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'Who Gives a F*** What Other People Think': Walton Goggins, Adam Scott and the Drama Actor Roundtable
'To be rich in friends is to be poor in nothing,' proclaims Walton Goggins, as the glasses placed before the six actors assembled on a Sunday in early May clink in celebration. The toast comes at the tail end of THR's annual Drama Actor Emmy Roundtable, a bonding ritual of sorts featuring a sextet of TV's buzziest stars at Soho House's West Hollywood outpost. In this case, the White Lotus and Righteous Gemstones scene-stealer was joined by Diego Luna (Andor, La Máquina), Eddie Redmayne (The Day of the Jackal), Adam Scott (Severance), Jeffrey Wright (The Agency, The Last of Us) and newcomer Cooper Koch (Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story). More from The Hollywood Reporter Jason Isaacs on Receiving Equal Pay as 'White Lotus' Co-Stars: "I Never Work for Money" Sam Nivola Would Never Turn Down an Opportunity to Work With Mike White 'Awards Chatter' Live Pod: Sam Rockwell on That 'White Lotus' Monologue, 'Three Billboards' Award Season and Upcoming Martin McDonagh Reunion 'Wild Horse Nine' But before the cacophony of cheers, the men, most who'd never met before, swapped war stories about the appalling things they were told earlier in their careers — among them: 'You're not getting cast because you have a gay voice,' and, 'You don't have the looks, so you'd better work harder than everyone' — and the restless nights before a new project. Mixed in were moments of levity, even hilarity, as the actors, all at different stages of their careers, weighed in on everything from onscreen nudity to 'electrifying' fan exchanges to, yes, the emojis they most frequently use on their phones. If you were to see 'a Diego Luna type' or 'a Walton Goggins type' or an insert-your-name type in a script, do you have a sense for what it means? WALTON GOGGINS Uh, lonely and sad. (Laughter.) ADAM SCOTT It's hard to beat that. JEFFREY WRIGHT I think Walton speaks for all of us. And yet, I'm guessing that's not what 'an Adam Scott type' or 'a Jeffrey Wright type' is? WRIGHT Oh, I don't think that there's a lot written for a Jeffrey Wright type. I have to kind of slot myself into various rooms. So, if there is a type, it would probably be someone akin to having a multiple personality disorder or something. It takes a certain flexibility. EDDIE REDMAYNE It can definitely oscillate depending on what you've done. There was a period when I started out when it was all slightly quirky American characters, and then it went fully into English period dramas. Anything to do with Queen Elizabeth seemed to be my type. And then after The Theory of Everything, it was the sort of scientific, slightly nervous characters. And now? REDMAYNE Now, I'm being sent lots of sociopath assassins. Walton, you said recently, 'I don't think people truly knew what to do with me. I'm not Brad Pitt. I'm never going to be Brad Pitt, but I am Walton Goggins, and very few people fit in my lane.' So, how would you define that lane? GOGGINS So much of it, starting out, has to do with comparing ourselves to other people and looking in other lanes, right? That just brings so much pain, and after doing that for the first couple of years — 'I want to be like him,' or, 'I want to be that person' — I realized I was never going to be any of those people. The first acting teacher that I had here in Los Angeles said to me, 'You don't have the looks, so you'd better work harder than everyone in the room. You'd better love this.' What did hearing that do to you at that moment? GOGGINS Maybe I'm weird, but it inspired me. I hope he's seeing all the headlines now. GOGGINS Oh, well, yeah. But that's what it is to be your authentic self and to contribute whatever it is that you have to express or say in this medium — it's the only lane that you have. It's really the only thing you can control. SCOTT But sometimes it takes a long time to figure that out. COOPER KOCH I was going to say, like, did it click for you in one specific moment or did it happen over time? Because I feel like I'm just constantly comparing myself to what other people are doing and I'm curious how you got past that. Or maybe it just never ends. WRIGHT I'm trying to get over what that teacher said. That's a rough thing to hear. Has anyone else gotten harsh feedback, and maybe it even propelled you as it did Walton? KOCH I had an acting teacher tell me that I wasn't getting cast because I have a gay voice. DIEGO LUNA No way! SCOTT Jesus. Does that propel or motivate you? KOCH Not in that moment. I hated that. And then it starts to make you question yourself. And speaking of self-doubt, I don't know if that will ever end. I'm terrified. GOGGINS I think it will. REDMAYNE I disagree. (Laughter.) LUNA I disagree, too. But to answer your first question, before Star Wars, the only projects I'd get offered would be drug dealers. And then I could be the nice drug dealer and not the vicious one but still a drug dealer. Because the system wasn't even sending messages of, like, 'Yes, you could find a way to be yourself and still work in those projects that you're looking at and hoping to see yourself reflected in.' But I do think that's changed, and the middleman between the audience and us is not there anymore. There's no guy with a cigar saying, 'You! You're gonna be a star, boy.' People just click now, and suddenly it's like, 'Shit, they're watching a Mexican show.' You can be as far away as you can from the system, and the system will go and search for you if there's a need to hear your story. Before , you said you got drug dealer roles. How about now? LUNA Oh, I still get a lot of drug dealers. (Laughter.) It's just I'm not looking for what they want me to play. I can look for the stuff I want to do. It's that freedom that comes with understanding that people today care about specificity. I remember being asked, 'Are you going to clean up your accent?' That's not part of the conversation anymore. But when I was 20, it was like, 'Man, you're great, and if you work with your accent, you'll be doing what this person or that person is doing.' And you go, 'Why would I like to do that? This is what makes me unique.' SCOTT If you saw me in, like, 1994, when I was starting out, I was looking at pictures of Ethan Hawke and just being like, 'OK, this is what I need to do. My hair, my jacket …' I mean, Ethan Hawke was and is so cool. KOCH Hot! SCOTT And hot. (Laughter.) So of course that's what I wanted to be, but I was chasing and trying to be this thing, and it took me years to realize that the only thing you have is you, and you're the only one that can bring that to it. And coming to a place of being comfortable with that and thinking that is of any value [takes a long time]. GOGGINS I'm just so curious, like Jeffrey, being this far into your career, or really anybody here, what is it like for you the weeks or the night before you begin? Is that anxiety still there? WRIGHT There's always uncertainty about whether I'm going to be able to pull it off. We just started back up again with The Agency, and even having done it for a full season, I still felt uncertain. But I think what we do, or what I do, is put obstacles in our way if we feel too relaxed or too content because that's not a really a sufficient place to work from. There has to be some degree of energy, of concern, and it comes from a desire to do it well. REDMAYNE I'll never forget, years ago, on Theory of Everything, the first day we were shooting different moments in Stephen Hawking's life, and the night before, I was so nervous that it got to, like, 3 in the morning, then 4 in the morning, and the pickup was at 5, and I'm like, 'No, no, no, this is day one!' And I literally haven't slept, so I got in the bath at 4:30 a.m., and the whole day was a blur. The last scene I had to do was this moment of a sort of breakdown, and I was so fucking exhausted that the director just had to poke me and I was (melts down). But it's interesting because even now, I often can't sleep the night before, but I've learned that you can survive 48 hours without sleep and function, even if it's not ideal, and also I've accepted that that's who I am. Like, I can't not. GOGGINS I think that is a part of the process. Diego, you've said it was your performance in your 2001 film that led directly to . Presumably that surprised you? LUNA Yeah. That was a moment where I said, 'Oh, I got this wrong.' It was my prejudice talking because I sat down and Gareth Edwards, the [Rogue One] director, said, 'I want the tone of Y Tu Mamá También in the Star Wars film,' and I just never thought one thing would get me close to the other. And I want to do both. I grew up watching these films. I love the Star Wars universe. And so I went, 'Damn, that's the way to do it, right?' Like, you have to be doing something that matters to you, and someone out there will be like, 'Yeah, I connect with that.' And it happened that way. But I remember all the people telling me what to do in order to be eligible for something like Star Wars. You know, 'Go to the gym, change your accent, move to California …' And it was like, no. In fact, something I did in Mexico City in Spanish in eight weeks was the key. Cooper auditioned for two other Menendez projects before landing at Netflix. Did anyone else fight that hard for a role because you knew it was something that you were meant to play? GOGGINS I have a different relationship with that as I've gotten older. The things that you lose out on affected me much differently in my 20s than they do now that I'm 53. Now, I really believe that, in life, if it was meant for me, it's going to be for me. You've also been in multiple projects where you were supposed to appear in only one episode and then stayed for multiple seasons … GOGGINS It's a serialized kind of experience. (Laughter.) On The Shield, I didn't find out until the DVD commentary at the end of the first season that they wanted to fire me. And I was like, 'I only had four lines, how could I piss you off that bad?' But, yeah, it was The Shield, Justified and a few others, but it worked out. For many of you, your phones are likely ringing in ways they weren't prior to these projects. What do the calls look like now, and how are you processing this moment? GOGGINS Oh, I'm just leaning in to it with a childlike abandon. I suppose some people would take the opportunity to redefine how people see them and maybe become a little more aloof or a little more cool. I'm just leaning more in to who I am as a person, and I'm not walking into it, I'm fucking running straight at it. (Laughter.) And, yeah, I'm getting to read some really cool things now, but the work doesn't change. The attitude doesn't change. You don't change. I've been doing what I've been doing for 30 years. And I'm still filled with anxiety and I can't sleep the night before a job, but at this stage in my life, I know that once I'm there, I'll figure it out. And that's a place that all of us can get to, that we will get to. KOCH I hope I get there. It is so crazy that I'm talking and all of you guys are looking at me. This is just insane to me right now. I've been watching you all for so long, and I feel so grateful to be here. This is so surreal. I also used to watch these [Roundtables] all the time when I was in school, and now I'm sitting here. SCOTT Well, you're incredible, you're here for a reason. KOCH Thank you. Cooper, do you feel a pressure to strike while the iron is hot and line up or say yes to other projects? KOCH Yeah. And it's tough because if I don't have that passion or that immense empathy for the person or the story where I really connect, then I'm awful. I've been trying to figure out if there's a way to work your way into finding that? Or does it depend on what the thing is? And so then how do you say no? How do you say yes? No can be as hard as yes. KOCH Yeah. Even with auditioning, I feel like I'm better off going to an audition, not necessarily just to prove it to them, but I need to prove to myself that I can do it, and then I can be confident in it. SCOTT Cooper and I were talking about choices and the path forward just before this, and I was saying that the thing that I came to eventually was that the things that ended up making any difference in my career were the choices I made for reasons other than career. It was the choices I made because it was something that I wanted to do because I thought it would be fun or it was with my friends or I just loved the material, and I was never even thinking about career and how it could help me along. Whenever I make a decision for any reason other than that, it goes sideways. When Cooper got this part, he was still working at Salt & Straw. For the rest of you, what's something that you wish someone, , would've told you when you were at that point in your career? SCOTT At the Salt & Straw point? GOGGINS Did we all work there? REDMAYNE Wait, what is Salt & Straw? LUNA It sounds delicious. It's an ice cream shop. LUNA Ah, cool. SCOTT I think it goes back to what we were talking about, which is just don't worry about what you feel you need to push yourself to be, what you have is already there. At the same time, I feel like, to a certain extent, that's something that is lived and you have to come to in your own way. Part of it is, I'm 52 and, like Walton, I've been here for 30 years. When I was starting out, I wanted to be Ethan Hawke and Stephen Dorff and whatever was happening at the time, and with age and experience, you come to a place of accepting yourself and what you have to offer. And I'm just so grateful that I didn't end up getting Scream 2 or I Know What You Did Last Summer or any of the stuff that I auditioned for. And I auditioned for it all. I would've squandered it. I wasn't ready. LUNA I agree with you, Adam. Probably I needed to go through that, and not be told. I was doing theater with people who shared the passion I had and I was part of a community, a family, in Mexico, and then Y Tu Mamá También happened, and suddenly we started traveling and we didn't know that was even possible, and I felt like, 'Oh, I can work in other communities, in other places, and find new audiences and in other languages.' And I did the worst jobs ever. Like, in terms of how proud are you of those films? If I could, I'd kick them under the table happily. (Laughter.) Is there anything the rest of you know now that you wish you knew earlier in your career? GOGGINS The thing you constantly have to check is your ego. Just because this moment happens and then all of a sudden, it's, 'Well, you have to do things of a certain caliber or you're going to be seen this way or that way,' who gives a fuck what other people think? At the end of the day, go to work. And, more importantly, don't manage or try to dictate what that experience will be. REDMAYNE Maybe it's my weird relationship with this city because Los Angeles for British actors was like the place, the dream world, and we used to come over and it was normally in January during pilot season. We'd tell our families we were going to go and try to get work, and none of us would get any work, but we'd escape the pouring rain. It was you, Andrew Garfield, Jamie Dornan, Robert Pattinson … REDMAYNE There were a load of us, and we all sort of lived together or not. So, whenever I come back here, I feel a profound romance, and it's a nostalgia. And I get, at the time, we were hustling and I've never, ever got a job from a meeting in Los Angeles. Literally has never happened. It would always be when I went home that I'd get some work. But the thing that I'd say is that — and maybe I have over-romanticized it and it's very easy for me to say having been lucky enough to work — but there is great joy that comes through the camaraderie of that period of helping each other out, of all auditioning for the same stuff. If someone was doing a play or had an audition, we used to get a group and run it all together. Because part of the point when you're starting out is you're not acting. You're working — you're working at the pub or you're working wherever, but you're not actually getting the opportunity to practice. So, I look back at that period as a joyful one. WRIGHT One thing I tell young people all the time is, 'If you want to do this, study anything but acting. Study biology, study anything that gives you a sense of reference and context.' SCOTT Get out in the world. WRIGHT Yeah, because at the end of the day, the thing that we're asked to do is communicate something so that it can be understood. And in order for us to do that, we have to understand it ourselves. And also to Eddie's point, the nostalgia for that time when you're just scrambling, trying to figure it out, those are the best days. Enjoy those days. REDMAYNE But I'm also conscious that it was hideous at the time! SCOTT Oh, it was such a bummer back then. (Laughter.) WRIGHT I mean, it's the cliché, but it is the journey. I did Angels in America, the miniseries, with Al Pacino. And I'd done the play on Broadway for like a year and a half, so I knew it very well, but obviously everyone coming in hadn't done it before. So I'd get these calls: 'Al wants to rehearse. He's got a room over on 57th Street. He wants you to come.' This happened like a dozen times. Al just wanted to work through the script and dig down into it. Ultimately we did the piece, we performed it, but it seemed to me that he was much more interested in the process of getting there. SCOTT Oh, interesting. WRIGHT For him, that was everything. The journey was far more critical than the ultimate destination, and I think there's something to be said for that. We've talked a lot about how the industry sees you; I'm curious how fans see you. If a fan is approaching, what does he or she tend to recognize you from and what does he or she typically say? KOCH It's always just, 'Can I have a picture?' And I've developed a rule: Give me a compliment first. (Laughter.) Just say you liked the show before you ask for the photo. Because then it's just like, 'That's all you want? You don't want to talk to me? Like, I would talk to you.' I had someone the other day follow me to the car at the grocery store just for, 'Can I have a photo?' And I'm super nice. I'd never be rude to somebody. But I'd rather connect. SCOTT Help me load my groceries at least! KOCH And then when you do have those connections with people who stop you and say, 'I'm so sorry, I don't want to bother you, but I loved the show,' or, 'You're amazing,' or, 'I was really moved by your thing,' whatever it is, it just feels so good. What do the rest of you get? GOGGINS 'You have any cocaine?' 'You packing, man?' (Laughter.) With me, I think people feel like, 'Oh, man, I know this guy. I want to have a drink with this guy. I want to hang out with this guy.' And I don't know if it's because of where I come from or just the way I move through the world, but people just feel like they have a right [to approach me] — and I feel like they do, too. It's like, 'I've asked you to come spend, like, 84 hours of your life with me [on various television shows], and I can't [make time for you?]' Are you joking? So, it's, 'OK, what did you think [of that episode]? Really? What did you think was going to happen?' And I've gotten into some disagreements. You have? GOGGINS Like, 'I think you missed the point, man.' You feel compelled to explain it to these fans? GOGGINS Well, yeah. I mean, if they're sharing an idea, like, 'This is what I think.' I'll say, 'Well, it's interesting that it hit you that way. I think you're wrong.' (Laughter.) But I quite like having those conversations. And this is going to sound weird, but I'm a father, and I just feel like every time I'm stopped on the street, I can provide for my family. Like, it's a blessing, not a curse. LUNA You also can't talk about the audience as if it's one thing. For example, the guys who belong to the Star Wars community, they care profoundly. They're experts in what you are working on, and that feels amazing. It's like suddenly someone cares as much as you do; normally, it's the other way around. You go out hoping to get people's attention, and it's, 'Please watch my show.' Here, it's like, 'We're waiting for your show. When are you going to be done? ' WRIGHT With things like The Batman, I appreciate how invested people are. They feel a personal connection to these stories and characters, and I've grown to really respect that. Particularly now, when things are so uncertain in the world and so odd and precarious, people find genuine hope and a real sense of personal connection and comfort in story, and it's not a superficial thing, it's a critical thing. So, for example, I love going to Comic-Con. You do? WRIGHT Oh, I love it. Because you get an opportunity to experience this genuine appreciation that otherwise becomes completely abstracted because you don't have that connection between the stage and the audience that you do in the theater. SCOTT I feel the same way with Severance. People who come up and want to talk about Severance are really interested. What do they typically say? SCOTT Mostly it's how much they love it, and who they watch it with is really important. And it's great because when we first made the show, we figured it was so weird, it would just be ignored. We never thought it would connect the way it's connected, so when people come up and want to talk about it, I love it. And people are so smart and invested, and it being on TV, it's really ingrained into their lives in a different way, and there's a comfortability that's really lovely. REDMAYNE Do they give you plot suggestions? SCOTT Oh, yeah! REDMAYNE 'Season two, I'm thinking …' (Laughter.) I haven't done TV that comes out weekly like this in a while, and in a time in which the world is becoming somehow less communicative, the fact that people are waiting that week, and (to Goggins) I really felt it with your show, that sort of anticipation, the watercooler discussions and the way that people want to stop you to really … KOCH Have a connection! REDMAYNE Yeah, and I've found that so thrilling. I'm like, 'My God, you really care.' SCOTT When you're out in the world, in the midst of a season where there are cliffhangers and there's anticipation for the next one, it really is … GOGGINS It's electrifying! SCOTT It's so fun. People coming up and wanting to know, but they don't want to know. It's really fun. GOGGINS I was in New York City, maybe episode seven of The White Lotus, and I was just walking down the street, and it was surreal. It was like a dude on a fifth-floor walk-up balcony, 'Goggins, come on, Rick.' Then a guy comes out of a shop, 'Goggins!' And then somebody going by in a car, 'Rick Hatchett, you found peace, man.' And I'd be like, 'Hey, what's up man? I hope so!' And it was like block after block … KOCH Must feel so good. GOGGINS Yeah, and there's no ego, right? This is just something culture is participating in in this moment and you just happen to be a part of it. And it's the same with Baby Billy [from The Righteous Gemstones]. People love Baby. We saw a of Baby Billy this past season. Cooper's shower scene got a lot of attention, too. So, this is a somewhat awkward pivot, but my question is about nudity, which most of you have done at some point in your career … GOGGINS Where's this going? (Laughter.) Sometimes you choose to use a prosthetic, sometimes you use a body double, sometimes you do it naturally. I'm curious what is the conversation around when to show what and how to show it? SCOTT We're talking penises. KOCH Oh God. REDMAYNE You made that a flawless pivot. LUNA I think TV has made the conversation more complicated. I did it in film, but I don't think it mattered that much. Now with the devices and how we are communicating and how images can be taken out of context immediately and be shared, things have changed. But I don't think in cinema you would ask the question that way. It's like, 'What story are we telling? How do we tell it? And where is the camera going to be?' It would never be, like, 'Should we do it or not do it or do it this way' — as if it was a math problem. I don't think I could even think that way. It's like, 'Let's do the same, but with no frontal, but half nudity.' There's even terms now. I go, 'I don't understand. I don't speak that language.' Cooper, you said, 'Oh God,' as soon as I brought it up. Why? KOCH Oh, I don't know. I just always want to live in the reality and truth of something, and if you have a sex scene and immediately they're pulling up the blankets right after, it's like, 'That's not real.' I didn't want to have to deal with trying to hide or be a certain way; I wanted [the scene, which he did without a prosthetic] to just be real and show how it would actually be in that situation. We're going to end on a significantly lighter but hopefully revealing note: What is the most used emoji on your phone? KOCH I do the hug. SCOTT Oh, that's nice. GOGGINS I have the grin one, you know the super cool one with shades? KOCH That makes so much sense. REDMAYNE I have the one with the massive amount of teeth. SCOTT I'm a dad, so it's the thumbs-up. My kids are just like, 'Jesus Christ. Use something else.' GOGGINS That is so funny. KOCH The dad thumbs-up! SCOTT (To Goggins.) You use the thumbs-up, too? GOGGINS No, [my son] shut that down pretty quick. SCOTT I need to stop. WRIGHT Face-palm is mine. It's fitting. LUNA I'm boring. I have one that I use, which is a little boy dancing. How is that boring? LUNA Well, because it's been happening for eight or nine years. SCOTT Is that like an affirmation? Like, right on? LUNA Yeah, it's like, 'It's going to get better.' But it works for everything. 'Don't worry, life is fun.' Or, 'Oh my God, you just said something great.' Or, 'Oh shit, I'm having a shitty day, I wish I was this boy.' I don't know, I just use that one. REDMAYNE I really worry that these emojis are indicative of our personalities, and I should have thought harder about that one. This story appeared in the June 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Studio': 30 Famous Faces Who Play (a Version of) Themselves in the Hollywood-Based Series 22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise
Los Angeles Times
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘The biggest mistake of my life': 6 actors on typecasting, comedy idols and more
Hailing from some of today's funniest TV series, six actors gathered recently for an uninhibited conversation about what it takes to make people laugh at The Envelope's Emmy Roundtable for comedy actors. In Netflix's 'Running Point,' Kate Hudson plays Isla, a woman who becomes pro basketball's first girl boss when she takes over the family franchise. In ABC's 'Abbott Elementary,' Lisa Ann Walter portrays Melissa Schemmenti, a tough grade school teacher in Philly's underfunded public education system. With Hulu's 'Mid-Century Modern,' Nathan Lane takes on the role of Bunny, an aging gay man who brings together a chosen family when he invites two friends to reside in his Palm Springs home. 'Hacks' co-creator Paul W. Downs does double duty as Jimmy, the manager to legendary comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) in the Max series. Bridget Everett, creator of HBO's 'Somebody Somewhere,' plays Sam, a cabaret singer who moves back to her family's sleepy Kansas town to take care of her dying sister. And David Alan Grier stars as Dr. Ron, a devoted physician and cranky veteran who's seen it all in the overrun ER of a small-town hospital in NBC's 'St. Denis Medical.' The talented group spoke with The Times about their respective shows, typecasting and the risks one takes to make great comedy. Read on for excerpts from our discussion — and watch video of the roundtable below. The best comedy pushes boundaries, which means it can also skirt the edge of offensive. How do you know if you've gone too far, or haven't pushed it enough? Downs: In the 'Hacks' pilot, Jean Smart's character, Deborah Vance, says there is no line. I think there's nothing off limits, because it's really about execution and thoughtfulness. The thing that makes edgy comedy not funny is when it causes harm, when it's something that's punching down, when it's not something that can bring people together. That, to me, isn't worth it. But there's nothing that's too taboo, because that's what comedy is for. It's to examine things, explore things, get close to the edge. Everett: I think that comedy is about making people feel good. I want to make people feel joy. So as long as I'm not hurting anybody's feelings, I think everything's on the table. Grier: I don't think you know the edge and that's why it's dangerous. I've done things where I thought, 'This is too much,' and things where I thought, 'We didn't go far enough.' So you have to play that game. My intention is never to anger and offend, but you do have to put yourself in that position and take a chance, especially with comedy. You can prescreen it, but who are you prescreening it to? Sixty-year-old white women? High school kids? You have to take a chance. Hudson: I'm not a stand-up [comedian], so it's fun to watch people walk that line. It's exciting. What are they going to say? Is it going to be offensive? Is it not? Is it going to be brilliant? That's part of what's fun about being an audience of adult comedy. But I don't like mean comedy. It's really hard for me to see. I've been asked to do roasts a million times, and I just can't do it. It just doesn't move me in any way. Lane: I was asked. This was the biggest mistake of my life. ... A Friars [Club] Roast that was going to happen. [Jerry Lewis] was going to be roasted. And Richard Belzer said to me, 'Oh, Nathan, would you be a part of it? Would you do it? It would mean a lot to Jerry.' And I'm like, 'Oh, yeah, sure. I'll do the roast.' And then I'm suddenly there and I'm sitting next to Paul Shaffer and Jeff Ross, who apologized in advance for what he might say. And I realized then that, 'Oh, you're not getting up and just roasting this person. You're attacked. You're on the dais.' So I thought, 'Oh, what have I gotten into?' And I had asked them, 'Please let me go first.' And I had worked out jokes. I had a couple of writers help me, and there was an initial joke, which was, 'The only reason I agreed to do this was because I thought by the time it happened, Jerry would be dead.' Walter: I'm on a show that's got a lot of kids, and families can watch it together, which was [creator] Quinta Brunson's intention. But there are things that the kids won't get and that adults get. Melissa Schemmenti gets bleeped out regularly because she curses. She's South Philly! As a comic, I only am interested in edge, that's where I want to live … It's easier to make a point and get ears when you're making people laugh. And we do that on the show quite frequently. They'll do a storyline about the school-to-prison pipeline, but it's not ham-fisted, it's not preachy. It's edgy and it's all within jokes. Anytime you're making people laugh, I think you can say whatever you want. What's the strangest or most difficult skill you've had to learn for a role? Hudson: In 'Almost Famous,' [director] Cameron [Crowe] wanted me to learn how to roll cigarettes fast with one hand. And so I was learning how to roll, and I got really good at it really fast. And then when we were doing camera tests, I was doing it and I was smoking. And he was like, 'No.' And I was like, 'What? I just spent months trying to learn how to do that!' Then I started rolling my own cigarettes and got into a really bad habit and then spent years trying to quit. Downs: On 'Broad City,' I had to learn and do parkour. It's high skill level and high risk. You know, when you jump off buildings and roll around ... [leap] off chairs and over fire hydrants. I did it, but not a lot of it ended up onscreen. Just the most comedic moments. I jumped between buildings and they didn't even put it in! Lane: When I did 'Only Murders in the Building,' they said, 'So you have a deaf son and you're going to have scenes with him in ASL [American Sign Language].' It was challenging. I had a coach and I would work with him. And the wonderful young actor, James Caverly, who is Deaf ... he was very supportive. If I had to become fluent, it would've taken six months to a year to do it well. But I had an advantage; they said, 'Oh, your character is embarrassed by having a deaf son, so he didn't learn it until later in life. So he's not that good at it.' But it was a great thing to learn. I loved it. Grier: I did an episode of a sitcom in which it was assumed, unbeknownst to me, that I was very proficient playing an upright bass. This is not true. I played cello as a child. I had to play this upright bass and as a jazz musician. It was horrible. Your fingers swell and blister and bleed. Of course, I went along with it because that's what we're all supposed to do. But by Day 4, my fingers were in great pain. I never mastered it. But I did want to ask them, 'Who told you I could play?' Everett: I did a little trapeze work, but since the knee thing, I can't anymore … [Laughs] Lane: This was the independent film about the Wallendas, right? Everett: The truth is I've never had to do anything. Really. I had to rollerblade once in a Moby video, but that doesn't seem like it's going to stack up against all this, so maybe we should just move on to the next person. I would do trapeze, though. I'll do anything. Well, not anything. Can we just edit this part out in post? Hudson: I'm in love with you. Walter: In a movie I did where I started out as the nosy neighbor, I found out that I was going to be a cougar assassin and I had to stunt drive a Mustang and shoot a Glock. It was a surprise. Literally. When I got to set, I saw my wardrobe and went, 'I think I'm playing a different character than what I auditioned for.' ... They put the car on a chain and I got T-boned. I was terrified, but then I was like, 'Let's go again!' That was the most dangerous thing until I had to do a South Philly accent as Melissa, and do it good enough so that South Philly wouldn't kill me. That was probably more dangerous. Let's talk about typecasting. What are the types of roles that frequently come to you, where you're like 'Oh, my God, not again!' Lane: Oh, not another mysterious drifter. Hudson: Rom-coms. If I can't get a job doing anything else, I can get a job doing a romantic comedy. When you have major success in something, you realize the business is just so excited [that] they want you in them all the time. It really has nothing to do with anything other than that. It's something that I'm very grateful for, but you're constantly having to fight to do different things. I'd be bored if I was constantly doing the same thing over and over again. But it's just how the business works. Once you're in that machine, they just want to keep going until they go to somebody else. Walter: I can't tell you how bored I am with being the gorgeous object of men's desire. I named my first production company Fat Funny Friend … But as a mother of four in Los Angeles, I didn't really have the luxury of saying, 'I want to branch out.' But I did say, 'Can I play someone smart?' My father was a NASA physicist. My mother was brilliant. I was over doing things I could do in my sleep, always getting the part of the woman who sticks her head out of the trailer door and goes, 'I didn't kill him, but I ain't sorry he's dead!' ... It's like, 'Can I play someone who has a college education?' And I did, finally, but it took Quinta to do it. Grier: I've found that the older I've gotten, the roles I'm offered have broadened. And I've played a variety of really challenging great roles because I'm old now. That's been a real joy because I didn't really expect that. I just thought I'd be retired. I did. So it's been awesome. Lane: There was an article written about me, it was sort of a career-assessment article. It was a very nice piece, but it referred to me as the greatest stage entertainer of the last decade. And as flattering as it was, I can find a dark cloud in any silver lining. I felt, 'Oh, that's how they see me?' As an 'entertainer' because of musicals and things [I did] like 'The Birdcage' or 'The Lion King.' I'd been an actor for 35 years and I thought, 'I have more to offer.' So I wound up doing 'The Iceman Cometh' in Chicago ... and that would change everything. It was the beginning of a process where I lucked out and got some serious roles in television, and that led to other things. But it was a concerted effort over a period of 10, 15 years, and difficult because everybody wants to put you in a box. Is it difficult in the industry to make the move between drama and comedy? Walter: It's a lifelong consternation to me that there is an idea that if you are known comedically, that's what you do. We are quite capable of playing all of the things. Grier: I remember seeing Jackie Gleason in 'The Hustler.' I loved it. He was so great. Robin Williams also did serious. I think it's actually harder when you see serious actors try to be comedians. Downs: One of the things about making 'Hacks' is we wanted to do something that was mixed tone, that it was funny and comedic but also let actors like myself, like Jean, all of these people, have moments. Because to us, the most funny things are right next to the most tragic things. Hudson: And usually the most classic. When you think about the movies that people know generation after generation, they're usually the ones that walk the line. And they're the ones that you just want to go back and watch over and over and over again. Everett: I haven't had a lot of experience with being typecast because I've been in the clubs for a long time doing cabaret. But on my show, Tim Bagley, who plays Brad … he's been doing the same characters for I don't know for how long. So we wrote this part for him, and one of the most rewarding things for me on this show was sitting behind the monitor and watching him get to have the moment he deserved ... It's one of the greatest gifts to me as a creator to have been part of that. It's a whole thing in my show. We're all getting this break together. We've all struggled to pay our rent well into our 40s. I waited tables into my 40s, but you don't give up because you love doing it. I'm sure many of you are recognized in public, but what about being mistaken for somebody else who's famous? Grier: I went to a performance of a David Mamet show on Broadway. I went backstage, and this particular day, it was when Broadway was raising money to benefit AIDS. There was a Midwestern couple there with their young son and they saw me, and the house manager said, 'This couple, they're going to give us an extra $1,000 if you take a picture with them. Would you mind?' I'm like, 'Yeah, cool.' So I'm posing and the dad goes, 'It is our honor to take a picture with you, Mr. LeVar Burton.' Now in that moment, I thought if I say no, people will die. So I looked at them and I went, 'You liked me in 'Roots?'' He said, 'We loved you.' Click, we took the picture. I'm not going to be like, 'How dare you?!' Walter: Peg Bundy I got a couple of times. But as soon as I open my mouth, they know who I am. I can hide my hair, but as soon as I talk, I'm made. Hudson: I've had a lot of Drew Barrymore. And then every other Kate. Kate Winslet, Katie Holmes ... I've gotten all of them. Walter: Do you correct them? Hudson: Never. I just say yes and sign it 'Cate Blanchett.' I'd love to know who everybody's comedic inspiration was growing up. Walter: My dad used to let me stay up and watch 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour' and 'Laugh-In.' I got to see Ruth Buzzi, rest in peace, and Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin. Jo Anne Worley. All these funny women. That's what made me think, 'You can get a job doing this, the thing that I get in trouble for at school?!' Grier: My comedy hero was Richard Pryor. I was this Black little boy in Detroit, and George Jessel would come on 'The Mike Douglas Show' and he might as well have been speaking Russian. I'm like, 'How can this be comedy?' Then I saw Richard Pryor, and he was the first comic who I just went, 'Well, this guy's hilarious.' Downs: I remember one of the first comedies that my dad showed me was 'Young Frankenstein.' I remember Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman and Madeline Kahn. All of these women. I was always like, 'They're the funniest ones.' Hudson: My era growing up was Steve Martin, Martin Short, Albert Brooks, Mel Brooks. But women were, for me, the classics. Lucille Ball. Walter: There was a time when I was growing up where women really dominated comedy. They were your mom [nods at Hudson, Hawn's daughter], Whoopi [Goldberg], Bette Midler. The biggest stars of the biggest comedies were women, and then that all went away for a really long time. I think it found its way back with Judd Apatow and then he made 'Bridesmaids.' Hudson: I tried really hard to make edgy comedy and studios wouldn't do it. They wouldn't. It took Judd to convince the studio system that women are ready. That we can handle rated-R. In the '70s and '80s, there was a ton of rated-R comedy with women. But for some reason, it just all of a sudden became like, 'Oh, there's only 1½ demographics for women in comedy.' I always felt like it was an uphill battle trying to get them made. Then I remember when Jenji [Kohan] came in with 'Orange Is the New Black.' That was really awesome. Lane: Above all, it was always Jackie Gleason for me. He was such an influence. He was hilarious, and of course, very broadly funny, but then there was something so sad. It was such pathos with him. ... He was this wonderful, serious actor, as well as being Ralph Kramden. Everett: There's nobody that taught me more about how to be funny than my mom. She just had this way of being that I have used in my live shows. It's led to where I am now. She used to wet her pants [laughing] so she had to put towels down on all the chairs in the house. She just didn't care. That shows you to not care, to go out there. I live in fear, but not when I feel like she's with me. Grier: That's the edge. You're either going to weep or you're going to [laugh] until you urinate.
Los Angeles Times
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘I hate the internet, but I got to see it': 7 Emmy contenders on fame, fandoms and more
Academy Award winner Billy Bob Thornton, who plays chain-smoking crisis manager Tommy Norris in Taylor Sheridan's latest hit 'Landman,' seems like a guy who can't be intimidated. But get him in a room with Allison Janney and the truth comes out. 'I was afraid of you,' he tells her sheepishly on The Envelope's Emmy Roundtable for drama actors. 'Really?' says Janney, the Oscar-, Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning performer who appears as cunning Vice President Grace Penn on the Netflix political thriller 'The Diplomat.' 'The first time I met Allison, it was at another press function thing,' he says to the room. 'And just seeing you, as an actor, and parts you play ... But also, you have this very dignified quality about you.' 'It's my height, I think.' 'No,' he continues. 'You just have the face of someone who is powerful and really intelligent. So some idiot like me comes in, and I'm like, 'Maybe I shouldn't talk to her.'' This is what happens when you gather seven Emmy contenders whose performances so convincingly shape our perceptions of who they are in real life. This year's group also included Sterling K. Brown, who plays Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent seeking the truth in Hulu's 'Paradise'; Britt Lower, who plays both wealthy heiress Helena Eagan and defiant data refiner Helly R. in Apple TV+'s 'Severance'; Jason Isaacs, who plays Timothy Ratliff, an American financier desperately trying to keep a secret from his family in HBO's 'The White Lotus'; Noah Wyle, who plays Dr. Michael 'Robby' Robinavitch, a senior attending physician at a Pittsburgh trauma center in Max's 'The Pitt'; and Kaitlin Olson, who plays the underestimated but brilliant police consultant Morgan Gillory in ABC's 'High Potential.' Read on for excerpts from our discussion about how they tap into their layered performances, navigate the business and more — and watch video of the roundtable below. Tell me about an 'Oh, my God, did that just happen?' moment — good or bad — from your early years on a Hollywood set. Kaitlin, your first credit was 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' I can't imagine what it's like making Larry David laugh. Olson: Oh, you just have to scream in his face and insult him, and then he thinks that's really, really funny. But yeah, there were no marks and there were no lines. So I didn't really have an 'Oh, my God' moment. You just talk and shut up when you should shut up. Isaacs: On my first day [on 1989's 'The Tall Guy'], I remember I arrived first thing in the morning. I was playing Surgeon No. 2 in a dream sequence that Jeff Goldblum was in. The director, who's hassled and busy, he goes, 'OK, we're going to start with you. We're coming in on the dolly. But because I'm on a very wide lens, if you could start the eyeline somewhere near the bottom of the jib and then just go to the corner of bottle, then take it to the edge of the matte box when we're getting close.' And I went, 'Right ... What the f— did any of those words mean?' Jeff is just out of frame. And he's in his underpants, and it's a dream sequence for him. And we're just about to go and roll the cameras, and Jeff goes, 'Hold on a second.' And he stands up and he starts standing on a chair reciting Byron love poems even though he was not in the shot. I'm like, 'I don't understand what the hell is going on here.' Years later, I sat next to him at a wedding and I said, 'Do you remember that night?' He went, 'Yeah.' Have there been moments where you fell out of love with acting or where you felt like, 'This isn't working out'? Janney: My career didn't start till I was 38 or something, because I'm so tall, and I was literally uncastable. I went to the Johnson O'Connor [Research Foundation]. And I did three days of testing to see what else I could possibly do. Issacs: What is that? Janney: It's an aptitude testing place. They ask you to do all this stuff, and at the end of it they say, 'This is what you should be.' And they told me I should be a systems analyst. I had no idea what that was. And the next day, I got cast understudying Faith Prince and Kate Nelligan in 'Bad Habits,' a play at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Brown: I've never fallen out of love with it. I was an economics major in college who wound up switching to drama. When I got out of grad school and [was] hopping around through regional theater, I wound up booking a TV show, 'Army Wives,' for six years, and a few years into the show, I was like, 'I think I've done everything that I want to do with the character.' So when they came dangling the carrot for people to reup after Season 6, I was like, 'I'm curious to see what else the universe has in store.' I was able to pay off student loans. We had our first child, I had a home and I was like, 'Let's take a gamble on Brown.' I did a pilot for AMC that didn't get picked up; then had a recurring [role] on 'Person of Interest' for six episodes. I was like, 'Oh, man, I got a wife and a kid and a house. Did I mess up? Should I have stayed on the show or not?' Then I auditioned for ['The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story'], and I didn't hear anything for four months. I was down in New Mexico shooting this movie, 'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,' and I was having this really sort of morbid moment of going through my IMDb Pro account and looking at everybody who had booked all of the things that I had auditioned for. I was like, 'Oh, Bokeem Woodbine booked Season 2 of 'Fargo.' Good for him.' And I got a call from my manager saying, 'They want you to screen test with Sarah Paulson for this thing.' I was the only person that they brought in to audition for it. Your series are largely confronting or commenting on real-world anxieties or subjects that are changing in our world in real time. Noah, with Dr. Robbie and what he says about what's going on in the healthcare system — we're seeing him cope with the aftermath of COVID-19. We're seeing stories that are very timely about vaccinations. Talk about what was important to you with this series and what you wanted to show through these characters. Wyle: 'ER' was very much a patient-centric show in a lot of ways. And this was more of an exercise to be practitioner- and physician-centric, to really show the toll that the last five years since COVID has taken on that community. The thesis being that it is as fragile as the mental health of the people that we have in those jobs and the quality's what we received. Even though we had to peer into a crystal ball and try to figure out a year ago what would be the topical cases of today, we were really more interested in how everybody's coping mechanisms have allowed them to practice what they've been doing for the last five years. How they've compartmentalized the toll it's taken on them personally, and explore that in real time. Aggregate tension on a shift where you're just embedded with them without release. The outset was more about identifying the mental health of the practitioner than identifying the ills in society ... Can I just say how effing cool it is to sit at this table with you all and be the uncool one to say that I feel like my impostor syndrome is off the rails right now? Olson: No way. Hopefully you'll all guest star on each other's shows by the time this is over. Janney: I would love that. Britt, what really spoke to me about 'Severance' was its exploration of grief, but within that too, there's the corporate overreach and the work-life balance that I think all of us can appreciate. Did it show you anything about how you navigate your work-life balance or what you could do better? Lower: The cast talks a lot about how the 'Severance' procedure is kind of like what we do for a living. We go to work and put on a different outfit and assume a new identity. There were some moments where you're walking down the corridors on the way to your job, and there's kind of this meta quality of being inside of a show about compartmentalizing and switching into a different part of yourself. But I think it's so relatable. I think we do that as humans. We show up differently in different spaces in our lives, whether it's work or home or going home for the holidays, versus your baseball team. You just put on a different person really. Isaacs: If I go away to do a job on location somewhere, I can actually — even at my ripe old age; I'm a father and I'm a husband — just park my life and forget that. Now I see that metaphor very clearly and it's irresponsible. I'm so much more comfortable in the fictitious world than I am in the real world. Do you feel like there's a misconception that you guys are just all at the pool? Isaacs: I'm not really an actor anymore; I just do 'White Lotus' publicity for a job. And in the billions of interviews, people expect you to say, 'It was a holiday. We were in this resort.' Well, we're not really in the resort. So I've said a few times, 'You make friends. You lose friends, romances or whatever; things happen between departments and all the backstage drama that we're all used to.' Well, the online world went mad trying to deconstruct, trying to work out who knew who and who was [doing what]. Actually, I'm talking about all the crew and all the departments — not that it's anyone's business. But it's trying to deconstruct what we all think of each other. And what happened there is so much less interesting than Mike White's brilliant stories. You shouldn't be interested in who went to dinner with who. I kind of wish I hadn't opened my mouth about it, but I don't want to pretend it was a holiday. Not just the way that the show blew up but also the level of microscopic interest in anything any of us said, tweeted, posted — there aren't many new experiences for actors who've been around a long time, but this one has been shocking, and I'm quite glad that it's abating now. I'd like to return to my normal life, but I don't know how people who are uber-famous deal with it. Billy Bob, how did you come to navigate it? You've experienced the extreme effects of that. Thornton: You mean in the world of Hollywood and all that? Isaacs: Do you go to the supermarket, take the subway ... Do you do the stuff I do? Thornton: It depends on what year it is. I've gone through times where I couldn't go anywhere. Once my life got bigger, and that really happened with ... I mean, I was a working actor doing OK, but 'Sling Blade' is the one that, literally overnight, it was a crazy thing. From that point on, it's been pretty steady. What I've done to not get involved in all that is I don't really go anywhere. I'm either working or I'm at home with the family or in a recording studio or on the road. You don't see me in the [tabloid] magazines, at the parties and all that kind of stuff. I'll put it this way. Right now, with 'Landman,' we thought it was going to be successful. We had no idea that it was going to be like this. I mean, we've got fans in Iceland and stuff. I can't go to a Walmart in Texas. It's literally impossible. I tried it. I would walk three feet at a time. Texans, their personalities are also very big, and they don't really come up and go, 'Excuse me, mister.' It's not like that. It's like, 'Hey man, what's going on? Get in a picture with me.' I've had a reputation — weirdo. Angelina and I were vampires. We drank each other's blood. You look on the internet, and there's some kind of thing you're trying to look up and, inevitably, it'll show something else. So you go, 'I hate this. I hate the internet, but I got to see it.' Isaacs: There's no good version of you. You either look much better on the screen or much better in real life. I wanted to say [looks at Allison], because I was a huge 'West Wing' fan, I did some 'West Wing,' I couldn't break out of thinking that Bradley [Whitford] and Janel [Moloney] were, in fact, Josh and Donna. Did people think you were that political? People assumed you were that character? Janney: I've been such a disappointment for people who think that I am C. J. [Cregg, her character on 'The West Wing'], because I couldn't be less like her. I'm not that person who's able to verbally cut someone down in the second that she needs to. It was so great to play her, but I remember when they had the Democratic National [Convention] in California and there were more people who came up to me and asked me, 'After this is over, will you come work for us? Will you come to...' I'm like, 'You don't understand. I'm so not like that.' And now on 'The Diplomat,' playing the president of the United States and the smartest person in the room, it's so much fun for me to play those kind of women because I'm not [like that]. I mean, I'm not an idiot, but I know nothing about being in the world of politics or being manipulative. Kaitlin, 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' is in its 17th season now. You're on 'Hacks.' When you're signing on to something like 'High Potential,' what factors do you consider when thinking about how long you want to commit to something? Olson: I don't ever want to play a character that starts to get old to me. 'Sunny' doesn't feel like that to me because it's a satire and the world's always providing us with new content. And we do eight to 10 episodes a season. So it's 17 seasons, which is insane, but it's not even 20 episodes. It's so much fun, which is the reason I'm not sick of that character yet. But I feel the same way as you, [Allison], when I'm playing characters who are super-smart, and then I have to talk about it, I just go into panic mode. How has it been getting into Morgan's head? Olson: I love the other characters that I play, but there's heart to this, and she's a good mom and she is very insecure but puts on a big show. I love that she's scrappy and has to figure it out, and she trusts that she will and doesn't rely on anybody else to help her figure it out. The most important thing are her kids. I think she's just fascinating to play. What's the most impressive skill you picked up on the job? Noah, you know I'm going to start with you. You went to medical boot camp. You've done really well with sutures. You can intubate any one of us, I think. Wyle: I've never performed one. Isaacs: The night is young. Wyle: I wish everybody an opportunity to slip into a role that you have such great muscle memory with from another aspect of your life when you play a musician or when you do circusing or whatever. When you do something you've done for so long, and then you get to do it again, it is just amazing how much it's in your body and how you don't have to worry about that stuff. There was a moment earlier where Sterling choked on the grape in the greenroom. I was so ready to intubate him, even if it wasn't necessary. Thornton: I went to air-traffic control school for 'Pushing Tin,' so I can still say, 'Delta 2376, turn left, 20-0-4-0' and 'Clear the Alice approach one-four right, call the tower one-eight-three,' because you just don't forget it. That's not air-traffic control, that's just a line. With Noah, he learns this skill that he has been doing over the years, and that kind of knowledge is invaluable. Anytime you have stuff to do, without just acting, like you're doing busy work — you're, like, here's how you do an appendectomy — and you learn and when you're picking up the right tools, you're saying the right stuff, you're making incisions — that stuff you've got to learn. Isaacs: One of the great privileges of being an actor that maybe doesn't show up onscreen is you get to walk in people's shoes. I shadowed heart surgeons and plastic surgeons and politicians and criminals and soldiers, and it's just an amazing privilege to be in people's lives and talk about it. And there may be some tiny bit you pick up for the screen.
