Explicit

43 - Jake McDorman (The Right Stuff)

Published Nov 9, 2020, 9:00 AM

Actor Jake McDorman joins host Jenny Curtis to talk about the Disney+ series THE RIGHT STUFF, the lessons he’s learned throughout his career, and behind the scenes stories from his many projects. Throughout the conversation they discuss: 

0:36 - the impending election at the time of the recording

1:15 - his experience of quarantine and being back in Los Angeles

3:03 - getting to live through the fantasy of being an astronaut and learning about the history of the space race in THE RIGHT STUFF

5:22 - finding inspiration in unique ways per projects

5:55 - Getting to learn about the real life Alan Shepard from conversations with astronauts who’d met him. 

7:34 - Taking a road trip to Florida in order to have time to absorb his research

8:50 - Getting to do some astronaut training, including what Jenny calls ‘the spinny thing’

10:25 - The casting process and feeling like he bombed his initial audition.

14:34 - Having the role of Alan be offered to him without reading and how that changed his process of approaching the role. 

16:38 - The cast’s united effort to prepare without having much rehearsal

17:23 - The big confrontation scene with John Glenn and Alan Shepard

18:38 - The episode shoot order

19:46 - Always finding the character on the last day and watching his work in post. 

22:41 - What makes a hero in the face of public image versus human flaws

24:23 - What the feeling of being strapped to a rocket and being blasted into space could be like. 

26:35 - Taking classes when he was young and his experience of moving to LA for pilot season

29:10 - Booking Quintuplets and gushing over Andy Richter

30:48 - Having a tight-knit ensemble on GREEK and staying close

31:40 - Actively deciding with his reps to pursue projects on a more mature level, beginning with SHAMELESS

35:15 - Lessons learned from Bradley Cooper in working with him on AMERICAN SNIPER and LIMITLESS. 

38:05 - Dealing with the anxiety in wanting to get it right

39:02 - AMERICAN SNIPER’s quick process

39:53 - Moving quickly on LIMITLESS

42:15 - Having LIMITLESS being a different kind of procedural

45:08 - Thinking about where Brian Finch might be had the show continued

46:00 - Loving LADY BIRD and connecting to the script immediately with a unique connection to St. Francis

47:53 - Knowing that when production asks you to prepare something “just in case”, you’ll definitely need it, and brushing up on algebra for LADY BIRD

49:09 - Using GREEK to learn all the lessons from set

50:07 - Getting cast in the series, WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS, the surprising scene on his first day on set, and Taika Waititi having some fun. 

54:27 - his upcoming holiday film, HAPPIEST SEASON. 

55:30 - The consummate actors he’s worked with setting the tone on set and getting to apply that when leading LIMITLESS. 

58:03 - What ‘The Right Stuff’ is to be in the entertainment industry

58:42 - Getting sappy and loving this medium of telling stories.

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Hosted & Produced by: Jenny Curtis

Co-Produced and edited by: J Whiting

Executive Producer: Stuart Halperin

Theme Music by: Celleste & Eric Dick

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From CurtCo Media: there's no place like Hollywood.

Welcome to another special episode of Hollywood unscripted stuck at home. I'm Jenny Curtis and today I'm virtually sitting down with actor Jake McDorman who you've seen in Greek, The show Limitless, Lady Bird, American Sniper,

Shameless, and most recently we got to know him as Alan Shepard in the Disney Plus series The Right Stuff. Jake thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you for having me. Very very willing distraction.

We are recording this the day before the election so hopefully by the time this comes out the world will still be intact. We have.

I regret saying that I know every time you say anything optimistic I can only hear it. It fades away a horrible regret later. It's not even like. Well hopefully you know we'll know the results. I'm like oh you're going to eat your words never to get into the results for a year.

So my first question then cause we're stuck at home specials other than the fact that it's an election year and you know the world has gone crazy. How has quarantine been treating you.

It's seems kind of appropriate for such a cataclysmic kind of apocalyptic election cycle to have this once again like plague vibe leading into it. But I've been pretty good.

Look my immediate friends and family are say that's kind of enough for 2020.

I think I've been in L.A. the whole time pretty much and this is more turning I spent in L.A. and a really long time I shot the show last year. The Right Stuff in Florida and three shows this year that we're all in New York.

So it's been OK. Being here.

You know I moved here when I was 16 so I had a huge social circle in L.A. in those 17 years. People have gone to New York. They've gone all over the place. But I'd say most of them still not here in L.A.. So even though I can't see them it feels nice to be insulated in a familiar place.

Good that they're nearby at least.

Yeah yeah I've been doing a lot of walking outside that's new since Ginger closed been taking Bob such a huge development. Never was about guy all about the self care. It's all about me on a lot of podcasts obviously a ton of podcasts.

So I'm having to overcome the medical hurdles of now being a listener of so many podcast giving this interview and not judging myself as a listener right now of like is this a podcast I listen to it this gets interesting if you.

Apart from you is going to love this podcast.

I hope that me love that podcast.

OK so let's talk about the right stuff which is on Disney plus and we'll have really six episodes by the time this episode comes out OK. In my mind the fun part of being an actor is getting to explore all of these lives that are so far away from our own. And it's such a fantasy of so many people to be an astronaut. So what was it like stepping into those shoes of someone who was going to space. Yeah.

There's I'm sure that's true depending on what the role is depending on what the project is you might pick up a special skill here and there and getting to actually put on a spacesuit and sit in this space capsules that fly like a little bit of wish fulfillment for a younger person. I think most kids at some point imagine being an astronaut.

So that was definitely part of it but for this story that the right stuff is about it's an adaptation of a book and then that book was adapted into a movie in the 1980s but I hadn't read or seen the book of the movie. So this was all an educational experience for me. And there was clearly not a shortage of research to do about this period American history right.

You already have a book in a movie about it but just the whole entire world was watching the space race and I think for me and probably people in my generation especially people in younger generations are so familiar with Apollo and Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin Michael Collins those guys landing on the moon the Mercury program and even the Gemini program are kind of untold stories even though they have been adapted many times our book their movie it's still to me when I came into the project I had really only heard of John Glenn as far as the Mercury 7.

And so to get to start to learn about this is definitely one of the perks of a job that you immerse yourself and hopefully you've got a good script which was something that we had from the get go. Mark Lafferty wrote such a great first episode and subsequent episodes but you know when we were auditioning we only had that first episode and it provided this kind of it was like since I hadn't read the book and seen the movie my introduction to the project was the script and I know there's other actors on our show that were obsessed with the book obsessed with the movie coming in.

But I was grateful not to have Ed Harris's performance. Scott Glenn's performance sitting on my back judging me through the entire preproduction process I kind of got to go in with the framework of our script is the version that these men and the version to be stories that we're telling and then go out extra curricular and pull in all the research that I felt helped me as an actor believe that I was of the time period and of the ilk of the kind of people that do this and apply it where it belongs in the established framework of our script what kind of stuff do you use as inspiration for characters.

Do you kind of dive into other mediums.

You know it's weird it's dyed shades different. Every single project one of the more unique aspects of a project like this is that it's period and it is a highly publicized period of American history. So that provides different things that you can draw on. It also provides some restrictions. You don't have this blank canvas and you just are going to decide your character. This person is there's some clear outlines and limits based on who he is as the reality.

But as far as pulling in other mediums I don't know. Probably one thing that we got to do when we're in Florida. So we shot this whole thing in Florida right.

I always really like shooting on location. It kind of takes you out of your life routine and put you in a weird porn place for the sole purpose of making a movie or making a TV show. So we did that with this project when we were in Cape Canaveral Florida in Orlando right where these events actually happened.

And apart from all the books we read leading up to production and apart from news footage podcasts interviews with these actual people we got to go talk to some of the astronauts who idolized and had met these people in real life so they had a lot of insight just anecdotally about oh when I met shepherd you know and you was playing on a golf course in Orlando and told me to get fucked.

When I asked them for an autograph you know I'm like little things like that. You start the peripherally piece in OK.

He was a little like that is like that or a story about him you know buying drinks for everybody at the bar at the Naval lounge and stuff like that I guess. Apart from the like hard record of what happened you'd get little pieces of info like that that came from just talking to people and talking to people who live in the area.

How long did you get to be in the area before you had to be on set. Pretty long time.

I know one of the actors Colin O'Donoghue who plays Gordon Cooper.

He actually was replacing other cast member that for a variety of reasons wasn't able to do it. So he really had like zero time which I'd been in that position before. I did a movie called American Sniper and it was something like you get cast Friday or in Morocco Monday you're on set with Clint Eastwood on Tuesday and you're just like all right holy crap.

So that has its own set of challenges and benefits but for most of us I think we were in Florida probably for me to an actor three weeks which is a good amount of time for how fast TV shows would now. And I took a road trip from L.A. to Florida instead of letting them fly.

I wanted to drive just because as I said earlier like I've shot so many different projects in New York and in Florida and in Toronto and you run the risk of your life getting whipped up into a frenzy preparing to move somewhere for six months you get on a plane you land your slam right into the frenzy of unpacking and kind of getting your footing before you start. Then I thought maybe a road trip cross country would be a way to kind of unwind that time and slow me down by force. So on that road trip along with the time we had in Florida was the period of time that I used to kind of steep myself in the research to read the book to read the biography of Shepherd of light this candle which is really interesting because he's one of the only astronauts who didn't write his biography it wasn't an autobiography it was an actual biography written after he had died. It had a really objective look at the man and then obviously just familiarize yourself with your take on the character entrances and stuff like that. So I was it was nice to have that time I think anymore and that would have been too much time and any lessons that would have come to pass the Goldilocks time to prepare in the show we get to see the astronauts going through training.

Did you do the training.

We did some of it. I mean we didn't do as much as I know all of us would have liked to do.

I mean we would have wanted to do all this stuff like zero gravity bomb and comments. We would have wanted to do the thing that goes round and round around to simulate G for I would have done anything. It's probably really hard to ensure in our cast of seven regulars at least being spun around that high velocity. There was a spinning thing right.

Yes to that stuff that says Yeah I know. Don't worry we're getting this funny thing misstating things called the mastiff and what the spinny thing does is then which I guess you could call that ja and then it also pitches forward and rolls to simulate an aircraft spinning out of control.

So me and Carl and got to do that. The other astronauts or actors did not get to do that and call them was supposed to be his character in the script and be very adept at it and because of my character and the real life Alan Shepard had me many years disease and inner ear problem in the script.

Shepherd has a serious problem with it throws him off and he has to put the chicken switches what they call it where you just kind of emergency stop which worked out great for me because I had no experience and I was naturally pretty awful at it. So I didn't do much we just had to sit there get thrown around and suffer for about 12 hours a shooting on camera and it looked great.

It did look great. So it was a great downside is great great Downs.

Very little that I was warned not to eat anything I did not heed those warnings in the first half of the day very much heeded those warnings at last.

I want to go back to the casting process because I know originally you weren't being called in for Alan Shepard right.

Yes actually I was being called in for Gordon Cooper the role that Colin had played.

And it had been a minute since I had auditioned. I was on a show for a year before that. And so being on that show was really unavailable to be on anything else. So it just had been a minute since I auditioned which is like a different rhythm to get into auditioning and you get into it or you hopefully snap into it after you get a few in a row to kind of warm yourself back into the process.

Like all right you're going out and you're making choices that broadcast the character is a short amount of time cetera et cetera et cetera. But I hadn't done that for like a minute. And so I got called in for Gordo. I think there was an actor in mind to play Shepherd at the time. So when I read the script I was pretty honed in on Gordon Cooper. I wasn't even thinking about Shepherd and I went in and really thought I did that which I know is just such a tragic thing to hear an actor say. But it's real when you're halfway through and you're like this is very bad.

And I was very much in that place. I had actually just flown back. So this was last year 20 19 I had just flown back to L.A. to test for this right after shooting some of HBO as Watchmen. So I was on an episode of Watchmen and they had to dye my hair bleach blonde and it was long and they'd given it like a 1920s parted haircut. And so all my actor friends that were back in L.A. and had auditioned for the right stuff and I was hearing all about it. So I flew in to test for it and not only was it out of shape auditioning I just looked like Todd Gary and trailer trash and something which is great because the director that was supposed to direct our pilot at first was David Nutter who I'd worked with on shameless but he directed excellent episodes of Game of Thrones. So I think he dubbed me a white trash Targaryen when I walked in.

So I had this audition that felt really funky and weird and walked out just kicking myself and called my agents and said you should drop me which is terrible.

They called them back before I could even get to my car in the parking lot of Warner Brothers. They were like No tell me to come on back which at that point I thought my agents had been like oh he thought he did bad. He'll come right back in and do it again which was not what I was saying. I was confiding in them that I was probably never going to act again let alone 15 minutes who all in the same room that I thought I bombed. I like went back in there kicking and screaming so embarrassed thinking that I was going to be asked like try again which happens. I've called them like that was a nice let me do it again. You make it self paper you go in again but that's not what this call was at all. It was like I never want to see those people again. This is a nightmare situation for me.

Why did you think it was so bad.

I don't know. I mean I think asking the actors it's going a while without having a typical audition like already and audition is just a weird thing to do. You can have some where you feel like you nailed it and you don't hear anything you've never where you think you did terrible and you get the job so you're not the most trustworthy barometer all the time. It was just that I think and there is an action for Gordon Cooper. He's from I believe Oklahoma. And I was just coming from a job raising a trans Atlantic accent and so I have accent traffic in my mouth and like it was and I looked like an idiot for the blond hair. It was a lot of stuff.

There's a lot of things I felt really good about. Yeah exactly. It just wasn't.

Did you feel like something that was as important as this job you know. Nat Geo and Dave are happy in way. DiCaprio's a great script. You know you walk in there and you want to make sure it's your best foot forward it didn't feel like that. So they called me back in and sat me down to tell me like we think maybe you don't make the best Gordon Cooper but what do you think about playing Alan Shepard.

So that was a really unique audition experience when you might care about where you think you did that because it offer you another job so it took me a minute to really wrap my head around what they were telling me. And also like I said there was another actor in the role of Alan Shepard when I wrote the script first. So I had to like replay the script in my mind even kind of homing in on who they were talking about. It was very exciting and they kind of mapped out the entire arc between Shepard and Glenn and I think the next day the actual official offer came through.

That doesn't happen often obviously.

Was it a conversation that said or did they have you go out and read sides.

No absolutely it's just a conversation. You know David didn't end up directing our pilot Chris Long did our pilot Chris Long's great.

But at the time it was David and David and I worked together on shameless so we knew each other we had worked together before and they'd seen some of my other work and then seen the audition that I just gave for Gordo which I think according to what they told me was the indicator that it was less about maybe not being a competent audition. It was like oh this has more of the traits of this character than that. So no I didn't have three and four Shepherd that's a great experience but it also has weird consequences with the two who never even hear an actor complain about being offered a role. But let me just get. Since I'm not used to that I'm still very much an. That is part of the audition process vies for roles that are competitive. It's just a shift of pace to all of a sudden have one that you never had that kind of experiment. Like if you think of an audition as a chance for not just them to experiment with this actor in a role it's also your personal experiment to try the roll on. And even though it is uncomfortable you're not on the set you're not in the wardrobe and all the pitfalls that come with the audition process are still their baseline. You start to either make a connection with that character or you don't and then you get a callback and you tweak it a little bit and then maybe another call to that. So there's a process that you start to at least get the roots in the ground.

The choices I think you make it feel right and wrong in that character whereas it's just we trust you we'll see you on set. It's just a different kind of ballgame. So that's what this was. And obviously this for me at least way more research went into this and having a template of the real guy and reconciling that with the version of the guy in the script was a fun terrifying exciting process and getting the voice down and I don't have anybody in the military in my immediate family and just reintroducing that chain of command in your mind posture mannerisms things like that but all that had to be worked out to basically test run on the first day of shooting. And that was different.

Was there a rehearsal process at all or you just showed up on set and had to work it out.

There really wasn't. Luckily we've got a cast of actors that all love the process. They love the filmmaking process.

We all have a tremendous amount of respect for what a team effort it is to bring script to life cast and crew alike. And so no there wasn't a big preproduction rehearsal phase. A lot of that was because our first episode was thrown into a little bit of turbulence because we lost our director. So there was a little bit of a scramble at the beginning which all the other things that had to be squared away before shooting on day one rehearsal which is something that kind of had the fall of the wayside because of scheduling. But as we got further into the series and realized that everybody we were working with Patrick Adams and Colin and Mike all the rest of the guys we started rehearsing on our own time to episode five. There's this big confrontation between John Glenn and Alan Shepard. It's something that Mark Lafferty our showrunner told Patrick and I about honestly from day one even when they pitched the road to me in that bad audition. Right. He said OK. So Shepard Story is this it's this rivalry between these two men. And that scene in there being 12 pages long you spent the entire day filming it and because we had at that point worked together on the episodes one through four. And we're familiar with each other's processes as actors on our own time. Patrick and I because we knew how under the gun the production was we would meet at his house and rehearse that scene and rehearse that scene rehearse that scene until we really had it down pat and we're ready to just come out of the gate swinging.

It's also one of the scenes it's 40 pages long it's an entire twelve hour shoot and all the astronauts are in the scene basically watching Patrick and I have our little spat. And so you want to make sure if you're fellow actor you've got that scene down.

So there wasn't as much rehearsal before the first episode but as we got in to production a lot of us relied on our own time to make sure we had big scenes down.

Did you shoot the whole show chronologically.

No actually in fact that Episode 5 that I'm referring to. But that big fight we shot that last episode order was shuffled around a few times because of different directors availability. We would block shoot a couple of episodes together I want to say we did episode one and then we did episode two then three and four were blocked shot And then six and seven. I can't remember exactly but we did jump around quite a bit.

And the one I remember the most because it didn't have that big fight and it was episode five which we shot last. Which was great because by that point this being penultimate blow out between these two astronauts we had had the maximum amount of experience working together. By that point. So we could get the maximum result and spending some extra time rehearsing it. But we were still reshooting scenes from episode 1 right into the like the last week of shooting. It's the big show then the VFX take a long time to be complete. So even. I know that we would lock episodes out of order because they'd still be trying to finish VFX lineups at one after they locked episode seven. So there was some moving around I think for the most part it was chronological with.

But when did you feel like you found.

Shepard if the first day it was kind of shaky the last day it's always the last day.

That's always the last day of the entire project when you go Oh okay let's do it again for real just that I don't know. No I think it was definitely a process.

We had to do some ADR during the pandemic right. So they would say this these episodes and you have converge your closet into an ADR studio.

So during that process I really watched these episodes a lot and similar to the audition process there were scenes that I remember thinking Man I really challenging. And I watched them after the fact and be like oh maybe not so much. And then ones that I kind of discredited that then I'd see later and be like wow that was really on point. So it's always kind of a guessing game but I think probably around episode four I felt pretty locked down.

It was like a holiday episode you introduce Shepard's storyline to have his dad come home and there's some serious tension between his father and I think just emotionally seeing that other side of someone that otherwise is such a kind of a mad dog fighter jock you know seeing this side of him that you maybe understand why he can be so icy to certain people or expect unrealistic high standard for everybody else and himself. You kind of get where that stems from when you meet his dad.

So I'd say probably if I'm being honest that's when most of the permanent decisions on three was a character settlement and then also I mean it's just a process you know and I think we were all grateful to have such a good script to kind of latch on to but it really is trying things out.

Those first couple episodes that season it seems to work great. This doesn't seem quite on point just kind of fine tune those aspects like the tenor of your voice and just getting used to kind of the rhythm of someone else's speech and even like the deliberate way that somebody speaks when they've come from a military upbringing is so different than anything that I come from and getting used to that gruff edge that you pick on everything just takes some time. So I'd say episode four.

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So much of the show focuses on balancing public image vs. human flaws. But also talks about how everything being done is done for the good of the country between the public image and the human flaws. What makes a hero.

I think there is an integrity I would have to say that even though these people are human and they are flawed they're rising to the occasion of something that's much larger than any of those flaws.

It was very important for the space program at that point in American history to project an image of moral superiority cohesion amongst the astronauts kind of an infallibility of these seven guys and use that as the portrait of what a hero is. But I think watching them struggle with this overnight international level of fame maybe only on par with the Beatles at the time or Elvis navigating that when they really didn't have the tools to do so especially because the people in their field that they idolize people like Chuck Agar like Charles Lindbergh you know they were people that were famous within their community because they had accomplished something. You know Charles Lindbergh going to New York to Paris to the anger breaking the sound barrier. These guys all of a sudden became famous before they'd even done anything. And I think to rise to the occasion and try to navigate that to the detriment of a lot of these guys family lives and home lives and privacy just being an ordinary person doing something extraordinary I think is heroic. You know it's a pretty big question defines hero in this context I mean that was at least from my experience learning more about these people and learning more about their families because you can put them in that category too. It was a Herculean heroic effort to maintain any semblance of normal when you've got a member of the family vying to strap themselves to a rocket blast off in the space under public scrutiny worldwide.

What do you think is the feeling of strapping yourself to a rocket and flying off.

I don't know. Mine was pretty anticlimactic. Janice was way towards the end of the shoot.

We were all ready to go home and I did not have mission control.

My year I had all of us wanting to finally say we had done it. I have no idea. I know some of us on the show are really excited to find out. Patrick Adams is trying to get his pilot's license right now in 2020. Wow. So it really inspired him in particular to try to figure out what that feels like. But man I don't know.

I have to imagine it just feels like everything is going wrong. I saw a documentary once and I can remember the name of it. They interview astronauts that had been to space. Buzz is on there. Michael Collins and other guys they talk about you know you think of a rocket and you're strapped in and you're on your back right.

And then it blows and you go up and you think oh you're just going to be shooting straight into the air with all the Gs.

They talked about how like no it has this feeling of like if you've ever tried to balance a baseball bat in the palm of your hand you know you have to keep moving your hand around to keep it up. It has that sensation under it which I don't know how technical this is or not and if there's any astronauts on this thing they're going to be like an actor that stuck out is like this sensation just to be.

We did not feel as is how you would expect.

I don't know how true that is now with things like space x and just leaps and bounds in technology from the Mercury program or the Apollo program to the shuttle program right but that always stuck out to me.

And so my research is like oh that image because I feel like everyone's tried to do that to balance a baseball bat. You're right. All right you have to constantly move it around because if you were strapped to the tip top of that baseball bat you feel like you were going all over the place. Yeah.

Not natural gas as a human being isn't supposed to feel good being shot out of the world that we live. Yeah exactly.

Like this was not intended by most laws of nature.

So I want to go all the way back because you mentioned you came to Los Angeles when you were 16. Is that what you said. Yeah I know you took classes when you were young but you never went through any professional training so you're training was really on the job. Is that fair to say.

Yeah I'd say that's right.

I definitely had extra curricular training going to a public school in Texas. Was a magnet school. They had a theater program a reformed theater among. They also had a communications magnet that I was in and that was about video editing and stuff like that. But I wasn't in any programs in school I was in acting classes outside of school that had been recommended to me through an agent that I was trying to sign with and those classes were my first introduction to their craft backing from knowing what that was beyond kind of what you see in a movie or television surmising your techniques on them also just some kitchen sink techniques.

You know through somebody I met in that class I was able to meet out in L.A. an agent the manager that agreed to have me on for a pilot season which I don't know people listening. Now what that is anymore I think it still exists. It's kind of all year round now that this was a huge bond that people would flock to L.A. from January to May. My guess would be the whole breadth of it to try to get on any number one hundreds of pilots that were casting on the major networks. I mean now it's like streaming and cable it's all year round more or less.

But yeah anyway they agreed to take me on and give me a shot for one of those pilot season.

So neither of my parents were in the entertainment industry.

So it was very much my thing. And they were really supportive of it. And so they did everything they could to that this idea with the people in L.A. that this idea with my acting coaches in Texas. I think they've been doing that. You know this is something that at that point sixteen I'd probably been really serious about it and known what's serious about it looked like three years. So it wasn't just something and I came home one day and heard something in class that I wanted to do. It was a conversation that was ongoing with kind of the verbal referrals of coaches that I was working with in Texas. So they found a way to make it work. When I was 16 I was in 2003. That was our first pilot season at that point because I was a minor and I came out with my mom and my younger sister and my dad stayed doctor and interests together and you stayed back in Texas tested for some things and then finally got a co-star role in a pilot that turned into one more episode. Once I got picked up so it was recurring and that was on the WB during the WB singing for long before the CW. So that was my first job and I think it was enough of a sign given the fact that I had tested for some bigger roles and stuff I didn't get them but I had at least gotten in the room there that it was enough of a signal to my representation at the time. And my parents to say let's make go at this and then the next pilot season I was 17 and I got on my first show to get picked up as a regular.

And that was quintuplets as it was on Fox with Andy Richter. I mean I was a huge Conan fan growing up so I was just beside myself. I mean yet I was sitting in public school same public school district from kindergarten all the way to when I stopped going so I can come out to L.A. my last year in school is my sophomore year I was all of a sudden now walking on to at Warner Brothers lot of university auditions. So it was just such a dream come true to even try.

At that age the first pilot season I think a few of those things they tested for one was like Bob McDonnell or somebody that I just idolized at the time didn't say anything at all. I was so nervous. So next year I was like I might never see those people again. I got to start speaking up and like first thing I did my chemistry with a director was just like vomit praise all over him from watching Conner and citing the exact sketches from accounting that I love and was really doing it under the auspices of my 17 year old brain being like you're not going to get this and you're never going to see him again.

So just who cares. Said the word of advice is to tell everyone to just pray.

Yeah you heard it here first. Just hearing worship shamelessly anybody you meet and that's the key to success of Hollywood would appeal to every actor's ego and you're going to make it really far.

I mean I did do that and he ended up playing you know my dad. We did like a full season of that and that was enough at that point for me to kind of get out there on my own. I guess I would have turned 18 in doing that show. And so at that point I was out here on my own and had the stability from season that show to carry me through.

So you didn't go to college but you did do great.

Yeah I loved to that self. How good was that like a college experience for you at all.

Yeah. I mean I guess so Greeks kind of like the right stuff when the cast is an ensemble like that you build a tight knit family amongst the actors and it's not a show was like that. So you know if you're talking about brotherhood or sisterhood and a fraternity I'm sure we can relate to that. Navigating an experience that was unique to us and honestly out of any show that I've worked on we're all still super close. Scott you played Captain Scott like a bathroom down the street literally water transplants the other day. I think I'm watching the election with P.J. who played Calvin because we're kind of both political junkies and so we're going to create and buried together tomorrow. So yeah we're all still super close so I guess so you know I don't know. I didn't go to college so I can't really say you know exactly if that's accurate but you got to pretend to do the parties essentially.

Yeah I did the parties I don't know how you shot the.

Maybe a little bit of both. That was a wild time.

So then shameless you mentioned it's very different feel from the other shows you had done. Right yeah. It was a big I don't know as a grown up step up but a grownup step.

No I think I think that's right.

Talking about coming out from high school and then being on set you know at that point probably into the first three four years of working in L.A. You're just so grateful to working out like you're grateful to be honest. We're grateful to have an agent. I have a job. And it's not like that gratitude fades or goes away at all. But I think at a certain point at least for me you start to carve out enough experience and competence in your work and your appreciation for the work and the process your relationship to your craft just kind of matures over time that I started wanting to do kind of exactly what you saw.

If I could move into territory of projects that I was a fan of but I was watching work with people that I had admired or worked from the time I was a little kid. John Wells Bill Macy even the Emmy I'm just a show like shameless on a cable network like Showtime. What has this other exciting shows like great down to them shows that you're watching at the time was really where my heart was and it's a scary step.

When I was really fortunate to have a supportive representation because you kind of start to have to turn down things that you know you're a shoo in toward based on your catalog of work previous and start to get ambitious about roles that people may not see you that way but you're also just going to be really competitive because they're on shows and networks and really wants to be on.

That's not to say that the work that I've done. So if you use shameless as a barometer that those shows before weren't chosen I was proud to be a part of and that were invaluable to me as an actor. They were. But I think you just said there was a shift in I want to take some of this agency back where I can which is not always possible as an actor in fact it's got to be really possible especially at that point.

It's just saying you know I've got enough stability that I can narrow my focus a little bit more and say noticing things that I might have previous and say yes to and really go after some more competitive roles. It is a shift and it's one that I kind of needed everybody on my team on the same page and so I had some meetings with them and this goes beyond shameless. It was like a meeting that took place just about trajectory in general to go like let's really go for these things. I trust the taste of my team in place. There are people who have represented me for a really long time and they know the kind of work that I want to do. They know the kind of actor I want to be. They know the kind of actors and directors and producers that I look up to and admire and they share that same enthusiasm about that community in Hollywood. So it was a team effort to say let's start to move this momentum even incrementally into a more focused direction. Shameless was one of the first projects I think that gave him back some of that validation of like you can play at that level you can play with these guys you can learn from these people. People like Bill like John Wells Marc Maron even David Nevins that Showtime by then and David Nevins was one of the people that Imagine Entertainment for quintuplets. So it was actually kind of crazy to work on shameless and be reunited with David like that. It was important and I learned a hell of a lot and most of my scenes with Emmy on that show and she's tremendous. And then inevitably makes you better when you work with someone tremendous. And so yeah I really really really loved my time on that show with all those people.

Not only that but you've worked across some phenomenal actors. And are there any stories from like the big people who you've kind of stolen from them or learned from them.

Oh yeah after sure there's a lot of I take Bradley Cooper. He's such a hard worker. He's such a diligent worker that is like humbled by the process. You know I met him on American Sniper which all of us were humbled to be on that movie including Brad. I mean that was one of the things that made him so accessible as a co-star and even just as a human being that he was clearly one of our leads on that movie. I mean he was carrying the movie on his shoulders but he'd still come back to the rest of the cast have moments like you fucking believe would work. So you know it's it's kind of a great way to meet some of my breath because it really made him feel like one of us and that that if there was any kind of barrier there that that was knocked down which was important for that movie about a team of Navy SEALs and brotherhood there. But it was also just important for being able to relate. Accurate accurate so to get back to your question I mean one of the things that he was so good at and he's had a similar career is a lot of actors and I'm friends worked where he got out of actors studio and kind of got these big parts. He was in my Jack and Bobby from the CW. You know he'd have a part in sex and the city and he'd have a show like Kitchen Confidential and I could cancel the Internet. So he had that kind of journey man evolution. So you felt like he got it fresh in his mind those days of waiting in line at auditions blowing a or something like that. So Bradley very relatable and then he was always key and reminding me especially in a movie like American Sniper where there's so much going on there's war there's Brotherhood there's the PTSD. I had a scene where I'm in a hospital bed and he comes to visit in the after I was wounded. And of course I just got so much riding on this scene in my mind this is the scene of the movie in my mind.

And that's a really easy trap to fall into that you've got to watch out for when you lose perspective on where this scene fits into the bigger picture. And Bradley in that scene I remember would come up to me and urged me to let it go. Trust the process. And it was always a nice reminder of it should be effortless. You shouldn't be pushing. You shouldn't be telling people what this scene's supposed to be. You should let the scene be what it is and stop judging which way to go. And it seems like such a basic rudimentary lesson in acting and it is but it's one of those that can really be easily forgotten when you're competing with Sienna Miller and Bradley Cooper in Cleveland for a ruby. You want to make sure every time you're on the screen it pops it counts all this stupid noise that really has nothing to do with anything in fact it's the worst voice to listen to.

It's like he got it and would always just gently remind you you're safe you're doing it right. Go for it and then we work together and limitless. And it was just the same you could just trust that he is a fan of the process and it doesn't even have to be a fan of his place in the process. He's a fan of watching actors act and working through it.

Do you have a way to efficiently get rid of the noise when you're in that headspace.

Not really. I mean it's really different every project. I think every project has its noise and its demons and it's all very particular to the actor probably even the director. Anybody in any department the anxiety around wanting to get it right. I've been told by a few people that I should probably meditate. Meditation sounds great.

I'll let you know if I do it and it fixes it. Now right now I mean it's just really always boils down to trust.

You gotta trust yourself and trust your instincts. That's not to say that you shouldn't do all the work in the world of PrEP. That's not to say you shouldn't think about the scene in a thousand different ways. But when you actually get there the only way to do it right is to really just trust the process and let it go if you try to do anything short of that or anything more than that you're just going to be disappointed. And that's never not been true for me on American Sniper.

You said the process itself was so quick like you were cast on Friday and flew out on Sunday or whatever you said Yeah.

I'm not actually in and of itself kind of fixed the noise for me because you didn't have time.

Maybe that's it.

Is this going to encourage a bunch of actors to procrastinate their homework until the night before.

Yeah. That worked in a way that didn't give you a chance to do that. I mean like you know I could argue if I went back and watch American Sniper I'd see so many different opportunities to do something differently. I think that's always going to be true. But as far as throwing yourself into something without second guessing it and trusting yourself you're absolutely right. That is an example of one where you just didn't have the time and everybody on that movie was pretty much in that position. And that's pretty much how it works. One take on it next. You don't have enough time to psych yourself out about it which maybe is a stroke of genius. I have no idea. But that would happen even on limitless limitless Greek the right stuff. Those are ensemble shows limitless. We had a core ensemble of me and Jennifer Karvan during Hell Harper really nails with Master Antonio. But like other than us for it was mostly my character's show. You know he'd narrated the whole thing. He's the one taking the pill. He's kind of the Bradley Cooper surrogate from the movie you know so it was more of a one man show than a big ensemble show. And that worked in the same way.

You know I think the first couple episodes you're still trying to control what this character is going to do. How do you think. Wouldn't this be cool would not be cool and it's not that those aren't valuable they are. But once you get into an episodic shooting schedule 13 14 15 22 episodes and you don't have time to second guess yourself you're really acting on instinct and then a lot of ways at least from my personal psyche does help because it doesn't give me time to be like Well you're what about this modified or you know just start second guessing things that don't need anymore an organization.

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So it's limitless. It was a procedural but it was a different kind of procedural. But did that change the approach to the show. Because it was again a different type of show than you'd done before.

Not really. I don't think I've had a show that my strength and comedic sensibilities and just personal quirks were so like Craig and all the writers on Limitless snapped into that real quick.

They were able to write to my strengths and really custom tailor a character that wasn't me. But we all just were on the same page with who he was and how he acted. And that happened really fast.

So that was kind of the thing that was most fresh about that show for me. Less so about the structure of it.

I think honestly I worried a lot that it was going to be kind of your standard CBS procedural when I was deciding deciding I would say deciding whether or not to take it. I didn't have choice.

I wanted it really bad. And they let me to it. But in my mind being like Oh God am I going to be happy on a show like this. I going to be creatively fulfilled on a show like this if it is just another genius helps the FBI case of the week show. And it had those elements and I think this was a deliberate choice on his part to hire writers that were from episodic television not from procedural television. Craig had a background in procedural television.

He worked on elementary and medium and I think he was the case of the week kind of guy but knew that with this added element of a pill that makes you a genius and opens up all these doors of wish fulfillment. And it should be so fun and mashed in this guy's personality you know like all these Gen X and cultural pop references compared to the kind of icy opportunist that Bradley's character was in the movie the show having so much more real estate like twenty two hours or less would need comedy would need levity and the fastest way to that was through the heart of gold of this protagonist. So I was really thrilled that there was always a balance to the procedural elements and the episodic elements when you had the storyline. Eddie Morra Bradley's character from the movie Limitless.

I think he did like six episodes which was awesome having Bradley come on and do that much.

And then there was some supporting characters that had these season long overarching storylines like Who Killed Rebecca's father and sands origin.

But you know all those things were kind of spinning those plates simultaneously which made it feel a lot less procedural even though there was always a case in the week that unique approach to how that case was going to get solved.

Filtering it through the mind of this lackluster 20 something made it super fun and unpredictable which was huge. I mean it's honestly might be why it didn't survive. Maybe it's a little bit more pizzazz when whoever was in charge was comfortable with that. I'm super proud of it. I love that show. And I was like over the moon when I got the second episode and realized what direction we were going that it was like a lot less procedural we would almost kind of poke fun at the procedural format can parody and a lot of ways if it had kept going where do you think Brian Finch would be. Oh my God I have no idea. I would be so crazy. I know some loose plans we had for season two included in being at the top of the pile of the zone Task Force which I think honestly was a CBS move to ensure that if I got sick there were still parts of the show that we could film because if something happened to me there was like nothing we could fill that show just especially towards the end was Brian heavy all the time.

So that might have been a more strategic move as a failsafe if something happened to me but I don't know what would Brian Finch be doing in ziti in the last four years of his presidency.

I hope something solved it right. No idea. The interesting to find out.

I'd love to hear about Lady Bird because it's such a special movie and I can't imagine just what was it like being a part of that cast and that crew Lady Bird is one of my favorite movies that I've been a part of but also just in general.

I love that movie. It's so specific we from the time that credit grew up and credits I think maybe a year younger or older than me.

So it's right on track with my kind of albeit truncated high school experience with cultural references and just being alive in that time. But it was special. From the page this is based on and I only know this because my girlfriend at the time went to the same all girls Catholic school in Sacramento other credit that not getting super crazy. So I hear all these stories from my girlfriend the time about Saint Francis. I wasn't allowed to say this. I don't know greatest amount said specifically it's based on St. Francis. Maybe it's not but it totally was.

So St. Francis is an all girls college girl I guess in Sacramento and my girlfriend at the time had gone there and would tell me stories about it all the time just general stories from her high school experience.

Mike too often she's an actress and Gretta is an actress and director producer so she was always kind of the star from that school. And so then cut to couple of years later I get the script.

Or Lady Bird written by grata and I'm reading it realizing this is an entire story that takes place in St. Francis. So it was this weird Kismet kind of connection to that whole story in Sacramento and Gretta specifically that was kind of mind blowing but the scripts apart from that connection was just so cool and so fun. And again just the people involved. I mean that was Gretta search. Being you know being used like a household name right now getting to be on set and work with Feeny and seeing what nobody knew yet was amazing. She is hilarious such a genuinely warm person. Scott Rudin produced I mean it was really a special independent movie. It knew it it was great I knew it it was super fun to ad lib I played an algebra teacher it got me looking up Algebra I hadn't thought about algebra in a long time.

And there was a story there where they were like so we're just gonna need you tomorrow is like before my first day that they always said we totally won't need you to do this but just in case. Which translates to like you're definitely gonna be doing this probably more than you can even anticipate. But they were like just look up the foil method of algebra first outside inside mass you know just so you can maybe if we need you to in the background again you won't have to do this but just in the background we look like you might know it's an algebra.

And luckily I've worked on enough stuff to know about sounding red alarm that you will be full on doing algebra in the back and if you don't you're going to look stupid. So I the night before I crammed like I was taking a math test all these different formulas and things that I could write and say out loud that would make me look at these somewhat qualified teachers in a classroom. I got there and they were like All right. And anything you know would be like still out there right now because we're seeing you in the background like a lot. And I was like Yeah I know they can't teach you that and I think class that's just we're working on a lot of projects when they say you probably need to know this but just in case you'll definitely need to know.

Have you had a time where you didn't know that lesson yet and you didn't show up knowing what you needed to know.

Oh my God. You know yeah probably.

You know that's why Greek was really great Greek was kind of like a giant acting class for those technical mistakes that you just can't learn without hours and hours and hours on set and familiarizing yourself with the dynamic of how set work and what things will fall through the cracks because the Navy's got so much bigger problems on their plate. They need everybody to rely on their own department you know and that kind of team effort to like show them play. I'm sure I made some of those mistakes on Greek and honestly those mistakes result a lot less than you looking stupid because if you look stupid the movie looks stupid. So I'll just cut you out.

It's not usually the punishment for like Oh you didn't teach yourself Algebra. You're playing an algebra teacher you showed up with nothing. You just won't be in this part.

Last year you did guest on what we do in the shadows which was so much fun. Basically you play a normal guy who has all of his past lives memories reinstated into his brain. Yeah. What was that like working with comedic geniuses and having such a fun role to play.

What we do in the shadows. The movie I saw in theaters twice. I was already a fan of Jermaine complied the Conchords and that was my first introduction to Tiger. I think that came out in 2014. So cut to 2018. I met an audition for a different project. Also Scott Rudin project I think on that fact. It was like my third audition for this other project before Allison Jones casting director ask me like Oh my God would you cold read this small part for the pilot of what we do in the shadows. And I was like Oh my God they're making what we do in the shadows.

And I was like you better have everyone on board those I guess Jamaican and they're like yeah he's creating everything else I can do yeah. He's direct it sounds like so much shit shows a gap cause. So I got just this one scene which was from the pilot episode where I want to say it's the scene like Naja and just walking down the road together so the breakdown of this character was totally boring guy average average dude and I knew it was going to be shot mockumentary or documentary style like the film. So that was just kind of my mantra going into this cold reading casting was like don't try to be funny you're not going to win and you're just not you hand this up or you act this up even a little bit it's going to be really obvious and it's going to embarrass you. So my whole thing was just to play as bland as humanly possible and as simple minded as humanly possible.

And so I did that I found out later that day that I got it and then I think my first day with the next day met paramount. So they sent me the script and I don't know if anyone's seen the first episode of what we do in the shadows but my character in the first episode he gets stalked by Naja one of the vampires and she like floats up to the bedroom window to spy on him while he's masturbating in bed. So I had cold read through that with only one scene that was Mary uneventful. And then my first day on set with Tiger and Jermaine is having to simulate sex on myself.

Yeah and the bed and the way they did that because this is all on the Paramount lot. They put a walkie talkie in the bed with me where I take it from video village was going to be walking me through the camera movements and giving my cue what I was supposed to start.

So he'd be like All right. Action is a terrible new zealand action. Anyway he's called action and then you'd be like are the cameras coming to the window are we see you get the phone you start and go and go to town on yourself.

It goes on a walkie talkie I'm by myself but he's like Oh my God multi multi yes.

Now the angry angry know hate yourself hate yourself walking me through all the different rainbow of emotions that would happen from one masturbating in bed by themselves. And so finally I broke and was like fucking cut and on the walkie talkie You said all night we cut ages ago and that was basically the tone you set for the shoot is a blast.

And honestly so there was that episode and the next episode I had I was in New York shooting another show and they called and sent that script of the episode that you were talking about where it's like all of a sudden you relive your past lives. Of course is made in France says Gregor or the warrior. I was like how on earth based on one episode of me was making small talk with a vampire and jacking off in bed where they're like you know what I bet you can do play like nine different characters all on display for us.

But it was amazing.

I mean those writers he said set the tone on the set. You know you're welcome to play. We're all having a follow on kind of a fearless encouragement to just act as stupid as you want. They're great. I mean I'll do that show as long as they'll have me. I love those guys.

So when they do something like that nobody calls to check to make sure like Are you okay masturbating in bed on camera on day one.

Not me. I don't know that maybe they just do it.

That's not to say there aren't some very strict guidelines for other actors but not me. You know they're basically like you read the script. All right here's day one we'll see you at 10:00 p.m. on a completely different note.

I am a Christmas movie freak cause who doesn't love the holidays and this upcoming holiday season. You're in THE HAPPIEST season which is directed by Claire Devol and I don't know. I love Christmas movies so I would just love to hear a little bit about what was it like getting to do a holiday film.

It was great. It's wild. You think that we were shooting that movie this year. We were filming that in Pittsburgh and starting boy last week of January and then all the way through first week of March is a pretty fast rule but it's great. Die cast is insane. So just to be part of that cast was exciting. Kristen Stewart and Kinsey Davis and Dan Levy even Victor Garber and Mary Steenburgen and Mary Holland. She wrote the script I think with Clea she's in it now. ALLISON AUBREY I mean I could go on. Aubrey Plaza it's an incredible cast. I'm also a big fan of holiday movies like that. So they get to do that with those people is pretty great. I mean I'm excited that it's coming out soon. I think it was going to be in theaters but then obviously everything happened so it's coming out this month.

It's a great film.

I guess we can't say much because it's not out but go see it go all the way to your living room and see a movie so easy these days you know like wow too easy really if you could go back and relive any day on set that you have had in your entire career what day would you pick to relive.

Oh my God. There's a lot that probably a few women once it should be clear to not relive because I want to go change anything. But did you like our town kind of observation of a day. Yeah. Probably a lot on the M.S. I'd seen so many people I admire at that point be kind of top of the call sheet that kind of sets they ran and I've been really fortunate where all of those sites were around so warmly shameless really warm set and he sets the tone. She's a great actor and a great person. Bill Macy sets the tone complement a great person in the NEWSROOM. I work on Jeff Daniels consummate actor great person. So I have. BRADLEY You know all the all these examples of people who were kind of at the top of the pile on these incredible projects like shameless or American Sniper newsgroup and ran such great sets because in so many instances you know some of the top billed Catherine was a kind of set the tone actors can be moody sets can be uncomfortable.

And if you don't have an actor who gets that and is grateful to be there and understands how they're part albeit important that still just one piece into your huge puzzle they can really set an uncomfortable tone on the set and after having example after example of that done so well under such pressure like these huge tentpole shows like The Newsroom on HBO or Shameless on Showtime you know remember it's like we like to get the opportunity to then put that good practice on Limitless.

Well it's just a responsibility that take for granted and I think itself to some really just beautiful memories of all the people that worked hard on the show. I mean you know all those that I mentioned. I'm watching Jack Daniels have just pages of dialogue to deliver on the news and be like oh God I must have been 20 or something and just watching him just in jest and then piece around and get it down pat was just an amazing process to watch and then cutting them. Listen I've got pages of dialogue where I'm to sound like a goddamn genius. And I'm like How did the FBI you know talking about scientific concepts that I've only heard described on Radiolab.

So I had my own chunk of impossible instrumental dialogue. Then I got to like make this massive withdrawal. Of these little deposits from all those experiences. And so it was a really great show. I could go relive any a day on this show and I'd be excited about it.

So with all of those consummate professionals you've worked with what would you say to ask a super stupid cheeky question would be the right stuff for being in the entertainment industry.

Oh my God. I think the love of the process it can be a grueling process for every department involved. And if you don't absolutely love it you're going to throw the whole thing off. I love the process. I've always loved the process. And it's like waiting to go on stage on some dinky play I was doing in Texas just to see a bunch of Broome people wearing costumes like what a bizarre process. I think the people that I worked with that I admire the most and that have always set the tone for my personal work ethic are people that just love the process.

My closing question that I ask everybody what does it mean to you to have a life in storytelling.

God I never really thought of it like that. Life and storytelling. That's pretty awesome. Timing is everything I guess. Now I feel like I'm getting a really really sappy right here at the end of the interview.

I love that. OK.

I love a good story. The medium that I think we've all chosen as the medium to tell stories to huge team effort. I mean I can't give really anything where more people have to come together to tell the story and all the various storytelling mediums than a film or TV show with a lot of people it's a lot of jobs to lot of hours. I just feel grateful to be a piece of it. Every time I'm able to be a piece of it.

Jake McDermid thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you so much for having me. Yes like I said Now I get to go just retire by doing scrolling the election. So thank you for that small reprieve.

Boy I really appreciate it. Come back anytime because as you can tell I like to talk about film and TV.

So do I. I would love to. Thank you so much. Thanks. Hollywood unscripted was created by Kurt Commedia. This special episode of the stuck at home series was hosted and produced by me Jenny Curtis. With guest. Jake McDormand. Co-produced and edited by Jay Whiting.

Executive Producer of Hollywood unscripted as Stuart Halperin the Hollywood unscripted theme song is by Celeste and Eric dick. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any special episodes of Hollywood unscripted stuck at home and we want to hear from you.

Leave us a rating and a review. Tell us what you like what you don't like. Maybe we can be better. Stay safe and healthy and thanks for listening. Kurt Carr media. Media.

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Hollywood Unscripted

A show for film lovers by film lovers. Hollywood Unscripted delves into illuminating and unique conv 
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