:22,159
Speaker 1: who were non equity well into their thirties, So it

423
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 1: was like, who the hell do you think you are, man,

424
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Speaker 1: You've graduated college fifteen minutes ago, and now I got

425
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:31,879
Speaker 1: to pick healthcare bucket. I don't think so, But you know,

426
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:34,840
Speaker 1: I was like, when I got that job, it was

427
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 1: like the grittiest theater going on in Chicago, despite the

428
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:41,360
Speaker 1: fact that it was a production coming back from out

429
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:45,440
Speaker 1: of town. And after that, I mean, it was so intense,

430
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 1: Brian that, like, my wife would pick me up after

431
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 1: shows sometimes and she wouldn't know who was getting in

432
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Speaker 1: the car with her. But I was making a living

433
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:59,119
Speaker 1: as a theater actor in Chicago, and I was getting

434
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:02,360
Speaker 1: money into my healthcare, so I knew that the next

435
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:04,159
Speaker 1: year I'd be able to go to the doctor and

436
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 1: do these kinds of things. And I felt like, even

437
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: though it seemed like a gamble because there were so

438
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,080
Speaker 1: many incredibly talented actors my age, it was worth it

439
00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 1: because I knew that this was what I wanted to do.

440
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 3: And then I.

441
00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:20,400
Speaker 1: Survived as a union actor by winning jobs that took

442
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 1: me to other places out of Chicago until I was

443
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 1: old enough to kind of be in the casting pool

444
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:27,879
Speaker 1: in Chicago as a union actor.

445
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 2: Are you at this point are you thinking about film

446
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 2: and television? Where do you see your life heading at

447
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 2: that point.

448
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 1: I guess I had some dim idea that I would

449
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:42,680
Speaker 1: I would be one of the few people who booked

450
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:46,120
Speaker 1: a series regular role in the show that came to Chicago, which,

451
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:49,720
Speaker 1: as you know, that was very rare. Typically when a

452
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:53,239
Speaker 1: big production is coming to a place like Minneapolis or

453
00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:56,880
Speaker 1: to Chicago, it's because they're shooting on location in those

454
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:59,720
Speaker 1: cities and they're as a pretty strong well of talent

455
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 1: local there to pick up the smaller roles, So a

456
00:26:03,280 --> 00:26:06,440
Speaker 1: lot of the bigger, better roles are already cast before

457
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:12,040
Speaker 1: those shows come to Chicago Earth And I began to

458
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:17,119
Speaker 1: figure that out probably early on, but you know, I

459
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 1: was still like I I got to audition for I

460
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:24,199
Speaker 1: got to my first like on camera job was it

461
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:27,119
Speaker 1: was with Clint Eastwood directing, and it was Flags of

462
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: our Fathers at George Gizzard was in the scene that

463
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 1: I got to do. It was a really heady experience

464
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 1: and they gave me half of a trailer and that

465
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:38,359
Speaker 1: was my first job. That was my first job. So

466
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 1: I thought that was what being an actor was going

467
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: to be. But I was getting on camera work often

468
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 1: enough to where I thought, yeah, this is this is

469
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 1: building to something. I was also really interested in doing

470
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 1: voice work, so from a very early age I was

471
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 1: chasing voiceover. So I got to do a lot of

472
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 1: voiceover over the years too, which which helped me kind

473
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 1: of make ends meet and kind of string it together.

474
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:11,240
Speaker 1: But I always thought, there's gonna be a role that's

475
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 1: going to take me to Los Angeles, or there's gonna

476
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 1: be a role that's going to take me to New York.

477
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna leave work that i'm actively doing in

478
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: this vibrant community to search it out.

479
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:26,840
Speaker 2: Interesting. Did you find that able to be true?

480
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: I will say that when I've done work in Los

481
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:33,880
Speaker 1: Angeles and New York, and I've never lived in either

482
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 1: of those cities, but I spent a good amount of

483
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 1: time in them getting to work. When people found out

484
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:40,160
Speaker 1: that I was based in Chicago, they were always kind

485
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,120
Speaker 1: of gobsmacked. It was like, well, why did they fly

486
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 1: your dumbass in here when there's there's so many talent

487
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 1: wactors here. And so there was always like a certain

488
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:56,640
Speaker 1: amount of, you know, low key glee that I had

489
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 1: kind of beat the odds just by getting a seat

490
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 1: at the table from Chicago. But I also felt like

491
00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 1: a representative of what this city has to offer. Chicago

492
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:12,879
Speaker 1: is lousy with incredibly talented actors like Middle America, just

493
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 1: solid natural acting. And I feel so grateful for the

494
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:22,000
Speaker 1: time that I got to spend there, continuing to study

495
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: and continuing to grind, like it was a grind, particularly

496
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:30,560
Speaker 1: when you're dealing with mother Nature, which you know is

497
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: you know, pleasant in Chicago for like maybe three months

498
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 1: of the year combined.

499
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 2: Right right, I mean, it's crazy, guys. John Is first

500
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 2: two credits that at least are listed where I can

501
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 2: find things are Flags of Our Fathers with Clenn eas

502
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 2: Wood and Er, which at the time is like the

503
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 2: biggest show in television. How does Er come about?

504
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: Well, they would feel exterior shots sometimes in Chicago, got it,

505
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: I mean that was a big one, obviously shooting in

506
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, but every now and then they would have

507
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 1: the stars of the show kind of outside on the

508
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:18,440
Speaker 1: street in Chicago to sort of place it in Chicago.

509
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: And so I played a I played a doctor doctor.

510
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: It was like literally doctor Collins and the props guy

511
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 1: had Doctor Tom Collins, which was kind of a little

512
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:36,479
Speaker 1: little joke, but yeah, that was opposite Linda Carlini at

513
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 1: the time, which was really really cool. She's gone on

514
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 1: to do so much amazing stuff, particularly like Dead to Me,

515
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:44,040
Speaker 1: which I don't know if you've watched that show.

516
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 3: Which is.

517
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 2: So great in that show. Yes, but you're going back

518
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 2: to the theater. You're continuing to work in the theater

519
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 2: through the the aughts that they call them.

520
00:29:56,520 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 1: And it was always there were only a handful of

521
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 1: theater companies in Chicago at that time that were supportive

522
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 1: of theater actors winning on camera work. Okay, without getting

523
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 1: this is going to be really boring, but the contracts

524
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 1: in Chicago theater allow for you to go and do

525
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 1: on camera work, but it's always up to the theater's discretion.

526
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: So you know, as a Midwestern working actor, you don't

527
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 1: want to burn bridges. But I was always kind of

528
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 1: able to sneak around and do a couple days here,

529
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 1: a couple of days there.

530
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 2: You're working in the theater, you're getting days or a

531
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:41,880
Speaker 2: week or whatever. In film and television and also doing

532
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 2: voiceover work. At this point, how many commercials are you

533
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 2: getting around this time?

534
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:52,479
Speaker 1: Well? I did, I did. I actually won campaigns. So

535
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: I was the voice of Comcast actually for about years

536
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 1: for their television commercials I was doing the vo for them.

537
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 1: I was the voice of on Star for many years.

538
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 1: I did several years of McDonald's across many different ad agencies,

539
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 1: and throughout that time I was also picking up different

540
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 1: spots for other people who were advertising too. I did

541
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 1: a few video games here and there, and I was

542
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: getting to do on camera commercials here more and more

543
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:27,160
Speaker 1: the later it got. I did a FedEx spot with

544
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 1: an on camera commercial director named Jim Jenkins, and we

545
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 1: ended up doing a couple FedEx spots. We did some

546
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:37,360
Speaker 1: other like Hyundai spots, and then we did a one

547
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 1: off commercial for bud Light that ended up kind of

548
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: becoming this whole Dilly Dilly campaign.

549
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this is obviously where I'm going of commercials.

550
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 2: Maybe in history it rings very It rings high on

551
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 2: the top of people's whether you loved it or hated it.

552
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 2: Everybody knew the king in Dilly Dilly. Now when you're

553
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 2: doing this, are you are you on set?

554
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 3: Right?

555
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:10,479
Speaker 2: So it's like if you're shooting a television show. Sometimes

556
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 2: you'll be like, wow, you know this is this is

557
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 2: pretty good? Are you thinking that this is going to

558
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 2: change the world?

559
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 3: Dilly Dilly?

560
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: You know, we did the first one, and we were

561
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 1: just I think bud Light were doing like four or five.

562
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 1: They had a zombie one, they had like a Revolutionary

563
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 1: War era one, they had this weird Game of Thrones

564
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: it was ours, and then people just started using the

565
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: phrase dilly dilly. And then they brought us back for

566
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 1: one around Thanksgiving, and then like late November they called

567
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 1: and they were like, all right, we want to do

568
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:45,640
Speaker 1: a Super Bowl spot and we're going to do it

569
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 1: in It's either going to be South Africa or New Zealand,

570
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: so get ready. And I was like, excuse me what?

571
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 1: And then we went to New Zealand and we filmed

572
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl spots in friggin New Zealand, and then

573
00:32:56,080 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: we filmed in Argentina, We filmed in Czech Republic, filmed

574
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 1: many times in Spain. It was like a real dream

575
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:07,320
Speaker 1: to get to work on. It was a lot of fun.

576
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 1: And you know, I think about it in terms of

577
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 1: like we were doing beer commercials, but really we were

578
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: just making ludicrous, funny for the benefit of a beer company,

579
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: and yeah, it was. It was just it was just

580
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:24,479
Speaker 1: a lot of fun being like the stupidest guy in

581
00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 1: the room who kind of thought he was the smartest

582
00:33:27,760 --> 00:33:30,640
Speaker 1: guy in the room, like, that's fun, that's fun space

583
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 1: to play in.

584
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's so interesting that you talked very early

585
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:40,479
Speaker 2: on about your humorous interpret days and choosing to do

586
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 2: money Python, because really I feel like that's what that

587
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 2: commercial was. It was like classic Monty Python humor done

588
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 2: in a really big and broad way but in a

589
00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 2: way that everyone could understand and ludicrous but fun, just funny.

590
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 3: That's how I view it, viewed it anyway.

591
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: Good.

592
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 2: Do you feel like the success of that campaign propelled

593
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:15,400
Speaker 2: your career forward?

594
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:20,839
Speaker 1: You know, I was sitting on a boat in Columbia

595
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:25,200
Speaker 1: on the Magdalena River with John Krazinsky, bitching and moaning

596
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:29,400
Speaker 1: about my fear that that campaign would ruin my career,

597
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: and Krazinsky was like, dude, just bet on yourself, Just

598
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:38,960
Speaker 1: bet on yourself. And he was also like everyone's doing

599
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:41,760
Speaker 1: commercials these days, man, And I remember, like he did.

600
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 1: I think his story about insurance. You probably remember when

601
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 1: he for like fifteen years after that, all the vo

602
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 1: casting departments were like, give us a John Krazinski read.

603
00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:59,879
Speaker 1: You know it was it was funny because I think

604
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 1: it was such a it was this dumb kind of

605
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 1: quasi period character and this big, long flowing robe. But

606
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: it was a character. And I guess the viewing public

607
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 1: who were seeing those either they put it together or

608
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: they didn't, But if they did, it didn't really one

609
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 1: didn't detract from the other necessarily in an odd way,

610
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: which I'm very, very grateful for because you know, as

611
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 1: you've been talking about, a lot of the roles that

612
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 1: I've played on film and television have been pretty serious,

613
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: and so I'm grateful. I feel fortunate to have gotten

614
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 1: to be a part of those stories. But I also

615
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: feel grateful and fortunate to get to make funny. You know,

616
00:35:41,719 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 1: if your career starts to go in one direction, people

617
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:46,839
Speaker 1: start to think, well, that's what Brian does, that's all

618
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 1: Brian wants to do. It's not necessarily the case as

619
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:52,879
Speaker 1: not necessarily all Brian can bring to the table. That's

620
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:54,960
Speaker 1: just kind of what you guys keep asking Brian to do.

621
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: That's what I think. That's what it's been for me.

622
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:00,840
Speaker 1: So I feel like I've gotten a few got a

623
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:02,840
Speaker 1: few lucky ones in there where I've gotten to do

624
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:03,759
Speaker 1: funny stuff too.

625
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:08,799
Speaker 3: That's awesome. Who's John Krazinski? Uh?

626
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: He was this young actor who he portrayed, showed it

627
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 1: a fledgling Amazon production.

628
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:25,959
Speaker 2: Yes, John worked with my old pal, other John John

629
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 2: and I put that together. What was it like working

630
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:32,280
Speaker 2: with John on the first two seasons of Jack Ryan?

631
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: Oh he was great man.

632
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 2: Come on, no, no, no, no, no, come on, just

633
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 2: we're looking for truth here.

634
00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 3: What was it like? What was it like working with John.

635
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 1: In this one scene where we were like going into

636
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: this like suspected terrorists den in Paris and John and

637
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:54,440
Speaker 1: I were like at the back of a line of like, uh,

638
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: you know, like hardcore commando type dudes going up the

639
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:00,399
Speaker 1: stairs and stuff. And he kept dropping the clip out

640
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: of his gun on the hard tile floor just to

641
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 1: make me laugh. I mean, we were like a couple

642
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:07,839
Speaker 1: of fucking children, and it was like, this is a

643
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:12,360
Speaker 1: big budget TV show, And every time I laughed, and

644
00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: then he would just.

645
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:16,919
Speaker 3: Do it again because yeah, that sounds about right.

646
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: I will say, this is a cool thing. He So

647
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:25,879
Speaker 1: between season one and season two, A Quiet Place came out, Yes,

648
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 1: and it changed the dynamic on set going into season two,

649
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 1: and John had suddenly a lot more ability to kind

650
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:36,400
Speaker 1: of talk about how he saw the scenes coming together,

651
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:39,880
Speaker 1: and it was really cool. To see him kind of

652
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: rise to the moment. This's the thing that is like,

653
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 1: you know, I think there are actors out there who

654
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:46,880
Speaker 1: just love to play different roles, and then there are

655
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 1: actors who are geared to kind of take over the world.

656
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,600
Speaker 1: And John is one of the second category. I mean,

657
00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: he's like the people that you see at the top

658
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 1: of their game. It's not a mistake. They put in

659
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:02,360
Speaker 1: a lot of time, a lot of effort, worked really

660
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:05,000
Speaker 1: fricking hard, and that was that was kind of my

661
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 1: take on John. But he John is awesome. He's been

662
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:11,320
Speaker 1: really cool. I wish I could give you more shitty stories,

663
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 1: but he always like he was one of them. So

664
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 1: we're surrounded by Navy seals, which is kind of like,

665
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 1: you don't want to do your own stunts. That's cool, uh,

666
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:26,400
Speaker 1: you know, but John all like always wanted to do

667
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:28,560
Speaker 1: his own stunts because he didn't want to catch any

668
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 1: shade from these Navy seals.

669
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 3: Oh he did come on them a.

670
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:38,759
Speaker 1: Lot, man, it's like, and some of them were were

671
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:41,879
Speaker 1: kind of dangerous, like he he he had We've all

672
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:45,239
Speaker 1: been like kind of busted up on that set, but

673
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:47,399
Speaker 1: he just keeps coming back. He's a tank man. He's

674
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:51,359
Speaker 1: getting it done. Wow, I can see I've let you down.

675
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 2: I mean a little bit. I mean a little bit.

676
00:38:56,120 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 2: He and I relates to Jack Ryan. This is like,

677
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 2: this is like such a humble brag story. But I

678
00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:10,040
Speaker 2: was invited to Europe basically to play golf with Prince

679
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 2: Albert of Monaco. And I am in this very very fancy,

680
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:20,879
Speaker 2: nice hotel and there was a yacht thing. I mean,

681
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:25,400
Speaker 2: it was the whole thing. And my phone goes off.

682
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 2: It's in the evening. My phone goes off and it's

683
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:31,360
Speaker 2: a text message from John. I don't remember exactly what

684
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:34,360
Speaker 2: it was, but my memory is that the text message says,

685
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 2: what the fuck are you in Monaco? And I was like,

686
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:42,839
Speaker 2: first of all, how do you know, like what where

687
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 2: I'm like looking around, and he was there. I don't

688
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 2: know if you were there. He was there, I think

689
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 2: to like do some festival or I don't know, but

690
00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 2: it was about Jack Ryan. It was like the opening

691
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 2: of Jack Ryan or whatever. And he was there. And

692
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 2: so there you go. We can't see each other in

693
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 2: the United States, but you know, suddenly we're like sleeping

694
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:09,640
Speaker 2: next to each other in this hotel in Monaco. You

695
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 2: guys went Montreal, Columbia, Morocco, France.

696
00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:15,120
Speaker 3: How was that? How was it? I mean it sounds

697
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:17,919
Speaker 3: like you you did that for the Dilly Dilly too.

698
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 3: How was that?

699
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:21,400
Speaker 2: Traveling around so much on that show? Was it fun

700
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:23,720
Speaker 2: or was it? Was it a grind?

701
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 4: It was?

702
00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 1: It was fun. It was an incredible experience, particularly like

703
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 1: our time in Morocco. One of the coolest things I

704
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:33,640
Speaker 1: did was I I got to go out to the

705
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:36,840
Speaker 1: western Sahara and spend the night in the desert on

706
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 1: the dunes, and that was absolutely an amazing experience. Yeah.

707
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,319
Speaker 1: And the time in Colombia was we were on like

708
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: the National Police training headquarters near a small city called

709
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:52,759
Speaker 1: Hiradok in kind of central Colombia, about two and a

710
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:56,200
Speaker 1: half hours away from Bogatah. Yeah, man, it was. It was.

711
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 1: It was super intense and very challenging, but ultimately a

712
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:05,280
Speaker 1: really really cool ride.

713
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:09,480
Speaker 2: You've said that the role reminded you of your own

714
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:14,239
Speaker 2: inner voice or your family back home. What do you

715
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:14,759
Speaker 2: mean by that.

716
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:20,560
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of talking about like dudes you'd come

717
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:23,120
Speaker 1: across in North Carolina who were just kind of like, man,

718
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: I was. I'm gonna tell you what earlier this week,

719
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 1: our dog was in the yard and a turkey walked

720
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:30,760
Speaker 1: across the yard and the dog ran up that turkey

721
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 1: ended up in the tree. I mean, just that kind

722
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:41,919
Speaker 1: of stuff, you know. God, Okay, it just is kind

723
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:45,920
Speaker 1: of like that's what's below all the theater school training,

724
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 1: you know, Right. So when I went in to read

725
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 1: for that, I just kind of let it roll, and

726
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:55,279
Speaker 1: I saw this guy as someone who is actually, if

727
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 1: you play badass, it kind of makes him seem like,

728
00:41:58,239 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 1: maybe he's not such a badass, right. I just I

729
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:04,759
Speaker 1: just kind of thought that he placing him in a

730
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: sort of real approachable place made him more of a

731
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:11,200
Speaker 1: real human being. And I guess I guess that that's

732
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: all I was going for.

733
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 2: I have to mention a show, and I don't know

734
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:36,160
Speaker 2: that I ever do this when I'm talking to people,

735
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 2: talk specifically about my feelings, unless it's just straight praise

736
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 2: of a show. You had a role of Carl Wilkes

737
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:50,080
Speaker 2: in Castle Rock. I thought that show was so freaking interesting.

738
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 2: I thought it was flawed. I'm gonna be honest with you,

739
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 2: I thought a lot of it didn't work. It's so

740
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 2: complicated that it's hard to even explain what it is

741
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 2: except it's basically Stephen King's mind and his characters throughout

742
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:11,719
Speaker 2: the history of his writings existing semi simultaneously in the

743
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:19,280
Speaker 2: same town. John plays Annie Wilkes's father, Annie Wilkes, of course,

744
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 2: going on to be the villain the lead of Misery

745
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 2: played by Kathy Bates, who appeared in the office Boom.

746
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:32,719
Speaker 2: There's my association. F. John Krasinsky. F John Krasinsky, You

747
00:43:32,960 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 2: played the father of Annie Wilkes that Kathy Bates won

748
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:41,799
Speaker 2: an oscar for. Talk to me about the experience that

749
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 2: you had on that show. Was Stephen King around?

750
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: I'm sure he was in touch with the producers and

751
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:50,920
Speaker 1: the writers and everyone.

752
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 3: He was not generals, he was not Okay, good, okay.

753
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:56,360
Speaker 3: It makes me feel better that I wasn't involved.

754
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: We were in Massachusetts. That filmed in Massachusetts, which was

755
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:05,759
Speaker 1: beautiful when we were there. We were about an hour

756
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 1: west of Boston. And Lizzie Kaplan who played Annie, and

757
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 1: Ruby Cruz who played young Annie in the in the flashbacks,

758
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:19,320
Speaker 1: both just phenomenal talents. Lizzie Man, she was just so committed,

759
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 1: so professional. It was a super intense experience. Particularly I

760
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,720
Speaker 1: guess it is it a spoiler if I talk about

761
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 1: kind of the final scene.

762
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:33,839
Speaker 2: I mean, I did, I didn't know. No, it's been

763
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:36,200
Speaker 2: four years. No, it's not a spoiler, go ahead.

764
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 1: They the dad is pushed down some stairs.

765
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:45,440
Speaker 3: Flight of stairs. You did. That's not yourself, like John, right,

766
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 3: it's not myself.

767
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 1: Yes, And I was impaled on a banister and they

768
00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:57,719
Speaker 1: run a they run a hose of blood kind of

769
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 1: up your shirt and next to your face, and that's

770
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:04,400
Speaker 1: kind of going off while you play this scene with

771
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:08,160
Speaker 1: your daughter. And it was, man, it was that was

772
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:11,320
Speaker 1: super intense, but actually a lot of fun and really

773
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: really disturbing, really disturbing. It's a lot of fun to

774
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:20,720
Speaker 1: get to do harror every now and then to scare

775
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:26,160
Speaker 1: people and to dig into the things that people are

776
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:28,719
Speaker 1: I was going to say triggered by, but that's kind

777
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 1: of a loaded term.

778
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:31,360
Speaker 3: Yeah.

779
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 2: I just thought that the series was super fascinating and

780
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:37,640
Speaker 2: it's it's good to hear that it was a good

781
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 2: experience and also not surprising that it was. That it

782
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:45,960
Speaker 2: was difficult, an amazing cast, and yeah, if you haven't

783
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:48,960
Speaker 2: checked it out, it's worth checking out. Got to talk

784
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:54,360
Speaker 2: to you about Dope Sick, The show of twenty twenty

785
00:45:54,400 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 2: one twenty twenty two for sure, Randy Ramsayer, Ramsayer, Ramsire,

786
00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:08,240
Speaker 2: Ramsire whatever, Randy, uh that was? This is my reference

787
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 2: to the playing a cop in western North Carolina, close

788
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 2: but not quite. Talk to me about your experience working

789
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 2: on Dope Sick and interestingly, an incredibly dark I loved it,

790
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 2: incredibly dark show. Did you have a positive experience working

791
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:31,960
Speaker 2: on Dope Sick and did you expect that to be

792
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 2: well the show of the last year or so.

793
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:39,280
Speaker 1: I absolutely had a positive experience on it. I learned

794
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:42,360
Speaker 1: so much. You know that that's one of the conversations

795
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:44,880
Speaker 1: that has been on a slow boil in this country

796
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:49,879
Speaker 1: for over twenty years, to reading OxyContin and all these

797
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:55,600
Speaker 1: things going on, and we've all known that we've been

798
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:59,239
Speaker 1: kind of fed a line on this, these prescription painkillers.

799
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 1: But it wasn't until shows and documentarians really started to

800
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 1: do a kind of a deep dive into the connection

801
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:13,320
Speaker 1: between this one company and the way that these drugs

802
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:17,200
Speaker 1: are sort of insinuated into the healing process when you

803
00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 1: get hospitalized, and kind of making all these connections and

804
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:26,879
Speaker 1: finding out that certain aspects of the testing going through

805
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:29,879
Speaker 1: the FDA were all kind of fiddled with. It woke

806
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:32,359
Speaker 1: me up to a lot of ways that we can

807
00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:35,840
Speaker 1: certainly do better. Danny Strong, who was the writer and

808
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:39,839
Speaker 1: the producer, was a constant. It was like walking around

809
00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:42,799
Speaker 1: with an encyclopedia. This guy had so much knowledge in

810
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:44,240
Speaker 1: his brain the whole time.

811
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:46,400
Speaker 3: But also.

812
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:50,880
Speaker 1: It was kind of like that situation where the darker

813
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 1: the subject matter, the more levity there is offscreen because

814
00:47:56,239 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: the people telling those stories have to find a balance

815
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 1: or you just absolutely go insane. Yeah, you know, it's

816
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:06,719
Speaker 1: it's a very different path for an actor on a

817
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 1: set like that. And the cool thing is casts and

818
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:15,360
Speaker 1: the producers sort of understand what it is that you

819
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:19,719
Speaker 1: have to find within yourself on a given day, and

820
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:21,759
Speaker 1: they will give you space to find it, and they

821
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:23,600
Speaker 1: will they will kind of try and find a way

822
00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 1: to be supportive of you. But it was we shot

823
00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:30,600
Speaker 1: that and rich In and around Richmond, Virginia. It was

824
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:33,000
Speaker 1: a lovely time to get to work in. It was.

825
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:37,239
Speaker 1: It was a great experience. And the first couple episodes

826
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 1: were directed, of course by Barry Levinson, which was a

827
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:41,440
Speaker 1: real honor to get to work with him. He was

828
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 1: one of he's one of these directors who knows exactly

829
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:46,399
Speaker 1: what's going in the final cut. He knows what he's

830
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:50,200
Speaker 1: going to use, so there's a he's very efficient and

831
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 1: very direct in getting what he needed from the actors.

832
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:55,640
Speaker 1: Was wonderful to get to work with all those.

833
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:59,840
Speaker 2: Guys, being from North Carolina now living back in North Carolina,

834
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:04,719
Speaker 2: that is a state and an area there that has

835
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 2: suffered a lot from the opioid epidemic. Did you have

836
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:13,000
Speaker 2: a personal connection to this because of that?

837
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:14,080
Speaker 3: Yeah.

838
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:16,720
Speaker 1: There are suboxym clinics, which is one of the drugs

839
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 1: that they try and do replacement therapy with all over

840
00:49:20,080 --> 00:49:22,239
Speaker 1: the place here, and I think that that was one

841
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 1: of the things that I learned is that cold turkey

842
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 1: and prayer doesn't work all that well. Unfortunately with people

843
00:49:31,239 --> 00:49:35,520
Speaker 1: who are addicted to drugs like this. You're lucky if

844
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:37,439
Speaker 1: you get off it and stay off it at all.

845
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:42,040
Speaker 1: A lot of times, the more humane way to stop

846
00:49:42,120 --> 00:49:45,200
Speaker 1: using it is to slowly step down with a replacement

847
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:50,560
Speaker 1: And certainly it has touched these addictions. Have touched people

848
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:54,400
Speaker 1: in my family, They've touched so many people in America,

849
00:49:54,480 --> 00:49:57,880
Speaker 1: and it's something that it's like a dirty, little household

850
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 1: secret for so many people. And that was one of

851
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:05,800
Speaker 1: the things that I was eager to tackle was how

852
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: are we going to portray people who become addicted to

853
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:15,320
Speaker 1: this drug? You know, if it's a high school football

854
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:18,720
Speaker 1: football player who suffers a knee injury and is given

855
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:24,280
Speaker 1: OxyContin and then four months later their life is ruined

856
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 1: and they have to find something cheaper, so they switch

857
00:50:26,400 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 1: to heroin. Generally, we in this country, I think, have

858
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:34,400
Speaker 1: thought of people who become drug addicts as morally weak

859
00:50:34,480 --> 00:50:38,920
Speaker 1: for people who have suffered, and the reality is often

860
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:42,080
Speaker 1: so much more nuanced than that. And so I think

861
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 1: one of the things that the show really got right

862
00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:48,960
Speaker 1: was how you can become addicted to some of these

863
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:54,640
Speaker 1: drugs when the situation is constructed and architected in such

864
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 1: a way to make people become addicted through no fault

865
00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: of your own. And I feel like that that was

866
00:51:01,040 --> 00:51:02,799
Speaker 1: the thing that the show got right, because that was

867
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 1: one of the comments that we got over and over

868
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:07,680
Speaker 1: and over again was oh, man, my aunt suffered this,

869
00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 1: my grandmother, my son, my daughter, I have I'm still

870
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:14,719
Speaker 1: working on this, you know. And then I have had

871
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:18,400
Speaker 1: people friends and family who have, you know, kind of

872
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:21,520
Speaker 1: casually over the years asked about, yeah, if you have

873
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:23,879
Speaker 1: any pills or because I'm suffering this and I'm having

874
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:25,880
Speaker 1: a hard time getting blah blah blah. That's what that is.

875
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:29,960
Speaker 3: I mean, that's.

876
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:33,239
Speaker 1: Right, and I know, you know. The other argument is

877
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:37,719
Speaker 1: when shows go after oxyconton like this, you're taking a

878
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:41,160
Speaker 1: very valuable tool out of the doctor's hands. And I

879
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:43,840
Speaker 1: don't think that was what the show was saying. I

880
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:46,080
Speaker 1: think what the show was saying was like, when you're

881
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 1: dealing with end of life pain or when you are

882
00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:54,360
Speaker 1: under a doctor's direct supervision, this is an absolutely a

883
00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:59,280
Speaker 1: valuable tool, but it's not a valuable tool for myriad

884
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:01,960
Speaker 1: other inies that one can sustain and live with and

885
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:06,040
Speaker 1: perhaps manage with different classes of drugs that are not

886
00:52:06,160 --> 00:52:08,880
Speaker 1: addictive in the same way that an opioid is.

887
00:52:09,160 --> 00:52:12,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was certainly my takeaway that really the issue

888
00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:16,840
Speaker 2: was the lack of transparency with how addictive it was,

889
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:23,040
Speaker 2: and then potentially the over prescribing, which triggered that faster

890
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:24,080
Speaker 2: and faster.

891
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:27,680
Speaker 1: Walking into a hospital, you know, with an injury or

892
00:52:27,680 --> 00:52:31,000
Speaker 1: some severe pain and being shown you know, the smiley

893
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 1: face graph from smiley to frownie, where are you on

894
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 1: this spectrum? And learning that that was kind of something

895
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:40,759
Speaker 1: that was constructed to make pain treatment a conversation that's

896
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 1: at the front and center of conversations with doctors when

897
00:52:44,239 --> 00:52:47,880
Speaker 1: you're healing and healing, and obviously dealing with pain is

898
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:51,680
Speaker 1: horrible and something that needs to be done empathetically. But

899
00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:55,279
Speaker 1: when you have a company that stands to gain billions

900
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:59,200
Speaker 1: of dollars kind of wagging the federal government around or

901
00:52:59,239 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 1: its agencies, that's something that we need to look very

902
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:05,680
Speaker 1: very closely at to make sure that, you know, ideally

903
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:10,040
Speaker 1: the government exists to make sure that we are kept

904
00:53:10,080 --> 00:53:14,280
Speaker 1: safe from the crueler intentions of corporate entities.

905
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:19,200
Speaker 3: Did you meet Randyr Yeah, he.

906
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: Got to Zoom and then he came to an event

907
00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:24,520
Speaker 1: I think in Washington. Got to meet him there, and

908
00:53:24,560 --> 00:53:28,480
Speaker 1: he's a super laid back, cool guy, you know. And

909
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:32,480
Speaker 1: these guys were like bulldogs, like they were immovable. There

910
00:53:32,560 --> 00:53:35,640
Speaker 1: was they weren't going anywhere once they started with this,

911
00:53:36,040 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 1: and that's kind of the cool thing. It's like, you

912
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:42,920
Speaker 1: may think of us as small town and therefore you

913
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:46,120
Speaker 1: may not take us seriously, but we take this job

914
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:49,319
Speaker 1: very seriously. We work on the taxpayer's dime and we're

915
00:53:49,360 --> 00:53:52,719
Speaker 1: not going to stop until justice has been served. Yeah,

916
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:57,840
Speaker 1: the really compelling story him in Rick Mountcastle just out.

917
00:53:58,239 --> 00:54:02,280
Speaker 2: Not that you need any more, but John, but Waco

918
00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:08,440
Speaker 2: the aftermath. I'm very, very interested in this. When I

919
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 2: went to SMU, this is when Waco happened. From the

920
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 2: public television in my dorm room in college, we watched it,

921
00:54:22,080 --> 00:54:26,280
Speaker 2: and of course it's I don't know, sixty eighty miles

922
00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:29,920
Speaker 2: down the road this was all taking place, So I

923
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 2: feel this weird connection to it. I don't want you

924
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:38,680
Speaker 2: to give any spoilers, but what was that like going

925
00:54:38,719 --> 00:54:43,359
Speaker 2: back to yet another true story, a tragedy and exploring

926
00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:45,719
Speaker 2: the aftermath of that.

927
00:54:46,960 --> 00:54:52,279
Speaker 1: So Clive Doyle, who I portray in the show, was

928
00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:56,000
Speaker 1: a branch Davidian I remember that time too. I was

929
00:54:57,239 --> 00:55:01,520
Speaker 1: fifteen turning sixteen that April. Yeah, I remember, probably like

930
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:03,680
Speaker 1: you do. There were you know, it was like three

931
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:07,680
Speaker 1: or four network news sources that were all kind of

932
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:12,440
Speaker 1: giving the same information on the standoff, and the idea

933
00:55:12,560 --> 00:55:15,959
Speaker 1: was basically, these people were insane and they were making

934
00:55:16,040 --> 00:55:19,920
Speaker 1: the situation worse and worse, and the government was just

935
00:55:19,960 --> 00:55:21,440
Speaker 1: trying to get the kids out of there and keep

936
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 1: everybody safe. And I think that's all generally accurate. However,

937
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:32,600
Speaker 1: there's so much more that went into pushing the government

938
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:39,200
Speaker 1: into the standoff, and that kept this group of ultra

939
00:55:39,400 --> 00:55:42,760
Speaker 1: orthodox in the middle of the desert in Texas from

940
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:46,080
Speaker 1: complying and coming out of the buildings without giving anything away.

941
00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:51,480
Speaker 1: Clive immigrated to the United States in the early sixties

942
00:55:51,719 --> 00:55:56,319
Speaker 1: with his mom from Australia and had been at the

943
00:55:56,400 --> 00:56:00,160
Speaker 1: compound for thirty years already when the fire happened. So

944
00:56:00,400 --> 00:56:02,360
Speaker 1: I thought at the time that this was kind of

945
00:56:02,400 --> 00:56:05,120
Speaker 1: a new group of people, and he had moved, and

946
00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:08,120
Speaker 1: they were into guns, and they were marrying girls off

947
00:56:08,239 --> 00:56:11,799
Speaker 1: very young, and this community had been there for many

948
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:16,239
Speaker 1: decades even prior to Clive arriving in the sixties. From

949
00:56:16,239 --> 00:56:21,960
Speaker 1: a technical aspect, they wanted an actor who could find

950
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:26,640
Speaker 1: a way to also weave in a Texas dialect to

951
00:56:26,719 --> 00:56:30,399
Speaker 1: this sort of soft Australian accent. So that was kind

952
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:34,080
Speaker 1: of a fun challenge to try and tackle. But yeah,

953
00:56:34,160 --> 00:56:38,960
Speaker 1: Clive was I think a tantamount to a monk, and

954
00:56:39,000 --> 00:56:43,200
Speaker 1: he also inhabited a world where miracles were all over

955
00:56:43,239 --> 00:56:46,600
Speaker 1: the place. And this guy sitting next to him who

956
00:56:46,719 --> 00:56:49,719
Speaker 1: begins as Vernon Howell and then kind of chooses the

957
00:56:49,800 --> 00:56:53,479
Speaker 1: name David Koresh is to this group of people, he's

958
00:56:53,560 --> 00:56:57,960
Speaker 1: the embodiment of God. He literally is the lamb they believe,

959
00:56:58,320 --> 00:57:01,960
Speaker 1: and at a certain point, Koresh tells this group of people,

960
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:04,920
Speaker 1: I'm the only one who can have sex with anyone.

961
00:57:05,920 --> 00:57:08,840
Speaker 1: So if you're married and I choose your wife, you

962
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:12,960
Speaker 1: have to be okay with that. And stunning how many

963
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:17,440
Speaker 1: of them stayed so to kind of study this against

964
00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:19,840
Speaker 1: the backdrop of everything the federal government was doing at

965
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:24,640
Speaker 1: the time. It's an incredibly messy story from so many angles.

966
00:57:25,200 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 1: I think that the takeaway for the federal government was

967
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:33,920
Speaker 1: if you back people with extreme beliefs into a corner,

968
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:39,240
Speaker 1: it's likely that they will do extreme things. Technically, what

969
00:57:39,280 --> 00:57:42,320
Speaker 1: that means is that the government ends up acting more

970
00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:46,400
Speaker 1: empathetically when there are guns involved. Then that's a good thing.

971
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:49,960
Speaker 1: As an actor, I want more empathy everywhere. I want

972
00:57:50,040 --> 00:57:55,160
Speaker 1: us to strive to understand the worldview of those that

973
00:57:55,200 --> 00:57:57,560
Speaker 1: we don't agree with. We have to make the effort

974
00:57:57,680 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 1: to understand which is distinct and separate from agreeing with them.

975
00:58:02,800 --> 00:58:03,280
Speaker 3: That's right.

976
00:58:03,320 --> 00:58:04,960
Speaker 1: I don't know that we're all going to ever agree

977
00:58:04,960 --> 00:58:07,760
Speaker 1: on everything. I don't think that's realistic, but we have

978
00:58:07,840 --> 00:58:11,800
Speaker 1: to spend time trying to understand. And that's why I

979
00:58:11,800 --> 00:58:15,520
Speaker 1: think this show is important is it's a continued meditation

980
00:58:15,680 --> 00:58:19,720
Speaker 1: on what went wrong, which means producers and a network

981
00:58:19,760 --> 00:58:24,320
Speaker 1: are sitting around trying to understand how we got to

982
00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:28,520
Speaker 1: that place then and the doubtles. The producers and directors

983
00:58:28,560 --> 00:58:30,680
Speaker 1: and creators of the show are drawing a bright red

984
00:58:30,760 --> 00:58:35,480
Speaker 1: line from that event to Charlottesville and to January sixth.

985
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:43,280
Speaker 2: I think one, you're awesome and to the point that

986
00:58:43,360 --> 00:58:49,520
Speaker 2: you bring up there is so important on both sides

987
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:55,400
Speaker 2: of this debate or war that's raging in the United States,

988
00:58:55,640 --> 00:58:59,840
Speaker 2: and not having any empathy for the other side, whatever

989
00:59:00,120 --> 00:59:06,520
Speaker 2: side that is, and behaving toward them in a harsh

990
00:59:06,600 --> 00:59:11,080
Speaker 2: and unsympathetic and unempathetic way is only going to make

991
00:59:11,240 --> 00:59:15,880
Speaker 2: them strengthen their resolve. As you said, that's incredible because yeah,

992
00:59:15,880 --> 00:59:17,800
Speaker 2: we're still we're still trying to figure it out.

993
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:18,479
Speaker 3: God.

994
00:59:18,560 --> 00:59:21,440
Speaker 2: And side note, I don't even know. I mean, I

995
00:59:21,600 --> 00:59:24,880
Speaker 2: watched this other show. Did they talk about that in

996
00:59:24,880 --> 00:59:28,680
Speaker 2: the waycoat that had been going on that long in

997
00:59:28,720 --> 00:59:31,320
Speaker 2: the sixth in the sixties, that had been going on.

998
00:59:31,880 --> 00:59:34,120
Speaker 3: I miss that. I had no idea.

999
00:59:34,680 --> 00:59:39,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lois So Lois Rodin, Jay Smith Cameron wonderful Actors.

1000
00:59:39,160 --> 00:59:42,880
Speaker 1: He plays Lois Rodin in this season. She is the

1001
00:59:43,000 --> 00:59:48,280
Speaker 1: prophet of the era and she sort of inherited being

1002
00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:52,720
Speaker 1: the prophet from her husband, who inherited it from another guy.

1003
00:59:53,000 --> 00:59:56,360
Speaker 1: So it's a shootoff of a shootoff of the Seventh

1004
00:59:56,400 --> 00:59:57,880
Speaker 1: day Adventist denoment.

1005
00:59:57,920 --> 01:00:00,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know.

1006
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:01,920
Speaker 1: It was the kind of thing where and again, I

1007
01:00:03,240 --> 01:00:05,760
Speaker 1: want to talk about it without demeaning a group of

1008
01:00:05,800 --> 01:00:09,240
Speaker 1: people's beliefs. So it would be, you know, the idea

1009
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:13,000
Speaker 1: that the it's all going to end on this day,

1010
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 1: and then that day comes and goes, and then I've

1011
01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:20,080
Speaker 1: gotten another prophecy, and now I was wrong, It's actually

1012
01:00:20,080 --> 01:00:21,920
Speaker 1: going to end on this day, and so forth and

1013
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:25,920
Speaker 1: so on, and the Branch Davidians it was known by

1014
01:00:25,960 --> 01:00:29,440
Speaker 1: the federal government at this point that their theology was

1015
01:00:29,480 --> 01:00:31,840
Speaker 1: that the world was going to end in fire, and

1016
01:00:32,240 --> 01:00:37,760
Speaker 1: they had listening devices in the compound and apparently had

1017
01:00:37,840 --> 01:00:41,720
Speaker 1: audio of the Branch Davidians planning to set fire in

1018
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:45,520
Speaker 1: various locations if the federal government ever breached the walls.

1019
01:00:45,760 --> 01:00:49,880
Speaker 1: They knew that, you know, the tear gas they were

1020
01:00:49,880 --> 01:00:52,400
Speaker 1: going to use was highly flammable, and they also knew

1021
01:00:52,400 --> 01:00:54,960
Speaker 1: that the branch Davidians had been talking about setting the fire.

1022
01:00:55,920 --> 01:00:59,560
Speaker 1: So it does become very very messy. So two things

1023
01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:02,880
Speaker 1: that I think about on this show are like, David

1024
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:06,160
Speaker 1: Koresh committed suicide by cop and he took eighty souls

1025
01:01:06,160 --> 01:01:10,040
Speaker 1: with him, and the federal government for its part, was

1026
01:01:10,120 --> 01:01:12,840
Speaker 1: over eager to be used in that regard for a

1027
01:01:12,960 --> 01:01:15,919
Speaker 1: number of reasons. Also, there were three I believe three

1028
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:18,680
Speaker 1: government entities on the ground at Waco. You had the ATF,

1029
01:01:18,720 --> 01:01:22,959
Speaker 1: which started the raid and called cameras there to film

1030
01:01:23,000 --> 01:01:25,720
Speaker 1: it because they were facing an existential crisis in Congress

1031
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:30,480
Speaker 1: they needed to televise win. So this this standoff ultimately

1032
01:01:30,480 --> 01:01:33,480
Speaker 1: becomes a debacle in a tragedy. But when four ATF

1033
01:01:33,560 --> 01:01:36,800
Speaker 1: agents are killed and the FBI shows up, now you

1034
01:01:36,880 --> 01:01:40,000
Speaker 1: have two forces who are not actually working in concert,

1035
01:01:40,520 --> 01:01:42,600
Speaker 1: and then you have the hostage rescue team who has

1036
01:01:42,640 --> 01:01:45,440
Speaker 1: its own goals. So there was no general sort of

1037
01:01:45,880 --> 01:01:49,520
Speaker 1: telling everybody what the next step needs to be. Yeah,

1038
01:01:49,560 --> 01:01:50,720
Speaker 1: and tragedy ensues.

1039
01:01:51,520 --> 01:01:52,040
Speaker 3: Fascinating.

1040
01:01:52,400 --> 01:01:54,640
Speaker 1: It was something that we we spent a lot of

1041
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:57,600
Speaker 1: time learning about and studying about, and I don't want

1042
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:02,080
Speaker 1: oral government is one blame or that the branch Davidians

1043
01:02:02,080 --> 01:02:04,280
Speaker 1: are one hundred percent to blame, but it is worthy

1044
01:02:04,280 --> 01:02:04,720
Speaker 1: of study.

1045
01:02:05,360 --> 01:02:06,800
Speaker 3: Well that's you know.

1046
01:02:06,960 --> 01:02:09,760
Speaker 2: Where great art lives, as far as I'm concerned, is

1047
01:02:09,760 --> 01:02:14,000
Speaker 2: in the question, not in the answers. So exploring all

1048
01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:19,720
Speaker 2: sides is valuable and ultimately hopefully changes things for the future. John,

1049
01:02:20,240 --> 01:02:23,880
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your time you Knox goes away.

1050
01:02:24,120 --> 01:02:27,320
Speaker 2: I hear you've just wrapped principal photography on that. Another

1051
01:02:27,400 --> 01:02:32,120
Speaker 2: Michael Keaton adventure. Good luck with that. I'm a big

1052
01:02:32,160 --> 01:02:35,600
Speaker 2: fan of his and a huge fan of yours as well.

1053
01:02:35,720 --> 01:02:38,840
Speaker 3: I will be watching whatever you do next.

1054
01:02:40,320 --> 01:02:42,280
Speaker 1: Thank you for this time together. This has been a

1055
01:02:42,320 --> 01:02:42,720
Speaker 1: lot of fun.

1056
01:02:42,760 --> 01:02:43,040
Speaker 3: Man.

1057
01:02:43,600 --> 01:02:46,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much, John, I appreciate it. Good luck.

1058
01:02:46,840 --> 01:02:47,840
Speaker 1: Thank you sir, take care.

1059
01:03:00,680 --> 01:03:02,680
Speaker 2: That was so much fun. Thank you so much for

1060
01:03:02,720 --> 01:03:05,520
Speaker 2: hopping on after talking to you. Let me just say

1061
01:03:05,600 --> 01:03:09,880
Speaker 2: I am so excited to watch Waco the Aftermath. It

1062
01:03:09,920 --> 01:03:13,680
Speaker 2: was a story I followed very closely years ago, but

1063
01:03:13,760 --> 01:03:19,320
Speaker 2: to hear the residences from today's world, well, well I

1064
01:03:19,400 --> 01:03:22,200
Speaker 2: just can't wait. Listeners, make sure to look out for

1065
01:03:22,280 --> 01:03:23,360
Speaker 2: John in Waco.

1066
01:03:23,640 --> 01:03:24,840
Speaker 3: He is going to be awesome.

1067
01:03:25,120 --> 01:03:27,720
Speaker 2: I know it, and of course make sure to leave

1068
01:03:27,720 --> 01:03:31,400
Speaker 2: a comment on our Instagram. Tune into next week for

1069
01:03:31,880 --> 01:03:35,320
Speaker 2: Off the Beat, Same time, same place, same me.

1070
01:03:36,400 --> 01:03:37,120
Speaker 3: We'll see you then.

1071
01:03:45,960 --> 01:03:48,920
Speaker 2: Off the Beat is hosted and executive produced by me

1072
01:03:49,280 --> 01:03:53,760
Speaker 2: Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer, Ling Lee. Our senior

1073
01:03:53,800 --> 01:03:58,400
Speaker 2: producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris,

1074
01:03:58,480 --> 01:04:02,960
Speaker 2: and Emily Carr. Talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary, and

1075
01:04:03,080 --> 01:04:07,280
Speaker 2: our intern is Sammy Katz. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak,

1076
01:04:07,640 --> 01:04:10,680
Speaker 2: performed by the one and only Creed Bratton,