Speaker 1: So I go to my theater studies teacher at the
Speaker 1: time and I say, you know, I think I'm going
Speaker 1: to apply for drama school, which is a rada, a lambda,
Speaker 1: one of these kind of prestigious land in drama school.
Speaker 1: She says to me. And I know this is quite
Speaker 1: an odd thing for a teacher to maybe say, but
Speaker 1: it was fast. She said. I don't think you're getting
Speaker 1: She said, I think you're too young. And even though
Speaker 1: it's a thing that some people do straight after high school,
Speaker 1: most of the people that do go to those schools,
Speaker 1: they have got a little bit more lived experience and
Speaker 1: life behind them. They are maybe in their early twenties,
Speaker 1: sometimes in their late twenties, and me, being eighteen at
Speaker 1: a time, thought you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get in. So when an auditions turns
Speaker 1: out she did know what she was talking about, and
Speaker 1: I did not get in. My name is all of
Speaker 1: the Stark. I am a British actor now living in
Speaker 1: the US. You might know me from nam On one
Speaker 1: and I'm happy to be here. Hi everybody, and welcome
Speaker 1: to today's episode of Off the Beat. I am your host,
Speaker 1: Brian Baumgartner. Now listen. As you just heard, Oliver Stark
Speaker 1: is on the podcast today. I'm very excited. I'm so excited,
Speaker 1: in fact, that I might just call nine one one. Okay,
Speaker 1: that was that was a bad one. I am not
Speaker 1: going to be calling the police, but Oliver and I
Speaker 1: will be getting into his time on nine one one,
Speaker 1: the show and how it dove into the stressful realities
Speaker 1: of first responders. It's a great series, but it's only
Speaker 1: one of Oliver's many accomplishments. He starred in the fantasy
Speaker 1: series Into the bad Lands, Underworld, Blood Wars, Mind Gamers,
Speaker 1: and much much more. Are you ready? I'm ready. I
Speaker 1: always like making new friends. Today is no exception. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go deep into Oliver's career, from his early acting
Speaker 1: days in London Town to training with real firefighters for
Speaker 1: nine one one. So here he is my new friend,
Speaker 1: Oliver Stark. Bubblunch, Squeak, I love it, Bubble, Squeak, Bubble
Speaker 1: and squeaker cook get every month left over from the Nabby.
Speaker 1: What's up? Hello? How you doing, Oliver? How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing great? Thank you so much for joining me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me. Now that this ominous countdown
Speaker 1: just disappeared from the screen after lets you have six seconds, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then your life is going to end. What a
Speaker 1: way to go. Well, you know, we like to keep
Speaker 1: it really dramatic here on the on the podcast, Um,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on. We're gonna talk about obviously just
Speaker 1: some of the work that you've done. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to go back to start with, well the beginning. You
Speaker 1: grew up in London, Is that right? It did? Yeah? Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: London is home, Northwest London to be more specific. So
Speaker 1: all my family still are okay, so so you know
Speaker 1: that that will always in fact be home home. Are
Speaker 1: you back there often? You know? When when I first
Speaker 1: so I moved to California in twenty sixteen, and for
Speaker 1: my first I guess four years until COVID, I will
Speaker 1: go back like twice a year, um so, so I
Speaker 1: still felt quite connected to the place. But then when
Speaker 1: COVID here, I didn't go for two years. It's got
Speaker 1: more maybe two and a half. And I went back
Speaker 1: just over Christmas and knew which was my first time
Speaker 1: in a in a very very long time. So that
Speaker 1: was nice, it felt you know, it's just to like
Speaker 1: walk around the streets that you grew up on and
Speaker 1: sleep in your old bedroom. And I stayed with my
Speaker 1: parents and they still live in the same house that
Speaker 1: I grew up in, so that that was really nice.
Speaker 1: I had missed that more than I realized. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like I haven't talked to anybody about this before.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like there is in London at a
Speaker 1: younger age a greater sort of focus and or appreciation
Speaker 1: on the arts so weirdly, no, okay, And in actual
Speaker 1: fact I think less so than I've experienced here. Okay,
Speaker 1: in a sense that so when I moved here, one
Speaker 1: of the things that you know, people say, what's the difference?
Speaker 1: And I always found that in London, at anytime you
Speaker 1: expressed kind of any ambition for a creative career, it's
Speaker 1: always all right, but what are you are you really
Speaker 1: going to do? Right? Sure, but what are you actually
Speaker 1: going to do? Yeah? R here I and I don't
Speaker 1: know if that goes way back to the American dream
Speaker 1: you can do whatever you want, though I've never really
Speaker 1: encountered that to the same degree here. And somebody put
Speaker 1: it like this to me, where if you see somebody
Speaker 1: in the UK, or in London more specifically with a
Speaker 1: nice car, so as well, how come they have that
Speaker 1: and I don't, right, Whereas a bit more of an
Speaker 1: American attitude is how did you get that so that
Speaker 1: I can have it? So it's a bit more supportive,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's wrong, maybe that's but but that's the
Speaker 1: way it's been put to me. And you know, there
Speaker 1: is certainly more culture in the UK than maybe some cities,
Speaker 1: and you know, theater and stuff, right, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that's the genesis of my asking and your answer
Speaker 1: is fascinating to me. But yeah, you think history maybe
Speaker 1: one naively feels like history and culture and the arts
Speaker 1: kind of go hand in hand. But that's a very
Speaker 1: interesting perspective. Yeah, I mean, I think theater wise, as
Speaker 1: you just said, like there's the West End, just like
Speaker 1: in sort of like New York or whatever, that there
Speaker 1: is more of a focus in those couple of cities
Speaker 1: than maybe other places. But that's interesting. Were you involved
Speaker 1: in sports growing up city? Yeah, yeah, that was that
Speaker 1: was probably my real ambition when I was like a kid,
Speaker 1: was to be a football player. Okay, I guess quite
Speaker 1: a slightly different room. I know, I've always said I
Speaker 1: want to play an athlete, so I can kind of
Speaker 1: straddle the two and pretend like I made my real
Speaker 1: dream come true. Right when did you start becoming interested
Speaker 1: in acting or in the arts? You know? I think
Speaker 1: I had always like I was a real show off
Speaker 1: as a kid, Like I liked attention, you know, and
Speaker 1: I was a kid who, for whatever reasons, I've never
Speaker 1: really been able to explain this, but I always got attention.
Speaker 1: Like as a kid I was on the way to
Speaker 1: would give an extra scoop of ice cream too. I
Speaker 1: was always you know that they or they'd come and
Speaker 1: do the magic tricks like that. I just was always
Speaker 1: involved in some kind of performance. And maybe I had
Speaker 1: an energy that was clear that maybe I needed a
Speaker 1: little bit more so so people around me would give
Speaker 1: it to me. But I don't think that was ever
Speaker 1: at that stage this is a possible career. It was
Speaker 1: like I just liked being the silly one of the group,
Speaker 1: or I just liked they're putting myself out there a
Speaker 1: little bit. I don't think it was until I was
Speaker 1: maybe fourteen fifteen where I even started to think about acting,
Speaker 1: But even then it wasn't a career. And when I
Speaker 1: was about eighteen, I did There's a drama school in
Speaker 1: the UK called Rada, which is a very prestigious student school,
Speaker 1: and that they came and they did a workshop for
Speaker 1: us at my high school. And I remember saying to
Speaker 1: one of them, you know, I really enjoy this and
Speaker 1: I think I might want to be an actor, but
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's a real thing you can say.
Speaker 1: And she said, absolutely is just say it, you could,
Speaker 1: and you go and do it. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think that was the first time that it clicked, the oh,
Speaker 1: being an actor doesn't mean I have to go and
Speaker 1: win an Oscar and be the most famous person that like,
Speaker 1: I can just be an actor. I can I can
Speaker 1: try and make a career out of that. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it was about eighteen moving into nineteen where
Speaker 1: it first became a viable career choice rather than just
Speaker 1: a one in a million dream. That's so interesting because
Speaker 1: I think a similar thing happened for me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was very involved and here in the States did
Speaker 1: this big theater competition junior and senior year, but it
Speaker 1: was not until I was a senior in high school here,
Speaker 1: like right the summer right before where I did a
Speaker 1: similar program here. It's a program at Northwestern University and
Speaker 1: you only go. It's not like you can go to
Speaker 1: camp there for years. You can only go between your
Speaker 1: junior and senior year of high school. And that's where
Speaker 1: for me, I was like, oh, this can be more
Speaker 1: than just an activity that I do, like an extra
Speaker 1: curricular or like whatever like this. Oh, I see the
Speaker 1: depths now with which this could be something to study
Speaker 1: to learn. So that's that's interesting. Were you doing plays
Speaker 1: though before this or not? Really you were just oh, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would always do like the school play, you know,
Speaker 1: so nothing like you know when I was in I
Speaker 1: don't know what the equivalent would be here year seven,
Speaker 1: I guess. So the first year of high school was
Speaker 1: the Grinch in the school play, and you know, got
Speaker 1: to do that. And in one of my later years
Speaker 1: we did Guys and Goals and I got to play
Speaker 1: Sky Masterson, which is funny because I'm completely incapable of
Speaker 1: hitting a note. So for me to be the lead
Speaker 1: in the school musical was a very brave decision on
Speaker 1: their part. I basically talked my way through most of
Speaker 1: the songs, and probably not quite in rhythm or anything.
Speaker 1: I could talk sing really well. Yeah, the best of them.
Speaker 1: I can talk sing. But yeah, we did that that musical.
Speaker 1: It was only on for three nights, and this girl
Speaker 1: came up to me. I think she was in the
Speaker 1: year below me. She came up, she went, so, I've
Speaker 1: got two more performances after this, but she went, why
Speaker 1: are You're such a good actor? You know, I'm feeling
Speaker 1: good about but you can't sing and I still got
Speaker 1: I've still got two more performances. It's like, wow, I
Speaker 1: can't wait to get onto stage tomorrow. So you have
Speaker 1: this conversation with the person from RADA, So what do
Speaker 1: you what's your path from there? What do you decide
Speaker 1: to do? So I go to my theater studies teacher
Speaker 1: at the time and I say, you know, I think
Speaker 1: I'm going to apply for drama school, which is a RADA,
Speaker 1: a LAMBDA, one of these kind of prestigious lane in
Speaker 1: drama school. She says to me, and I not, this
Speaker 1: is quite an odd thing for a teacher to maybe say,
Speaker 1: but it was. She said. I don't think you're getting
Speaker 1: She said, I think you're too young. And even though
Speaker 1: it's a thing that some people do straight after high school,
Speaker 1: most of the people that do go to those schools,
Speaker 1: they have got a little bit more lived experience and
Speaker 1: life behind them. They are maybe in the early twenties,
Speaker 1: sometimes in their late twenties, and me, being eighteen at
Speaker 1: a time, thought you don't know what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get in. So when an auditions turns
Speaker 1: out she did know what she was talking about, and
Speaker 1: I did not get in. So at that time, I
Speaker 1: then applied to university to go and study economics because
Speaker 1: I thought, maybe it's not the right time for me
Speaker 1: to do that. So I had a place I was
Speaker 1: going to go and do economics, and then I did
Speaker 1: not go and do that course. It was a thing
Speaker 1: I was maybe good at, but not my life. So
Speaker 1: that kind of left me in a place of not
Speaker 1: knowing where I was. So I just started working various
Speaker 1: different jobs. I was like a door to door insurance
Speaker 1: salesman for a bit, I worked in a cool center.
Speaker 1: I worked in various retail things, and then I reapplied
Speaker 1: to drama school the next year and I got into
Speaker 1: two of them, okay, and then I got really lucky.
Speaker 1: I got offered what was called a Dance and Drama Award,
Speaker 1: so a scholarship, and I decided to not go because
Speaker 1: so this guy calls me up and he says, you
Speaker 1: know you've got your places. Great news, and we're going
Speaker 1: to offer you the Dada Scholarship and how great. Thank you,
Speaker 1: he said, Wow, that's so crazy to the last person
Speaker 1: that told screamed down the phone in excitement, and you
Speaker 1: were just seeing so nonplussed about it. And I remember thinking, yeah,
Speaker 1: why is that? And I just I think it. I
Speaker 1: had realized it wasn't the right path for me at
Speaker 1: that time, and I think my fear was that one
Speaker 1: of the things I really enjoyed about acting was I
Speaker 1: felt like I had a certain kind of rawness to me,
Speaker 1: and for better or for worse, I felt like they
Speaker 1: were going to try and take that out of me
Speaker 1: and rebuild me in their image almost and I didn't
Speaker 1: want to do that at that time, so I said no,
Speaker 1: and instead I just started making short films, not making them,
Speaker 1: but being in them. So I found this website and
Speaker 1: it was where a lot of film students would put
Speaker 1: up castings for their graduation films, and so I was
Speaker 1: in the space of a year I did something like
Speaker 1: twenty two short films for just random film students, and
Speaker 1: some of them are so awful, but it was a
Speaker 1: very safe place for me to be really bad, right,
Speaker 1: And then I cut together a reel out of those
Speaker 1: and I started sending them off to agents, and I
Speaker 1: got my first agent in the UK and just slowly
Speaker 1: started to grow from then. You know, did There's a
Speaker 1: show in the UK called Casualty where every British actor
Speaker 1: ever has been on it, you know, as one of
Speaker 1: their first jobs. And so I did that and I
Speaker 1: played a drug dealer who one of his pregnant girlfriend
Speaker 1: to go to a drug deal because he thought there
Speaker 1: would be less chance that she would be the one
Speaker 1: to get shook. She goes shut and so yes, I
Speaker 1: just you know, slowly started building a resume. Yeah, now
Speaker 1: at this point, what is your that by the way,
Speaker 1: the foresight that you had to make the decision for
Speaker 1: your own path one is very admirable because I know
Speaker 1: that most people follow a very certain sort of prescribed path.
Speaker 1: So that's very cool. Let me ask you this, at
Speaker 1: this point, you do these student films, where do you
Speaker 1: Where do you think your life is going? And I'll
Speaker 1: tell you about me, not because you ask, but because
Speaker 1: to tell you what I mean. Like I was doing
Speaker 1: theater in the United States, so I was doing regional theater,
Speaker 1: touring theaters, theaters all around him. That's really what I
Speaker 1: thought my life was. That was what my dream was.
Speaker 1: I want to be a theater actor, doing this forever.
Speaker 1: Like that's where it's sort of finished for me. And
Speaker 1: I ask in part because yes, you're in the UK,
Speaker 1: you're in London, and they do a lot of wonderful
Speaker 1: filmmaking over in London. But like for you, where did
Speaker 1: you but your path hasn't gone that way? Where did
Speaker 1: you see yourself? What did you want to do at
Speaker 1: this point? So I think that there were two very
Speaker 1: distinct sides to myself this time, one where even though
Speaker 1: I had now taken steps into this, one that thought,
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna nobody's ever going to pay me to
Speaker 1: do this. I just feel like some kid from Hendon,
Speaker 1: which is the place in London. Yes, I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: make anything of this. And then the other side where
Speaker 1: I never had any doubt but I was going to
Speaker 1: find success. And I think you know that that's probably
Speaker 1: and I have, you know, looked into this. Why did
Speaker 1: I have such a part of myself that was so sure?
Speaker 1: And it's probably because you know, look at or think
Speaker 1: about representation of things. I've probably always seen a version
Speaker 1: of myself in most movies, right, Like growing up, there
Speaker 1: was always a guy that probably kind of looked like
Speaker 1: me that was the hero in a lot of these stories.
Speaker 1: So I think for those reasons, it always felt doable
Speaker 1: on one hand, But then there's also a lot of
Speaker 1: guys that look like me, so completely unachievable on the
Speaker 1: other hand. And I just had these two separate sides
Speaker 1: where one, I'm going to end up selling video games forever,
Speaker 1: which is what I was doing at the time, and
Speaker 1: two I'm going to be on TV screens, no doubt
Speaker 1: about it. Fascinating. One of your earliest jobs you work
Speaker 1: with our mutual friend DRIs elba yea Uther, very big
Speaker 1: show in the UK at the time, and obviously he
Speaker 1: is exploding at this time. How how was that experience
Speaker 1: for you as one of your earliest jobs. I was
Speaker 1: so excited because it was it was the third season
Speaker 1: of Luther, so so it's been around for a little
Speaker 1: bit and it was the best thing in British television,
Speaker 1: you know, and and and so much of that is
Speaker 1: is him and kind of all aspects. He had this
Speaker 1: runess to him where he was rough and ready, but
Speaker 1: he was still, you know, obviously intelligent and oh it
Speaker 1: was such a brilliant character. They're doing a movie that's
Speaker 1: coming out sooner. I know that. You know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you that. I don't think I've told this story before.
Speaker 1: I it sounds this is going to sound like a
Speaker 1: humble bragg. This is like, oh, very weird, I've not
Speaker 1: this is so long ago. Obviously the wire has been out.
Speaker 1: But I you know, this didn't I mean, it should
Speaker 1: have propelled him immediately into humongous stardom. He doesn't. I'm
Speaker 1: at an event out of the country of the US
Speaker 1: that was in the Bahamas, and I get this. Someone
Speaker 1: comes over to me and says, and I'm bringing this
Speaker 1: up because you talked about his rawness. They say, the
Speaker 1: DJ wants to talk to you. He said, this is
Speaker 1: something that no one is in any club ever said
Speaker 1: to me. And I said, oh, okay, yeah, he's gonna
Speaker 1: be on your show. The DJs in the Bahamas is
Speaker 1: going to be on my show. Yeah, And I go
Speaker 1: I go up and there's Idriss as the DJ, and
Speaker 1: I you know, it was like, well, one of those
Speaker 1: things where you see someone and you know them, but
Speaker 1: in this content. I mean, like, here's role on the Wire,
Speaker 1: which is where I knew him from. And this a
Speaker 1: fantastic DJ by the way, was so different and he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: may you know whatever, I'm going to be on your show,
Speaker 1: and I was like what who? Oh my god? And
Speaker 1: then but his like energy and his wrong, I know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about about that it makes that makes
Speaker 1: total sense today. That's the story that I always think
Speaker 1: about him is. So I do this little bit on
Speaker 1: Luther and it's such a small part, you know, it's
Speaker 1: at the beginning of one episodes. It was really fun though,
Speaker 1: especially because it was maybe my second TV job. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what I was doing, and almost in quite
Speaker 1: a good way where I just felt really loose and relaxed,
Speaker 1: like who knows. So, you know, I do this bit
Speaker 1: and by the time our characters that I say this
Speaker 1: newsly interact because I'm dead, but you know, he comes
Speaker 1: and I've already been killed, right, But you know, we
Speaker 1: spoke a little bit on set that day and then
Speaker 1: I think that you know, it was one of these
Speaker 1: British shows where there's four episodes in the se season,
Speaker 1: and so it was the penultimate episode. So the rat
Speaker 1: Party was not too long after, and so I went
Speaker 1: to the Rat Party and as I arrived there, he
Speaker 1: was outside with this guy Warren Brown, who was his
Speaker 1: partner on the show. And I'd known Warren previously, so
Speaker 1: I started talking to them and after a while he
Speaker 1: just goes, I just I feel like I recognize you
Speaker 1: from somewhere. And I was like, yeah, Luther like this.
Speaker 1: I mean I was dead at the time, but this
Speaker 1: is the Luther Rat Party and he's like, oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So that was that. That was the first bit. But
Speaker 1: then like two or three years after this, saw him
Speaker 1: at an airport and I thought, oh what, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna say hi, and he before I said hi, I
Speaker 1: worked and he went Luthor right, and he completely remembered
Speaker 1: me from like three years prior to my name and everything.
Speaker 1: So the difference in those two interactions it made me
Speaker 1: feel so good. When I went up to the airport
Speaker 1: and he totally remembered me. That's awesome. Um, you start
Speaker 1: working on films now, are you still in the UK
Speaker 1: and you know at what point? Sorry, well hard tiede,
Speaker 1: Yes very much in the UK. Yes, underworld mind gamers,
Speaker 1: you're working and you're building your resume and your career.
Speaker 1: They are still in the UK. Now you've worked on
Speaker 1: some film now and some television. What for you was
Speaker 1: the difference or was it just a different job. Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think at that point it was very much just
Speaker 1: a case of how much time can I spend on
Speaker 1: sets and how much can I not mess this up?
Speaker 1: And so maybe there'll be another opportunity where anything I
Speaker 1: take from this one I can use on the next one.
Speaker 1: So I mean, you know that the one you meant
Speaker 1: in The Hard Tide was quite a big part in
Speaker 1: that movie. You know. In fact, I remember how I
Speaker 1: got that was somebody else was meant to do it,
Speaker 1: and then he dropped out, and they said to me,
Speaker 1: literally on a Friday, can you do this movie? And
Speaker 1: you're starting on Monday. You have to travel up there tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And obviously I was like, yes, that I can't wait.
Speaker 1: But but you know, it was that kind of movie
Speaker 1: where it was just so thrown together at the last minute.
Speaker 1: But it was a great experience, and it was a
Speaker 1: chance for me to just do some acting on camera,
Speaker 1: because even the things I had done up until that point,
Speaker 1: you know that they were fun and cool, but they
Speaker 1: were small and there wasn't really any meat to anything
Speaker 1: that I was doing, where I think that was probably
Speaker 1: one of the first times where it was like I
Speaker 1: can delve into this guy and I can feel like
Speaker 1: I'm transforming a little bit. So even though you know
Speaker 1: it's it's not necessarily a performance that I look backward
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, I hope some people see that.
Speaker 1: But it was an important step for me. And the
Speaker 1: biggest one that you mentioned there for me was probably
Speaker 1: that Mind Gamers movie, because that actually came at a
Speaker 1: point where I had come out to America for a
Speaker 1: little bit. I came out to a pilot season. I'd
Speaker 1: saved that some money. It came out and did a
Speaker 1: pilot season, and it was so bad I think I
Speaker 1: had You know, you hear these stories. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know if you hear them as an American,
Speaker 1: but you can maybe speak on that. But when you're
Speaker 1: coming over from the UK for a pilot season, you're
Speaker 1: going to have five auditions a day. It's going to
Speaker 1: be unmanageable. You were going to be spending so much
Speaker 1: money on guests. Him out for six weeks. I had
Speaker 1: about three auditions, so it was such a letdown, and
Speaker 1: then I got Mind Gamers a couple of weeks after
Speaker 1: I got back. That's what gave me the money to
Speaker 1: come out to the US again, which is where I
Speaker 1: then booked my first TV show. You start dabbling mind
Speaker 1: Gamers for one in fantasy and sci fi? Now, is
Speaker 1: this something that you personally are interested in? How was
Speaker 1: that genre in a way different than other stuff that
Speaker 1: you had done. Yeah, I've absolutely always had an interest
Speaker 1: in and watching that kind of thing. I think sci
Speaker 1: fi in particular, probably through my older brother when I
Speaker 1: was growing up. He was a big Star Trek fan,
Speaker 1: so that was often on the TV, and I didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily get it when I was really really young, and then,
Speaker 1: as you do, sometimes just my older brother liked it.
Speaker 1: I liked it, so got more into sci fi and
Speaker 1: fantasy stuff. I think the key really for the actor, though,
Speaker 1: in my humble opinion, is to not play that you're
Speaker 1: in a to not treat it very differently, you know,
Speaker 1: is to treat it as if you're making anything and
Speaker 1: be grounded and you just happen to be in the
Speaker 1: world of sci fi. I think as an audience member,
Speaker 1: anything you watch all of that stuff, sci fi action,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. That's all only matters if you care
Speaker 1: about the people and if you buy into the connections
Speaker 1: between the characters, and so that has to be the
Speaker 1: focus of the actor, and then everything around them does
Speaker 1: the sci fi job. Speaking of sci fi into the
Speaker 1: bad Lands, how are you? How are you cast? I
Speaker 1: mean this, this becomes your first really big break. Tell me,
Speaker 1: tell me how it happens. So so, i'd done this
Speaker 1: mind Games movie, which had given me enough money to
Speaker 1: come back out to the US, and I came for
Speaker 1: two weeks. That's all you were coming for. You were
Speaker 1: just coming for two weeks. It's just two weeks in
Speaker 1: in October, okay, And I think I had something said
Speaker 1: to me of like a mini pilot season. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's a thing or not, but that's what
Speaker 1: I've been told. I don't know. I certainly didn't experience that.
Speaker 1: I came out and I had absolutely nothing in the
Speaker 1: first week. It's okay, not really what I spent the
Speaker 1: money for, but I guess I'm having a nice time.
Speaker 1: Second week, I think I had maybe one audition, and
Speaker 1: I called my manager and we got an argument. For
Speaker 1: the first time I've been with this guy for it
Speaker 1: for a couple of years now, you know, me based
Speaker 1: in the UK and him sending me audition tape. But
Speaker 1: this was one of our first times. But yeah, we
Speaker 1: really fell out on the phone because I just said,
Speaker 1: you know, I've come all the way here and there's nothing,
Speaker 1: which is a silly thing to say, because he quite
Speaker 1: rightly said, what do you want me to do if
Speaker 1: there's you know, if there's anything comes up, I'm submitting
Speaker 1: you for it. I think the way he put it
Speaker 1: to me is like I'm not sitting behind my desk
Speaker 1: jerking awful day. I'm trying to get you jo like
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do it for you, right. And so
Speaker 1: I said to him, you know, should I should I
Speaker 1: extend for one more week? He said, I'll be honest
Speaker 1: with you, only don't spend the money. It's not worth it.
Speaker 1: There's nothing here called my UK agent. I said the
Speaker 1: same thing. He said, come home. But I had just
Speaker 1: split up with a partner back home, and I think
Speaker 1: I've just been a bit stubborn as well. And so
Speaker 1: I said, I'm going to do one more week and
Speaker 1: he said, all right, let's see what we can do.
Speaker 1: And I had a load of general meetings that week,
Speaker 1: so you know, I'm just going meeting casting people, not
Speaker 1: for any specific jobs, but I get to sit down
Speaker 1: with them and just to have a discussion. Right. And
Speaker 1: then on the Friday, the last day of my extended week,
Speaker 1: I get this audition or I must have got the
Speaker 1: audition on the Thursday to audition on Friday four into
Speaker 1: the bad Lands, and they said, it's this great pilot script,
Speaker 1: and it was that. The pilot script was fantastic. The
Speaker 1: part was so good. This tomorrow Friday, it's late, it's
Speaker 1: like four or five pm, as I said, going home
Speaker 1: Saturday morning. So I read for this part with just
Speaker 1: the cast and director, nobody else, may have even just
Speaker 1: been the casting assistant. And I did it once and
Speaker 1: she just looked at me and she can you just
Speaker 1: give me one second? And she went out of the
Speaker 1: room and she came back in with the main cast
Speaker 1: and director and she said, can you read it for her?
Speaker 1: And this was one of the most humbling I did.
Speaker 1: On the first line, she said stop. I said, okay,
Speaker 1: she said, you're trying too hard. Said okay, great again,
Speaker 1: he started it again, and I literally two or three
Speaker 1: lines and she stops me again. She said, just stop acting. Okay,
Speaker 1: here we go again, and I remember very clearly this
Speaker 1: feeling of getting past the third line and thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: she's not stopped me. So I get through the scene
Speaker 1: and she says, when are you going home? I say,
Speaker 1: I'm going home tomorrow morning's can you stay around if
Speaker 1: I get the producers down here to meet you right now? Yes,
Speaker 1: of course I can stay around, so I do. I
Speaker 1: just sitting there in their office in the waiting room
Speaker 1: for about an hour, and Miles Miller and al Gol
Speaker 1: who were the two guys that created it, they just
Speaker 1: made Wednesday most recently. They come in and I read
Speaker 1: for them and we have a bit of a chat
Speaker 1: and they say, all right, great, thanks. So I fly
Speaker 1: out home the next day and I don't hear anything
Speaker 1: for a week, and then I get told that AMC
Speaker 1: are going to fly me back out to tests for
Speaker 1: the part, and I do that and I think it's
Speaker 1: the next day. I get the cool you're in, which
Speaker 1: was huge for me. And you know, but I think
Speaker 1: by the time I got that cool, it was probably
Speaker 1: quite late in the day, and you know, my parents
Speaker 1: back in the UK would have been very much asleep,
Speaker 1: and I called them straight away and they kind of
Speaker 1: groggily answered the phone clearly of what, so, what are
Speaker 1: you calling about? And I said, I thank you, said
Speaker 1: I got the part, and my mum said, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you called. And and from then it was you know,
Speaker 1: you're going to New Orleans and you're going to make
Speaker 1: this TV show And it was such an amazing experience.
Speaker 1: It's a really cool world they created. Yeah, the character
Speaker 1: of writer. Talk to me a little bit about how
Speaker 1: you how you got into this this character, besides doing
Speaker 1: your best to not act into the this post apocalyptic
Speaker 1: world that he's living in. Yeah, well, so the world
Speaker 1: itself was not tool I pictured as well, because I
Speaker 1: knew it was post apocalyptics. So and I had read
Speaker 1: it and I had been imagining mad Max. Okay, and
Speaker 1: then we get there and it's my first fitting and
Speaker 1: we're dressed like Victorian Royalty, and so from the get goals, oh,
Speaker 1: this is something totally different. And I remember my real
Speaker 1: focus getting into that character is what does it do
Speaker 1: when you're holding onto secrets for a long time? Because
Speaker 1: originally that character was going to be secretly gay, and
Speaker 1: that never played out in the script, and I remember
Speaker 1: he had this dad's played by the sect called Martin
Speaker 1: shot Ass, who is like so good but very scary
Speaker 1: in the show, not very scary in real life well sometimes,
Speaker 1: but very very powerful man in the show, one that
Speaker 1: you would think would maybe not be quite on board
Speaker 1: with his son possibly being gay. And so it was
Speaker 1: something that he was aside himself he was going to
Speaker 1: have to hide, and I remember really focusing on what
Speaker 1: would that do to a person to keep aside himself
Speaker 1: buried for so long? And I can't remember what I
Speaker 1: was reading at the time, but it had something about
Speaker 1: how secrets rot away at you if you if you
Speaker 1: keep them inside. And so there was this kind of
Speaker 1: darkness that I wanted to find in him of just
Speaker 1: not being able to be himself and never feeling worthy
Speaker 1: and feeling like his real self wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: worthy of the future Baron of the Badlands, which she
Speaker 1: was the heir to be. So so that was that
Speaker 1: was a big part of finding who Rider was. What
Speaker 1: does it feel like to bear this weight your whole
Speaker 1: life of not being good enough? That's fascinating. What do
Speaker 1: you think in terms of showing up and having it
Speaker 1: be so different stylistically than what you thought before. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like that had an impact on your performance
Speaker 1: or was that just you were just playing the part
Speaker 1: and your environment didn't matter. Um. I think it was
Speaker 1: kind of a case of once I was in the costume,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but
Speaker 1: it changed everything. Yeah, Suddenly I was walking a little
Speaker 1: bit taller, my shoulders were pinned back a little bit
Speaker 1: further because I'm in this as the beautiful, you know,
Speaker 1: outfit they've put together. So so I do think it
Speaker 1: I could imagine if it wasn't that, I probably I
Speaker 1: would have had a totally different physicality, probably would have
Speaker 1: been a bit more hunched over. I've I've grown up
Speaker 1: in this like dirty world, And actually it wasn't that.
Speaker 1: It was down to an abbey and I was upright,
Speaker 1: and so it definitely changed things, but not in a
Speaker 1: way that I think was toll detrimental. I think it
Speaker 1: probably added because it's it's all that roughness was still there.
Speaker 1: It is still a world where at any moment you
Speaker 1: can die or and be killed. But that added into
Speaker 1: the kind of royalty of the whole thing I think
Speaker 1: blended together quite nicely. Is the physicality important for you
Speaker 1: in creating a character? Yeah, massively, I think you know,
Speaker 1: I used to be an actor where every part has
Speaker 1: to feel so different from the last one, and that
Speaker 1: was such an important thing to me. And then I
Speaker 1: realized that that's actually probably quite that's quite the intrumental
Speaker 1: because to some extent every part we play, you know,
Speaker 1: we're putting a piece of ourself into it, right, and
Speaker 1: if we weren't, it wouldn't be a unique performance for us.
Speaker 1: So so I realized that maybe you know that there's
Speaker 1: always going to be an essence of myself in these parts.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that can help me get
Speaker 1: into the other character aspect is how do they walk,
Speaker 1: how do they move? How do they hold themselves? Because
Speaker 1: I think that tells quite the story as well. You know,
Speaker 1: in certain situations we hold ourselves probably differently, and there's
Speaker 1: something about that that is telling a story. Well, why
Speaker 1: why do I when I'm putting this Victorian jacket? Why
Speaker 1: do I stand more upright? Right? Because I've never had
Speaker 1: to kind of put words to it. If that that
Speaker 1: privileged upbringing that these characters have had, maybe they've not
Speaker 1: had anything weighing them down in from a societal point
Speaker 1: of view. So yeah, no, I do. I think. I
Speaker 1: think the physicality for me has always been a key
Speaker 1: to help unlock a part who that person is. I
Speaker 1: agree totally. In addition to that, you had a lot
Speaker 1: of action scenes into the bad Lands. Did you do
Speaker 1: your own stunts or did you have stunt people? How
Speaker 1: much of it was you? I definitely had stunt people,
Speaker 1: not as much as I would have liked on on
Speaker 1: bad moments, mostly because it was it was martial arts based.
Speaker 1: So before each season we'd have these big martial arts
Speaker 1: boot camps. And I've always been quite athletic, or I
Speaker 1: have not always been is very flexible, and when we
Speaker 1: were doing these martial arts scenes, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: high kicks and stuff. I just I just wasn't I
Speaker 1: just I just didn't have it right. But one thing
Speaker 1: that so we had this amazing stunt stunt crew. It
Speaker 1: was a very authentic. It felt like experienced to learning
Speaker 1: the martial arts. Because his team of five or six guys,
Speaker 1: they've flown out from China, only one of them spoke English.
Speaker 1: It was it was like very just yeah, as I said,
Speaker 1: authentic feeling, and you know, they'd be kind of trying
Speaker 1: to communicate to me that I'm doing it wrong, and
Speaker 1: I'd be trying to communicate back, I know that I'm
Speaker 1: doing it wrong. I just can't do it right. And
Speaker 1: so this guy that the heads, the one that he
Speaker 1: did speak English master Ded, we would try and base
Speaker 1: riders fights around my skill set, like maybe he's just
Speaker 1: not much of a fancy fighter, maybe he's just a
Speaker 1: bit more seas red, it's just a bit more brutish, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd do that and just swing wildly. So I got
Speaker 1: to have some influence in building those scenes, but anything
Speaker 1: that did require a bit more finesse. I had a
Speaker 1: great double in New Orleans and then the same thing.
Speaker 1: In fact I had there were different doubles between season
Speaker 1: one and two. Season one, I had a great double.
Speaker 1: Season two, I had a very very handsome and muscular
Speaker 1: double to the point where it's like, can he just
Speaker 1: play writer? He just put my face on his body.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he was great, And so yeah, always had
Speaker 1: you know, in all these jobs that I've unfortunate to
Speaker 1: do a fair amount of action, built a really great
Speaker 1: relationship with stunt doubles because I think it's more than
Speaker 1: them just certainly something that I experienced these days. It's
Speaker 1: more than them just stepping in to do the things
Speaker 1: that I'm maybe it's unsafe for me to do or
Speaker 1: incapable of doing, and it's much more about building a
Speaker 1: rapport of Hey, man, I know you're going to want
Speaker 1: to do this, so I tested it out for you,
Speaker 1: and I found that if I put my hand here,
Speaker 1: it gave me really great leverage or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: But but having that back and forth rather than just
Speaker 1: all right, I'm done, he steps in. Right. How How
Speaker 1: did the calves come along really really well? Because it
Speaker 1: was a really nice blend of people, kind of different
Speaker 1: ages and different backgrounds and people coming from from parts
Speaker 1: of the world, and we were just thrown into this thing.
Speaker 1: And we had this fight camp for the seasons where
Speaker 1: it was just being beaten up, beating each other up
Speaker 1: and not good at it. Yeah, really it was you know,
Speaker 1: we were all staying pretty close to each other and
Speaker 1: we'd go we spent eight hours a day learning to
Speaker 1: fight together. It was It was amazing. It was so
Speaker 1: bonding and learning to deal with the Louisiana heat because
Speaker 1: we were there like just moving into summit. It was
Speaker 1: so so hot, and I just drenched engross the whole time.
Speaker 1: But it was it was really bonding for everybody to
Speaker 1: kind of struggle through that together. And you know see
Speaker 1: some people, oh, they'd learned to do this kick and
Speaker 1: and everybody be really supportive because well, you're the first
Speaker 1: one to get it, all right, now I want to
Speaker 1: get it. And it was Yeah, that that in itself,
Speaker 1: I think really helped bind everybody together. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: there certainly was and is there was a period where
Speaker 1: post apocalyptic tone vision became quite a thing. You've got
Speaker 1: The Last of Us, The Walking Dead, Station eleven and more.
Speaker 1: Where do you feel into the bad Lands fits into this?
Speaker 1: In what way is it unique and what do you
Speaker 1: think it's legacy is? I think it's unique kind of
Speaker 1: in what I touched on about it just it just
Speaker 1: feels like a different world in the way that we
Speaker 1: were all dressed. It's it didn't show us going back
Speaker 1: to this kind of barren, deserted world, show that in
Speaker 1: some senses it is the world's more heightened state where
Speaker 1: it has moved forward. For me, the real thing that
Speaker 1: sets into the bad Land and society and it has
Speaker 1: given it which I've come to learn over the last
Speaker 1: few years something of a cult following. It's the action
Speaker 1: in it, you know, it's very much old school kind
Speaker 1: of Kung Fu movies, gravity defying, you spend a little
Speaker 1: bit too long in the air before each kick, and
Speaker 1: it's really something there's not much of an American TV
Speaker 1: you know. I think those movies really became mainstream here
Speaker 1: through things like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, But I don't
Speaker 1: think TV ever really found that style and into the
Speaker 1: bad Lends for me, really nailed that fighting style. Were
Speaker 1: you ready for it to be over when I was over?
Speaker 1: I was. I was horrified when I got the because
Speaker 1: so I I die halfway through the second season, Yes,
Speaker 1: and I was so I wasn't going to spoil it,
Speaker 1: but you did. Okay, Yes, So I die halfway through
Speaker 1: the second season, and I felt like at the time, Oh,
Speaker 1: here's this cool cable TV show. This is gonna be
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I'm dying. Oh maybe I did a really
Speaker 1: bad job and I'm never going to work again. I was.
Speaker 1: I was petrified at the end of it, and in
Speaker 1: some senses, if I watched your two seasons, I'm much
Speaker 1: happier with the performances I given a second season and
Speaker 1: the first, and I think it's because I felt free
Speaker 1: up in the first season. I think I still had
Speaker 1: that this is like a really big opportunity. Oh, I
Speaker 1: should say it's like nice little box because of that,
Speaker 1: Whereas in season two I knew it was coming to
Speaker 1: an end, so I felt much freer in my performances.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was. I was really really worried to
Speaker 1: come into the end of that show of did I
Speaker 1: blow my opportunity? Here? Am I Am? I never going
Speaker 1: to be able to get get shot? So so no, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was. I was not ready for it to be over. Well,
Speaker 1: you got another shot pretty quick. Nine one one on
Speaker 1: Fox TV. Quite a shift from post apocalyptic victorian wearing
Speaker 1: bad guy to nine one one on Fox. How was
Speaker 1: that switching it up? Well, first of all, tell me
Speaker 1: how you were cast as Evan. Yeah, so that that
Speaker 1: was about eight months between bad Lands and them and one.
Speaker 1: So in the grand scheme of things, relatively quick doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like yeah, but yes, yes, you are ready yes,
Speaker 1: And so I it was a really strange feeling when
Speaker 1: I got the audition for this part. So audition came
Speaker 1: through and I honestly thought I'm gonna get this. And
Speaker 1: bear in mind, so in those eight months, I haven't
Speaker 1: even got close to anything. I don't think I've had
Speaker 1: a call back. But or it wasn't even so much
Speaker 1: I'm going to get this. It was I'm going to
Speaker 1: give a reading of this that no one else is
Speaker 1: going to give, and they're either going to really like
Speaker 1: that or they're not. But I feel very confident I'm
Speaker 1: going to offer up a version of this character that
Speaker 1: no one else is. So I went in and I
Speaker 1: read for it, just with Liz Paulson, who was one
Speaker 1: of the class and people at Fox at the time,
Speaker 1: and I just knew it was going well. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's this thing that I act to say about, Oh
Speaker 1: there's the ones that you think going well that you
Speaker 1: don't get and I don't think that's so much like
Speaker 1: you know, when there's a good vibe in the room, right, Yes.
Speaker 1: So I came out of that and by the time
Speaker 1: I got home, she'd called my manager and she'd said,
Speaker 1: he did a really great job. Probably gonna want to
Speaker 1: come back in and read for Ryan Murphy and Tim
Speaker 1: Myner and some people who are making show. So then
Speaker 1: I do get a cool that I'm going to go
Speaker 1: back in for it. So I do. I go in
Speaker 1: and meet these guys and I walk in this pretty
Speaker 1: silent and there I do this I think two or
Speaker 1: three scenes. It's just silent. Okay, So I go and
Speaker 1: grab my bag and as I grab my bag, right
Speaker 1: goes also tell us a bit about yourself, and I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, a lifeline. They're not kicking me out,
Speaker 1: just so you know, we have a bit of a discussion.
Speaker 1: Then a few days go by and I get cool.
Speaker 1: I think it's like Thursday morning, they're gonna want you
Speaker 1: to test for it. Great, I get cool. Probably not
Speaker 1: even two hours later. Actually Ryan has said they don't
Speaker 1: they're not testing you that they did. Don't want to
Speaker 1: give anybody the option. You're the guy, you got the
Speaker 1: party that you don't need to test for it. And
Speaker 1: it was there was a real feeling of this one
Speaker 1: of like I think, I think this is going to
Speaker 1: be a really good show, and I think this is
Speaker 1: going to be a really good part. And thankfully it
Speaker 1: has gone on unseemingly that that has been the case.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, from the minute I got the audition,
Speaker 1: there was there was a feeling I was going to
Speaker 1: be able to offer something to this that's awesome. Did
Speaker 1: you did you talk to any firefighters prior to did
Speaker 1: you train with any? Yeah? Myself and it's another action
Speaker 1: on the show. Guy called Kenny Choi we Um. Right
Speaker 1: before the first season started. We went on and he
Speaker 1: happened to know this guy that was firefighter in Santa Monica.
Speaker 1: So we went on a ride along. We spent the
Speaker 1: day with them in the firehouse. It was so fun,
Speaker 1: like we went on three calls with them, and I
Speaker 1: remember thinking at the time if I was one of
Speaker 1: these victims and I looked up and you know, we
Speaker 1: have to throw on the gear and everything to be there.
Speaker 1: I looked up and you know, asked for help and now, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm actually just here for TV show research like go away,
Speaker 1: like what I mean this time of need and I'm
Speaker 1: there with my notebook being like okay. And then he
Speaker 1: was kind of a jerk, but it was it was
Speaker 1: really fun just to see how they are when they
Speaker 1: jump back in truck, how they are in the firehouse,
Speaker 1: and the way they are is awful to each other,
Speaker 1: like it's just bullying and but in the most loving way,
Speaker 1: in the way that you only can with people that
Speaker 1: you really trust. And I think also one of the
Speaker 1: things that was really surprising to me about it was
Speaker 1: they all spoke on this, how they would go to
Speaker 1: these horrible calls, and they describe some of them, and
Speaker 1: it is the things that you would never want to
Speaker 1: see in a million years, and how they would then
Speaker 1: jump in the fire truck and they'd make fun of it,
Speaker 1: not in a way to diminish what it was, but almost.
Speaker 1: I think it's quite a human thing that we do
Speaker 1: when things get too heavy, you know, we undercut it
Speaker 1: with some kind of comedy, and I think it's just
Speaker 1: a way to stop it from getting too heavy. And
Speaker 1: I think, and I don't know if this is on
Speaker 1: purpose or not, but it's I think that's a thing
Speaker 1: that nine on one does in itself very well. Whenever
Speaker 1: things get too heavy, it undercuts itself with a moment
Speaker 1: of silliness or of laughter. And so that I find, yeah,
Speaker 1: mirrors quite a lot what I learned from firefighters in
Speaker 1: the real world, that they have to be able to
Speaker 1: just deal with the weight of the things they see
Speaker 1: day in and day out. I make a regular appearance
Speaker 1: in New York. I was just in New York last
Speaker 1: week at a studio there that tapes at the World
Speaker 1: Trade Center, one of the towers, and I got dropped off.
Speaker 1: I'm standing on the corner. We're waiting for somebody to
Speaker 1: meet us, and this guy goes, hey, what are you
Speaker 1: doing here? Turn around? I realize I'm standing in front
Speaker 1: of the firehouse right there at the World Trade Center
Speaker 1: and it's one of the firefighters that stuck his head
Speaker 1: out the door, is basically saying, what the fuck are
Speaker 1: you doing here? And I said, oh, hey, what's and
Speaker 1: he goes, come on, let's have some coffee. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know what, sir, I'm about to be on live
Speaker 1: television in like thirteen minutes or something, but you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come. I'm gonna come back. And I did.
Speaker 1: Came back, hung out with them for a few minutes,
Speaker 1: not enough time, and so warm, so generous, so awesome
Speaker 1: to me, And like I said, I do this, Uh,
Speaker 1: I do this show pretty regularly when I'm in town
Speaker 1: in New York. And I will promise you I will
Speaker 1: when I'm back again, go back and visit those guys.
Speaker 1: You know, there's is there a culture of firefighters in
Speaker 1: the UK that's similar to the US or is that
Speaker 1: a distinctive US culture the firefighters. I do think it's different,
Speaker 1: and I think one of the big differences is because
Speaker 1: we have socialized healthcare. If you have a medical emergency
Speaker 1: in the UK, you just get an ambulance sent by
Speaker 1: the hospital. You know, you cool nine one one and
Speaker 1: they just send you a healthcare ebudence, whereas here you
Speaker 1: get firefighters for everything. So I think because the scope
Speaker 1: of their job is so much wider here, there are
Speaker 1: a lot more part of just the kind of societal
Speaker 1: view of what first responder is. Whereas in the UK
Speaker 1: you think of firefights as they fight fire, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure there is more to their job than that, but
Speaker 1: that's the main thing that comes to mind, whereas here
Speaker 1: that they seem to do a lot more. So I
Speaker 1: think they kind of thought about in a much warmer
Speaker 1: sense because of that. Interesting my brother in law is
Speaker 1: a firefighter there in Los Angeles, and the stories that
Speaker 1: I heard, I'm sure you've heard much of the same.
Speaker 1: It is, you know, And by the way, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying don't respect teachers, but you know, people talk all
Speaker 1: the time about teacher, you know, teachers most important profession.
Speaker 1: I totally agree but also firefighters. I feel like they're
Speaker 1: not mentioned enough, the amount of work and the care
Speaker 1: that they put into people, not just when there's a fire,
Speaker 1: but as you say, a medical emergency or or something else. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's partly as well, because for you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think people can be blamed for this. We
Speaker 1: don't really think about first respondence until we need them,
Speaker 1: that's right. Whereas for teachers, obviously, you know, we do
Speaker 1: in it in a much more general sense. But they're
Speaker 1: out there all the time and somebody's needing them all
Speaker 1: the time, and they are literally the people that run
Speaker 1: towards the danger that everybody else runs away from. Yes,
Speaker 1: but but yeah, until you have to cool them on one,
Speaker 1: I don't think you know it's it's anywhere near the
Speaker 1: front of your brain and being processed. The fact that
Speaker 1: they're out there and they're doing that day in the
Speaker 1: day out. Yeah, absolutely, I think I think you bring
Speaker 1: up a great point. They're just there when you need them,
Speaker 1: and maybe you never will, but they should be celebrated nonetheless.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, oh you also did you guests start on
Speaker 1: the spin off? They're a long star? What what was
Speaker 1: what was that like tould be a part of that show.
Speaker 1: It was fun because you know, I knew all of
Speaker 1: those actors by that point, but you know, there was
Speaker 1: certainly an element of kind of there, like, guys, we'll
Speaker 1: show her it's done. Well, yeah, we've been making a
Speaker 1: show for a couple of years now, so don't worry.
Speaker 1: You just followed me. So so that that that was
Speaker 1: that was really fun to go in with that energy
Speaker 1: and you know, mostly joking sense, but a little bit
Speaker 1: right right, but it was It was called a really
Speaker 1: great episode as well. We would do a wildfire, which
Speaker 1: is something that we hadn't I think they've always been
Speaker 1: a bit scared of doing a wildfire on the show
Speaker 1: on our show because it is set in la and
Speaker 1: there's every chance that by the time it airs there
Speaker 1: may be one, and you know, you never want to
Speaker 1: air anything that called cause upsets. So so to get
Speaker 1: to do that on their show was was really fun.
Speaker 1: Since twenty twenty one, this is so our you work
Speaker 1: with a charity providing workout equipment to firehouses to help
Speaker 1: firefighters stay in shape. What was what was your impetus
Speaker 1: behind that decision? Obviously I understand why why firefighters would
Speaker 1: be important to you, but with the workout equipment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this guy, Rob Paparo reached out to me and
Speaker 1: he's he's a firefighter on the East Coast. He's actually
Speaker 1: within the last year or so been made a captain.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he reached out to me and he said, listen,
Speaker 1: my kids really love the show and he's a part
Speaker 1: of this, founding his charity five five Fitness. Basically just
Speaker 1: broke it down from me, how how not all firehouses
Speaker 1: and have access to a good workout equipment and it's
Speaker 1: such an important part of the job. You know, are
Speaker 1: they fit enough to run in and be able to
Speaker 1: throw somebody over their shoulder and carry them back out again,
Speaker 1: Because if they're not, then what's the point, you know. So,
Speaker 1: so to hear and find out that so many of
Speaker 1: these firehouses are underserved and under equipped when it comes
Speaker 1: to that, was was really quite shocking to me. And
Speaker 1: you know, he was making the point that then the
Speaker 1: firefights also has every chance of becoming the victim, and
Speaker 1: you know that's not what you need. So just the
Speaker 1: kind of importance of that and how they need more
Speaker 1: funding for it. So yeah, and he's he's just a
Speaker 1: really fun guy, has just big loan, Mohican handlebot mustache
Speaker 1: like it's just a character. His kids are getting into acting.
Speaker 1: So it's just it's been really fun to get to
Speaker 1: know him and his family over the years. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. At some point you and I'll talk. I
Speaker 1: have I'm helping out a area in Lake Tahoe that
Speaker 1: means a lot to me and very similar story. They
Speaker 1: don't have a helicopter, so when they are fires that
Speaker 1: are happening up there, they've got to wait and make
Speaker 1: sure they can get a helicopter that comes in because
Speaker 1: the helicopter is shared between all of these firehouses and
Speaker 1: all the counties up there in northern California. So it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's important for every community to support their local firefighters
Speaker 1: because look, you know, you never know when you're going
Speaker 1: to need them, and they should be supported and appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And it's that thing if you may not think about
Speaker 1: it until you do need them, but when you do
Speaker 1: need them, you better hope they were able to come.
Speaker 1: So so you know, it's just to give them the
Speaker 1: equipment that makes that possible. Dude, Oliver, it's been so
Speaker 1: nice chatting with you, getting to know you a little bit.
Speaker 1: Good luck to you and thank you for all of
Speaker 1: the important work that you're doing. Uh I will, I
Speaker 1: will watch you and whatever comes next. Thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for me and it's lovely to just have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to just talk. So yes, right really, thank
Speaker 1: you cheers, Oliver, Thank you that was so great. Thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on to the podcast here and sharing
Speaker 1: all about you and your incredible career, and listeners, thank
Speaker 1: you for tuning in. Make sure to leave a comment
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Speaker 1: maybe with some rosies. We'll see you next week. Off
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