June 4, 2024 • 61 mins
Today Brian is swapping hair care tips for the follicly challenged with actor Kelly AuCoin. The conversation highlights include Kelly's unique upbringing as a Congressman's son, the worst wig of his career, and his process for embodying Dollar Bill Stern on Billions (hint: it's more than just a closely shaved scalp). Listeners can see Kelly in his role as president of the LA Clippers on Hulu's Clipped, premiering this week.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Reddit had an entire thread after my first appearance about
whether or not I was a pedophile because of the wig,
literally because of the wig.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Oh you think it was about the wig.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I I'm Kelly o'coin, I'm bald, and I love whiskey.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Give me too, Kelly, me too. Hello everybody, and welcome
to my podcast Off the Beat, or if you've been
here before, welcome back to Off the Beat. I am
(00:46):
your host, Brian Baumgartner. Today I am talking to one
of the worst, most despicable people in the entire world,
or at least that's who he plays on TV. I
have Kecoin, who is dollar Bill Stern from the show Billions.
(01:06):
Unfortunately for us all I know you're going to be
disappointed to learn this. In real life, he's a very
nice man. He is not calculated and cheap and cutthroat
as is his character. He is, in fact, unfortunately lovely.
A lot of his non Billions characters are decent people too.
He was the charitable pastor Tim in The Americans, the
(01:30):
diligent detective Scott Gordon in The Girl from Plainville Scott
Galloway and We Crashed and coming up next month, LA
Clippers president Andy Roser in the new series clipped on
Hulu see nice guys don't always finish Last. Kelly is
doing just fine. We're going to get into his childhood.
(01:53):
Kelly was the son of a congressman. We're going to
figure out if we ever crossed paths on the region,
theater circuit, and much much more. Here he is. Dare
I say my new friend, Kelly o'coin.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Bubble and squeak, I love it, Bubble and squeak on,
Bubble and squeak, I.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Cook get every mole lift over from the ninety before.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
What's up, Kelly? Hey, how are you? I'm good? How
are you?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I'm good? Thank you for having me on. This is
so fun.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Thank you for joining me. I want to start this
off by just saying, you know, I have a I
have an extensive crack research team here that that does
a lot of the heavy lifting for me. However, I
like to look around on my own as well, and
I found your usite and the thing that I assume
(03:03):
you wrote yourself, which I found just delightful.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Which part the about me.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Did you not write? Yes, the about me you wrote it?
I could, I did? You can't think that? Now?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
That was one of those things when you know you're
between gigs and or as others like to say, unemployed,
and to fill the void, you start writing stuff and
it feels like creativity. It may or may not be.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
But as your eighties it is. I think I thought
it was. I thought it was great, and weirdly, I
feel like I learned more about you by reading it,
which I guess is really the point. And what I
what I mean by that is which is it's interesting
because it's kind of what I'm trying to do here anyway.
(03:55):
But you've sort of done it yourself, which is you
can say these things about yourself for your wife or
the work that you've done, or theater or in your
case hair, and you, you know, you learn those factual things.
But in terms of reading your tone, I feel like
I picked up on your sense of humor and your
(04:19):
sort of perspective and maybe just a few hints about
your beliefs about the world. Anyway, I thought it was
very well done. Oh thanks, well, yeah, and really like
how it should be as opposed to like trying to
turn yourself into this I don't know, weird third person,
which I feel like I do too much. It's like
(04:42):
you know he you know, did blah blah blah blah blah,
and you're like, I'm speaking about myself and the third person,
which is very odd. Anyway, it was very personal, so
I wanted you to know that I appreciated it.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
There is always this tension when you're in a play,
in particular where you have to write a bio and yes,
either either you it's it's kind of sucks both ways.
Either you get like, okay, in forty words, explain your
career in life, or they give you too much time,
so but then you start doing what you said. It's
like Kelly o'coin was very active in the theater arts
(05:19):
from a young age, and I was like, I just
I'm Kelly. Why am I am? I?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I know, but it's it's interesting. I had never actually
had this conversation with anyone before because I guess because
you did yours so well. The bio is a very
odd thing to either write or have written for you.
I'll actually tell I'll actually tell. I got this I've
not talked about and I apologize if anyone who was
(05:48):
involved is listening, but I recently did a fundraiser for
a local thing. Just said yes and I did a
fund fundraiser and I got asked the question will you
say to bio so we can introduce you, which, of
course I'm like, this is not there's no professional benefit
for this bot. There's nothing, there's nothing that this will
(06:08):
achieve for me. So of course, what did I do? Nothing?
And I didn't do it, and I didn't do it,
and then like a certain number of days went by
and I got an email it said, hey, so I
know we haven't gotten a bio from you yet. So
I went to chat GBT and chat Chet wrote this
(06:29):
bio of you, which you know, for me and yours
would be the opposite, by the way, yours would be
like he's an asshole and blah blah blah. Mine was
like he's the lovable, whimsical blah blah blah from you know,
he's known for playing golf and liking sports, you know,
(06:51):
like it's like and I was like immediately like no, no, no, no, no,
we could do better than that. Please.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
So that was not read in front of the crowd.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
No, I got sent it and then yeah, I have.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Had a couple of circumstances where because there are bios
that are written to be read yes, not out loud,
paper correct. And there's a way you phrase things that
you know. There's a way you phray things. Phrasings also
for bios that are written to be spoken. And I
have more than once been at a place where I'm
(07:28):
at an event where I'm introduced, not knowing they were
going to read a bio and never asked me for
a bio, but just read like the longest version of
the longest bio I've ever written that they somehow found.
And so they start and five minutes later they're finishing
with this stuff like and he brilliantly portrayed, and blah blah.
I I don't even know who wrote that thing. And
(07:49):
then I have to get up and be brilliant.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I know that is so true, because I do the
college thing, and I'm because I can hear it. Of course,
I'm like ding back, and my leg starts twitching and like,
come on, no, no, no, just move skip to the end,
skip stop, stop, skip.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
To the end, fast forward, fast forward.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
He then wrote a cookbook. Oh no, stop, please, I
don't need no, we're not studied.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Another language and maybe traveled more.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Oh boy, well there you go. There's a first for you.
Ladies and gents, the bio talk. It's not as easy
as it looks. And that's the final thing I'll say
is that is the other thing which should be mentioned,
because exactly what you said, a bio must be structured
for the event. If it's a lifetime achievement award, go
(08:45):
on for ten twelve minutes, sure, why not? But the
the like just the random email or text, Hey can
you send me a bio? It's like, no, all bios
are not meant exactly what he said. So that's work,
and you have to think about how is this going
to feel if this is said out loud?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
What's the event? How many people? What's the venue?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah? Exactly, exactly? All right, Well, speaking of bios, I
don't know. I couldn't come up with a transition at all.
Let's talk about you. Oh, you grew up in Oregon
and your dad. I think this is another first for
(09:30):
the podcast. And by the way, we haven't talked to
just four people. We got two firsts right off the bat.
Your dad was a politician, first the Oregon House of
Representatives and then a US congressman in Oregon's first district.
So how for you? First of all, one fascinating. How
(09:51):
old were you when this was going on. I mean
he was in politics your entire life or did he,
you know, transition into that.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I was three maybe not getting the months right. I
was three when he was first elected to the state legislature.
And he was there for two terms, so four years.
He was the I can brag on my dad all
day long. So just like pulled up a finger or
like slashed the throat if you want to stop. But
his second term, he was the House majority leader, the
(10:21):
youngest House majority leader ever. And then he ran for
US Congress and was the first Democrat ever elected to
the first district, which is like half of Portland to
the coast and the Washington border down to like Corvallis,
which is where the status and everyone on the podcast
is like, well, thank god he got the geography in there.
(10:42):
And he was in the US House. We moved to
d C. He was in the US House for eighteen years,
nine terms. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Wow, So you were at that So at that point,
you weren't going back and forth. You were you were
like you went to school in DC, you were you
were a DC guy.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
It was a little back and forth. We did the
rest of grade school, second second half of second grade
through fifth grade in d C, and sixth and seventh grade,
junior high back in Oregon in the central Oregon area,
and then high school back in d C, and then
college in Ohio. I went to Oberlin, so I said,
(11:20):
split the difference Midwest.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Wow, So how was that for you one as a kid?
I mean, you're you're quite young when he ends up
getting elected and going to d C. So you know,
obviously you have friends, but you're leaving. Like for you culturally,
is there a big change for you in terms of
(11:43):
the environment moving from Oregon to d C.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Yeah, definitely. This was a small town Forest Grove, Oregon,
and it was as small as that sounds. Okay, great
little town, but small. And then to d C in
the mid seventies, and you know, East coast cities were
going through a lot of difficulties in this evanies and
d C was no different. But it was Yeah, it
was bigger and it was louder. I think for me,
(12:07):
I'm I'm an extrovert and it was kind of exciting
to meet new people. My sister and I actually entered
at the beginning of natural transitions.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Like sixth grade or yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Like sixth grade and junior high, so a bunch of
new kids were coming to a new place and same
thing with high school. My sister had it slightly different,
so it was a little bit harder for her, I think,
but you know, I I loved it. I had a
fun time in d C. We lived near Rock Creek Park,
and if anyone knows d C, it's like this huge,
sprawling wilderness area. So we got a little bit of
(12:45):
Oregon there kind of. And in retrospect, I think it's
great because I feel I feel comfortable in small towns.
I feel comfortable in the mountains where my family's actually from,
and I feel comfortable in big cities. They all have
different joys, discover, so I thank my parents for that.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Actually, do you feel like you are especially patriotic or
like have a special affinity for your hometown or for
the state of Oregon given that your dad went through this,
or do you feel and that you went through this,
(13:24):
or do you feel like from the inside there and this,
that's a long time that he was in office and
so you saw a lot of things. Do you feel
more skeptical of government having seen it from that side?
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I'll work my way up to that answer. The first one,
I do have a special I always have a soft
spot for Oregon. The one sports team I am fanatical
about is the Portland Trail Blazers.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yes, I've heard, Yes.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
You know, they won their they won their only championship
a year after we moved to d C. Okay, you know,
so that was special. It's like a little bit of
Oregon saying it's gonna be okay, kid. And then I
don't remember if I wrote this in the bio. I
hope not, because I'll be repeating myself. But then the
next year, the Washington Bullets won the championship, and so
my two to my og team and my adopted second
(14:15):
favorite team win championships back to back. And as a
ten year old, I'm like, oh, this is this is
fucking great. So this is how it works. You you
you like teams and they win championships, this is going
to be great. And neither of them have won.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Sense I knew. I knew where the punchline was going.
Yeah you know those teams? Yeah yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I love I love DC, I love Oregon, I love Portland.
I you know, I hurt for it because it's going
through some transitions just to like a lot of West
Coast cities right now. In terms of government, I so
it's not an either or. I am deeply patriotic and
I am deeply pissed off of my country a lot.
(14:57):
And I think where people get into trouble is assuming
that patriotism means blind blind acceptance. I feel I am
so deeply patriotic that I can criticize the hell out
of my country when I think it's doing wrong it
can do better.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
You believe that your dad did it for all the
right reasons because you wanted to help him, to serve I.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Do to hear.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, there were there were. Honestly, the phrase fight the
good fight was constantly used, and people use that as
a joke or ironically, it was constantly used in my
family by my mom and by my dad, because that's
how they were raised and that's how they wanted to
(15:47):
raise us. You can the only way you can make changes,
to be involved. The only way you can ensure that
change will not happen is to drop out.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So that's actually that's true, not just in government, but
in life and work, just totally. Your first role, I
have been told, was a campaign commercial for your dad.
Did you have an affinity for or an interest in
(16:19):
acting prior to that that you did? Okay?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I did? Yeah, I think I knew I wanted to
be an actor since like second grade. Okay, certainly like
fifth grade. But but that was my first screen job,
that thirty second commercial.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yes, do you feel like And I don't mean this
in a truly in a negative way at all. Most
of the time when people say that, they actually do,
but I actually I really don't. But there is an
element of performance, whether you're whether you're fighting for what
you believe in or not, there is an element of performance.
There is public speaking, there is behaving differently around different people,
(17:01):
whether they're electorate or you know, people you work with,
other representatives, whatever. Did you watch that play out at all?
And I, and I ask more because you know, for
me as someone who I know you were interested in
acting and the arts. Is this something that you watched?
Did you watch this play out? Were you conscious of
it or do you think you just absorbed it?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
I was definitely conscious of it. That's a great question.
I my dad has always said that he wasn't. His
natural habitat was not in front of a crowd, so
he definitely there was you know, the mind was you know,
I as soon as I got in front of a crowd,
I was like, hey, this is awesome. But so yeah,
(17:47):
I saw him and everybody does it. Even if you
are comfortable, there's a different way you have to present ideas,
your parent ideas when you are having a conversation versus
you are speaking to a crowd of five, ten, fifteen,
one thousand, whatever it is, And that's just common sense,
and that means you perform differently. Yeah, I think I
(18:09):
like the way you phrased it at the beginning, by
the way you asked the question you said. I'm not
necessarily saying this is a bad thing, because I do
think when people are speaking of politicians performing or speechifying,
and it's like, well, yeah, because it's a speech, you know,
it's yeah, we're not just sitting here having a beer together.
There's there is.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
This is not how you would behave if you were
sitting with your brother in a local pub.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yes, if you and I were having a beer and
all of a sudden I pulled out a lectern, you'd
think I was a little odd.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Can we get that tell? Can we get that teleprompter?
On please thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
That's right, And so yeah, I would see him and
other other politicians get up and go into a different state.
That was an ironically, that is a way to a
to achieve a certain a more honest truth. Given the
medium or given the position you're in speaking to a press,
(19:08):
you're not going to impart the information if you just
sort of casually, you know, if you haven't written anything,
you speak top of your head. I mean some people,
some current politicians, like to do that. I would argue
they're not getting any points across. They're just there's just
some personality thing happening. But let's not go there.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
So yes, there is a performative thing. And that was
one that I always say. My mom used to sing,
not hugely professionally, but she'd sing. I'd see her in
front of groups every once in a while singing. And
my dad was in front of crowds, parting ideas, working
with scripts, which is what speeches are.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Right, this is occurring to me right now. You said
your dad wasn't necessarily gifted or the most comfortable in
front of people. Who was the best that you you
remember seeing?
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Well, he was very good. My dad was very good.
Just it was something where it was I think it
took you know, emotionally, when you get out in front
of a crowd, you probably are like me, I'm guessing
where it's like, this is gonna be awesome, and you
get energy from the idea of it. So but he
was very good, which was which is another thing I admired,
working creating a strength out of something that wasn't necessarily
(20:24):
an inherent strength, okay, or didn't feel like to him.
The best I ever saw Bill Clinton was incredible, and
Jesse Jackson I got to see live, and actually everything
I said about having to prepare and not speaking semporaneously,
I threw out the window because I don't think he
had a single note, and he spoke for half an
(20:46):
hour and everything made one hundred percent CeNSE. And the
little little kernel's little seeds he planted in minute two
reached fruition in minute twenty seven and a half. You know,
it's just like he was. He's probably the best I've
ever seen.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
You went to Oberlin, as you mentioned before, this was
to become an actor.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
First of all, shout out to Oberlin. I just got
back yesterday. My niece just graduated from Oberlin.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
So that was shout out Oberlin, congratulations. I always think
of I don't know what it is if it's the
name Oberlin, and I know it's very big in music.
I always think of the Obo. I don't know why
someone say, oh, I'm I I went to Oberlin, and
the first thought in my head was, oh, you're you
play the Obo. I don't know why that you're an
(21:52):
oboe with I didn't know if that was a word.
Shout out Oberlin. Did you go there for theater?
Speaker 1 (21:59):
So I didn't approach college in a particularly strategic way,
I think, except that I decided that I wasn't going
to go to a conservatory. Northwestern was very interesting to me.
A couple other places were interesting to me. But I
decided that going to undergrad I wanted. I wanted a
(22:21):
liberal arts.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
This is me what you're speaking of, this is this
is exactly my speech, exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
I tried to model myself after you, Jenn.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I figured you're a little older, simmer down kellywn Yes,
you did somehow somewhere in your brain.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Yes, so I, uh, you know, I'm going to wikipedia
you later. So uh so Oberlin had I did not
go to the con I was not going to be
a musician. But the College of Arts and Sciences was
really was a great school as well, and I was
interested in history. I was interested in particularly at the time,
(22:59):
in doing theater and Shakespeare and Moliere and historical plays,
so the history kind of fed in with that. I
was doing a Moliere play called The miser As I
was studying about the French Revolution, which would have been
one hundred years later, and I thought that was kind
of cool, So I actually went in spite of the
(23:20):
fact that I wanted to be an actor, if that
makes sense. The great thing about that school at the
time and probably still now, it's two things. We had
a number of great professors and some great adjunct professors
over the course of the time I was there in
a great summer theater institute. But I didn't have to
be a major to do any play. I could get
(23:43):
into or take any class, so I didn't have to
take all the classes, but I could take all the
scene study, and if I wanted to do some tech
costume design or lighting sign I could do that that
I didn't have to and I could get my degree
in history. And then if I was going to go
to grad school, that's where I would more. I ended
up not doing that. I ended up going diving right in,
(24:03):
but which was Sometimes I think it would have been
better to go to grad school, just because you come
out with a showcase and agents and at least some
connections and a chance to get signed earlier than I did.
And I think I'm not unhappy with where things went
for me. But I do think that the five ten
(24:24):
years where I struggled would have been maybe a little
easier if I'd gone the grad school groupe. But I'm
not in debt, so there's that.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Look, our stories are are very similar. I went, I
did go to a conservatory school, but within a larger university.
I went to SMU there in Dallas, and I began
doing theater, and theater was all I thought that I
(24:53):
would ever do. Our paths likely crossed. Maybe maybe while
you were closing down, I was moving in in looking
at your resume.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Got another age, did geeze nothing well?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Or maybe the other way around. But I would have
been playing a young on ingenu. So yeah, so I wondered.
I mean, I know you started doing a little work
on guests daring on soaps, which I do want to
hear about because I think, by the way, fantastic training
for actors being thrown into the fire that quickly. But
(25:33):
did you have interest in film and television or for me,
all I ever thought I would be was a theater actor.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, I had interest, but it was a very sheepish interest.
It was like I didn't I thought it was so
far beyond me. I didn't have any role models who
were doing it or who went on to do it
soon after I knew them, So it was an interesting phenomenon.
(26:01):
I think another reason why things took a little while
for me was that I wasn't even able to name
that thing that I wanted. I wanted to do theater.
I wanted, but I knew that. But I had I
had faith that I could get there. I had more
faith that I could get on Broadway than I did
that I could get on TV.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And when I talk to younger actors, now, if I
don't don't feel ashamed at your ambition, about your ambition,
it's not presumptuous to have ambition. And I think there's
a part of my brain that felt presumptuous even saying, oh,
you know what i'd really like, I'd like to be
a series regular on a television show, right, And I would.
(26:42):
I just I felt embarrassed saying it because it was like, well,
of course you're not going to be. And it took
me a long time to get over that. And I
wish i'd told somebody. I had a number of mentor
types who I think would have been like, get the
fuck over yourself and say what you want, right, because
there are a lot of bad TV actors out here, son,
(27:04):
so you could be one too. Just don't lose your
hair and you'll be fine.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I uh, yeah, it's it's that's fascinating to me and
actually makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
You know.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I think I just didn't even I don't know. Maybe
it's a similar thing for me. It just was never
a thought until it was until it was like, okay,
maybe I should, maybe I should try that. But you know,
for me, for a time, god, there's no way for
this not to sound like a weird, humble brag, but
like I was getting work in the theater, and so
(27:43):
for me it was like, well, I here was what
I was smart enough to know. I don't think I've
really talked about this too much on here. I knew
that moving or sorry, visiting Los Angeles for a pilot
season was not for me, like the idea of well,
I'll just go out for a couple of months and
see what happens. And maybe it's my personality type. It's like, no, no,
(28:06):
if I'm in, I need to be in like I
need to be in. You know, when I finally had
to turn down theater work because I was like, Okay,
I'm going to try this, and I said I'm going
to give it a year, but even in my head,
I think I was like, I think like eighteen months,
like it's probably more realistic, like I'm going to do this.
(28:30):
But before that, I mean, I did a couple of
commercials and you know, there was a movie that came
through Minnesota when I was there and was in that,
but nothing really And it sounds for you as well.
I mean, you were on Broadway, you were doing major
shows at Oregon Shakespeare and et cetera, et cetera, before
(28:50):
you were ever on television at all.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Right, yeah, totally. At the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, we would
pool our money together and bring in casting directors in
LA and various other regional theaters. But the big you know,
the big, sort of scary one was when we'd bring
people from Los Angeles and sometimes they teach us, they
give us little workshops, and I remember one casting person,
(29:15):
I think it was definitely an acting coach as well,
gave us a little on camera workshop and first it
was this is gonna sound humble braggy too, I guess.
But the first the first note I got was it
was sort of to the the rest of the class,
you're a natural, isn't he a natural? And it was
a very strange thing where none, no one nodded an agreement.
(29:39):
I was like, thanks, guys, and then she said, the
only problem is you don't know how to make choices.
You don't know how to do it. Like you're comfortable,
but you're not acting, you're not creating anything. And so
I went from feeling like, oh, this is great, I'm
a natural, so I'm going to be a huge star
and you are going to make me one, and then
(30:00):
know you have so much to learn and you don't
know what the fuck you're doing right, So that was
it was a buoying thing in a sense in a
lot of the lean years. It was one of the
things that I remember hearing, Okay, but no, there's it
because being being natural in front of a camera isn't easy.
It's not natural to everyone. So that was something that
I knew that was there. I just needed to know.
(30:21):
And then you'd get the note that theater actors always
get when they first start on camera. Be smaller, that's
too big, smaller, less, less, And so I would I
would do this and they're like, well not nothing. It
was like I understand. I spent a lot of years
grappling with that until just something turns like, oh, just
be right now, You're not you're not being natural, You're
(30:44):
just being natural if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, no, absolutely, Well where were you?
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Where were you doing theater when you made that?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
So I was primarily doing the regional theater stuff. So
I was in I was based in Minneapolis and started
travel going around. But I see a number of theaters
on your on your resume there that I was at
as well at one time or another. Did some touring
shows and a little stuff in New York, but I
was never I was never based in New York like
(31:15):
you were, which you know, Look, that was something that
I never wanted again, sort of like the I'm not
going to just go out for three months for pilot season.
That New York life.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
I love New York, but that is a different actors
life there that I.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Wasn't entirely comfortable with. But you know, look for you,
you're performing in large theater companies, and because you're in
New York, you start guest starring on oh, I don't know,
like the biggest shows in television, like The Sopranos, and
of course if you're in New York, Law and Order
(31:53):
and Gossip Girl and the Good Wife and all this stuff.
So your early experience is just being on set. Did
you learn a lot during that period of time? For me,
the big adjustment is less about the work and more
about what it means to go to and show up
to work on a set, which is so different.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah, I mean before I did any of those, Just
to go back even further, my first year or so
in New York, I was I was doing background work. Okay,
well we were called extras then, which is.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Not yeah, it's not that.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah. Two things were good about that for me. We
had dirt cheap rent. That was like getting a space grant,
you know, like she wasn't the landlord wasn't giving us
money but she was charging us so little that we
could do things like I could work, you get one
hundred bucks to extra one day, and that my two
(32:54):
of those would cover my rent for our rent, my
wife and me for the week. I met a lot
of people sitting around in the back room getting to
know the lay of the land of New York. And
I got to watch how the you know, how the
principles behave and how what what hitting your mark means?
What the fact that, oh you do a master shot,
(33:18):
you say, okay, interesting and then close ups and tighter
and tighter and then over the shoulder, and what it's
dirty if you're getting a bit of the person over
the shoulder and it's clean. And so when I finally
did get on the sopranos from my one line.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
I did, it was one more than me. That's one
more than me, and that's a that's a career regret there.
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah, but I knew, you know, I I at least knew,
Oh this is gonna be coming. Oh that's what this is.
I had a lot to learn. I remember my first
big Law and Order thing. It's my second time it
was on Law and Order, but my first with a
real scene where I was the focal point of the
scene and I just kept flubbing something or not quite
(34:03):
doing what the director wanted, and I was getting really
oh god, fuck.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Got shit.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
And the director actually came out and he was like,
hey man, we're a big time TV show, We've got
lots of film. Don't worry. We got this. And he
went back and I was first I was embarrassed, and
then I was like, that was so nice, and the
next take was perfect, you know, right, of course, it
was a long time before I had any major I'm
(34:28):
the tortoise man, you know, and I like, embrace your tortoise.
If it's slow for you, embrace it. It's it doesn't mean
you're not going to get there. I think that slow
journey kept me humble. Certainly there was nothing to not
be humble about. But I was proud that I was
making a living, partially because of that cheap rent, but
I was proud that I was making a living doing
(34:49):
small parts, doing off off off off Broadway theater for
years before I got the more quote unquote legitimate stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Well, you finally got a big break getting a recurring
role at On at the time, an enormous show in television,
A House of Cards. Do you remember how that How
you finally landed that one?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Yeah, I'd been in a number of times the casting
director during my tortoise phase. There were a number of
independent casting directors, all women actually, who kept bringing me
in for auditions and I would often get callbacks. But
as my manager said at the time, the fact that
they keep bringing you in even though you haven't booked,
(35:34):
they're calling you back. These are essentially callbacks because the
casting director is going to keep putting you in front
of these people. They're going to advocate for you at
some point and that's when the breakthrough will happen. And
that is what happened. And this particular casting director had
brought me in a number of times and it was
a dummy script, so I didn't know what the character was,
I didn't know who I was going to be working with.
(35:55):
And it was great though. I was just like, well,
this is obviously nothing in the in the in the show,
but I want to do that show. I should I
think I might have kept it. But a great seed
for some for some film. But the the type of relationship,
the emotional connection between the two characters mirrored the relationship
(36:16):
that I was going to have once I got the
part with Michael Kelly as his brother who played Gary
Stamper or Doug Stamper. I was Gary or one or
the other. Yeah, it was, it was, it was. It
was great, you know it. I only worked with Michael Kelly,
who is the nicest guy in show business, and he's brilliant,
(36:38):
and it was. Yeah. The first time I traveled somewhere
repeatedly and put up in the same place, the same
teamster driving me to set, it was like, Oh, there's
there can be continuity in this business. Yes, you know.
It's like and I would go back my fifth time
down at the at the Marriotte on the waterfront or
(37:00):
whatever it was, sitting in the same spot at the bar.
I knew what I wanted to eat. I knew I
wanted that wine, and then I was going to go
to bed and I don't It's just you were talking
about the I think you were alluding to some of
the mundane aspects of life. Being on set. Learning how
to be on set, learning how to be on location
is just as important as learning how to create a
(37:22):
character really right continuity, and it was my first taste
of Oh.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I like this, Yeah, that's that's really cool that there
is something. Well, you also feel like you I'm not
saying like you have made it like you're a big
star or anything like that, but like you're actually working
almost like like an employee. I don't even know if
that makes sense, like as opposed to a contractor like
(37:50):
what you talked about, like, oh, I'm going to the
same spot. I'm going I know them, they know me.
Being a guest star is really hard. I mean that.
The joke I always make is you're showing up expecting
to in some cases, you know, be the central figure
in a scene or in an episode or whatever, and
you don't know where the bathroom is. Like this is
(38:11):
like they're like exterior, complicated things that people don't think about.
But yes, that like I have a relationship with you know, Tim,
who is the transportation guy who drives me and helps
me get here and there, and if I have an issue,
I call him all of those things. It's uh, yeah,
(38:32):
it's it's cool.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
And being and having relationships with the pas, you know,
because like where's the bathroom? If you have to go
to the bathroom, you have to let someone know it's
like I'm going ten, one hundred or you know, or
the other. But I never gave it to the other
and you don't really know who to tell. And also
that if you're meeting them for the first time, you're
telling this total stranger, this young kid, I gotta go pee,
(38:56):
and it's like it's nice, Yeah, I have. I had
a taste of a bigger taste when I did The Americans,
but it was on Billions actually, where we were there
for you know, almost every episode for seven seasons, and
that continuity. I think that experience is what made me
finally realize that I love film acting or screen acting
(39:20):
as much as I love theater. Because it was the
first time that that family that that always happens during
a play, you know, during the process. So the first
time that continuity, that family really congealed, and I think
that's what got me into it in the first place.
Is like hanging around with other nerds you wanted to
play pretend, you know, it's those like minded souls and
(39:43):
U and I finally found that in in this group.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
So well, I want to talk obviously about Dollar Bill.
(40:12):
By the way, when the email started coming around that
I was going to talk to you. I think we
had like seven people on the team. It's just yelling
dollar Bill with an exclamation point, But I do want
to talk about the Americans. You played pastor Tim there
for four seasons. That then becomes, you know, before Billions,
(40:34):
your most sort of significant role and time working on
and you had a wig, which apparently got a lot
of attention.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
On that show. Was this a choice that you made?
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Oh no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I am assuming they weren't going to go with my
bald pace because at the time, in the mid eighties,
probably you know, bald white guys were white supremacists. Essentially,
shaved head headed guys were essentially unless they were military.
It was not normal at that period of time.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
So yeah, we got a.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Wig, and hilariously, apparently the wig master did not know
they had a wig master. They had a show with
a wig master. I love that man. The wig Master
did not know I was going to be on for
more than one episode, so she wasn't taking care, she
wasn't taking great pains to make sure it was something
that was sustainable. And that was when they all put
(41:31):
that We put multiple wigs on me. When they put
that one on everybody laughed because it was so goofy,
including me because it was a goofy. And we used
that one and then I'm back and I'm back in
the back for the next season and the next season,
and I think it did like fifty episodes or something,
and yeah, it was a huge pain of the ass.
They had to remake it too. They had to create
(41:53):
a new one because the one wasn't made for that
type of repeated use. Right, thought, oh great, I'm going
to get a great wig now because they can remake
it a new hairstyle, and they made it the same
fucking things red. It had an entire thread after my
first appearance about whether or not I was a pedophile
because of the wig, literally because of the wig.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Oh you think it was about the wig? Yeah, I uh,
that's that's that's incredible. Now I do have to ask you, Yeah,
you made a choice at some point to shave. Oh yeah,
well because I haven't. By the way, I don't know
if you've known, I haven't.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
But you yours looks great. My I my hair was
very thick everywhere except for where it wasn't, and where
it wasn't it was gone. You know, people, some people thin.
I didn't thin. It was like literally like somebody was
golfing on top of my head and took out a divot.
It was just like this, and my hair was very
dark and my skin is very pale also.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
It just was on.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
And so we were actually over at a friend's house
having dinner and a lot of wine, and he shaved.
He had his own little shaving contraption before we left.
We shaved each other's heads and that and from then on,
yeah for you. Yeah, And I did go all the
way to the skin. At first I had about half
(43:22):
an inch. But then I started booking. I was I
was always booking theater, but I started booking on TV
more and it was kind of another good lesson don't
fight it. And I oh, and I also went to
a not a real gang guy, but the hair whatever,
the big hair transplant place is okay, and met with
somebody who was explaining the procedure and how they and
(43:43):
they used the word harvest the hair out of the
back of your head and plant and look how good
it is. And then they said, well, then in you know,
five ten years, you're going to have to do more
because you keep losing your hair, which had never occurred
to me. It wasn't one harvesting were gonna this was
multiple harvests, multiple harvests, So it didn't.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
So you just said no, I just said no.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Screwt.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Yeah, I'm gonna shave God. God. I've definitely not revealed this.
I don't know why I keep telling people that haven't
revealed it. They either know I haven't or they don't.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
I haven't thought about the trustworthy face.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
I've thought about it. I've thought, I've thought about it.
Do it.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I don't know it'll come back. I mean that part maybe,
maybe that part will maybe. I think I got a
great shaped head. So you what, I think you have
a great shaped head?
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Do you you can have it?
Speaker 3 (44:41):
I do?
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. You know what,
Here's what I'm gonna do. If I know myself, I'm
gonna think about it in another four or five years.
Uh dollar Bill Dollar Bill Sterns the cheapest millionaire in America.
(45:02):
How did you get it? Audition?
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah, I auditioned for the pilot. Ady Kaufman, a casting
director in New York who does a lot of pilots.
I went in for a different role. The Breakdown said
it described certain characters as potential recurring or co stars
or guest stars. And I had a very good audition.
I knew the audition went well. The word the feedback
was that they loved the audition, but they were going
(45:25):
with a different guy for that role. Would you come
back and read this other character named Dollar Bill? And
in the breakdown it just said co star. I think
it was three lines, not even potential with the star.
I think, so, yeah, yeah, I'm almost positive. And this
was for the pilot, and I was not doing co
star roles anymore. I wasn't doing just functionary roles. I
(45:46):
didn't want. I wanted something that had I was even
going to do a guest star. I was trying to
push to just do something that that was integral to
the plot, and this wasn't at the time. This is
what I read on the page. So I said no, passed,
And then over the weekend I was thinking about it,
and I was like, don a Bill, Well, they've they've
put some thought into that's a funny nickname, and he's
(46:07):
described as the cheapest billionaire in America. It's like, this
is this is kind of am I making a mistake.
And then I was like, oh, my god, Damian Lewis
and Paul G.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Madier in it.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
I'm like, god, these guys did rounders. Holy shit. I
think I made a mistake. And it was the pilot.
You know, you you if it gets picked up and
it's something it's not going to develop into something more
than you could, you could back out. And so I
called them the morning on Monday morning and said, can
you still get me in? And they said, yeah, if
you can be there in three hours, yes, So I
(46:37):
went in and did the audition and I got it,
and my god, that would have been the biggest mistake
of my life. I think about how close I came
to screwing that up. Anyway, So, yeah, it was. It
was an audition and it started very small, but little
hints of things. From the beginning, there were little, little
(46:57):
moments that were fun. But it wasn't until late season
one that I started getting some real meaty stuff. I
didn't become a series regular until season three, actually three. Yeah,
I was recurring, and I think I was in literally
every episode until then. But yeah, and I was surprised
because that laid into a run. I wouldn't have expected
(47:19):
to get that offer that bump, but I was glad
I did.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
That was fun. Did you do any specific research in
terms of finance or anything.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
No, No, because I'm a lazy actor. Now. The character
was so specifically written, and particularly early on, I didn't
have a ton of exposition or a ton of big
descriptive well that's what his exposition is. I had small interactions,
and we did have a guy on set who had
(47:54):
been in the business before, and you could ask him anything.
You could ask Brian and David, the show owners any thing.
He even this other guy a couple times have be like, Kelly,
do you know what you just said? I was like yeah,
and he's like, mm no, this is what you mean.
And so we had we had guardrails, and I knew
I know less about finance than probably ninety percent of
(48:16):
the people listening to this podcast, right, But I learned
for the day and then it was out of my
head again.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Right. You've talked in the past about working physically on
Dollar Bill, and that's something that's always really important to me.
So I'm fascinated on a personal level about that. Is
this something that you do for all of your characters
you believe or was there something about him that you
(48:43):
you felt like you needed something. There are I mean,
to a certain extent, on every character. There's you know,
there's some gestures or there's some ways of caring yourself
or sitting or something that you can if you can
key into it helps launch you. It's oh, set a
crack a code.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
With dollar Bill. It was a little more acute, just
because it seems so obvious. It's like, well, he never
stands with his feet together, he never sits with his
knees together. He's he's a man. He takes up space
because he can. He's a bit of a bully. He's
a blunt instrument. He does that when he speaks, at
(49:23):
least initially, it's there's a there's an economy. That just
felt like he was a blunt instrument. The shaved head
helped that obviously. So yeah, I think there was a strut,
there was a taking up space wherever he was, a
lot of cross crossed arms, a lot of scowling, a
lot of eye rolling at people he thinks are less
(49:45):
cool than he is. Yeah, that was that. That was
sort of it. Just it felt obvious. There's a scene
where Spiros and I have couple's therapy in Wendy's office
and Steve Knkan, who plays Spirosho's a great guy despite
the character replays. And I sat on our couch. We
just we both immediately on one end or the other.
(50:08):
He crossed his legs and arms in a very prim
way as Spiros would and I just sort of lounged
out and took up half the couch. And the director
was going to work with us and block figure out
what the blocking of the scene was. And he was like, oh,
well there it is all right, bring the crew. And
(50:30):
because sometimes the character tells you what it wants, you know.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Yeah, did you have some trigger? And I ask you
because I did with the role that I played for
a long time. Something with your jaw.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
I would come home sometimes with my jaw aching because
it was a yeah, he was a jaw jutter. I
don't think I did that consciously. I think that just
came with the rest of it. Yeah, yeah, it was.
I remember going back and looking and was like, oh, yeah,
the jaws way out there, but yeah it would or
(51:08):
my chin is way out there, but my jaw would
hurt at the end of some of the days. Yeah,
well you said that, you're you worked that way too.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
You like to work with the physicality as well, Yeah,
for sure. I mean it's interesting you you talked about,
you know, just taking up a lot of space, and
my thought always with Kevin was he was not aware
of his size, so it was more you know, and
(51:36):
for me also, there was no pivoting. Kevin's hips did
not pivot, nor did his really his head, so if
he had to turn to the right, his entire body
would turn like the Titanic or something as opposed to
any sort of nimble looking over the shoulder like that
didn't happen very often, or at least that was sort
(51:59):
of the thought.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Yeah, that's brilliant, and honestly, like little little things like
that can unlock so much for you in the rest
of the run of a show. That's great.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
I like that. Recently, you have popped up again with
your friend Paul Giamatti in the Holdovers. Now was this
did you guys work this out together or was this
totally random?
Speaker 1 (52:24):
It was totally random, although come on what I had
auditioned for. Yeah, I saw so I got the audition,
and I saw that I saw his name attached to
the to the breakdown, and I was auditioning initially for
The Headmaster, which has three set of media scenes, and
I didn't. I guess. I think I texted him and
(52:47):
said something about there's a line in there where he
calls me something about penis breath or something like that
or whatever it is, or it says, I hope you
get penis cancer something like that, okay, And I wrote
to him and I was like, I made some reference
to that that line, and he was like, oh, you're
gonna you're reading for the Park great, And then I
(53:08):
didn't get that, and they I got offered the part
that I ended up playing, and I have to admit
it's another example of almost fucking things up. When I
read the scene on the page, I was disappointed in
not getting three scenes in a film with Giamatti that
would have been fun. And I got this other scene
it was gonna be with him, but it was about
a page and a half and it was just it
(53:30):
didn't on the page. It didn't look like much, and
so I was really thinking of turning it down, and
Paul texted me and he was like, come on, come on,
hang out, it'll be fun. And then so I did
and it was great, and of course I should have
taken it. I don't do a lot of movies. I
do a lot of TV. I don't do a lot
of movies. I love Alexander Payne. The script was brilliant.
(53:53):
I got to work with my buddy. Didn't matter if
it was small, it was. It was a great time
and the scene ended up being I think, lovely. So yeah,
there have been a handful of times in my career
in life where I'm really glad I got out of
my own way. He was brilliant and that wasn't.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
He He was good, just so good. Well, this role,
I assume, based on everything that I have heard, is
not just a small little scene coming out very soon.
New show for you clipped get it because it's about
(54:33):
the Clippers. I know you're a big NBA fan as am.
I was that particularly make you. By the way, it's
about the Donald Sterling mess. There was a thirty for
thirty on that called The Sterling Affairs the podcast, and
now this is that story. It's you, it's Ed O'Neil,
(54:57):
Laurence Fishburn, Jackie Weaver. Were you excited about this because
you were such a big fan of the NBA.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Yes, absolutely, I was. Literally we were just finishing an
episode of Winning Time, and I turned to my.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Wife, Oh yes, I was going to say that, and.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
I said, I want to get my basketball show. And
two weeks later I had the audition for this. And
now that I know I have that sort of manifestation power,
you have to be careful how I wield this power.
So anyone just wants to stay in my good graces,
it's fifty bucks. So yeah, I got. I was absolutely thrilled.
(55:40):
And the audition was this one really big scene between
my character and Elgin Baylor, so such a delicious, like
meaty scene, which I was happy to see was kept
intact for the shooting script and the final cut of
the episode. Actually it was about twice as long in
real life.
Speaker 2 (55:59):
But it was.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
Yeah, I did. The writing was so good, the cast
was so great. I've I've literally I've had fun on
a lot of shows. I've never had more fun than
working on this project. Oh wow, everything about it. It
was fun to live in l A again for a
little while, like half a block from the Paramount Studio
where I had literally one thousand rejections, And you know,
(56:25):
working with Ed a lot. He's I know, people know
he's he's a really good actor. I think he's an
he's underrated. I don't think people know how great he
really is because he makes it look effortless. Yeah, he's
so good in this. And and the other person I
worked with the most was was Lawrence Fishburne, who's been
an acting idol of mine for forever. So I had
(56:47):
I was like a kid in a candy store and
I got I had a wig.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Hey, another wig.
Speaker 1 (56:54):
Significantly less peto wig.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
I will, I will. I am so excited to see it.
I had the creator of Winning Time on here on
the podcast before. I was a big fan of that show.
So yeah, I'm the whole story, which I won't spoil
it for those of you who don't who haven't read
the news or know what we're talking about here. It's
(57:17):
a fascinating story that goes across and I haven't seen it,
by the way, this is just the story itself that
deals with all sorts of social issues and well and
basketball and the NBA and the Clippers franchise. It's a
it's a great story. I'm I'm glad that you're so
(57:37):
excited about it.
Speaker 1 (57:38):
Yeah, I'm really excited. And I did get to see
the episodes, and you know, when you when you have
so much fun on a gig, you're almost afraid to
watch it because you have such high hopes and you're
afraid it's not going to live up. And I'm I'm
thrilled with how it came out. I'm just I'm thrilled.
Gina Welsh is the great showrunner and writer, and I
(58:00):
think she's just along with the directors, it's really created
something special. I'm I'm thrilled with it. I'm thrilled, and
I watched it a second time, which I don't usually do,
and things I'm.
Speaker 2 (58:09):
In well that that is so so awesome. This week,
in fact, June the fourth, it premieres. Everybody check it out.
I will be watching for sure. Kelly, thank you so
much for joining me. You're a delight. I hope we
work together sometimes. You're an interesting guy.
Speaker 1 (58:31):
I was just saying the same thing, not that I
was an interesting guy that I would like. I was
thinking the same thing that I'd like to I'd like
to work with you very very much. I'm a huge fan. Yeah,
I watched every episode of that of your show, like twice.
Well stuff well, and it was a kid and it
really was about that ensemble. Ensemble was what made it.
(58:52):
That chemistry was what made that show better than just a.
Speaker 2 (58:56):
Really good comedy.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
You know, it's one of the Pantheon shows.
Speaker 2 (58:59):
Yeah, well, thank you so much. I really appreciate that,
and I appreciate you coming on here talking to me.
You know, people love to hate that piece of shit
Dollar Bill, so I know people are going to be
excited to hear from from you, and uh to watch Clipped.
It's it's Roser, Roser Junior and Roser okay who of
(59:22):
course Donald Sterling's right hand man in the thick of things.
Congratulations on the success and good luck with the show,
and I'll send you my review when I'm done.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
Thank you please, point by point.
Speaker 2 (59:36):
Yeah, okay, thank you Kelly for all of that. That
was really really a lot of fun. Listeners, be sure
to watch Clipped. It premieres today. If you're listening when
(59:59):
this episode premieres June the fourth on Hulu, I know
that I will be tuning in. Speaking of tuning in,
don't forget to tune in next week right here, same
Bat channel, same Bat time for another dose of me
with another fantastic guest. Until then, have a spectacular Week
(01:00:28):
Off the Beat is hosted and executive produced by me
Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Ling Lee. Our senior
producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes, Hannah
Harris and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary,
and our intern is Ali Amir Sahem. Our theme song
(01:00:49):
Bubble and Squeak, performed by the one and only Creed Bratton,
Reddit had an entire thread after my first appearance about
whether or not I was a pedophile because of the wig,
literally because of the wig.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Oh you think it was about the wig.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I I'm Kelly o'coin, I'm bald, and I love whiskey.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Give me too, Kelly, me too. Hello everybody, and welcome
to my podcast Off the Beat, or if you've been
here before, welcome back to Off the Beat. I am
(00:46):
your host, Brian Baumgartner. Today I am talking to one
of the worst, most despicable people in the entire world,
or at least that's who he plays on TV. I
have Kecoin, who is dollar Bill Stern from the show Billions.
(01:06):
Unfortunately for us all I know you're going to be
disappointed to learn this. In real life, he's a very
nice man. He is not calculated and cheap and cutthroat
as is his character. He is, in fact, unfortunately lovely.
A lot of his non Billions characters are decent people too.
He was the charitable pastor Tim in The Americans, the
(01:30):
diligent detective Scott Gordon in The Girl from Plainville Scott
Galloway and We Crashed and coming up next month, LA
Clippers president Andy Roser in the new series clipped on
Hulu see nice guys don't always finish Last. Kelly is
doing just fine. We're going to get into his childhood.
(01:53):
Kelly was the son of a congressman. We're going to
figure out if we ever crossed paths on the region,
theater circuit, and much much more. Here he is. Dare
I say my new friend, Kelly o'coin.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Bubble and squeak, I love it, Bubble and squeak on,
Bubble and squeak, I.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Cook get every mole lift over from the ninety before.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
What's up, Kelly? Hey, how are you? I'm good? How
are you?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I'm good? Thank you for having me on. This is
so fun.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Thank you for joining me. I want to start this
off by just saying, you know, I have a I
have an extensive crack research team here that that does
a lot of the heavy lifting for me. However, I
like to look around on my own as well, and
I found your usite and the thing that I assume
(03:03):
you wrote yourself, which I found just delightful.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Which part the about me.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Did you not write? Yes, the about me you wrote it?
I could, I did? You can't think that? Now?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
That was one of those things when you know you're
between gigs and or as others like to say, unemployed,
and to fill the void, you start writing stuff and
it feels like creativity. It may or may not be.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
But as your eighties it is. I think I thought
it was. I thought it was great, and weirdly, I
feel like I learned more about you by reading it,
which I guess is really the point. And what I
what I mean by that is which is it's interesting
because it's kind of what I'm trying to do here anyway.
(03:55):
But you've sort of done it yourself, which is you
can say these things about yourself for your wife or
the work that you've done, or theater or in your
case hair, and you, you know, you learn those factual things.
But in terms of reading your tone, I feel like
I picked up on your sense of humor and your
(04:19):
sort of perspective and maybe just a few hints about
your beliefs about the world. Anyway, I thought it was
very well done. Oh thanks, well, yeah, and really like
how it should be as opposed to like trying to
turn yourself into this I don't know, weird third person,
which I feel like I do too much. It's like
(04:42):
you know he you know, did blah blah blah blah blah,
and you're like, I'm speaking about myself and the third person,
which is very odd. Anyway, it was very personal, so
I wanted you to know that I appreciated it.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
There is always this tension when you're in a play,
in particular where you have to write a bio and yes,
either either you it's it's kind of sucks both ways.
Either you get like, okay, in forty words, explain your
career in life, or they give you too much time,
so but then you start doing what you said. It's
like Kelly o'coin was very active in the theater arts
(05:19):
from a young age, and I was like, I just
I'm Kelly. Why am I am? I?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I know, but it's it's interesting. I had never actually
had this conversation with anyone before because I guess because
you did yours so well. The bio is a very
odd thing to either write or have written for you.
I'll actually tell I'll actually tell. I got this I've
not talked about and I apologize if anyone who was
(05:48):
involved is listening, but I recently did a fundraiser for
a local thing. Just said yes and I did a
fund fundraiser and I got asked the question will you
say to bio so we can introduce you, which, of
course I'm like, this is not there's no professional benefit
for this bot. There's nothing, there's nothing that this will
(06:08):
achieve for me. So of course, what did I do? Nothing?
And I didn't do it, and I didn't do it,
and then like a certain number of days went by
and I got an email it said, hey, so I
know we haven't gotten a bio from you yet. So
I went to chat GBT and chat Chet wrote this
(06:29):
bio of you, which you know, for me and yours
would be the opposite, by the way, yours would be
like he's an asshole and blah blah blah. Mine was
like he's the lovable, whimsical blah blah blah from you know,
he's known for playing golf and liking sports, you know,
(06:51):
like it's like and I was like immediately like no, no, no, no, no,
we could do better than that. Please.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
So that was not read in front of the crowd.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
No, I got sent it and then yeah, I have.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Had a couple of circumstances where because there are bios
that are written to be read yes, not out loud,
paper correct. And there's a way you phrase things that
you know. There's a way you phray things. Phrasings also
for bios that are written to be spoken. And I
have more than once been at a place where I'm
(07:28):
at an event where I'm introduced, not knowing they were
going to read a bio and never asked me for
a bio, but just read like the longest version of
the longest bio I've ever written that they somehow found.
And so they start and five minutes later they're finishing
with this stuff like and he brilliantly portrayed, and blah blah.
I I don't even know who wrote that thing. And
(07:49):
then I have to get up and be brilliant.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I know that is so true, because I do the
college thing, and I'm because I can hear it. Of course,
I'm like ding back, and my leg starts twitching and like,
come on, no, no, no, just move skip to the end,
skip stop, stop, skip.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
To the end, fast forward, fast forward.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
He then wrote a cookbook. Oh no, stop, please, I
don't need no, we're not studied.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Another language and maybe traveled more.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Oh boy, well there you go. There's a first for you.
Ladies and gents, the bio talk. It's not as easy
as it looks. And that's the final thing I'll say
is that is the other thing which should be mentioned,
because exactly what you said, a bio must be structured
for the event. If it's a lifetime achievement award, go
(08:45):
on for ten twelve minutes, sure, why not? But the
the like just the random email or text, Hey can
you send me a bio? It's like, no, all bios
are not meant exactly what he said. So that's work,
and you have to think about how is this going
to feel if this is said out loud?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
What's the event? How many people? What's the venue?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah? Exactly, exactly? All right, Well, speaking of bios, I
don't know. I couldn't come up with a transition at all.
Let's talk about you. Oh, you grew up in Oregon
and your dad. I think this is another first for
(09:30):
the podcast. And by the way, we haven't talked to
just four people. We got two firsts right off the bat.
Your dad was a politician, first the Oregon House of
Representatives and then a US congressman in Oregon's first district.
So how for you? First of all, one fascinating. How
(09:51):
old were you when this was going on. I mean
he was in politics your entire life or did he,
you know, transition into that.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I was three maybe not getting the months right. I
was three when he was first elected to the state legislature.
And he was there for two terms, so four years.
He was the I can brag on my dad all
day long. So just like pulled up a finger or
like slashed the throat if you want to stop. But
his second term, he was the House majority leader, the
(10:21):
youngest House majority leader ever. And then he ran for
US Congress and was the first Democrat ever elected to
the first district, which is like half of Portland to
the coast and the Washington border down to like Corvallis,
which is where the status and everyone on the podcast
is like, well, thank god he got the geography in there.
(10:42):
And he was in the US House. We moved to
d C. He was in the US House for eighteen years,
nine terms. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Wow, So you were at that So at that point,
you weren't going back and forth. You were you were
like you went to school in DC, you were you
were a DC guy.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
It was a little back and forth. We did the
rest of grade school, second second half of second grade
through fifth grade in d C, and sixth and seventh grade,
junior high back in Oregon in the central Oregon area,
and then high school back in d C, and then
college in Ohio. I went to Oberlin, so I said,
(11:20):
split the difference Midwest.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Wow, So how was that for you one as a kid?
I mean, you're you're quite young when he ends up
getting elected and going to d C. So you know,
obviously you have friends, but you're leaving. Like for you culturally,
is there a big change for you in terms of
(11:43):
the environment moving from Oregon to d C.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Yeah, definitely. This was a small town Forest Grove, Oregon,
and it was as small as that sounds. Okay, great
little town, but small. And then to d C in
the mid seventies, and you know, East coast cities were
going through a lot of difficulties in this evanies and
d C was no different. But it was Yeah, it
was bigger and it was louder. I think for me,
(12:07):
I'm I'm an extrovert and it was kind of exciting
to meet new people. My sister and I actually entered
at the beginning of natural transitions.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Like sixth grade or yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Like sixth grade and junior high, so a bunch of
new kids were coming to a new place and same
thing with high school. My sister had it slightly different,
so it was a little bit harder for her, I think,
but you know, I I loved it. I had a
fun time in d C. We lived near Rock Creek Park,
and if anyone knows d C, it's like this huge,
sprawling wilderness area. So we got a little bit of
(12:45):
Oregon there kind of. And in retrospect, I think it's
great because I feel I feel comfortable in small towns.
I feel comfortable in the mountains where my family's actually from,
and I feel comfortable in big cities. They all have
different joys, discover, so I thank my parents for that.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Actually, do you feel like you are especially patriotic or
like have a special affinity for your hometown or for
the state of Oregon given that your dad went through this,
or do you feel and that you went through this,
(13:24):
or do you feel like from the inside there and this,
that's a long time that he was in office and
so you saw a lot of things. Do you feel
more skeptical of government having seen it from that side?
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I'll work my way up to that answer. The first one,
I do have a special I always have a soft
spot for Oregon. The one sports team I am fanatical
about is the Portland Trail Blazers.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yes, I've heard, Yes.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
You know, they won their they won their only championship
a year after we moved to d C. Okay, you know,
so that was special. It's like a little bit of
Oregon saying it's gonna be okay, kid. And then I
don't remember if I wrote this in the bio. I
hope not, because I'll be repeating myself. But then the
next year, the Washington Bullets won the championship, and so
my two to my og team and my adopted second
(14:15):
favorite team win championships back to back. And as a
ten year old, I'm like, oh, this is this is
fucking great. So this is how it works. You you
you like teams and they win championships, this is going
to be great. And neither of them have won.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Sense I knew. I knew where the punchline was going.
Yeah you know those teams? Yeah yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I love I love DC, I love Oregon, I love Portland.
I you know, I hurt for it because it's going
through some transitions just to like a lot of West
Coast cities right now. In terms of government, I so
it's not an either or. I am deeply patriotic and
I am deeply pissed off of my country a lot.
(14:57):
And I think where people get into trouble is assuming
that patriotism means blind blind acceptance. I feel I am
so deeply patriotic that I can criticize the hell out
of my country when I think it's doing wrong it
can do better.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
You believe that your dad did it for all the
right reasons because you wanted to help him, to serve I.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Do to hear.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, there were there were. Honestly, the phrase fight the
good fight was constantly used, and people use that as
a joke or ironically, it was constantly used in my
family by my mom and by my dad, because that's
how they were raised and that's how they wanted to
(15:47):
raise us. You can the only way you can make changes,
to be involved. The only way you can ensure that
change will not happen is to drop out.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So that's actually that's true, not just in government, but
in life and work, just totally. Your first role, I
have been told, was a campaign commercial for your dad.
Did you have an affinity for or an interest in
(16:19):
acting prior to that that you did? Okay?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I did? Yeah, I think I knew I wanted to
be an actor since like second grade. Okay, certainly like
fifth grade. But but that was my first screen job,
that thirty second commercial.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yes, do you feel like And I don't mean this
in a truly in a negative way at all. Most
of the time when people say that, they actually do,
but I actually I really don't. But there is an
element of performance, whether you're whether you're fighting for what
you believe in or not, there is an element of performance.
There is public speaking, there is behaving differently around different people,
(17:01):
whether they're electorate or you know, people you work with,
other representatives, whatever. Did you watch that play out at all?
And I, and I ask more because you know, for
me as someone who I know you were interested in
acting and the arts. Is this something that you watched?
Did you watch this play out? Were you conscious of
it or do you think you just absorbed it?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
I was definitely conscious of it. That's a great question.
I my dad has always said that he wasn't. His
natural habitat was not in front of a crowd, so
he definitely there was you know, the mind was you know,
I as soon as I got in front of a crowd,
I was like, hey, this is awesome. But so yeah,
(17:47):
I saw him and everybody does it. Even if you
are comfortable, there's a different way you have to present ideas,
your parent ideas when you are having a conversation versus
you are speaking to a crowd of five, ten, fifteen,
one thousand, whatever it is, And that's just common sense,
and that means you perform differently. Yeah, I think I
(18:09):
like the way you phrased it at the beginning, by
the way you asked the question you said. I'm not
necessarily saying this is a bad thing, because I do
think when people are speaking of politicians performing or speechifying,
and it's like, well, yeah, because it's a speech, you know,
it's yeah, we're not just sitting here having a beer together.
There's there is.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
This is not how you would behave if you were
sitting with your brother in a local pub.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yes, if you and I were having a beer and
all of a sudden I pulled out a lectern, you'd
think I was a little odd.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Can we get that tell? Can we get that teleprompter?
On please thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
That's right, And so yeah, I would see him and
other other politicians get up and go into a different state.
That was an ironically, that is a way to a
to achieve a certain a more honest truth. Given the
medium or given the position you're in speaking to a press,
(19:08):
you're not going to impart the information if you just
sort of casually, you know, if you haven't written anything,
you speak top of your head. I mean some people,
some current politicians, like to do that. I would argue
they're not getting any points across. They're just there's just
some personality thing happening. But let's not go there.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
So yes, there is a performative thing. And that was
one that I always say. My mom used to sing,
not hugely professionally, but she'd sing. I'd see her in
front of groups every once in a while singing. And
my dad was in front of crowds, parting ideas, working
with scripts, which is what speeches are.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Right, this is occurring to me right now. You said
your dad wasn't necessarily gifted or the most comfortable in
front of people. Who was the best that you you
remember seeing?
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Well, he was very good. My dad was very good.
Just it was something where it was I think it
took you know, emotionally, when you get out in front
of a crowd, you probably are like me, I'm guessing
where it's like, this is gonna be awesome, and you
get energy from the idea of it. So but he
was very good, which was which is another thing I admired,
working creating a strength out of something that wasn't necessarily
(20:24):
an inherent strength, okay, or didn't feel like to him.
The best I ever saw Bill Clinton was incredible, and
Jesse Jackson I got to see live, and actually everything
I said about having to prepare and not speaking semporaneously,
I threw out the window because I don't think he
had a single note, and he spoke for half an
(20:46):
hour and everything made one hundred percent CeNSE. And the
little little kernel's little seeds he planted in minute two
reached fruition in minute twenty seven and a half. You know,
it's just like he was. He's probably the best I've
ever seen.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
You went to Oberlin, as you mentioned before, this was
to become an actor.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
First of all, shout out to Oberlin. I just got
back yesterday. My niece just graduated from Oberlin.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
So that was shout out Oberlin, congratulations. I always think
of I don't know what it is if it's the
name Oberlin, and I know it's very big in music.
I always think of the Obo. I don't know why
someone say, oh, I'm I I went to Oberlin, and
the first thought in my head was, oh, you're you
play the Obo. I don't know why that you're an
(21:52):
oboe with I didn't know if that was a word.
Shout out Oberlin. Did you go there for theater?
Speaker 1 (21:59):
So I didn't approach college in a particularly strategic way,
I think, except that I decided that I wasn't going
to go to a conservatory. Northwestern was very interesting to me.
A couple other places were interesting to me. But I
decided that going to undergrad I wanted. I wanted a
(22:21):
liberal arts.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
This is me what you're speaking of, this is this
is exactly my speech, exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
I tried to model myself after you, Jenn.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I figured you're a little older, simmer down kellywn Yes,
you did somehow somewhere in your brain.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Yes, so I, uh, you know, I'm going to wikipedia
you later. So uh so Oberlin had I did not
go to the con I was not going to be
a musician. But the College of Arts and Sciences was
really was a great school as well, and I was
interested in history. I was interested in particularly at the time,
(22:59):
in doing theater and Shakespeare and Moliere and historical plays,
so the history kind of fed in with that. I
was doing a Moliere play called The miser As I
was studying about the French Revolution, which would have been
one hundred years later, and I thought that was kind
of cool, So I actually went in spite of the
(23:20):
fact that I wanted to be an actor, if that
makes sense. The great thing about that school at the
time and probably still now, it's two things. We had
a number of great professors and some great adjunct professors
over the course of the time I was there in
a great summer theater institute. But I didn't have to
be a major to do any play. I could get
(23:43):
into or take any class, so I didn't have to
take all the classes, but I could take all the
scene study, and if I wanted to do some tech
costume design or lighting sign I could do that that
I didn't have to and I could get my degree
in history. And then if I was going to go
to grad school, that's where I would more. I ended
up not doing that. I ended up going diving right in,
(24:03):
but which was Sometimes I think it would have been
better to go to grad school, just because you come
out with a showcase and agents and at least some
connections and a chance to get signed earlier than I did.
And I think I'm not unhappy with where things went
for me. But I do think that the five ten
(24:24):
years where I struggled would have been maybe a little
easier if I'd gone the grad school groupe. But I'm
not in debt, so there's that.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Look, our stories are are very similar. I went, I
did go to a conservatory school, but within a larger university.
I went to SMU there in Dallas, and I began
doing theater, and theater was all I thought that I
(24:53):
would ever do. Our paths likely crossed. Maybe maybe while
you were closing down, I was moving in in looking
at your resume.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Got another age, did geeze nothing well?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Or maybe the other way around. But I would have
been playing a young on ingenu. So yeah, so I wondered.
I mean, I know you started doing a little work
on guests daring on soaps, which I do want to
hear about because I think, by the way, fantastic training
for actors being thrown into the fire that quickly. But
(25:33):
did you have interest in film and television or for me,
all I ever thought I would be was a theater actor.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, I had interest, but it was a very sheepish interest.
It was like I didn't I thought it was so
far beyond me. I didn't have any role models who
were doing it or who went on to do it
soon after I knew them, So it was an interesting phenomenon.
(26:01):
I think another reason why things took a little while
for me was that I wasn't even able to name
that thing that I wanted. I wanted to do theater.
I wanted, but I knew that. But I had I
had faith that I could get there. I had more
faith that I could get on Broadway than I did
that I could get on TV.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And when I talk to younger actors, now, if I
don't don't feel ashamed at your ambition, about your ambition,
it's not presumptuous to have ambition. And I think there's
a part of my brain that felt presumptuous even saying, oh,
you know what i'd really like, I'd like to be
a series regular on a television show, right, And I would.
(26:42):
I just I felt embarrassed saying it because it was like, well,
of course you're not going to be. And it took
me a long time to get over that. And I
wish i'd told somebody. I had a number of mentor
types who I think would have been like, get the
fuck over yourself and say what you want, right, because
there are a lot of bad TV actors out here, son,
(27:04):
so you could be one too. Just don't lose your
hair and you'll be fine.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I uh, yeah, it's it's that's fascinating to me and
actually makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
You know.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I think I just didn't even I don't know. Maybe
it's a similar thing for me. It just was never
a thought until it was until it was like, okay,
maybe I should, maybe I should try that. But you know,
for me, for a time, god, there's no way for
this not to sound like a weird, humble brag, but
like I was getting work in the theater, and so
(27:43):
for me it was like, well, I here was what
I was smart enough to know. I don't think I've
really talked about this too much on here. I knew
that moving or sorry, visiting Los Angeles for a pilot
season was not for me, like the idea of well,
I'll just go out for a couple of months and
see what happens. And maybe it's my personality type. It's like, no, no,
(28:06):
if I'm in, I need to be in like I
need to be in. You know, when I finally had
to turn down theater work because I was like, Okay,
I'm going to try this, and I said I'm going
to give it a year, but even in my head,
I think I was like, I think like eighteen months,
like it's probably more realistic, like I'm going to do this.
(28:30):
But before that, I mean, I did a couple of
commercials and you know, there was a movie that came
through Minnesota when I was there and was in that,
but nothing really And it sounds for you as well.
I mean, you were on Broadway, you were doing major
shows at Oregon Shakespeare and et cetera, et cetera, before
(28:50):
you were ever on television at all.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Right, yeah, totally. At the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, we would
pool our money together and bring in casting directors in
LA and various other regional theaters. But the big you know,
the big, sort of scary one was when we'd bring
people from Los Angeles and sometimes they teach us, they
give us little workshops, and I remember one casting person,
(29:15):
I think it was definitely an acting coach as well,
gave us a little on camera workshop and first it
was this is gonna sound humble braggy too, I guess.
But the first the first note I got was it
was sort of to the the rest of the class,
you're a natural, isn't he a natural? And it was
a very strange thing where none, no one nodded an agreement.
(29:39):
I was like, thanks, guys, and then she said, the
only problem is you don't know how to make choices.
You don't know how to do it. Like you're comfortable,
but you're not acting, you're not creating anything. And so
I went from feeling like, oh, this is great, I'm
a natural, so I'm going to be a huge star
and you are going to make me one, and then
(30:00):
know you have so much to learn and you don't
know what the fuck you're doing right, So that was
it was a buoying thing in a sense in a
lot of the lean years. It was one of the
things that I remember hearing, Okay, but no, there's it
because being being natural in front of a camera isn't easy.
It's not natural to everyone. So that was something that
I knew that was there. I just needed to know.
(30:21):
And then you'd get the note that theater actors always
get when they first start on camera. Be smaller, that's
too big, smaller, less, less, And so I would I
would do this and they're like, well not nothing. It
was like I understand. I spent a lot of years
grappling with that until just something turns like, oh, just
be right now, You're not you're not being natural, You're
(30:44):
just being natural if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, no, absolutely, Well where were you?
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Where were you doing theater when you made that?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
So I was primarily doing the regional theater stuff. So
I was in I was based in Minneapolis and started
travel going around. But I see a number of theaters
on your on your resume there that I was at
as well at one time or another. Did some touring
shows and a little stuff in New York, but I
was never I was never based in New York like
(31:15):
you were, which you know, Look, that was something that
I never wanted again, sort of like the I'm not
going to just go out for three months for pilot season.
That New York life.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
I love New York, but that is a different actors
life there that I.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Wasn't entirely comfortable with. But you know, look for you,
you're performing in large theater companies, and because you're in
New York, you start guest starring on oh, I don't know,
like the biggest shows in television, like The Sopranos, and
of course if you're in New York, Law and Order
(31:53):
and Gossip Girl and the Good Wife and all this stuff.
So your early experience is just being on set. Did
you learn a lot during that period of time? For me,
the big adjustment is less about the work and more
about what it means to go to and show up
to work on a set, which is so different.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah, I mean before I did any of those, Just
to go back even further, my first year or so
in New York, I was I was doing background work. Okay,
well we were called extras then, which is.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Not yeah, it's not that.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah. Two things were good about that for me. We
had dirt cheap rent. That was like getting a space grant,
you know, like she wasn't the landlord wasn't giving us
money but she was charging us so little that we
could do things like I could work, you get one
hundred bucks to extra one day, and that my two
(32:54):
of those would cover my rent for our rent, my
wife and me for the week. I met a lot
of people sitting around in the back room getting to
know the lay of the land of New York. And
I got to watch how the you know, how the
principles behave and how what what hitting your mark means?
What the fact that, oh you do a master shot,
(33:18):
you say, okay, interesting and then close ups and tighter
and tighter and then over the shoulder, and what it's
dirty if you're getting a bit of the person over
the shoulder and it's clean. And so when I finally
did get on the sopranos from my one line.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
I did, it was one more than me. That's one
more than me, and that's a that's a career regret there.
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah, but I knew, you know, I I at least knew,
Oh this is gonna be coming. Oh that's what this is.
I had a lot to learn. I remember my first
big Law and Order thing. It's my second time it
was on Law and Order, but my first with a
real scene where I was the focal point of the
scene and I just kept flubbing something or not quite
(34:03):
doing what the director wanted, and I was getting really
oh god, fuck.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Got shit.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
And the director actually came out and he was like,
hey man, we're a big time TV show, We've got
lots of film. Don't worry. We got this. And he
went back and I was first I was embarrassed, and
then I was like, that was so nice, and the
next take was perfect, you know, right, of course, it
was a long time before I had any major I'm
(34:28):
the tortoise man, you know, and I like, embrace your tortoise.
If it's slow for you, embrace it. It's it doesn't mean
you're not going to get there. I think that slow
journey kept me humble. Certainly there was nothing to not
be humble about. But I was proud that I was
making a living, partially because of that cheap rent, but
I was proud that I was making a living doing
(34:49):
small parts, doing off off off off Broadway theater for
years before I got the more quote unquote legitimate stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Well, you finally got a big break getting a recurring
role at On at the time, an enormous show in television,
A House of Cards. Do you remember how that How
you finally landed that one?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Yeah, I'd been in a number of times the casting
director during my tortoise phase. There were a number of
independent casting directors, all women actually, who kept bringing me
in for auditions and I would often get callbacks. But
as my manager said at the time, the fact that
they keep bringing you in even though you haven't booked,
(35:34):
they're calling you back. These are essentially callbacks because the
casting director is going to keep putting you in front
of these people. They're going to advocate for you at
some point and that's when the breakthrough will happen. And
that is what happened. And this particular casting director had
brought me in a number of times and it was
a dummy script, so I didn't know what the character was,
I didn't know who I was going to be working with.
(35:55):
And it was great though. I was just like, well,
this is obviously nothing in the in the in the show,
but I want to do that show. I should I
think I might have kept it. But a great seed
for some for some film. But the the type of relationship,
the emotional connection between the two characters mirrored the relationship
(36:16):
that I was going to have once I got the
part with Michael Kelly as his brother who played Gary
Stamper or Doug Stamper. I was Gary or one or
the other. Yeah, it was, it was, it was. It
was great, you know it. I only worked with Michael Kelly,
who is the nicest guy in show business, and he's brilliant,
(36:38):
and it was. Yeah. The first time I traveled somewhere
repeatedly and put up in the same place, the same
teamster driving me to set, it was like, Oh, there's
there can be continuity in this business. Yes, you know.
It's like and I would go back my fifth time
down at the at the Marriotte on the waterfront or
(37:00):
whatever it was, sitting in the same spot at the bar.
I knew what I wanted to eat. I knew I
wanted that wine, and then I was going to go
to bed and I don't It's just you were talking
about the I think you were alluding to some of
the mundane aspects of life. Being on set. Learning how
to be on set, learning how to be on location
is just as important as learning how to create a
(37:22):
character really right continuity, and it was my first taste
of Oh.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I like this, Yeah, that's that's really cool that there
is something. Well, you also feel like you I'm not
saying like you have made it like you're a big
star or anything like that, but like you're actually working
almost like like an employee. I don't even know if
that makes sense, like as opposed to a contractor like
(37:50):
what you talked about, like, oh, I'm going to the
same spot. I'm going I know them, they know me.
Being a guest star is really hard. I mean that.
The joke I always make is you're showing up expecting
to in some cases, you know, be the central figure
in a scene or in an episode or whatever, and
you don't know where the bathroom is. Like this is
(38:11):
like they're like exterior, complicated things that people don't think about.
But yes, that like I have a relationship with you know, Tim,
who is the transportation guy who drives me and helps
me get here and there, and if I have an issue,
I call him all of those things. It's uh, yeah,
(38:32):
it's it's cool.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
And being and having relationships with the pas, you know,
because like where's the bathroom? If you have to go
to the bathroom, you have to let someone know it's
like I'm going ten, one hundred or you know, or
the other. But I never gave it to the other
and you don't really know who to tell. And also
that if you're meeting them for the first time, you're
telling this total stranger, this young kid, I gotta go pee,
(38:56):
and it's like it's nice, Yeah, I have. I had
a taste of a bigger taste when I did The Americans,
but it was on Billions actually, where we were there
for you know, almost every episode for seven seasons, and
that continuity. I think that experience is what made me
finally realize that I love film acting or screen acting
(39:20):
as much as I love theater. Because it was the
first time that that family that that always happens during
a play, you know, during the process. So the first
time that continuity, that family really congealed, and I think
that's what got me into it in the first place.
Is like hanging around with other nerds you wanted to
play pretend, you know, it's those like minded souls and
(39:43):
U and I finally found that in in this group.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
So well, I want to talk obviously about Dollar Bill.
(40:12):
By the way, when the email started coming around that
I was going to talk to you. I think we
had like seven people on the team. It's just yelling
dollar Bill with an exclamation point, But I do want
to talk about the Americans. You played pastor Tim there
for four seasons. That then becomes, you know, before Billions,
(40:34):
your most sort of significant role and time working on
and you had a wig, which apparently got a lot
of attention.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
On that show. Was this a choice that you made?
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Oh no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I am assuming they weren't going to go with my
bald pace because at the time, in the mid eighties,
probably you know, bald white guys were white supremacists. Essentially,
shaved head headed guys were essentially unless they were military.
It was not normal at that period of time.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
So yeah, we got a.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Wig, and hilariously, apparently the wig master did not know
they had a wig master. They had a show with
a wig master. I love that man. The wig Master
did not know I was going to be on for
more than one episode, so she wasn't taking care, she
wasn't taking great pains to make sure it was something
that was sustainable. And that was when they all put
(41:31):
that We put multiple wigs on me. When they put
that one on everybody laughed because it was so goofy,
including me because it was a goofy. And we used
that one and then I'm back and I'm back in
the back for the next season and the next season,
and I think it did like fifty episodes or something,
and yeah, it was a huge pain of the ass.
They had to remake it too. They had to create
(41:53):
a new one because the one wasn't made for that
type of repeated use. Right, thought, oh great, I'm going
to get a great wig now because they can remake
it a new hairstyle, and they made it the same
fucking things red. It had an entire thread after my
first appearance about whether or not I was a pedophile
because of the wig, literally because of the wig.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Oh you think it was about the wig? Yeah, I uh,
that's that's that's incredible. Now I do have to ask you, Yeah,
you made a choice at some point to shave. Oh yeah,
well because I haven't. By the way, I don't know
if you've known, I haven't.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
But you yours looks great. My I my hair was
very thick everywhere except for where it wasn't, and where
it wasn't it was gone. You know, people, some people thin.
I didn't thin. It was like literally like somebody was
golfing on top of my head and took out a divot.
It was just like this, and my hair was very
dark and my skin is very pale also.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
It just was on.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
And so we were actually over at a friend's house
having dinner and a lot of wine, and he shaved.
He had his own little shaving contraption before we left.
We shaved each other's heads and that and from then on,
yeah for you. Yeah, And I did go all the
way to the skin. At first I had about half
(43:22):
an inch. But then I started booking. I was I
was always booking theater, but I started booking on TV
more and it was kind of another good lesson don't
fight it. And I oh, and I also went to
a not a real gang guy, but the hair whatever,
the big hair transplant place is okay, and met with
somebody who was explaining the procedure and how they and
(43:43):
they used the word harvest the hair out of the
back of your head and plant and look how good
it is. And then they said, well, then in you know,
five ten years, you're going to have to do more
because you keep losing your hair, which had never occurred
to me. It wasn't one harvesting were gonna this was
multiple harvests, multiple harvests, So it didn't.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
So you just said no, I just said no.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Screwt.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Yeah, I'm gonna shave God. God. I've definitely not revealed this.
I don't know why I keep telling people that haven't
revealed it. They either know I haven't or they don't.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
I haven't thought about the trustworthy face.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
I've thought about it. I've thought, I've thought about it.
Do it.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I don't know it'll come back. I mean that part maybe,
maybe that part will maybe. I think I got a
great shaped head. So you what, I think you have
a great shaped head?
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Do you you can have it?
Speaker 3 (44:41):
I do?
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. You know what,
Here's what I'm gonna do. If I know myself, I'm
gonna think about it in another four or five years.
Uh dollar Bill Dollar Bill Sterns the cheapest millionaire in America.
(45:02):
How did you get it? Audition?
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah, I auditioned for the pilot. Ady Kaufman, a casting
director in New York who does a lot of pilots.
I went in for a different role. The Breakdown said
it described certain characters as potential recurring or co stars
or guest stars. And I had a very good audition.
I knew the audition went well. The word the feedback
was that they loved the audition, but they were going
(45:25):
with a different guy for that role. Would you come
back and read this other character named Dollar Bill? And
in the breakdown it just said co star. I think
it was three lines, not even potential with the star.
I think, so, yeah, yeah, I'm almost positive. And this
was for the pilot, and I was not doing co
star roles anymore. I wasn't doing just functionary roles. I
(45:46):
didn't want. I wanted something that had I was even
going to do a guest star. I was trying to
push to just do something that that was integral to
the plot, and this wasn't at the time. This is
what I read on the page. So I said no, passed,
And then over the weekend I was thinking about it,
and I was like, don a Bill, Well, they've they've
put some thought into that's a funny nickname, and he's
(46:07):
described as the cheapest billionaire in America. It's like, this
is this is kind of am I making a mistake.
And then I was like, oh, my god, Damian Lewis
and Paul G.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Madier in it.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
I'm like, god, these guys did rounders. Holy shit. I
think I made a mistake. And it was the pilot.
You know, you you if it gets picked up and
it's something it's not going to develop into something more
than you could, you could back out. And so I
called them the morning on Monday morning and said, can
you still get me in? And they said, yeah, if
you can be there in three hours, yes, So I
(46:37):
went in and did the audition and I got it,
and my god, that would have been the biggest mistake
of my life. I think about how close I came
to screwing that up. Anyway, So, yeah, it was. It
was an audition and it started very small, but little
hints of things. From the beginning, there were little, little
(46:57):
moments that were fun. But it wasn't until late season
one that I started getting some real meaty stuff. I
didn't become a series regular until season three, actually three. Yeah,
I was recurring, and I think I was in literally
every episode until then. But yeah, and I was surprised
because that laid into a run. I wouldn't have expected
(47:19):
to get that offer that bump, but I was glad
I did.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
That was fun. Did you do any specific research in
terms of finance or anything.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
No, No, because I'm a lazy actor. Now. The character
was so specifically written, and particularly early on, I didn't
have a ton of exposition or a ton of big
descriptive well that's what his exposition is. I had small interactions,
and we did have a guy on set who had
(47:54):
been in the business before, and you could ask him anything.
You could ask Brian and David, the show owners any thing.
He even this other guy a couple times have be like, Kelly,
do you know what you just said? I was like yeah,
and he's like, mm no, this is what you mean.
And so we had we had guardrails, and I knew
I know less about finance than probably ninety percent of
(48:16):
the people listening to this podcast, right, But I learned
for the day and then it was out of my
head again.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Right. You've talked in the past about working physically on
Dollar Bill, and that's something that's always really important to me.
So I'm fascinated on a personal level about that. Is
this something that you do for all of your characters
you believe or was there something about him that you
(48:43):
you felt like you needed something. There are I mean,
to a certain extent, on every character. There's you know,
there's some gestures or there's some ways of caring yourself
or sitting or something that you can if you can
key into it helps launch you. It's oh, set a
crack a code.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
With dollar Bill. It was a little more acute, just
because it seems so obvious. It's like, well, he never
stands with his feet together, he never sits with his
knees together. He's he's a man. He takes up space
because he can. He's a bit of a bully. He's
a blunt instrument. He does that when he speaks, at
(49:23):
least initially, it's there's a there's an economy. That just
felt like he was a blunt instrument. The shaved head
helped that obviously. So yeah, I think there was a strut,
there was a taking up space wherever he was, a
lot of cross crossed arms, a lot of scowling, a
lot of eye rolling at people he thinks are less
(49:45):
cool than he is. Yeah, that was that. That was
sort of it. Just it felt obvious. There's a scene
where Spiros and I have couple's therapy in Wendy's office
and Steve Knkan, who plays Spirosho's a great guy despite
the character replays. And I sat on our couch. We
just we both immediately on one end or the other.
(50:08):
He crossed his legs and arms in a very prim
way as Spiros would and I just sort of lounged
out and took up half the couch. And the director
was going to work with us and block figure out
what the blocking of the scene was. And he was like, oh,
well there it is all right, bring the crew. And
(50:30):
because sometimes the character tells you what it wants, you know.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Yeah, did you have some trigger? And I ask you
because I did with the role that I played for
a long time. Something with your jaw.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
I would come home sometimes with my jaw aching because
it was a yeah, he was a jaw jutter. I
don't think I did that consciously. I think that just
came with the rest of it. Yeah, yeah, it was.
I remember going back and looking and was like, oh, yeah,
the jaws way out there, but yeah it would or
(51:08):
my chin is way out there, but my jaw would
hurt at the end of some of the days. Yeah,
well you said that, you're you worked that way too.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
You like to work with the physicality as well, Yeah,
for sure. I mean it's interesting you you talked about,
you know, just taking up a lot of space, and
my thought always with Kevin was he was not aware
of his size, so it was more you know, and
(51:36):
for me also, there was no pivoting. Kevin's hips did
not pivot, nor did his really his head, so if
he had to turn to the right, his entire body
would turn like the Titanic or something as opposed to
any sort of nimble looking over the shoulder like that
didn't happen very often, or at least that was sort
(51:59):
of the thought.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Yeah, that's brilliant, and honestly, like little little things like
that can unlock so much for you in the rest
of the run of a show. That's great.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
I like that. Recently, you have popped up again with
your friend Paul Giamatti in the Holdovers. Now was this
did you guys work this out together or was this
totally random?
Speaker 1 (52:24):
It was totally random, although come on what I had
auditioned for. Yeah, I saw so I got the audition,
and I saw that I saw his name attached to
the to the breakdown, and I was auditioning initially for
The Headmaster, which has three set of media scenes, and
I didn't. I guess. I think I texted him and
(52:47):
said something about there's a line in there where he
calls me something about penis breath or something like that
or whatever it is, or it says, I hope you
get penis cancer something like that, okay, And I wrote
to him and I was like, I made some reference
to that that line, and he was like, oh, you're
gonna you're reading for the Park great, And then I
(53:08):
didn't get that, and they I got offered the part
that I ended up playing, and I have to admit
it's another example of almost fucking things up. When I
read the scene on the page, I was disappointed in
not getting three scenes in a film with Giamatti that
would have been fun. And I got this other scene
it was gonna be with him, but it was about
a page and a half and it was just it
(53:30):
didn't on the page. It didn't look like much, and
so I was really thinking of turning it down, and
Paul texted me and he was like, come on, come on,
hang out, it'll be fun. And then so I did
and it was great, and of course I should have
taken it. I don't do a lot of movies. I
do a lot of TV. I don't do a lot
of movies. I love Alexander Payne. The script was brilliant.
(53:53):
I got to work with my buddy. Didn't matter if
it was small, it was. It was a great time
and the scene ended up being I think, lovely. So yeah,
there have been a handful of times in my career
in life where I'm really glad I got out of
my own way. He was brilliant and that wasn't.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
He He was good, just so good. Well, this role,
I assume, based on everything that I have heard, is
not just a small little scene coming out very soon.
New show for you clipped get it because it's about
(54:33):
the Clippers. I know you're a big NBA fan as am.
I was that particularly make you. By the way, it's
about the Donald Sterling mess. There was a thirty for
thirty on that called The Sterling Affairs the podcast, and
now this is that story. It's you, it's Ed O'Neil,
(54:57):
Laurence Fishburn, Jackie Weaver. Were you excited about this because
you were such a big fan of the NBA.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Yes, absolutely, I was. Literally we were just finishing an
episode of Winning Time, and I turned to my.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Wife, Oh yes, I was going to say that, and.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
I said, I want to get my basketball show. And
two weeks later I had the audition for this. And
now that I know I have that sort of manifestation power,
you have to be careful how I wield this power.
So anyone just wants to stay in my good graces,
it's fifty bucks. So yeah, I got. I was absolutely thrilled.
(55:40):
And the audition was this one really big scene between
my character and Elgin Baylor, so such a delicious, like
meaty scene, which I was happy to see was kept
intact for the shooting script and the final cut of
the episode. Actually it was about twice as long in
real life.
Speaker 2 (55:59):
But it was.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
Yeah, I did. The writing was so good, the cast
was so great. I've I've literally I've had fun on
a lot of shows. I've never had more fun than
working on this project. Oh wow, everything about it. It
was fun to live in l A again for a
little while, like half a block from the Paramount Studio
where I had literally one thousand rejections, And you know,
(56:25):
working with Ed a lot. He's I know, people know
he's he's a really good actor. I think he's an
he's underrated. I don't think people know how great he
really is because he makes it look effortless. Yeah, he's
so good in this. And and the other person I
worked with the most was was Lawrence Fishburne, who's been
an acting idol of mine for forever. So I had
(56:47):
I was like a kid in a candy store and
I got I had a wig.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Hey, another wig.
Speaker 1 (56:54):
Significantly less peto wig.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
I will, I will. I am so excited to see it.
I had the creator of Winning Time on here on
the podcast before. I was a big fan of that show.
So yeah, I'm the whole story, which I won't spoil
it for those of you who don't who haven't read
the news or know what we're talking about here. It's
(57:17):
a fascinating story that goes across and I haven't seen it,
by the way, this is just the story itself that
deals with all sorts of social issues and well and
basketball and the NBA and the Clippers franchise. It's a
it's a great story. I'm I'm glad that you're so
(57:37):
excited about it.
Speaker 1 (57:38):
Yeah, I'm really excited. And I did get to see
the episodes, and you know, when you when you have
so much fun on a gig, you're almost afraid to
watch it because you have such high hopes and you're
afraid it's not going to live up. And I'm I'm
thrilled with how it came out. I'm just I'm thrilled.
Gina Welsh is the great showrunner and writer, and I
(58:00):
think she's just along with the directors, it's really created
something special. I'm I'm thrilled with it. I'm thrilled, and
I watched it a second time, which I don't usually do,
and things I'm.
Speaker 2 (58:09):
In well that that is so so awesome. This week,
in fact, June the fourth, it premieres. Everybody check it out.
I will be watching for sure. Kelly, thank you so
much for joining me. You're a delight. I hope we
work together sometimes. You're an interesting guy.
Speaker 1 (58:31):
I was just saying the same thing, not that I
was an interesting guy that I would like. I was
thinking the same thing that I'd like to I'd like
to work with you very very much. I'm a huge fan. Yeah,
I watched every episode of that of your show, like twice.
Well stuff well, and it was a kid and it
really was about that ensemble. Ensemble was what made it.
(58:52):
That chemistry was what made that show better than just a.
Speaker 2 (58:56):
Really good comedy.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
You know, it's one of the Pantheon shows.
Speaker 2 (58:59):
Yeah, well, thank you so much. I really appreciate that,
and I appreciate you coming on here talking to me.
You know, people love to hate that piece of shit
Dollar Bill, so I know people are going to be
excited to hear from from you, and uh to watch Clipped.
It's it's Roser, Roser Junior and Roser okay who of
(59:22):
course Donald Sterling's right hand man in the thick of things.
Congratulations on the success and good luck with the show,
and I'll send you my review when I'm done.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
Thank you please, point by point.
Speaker 2 (59:36):
Yeah, okay, thank you Kelly for all of that. That
was really really a lot of fun. Listeners, be sure
to watch Clipped. It premieres today. If you're listening when
(59:59):
this episode premieres June the fourth on Hulu, I know
that I will be tuning in. Speaking of tuning in,
don't forget to tune in next week right here, same
Bat channel, same Bat time for another dose of me
with another fantastic guest. Until then, have a spectacular Week
(01:00:28):
Off the Beat is hosted and executive produced by me
Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Ling Lee. Our senior
producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes, Hannah
Harris and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary,
and our intern is Ali Amir Sahem. Our theme song
(01:00:49):
Bubble and Squeak, performed by the one and only Creed Bratton,
Host
Brian Baumgartner
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