One on One: Treisa Gary

Published Jul 11, 2024, 4:00 AM

Paging Richard’s Nurse Francette! 

Treisa Gary joins the podcast to talk about going head to head with Emily Gilmore in Season 7, Ep. 15 “I’m a Kayak, Hear Me Roar.” 

Plus, the very surprising way she started her acting career as an accountant at Warner Bros.

I Am all in.

You, I Am all in with Scott Patterson and iHeartRadio podcast Hey.

Everybody, Scott Patterson, I Am all In Podcasts one eleven productions, iHeart Radio, iHeartMedia, iHeart Podcast. One on one interview with Teresa Gary. Let me tell you a little something about Teresa. She was in one episode of Gilmore Girl she portrays Richard's nurse Franchette after Richard is home recovering from his heart attack, and season seven iHeart Podcasts listen on the iHeartRadio app Let me tell you a little bit something about Teresa. She is from south central LA and has become a well known face on both the big and small screens. May have seen her recurring and guest starting on popular so such as A League of their Own, Physical Silicon Valley, and Cis Gray's Anatomy. She's also an acting coach with twenty years experience and Teresa, I also understand that you were working at Warner Brothers at one point. I was, and that's kind of how you got this gig, is that you were well known in amongst your workers as having a marvelous sense of humor, and they thought they thought that you would do well on this show, So tell us about all of that, and then how you got the audition or did they just give you the part?

Okay, well, yes, I did start working as a production accountant at Telepritures Productions and Jim Perritore was the president at the time, and he told me that when I started there, all of a sudden, it was lot noisier on the floor since I started. So this was like my first month working there, and he came over to my desk one day and he said to me that he thought I should be on the other side of the camera and I told him, I don't think so, I'm an accountant. And he said, well, I think you should be doing something, he said, because I think you're too big for this cubicle. And I said, okay, all right, Well have your people call my people. And I didn't really know what that meant at the time, but it was kind of funny. It's funny now, and so he did have his people call my people and they asked me to say some lines in this promo. And you know, at the time, the culture over there was it was very fun and free and we could just have a good time, and so I just thought we were playing around and I did it, and then a couple of weeks passed and people started calling me telling me they saw me on TV in New York and I was like, no, I'm not on TV. You know, I'm shooting Burbank. They shoot in Chicago, and so it turns out it was me, and it was announced in a staff meeting, and so I was like, oh wow, this is crazy. So I kind of thought, well, if this guy says that I should be doing something like this, then maybe I should take some classes. So I started training, and seven years later I left the company and I was a working actor and so I got this audition by attending a workshop and it was mar Casey and she had met me on a Saturday and she bought me in on a Tuesday for this role. And this would have been my very first guest star role audition. And I go in and she was like, oh my god, that's so great. I was totally against type for this role. They weren't looking for a black female, and in fact, the role said that she was scrawny and she cowered from from missus Gilmore. And I was like, okay, well, I can't play it like that because nobody's gonna believe. I'm afraid of missus Gilmore. She's so tiny and so and you know me, that's kind of not going to work. So I just did it my way. And so then she said, oh that was great. Why don't you when you come into the producer session do this? And I said, oh, do you want to see it now? She's like sure. So I did it. She's like perfect, see you Thursday. I said, great, I come in Thursday. All the women that were the type were sitting there and they were all looking at me, like why is she here? And so I go to the director's door. Happened to be Lee Challee Chamelle, and I was like I had worked with her before, a five day co star. I knocked on her door and I was like, hey, Lee, how you doing. She was like Teresa, what are you doing here? And I said, oh, I'm auditioning today. She was like for what? And I said for France said, and she was like, no, you're not. I was like, yeah, I am. She's like okay, let's get started. This is gonna be fun. So she brought everybody in and then I came in last I did the thing, and everybody stood up afterwards and everybody said something really amazing to me, and I was about to cry, but I was like, Okay, let me get out of here. I gotta go. I booked it, and so that was really awesome. It was a great experience, that feeling.

Huh, Yeah, how'd you find out that you got the job? Did you have it? Did your agent call you and.

Say, yeah, yeah, yeah, my agent called.

Those are good phone calls, aren't they. There's so many that aren't good, right, But yeah.

Shoot, I mean if you just get anything at all, hey, you were great.

Yeah I'll take that too.

Yeah, sure, yeah, but it's cool.

Well, so it was a big full circle moment for you. And I guess Jim he territory was right, mm hmm he was, he was.

They all started working right away too. It was crazy. It was crazy. So it's just I don't know.

So what was the next job? What was the next job?

The next job? I think it was two and a half Men, Big Bang Theory. Wow, a couple of those Seventh Heaven. Yeah. I started getting a lot of a lott of stuff.

Oh look at that. So you're going on those big sets. Those are multi camera, some of them are multi camera, right.

I love multicamp, love multicamp.

It's a fun.

They are so much fun. It's not enough of them these days.

I know. And they're so great and when they do them right, they're just like and I'm amazed. I'm just amazed because they when they hit, like, just the amount of money that Friends continues to make for Warner Brothers and all its affiliated partners is massive.

Yeah, I wish I would have gotten in on that one, right. Or Fraser was good too.

Uh huh o man or Gilmore Girls. That's that was good too.

Well.

You have such a great reaction to Emilyzia Crest request of doing you know, non medical errands because you played Richard's nurse uh oh in the house. It was Was it intimidating the film film those scenes with Kelly Bishop because you didn't seem like you were intimidated.

No, I wasn't at all. She was so sweet. She was just the nicest lady ever. And they told me they wanted me to be, you know, pretty snappy and uh and so I was like, okay, cool. And it was great because after after a couple of takes, Hilly Bishop got excited because she was like nobody ever comes back at me, you know. And then there was one time she was like, I love Teresa Gary, I love this, I love Princeton, I love this, you know, because you know, usually she scares everybody away, and she was so excited that somebody was actually coming back at her. So that was pretty fun. We had a great time. We had a great time.

And you you worked with ed Herman as well, So what was that like. I mean, he was great. He got agitated at you, you know.

Yeah, well he did, and you know, it's funny because he didn't really like the way he was talking to me, and they actually stopped taping and rewrote until it was to his liking, and so I thought that was very nice of him to, you know, to support me in that way. So I thought that was really cool. And I actually ended up working with him again on another show called Better with You a while after that. So yeah, he was a he was a really really sweet guy. He was really sweet.

And did either one of them offer any advice or you really didn't seem to need any.

No, no real advice. They were just you know, very grateful that I was there and thank me for playing with them. That was pretty much it.

So it's season seven of the series. This is when you appear. How was it being a guest actor for a show that is already well established compared to a show that isn't.

I think, you know, it's it's a very well old machine. So everything runs very smoothly, and so you know, that was you know what I noticed the most. Everybody knew what they were doing, and it was it was just easy. It was easy, peasy, you're in, you're out, you know. So I had no shoes whatsoever.

You're so right, you're so new. Shows sometimes take years, a couple of years to really get their groove.

Yeah, they did.

The first couple of years are just difficult, you know, it's difficult to work on shows like that. Yeah organized.

Yeah, Yeah, it was very easy for them, and they were you know, of course they knew they were they were on their way out. So everybody was really relaxed and else is doing it.

Yeah, you know when it's gonna be over, Yeah, the pressures off.

Yeah.

When was the last time you watched.

Your episode of Gilmore Girls?

Yeah, the one you were in. Yeah, have you seen it lately?

It's been a long time now.

Yeah. Do you like watching yourself or no, I do.

I don't mind watching myself. I like to see how I fit in, and I'm usually pretty happy with it. There's only been one show that I think I wasn't happy with the way it fit in.

Mm hmmmm hmm.

It wasn't a Warner Brothers Showy.

So, You've had roles in Apple TV Plus's Physical with Rose Rose byrn Rose Byrne and the Amazon series of League of Their Own was What was your experience working on those shows?

Oh my gosh, Well, A League of Their Own was probably one of the best times I've had, and I think that's mostly because we we all we shot in Pittsburgh and so we all stayed in a hotel together, all the casts, and we just got to know each other so well, you know, we we ate together. We did everything together. We went to museums and to the movies, and you know, we did everything together. And so it was the first time I've ever really been able to spend that much time with the cast, and we really jailed a lot, and a lot of us are very close friends. We have lunch here now, so so that was a really great time. And then Physical was awesome too because that was the second time I was getting being able to work with Rose Byrne. I worked with her also on the show with her and Seth Rogan. I'm sorry the name is escaping me. Don't tell, but it was my second time and the first time I actually didn't get to necessarily work with her. I got to speak with her because it was a telephone conversation, but she came over to me and she thanked me for being there and you know, and all that good stuff. And then when I got on the set of Physical.

She.

I reminded her of who I was, and she was like, oh my god, I totally remember you, you know, and she was like it came out really good by the way. I was like, oh cool, I'm excited about that. And so on the set of Physical we were just like two buddies, and I was so glad there were so many two shots of us, like we really got on well and it was a great time. Very grateful for that one.

Let me ask you how you feel Hollywood is representing black actors and actresses and writers and directors. Do you feel like the representation is still lacking or are you happy to see the progress that has being made and if not, what would you like to see?

Well, I think both of those are true. There has been some progress, and I am happy to see that, but there's always room for more. And I think the reason I say that is because there are still things behind the scenes that happened that we will never know about, and you know, I get to hear about them from sometimes people in the room tell you things because now you're close to people and who are able to be in these rooms, and you know they share information sometimes, and so you do know that these things still they still do exist. There are still problems, but you know they're moving in a certain way, and you know, hey, we don't have a whole lot of control other than to keep doing what we do, you know, keep writing, keep acting, keep training, keep studying, keep being the best that you can be. And you know, eventually, maybe our lives will be more representative of you know, of our daily lives, because like you know, my friends have my white friends have lots of black friends, you know, and I have lots of white friends. So it's you know, my life is very much more colorful, and I think that a lot of other people's lives are too, And I think that should be represented more.

So you teach acting as well or have taught acting?

Yeah, I actually coach actors.

Oh you coach, So you're coach for auditions and things like that.

Yeah, coach, And I created a I created my own audition to technique called eight Steps to Working Actor, and so I teach people with that and they tend to take off. Really yeah, pretty exciting, that's you know.

I used to coach actors as well before I got GIL. More of I was you know, I started out probably the same way you did it, just helping friends out, and they said, you know, you should charge for this because I'm getting callbacks, and I'm like, yeah, So I started a whole thing, and I was teaching three classes a week and I had private students all day. And you know, I undercut the market by not charging much because you know, people that people that are trying to get acting work don't have a lot of money, you know.

So that's true at.

The time, you know, twenty five years ago, twenty six years ago, when I was doing it, people at that time were charging one hundred and fifty bucks or two hundred bucks, yeah, for fifty minutes. And I was like, man, yeah, I couldn't pay that at that time.

You know, Yeah, I feel you. I feel you. I was lucky when I was, when I was being coached myself because I was in accountant I made a lot of money. Yeah, I was able to train with the best and just do everything I needed to do. And that was a huge blessing. That was a huge blessing, And I think that's why I kind of took off very quickly. I mean because I know people who started when I did, or even they were in it before I was, and they still don't have the amount of credits that I had. Not to brag or anything.

What's your secret? What's your secret when you walk into the room, what is your secret? Because you know that auditioning has a little bit to do with acting and everything to do with psychology, So what do you do?

Well, I don't have a secret necessarily. The truth of the matter is is I'm just there to do my job. You know, I'm just there to do my job. I've done the work and I just come in and do that and then have somewhere to go afterwards. That's it.

You. So you show them, you show producers in the room that you know what your job is because every character has a job to do, and that's the problem with a lot of people that sort of overdo their auditions in a large role or small role. It tells the producers that they don't know what their job is, and we're going to have to direct direct them into knowing what their job is. So that's half the battle, isn't it.

Yeah. Yeah, because they don't necessarily have the time to do that on set. You know. They got bigger fish to fry on set, you know, and so they need people there who know what they're doing already. And I think if they can feel that confidence in you, then you're probably more likely to get hired.

Right. Interesting. How do people access your eight steps? Is it online?

Uh? Yeah, I actually teach it in person, one on one. It is up on my website Ttersagary dot com. It's on the acting page, and uh, you know, just reach out to me. That's it. It's very simple. And then I actually go to my clients. So I like for them to feel special, so I come to them.

You might be hearing from me. I might need to brush up on some of my techniques.

Not a problem at all.

All right, We're going to play a little game called rapid fire. Okay, this does not mean you have to answer quickly. Okay, and it'll test a little bit your knowledge of ki More Girls. But here we go.

Oh my gosh, I'm gonna lose. I'm gonna lose.

No, no, the first question. If you get by the first question, you're okay. And this is a tough question, and I apologize in advance. Ready, h how do you like your coffee?

Black?

There you go.

I don't even drink coffee.

Are your team Logan, Team Jess or Team Dean?

I don't know any of those people.

Who is your favorite Gilmore Girls couple Luke and Lorelei or Emily and Richard.

Oh it's got to be Emily and Richard. I just love too grumpy people together. It's great, right right?

And uh? Would you rather work with Michelle or Kirk? Mmmm? Kirk? Why?

M He's a man.

Kirk's a man?

Yeah?

Okay, all right? Hey, what would you order at Luke's diner? Oh?

Probably burger and fries.

That's the right order. Who would you rather hang out with? Paris or Lane?

I don't know Paris or Lane, you know, I only know the people I was in my theme.

With Okay, all right, that was all the leads. The answer is Lane by the way.

Oh that's the answer.

Okay, that's the correct answer. Harvard or Yale or drop out and live in the poolhouse.

Well I think when I was younger, I might have said Harvard, but I think now I'd live in that poolhouse.

Yeah. Would you rather attend to da our event with Emily or a town meeting with Taylor?

I go for the town meeting. That might be pretty interesting.

Okay, Okay, Gilmore. Girl's character that you would want as a roommate, I'd.

Have to say Richard Richard.

Yeah, why Richard? Why Richard?

Because he's so laid back, and he's he's you know, he's so big, like he's he's tall, and he's strong. He's like an oak tree, you know, right, And I think I would need somebody like that close to to be able to talk to.

Frankly, Okay, something in your life you are all in on.

I am all in on. I don't want to be corny, but I'm all into all in on retreats. I love spiritual retreats.

Oh wonderful, wonderful. Yeah, So you go, you go on a lot of those I do.

I go on a lot and uh, I'm starting to host them also, and uh, you know I'm a sound bowl player. Things like that. I love all that interesting.

That is so interesting. Where do you Where are these retreat treats stake? Were they up in Ohio or Santa Barbara places?

Different places? We go everywhere. I just got back from Bali actually, oh my goodness. And then before that I was in Joshua Tree. I'm planning to do one next year and to Loom So yeah, we go everywhere.

That's interesting. Well, yeah, it sounds very very interesting. Well, listen, it's been a pleasure talking to you, getting to know you a little bit. Congratulations on any success. I hope from continued success. Yes, you're certainly a force to be reckoned with because you stole the scenes that you were in and Gilmore girls, and that's saying a lot. Actually, thank you so much when you're working with like three I cons in the room and yeah, to take their eyes off you.

So I appreciate that.

Anyway, all the best to you, and thank you so much to Reesa Carrie for your time and good luck with everything.

Okay, thank you so much for having me.

It was awesome, our pleasure.

Thank you all right, bye bye, hey everybody

And also again follow us on Instagram at i Am All In Podcast and email us at Gilmour at iHeartRadio dot com