Tell me how you got started in the whole showbiz
thing.
I have two older sisters in Nashville and they started taking
dance lessons when I was a little kid. So I would have to
drive with my mom to drop
them off and pick them up and all that stuff. And while sitting in the
waiting rooms all that time, I came to think "Heck, that looks like
fun!" So I started taking tap lessons when I was about five, and
I was the only guy in the class because not a lot of five year-old boys
want to dance. So I kept taking the class and started dancing as an extra
in these ballets and dance groups that would come through town.
And through that, because Nashville, even though it's got
about a million people, it's still pretty much a small
town. And in that small community
I was one of the few young boys who was doing anything like that. So
when they would do local commercials they would call me to walk through
the frame, or just push a bike down the street in the background or something.
Not exactly challenging stuff, but I did all that kind of crap and then
kind of started to fall in love with it. I started doing local plays
in Nashville, and as I got into my early teens I started doing some films
that would shoot around town. You know, something for the Disney channel,
something for TV somewhere... and I would audition when they would cast
the teeny little roles, you know like "boy carrying fish".
So I would go audition for the role of "boy carrying fish" and
if I got the job I would go... you know, carry the fish.
So I started doing little parts like that. And that's when
I got legitimately into the acting thing. I was 15 years
old I remember, and I said, "I
want to do this for a living." About that time we'd come to L.A.
on a family vacation and I was blown away by Los Angeles. Here was a
town where the billboards were for movies! And you drive down the street
and traffic slows down and you realize it's because, "Oh, they're
MAKING a movie right there." It was just a surreal experience for
me to be out here and to see all of the things that you see on television
and on movie screens from the time you're zero... and it's just surreal.
It's like sensory overload. Everything seems so mythical, but here you're
seeing the reality of it. And I remember I just knew at that point that's
what I wanted to do.
I remember telling my dad of that I wanted to go to UCLA,
because that was the only school in Calfornia that I had
ever heard of. I wanted to
go to UCLA, and I wanted to major in theater. I remember being scared...
I can remember where I was because I was petrified. I thought, "He's
going to pull over the car, throw me out of the car and drive off sobbing." I
just thought he would think that was a fruity concept. But he just said, "All
right. Sounds good. Good for you." Which I was shocked by... that
modicum of approval! And ever since that day I knew I would eventually
go to college in California and major in theater.
It just shows how not rebellious I am. Most kids, they're like, "I'm
going to leave town and I'm gonna be on Broadway!" And my dream
was, "I'm gonna finish high school, and go to college and major
in theater!" It doesn't have that same Kerouac edge to it as I thought
at the time. But it seems pretty outlandish for a Nashvillian, in my
mind, to be going to California to pursue the whole acting thing. And
so that's how I got into it, I moved out there and went to college and
was still as infatuated with the process as I was when I was 15, which
I thought was a pretty good sign. So I just stayed out here to pursue
it.
I was watching The WB recently and there you were
in an "Ernest" movie.
Yes... ah, yes... an "Ernest" movie!
Which one was it?
Well they are so varied in their themes. I was in the first one, Ernest
Goes to Camp. At least I have that to say about my "Ernest" experience.
Was that your first big movie?
Well, my first big job was doing a live TV broadcast of A Member
of the Wedding which they shot in Nashville, and they broadcast
it live on NBC nation wide. And that was cool. I had four lines, but
because they did it like a live play I got to rehearse with the actors
for three weeks, then come on at the end and say my lines. To me, I thought
that was the big time. Because it was the real deal... it was movie cameras,
and people from LA! Little did I know at that point that people from
L.A. are nutbags, but... at that point I thought they were cool.
But that was my first big thing, and then after that I
did a slightly bigger role for the same director in a
Disney Channel movie. Another
small part, but that was cool because, you know... you have the dressing
room and it's a period piece so suddenly you're in knickers and a newsboy
cap and you've got a little chair with your name on it. That was awesome. "Ernest" was
the biggest of them, but it was like, third in line of the jobs that
I did in Nashville.
Acting as a kid... was that
your main thing, or did you have other stuff going on?
I had other things going on. I went to a highly academic
all-boys prep school. So at the time I was doing "Ernest", I was also studying
second year Latin and doing all the prep school academic requirements.
I was also big into playing team sports... I was playing football, and
ran track. I remember being disgruntled about doing "Ernest" because
that shot at the beginning of the school year. They were exceptionally
cool about letting me go work on it, but consequently I lost my place
on the kickoff team because I wasn't in practice. And I was a Junior
and I thought being on the kickoff team was a very big deal, you know.
Acting did not come without its price in 1987. It's a big deal when you're
young and you're playing sports... being on the team is a big deal.
How involved were your parents at the beginning
of your career?
They were involved in as much as I wanted them to be involved. They never
pushed me to do anything I didn't want to do. In fact, they thought the
whole thing was kind of fruity... not me being in these things, but you
know, they didn't trust these people coming in from out of town. They
definitely looked at it askance, the whole business. But, you know, they
also... if I wanted to take the the local community acting class, they
let me take the acting class. They drove me to and from the acting class.
I guess when you get older you realize your parents were a lot more involved
than you thought there were. They were hauling me back and forth, they
were taking time off from work to be a guardian for me on sets before
I was 18. They were always incredibly supportive.
But
also, if I had said, "I
don't want to do that any more", then they would have
been fine with that. They never in any way shape or form encouraged
me to make a decision I didn't want to make. They encouraged
me to follow my passion. So they were there for that, but they
weren't intervening on behalf of the fact that I might make
some more money. It was all about, "If you like it, great.
You know, go to Vanderbilt and study medicine, or go to USC
and study film... whatever you want to do, we support you."
Let's
talk about USC a bit. Was your education what you expected
it would be?
The interesting thing about acting schools is, like... if you go to law school
or you study pre-law and you graduate at the top of 5 percent of your class,
you're going to get an offer from a big law firm. It's a guarantee. If you
go to a drama school and kick-ass and take names, graduate with a high GPA
and all the respect of your teachers... it doesn't mean jack squat in the real
world. There's absolutely no correlation between what you are learning in school,
and what is going to happen to you when you leave school.
And as far as like what I expected out of USC, I remember very distinctly having
no idea what to expect out of USC and or any other drama program, because all
I had taken was small high-school affiliated acting programs. Going to USC,
one thing I loved about it was being around people who take it seriously. You
know, when you're the one kid in your high school class doing it, it seems
like a frutiy pastime. Then you arrive at college and there's a couple hundred
people who are real serious about it, and really want to get the good roles,
and really want to study... I found that very encouraging.
It was kind of different because you've got all these people from all parts
of the country coming into the theater school and some are open-minded artsy
people... you know, I came from this smallish conservative town, playing sports
and doing the acting on the side if it didn't interfere with my academia. And
other people were showing up to college and sitting around playing acoustic
guitar naked while smoking pot. So I didn't quite fit in with that group so
much. It felt a little odd. But I sort of came to embrace the madness that
was playing guitar naked and smoking pot, but from afar. When I showed up people
usually put their clothes back on.
Oh
well.
Do you feel that your theater education prepared
you for a career in show business?
Um... hm. I guess I would say no. But I don't think that there is a way to
prepare someone for this career. That may sound like a cop out, but I think
the only real way to figure it out is to go at it and do it. What I find is
that a lot of people I went to college with, people with a lot of talent, people
for whom I have a lot of respect... a lot of them would get into the audition
process, or the finding an agent process, and they would just instantly realize
it wasn't for them at all. And it wasn't because they didn't have the talent,
or they didn't have the balls or anything like that.
There's a certain number of odd processes that go into pursuing an acting career
in Los Angeles. I mean, this is an industry where 50 year-old men can be struggling
to get one line on something, and the 19 year-old kid down the street is a
millionaire because he's been on a show for three years. There's no seniority,
there's no "right way" to do it. In fact, the ultimate truth is that
there is no right way to do it. There are a million different guys and girls
who tried a million different ways with a million different results. I don't
think it's possible to learn in college what to expect. I think that the thing
for me was to just do as much acting as I could in college, because that's
where you're able to work out the kinks. When you get out into the real world
and you have to get a job and go on auditions, you won't be doing a play every
six weeks unless you can somehow fit it into your schedule. But you're going
have to live, you're going have to eat, you're going have to provide shelter
for yourself and then at the same time you're going have to try to get an agent,
you have to get out there and get auditions... all this stuff you have to do
before you get a job.
And I think my thing with college was I wanted to do as many plays as I could
because I knew the second it was over it's the harsh realityof the real world.
I wanted to soak up as much experience with acting with as many people as I
could, do as many roles as I could, as many plays because, you know... nobody's
going to cast me as the grandfather in The Cherry Orchard when I'm
19 years old of and right out of college. It's not going to happen. So you
go do those things when you can under the guidance of your teachers and the
fellowship of your trusted friends and co-students because when you get out
it's every man for himself. You're not going have that embryonic experience
once you get out of college.
So,
you know... USC, did it prepare me? I think it did as much
as any professional acting school can do as far as giving me
opportunities to learn and to do a lot of plays, giving me
some good instructors. I met a lot of cool people that I enjoyed
acting with while I was there, you know... learned from them.
After that it's sort of out of their hands.
Tell me about the process of finding your agent
My career has been interesting in that regard. I'm with a manager that signed
me from the USC showcase. I've been with the same guy since I graduated in
1992. I signed with my agent a year later. So I've been with the same people
for a long long time. I think that a lot of people view agents as sort of the
enemy. They think, "I've got to get an agent and this agent doesn't understand
me and they don't send me out..." And that's really not giving them enough
credit. Yes, it's hard to get an agent that's really into you and really supports
your thing. It's also hard to find an honest car mechanic. I mean, these are
things in life that are hard to find.
You
have to realize that the agent does not make money if you do
not make money... they're actually there to work for you. I
think a lot of people spend a lot of time sitting around bitching
about agents and managers and casting directors when the truth
is... those are your greatest allies. They're your flanking
soldiers at the front lines. Granted, it is difficult to find
an agent. Or, it's not difficult to find one... it's difficult
to find a good one.
In many ways I got lucky. I mean, I had an agent in college who then dropped
me right before I graduated college. Then my manager signed me from the showcase,
but I couldn't get an agent to save my life. Although I did to get turned down
by some of L.A.'s top agents. Which was exciting. I got to go to a lot of offices
and have them say, "Absolutely not!"
But my manager had faith that I would eventually land on my feet, I had faith
that I would eventually land on my feet... I think I was very blessed in my
ignorance of the business. Because it just never occurred to me that I wasn't
going to make a living at this. It just never occurred to me that I was
not going to make a living. I just assumed that it would be difficult,
I assumed that it would be an uphill battle. You know, I haven't coasted through
life on my looks. So I was always sort of used to being the underdog, always
the smallest on the football team, not the brightest kid in the class. So the
acting business, the fact that people were saying to me, "You'll never
work in this town!"... I just sort of had that naive mentality of, "Okay,
you just don't get me. On to the next guy."
I think that "ignorance is bliss" sort of applies to the industry
because I got turned down... you know, if I had taken it personally and accepted
the rejection of every person who rejected me, I would have left town a long
long long long time ago. I never would have made a buck, and would have scrapped
it and took off. But the fact is, I was gleefully ignorant in my approach to
the whole thing. So when I was going out looking for an agent and I was getting
turned down by everybody, I just assumed it was their screw up not mine, and
eventually someone would "get me". Which eventually happened. For
a lot of people the agent/manager switch happens all the time. It's pretty
rare to stay with people for a long time. A lot of people switch frequently.
Some do it for the right reasons, some don't.
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