Doug Jones | Ep. 24

You know him, you love him - the one and only, Doug Jones! From commanding the bridge on Star Trek: Discovery to stealing hearts (and a few screams) as cinema’s favorite creature actor, Doug spills the tea on his wildest roles, the infamous Guillermo del Toro, and what it’s like to act under all that makeup. Don’t miss this captivating conversation with one of Hollywood’s most versatile actors!

Each week, we explore and celebrate the lives that the Star Trek universe has forever changed. From former and future cast and crew members to celebrities, scientists, and astronauts whose personal and professional journeys have been affected by the franchise, we sit down and dive deep with a new friend, laughing and learning from their stories. Sit back, grab a drink, and join our hosts, Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer, as we get geeky in The D-Con Chamber.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Big dog.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Happy birth to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday day,
Happy birthday to you.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Thank you, Dave. Yeah, thank you so much. None of
this would be happening with that. That's right, Thanks brother,
I'm really looking forward to this. Doug the hug Jones, Doug,
I love that it's patented. He's just the nicest man,
and since he's come around the conventions, it's been a
real honor to meet him and get to know him.

(00:33):
He's he's an acts as actor, truly.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
I had chance to speak with him on the cruise
yes day, and he's just he's a wonderful guest and
I mean, the kindest human. Yeah, top five on my list.
He's just a wonderful guy and uber talented. Yeah, that's
what I want to get into. I mean, how he
gets to where he does.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, he's his work ethic is extraordinary and and he's
got this reputation for all the hours he sits in
those makeup chairs and sometimes can't sit, has to crouch,
never can plays not a word, can't wait.

Speaker 4 (01:12):
You're gonna love it, your love Jones.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Hey, everyone Connor here, we just want to take a
moment to thank you so very much. For tuning in
and being a part of the Decon Chamber family. Your
support keeps us going and we couldn't do this without you.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
And if you love what we do and want to
help us even more, please consider joining us on Patreon.
You'll get exclusive perks, behind the scenes content, and even
opportunities to chat with us directly.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
And don't forget to check out are Awesome mergh because
who doesn't want to rep their favorite podcast in style?

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Baby, every little bit helps, I promise you, and we're
really very very grateful for all of you who make
this show possible. So thanks for being there and please
enjoy the episode of the Decon Chamber. I don't know
the show has been gun since your phasers the fun

(02:14):
you URALI for trip Trip trip trips into the Dcon
with Carrio.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
It's the d Conchamber.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Trekky's and trekkers. Welcome
back to another episode of the Decon Chamber. I'm joined
as always by my co hosts mister Connor trenier.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Ao and Mac to Nate forgot.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
You must have bought a house on that the house
that Mac built. I'm dominic keating your other co host Today,
our guest is an actor, a contortionist, a mime artist,
a two chameleon of the You've seen him as Commander
Sireru in Star Trek Discovery, but he's also brought stunning
performances as the Fawn and the Pale Man in Pans Labyrinth,

(03:10):
the Amphibian Man in the Shape of Water and Billy
Butcherson in Hocus Pocus, Abe Sapien in Hellboy one and two,
and my favorite, Frankly in What Do We Do in
the Shadows? The list goes on. While well known for
his extraordinary work under layers of prosthetics, his talents extend
far beyond his ability to convey human emotion and depth.

(03:33):
Demonstrates that he's not just a master of transformation, but
a true artist in every sense. He's notably a favorite
of director Giema del Toro, who has featured him for
about thirty years now. He also has a unique place
in the hearts of fans everywhere, and those lucky enough
to encounter him are soon enveloped in the patented Doug hug.

(03:57):
Please join me in welcoming the one and only mister
Doug Jones, an actor who's made his career of being kind,
reliable and frankly breathtaking, the unforgettable.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Thank you, Doug.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
I know it's taking a little time to get this
all sorted out, but it's a pleasure mate.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
Thank you for having me, and thank you for that
very eloquent introduction that I feel very undeserving of. I'm
going to live up to that. But we could be
done right now after all that, Thank you and good night.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
So I was discussing outside, what's the latest and earliest
call times you've ever had?

Speaker 4 (04:31):
Oh gosh, well, when you when you've had a career
under lots of rubber bits, your call times can be
all over the place, depending and our latest call time
would be for a night shoot probably, but let's go earliest.
That's going to be the one that makes people like
go yeah. And actually the earliest call time with the
most horrible scenario. I was on Hellboy to the Golden Army,
all right, and I just wrapped at about eleven thirty

(04:54):
at night, eleven o'clock at night, the night before I'm
getting into the car, yeah, second eight to hand me
my call sheet for the next day. I was getting
picked up from the hotel at one thirty a M
and I was like, why did I take the makeup off? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Right right?

Speaker 4 (05:10):
Yeah? So yeah, that that that doesn't happen often because
those is that I.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Mean, okay, what sort of deal do you get? You know? Organized?
I mean that we used to call that the force
the new couch, it used to call it on our show.
Oh I'm getting the I'm getting the sofa from my kids.
Wait right, all right?

Speaker 4 (05:29):
Well on hell Boy to the Golden Army. That was
a six month shoot in Budapest, Hungary, and they did
that to me, not that badly, but they for we
supposed to have twelve hours off between your work, yes,
and I often had less than that, to the point
where I made like half my salary again in force
call penalties over the six months. So there's a lot.
It almost happened every day.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
You don't sleep.

Speaker 4 (05:50):
I didn't sleep that year. But but you know what, Dominic,
can we talk about this?

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (05:57):
Hi, I'm Connor Boy Connor Connor. Don't it when you
have gone through that kind of like Hella Hella and
then hell Boy one and two hell Boy I wanted
to do and you watched the finished product, that's when
you say, okay, that's why. I mean, that's what the
sacrifice was on.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
What was the longest amount of time that you've been
in the chair?

Speaker 4 (06:22):
Well, uh, that would also be in the hell Boy franchise.
Helboy one was uh.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
You played two characters, and Labyrinth was two.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
You played gamea del Toro does this to me. I've
been six of his films, and in three of them
I played multiple characters. So pans Laban, Yes, I played
Alfon and the.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Pale Man, and then.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
Thank you all the characters. Yeah, And in Hellboy one
I just played Abe Sapien and Helboy too. I played
Abe Sapien, the Angel of and the Chamberlain, three characters.
And then in Crimson Peak, I believe I played two
of the ghost ladies in the his Haunted House story there.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Two of The first thing you ever did for him
was in Mimic. Wasn't it correct?

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Right? I was a overgrown cockroach in the subways of
New York City? Was not just plausible?

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Were you was that? Were you coled in? How did
you meet him first? I'm trying to remember on that
movie story.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
Yeah, on Mimic, he didn't know who I was or
and I didn't know who it was. Early nineteen ninety seven.
So it's a long time ago. You've done a few
I've done a few things, right, Yeah, enough that that
there on the Batman I did, right, I didn't Batman returns.
I'd done hocus Pocus one I had done, you know,
but my Head.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Mac tonight yet, yes, yes you have. Of course that
came to England.

Speaker 4 (07:48):
Yeah, well yeah, commercial worldwide those that's when you first
met me. All on TV had twenty seven commercials as
the Moonhead Guy over the three year period. Talk about my.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
Say and back in the day, Doug, you could make
some money on.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Commercial des wine.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
They ran them a lot on network television and you
got the residuals. Pie was bigger then, yeah, yeah, But
longest it was Helaby one because Abe Sapien, my blue
Fish Guy character, when I was just wearing shorts. It
was seven hours a day, twelve prosthetic pieces from head
to toe, with three makeup artists working around me, standing

(08:26):
or squatting on a stool for seven hours before the
day started. Now, mind you, most people comment on that
going I could never sit still that long? What did
you do? What do you do during that time? I
love doing nothing. I'm really good at staring at a
wall and drooling on myself perfect, So I'm actually built
for this, And because the makeup artists are the ones

(08:47):
doing all the work during that time, and my work
starts when they're done. And then the hard part for
me is then wearing it, keeping it, staying fresh, you know,
as an actor under this, like you're hotter than you
want to be, You're stickier than you want to be,
You're heavier than you want to be. So all that
plays into where's my energy gonna come from? I don't know,
where do.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
You find it?

Speaker 4 (09:07):
It's the hard part. Well, you try to get You're
sleep deprived on shoots like that often, so you just
I don't know. I kind of lift my eyes.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
Amazing. Yeah, And oddly enough, sometimes the the what is it?
The force of that? The the you get some of
your best work when you're up against the wall of it, right.

Speaker 4 (09:30):
You don't have you don't have the energy to feak it.
You have to be your your genuine thing comes out.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
It does, doesn't it?

Speaker 4 (09:35):
And I think it does.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
It's a freedom, that's what it is.

Speaker 4 (09:37):
I think.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
So yeah, yeah, so you met him. He he called
you in, didn't he? Because they needed a heap personal
little skinny guy.

Speaker 4 (09:44):
Right. Uh, they had shot the first they shot the
principal photography of Mimic up in Toronto, Canada. Now they're
doing pickup shots to finish out the movie with inserts
here and there, two weeks before it came out in theaters.
So I got a call from Rick Lazarini's creature shop saying, hey,
are you free tonight to do a night shoot.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
They wouldn't fly the Canadian down.

Speaker 4 (10:08):
That's why, right, that's it. Well, it was all money,
it was. It was I guess it was his.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
First project in America, and it was under some sense
of you know.

Speaker 4 (10:16):
Garryla Trres first American studio film, right. But they shot
it in Canada because it was cheaper there. And the
Canadian actor who played the overgrown creature bug guys in
the movie, but he would have to fly him, hotel him,
per deem him and salary him and work, permit him
to come down to America for that shoot. So they
can knock a lot of that out and just give
a salary to one guy who's local. Tall skinny Rollodex

(10:37):
comes out, and who do they pick? Doug? So I
got that's why.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
And it was it was the creature Rick Lazarini. It
was a creature effects about.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
Well did you read for it?

Speaker 4 (10:49):
No? No, no, I just got a call can you come
down now? Because they the creature effects community knew me
by then. It was a night shoot, so it was
a night shoot, so there were fast you know, their
referrals are good enough for the director.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Are you free? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (11:00):
And so I was, and I ended up going down
to downtown LA to stand on top of a four
story but fake rain. Deltora likes to put rain in
all of his movies, and like, so I was just
getting pelted with rain and had a little bug mask
on with a sort of a shroud that looked like
a trench coat that over wings. You know, it's kind

(11:22):
of a That's why the name mimic, right. We cockroaches
were mimicking humans, and.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
So no time to really delve into how you might
do this. It was just get it and go right.
It was like that Dave drive down. I had no
information about this movie at all or the character don
when I get there.

Speaker 4 (11:39):
Yeah, so it was explaining to me briefly, your cockroach
has grown up and you kind of stand like a man.
So it's kind of confusing when you look at him.
So just stand on the edge of the building and
look over the side. That's all I had to do.
And that shot. And apparently Germa was like, oh, thank
Heaven because they had tried to get an extra in
before me, and which I would have done too to
save money. It's a non speaking thing, and you can

(12:01):
it's a long shot away, you know, far away. You
know who do we know? It's Central casting that might
fit this costume, right. So apparently they got somebody in
who Germa wanted him to lean with his entire body
from the ankles and he was leaning from the hips
and he tried to yell up in the megaphone, no, no,
can you do the whole body from the ankle and
the guy goes yeah, yeah, yeah, from the hips right.

(12:23):
So I was like, so that's why I got the
call the same day it's like, yeah, we tried this
last night. It's not working. Can you come in right?

Speaker 1 (12:31):
So that's amazing, that, isn't it. When you either have
the bone to know what to do or you don't
have the bone. We talked about this so many times.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
It seems simple to me, but not everybody has that
second nature about what to do with their body. There
was the same we on the same guy kid was
called in for two more days on Mimic as well.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
And he loved you, didn't he right away together? Didn't you?

Speaker 4 (12:51):
At lunch on my second day? Yeah, I hadn't really
didn't know. My first night on the top of that building,
I had no idea who the director was. Second day
was on a green screen close up of the face
is kind of a quick shot.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
I'm sorry you had no idea who the director was
and you were like hired to be a large cockroach
and you said, going in out of work actor.

Speaker 4 (13:09):
Of course I did. Yeah, you'd have done the same thing.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
He said, Yeah, you're right, You're right, You're right.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
What are they paying?

Speaker 4 (13:16):
Exactly right?

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Suit? Okay, I got a bumpy.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
Right exactly exactly so so uh yeah. Then the once
that went.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Well, damn, I did a drag act. Tell me.

Speaker 4 (13:30):
Right, are they paying? Yeah, yeah, I'll put my lipstick
on show up. Right. So so the next day was well,
they like, since it went well the first night, I
came back the next day to do the close up
shot and uh that's when Geirmo set across the lunch
table from me, and he said, so tell me everything
you've been in before. And I'm like, oh uh, well,
so I started listening those you know, Batman returns and

(13:52):
I did hocus Pocus the first one. Oh did Tony
Gardner do the makeup on that? I like his work?
Is he a nice guy? So we had that conversation going.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
He loved me.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
It's just love monsters and creatures and wanted to hear
all about what I've done. You know. So I knew
I liked this guy, but he is he really the
director of the movie or is a fanboid's not in
That's right, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
That's what I was thinking, Like, yeah, unlike waste in
the prime rim here.

Speaker 4 (14:18):
Because it's getting cold. Yeah, I was wondering, like, you know,
he did. I've never met a director like him before.
He was such a fan and and come to find
out knowing him over these twenty five years, he's a
fan boy first and he and he makes he makes
movies that will make him have a geek gasm. He
said this before. And if he gets a geek gasm,
maybe the audience will too. That's his hope, right, And

(14:39):
we have so he was.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Part of that trio, wasn't he out of Mexico City Atron.

Speaker 4 (14:44):
They call themselves the Three Amigos. Yeah, so, and in
Inerratun something in.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Floyd Floyd Sure and himself.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
And they're all all been through the Awards season many
times together and yeah they so.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
And then you gave him your business card, didn't you.

Speaker 4 (15:08):
I did at that at that lunch date on the set,
and I was like, yeah, he asked me, do you
have a card? So I gave that card. And then
it was five years later on the first on the
first Hellboy movie.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
I love it, And that's when he called you up
for Hellboy. He started in mind, where did you? Where
did you get?

Speaker 4 (15:26):
I know?

Speaker 1 (15:27):
You were the cardinal in the Charlie The cardinal was
Charlie Cardinals. Was that? Was that really? The oh this
is fun?

Speaker 4 (15:36):
You know what?

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (15:37):
Because I'd seen Charlie Cardinal at football and basketball games
when I was a freshman and sophomore, I was like, gosh,
I could do better, probably, you know, you know ya
as an accurate I think I could do that probably
up the game. So I I actually auditioned to be
Charlie Cardinal my freshman year for my sophomore year and
they denied me. So I came back at the end

(15:57):
of my sophomore with a vengeance. I'm going to be
one of those Charlie. So they had a different Charlie
Cardinals for football and for basketball. So I became the
basketball Charlie.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
Much better for the weather.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
It was yeah and uh and way more games too.
Yeah yeah, so so, and I ended up in infusing
lots of performance into Charlie that the previous ones hadn't.
When the band was playing, I would go out and
dance on the floor when the when the four Sleepers
were coming through at halftime, I would follow them around
and play with them and had like a bit going.

(16:31):
I was passed up the stands. I worked out a
routine with the Pom Pom girls when they would did
their little dance number. I was like, I was a
crowd pleaser. I'll pat myself on the back for that.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
And what were you studying at bull Staate?

Speaker 4 (16:45):
Was? It was well, it was majoring in radio and
TV broadcasting and now called telecommunications or the t COM.
And my miner was in theater.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
There was a there was a thought, yeah, yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (16:57):
Wanted to major in theater. But mom and dad we
were like, oh, I mean, no one gets a job
in that. So in Indiana parents, why I didn't couldn't
blame them now, right.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Because you your brothers are all quite sort of serious people,
aren't they ones that they're all micro biologists.

Speaker 4 (17:10):
Yeah, I see. He has a PhD in molecular biology. Correct.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yea.

Speaker 4 (17:14):
And my other brother is an MBA business masters And
my other brother is a licensed therapist with his master's degree.
So I'm I'm the most uneducated of the four.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
How do you fall in?

Speaker 4 (17:25):
I'm the youngest, the younger. Yeah, so when did you start?

Speaker 3 (17:29):
You're performing.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Off to Cardinal? What happened before?

Speaker 4 (17:36):
In high school? Yeah? I started on the high school stage. Yeah,
I want, you know, performing at pep rallies, doing funny
little skits or the fall play or the variety show
in the spring whatever. My school just a small Catholic
high school, so whatever whatever they could afford to put on,
I was in it. Right.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
Are you Catholic of your Southern Baptist? I read somewhere
not Southern.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
I'm a generic Christian, yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
So practicing on you, I'm a church goer religious. I know.
Gamo was worried about. When it got to the shape
of Water just came up. It did, y came out.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Also the Pale Man, Pale Boy, pale Man, and the
one who eats the kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know
you go, mom, I got this great part in a
great movie and I eat children.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
Pleasing My mom was a tough one with my career.
So when I did the Silver Surfer, she was like, oh,
finally something I like. Bless her.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
But God rest the body of Christ's son.

Speaker 4 (18:33):
That's what you're eating. You're terrible, terrible. When but when
when Gamo uh we were working on the Crimson Peak
and uh, and I had a day off and he
called me in to have lunch with him in his
office that down this on this in the studio, Doggie,
come in, shut the door. I want to tell you
about my next movie. And he was He's saying he

(18:54):
wanted to go small scale again budget wise, and you know,
can do something creative from his heart, would be an
artistic and I was like, what, it's about time. He
hadn't done that since Pans Labyrinth. He hadn't been doing
big studio productions since then, so then he had so
when he pitched me the idea of the shape of Water.
He wanted me to play the lead fish man in it.
So I said, fish man, haven't I done that for
you before? No different, different characters. Okay, so and he

(19:19):
said much better. Ask Yeah, he said, Doggie, you're going
to be much better.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
Ass.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
You're going to be the romantic leading man of this movie.
Is what he said. I'm like Ah in a fish suit. Okay,
just start talking. So he said what. But the reason
he wanted to have this chat with me was he
was long before. He didn't have a script yet, so
it was it seemed like a premature conversation, but he
said he wanted to clear it. Yeah, but he was saying,

(19:44):
I wanted to check with you first because I know
you're a good Catholic boy. That's how he how he
knew it. And he said, I want to make sure
this is going to be okay. I said, well, what
do you what do you want me to do in
this movie? But he said, well, can I use the
F word? Yeah, because because okay, it's a precursor. Well,
Gemo speaks. I've always said he's trilingual. He speaks so Spanish,

(20:06):
English and the F word with fluidity.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
So uh. So he loved brought people do Yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
Sure, yeah, I don't swear oddly so so to quote gear, yes,
oddly enough. He Girmo said, I when I want to say,
why what do you want me to do? And I said, well,
there's a scene. Okay, what do you mean like doggy
style what? And he said he said, you know it's
in a bathtub and thought about that, but he said no,

(20:35):
it's in the bathtub. I'm like, okay, well how about
you start at the beginning and get me to the bathtub.
So that's when he so it was storytime with Germo
del Toro, and he he just verbally told me the
story how it was going to start, in middle and end.
And I was like, I had tears welling up. I'm like,
this is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Beautiful film, right it is. I think performance in it
is absolutely along with Sally's. I mean she is, oh.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
You shall Hawkins is a divine Yeah. So I told him,
I told him I called it before anybody else did this,
this this verbal storytelling in his office, and I said,
this is your next trip to the Oscars.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (21:09):
Thirteen nominations and four wings, including the Best Director, Best Picture.
Come on, yeah, I hit that one.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
So what what was the germination of you working together?
That was it the first film? How You've done six? Right?

Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (21:27):
Well after that mimic mimic story, Yeah, he kept my
card in his wallet. And then five years later, when
the first hell Boy comes up for production pre production,
Spectrum Motion Creature Shop was designing a Sapien for the
hell Boy movie and they hadn't so they hadn't really

(21:48):
shown Geirmo the maquette yet. Yeah, the sculpture of what
this character would look like in three dimensions, so they
have like a scaled down you know, And they called
him into the office. We have a final sculpture, are done?
What do you think? And they unveiled it for him
and he said, and a story has it that he
fell to his knees and said, you are so beautiful

(22:10):
and I am so fat, so so and he's so
self effacing with his humor. He's a delightful, humble, humble man.
So everyone's laughs in there and they go, you know,
we we know the perfect guy to play this. That
would be Doug Jones. Because I'd worked with everybody in
the creature shop before the sculptor and the and Michael's

(22:31):
all do the creature shop owner and the sculptor was
Jose Fernandez and uh and Mike Kill was Mikeel he
came into shape.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
So so.

Speaker 4 (22:43):
Uh, oh god, I'm trying to think of the other name.
But anyway, I guess to that age it's all good.
But but they God.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
Damn, I couldn't think of Beyonce the other day, right right,
So uh.

Speaker 4 (22:59):
They Steve Wang, that's it, thank you. I got Steve
Wang design. It's yes, it's on there. So they give
me a call while during that little meeting because my
name had come up and and Germo said, with Doug Jones,
I know Doug Jones. And that's when my car came
out of his wallet and they called me right away,
and I was like, yeah, so can you come in

(23:19):
tomorrow and see us? And so I met Germo again
five years after I'd met him on a mimic, and
so working on Hellboy one together was what really cemented
our and we developed our little shorthand language. On set.
He has to direct me very little, which is very sweet.
A lot of pre prep talk talk and you know,
you're a.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
Very diligent actor when it comes to this because you
treat these you know, monsters, if you will, what creatures
you like the actual human character does.

Speaker 4 (23:49):
And that's why he writes him that way.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
And that's a beautiful thing. And I just I admire
that work ethic, that you're not just showing up and
you know, thank you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
Do you get to rehearse before.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
You do it? It all depends on the movie and
the time you have. So with del Toro, you a
lot of the rehearsal might take place at the creature shop,
and you're going through your fittings, for instance, on that
first Hellboy movie. Once once you know they said yes
you're the guy to play this, the fittings started and

(24:21):
I know he was a he was a fish man hybrid, okay,
and he's kind of a he was just found so
he doesn't have much backstory. So how would he how
would he how would he express himself physically? And so
I was going for a fitting at the creature shop
and I had just they all had fashioned the head
and the web fingers, hand gloves, and they didn't have

(24:44):
the rest of it all built yet, So that was
just I was shirtless, pouring a pair of shorts hands
and head on. And they had a big, full length
mirror in the back of the shop and I was
standing in front of it kind of going huh, thinking
about my goldfish at home in the tank, like I
love their curious heads and I loved their we finns.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
I thought, how do I work.

Speaker 4 (25:02):
All of that in together? You know? She is, so
I'm doing this, and and I hear the voice from
across the room that I like that keep that in
Germo had snuck in that day and he was spying
on me. My gosh. And that's the last we ever
talked about abes Apien's persona.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Really.

Speaker 4 (25:18):
Yeah, it was very short, but I knew but he
was written in a way that and we did have
a quick conversation about him being very studied. He reads
three books at a time. He's very cultured. He listens
to classical music, you know. So that was his gentlemanly
self was there. And he's the calming influence on the
hell Boy team because Ron Perlman's hell Boy was very

(25:38):
brutish and squagar, smoking beer, drinking and customer.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
And he's such an ass accent.

Speaker 4 (25:44):
And Ron has said this when you when we were
doing Hellboy, too, especially, he said, you know, you and
I are much like our characters in real life.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
I said, I know, right, Smoke the guard and such
ad with him and he be attle, beautiful and just
just just fun to be. You know, it doesn't take
too seriously.

Speaker 4 (26:03):
You know, I guess start on an episode of Sons
of Anarchy and he didn't know I was coming in
that day they cast me and I kind of snuck
into the makeup Turler going hey, it's like, what are
you doing here? I'm your prison guard today a tough day.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
It's a tough day.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Are you a comic book fan?

Speaker 4 (26:18):
I haven't been a I study what comic books I
need to to get the job done when I'm in
a comic book, you know, centric movie or TV show.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
I wondered about the Silver Surfer, and right, you know
that and how I would have thought silver Surfer Marvel Universe,
Well I'm going to move to the hill.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
So that's the only one that that Marvel, and it
didn't in its wisdom, didn't take up from you know
and make up part of the Marvel at the universes.

Speaker 4 (26:49):
We know it right, well, Marvel Marvel Studios didn't come
about until after off after this Fantastic Fours.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Then something's story directed it didn't tim story. Yeah, so
so Fox was one of the last times you're going
to get dubbed as well, isn't it. Yes, we'll get
to the dubbing that was Laurens Fish. But wasn't that
a good person to be?

Speaker 3 (27:12):
Gosh?

Speaker 4 (27:12):
Yes, but no actor wants to see the part of
the performance missing when Yeah, but uh with so many questions. Okay,
so wait what happened here Silver Surfer? Yes? When I
was cast as the Silver Surfer, I went to a
comic book store. I heard of that character before and

(27:33):
didn't really remember his origins or what. But so I
go into a comic book store in Burbank and I
asked the kid at the counter, like, Okay, here's the deal.
I just got cast in the movie. What do you have?

Speaker 3 (27:47):
And he's like.

Speaker 4 (27:49):
The kid he imploded. Yeah, So so he goes back
to you know, we go back to the here here here.
So he sent me home with, you know, some anthology
of the Fantastic foward where I was introduced and and
what what spun off from there? So I saw the
original like stan Lee writing and Jack Kirby Park razing
so that was a lot that was great to study

(28:10):
and seeing these very baalletic poses that he had drawn. Uh,
and and the writing was so poetic about how he
waxed about the you know, the human condition and from
his alien observations of us. So it was like I
got a lot from the comic books to take into
the movie with me, for sure.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
And they could have seed e'd a lot of But
were you It was all costume.

Speaker 4 (28:29):
It was a combo platform. It was a yeah, yeah
it started. I was. I was in a rubberized costume
makeup every day, so I looked like the Silver Surfer
walking out of the.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Trailer every day. Uh.

Speaker 4 (28:40):
They did a CG coding on me that looked like
it was very CG you know. So uh yeah, they
did a couple of tests on.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Did it help on set that you were actually in costume?

Speaker 4 (28:50):
Me? Y, yeah, this is the Silver Service know.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
It helped it. Yeah, I was.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
I was hot looking. They gave me a very handsome
face and a great body. Right, So a lot of
the uh, you know, I remember who had when we
were doing a street scene on the streets of Vancouver.
We had some extras that were going you know, and
I got a lot of like lot of our background actors. Yeah,
and it's like if they knew what little old skinny
man was in here, they would not be impressed.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
All in that mind book you and he said, I'm so,
I'm sorry. I argued with you God about the tall
skinny thing, but it seems you had it all worked out.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
Turns out you were right.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Yeah, I just thought that was it touched my off mate,
I really did you.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
Think that the Silver Surfer with the Fantastic four was
going to.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
Oh? Of course I did well. In fact, I had
a three picture deal when I went into that. Uh
so they were going to spin the Surfer off, just
have his own, his own movie, right, and I had
You know what happened. I was already in contract for
that and then a sequel to that, So I don't
know what happened. I mean, it's above my pay grade
those decisions. So after the Fantastic four, Rise of the
Silver Surfer, the sequel, I think, I think it underperformed

(30:02):
the first one, but it's still made hundreds of millions
of dollars. But they didn't do as well as the
first one's. I don't know if they pulled the plug
or what. I don't know. I don't know. It's not
not my decision to make. But I heard there was
a script written, and that's all you have, all grape
vine stuff, so I can have no proof of anything.
But that's the last call I got for him.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
It was David Hyde Pierce. Wasn't it that dub you
was a abe?

Speaker 4 (30:24):
He David Hypier's dubbed me over? Okay, so voice stories
get over this all right?

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Well, and then Pedro al dan, I mean basicly the Spanish.
You learned it in Spanish, didn't you?

Speaker 4 (30:34):
For l boy sorry and larynth I did? I did?
I did? So I've been dubbed over a couple of times. Yeah,
the misconceptions that I'm always dubbed over because of those
couple of times that were in big movies. If you
look at Miamdib, they're all my voice except for boom
boom boom, and that's it right.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
So uh now you've got it written in well because
of don't take me.

Speaker 4 (30:59):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like if you want me to play
the part, I'm playing the part. If you don't want
me to play the voice, then that's not me at all. Yeah,
So that's in my contracts. Yeah, thankfully. But but Helboy
one when I get in. By the time that call
came to me, can you come in and let's have
a look at you for Abe Sapien, they had already
the studio, which was Sony Pictures, had already discussed get

(31:22):
somebody who can play them physically, and let's get a
voice over person because it was so hell Boy looked
like Ron Pearlman. Abe Sapan didn't look like anybody, right,
so so you're not going to get an A list
actor to go yeah, completely obliterate me. And so they
kind of figured the math out of it ahead of.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
The voice recognition facts.

Speaker 4 (31:39):
Who can we market voice wise? And then who can
we get to play these? So from the studio, if
I was a producer, I'd probably think the same way
without knowing it. And then so when that was explained
to me on that first like, oh, I'm going to come.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
In and look at you.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
Hey, hi here I am Oh you're perfect. Yeah, here's
the deal, Doug said, game with Littro. The studio is
already talking about voicing you over someone famous. So this
is this is two thousand and two. I'm hearing this,
So I didn't have a name in the I'd done
a few things, but I wasn't like Doug Jones. So
I don't know if I still am or not. But
then I really wasn't. And so I was like, oh gosh,

(32:14):
I said verbally out loud, Oh please don't do that.
I would love to do the entire role. Is that?
How is this going to work well? And so Germo said,
if you give us the voice we we need for
this part, then I will a shot. We'll throw your
name in the bucket with all the other names they
were considering. So I didn't have a prayer. They were
considering Kevin Spacey, Steve Buscemi, and David Hyde Pierce uh

(32:37):
and so when it and then so my name didn't
really hold up in that bucket.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
Of names name.

Speaker 4 (32:43):
But when it was done, when the movie was done
and finished, everybody loved what what I did, both both
visually and yeah. So I was the first one called
in to do my ad R voice looping. I came
in in clean right. I cleaned up all my own
dialogue and even that day going through it with it
without rubber on my nose. I had a clean face

(33:04):
to do all this dialogue the sound engineer came out
during lunchtime and said, Doug, I don't know, it's not
my place to say, but this is really good. You're
really do undergrade, was sweet. He hears voices all day,
so that's a compliment.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
So, and to do the idea is not ill, it's
a skill.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
Yeah. Yeah, So I'm driving home thinking they need to
look no further. I think about it, right right, Well,
two weeks later, two weeks later gambled del Toro, being
the gentleman that he is, though he called me up
himself the day before the news came out in the
in the in the trades that it was going to
be David Hypeierce's voice after all, And I said, okay,
thank you so much for calling me. Let me know
that I would have hated to read this without without
a word from you. But is it a performance issue?

(33:43):
Is there something we need to talk about that I
can learn from? You know, as an actor, you'd want
to know, right, Absolutely, so he said nope. Everything.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Everybody loved everything he.

Speaker 4 (33:51):
Did, and he said it was simply a studio choice.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
That prompts to David hype Pierce. He didn't take a credit.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
Well, there's the follow up to this.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
I was surprised, but yeah, he's a mention.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
But.

Speaker 4 (34:04):
Unneeded. He didn't have to do what he did. But no,
but he's an acts as actor, yes, obviously right. So
David Hypierce comes into. He's the one, He's the voice
that that Geermo most wanted out of the other three
that we're mentioned to. David Hyde Peers comes in and
he sees me on the on the ad R screen,
sees what I'm doing, and he heard my performance that
I'd just given right, and he's like in his ear piece,

(34:25):
so legend has it. He said, what am I doing here? Right?
Very sweet of him. So he didn't see any needed
the devil over me and he so then he realized
he was just there for his name recognition and he had.
Plus he did a great job. He's got a gorgeous
voice and he's he's got such character behind him and
he's he's brilliant. I loved him on Fraser and he
was at the height of his fame last season a Frasier.

(34:46):
I think it just aired, if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
So I got taft tartly? Did you? Did you?

Speaker 4 (34:53):
How fun?

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Right? I'm working across the glass screen and the radio
stay did you? Yeah? Literally is the first thing evident
in town.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
Up got live taping, live studio audience.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
That's all the other expers. There's a big shot from
London over here.

Speaker 4 (35:15):
And he's infinite. Here's your mom so uh any any who?
So when the movie then was coming out, uh, David
Hyde Pierce. Actually his name didn't show up in the credits,
not not the front main titles or the crawling credits
at the end his name. And he didn't show up
at the red carpet to do any press or premiere.

(35:36):
He didn't do the press junket, nothing. And when asked,
when asked why, he said, it's out of respect to
Doug Jones. He didn't want to take the fun. That's
I he certainly could have been you know, yeah, he
did a brilliant, brilliant job with the voice, and he
should have taken credit for it. But the fact that
he didn't is just like I never met him to
this day, and when I do, he's getting the kiss
right there.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
Thank you were you just stated?

Speaker 4 (36:01):
And well, because I knew what this was going to mean,
I knew here we are right now. It's twenty twenty five,
this was this was three the movie came out, right,
so what is that it's twenty two.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Years later, in twenty years maybe twenty.

Speaker 4 (36:13):
Two years later now, and we are and we're still
talking about it. Yeah, that's what I knew was going
to happen, right, And I was like, oh this, I'm
gonna have to answer this for the rest of my career,
right right, So sorry, no, no, no no, but it
does confuse the audience, and so it needs it needs
he's talking out.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
But the story actually is lovely that I love the
fact that it was nothing to do with your performance
and it was purely and I'm sure you know the
film still everyone who went to see it recognized the voice.
They just didn't realize, you know. And blessed me didn't
put himself in the credits.

Speaker 4 (36:46):
And no, yeah, he's on IMDb because the people figured
it out. Anyone can add to that.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
But and the story's out and now the story official. Yeah, yeah,
but you will.

Speaker 4 (36:56):
During that phone call with giarm Miltro, he said, if
we get the chance to do a hell Boy two,
I will keep your voice intact for.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
That, right. He lived up to there.

Speaker 4 (37:02):
It is in Hellboy two. That is me visual and audio.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, and let's talk about then.

Speaker 4 (37:10):
Okay, speaking of loving, I.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Mean crikey tostering around on those Lee Bowery in high
heels for twelve hours a day that you can describe them.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
Yeah, uh saru right again. Having the meeting with with
When the show started, it was being developed by Brian
Fuller and Alex Curtzy. So Brian Fuller was the first
showrunner before he was replaced.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Something did he cost you? As it were?

Speaker 4 (37:38):
Yes, he came looking for me. Yes. So it was
very sweet of him, kind of like. I had a
meeting with him and two of his head writers in
in a conference room and they were they were pitching
the show to me. You know, you know, I didn't
have to audition for it. I'm like, this is a
Star Trek show.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Things just changing.

Speaker 4 (37:54):
Yeah, So I'm like, well, maybe I'll think about it.
But but so in that first meeting, I saw a maquette,
a sculpture of what Seru might look like, and I
saw those hoof boots and I said, mm, that could
be a problem. What are the feet doing? So it
was a high heel shoe without a heel, and so
they said, oh, those are It's like a high heel

(38:14):
shoe without a heel, like Lady Gaga wears sometimes on stage.
I'm like, well, Gaga can do it all right. So
so in my first costume fitting, there was a mock
up of what the boots might be. They were like
in light blue neoprene, just so the cobbler making the
shoes want to see is this going to work? And

(38:36):
and so he had tried them out ahead of time,
and and and so I slipped them on for the
first time. They were my perfect size, and I was like, okay,
here goes. And I stood up and uh. And the
cobbler said, it helps if you push your hips, shift
your weight over the ball of the foot, don't rely
on your heel because you don't have one. Ah. So
I did that. I'm like, okay, so I got my balance.

(38:57):
I start walking around the costume area and they had
a big, wide, full length mirror in there, and I
was looking like I hadn't really developed his walk yet
because I didn't know how to and you know, and
here's the here's the thing. Thirty some years into my
career at that point, how do I make this character
different than the ones I've played before him? I've played
Aliens before. I want him to be different, and so

(39:19):
that posture and that and all of a sudden my
hands hands I love well, I haven't move because my
hips were for it. I had room to do this
behind me.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
I'm like, was that for balance? Initially it was just
kind of well, this didn't feel right.

Speaker 4 (39:33):
Now that did, and it just kind of naturally happened
that thank you shoes, shoes. Yeah, yeah, it's like help
just it was exactly what you know. He's a kelpian,
so he was adept on land with the hoofs. So
it gives you like a he's kind of like an
antelope who can who can outrun the lion. But he's
also uh you know, got sort of octopusy looking, sort

(39:53):
of like you know, uh water look. Yeah, he's like
a sea creature as well. So I want him to
have fluidity but also very adept when he runs and
plays in the forest.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Beautiful, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
So so that what's running?

Speaker 4 (40:09):
I did? I ran in season one, and then by
the time we got to season five, I was older
and I had already thrown a knee out and a
shoulder out on the show, and I thought I cannot
fall one more. I've only fallen. I felt twice on
the show out of five seasons. I fell twice in
those boots, so that's really good.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
That's pretty good.

Speaker 4 (40:28):
One of them took an ankle out and it took
me a while to recover from that, but I had
to keep working, so he bandaged me up and I
got back on set. So anyway, but by the time
I was done, I will give all props to my
stunt double, Boston Kamalari.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
Right, Yeah, that boy, he's right.

Speaker 4 (40:46):
He's twenty five years Yes, Boston is twenty five years
younger than me. A tall, skinny boy who can take
a hit and not break those that's a rare fine.
So you keep him right, you know what I mean? Yeah,
so he did. In the final season of Star Trick Discovery,
Episode two, I go on away mission with Burnham Saru
and burn him alone, right, and there's so he's faster

(41:08):
than humans, stronger than humans, can see better here, better
than humans. So all this, and I'm in my sixties
by now, going, I don't feel it right, right, So
I would be I would do a scene here going
oh and then jump out, and then Boston calm Ali
would come in and do the running and jumping over
rocks and diving under logs and whatever.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
It was the forest, Yeah, seamless.

Speaker 4 (41:29):
It was great. And he had he had to run
really super fast too. So what they did a trick
where they had a really super long carpet being pulled
by a pickup truck. Boston ran on that carpet motion
in those shoes, Bless his soul, and so he was going,
you know, twenty miles and thirty miles an hour while running. Oh,

(41:50):
great trick, right.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
And no rug rash and no rug rash.

Speaker 4 (41:56):
Yeah that was that was later. Yeah, he was off.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
Well, it's a lovely performance. And I just to do
the love relationship you have with President Trina. Yeah, me too,
really lovely.

Speaker 4 (42:13):
Howson is Shakespearean trained stage at Vancouver. Lady Toronto. Actually
she's in Niagara on the Falls, Niagara on the Lake.
I'm sorry, he's really It was terrific and so fantastic
her first day on set when she came when she
hologrammed into our bridge. You know, we were arriving at
her planet and she beamed aboard kind of to have
a chat with us, where we were all like because

(42:36):
she was she stood with such posture and such great.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
She's not a tall lady, She's not tall, but she
has tall she.

Speaker 4 (42:44):
Has a tall Pressurestford. Yes, yeah, exactly right, I see yeah,
so uh and she delivered. You know, our show start
tak is full of monologues. You all know this. We
all monologue back and forth to each other with tech
talk and intricate verbal.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Did they were they were they d l P. As
we called it on our show, dead letter perfect? On
your show?

Speaker 4 (43:05):
We were?

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Yeah, they wanted dead letter perfect?

Speaker 4 (43:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, very because it's you know, pains taking
lengths to write that stuff and that I couldn't understand anyway,
So I better get it right or I'm gonna if
I can't riff on that kind of dialogue.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
What did you think when you got cast by Brian
and Brian Leaves?

Speaker 4 (43:23):
Yeah, a couple of weeks later.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Yeah the show was soon as that was that soon?

Speaker 4 (43:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (43:28):
Pulling out about the timeline that.

Speaker 4 (43:29):
Yeah, and I don't know and I never still this day,
don't really quite know that all the reasons why the shift,
but you know.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
Well he was right because the timeline stayed. He said
he didn't have enough time and Okay, I didn't have
enough time and although Curtsman took over and.

Speaker 4 (43:44):
Yeah, we got it, we got we got it mounted
after all. But yeah, but it's lovely.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Brian's coming in actually soon, is he easy?

Speaker 4 (43:52):
Yeah, he's a lovely I love him dearly.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
Yeah, just his mom sadly did he?

Speaker 4 (43:56):
I didn't hear that part. Oh, I just saw him
at the at the to premiere.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
Well that brings us well to a.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
Confusing topic out At the same time, it's like.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
In the what was it the early nineties when they
had two like l A Volcano.

Speaker 4 (44:17):
Movies surprising right right, right right?

Speaker 1 (44:21):
But have you seen the Eggers one?

Speaker 4 (44:22):
I was at the premiere of that one. That's where
I saw Brian Fuller.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah, yeah, I didn't mind it actually, and.

Speaker 4 (44:26):
I thought it was great, a different take on it.
Eggers really expanded the folklore that went that came into
fraudus being and and added a color and and gore
and sexiness that the original Silent film did not have.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
And we are I've seen the trailer, Oh thank you.

Speaker 4 (44:44):
Yeah, it's more scene for seeing from the Silent film,
but with with verbal dialogue instead of silent and we
were done in black and white, and we were blended
in with the old movies.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Amazing with Savidly Fisher Fish and you worked with him
on the Cabinet of Doctor.

Speaker 4 (44:58):
Calgary's in the same process this old movie new movie
put together.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
So you do that, so your old green screen.

Speaker 4 (45:04):
We're working on a lot of green screen, right, and
then the old movie he'll create matt shots off of
he'll have of stills.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
How does he get sort of permission to do that?

Speaker 4 (45:15):
They're in public domain, public domain because one hundred.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Years old, twenty two yeah, yeah, so.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
And gosh, Cabinet of Doctor Caligary was nineteen nineteen. We're
all so those old movies. The good thing about them
to lift imagery from is that a lot of wide
shots stayed wide for a long time. They didn't cut
in for as many close ups as we do now. Right,
Doing these wide shots of these old silent movies, actors

(45:41):
would move in and out, back and forth, and he
could capture what was behind them and remove them all
together and have a clean set with no actors in it. Right,
we're on green screen. Plops us insure that, right, Yeah,
that's the basics of it. But then he does cut
in for close ups and we would in No Satu
spec my Nostrat to Apple TV, Amazon Prime now on

(46:02):
two B as well for free.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
I'm gonna watch it. Okay, I thought it. I thought
it was you delayed the release on account of you know,
let's let's let the other one dissipate a bit.

Speaker 4 (46:12):
No ours came out two months before there did it? Yeah,
which was really awkward timing because we did ours years
ago and it just took Indie budget, so it took
a long time to get out and.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
David know that Eggers was doing it at the time.

Speaker 4 (46:25):
Beggars announced that he was going to make this in
twenty seventeen, I think. So it's been a while, and
so I sent emails around that day going, do you
guys know this? Can we up the game here?

Speaker 3 (46:35):
So rename it?

Speaker 4 (46:36):
Yeah? Yeah, Well ours is called Noratu a Symphony of Horror,
and there his is called no Fratu.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Gotcha.

Speaker 4 (46:43):
So if you look us up and yeah, like I said,
Amazon Prime and Apple TV or to B, you'll see
the thumbnails. Me going in a window.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
It's a black and fabulous in it. Mate, I didn't
recognize myself. Yeah, the makeup fantastic. It's a maze so
I had.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
A great time. He was my bucket list character I
wanted to play. Yeah, he was a hell hadn't played
a whole since well, yeah he does. I hadn't played
a vampire years ago when we filmed it. I hadn't
played a vampire yet, and I knew. I was like,
I'm not. I don't think I've I don't feel sensual
enough to be a Dracula because he you know.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
And I don't feel different. That's a different vibe, different vibe.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
And I wasn't young and sparkly enough to be a
Twilight vampire right like the kids do. So but no
Sprat He's ugly and withered and like and has no
idea what he's become. That I get.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Klauskinski's was wonderful too.

Speaker 4 (47:38):
Yeah in the seventies, right, yeah, yeah, that was my.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
Sort of era, right, But I loved that the shadow
shot of you going up the stairs, and.

Speaker 4 (47:47):
Yeah, we created a lot of like, you know, scene
for seeing, like I said, imagery that that you would
expect from the first movie. So the shadow going up
the stairs, yeah, and uh and coming up from the
often in the the shot famous the ship hulled buffamous
shot and also looking up at me from the ship
while the one remaining sea crew member of the of

(48:09):
the ship looks up and sees in the lightning just
standing there looking at him.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
I just read Dracula. Actually I've never read it before. Okay, yeah, yeah, no, I.

Speaker 4 (48:19):
Read it over Halloween because yeah, and even then, and
also the final shot of no Swatch before he's burned
by the sun in the original Silent film was grabbing
the heart this way and going like this, very melodramatic.
So I wanted to hit I wanted to, like the
Silver Surfer, I wanted to strike those poses that were
iconic and famous for him. But I had to find
a real way and a genuine way to get into

(48:40):
them and out of them, right, So that that was
my but to do an homage to the original film,
I needed to hit those moments for sure.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
You know, have you ever found yourself watching something and thinking.

Speaker 4 (48:55):
Oh, always you're watching myself yourself so much as as
you know, because you play so many characters that have
so much prosthetics and you know, dynamic costuming, you know
that you you get into it and everybody goes, we're
signing off of this.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
And you're kind of like.

Speaker 4 (49:14):
This is most of my Yak's moments are when of
the human characters that I've played watching my real face is.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
Like, oh stop doing that.

Speaker 4 (49:22):
Why is the light catching every wrinkle across you know whatever?
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
I've said that many times. We all am I the
musince amongst really well lit, beautiful people.

Speaker 4 (49:32):
It's true, It's true, But we character actors. This is
our lot now. Yeah, I know, I know, I know.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
Are you more comfortable in one place or the other? Yea,
whether prosthetics versus just.

Speaker 4 (49:44):
Well, the older I get, the older the process of
prosthetics has gotten. Yeah, I'm now pursuing more human characters
than ever. And the last since I took Saru off
on Star Trek Discovery for the last time, I have
played humans for the last year and a half, loving
every minute of it.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
And I tell you, I mean barre enough and I
and in the Shadows thank.

Speaker 4 (50:02):
You another vampire that came along after I filmed those.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
He is fantastic.

Speaker 4 (50:07):
Yeah, oh, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
I love to go through some s h one t
to get to the human Baronete and.

Speaker 4 (50:12):
Baron aff And has had four different looks on that
show is starting in full prosthetics body starting making it
and then.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
It's dark.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
And then I got burned by the sun and broken
in half. So charged half a body and then miraculously
brought back to this with a wig full limbs, and
then burned by the sun a second time, so it
charged that version, miraculously brought back a fourth time.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
It is beautiful man.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
I love him doing. I know Matt Berry a bit
from London.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
You Yeah, he is hilarious.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
It's hilarious.

Speaker 4 (50:41):
And when you're working with the funniest people in the
business and the funniest writers in the business and you
get to riff off off script to your now there
you encourage you are, oh gosh, well we'll do it
as scripted a couple of times and then they'll say
the fun one. So now we're just play as much
as you want and they film all of it.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yeah, what's the new Zealander boy's name? Who wrote it?

Speaker 4 (51:01):
The two that that actually helped create the series as well,
they did the movie.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
And Jamine Clement, Jim and are they around at all
times most.

Speaker 4 (51:11):
Lot at the beginning. Yes. The pilot episode was directed
by Taika and the show runner at the time the
head writer was Jermaine and then then they let it
kind of they kept their name attached to it, but
then others took over as the seasons progressed.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Yeah, so it's a mighty show.

Speaker 4 (51:26):
It's a great fun And that also came to close
this year, so season six closed that one out. So
I got two series that I'm done with now going huh, well, now,
so I've been reading a lot of indie scripts I have,
I have, and I've said yes to seven of them,
whether they get their money together or not, you know
how that is? So yes, So this You've.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
Been about to do three movies for about five exactly, Jackie, Right,
So you're right.

Speaker 4 (51:49):
So it could be a busy year.

Speaker 3 (51:50):
It could be enoughing new financed series of not.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
Are they still doing fine?

Speaker 3 (51:55):
Yeah they are, Yeah they are.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
These are human parts, all human party.

Speaker 4 (52:01):
The most non human one I've done was since since
Seru was an alien in human form and he wasn't
quite pulling it off. So this was a movie called
Operation Taco garys Uh, and it's it's a comedy. Two
brothers on a road trip and at the end, one
of the brothers is a conspiracy theory about aliens and

(52:21):
the other one is kind of a normal guy. And
they're played by Dustin Milligan from Shit's Creek, he was
the veterinarian boyfriend and Simon Rex from the scary movie
franchise Pretty Boy, who's very funny, both of them very
funny and pretty. So they're brothers, and so the Simon
Rex character is the one who's kind of like, there's aliens.

(52:42):
So they get to the end of their road trip
and sure enough they meet me, and I'm the manager
of a taco place called Taco Garys. And that's kind
of like the center of our that's the epicenter of
our Earth takeover. And so I'm kind of I'm kind
of bald, capped, gold eye contacts and dressed. I'm wearing
a yeah when you meet me, and my skin's a

(53:03):
little grayish, not totally gray, but a little grayish.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
So as have you found that when you get because
i mean he talks about this when he was on
Stargate and he becomes Michael. How much do you find
that when you get into the costume itself, it inform
it reinforms your interpretation.

Speaker 4 (53:20):
It's a combo again, another combo platter. You get You
get a lot of information from your script, a lot
of information from your your director chat, a lot of
information from your design, your look, you're costuming, your your
rubber bits, if they're glued on here or not. And
then on the day how the scene plays out. It
might play out differently than you thought. We never We
never know, right, right, The.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
Old autage always was, wasn't it. You know it starts
with the shoes. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (53:44):
Yeah, many actresses especially I have talked about it with
their you know, stiletto heels makes you feel way different
than like tennis shoes.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
Right, Do you have a room full of the bits?

Speaker 4 (53:54):
Indeed, I've said whatever I've been able to save, Yeah,
I just didn't start saving until later years. I didn't
never know that there renewed.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
I know.

Speaker 4 (54:02):
I was like, you can throw that away?

Speaker 1 (54:06):
What I know now? Some have some I want to
talk a little bit about that episode of Buffy the
Hush Brothers. I actually I called them the Moyle Brothers
oil because I never actually saw the whole episode. I
saw a clip of it the other day and you
come in with the knife and the guys spoiled out

(54:27):
on the table.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
Oh, looks like you're going to take it, cut his
hard out. I know you.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
I thought I thought you were going to cut something else,
not oil brothers.

Speaker 4 (54:38):
Yes, oh that's.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
A long one. We're gonna make a sleeping bag out
of that.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
We were there, we were there to collect seven hearts,
right and yeah?

Speaker 1 (54:47):
So yeah, general, what season was that? Buffy is poor?
All right? I did too. Did my first job on
American TV. My praiser was now Come Well that was
my taft tart, and then I got the glorified extra
part and then I got my full cord was I

(55:07):
think Buffy? And then I went on and did Jungle
to Jungle with Tim Allen.

Speaker 4 (55:11):
Oh okay, that was my yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, how fine.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
I made Buffy history too, because you didn't you make
some sort of Buffy history.

Speaker 4 (55:19):
It was only Emmy nominated episode, that's right, and yeah
and a fan favorite to this day, so this day.
And you you know when they make like action figures
and Funko pops, the Gentleman is one of them. Really yeah, yeah,
a guest star of one episode and it became one
of the one of the four Funko pops they made
from the entire series.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Well, in Convention World, you must have horror.

Speaker 4 (55:40):
Do you do you want to hear a fun fact
about the Funko Pop figure, specifically collectible square box with
the bobble headlefinging it. Out of all the actors who
have played characters that are now Funko Pops, I have
eleven of them and that holds the record.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
I think.

Speaker 4 (55:55):
The next person behind me, the funk Company said they
verified this. The next one behind me was seven. Wow.
So if I can hang on to that, I don't know.
Maybe maybe whoever passes me up is going to be
a great God bless them. Not here, yeah, I know,
but you know, and Star Trek Discovery being the first

(56:17):
of you know, since your show, since the enterprise.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
Yes, there hadn't been anything on TV ten. Was it
twelve years? Someone told me the other day.

Speaker 4 (56:25):
Was it that?

Speaker 1 (56:25):
Because at least we started seventeen, said eight, and someone
said twelve and five.

Speaker 4 (56:30):
We were twenty seventeen, So it was twelve years, twelve
years later. So yeah, yeah, so so that we killed it,
so right, it turns out you did. But we were
the first of the new wave of shows that then
it started on streaming. It was a whole new era
of television. Yeah, And so it was a whole You

(56:53):
guys had the advantage of being on television that came
through the airwaves, so you had channel flippers that would
land on you and go, oh, what's that. We didn't
have that.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
You had to find it, find us, right. In some
ways that was a better thing that the fandom knew
exactly where to find it and they could find it
any anytime. So there's that we we saw our landscape
was changing upm was just not the network that it
could need to be to sustain a show like that,
and we got bump. You know, I think you're still

(57:25):
football in Texas.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
There's a you know, it's a limited exposure because if
you're searching for it, you're searching for it because you're
a Star Trek yeah right, you know, and being able
to find new audiences, which your show did and and
helped spawn the other shows.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
But and I think your show is definitely ushered in,
you know, a new generation that wanted some reflection of
their world on their Star Trek show rather than the old.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
That's not a real rock.

Speaker 4 (58:03):
Our budget, our budgets, yeah, our budgets were way higher
than shows was did Discovery have what's happening? In the news.
Who's happening on the screen?

Speaker 3 (58:14):
This new technology of this no green screen, but all the.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
Ar wall, the skates, Yeah, the shape wayr wall that
had projection. Amazing.

Speaker 4 (58:23):
No, it's amazing technology.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Phenomenal. Yeah, it must have wa a playground. I mean
it must have been a lot.

Speaker 4 (58:27):
It was, indeed. But yeah, when I when I look
at the behind watching this come together, behind the scenes,
and and watching DVD bonus features, you get that as
an audience, you can see what how much went into
each episode and each moment that they created, and you.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
Had a lovely cost and a full movie budget.

Speaker 4 (58:42):
Happened. Martin Green. We talked about Tara Rossling and my
romantic relationship with her on screen, but my brother's sister
like relationship with Snequa was genuine. We call each other
brother and sister to this day. Dearly, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah,
you guys have met her.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
Of course she came on.

Speaker 4 (59:00):
She's extor genuine as can be.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
Yeah, she is extreme, bloody good actress and a fantastic
leader and a leader, absolute leader on and off camera. Correct, Correct,
she was.

Speaker 4 (59:11):
You know when you have a number one on the
call sheet, Yes, that that is such a team player
and such a a a gatherer and a and a
maternal type gets get together. She took care of us,
and she became a producer and not many seasons in
and and she was kind of the one who had
the actor's voice to the production. It was out for us.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
So was Discovery your first series?

Speaker 4 (59:35):
No, I've been a regular on Falling Skies before this.
Falling Skys was on T and T network again, one
of those they want to find us, uh, and we
I was. It was a five season show. I was
in the last three. I was in season three four
five and I was an alien on that as well.
My name was my name was co Cheese and uh.
That was starring with Noel.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
Wiley Will Patten right, And Noah's back. I see he's
back on medical show.

Speaker 4 (01:00:02):
He knows more cells right now. But here it's different
than you are.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
I haven't seen, isn't it. Yeah? There there on the
billboard today? Yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:11):
And talk about a gentleman again another another number one
the Tall Sheet. That was absolutely wonderful to work with.
And he took care of us as well. That's amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Yeah, well, well it's been lovely. I won't think if
we've I think we've uncovered turned all the stones over.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Well, if I could ask you maybe a deeper question
about discovery, what did you take from it for your
yourself as the experience, as a person, as an actor,
as a representative of someone in the Star Trek universe.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
Right right, right? A few thinks A couple of things. Yeah,
but uh, being the first person to play a new species, yes,
so helping develop that was an honor for me and
also a little bit of stress, thinking like, I hope
he sticks, I hope he takes. I hope the audience
relates to him and can find there's find something in him.

(01:01:04):
Turns out they did, yes, because he was a prey
species on his home planet when when you first meet him,
and he's the only one who ever broke away from
that and joined Starfleet. And in one of those short tracks,
you'll see my backstory, it's called The Brightest Star. The
short tracks that they did, little twenty short films. One
of them was all about Sarrou's beginnings and you'll see
me in a hut with my family and how I

(01:01:26):
had a curious gazing at the stars, wondering what else
was out there that I could relate to as a
teenager in Indiana, what else is out there for me? Right?
We all can relate to that when we're young, like
about what's to become of me? Will I be a
useful member of society? Well, Saru had that same wonder
but with a much bigger scope, you know, all of
space he was wondering about. So when he made he

(01:01:49):
jimmied a way to make contact and Michelle Yo's captain
Georgia was then Lieutenant Georgio back in time, and she
shuttled down and took me away, telling me I can
ever come back because of the prime directive. Right, my
society didn't know warp technology, so if she took me away,

(01:02:10):
I couldn't come back and share what I knew. So
so that whole that whole thing was relatable in a way,
like because we all have decisions to make in life
and will there's sometimes there's no going back with some
decisions we make, right, But the fear thing, the fear
thing was the biggest driver for me that he was

(01:02:30):
born into fear. He had threat gangly that popped out
of the back of his head whenever he sent something
that was he couldn't see it but he knew something
was there. This is Doug Jones. This is who I
am in real life. I'm terrified of tomorrow if I
can't see what's coming. If every time I open the
mailbox or open emails, it's like, what's going to be
here today that I can't take care of that, that's

(01:02:51):
going to take three hours of work that I'm gonna
I'm going to fail. At one opportunity, I'll have my
agent call me for the you know, hey, so and
so want to talk to about a movie. I'm like, oh,
one more opportunity to fail. Now they're going to find
out that I can't act. This is the one. No,
this is how I've lived my life. And so Saru
lived like that. You're in fear every day and detecting
threats constantly. So but in season one and part of

(01:03:15):
season two he lived like that, pushing through that fear
to complete his task and his duty for the day.
He got through it somehow, and I'm like, Okay, I
learned a lot from pressing on even in the midst
of fear.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
Got it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
But then in season two also at one point he
was going through Vaharai, so his threat gang. They were
sprung out and were swollen, and it's like, okay, this
is a part of the Kelpian's life. And he explained
it all in that episode of season two where I die.
We get to this point where where we go through
Vaharai and the predator species on our planet did mercy

(01:03:50):
killings for us. That's how they but we were duped
this whole time. I found out that as being away
from my planet and away from the predator speed's I'm
going through Vahara all by myself. There's no one there
to do a mercy killing. So that's why I ask
Michael Burnham to come to my quarters. It's time. Can
you take this knife and cut my threat gangly off
and that will be the end of me. Well she

(01:04:12):
gets to it and they fall out on their own,
and I'm like, oh right, and so that's why, and
what's I and all my innate fear gone. He now
has a new courage and confidence he'd never had before.
I'm like, oh my gosh, if we could learn how
to do that in our human lives, if I could

(01:04:33):
just nothing around him had changed, His reaction to it
had changed, right, So it's not the stimuli that I'm
getting that can ruin my day. It's how I react
to it. That's what can either ruin or make my
day better.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
It's willfulness, right, Yeah, and so.

Speaker 4 (01:04:47):
I've learned that's what I might takeaway, and a lot
of the fans that I meet on the on the
convention circuit will have that same thing. I totally relate.
I deal with anxiety and fear every day. Thank you
so much for helping me play through this through Saru,
I said, I'm on the same page. So I relate
to the fans on that level, for it feels your
heart and breaks your heart at the same same time,
exactly right, right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
Yeah, it's weird, we're I'm an anxious person and yeah,
meditation helps, right. And the older we get, the more
wise we hopefully become about It's never quite the end
of the world, right.

Speaker 4 (01:05:27):
Age has brought me that to a little bit of
wisdom and picking your battles more wisely. Yes, what's important?
What isn't? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
I always thought that everything is going to be okay,
because the alternative is you're dead. There you go, I
mean truly, there you go.

Speaker 4 (01:05:42):
I'll drink that you can work through, You'll drink anything.
Thank you. So so much, my gosh, thank you for
having me.

Speaker 3 (01:05:49):
So we're going to see you in the week and
a half.

Speaker 4 (01:05:55):
You me San Francisco, tract to San Francisco, get the dog.
Hug more more hugs are coming.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
That's right, Thanks for coming in, mate, Thank you so
much for having on huge talent.

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
Thank you man.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
I wish you all with us for the future. You too, Yeah,
thank you, mate. I wish I was tall unskinny.

Speaker 4 (01:06:15):
God you he got you right to That's okay, okay,

(01:07:02):
spot Ble