Timothy Davis Talks Soderbergh, Crazy On-set Stories from "Billions", and Myths about the Actor's Studio | Ep 44 - The Actor’s Guide to the End of the World

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
They sent me the full script and I didn't
know which part I was going to play.
So I found the part that seemed like most
like me and I prepared that.
Wow.
I am cramming all these lines,
but so I'm reading this going like,
"I don't know, they're going
to do all this in one day."
Everything I'd ever done
was like a big part in a play.

(00:21):
So I'm reading the script and I'm like,
"Well, clearly I'm this
guy," which there may be
like an extraordinary sense of like white
male entitlement and privilege.
I'm like, "Well, clearly
I'm this important guy."
Well, I guess I'm replacing the lead.
Okay.
You do your audition on the stage,
like all the seats are dark
and then after your scene,
you hear like these footsteps coming from

(00:41):
out of the darkness,
and like James Lipton comes down to like
the edge of the stage,
and he gestures for you to come down,
and you're like, "Are you ready to
connect yourself to this
program for the next three years?"
But it's been my experience of being in
the business that most of
those institutions that charge a
exorbitant fee for you to

(01:02):
learn the skills of acting
to a relatively terrible job at preparing
actors to go work in
the professional world.
I just think if you're taking money from
young kids and money that
are in the five figures,
you have a responsibility to prepare them
for the professional world
as long as we're going to live
in this capitalistic knife fight of a

(01:23):
country that we live in.
That's a great description of it.
All right.
Welcome to the Actors Guide to
the End of the World podcast,
where we talk about acting in Hollywood
in a way people understand.
I'm your host, E-Kan Soong.
And I'm Rían Sheehy Kelly.
How are you doing?
What's up, buddy?
I am good.
We have a special guest
for today, Timothy Davis.

(01:46):
What doesn't he do?
He's a jujitsu master.
He's an actor, teacher, long-time friend
of the podcast, and a long-time friend.
He's also a teacher
at Leslie Khan Studios.
Stories from the actor's studio, the
esteemed actor's studio, James Lipton.
You did a movie called The Godfather.

(02:08):
Exactly.
Stories working with Sada Berg.
Billions.
And he has a exciting new project
launching in Los Angeles next month.
Distress Signals project.
We're going to talk all about it.
Enjoy this episode with Timothy Davis.
So this is a special, special moment.
We've been waiting for this moment, Tim.

(02:30):
Old friend of the
podcast and old peer colleague.
We've been in, been at the studio, Leslie
Khan Studio for years.
We've been fortunate to have been in
classes with you, taught by you.
And welcome to the program, Tim.
Gentlemen.
I have no idea what's going to happen,
but I have a feeling

(02:50):
there might be a couple
Mickey Rourke stories.
I don't know.
One or two.
We'll see where we go from here.
Let's get this out of the way at the top.
Can I curse on this thing or no?
Is this a PG podcast?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Re-enact a real potty mouth.
So our audience is used to it now.
But yeah, yeah, no,
you could let her rip.

(03:11):
Fantastic.
I curse a lot being from like the East
Coast, but also I grew up in the Midwest.
So whenever I do, I feel like I'm
disappointing my mother.
I think that's another thing
all three of us have in common.
Disappointing our mothers.
Exactly.
Well, that's a good start.
There's a lot to get into.

(03:32):
We want to hear a billion stories.
We want to hear about your experience.
Nice point there because we want to hear
a billion stories also.
Terrible point.
Yeah, exactly.
Billion stories.
Showtime show,
incredible cast, great actors.
We want to talk about your history, your
deep history in the theater world.

(03:52):
And exciting new project that you have
cooking up very soon in LA.
We want to hear about the actor's studio.
Let's start at the beginning.
What do you remember of your birth?
We like to go very deep
on this show, as you know.
We've been at the studio for a while now,

(04:13):
but I actually do want to hear...
This is Leslie Kahn's studio for anybody
who's just tuning into this episode.
I really do want to hear about what life
was like before the studio.
Yeah, let's talk about
Midwest and East Coast.
Oh, that's a good place.
We're in the Midwest.
I grew up...
I'm originally from a town outside of

(04:34):
Boston and most of my
family is from the East Coast.
But we moved when I was a kid to Iowa.
It's like this little town
just outside of Des Moines.
And that's where I grew up and what I
would say about that was
it was a wonderful place to grow up if
you want nothing to happen to you.
Or to happen for you.
While it was lovely to grow up there, I
instinctively knew I did

(04:54):
not want to hang around Iowa.
I knew I wanted to move to New York.
Before I even knew what I wanted to do, I
felt like I read a
bunch of Daredevil comics.
Maybe that was my career path.
I was like, "I'm going to go to New York
and live in Hell's
Kitchen and fight crime."
I didn't really know what

(05:14):
I wanted to do growing up.
I stumbled on acting midway through
college and I had no idea how to do it.
I didn't have any training in it.
I just watched a ton of movies, like a
bunch of kids, but I'd never done a play.
I wasn't well versed in theater or film
or television acting at all.
But I instinctively knew, unlike my

(05:36):
second day in the class, I was like,
"This is what I should be doing."
I love that.
That's actually a common thread because I
didn't know what I wanted to do.
I didn't discover acting
until I was in college.
It was a very similar thing.
I had no idea how to do it.
Then I got a part in a short film and
went, "This is what I want to do."
I mean, you didn't grow
up wanting to be an actor.
Yeah, exactly.
I think a big part for me was I was a

(05:58):
really demonstrable kid
and I was a really emotional
kid.
Finding a place where you were actually
rewarded for that and not
punished or chastised for that
seemed attractive.
Absolutely.
So I'm curious, Tim, because this
timeline does track with Rian and myself.

(06:19):
In high school, what did you
think about the theater kids?
Did you have any opinion of them at all?
I'm just wondering, was there any...
Well, I went to a fairly small high
school where, again, a
lot of American public high
schools, like sports, were sort of the
thing around which all
social engagement orbited.

(06:41):
So I played football, I played
basketball, I was doing judo.
We always had a fall
play and a spring musical.
I knew I had no interest in the musical
because I couldn't sing or dance.
I had no interaction with
that world at that point.
I feel like there was occasionally a

(07:02):
temptation to check out what the fall
play would have been.
But it was also sort of culturally
implied that if you went
out for the fall play, you
were not starting because it was at the
same time as football.
And so I made the
choice to play football.
I think about how that even informed my
early couple of years of acting, right?

(07:23):
That sort of like that patriarchal
culture, that
misogynistic culture of like, "Okay,
I'm going to act, but I'm going to behave
in a certain way to assert masculinity."
To assert heteronormativity, just so that
everybody's clear that like, "I'm here,
but you're battling your own sort of

(07:46):
limited
preconceptions and biases, really."
At least I did.
That bore out a culture of, I think a lot
of actors like me who
behaved in ways probably at the beginning
of our careers that were
problematic, I think to be
most kindly, to say most kindly.
Absolutely.
I hadn't thought about it, but

(08:07):
I probably did the same thing.
And it's so antithetical to the
vulnerability that
acting actually requires
and the level of emotional
availability that it requires.
Yeah.
I definitely relate to that growing up in
South Jersey suburbs.
Do you feel like growing up in the
Midwest was also part of that, just these

(08:28):
preconceived notions?
Yeah, I think so.
I think what I was very clear on when I
decided that I was like, "Oh, I think I
should be an actor,"
was I found what seemed to be a
traditional path of
life and career for me.
I found it incredibly
limiting and frustrating.
There was this instinctive sense that my

(08:51):
lack of enjoyment and
my inability to thrive
in that traditional culture.
I didn't recognize that initially as an
opportunity to seek out another path.
I saw that as me failing at the thing
that I was supposed to be doing.

(09:11):
And that was a very utilitarian kind of,
you go to college to get a
job, to get trained at a job,
and then you go earn a living at that job
to provide for a family.
It was all a very white supremacist,
patriarchal, capitalistic
way of pursuing life that I

(09:32):
instinctively was dissatisfied with.
But I certainly didn't have the education
or the awareness or the
wherewithal to understand that
I was instinctively,
intuitively rejecting that.
I just got an acting class and was like,
"Oh, this feels completely
different than the world in which
I'm normally trafficking, and
this world feels so much more

(09:52):
enjoyable and seems to offer
so much more liberation to me.
I think this is the path I should be on."
Where was this?
What college?
What city?
Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
So interesting.
So you were in the same state, but you
still had that revelation

(10:12):
just getting into acting class.
Yeah.
What was funny though is that almost
immediately, so I did
the second I found acting,
I had done all my electives because I
sort of abandoned my
initial major in college and
I was mostly just doing
electives and partying.
So when I found acting, it seemed to
actually find a purpose
for why I was at school.

(10:34):
I ran through that program of like, "I'm
taking every course.
I'm taking the theater design course.
I'm taking the theater history course."
And I ran through it in three semesters
and went to the head of
the department and asked him,
"Do you think I'm good
enough to do this professionally?"
And he was like, "Yeah."
And I'm like, "Cool,
then get me out of here."
And so we concocted what's called an

(10:55):
interdisciplinary degree where
they took all my old credits.
I was originally a journalism major.
They took all those credits and my
credits in theater and
combined them into basically
a made up degree just so I could get out
of school and go to New York.
Wow.
Good thing you didn't go into journalism,

(11:15):
a profession that's
really struggling right
now when interacting, a
profession that's thriving.
Right.
Right.
That was the bullet.
So you did get through the program and
then right after that, what was the
journey to New York?
I spent a summer in
Chicago doing a couple of things.
I parked cars at Steppenwolf and I got
into the actual studio drama school.

(11:37):
You didn't know you
parked cars at Steppenwolf.
That's cool.
Yeah.
I scratched like I'm learning about cars,
but I scratched like a really nice-
You also didn't know how to drive.
Yeah.
I remember I scratched like a really nice
like jag or something, like
trying to do a three-point turn
because it's got those
elevated levels in the parking and I-
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that was my last day.

(11:58):
So like what am I qualified for other
than being an actor?
Right?
I can't be a journalism major.
I can't park cars this-
Not a great valet.
No, yeah.
So I got accepted to the
actual studio drama school.
Through auditions?
Did you have to audition initially?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I flew to New York with my scene

(12:19):
partner and it was so funny, right?
I was just talking with a friend about
this that when you first start a craft,
you are so naive and enthusiastic about
the craft that you become so sort of
holistically serious and you can be
sanctimonious about it and you can be
very precious about it
because there's a fragility to it because

(12:40):
I've been acting for 18
months or whatever, right?
And I knew I wanted to be taken serious
with this thing and I
wanted to be great at it.
So I remember for my audition, I did a
scene from Patrick Marbury's Closer.
And so like I walked around Chicago that
whole summer with like a British accent
and like went in and did the audition and

(13:01):
I had the same
experience that everybody has,
I think when they get into the program,
Bradley Cooper, who was
like two years out of me,
talked about this in an interview that
you do the audition in Tish Auditorium
in Manhattan, which is like on 12th and
6th and it's a huge theater.
And so you do your audition on the stage
and then like it's dark,

(13:24):
like all the seats are dark.
And then after your scene, you hear like
these footsteps coming
from out of the darkness
and like James Lipton comes down to like
the edge of the stage and he
gestures for you to come down
and you come down to crouch
down at the lip of the stage.
And that sort of, you know, that voice
that he has, he was like,

(13:45):
are you ready to commit yourself to this
program for the next three years?
And I was like, yeah, yeah, I think so.
And that's why, and the
funny is that you leave, right?
And like you're
dissecting what that meant,
because he didn't invite
me to the studio there.
Like there wasn't like an application

(14:05):
that was accepted there, right?
So like the whole flight home.
I'm like, so does that mean I get in?
When he said commitment, did that mean
like that I'm not committed?
Right? I was doing all this sort of
second guessing and triple
guessing about what he meant
by coming to the edge of the stage and
asking him if I was.
In my head, he kissed
you on the forehead.
He didn't like me very much.

(14:26):
He wasn't not liking me very much.
So that would have been nice.
That would have been a nice moment
between the two of us.
I didn't know James Lipton did that for,
you know, prospective students.
But that's crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But there is a kind of an air of mystery
surrounding the whole thing anyway.
Like it's not a massive surprise that
they were vague about that too.

(14:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I have feelings in general, like you
guys know I do jiu-jitsu in
addition to like, you know,
acting and writing.
And there's a temptation in a lot of
these skills for people to
sort of make it mystical.
I know like when I teach and when I'm
rehearsing and when I'm
working, I want to demystify that

(15:08):
process as much as possible because it
feels really undemocratic
to sort of layer, you know,
what is a human experience and a set of
skills that can be improved
upon, that can be refined,
that can be utilized to sort of layer
this level of mysticism on it.

(15:29):
I really appreciate that because I think
as I've gotten older
and more experienced,
I've seen the value of actionable things,
you know what I mean?
Actionable direction because I think when
you're a young actor,
certainly this is my experience of
it, all of that mysticism and stuff that
surrounds it resulted in me
thinking, I just have to figure
this out for myself.
I just have to instinctively know somehow

(15:50):
what they mean and
translate that into a performance
without really knowing how
and hoping I stumble upon it.
Whereas the more I see people
demystifying it like
yourself and people give actionable
direction that I can actually take and
use, the more of a grasp
I feel I have on it and
the simpler it becomes.
Yeah, I think, you know, and obviously,

(16:12):
you know, we can talk
about our common experience of
training at Leslie's.
But one of the things that I want to be
grateful for with Leslie
was that level of clarity,
because my experience early on as an
actor was, again, I have
that fragility of wanting
to be great at this thing, but having so
little experience at it.

(16:33):
Right.
And the way a lot of teachers would talk
to me was in this
very poetical, beautiful,
but completely sort of oblique cadence
and vocabulary where
again, at 2021, I'm too
terrified.
Right.
I'm so dedicated to
want to be great at this.
I'm too terrified to just go like, I

(16:53):
don't know what the
fuck you're talking about.
I don't know what you want me to do.
I didn't get half your references.
Wait, you don't think when the tiger
drinks the water, he knows
not whether the butterfly
is watching is helpful.
Yeah, I and so you wind
up going like, yeah, man.
Yeah, I just think there's such a
temptation because when
you're young, you want to be an
artist.
And like when you use imagery like that,
when you talk in

(17:14):
political fashion, of course, a
young kid like me who's like in New York
for the first time is
going to be like, that's
beautiful.
I don't know what the fuck you're talking
about, but I want to be part of this.
So yeah, I agree.
But then you walk in your next rehearsal
for, you know, Danny,
the deep blue sea or early
burly or David Mamet,
whatever you're doing.
And you're like, I have no
idea what they want me to do.
I guess I'll just rehearse harder.

(17:37):
You know, I think that's the other thing
about, you know, at that level of like,
novice and trying to learn how to improve
is that so much of my
experience with showing up
and like, you know, getting a part in a
play or doing a scene
and you basically showed up
and you did your first rehearsal was
basically doing your best
performance possible with no

(17:58):
rehearsal.
And then you showed up your second
rehearsal and basically
did the best performance you
could possibly do with one rehearsal.
And that was sort of the evolution of
putting that character
together in that scene together.
And, you know, through osmosis and
through sort of through
slow glacial evolution, you
might learn a couple things, but I think

(18:20):
one, that process of
learning is really slow.
And then what I also found is the
application of whatever I
learned in that first experience,
very little bit translated
to the next experience I had.
And all I knew, you know, was when I
first started acting,
the actors I responded to
all seemed to have one thing in common,
which is they were they

(18:40):
were trained at the studio
or people associated with the studio.
So it was Mickey Rourke.
It was Robert Tenier.
It was Harvey Keitel.
It was Ellen Burstyn.
It was Al Pacino.
It was, you know, Newman.
And so I was in that
program for three years.
I had very complicated feelings about it.
There's a lot about it that
for which I'm very grateful.

(19:00):
There's a lot about it
for which I'm enraged.
These days, I think with more distance,
I'm more grateful for it than enraged.
But I went through a period
where I was quite enraged.
But it's been my experience of being in
the business that most of those
institutions that charge a exorbitant fee
for you to learn the
skills of acting to a relatively

(19:21):
terrible job at preparing actors to go
work in the professional world.
And I know often the educators at those
institutions will say like, hey, that's
that's not our job.
Or, you know, we are not a trade school.
Yeah, we're not a trade school.
We are teaching you a craft, which, you
know, the difference between that is too
fine for me to appreciate.

(19:42):
I just think if you're taking, you know,
money from young kids
and money in the, you know,
that are in the five figures, you have a
responsibility to prepare them for the
professional world as long as we're going
to live in this
capitalistic knife fight of a country
that we live in.
That's a great that's a
great description of it.
Part of my frustration was feeling that

(20:03):
that institution and
many institutions like it
absolve themselves about responsibility.
And so you have generations of students
coming out of grad schools and
conservatories feeling
incredibly prepared and thousands of
dollars and sometimes tens
of thousand dollars in debt.
And find that they know I know my case

(20:26):
was I certainly knew
very, very little about
working in a professional context.
Okay, so you don't feel like it prepared
you for the actual job?
I did an arts degree, politics and
philosophy in college.
I came out and I went
to classes part time.
I didn't go to a full time drama course.
And I always regretted that.
I never had that experience.
And I often wondered looking back, had I

(20:46):
had that, would I have
been better prepared or
would it have given me sort of a head
start in the industry?
And I don't know, I just, you know, it's
irrelevant now, but
like, I just don't know.
Mine have in certain ways,
but I think it also inhibits.
It can also inhibit you
in certain ways, right?
So like, I know that what I would say was
of a value at the
institution where I trained

(21:07):
was I think it very much prepared me to
go do a play
somewhere where I could have a
three to six week rehearsal process and
then could do a month
about a town previews
and then could, you
know, open up that play.
Right.
So that type of, I always think about
this, this is my second
Bradley Cooper reference,
who I have a great

(21:27):
amount of affection for.
When he was doing press for Maestro, he
had an interview where he
discussed that he thought
the best way to prepare for playing a
role was complete immersion
and to spend weeks and months
and possibly even years, like as that
character and exploring
every facet of that character and
figuring out, you know, all the elements

(21:50):
of their life and
letting it be sort of a slow
revelatory exploration.
And he said that and he's like, I didn't
think that's the best way to work.
And I was kind of like, well, yeah,
motherfucker, it is.
I actually do believe that, but 99% of us
don't get to do that.
Right.
And so I think the training I had

(22:10):
prepared me to, if I were ever lucky
enough to be in Bradley
Cooper, Dana Day-Lewis's
shoes, do work that way.
It also prepared me to go do a play, you
know, in regional theater
where I had weeks and weeks
and weeks to prepare.
But you know, our experience is you're
going to get the audition on Monday.

(22:31):
Thanks to our Saga After Union, the
audition is now due on Wednesday.
We can talk about that in a little bit.
Right.
But even that, right, even that 48 hours
is a turnover at the
speed of light compared to
the way I was compared
to the way I was trained.
And so that was part of my
struggle initially, right?
Is like being at the actor's studio where
you were encouraged

(22:52):
to go slow and not make
any decisions too quickly and to really
explore and not, it was
not only were you discouraged
from making choices too quickly, but it
was sort of implied that
you were a hack, right?
That if you were making choices too
quickly, right, that that
wasn't true exploration.
That wasn't true artistry.

(23:13):
Well, you know, fast forward a couple of
years and poor Jonathan
Strauss has called me in
17 times for law and order.
And I know on his side of the desk, he's
like, dude, do something.
Do something.
Anything.
I desperately want to
give you a part, right?
Just do anything.
And I'm like, no, I can't make a choice.
I've only had these sides for 36 hours.

(23:34):
Can you talk a little bit about what the
professional expectations were for,
for, let's say, your graduating class?
Were people thinking about TV, film, or
were people more geared
towards doing theater?
Yeah, I remember
asking James Lipton, I think second year,

(23:56):
we didn't have a film
and television training
program.
It was all theatrical.
And there you go.
Yeah.
And I remember asking him at some point,
I'm like, are we going
to do any on-camera work?
And again, in that voice he has, I
remember him say, I will
never forget this response.
He looks me dead in the eye and he goes,
our work transcends the mediums.

(24:17):
And I'm like, and
listen, again, when you're 21,
you're like, got it.
That's the most
beautiful answer I've ever heard.
Right?
Because it feels like
the most artistic answer.
It feels like the most liberating answer.
Like, great, there aren't rules to
different genres and
different mediums I need to learn.
Whatever my inspiration is, right?

(24:38):
That will simply,
again, transcend the mediums.
But, you know, it
obviously was a load of shit.
Because we now know there's a difference
in working in film, television, theater.
We know there's a difference between
working in multi-cam,
single-cam, one-hour drama.
We know there's a difference between a
YouTube video and
theatrical feature release.

(25:00):
And all of those things require, you
know, I won't say a
different form of acting,
but just a
calibration that we need to do.
And denying us the education of what
calibration is required is
doing people real disservice.
Before I was even, I don't
even know if I was an actor yet,
but before I was just starting out, I was

(25:21):
watching inside the
actor's studio, his show.
But I didn't realize he had such a
hands-on process with the actual school.
He was the dean of the school.
And my relationship, I feel like, with
him was, even my regard
from now is very complicated.
I think the show is a wonderful show
without getting too deep
in, like, the history of the
actor's studio.
I think him starting that school is what

(25:41):
actually saved the actor's studio,
which is a venerable institution that I
hold a great amount of reverence for.
I tell you what, though, he's got a great
instinct for a round of applause.
He will just leave a little pause, say
the name of a movie.
You did a film called Dog Day Afternoon.
Did you ever audition for
the actor's studio, Econ?

(26:02):
Sorry, there's a bit of a...
No, no, I wasn't even...
I did.
I auditioned.
I loved the experience.
It was just so weird and fun, and I
wasn't that invested either way.
To be honest, it feels like something I
would yearn a long time ago, but not now.

(26:22):
Like, even hearing your story, it's the
magic of what made me
want to become an actor.
And I think it's important to have that
magic, and I don't want to
ever lose that feeling of it.
If anything, I'm trying to use that to
translate to other things I'm working on.
Yeah, I hear you.
I think for me, what I learned over time,

(26:42):
especially when I
arrived at Lesley's, was
both places I have a great amount of
reverence for, they just serve different
purposes for my acting.
And be to synthesize what I do at the
studio with what I have
been taught to do at Lesley's,
I think is of great value to me.

(27:05):
What I'm able to do at the studio, I
think, is sort of stretch
what I'm capable of doing.
And I feel like what I'm able to do at
Lesley's is to sort of artistically,
but also professionally refine accuracy.
There can be historically, there can be
an antagonism to the
writing that can exist at

(27:27):
the studio, where it's all about what the
actor's personal experience is,
and it doesn't matter what the writer
wrote, but my question to that is always,
then why did you pick that piece of
material? If the writing
is irrelevant to what your
personal experience is, leave the writer
alone. Go pick another
piece of material or don't pick
a piece of material at all. Though

(27:49):
they're complicated
because most method actors don't
refer to themselves as like method
actors, right? Because I think most
actors that are good are all
kind of doing the same thing. You may
have semantic labels
for what you call a thing.
You may have different points of emphasis
for which of the skills
you utilize depending on
the role, but method acting is sort of a

(28:11):
philosophical understanding of who your
identity is, I think is problematic. But
generally speaking, I
think the problem with a lot of
method acting, and I think I'm referring
particularly to
people who sort of trained
under Strasburg, is they do their work
backwards. In other words, they read the
script once and they
figure out where they emotionally connect

(28:34):
with it and they'll do a
substitution or whatever on that
part of the play or that part of the
script. And then over a period of time,
they might learn the
rest of the script, right? As opposed to
reading the script first
and making really specific,
rigorous investigation into what the
writer wrote, and then
figuring out places where,
because of the extraordinary

(28:55):
circumstances of the
character, you may need to lean into
skills that you learned in your
method-based training, whether that's
sensory substitution
or whatnot. My first real acting class
before Leslie's was by
someone who went to the actor's
studio and it was primarily Strasburg's
sense memory. So I have a

(29:16):
fondness of it because it was
like a newborn baby just starting to act,
doing the exercises. For
someone who had nothing,
bare bones, nothing, just to be
comfortable in my body and just be able
to connect and just be.
It was great and it was a great first

(29:38):
step, but what I was really
realizing was when I started to
audition and started to work on camera, I
couldn't take direction. Like
absolutely, when I went over
other classes, I couldn't take, when they
use terms and techniques like say,
rehearsal, I just couldn't do it. And I
was like, I have to give this Leslie
Connaughtry and then
but I completely agree. I really

(30:00):
appreciated having that
experience before I went to Leslie.
I think what ends up happening is so many
actors who explore that
branch of actor training,
they sort of want to get stuck in level
one. By that, what I mean
is you've never acted before,
so you've got to deal with the tension of

(30:20):
performing in front of
people. Your emotional
availability, performing in front of
people, relaxing in front
of people where you can do
what the core aspect of acting is, which
is behaving privately in
public. And so when you
have any emotional outbursts, any sort of
emotional cathartic
experience that feels genuine, there's

(30:41):
a reward for that. And people can get
stuck in sort of like that
phase of the Dreyfus model,
where you can convince yourself that
that's the only part of the acting
experience and the craft
of acting that matters is sort of your
emotional experience. And
if that's your priority,

(31:02):
is your emotional experience, it makes it
difficult to do all the
things that Econ discovered.
What was your first professional job
after you graduated? How much time
happened? What was the
first professional experience? The way I
want to answer this question
is that upon reflection is,

(31:22):
if I have anything worthwhile to offer to
anybody else in terms of
education, it's an understanding
that your and our career will not be
linear. So right out of grad
school, I got offered to do
a touring production of Macbeth. It was
non-union, it was going to tour for four

(31:43):
months, it was going
to pay me 400 bucks a week when I turned
it down. Because at the time,
I'm like, well, I don't want
to be touring around like all these
different cities and states,
I got to be in New York and
like audition for like film and TV. Mind
you, again, I've yet to
take an on-camera television,
an on-camera class, right? But the

(32:05):
cognitive dissonance of
like wanting to do film and TV,
and yet having not specifically prepared
to do film and TV.
Professional gig that I remember doing
was a play called Cowboy versus Samurai
by Michael Galomko, which actually, no,
that's a lie. I'm so
sorry. My first professional gig was
actually a play called The
Female Heart, which was done at

(32:27):
Harold Clarmen Theatre in New York. So I
did that for a few months.
And you know, what's so funny is
again, every sort of acting book, I read
all the books of like every,
you know, all the biographies
and the autobiographies. And I was so
excited when I got The Female Heart
because every book I had read
sort of set out in laying out the story

(32:50):
of this actor that the
career was linear. Like they got
a chance and then they did a play and
then they did another thing
and they were just working
consistently from that point on. So I'm
like, great, I'm on my
way. And instead, I didn't get
another acting gig for like nearly a
year. I think that was 04 and the year
that year and nine in

(33:12):
2000, I think were two years I was in New
York that like for a
brief period, I was homeless.
I couldn't pay rent. I, you know, it was
hard for me to get myself
acclimated to the city in a
functional way. So it was a really hard
time. And I think that's the
other thing that I learned is
looking back at that period, I'm like,
well, I will get an acting job and that

(33:33):
will solve my problems.
And I need to be available for the acting
job. So it's okay that I'm
sleeping on a friend's couch.
It's okay that I literally can't pay for
food today. It's okay that
I don't have an actual home
to go to. Because I will book a job
tomorrow that will support
and justify my lifestyle. And

(33:57):
that's a pretty foolish way to live. I
absolutely, I absolutely
identified that I did the very same
thing. You know, when I started acting, I
was like, well, I can't I
didn't go to do a J one visa,
which is a, you know, student visa to
America, because I was like,
No, I got to be here for jobs.
My girlfriend at the time in college went
off to Canada for three

(34:18):
months. And she's like,
why don't you come? And I was like, No, I
got to be here for jobs
that, you know, didn't happen.
It's it's an interesting, like, even that
young putting your life
on hold for something that,
you know, may not happen is an
interesting trait of this profession.
It feels that starving artists idealism

(34:39):
feels right, even when
you're like hungry and dirty.
But man, it's it's if I can offer
anything to anybody else, right? It's
really hard to be an
artist. If you can't eat, you need steaks
in the freezer and
something to keep the lights on.
Because I because of that also, like I
couldn't be in a class. I

(34:59):
couldn't get headshots printed,
which is a thing you did back then,
right? Yeah. How long was
that period around 2004? And,
and what helped you transition out of
that to a life that's a little more
stable? Man, so here's
the thing. I was so excited when I first
got out of grad school, like
anybody, I knew I was going to
do a survival job and I was a terrible
bartender as a terrible waiter. And I

(35:21):
wanted getting a job
at like a really fancy personal training
gym and started making real
money there. And then that
gym went out of business. And I won't get
into it. But the
knowledge to go out of business,
it put me in a lot of debt. And so there
kept being like these
resets where I'd sort of get on

(35:41):
my feet. And then, you know, financially,
you know, things would
sort of crumble beneath me,
or I would take actions that would lead
to financial insolvency.
And again, I was willing
to accept them because I thought this was
the price of being an
artist not realizing that this
was the thing that was actually getting
in, in my way. I wound up you guys have
read the artist's way,

(36:02):
right? Right. I think a lot about the
idea of a shadow artist. And
because what wound up happening
me happening to me, kind of 06 to 2011,
before I moved to LA was I
unintentionally became a shadow
artist in that, you know, being, you
know, temporary homeless,
wise and having so many financial

(36:23):
issues, I got really scared as I got
older of like that ever happening again.
And so I want to work
really hard at the gym and making a lot
of money that I almost blew
entirely. But as a result of
that, I was working really long hours.
And there's nights I slept at the gym,
and I'd be working 16
hours at the gym, but that's 16 hours
that I'm not working on my craft. That's

(36:45):
16 hours I'm not going
to an acting class. I'm not picking up
material and working on it.
You know, I still thought of
myself as an actor and occasionally would
rehearse for a play or audition for a
play or audition for
an episode of television, but I wasn't
doing the things that were
necessary to be an actual
professional or to even be an artist with
an acceptable level of

(37:05):
proficiency. I had so much
shame around the fact that I was not
successful as an actor. The gym I worked
at was a very successful
like sort of fancy personal training gym.
And we had a lot of fancy
people from all walks of life,
like finance and fashion. And we've got a
few like, you know, actors and writers
and directors in there.

(37:25):
And the play I did Calvary versus Samurai
was me, Anna Moon, Joel
Delafuente, and C.S. Lee. That was
a cast and it was directed by Lloyd Suck.
I'm so grateful to Joel
Delafuente. He was such, he taught
me a lot about how to be a professional.
Joel was also really good
friends with Billy Crutto.
They had gone to NYU together. And Billy

(37:46):
Crutto was one of the
reasons I wanted to be an actor.
He was an inspiration for me. Billy was
also a client at the gym.
He was training with that
head of my gym. I had kept those worlds,
my acting life and my gym life
completely separate. Very few
people knew that at the gym knew that I
was an actor because I was
embarrassed and ashamed that
I wasn't as successful as I thought I

(38:07):
needed to be. And there was
a morning after we had put up
the play that Billy came into the gym and
I'm sitting at the juice
bar having my shake before
we have my next session is. And Billy
stands next to me, he
looks over at me and he goes,
"You were in Joel's play." And the other
trainers are there. And I
freaked out. I was like,
"Ah, yeah." And he goes, "You were really

(38:30):
good, man." And I went,
"Thanks, man. Thanks a lot."
And I bolted. And I think about that now
that how I could not
stand there and accept
him taking time and energy out of his day
to offer me a
compliment from someone who is

(38:50):
an inspiration to me, who clearly is a
master of their craft to express any
level of appreciation
for what I was doing. And because of the
way I had sort of perceived
my career, I literally couldn't
take the compliment because I had become
so much of a shadow artist that even I
could not step into,

(39:11):
even for a moment, being an actor in
front of one of my
inspirations for being an actor.
Wow. I was just going to say, so you're
in New York. Are you
auditioning at this period at all
much or very sporadically? Do you have an
agent? Are you kind of in it or not?
I had no agent. I was occasionally
auditioned by dancing and

(39:31):
dance. So I'm doing only straight
plays and television. So again, I'm
auditioning for Law &
Order every other week. In 09,
two things happened. One, I finally got
cast on Law & Order, did a
little co-star on Law & Order.
I got shot in the face. Can I tell you
how dumb I was? This is going to
illustrate exactly how
galactic dumb I was and how grateful I am

(39:53):
for like, less like, and
again, nobody had ever really
taught me how to read a script. Like even
a play script, I would just
sort of read the words and
then I would go do all my sensory work
and I would do all my
improvisations and I would do all that
work. And eventually I would learn some
of the lines when they sent
me like the email confirming
that I was cast for whatever reason, it
may have some cognitive
issues that we're discovering,

(40:14):
but like I didn't know what part I was
playing. They sent me the
full script and I didn't know
which part I was going to play. So I
found the part that seemed
like most like me and I prepared
that. Wow. I only had one day of work
because I was a co-star. I was preparing
the role that Dallas
Jenkins wound up playing that was like a

(40:35):
recurring guest star for like three
episodes or some shit.
So like I am cramming all these lines
from this episode into my
head and I'm reading it and I've
never been, I've never done an episode of
film or television before,
but so I'm reading this going
like, I don't know how they're going to
do all this in one day. Like
I'm only there for one day.
Like travel alone is going to be hard. I

(40:55):
can't tell you how galactic stupid I was.
But you had auditioned for the role of
the role you ended up
shooting, right? You had auditioned.
Yeah. I just thought they were giving me
a different role because that happened
all the time in theater.
Oh.
Everything I'd ever done was like a big
part in a play. So I'm reading the
script. I'm like, well,
clearly I'm this guy, which there may be
like an extraordinary sense
of like white male entitlement

(41:16):
and privilege. I'm like, well, clearly
I'm this important guy.
Well, I guess I'm
replacing the lead. Okay.
But so I extrapolated from like what my
theater experiences were
like, this must be how it works.
And by the way, thank God I was wrong
because I would have been terrible. Like
after two days of work playing that
recurring guest star, thank
God, they only gave me two

(41:37):
lines and I got a shot in the face. So I
did that. And the same
year I wound up doing a little
improvisatory movie with Steven
Soderbergh called The Girlfriend
Experience. Pretty cool.
It really was. It really was.
No, it's funny about that. Yeah.
So it was, it was written by Brian
Cottman and David Levine.
That's kind of how like my

(41:57):
billions journey starts. Yeah. I was
going to say that that's a connection.
It starred Sasha Gray. Steven Soderbergh
is directing it. And my
buddy Chris Santos was
playing the male lead in it. And so I was
cast as his best friend in
the movie. I'm laughing about
telling this story and what this will be
an entertaining story,
but we'll see if I ever get
another job again after this. So our

(42:18):
scene is where we have one
scene, we're at a bar and he's
talking to me about his troubles with his
girlfriend. His
girlfriend is a high end escort.
And so this was my dream. We are shooting
in the village in
Manhattan. I mean, this is all I've
ever wanted to be. I think I was doing

(42:39):
another theater show at the
time. I just did an episode
of Law and Order, which every actor needs
to do. I am now shooting an
independent movie with Steven
Soderbergh in the village. This is
everything I've ever wanted
to be. Chris and I are like,
we should be drinking something. We're at
a bar, we should have a
drink. We should be drinking.

(43:00):
I pointed at a bottle of whiskey on the
shelf. I'm like that. I just had that
last week. We should
have that. And it was a bottle of Johnny
Walker blue. And the entire
reason I pointed at it was
because like a week before I had had a
meeting for something at the AEA
building. And if your
equity at the bar they have there, if you

(43:22):
have your equity card,
all drinks are half off. And
so when I had gone up there to have this
meeting and everybody's
having a drink socially, I'm
looking at the menu. I'm like, well, I'm
not going to get a $5 Budweiser for
$2.50. If it's half off,
I'm going to get this shot and it's 25
bucks. So I pointed the
bottle of Johnny Walker blue.
We should have that. And so the
bartender, I was this lovely young woman,

(43:44):
gets us two shots of
Johnny Walker blue. And so we're sipping
it and we're talking
through what we're going to do in
the improv and they're setting up the
lights behind us. And it's still a long
wait. And we finish,
finish our shots. We get a second shot
and we're still improving through
everything and talking
how the scene's going to go and
everything. We finished those second

(44:05):
shots. So we order a third.
It is not occurring to us what we're
doing. This big burly, like just burly
chested long arm dude
comes over and he's like, Hey, the fuck
are you guys doing? I have no idea this
guy is. So I'm like,
I'm making a Steven Soderbergh movie. I'm
doing art here. Like who's
this guy? And we're like,
what? And he goes, you guys are drinking

(44:27):
all my good booze. And I
realized it was the owner of
the bar. And it was, I don't, again, I
don't know what the cognitive distance
was. It's only at that
moment that he was like, Oh shit, we have
now drunk. Six shots of
Johnny Walker blue. By the way,
how are you not have yet to shoot a
frame? Um, at which point
Steven comes over and he's like,
Hey, what's the problem? Steven was like,

(44:47):
it goes without saying he's
the most brilliant person.
He's the most intelligent person. He's
the coolest fucking person. I always
loved him. He's just,
the dude is just a G. And so Steven comes
over and he's like, Hey, what's the
problem? And at this
point now I feel terrible. Right. And I'm
like, again, I don't know what the
cognitive dissonance
was. Again, I feel like anchorman where I

(45:08):
jumped into the bear pit.
I'm like, I immediately regret
this decision. Though I turned to Steven.
I'm like, Steven, I'm so
sorry. This is our idea.
We weren't thinking I will pay for the
booze, whatever. Steven
goes, Oh no, we got it. Uh,
the guys, are you guys going to pay for
this? And he's like, she
was like, yeah, we got it.
So he's like, all right, he leaves. And I
turned to Steven. I'm like, I am so
sorry. I, I completely
embarrassed. I just wasn't thinking. And

(45:28):
he just shrugged and went,
it's a movie. So we had a four
shot. Nice. And then, yeah, I love this.
He didn't bat an eyelash
for you ordering the most
expensive shots on an independent movie
credit to him. That's, that's great
credit to him. Don't
drink. Don't drink on set is like, like,

(45:49):
I don't know what we were
thinking. So can we talk about
billions? Because, uh, you do have a
great first great story on, on
billions, but for people that
don't know before, before we jump on, so
you went to LA then I
were you in LA by this point.
A year after I'd done that episode of law
and order and done that
Satterberg movie, I decided
with LA, which I probably should have
done earlier. I felt like

(46:09):
I just sort of capped out
in a bunch of different ways of what I
could experience in New
York. There is an entertainment
industry, but it's like the fifth
industry in that town.
Sorry. I was just going to say,
there's something beautiful about that.
And there's also something a little bit,
uh, that can be a bit
restrictive about that. You're in LA, you
get casting billions from
LA and that, okay, cool.
And the way the billions edition even
came about, I had gotten

(46:30):
along with, with Brian and Dave,
through girlfriend experience. And Dave
and I actually did you
get two together a lot.
He's, he's a badass. He got his black
belt last year. So he's, he's a legit
dude. And then I was
really struggling out in LA for like my
first three or four years.
It felt like my first couple
years in New York, except now I'm a
decade older and should be wiser and
don't feel it. And I had
stayed in contact with them. I can't tell

(46:52):
you how kind they were to
me. How like anytime I had an
industry question, cause I'd started
writing and any question
about how the business worked. So
they were doing this movie called runner
runner. And I just messaged
them one day and asked if I
could audition for it. And they said,
yeah. So I went in and I read
for Carmen Cuba and I got done
and like the next day or whatever they

(47:13):
messaged me and they were like, Hey man,
great audition. You're not going to get
this part. Cause it was for
one of Ben Apples bodyguards.
And you're not a six, five Russian dude,
like Ben himself was like
six, four. So you're not going to
be a spotty guard, but really great
audition. And then what
happened was like a year or two later
after that, um, I get a message from them
out of the blue. Again, I'm really
struggling financially.

(47:33):
I'm really struggling life wise. And I
get a message from them
out of the blue that says,
Hey, we're doing this show in New York
and we got a part for you.
No lines yet. But when you
show up on set, we'll have lines for you.
And if the show gets picked
up, it'll occur. Can you be
here Friday or whatever? And that was it.
Amazing. So you didn't even have to
audition for that role.
No, but that actually became part of the
problem for me anyway. Right.

(47:53):
It was so gracious for them.
Right. But one, I had to get myself to
New York. I had no money. I cobbled
together the money to
get to New York. And so, yeah, this is
the story I've, I've told a few times,
never publicly though,
though I get on set and I'm playing chef
Ryan. So I'm the personal
chef to, to Damien Lewis's
character acts. Who's the lead in the
show and is a hedge fund billionaire. And

(48:14):
they described to me
what the scene was going to be, which is
like, Hey, uh, you're serving
them dinner around the kitchen
countertop. Um, and that's pretty much
it. You love serving them and you take
great pride in the food
you serve. So I'm like, okay, great. No
problem. And so I get there
and they got their lines from
me, which to this day I can remember.
Right. So I, I'm supposed to
put down the food and the line
is like, okay guys, we've got urban,

(48:34):
crusted, free and gigantic chicken
breasts, grilled asparagus
tips, mashed potatoes. Enjoy. No problem.
Right. So I get on set and
again, I haven't been on set
that often. I'd never been on set for a
pilot, though. I wasn't
aware that there was going to be
like 30 other people from the network
there walking around in like suits and
ties with cups of coffee,
sort of like in everyone's way and

(48:55):
monitoring and asking questions and
passing judgment. And it just,
it's a, it provides a level of tension. I
think that's different
than like when you're just
shooting an episode. I'm ready to do the
scene, right? I got the line
and then what they asked me
to do is like, okay, so here's what the
scene is. You're going to
take two plates off a working
stove. You're going to come around the
kitchen island. You're

(49:15):
going to put them down in front
of acts in his son. Also don't block
their faces while you're
putting the plates down because
they're going to be doing lines. Also,
his son is 10 years old. He's
not going to do a lot to help
you in the timing of this. Don't rattle
the plates when they touch the kitchen
countertop. Once you
put the plates down, go around the
kitchen island and get back to your, your
position at one. To get
around the kitchen island, what that
meant was I had to jump over

(49:36):
a sandbag, duck under a light,
get back to my place to go, okay, guys,
we've got urban crusted for injured,
getting chicken breasts,
grilled asparagus tips, mashed potatoes,
and joint. So we start
shooting and everything's fine,
except I notice on the table, there's
more than just the
chicken breasts, the asparagus,
and the mashed potatoes. There's like two

(49:57):
or three other things.
There's like rolls and uggers.
So I start going, okay, guys, there's,
we've got a free range
organic chicken breast,
grilled asparagus tips, mashed potatoes,
et cetera, et cetera.
Enjoy. Two things happen. One,
Brian comes up to me. He's like, hey man,
just cut the et cetera, et cetera,
because Brian and Dave
are great writers and they're one of the
sets where when you show
up, you are word perfect.
You don't change their words. You don't

(50:18):
invert. You don't
paraphrase. You do their words,
right? Because, because they have earned
that. Oh, I forgot the
most important part. While I'm
doing all this with these plates, as I
first take the plates off the stove,
there is going to be a
giant German shepherd that is going to
sprint between my legs. So I
got to work in stove. I got

(50:39):
dogs. I got kids. I got the whole thing,
right? So everything WC
fields told you not to work with,
I got on my first day on, uh, on the set.
So, um, so two things
happen. One, Dave, Brian gives me
the note on the line. Um, and two, I hear
the dog trainer tell the
first idea or whatever. It says,

(50:59):
like, Hey, listen, the way they were
getting the dog to run the
route that they needed to run
was they put a treat somewhere and the
dog like does the route to go get the
treat. And I hear the
dog trainer say like, but the dog's
really smart. If you do too many takes,
he'll figure out where
the treat is and he won't run the route.
He'll just run straight
for the treat. For whatever
reason that put a lot of pressure on me
to be like, Oh, I got to
make this perfect. Also, the

(51:21):
dog was running so fast. And one of the
takes, I was scared. I was
going to hit the dog. I was
scared. Like we would collide. I was
going to hurt the dog. So I start like,
instead of letting the
dog run between my legs, I'm just start
sticking my leg out so that
he can like jump over my leg.
And then the director's like, what are
you doing? It was like the
great Neil Berger was like the
director of the episode. He's like, what
are you doing? Get in
front of the dog. And I'm like,

(51:42):
right. So now between these three things,
and then I blew one take. Now again,
everybody blows a take
on a set occasionally. And it's not a big
deal, right? You don't want
to be the person who blows
multiple takes, right? But everybody
blows a take. You reset,
you go back, you're fine.
Between all these things, my brain
explodes. And all of a sudden, I can't

(52:05):
get I can't get the line
out at all. Like I fuck every take in
front of Brian and Dave who
are friends, who offered me
this job without an audition. I am
fucking this up in front of Neil Berger.
I'm fucking this up in
front of Damien Lewis. I'm fucking this
up in front of mom Ackerman.

(52:26):
Fucking this up in front of
I can feel I'm fucking this up in front
of 20 executives from
Showtime. So I am dying. Like I'm
a recurring co star on the show. And at
this point, I wasn't even
recurring. And the way things were
going, recurring didn't look like a right
is doubtful. Right. So I,
I didn't feel like I could

(52:46):
be like, Hey, guys, can I take a minute?
I just keep banging away
at this thing and fucking up
the take every time to the point where
Brian and what I love about
one of the many things I love
about Brian and Dave is they're the
perfect partners. Brian
is like the most gracious,
like dinner host. He's loquacious. He's
funny. He's witty. He can
talk to anyone about anything.

(53:07):
He's warm. And so Brian
comes over to me and he's like,
Hey, just say chicken and vegetables.
Right? That's all it is.
Right. Chicken and vegetables.
Say chicken and vegetables. Like, yeah.
And like, yeah, go ahead. And I didn't
realize that was the
break he was giving me. He's like, don't
worry about saying the
line. Like, and I also didn't
realize he was getting everybody else's
coverage so that like, I
would stop blowing cakes. Um,

(53:29):
right? Like I knew this was bad. I also
until later didn't
realize how bad it was.
So I do chicken and vegetables for a
couple of takes. And then
finally, Dave comes over to me.
And again, I love, I love Dave so much.
Dave is that dude who's going to be
really quiet and he's
going to say one thing. And it's either
going to be the most insightful thing
you've ever heard to

(53:49):
keep you up for three days. He's done
that to me, or it will be the funniest
thing you've ever heard.
The Dave comes up to me and he goes, Hey
man, I think you got
to say the whole line.
And I was like, yeah. And he goes, yeah.
I mean, what's the pan for, right? And
again, I'm a fan of progressing where
what's reality and what
is show intermingle, right?

(54:11):
That meta. And I knew he was talking
about the character, but I
also felt like he was talking
about me and him. I felt like it was a
really gentle, great way
of being like, Hey man,
get it together. Get your one fucking
line out of your mouth. So like I melted
inside. So we finally
finished the day. I don't think I ever
did it right. But I left
because I left going like,

(54:32):
this is it. This is I'm done. They gave
you an opportunity. Your
friends gave you an opportunity.
You didn't earn this during audition,
right? That's why like not having
audition didn't feel great
for me. I was gifted this. There's a
thousand actors in New
York who could have done this,
right? Who would have could have given a
dinner order, right? I
fly home and I'm like,
I felt embarrassed. I felt frustrated. I

(54:54):
felt I had let them down,
which is the most important
feeling I was feeling was that I had,
they had taken a chance on
giving me an opportunity and
then I had really, really blown it.
Obviously I didn't blow it too badly.
They did bring me back
for like 15, 16 episodes. And I was very
grateful for it. But
I will tell you this,
the second, when I got the script for the
second episode I was going to be in,

(55:15):
I was so grateful because I was sure that
I wasn't going to have a job
in the show. I was sure they
would either cut the scene or, or, or
recast it or whatever. So when
I get the script for the next
episode, I open it up and the plot of the
scene is my character, chef
Ryan is out getting groceries
that morning and acts is making dinner or
I'm sorry, acts is making
breakfast for the, for the

(55:35):
boys that morning. So when I come home,
I've got my grocery bags.
I walk into the kitchen.
He's making breakfast and my
line is, am I out of a job?
When I read that in my apartment in Los
Angeles, I literally went
and threw the script across the room. So
that was my first day on billions.

(55:59):
Beautiful. And you know,
you did, you stayed on it.
Is anybody going to listen to this
considering all my
stories about how I fucked up?
I know. I know. We're really pushing it
with this one. So the reason why I love
the story so much is
because a lot of people who aren't in the
industry don't understand
how hard it is for a day player

(56:19):
co-star guest star, one day co-star
coming onto a show. And this
is kind of like the perfect
example of all the things that someone
may have to juggle. You
get thrown into the fire.
I've been a lead in movies. I've done
Hamlet twice. I've done
Macbeth. Why can I not get
these tiny paragraph out of my mouth? And
doing those other

(56:40):
projects, there's a much greater
workload, right? But also there's a, I
feel like a much greater
safety net, right? Where like I
knew like when I, when the last movie
that I led, right? Like we're
going to shoot that from all
these different setups. And so I'm
covered. I'm protected. I know
if like I blow one take here,
again, I don't want to do that often, but

(57:00):
like we're going to get
all this footage where like,
I'm going to knock it out of the park,
right? And I'm going to feel
really good about what I did.
The director's going to feel really good
about what I did when
you're a co-star, like you're not
getting that opportunity, right? It's
going to be like maybe two, maybe three
takes and you're out.
So you always want to hit the bullseye.
Exactly. Exactly. And
there's more importance on,
on everything you're doing because that's

(57:21):
the only thing you're
doing. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry,
Tim, I know that we're, we're going a
little long. I really want to
hear about your, your theater
project, Distress Signals. Tell us more
about what this, what
your baby is and what you're
launching next month. Thank you. So the
Distress Signals project
is going to be a theatrical
performance, a theatrical production

(57:41):
we're doing here in Los Angeles in
October. It was born
initially out of the multiple strikes we
had a couple of years ago.
And every brilliant actor,
every brilliant writer I knew was, you
know, temporarily out of
work. And I think I initially
discussed it with Joel Johnstone, who's a
wonderful, wonderful actor

(58:02):
that I, that I know from Leslie
Kahn and taught at Lesley's for a long
time as well. And we were
just like, we should just get
some great actors that we know and just
put us in play somewhere. And
so that was the initial genesis
of it. But then as I was starting to look
for plays, there wasn't any
sort of thematic, thematic
consistency between them. And I didn't
want it to be like a drama school
repertoire. We were like,

(58:23):
you come and watch 20 minutes of Spike
Teals and 20 minutes of, you know, earn
this. And so I wanted
to find pieces that started to tell a
story. And so as I started
looking for those, I had always
wanted to have a theater company that
directly supported
service organizations that had a
partnership and collaboration with, with
service organizations. It's
something I had always wanted

(58:44):
to do. And by service organizations, what
do you mean? So what we
wanted doing was selecting four
plays that were thematically connected.
And then what we had is each of the
playwrights selected a
philanthropic organization, like a
charity organization that
service the needs of the
communities that were depicted in their

(59:05):
place. And so what we're doing for
distress signals is we're
putting up four short plays that are
about various
communities that are in distress,
hence the title of the production
distress signals. And all of the money
that we're raising from ticket
sales and all the profits and proceeds
from concessions and stuff
like that are going to go
to the service organizations that other

(59:27):
playwrights have selected. So there's a
thematic consistency
of communities in distress. And hopefully
the event itself will
raise money and bring
support and awareness to these
communities that are in
various levels of distress that
can use amplification that can use
solidarity from us. What's the time
period for these four

(59:50):
plays? So the performances are going to
run October 3rd to the 5th to
the Willie Adge playhouse in
Inglewood. That location felt important
for us considering the
audience that we want. What each
piece is going to do, I should be clear,
is there will be four
pieces. And then afterwards,
my co-producer and my partner, Twin
Augustus, is going to hold a
moderated talk back with the

(01:00:10):
audience where we can discuss the issues
that are raised. That's
awesome. Yeah, we hope that it'll
be a successful night in terms of raising
money for these service
organizations. We hope it'll
be a successful night creatively and
critically in terms of people enjoying
the work and wanting to
engage with the work to build a greater
sense of artistic support
and community support. And we

(01:00:31):
hope we get to do it on a recurring
basis. This has been a lot of
work, but it's very rewarding
work. And so I hope we get to do it every
year or twice a year or
who knows. Can you kind of go
through the nuts and bolts of what it's
like to put all this
together? What was that process like?
I had so much in experience and often no
experience in a lot of the

(01:00:52):
things that I've had to do as a
producer on this. And what I've been most
grateful for is simply asking
for what I need. I am so lucky
to be surrounded by so many artists and
so many art-minded people
that I think want to help, that
are generous of heart, that there are so
many things. I'm like,
"Well, I need this, but I don't

(01:01:12):
know how to do that." And so I would
simply, in the communities
that we all traffic in, I would
just turn to someone who I thought and
might know something and be
like, "I need this. How do I make
that happen?" And someone would always
step up and be like, "I've got this." I
love that. And I think
that's a testament to who you are as a

(01:01:33):
person and how people regard you. Because
I know there's been,
like you said, there's been a lot of
self-deprecating stories in here, but it
kind of disguises the fact
that you've had a very successful career,
not only as an actor, but
also as a writer. You've sold
scripts. You teach and coach, and you
have a real aptitude for
that, which is rare. I mean,

(01:01:54):
you're an excellent coach and teacher, as
well as actor and writer.
So I feel like some of those
stories don't give the full picture of
who you are as a human being and as a
professional. Because
also, and in addition to that, you've a
lot of compassion in you.
I see the way you handle
people, and it's very deft and skillful,

(01:02:15):
the way you treat people and
the way you work with people.
So there's a lot of really great things
in there that we haven't
even scratched the surface of,
really. But I just wanted to make a point
of that, because that's the real truth.
I couldn't say it better by myself. I was
thinking the same exact
thing. And also, you could tell
that with this project, there's a lot of
heart in it. And I wouldn't

(01:02:36):
trust anyone else to do this
project besides you. So I'm really
excited to see it. Tim, so
what are the best handles,
way to get in touch with you? We'll put
the link in information
to Distress Signals project
in the show description. So I'm not on
many social media
platforms. I am on Twitter. No,

(01:02:57):
I'm not on Twitter. I'm sorry. I got
kicked off Twitter. Say, I would think
that you were kicked
off Twitter by now. Yeah. That's a whole
other thing. Yeah. I got, I
got, I got, I actually got
kicked off for, um, threatening Nazis.
Um, yeah. Who knew that was
a blessing. Uh, yeah, I am on
Instagram at it's Timothy Davis ITS my

(01:03:20):
full name. It's Timothy Davis.
Um, if you want to follow the
Distress Signals project, there also is
an Instagram page for the
Distress Signals project
at Distress Signals project. I am also on
blue sky at its Timothy
Davis. It's where I went after
I got kicked off Twitter. Um, that's
pretty much it, man. I use those
platforms I really engage in.
Yeah. And we never even got to the
Gandolfini stories. I know. I mean,

(01:03:41):
that's another up. So
really? Oh my God. Oh yeah. Very brief.
We can talk about next time
in like 0405. Uh, uh, my first
acting teacher, uh, at the extra drama
school was Gandolfini's, um, acting coach
and like one of her,
his dear friends. And she offered me the
job as his personal

(01:04:01):
assistant and I turned it down.
Okay. Because I was like, I don't think
he'll respect me if like,
I want to be an actor. I
want to act with James Gandolfini. I
don't want to be getting James
Gandolfini's coffee. Um, you know,
getting his laundry, not realizing James
probably would have run
scenes with me every fucking day
and probably would have figured out like,

(01:04:23):
Oh, you could probably be
on the show, dude. And like,
would have thrown me a bone and put me on
the show. It was years
later when I told the story,
uh, to a couple of friends and it was
Trisha LaFash. She
looks at me and she goes,
you know, he would have put you on the
show, right? And I was like,
I just, it was, it was another moment of
me, of me melting. That's
a new, that's also a great
lesson for young actors because I know a

(01:04:44):
lot of people I could
relate to your thinking and I,
I don't, I don't think it's a clear cut
decision for, I get it. I
get it. What I would, what I
would offer about that, econo is the
thing I didn't, um, trust
and would only learn later is
how great a person James Gandolfini was,
how generous he was, how
kind he was. I know that

(01:05:04):
because the guy who wanted to take on the
job is a buddy of mine from
Jitsu's MMA fighter. And he
was so kind to him. He was so
extraordinarily generous with
him. And so I think, you know,
when I look back on that, yes, I should
have taken the job, but
I think I would have been
able to take the job also had like, I
simply had been more
trusting of the human spirit.
Yeah. But it also speaks to, I think, and

(01:05:27):
like you can say, this
is a good lesson for young
actors. Cause I fell into this worried
about, you know, how I was
perceived from the outside.
And so it's a great lesson for people to
just fucking say yes.
Cause you never know where
yes takes you. You know, where no keeps
you, but you never know where
yes takes you. And I have to
remember that all the time now. Just say
yes. Just say yes. All

(01:05:48):
right. Well, I think that's a
great place to end. If you have a hidden
gem, we don't want to
remove that, remove you from that
opportunity. But you know, my, my only
hidden gem, which isn't hidden is, is
Jiu-jitsu. I just think
everybody should have something not
related to the acting industry. For me,
the value of Jiu-jitsu

(01:06:08):
is one, it's a place where I get to
practice who I want to be off the mat.
You know, I get beat up
sometimes and being able to be cool with
that, right? I get
outclass sometimes and being able
to be appreciative of that instead of
resentful to endure sometimes great
discomfort and to experience
calm in that instead of anger or

(01:06:29):
frustration is important. And
also for my own mental health,
it's the only objective thing that I'm
really involved in, right?
What we do is so subjective.
You know, we can talk later about like
scripts I've sold or, you know,
performances I've, I've
given in projects and those have been
received, you know, differently,
sometimes very complimentary
and sometimes less complimentary. Though

(01:06:52):
you can crush the audition
and not get the part. You can
write a beautiful script and the company
isn't going to pick up the
option, right? And that can
be really frustrating because of the
subjectivity of the business. So me
having Jiu-jitsu where it's,
what's happening is objective fact. If
you stretch my arm
and tap me, you got me,

(01:07:12):
right? That's it. That's it. There's
nothing to argue, right? I choke you.
That's, that is what
happened. You can't say that you
preferred another, you preferred another
technique because that's the
one that fucking worked. So having a
place where I can feel grounded in the
objective reality of life
and the objective reality of my efforts
while also having a

(01:07:33):
place where I can practice
being who I want to be off the mat, I
think is crucially important. That's my
hidden gem, Jiu-jitsu.
I love that. What's, remind me, you're,
you're a degree of, of black belt.
I mean, I'm a second degree black belt,
but also like at that point,
it's also, it's a ceremonial

(01:07:55):
belt, right? Like I'm not a professional
athlete, right? Like it's not like I'm,
well, that's so really good for, for, for
the audience, for the
audience, that is really good.
And Tim is being incredibly humble. And I
will say that a few episodes
I gabbed about my experience
doing jiu-jitsu. It is, it's, it's, I
love it so much, but I'm just

(01:08:15):
a hack. I just wanted them to
hear from you of all the things that I, I
have learned the
humility besides the physical
exercise. I miss it so much. I'll throw
out a hidden gem just really
quick. I actually have been
going to Tim's studio, subconscious
Brazilian jiu-jitsu in North
Hollywood. Check it out. It's

(01:08:36):
great. I miss you guys dearly. We'd love
to have you back, man.
We'd love to have you back.
So, Rean, if you want to throw one out
there, I don't want to put
you under the gun here, but,
I'm struggling now. I'm panicking. Go
ahead, Rean. Shoot one out. Shoot one
out. You know what I've
been, because it's been so hot lately,
I've bought a thing of
hydration, like a hydration thing.

(01:08:56):
What do you call it? I have it here. I'm
going to get it. Like a,
like a water, like a water
can. We might cut this. We might cut
this. We might put this
before, before Tim's hidden gem.
I keep getting back, getting dehydrated.
So I bought a giant
thing of electrolytes.
Every day. And it's like, it was super

(01:09:17):
cheap and it's got a bit
of million servings in it.
It's called, it sounds very industrial.
It's called nutra cost,
which sounds crazy industrial,
and it's fruit punch flavor. I have been,
I have been so hydrated
lately, let me tell you.
So, there you go. That's my hidden gem. I
think that's just a really
smart thing for an Irishman
in the hot LA sun to be fueling

(01:09:39):
themselves with
electrolytes. So there you go.
Wither like a leaf in the sun, if I
don't. Tim, thank you so much for your
time. You've been so
gracious. You can come on anytime. We're
so excited for Distress
Signals project. Check it
out everyone. It's going to be great. So
we'll love to have you
back and tell us about the.
Thank you so much guys. Yeah. Appreciate
you both. Love you

(01:10:00):
both. Love you too brother.

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Timothy Davis Talks Soderbergh, Crazy On-set Stories from "Billions", and Myths about the Actor's Studio | Ep 44

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Timothy Davis Talks Soderbergh, Crazy On-set Stories from "Billions", and Myths about the Actor's Studio | Ep 44