Mather Zickel Mather Zickel is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He studied acting at Circle in the Square and the Shakespeare Lab at The Public Theatre. NY theatre: U.S. Drag (HERE), Late; A cowboy song (Ohio), Ultralight (La Mama), The Dictionary of the Khazars (Culture Project), The High Priest of Bad Math (Ontological-Hysteric), A New York Hamlet and other stories (Old Vineyard), Period of Adjustment (29th Street Rep) Regional: Dracula (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Romeo and Juliet (Mill Mountain Theatre). Television: It’s Always Something: The Gilda Radner Story (ABC), Reno: 911! (Comedy Central), Arrested Development (FOX), The Bronx Is Burning (ESPN), Underfunded (USA), Cupid (ABC), Party Down (Starz), Stella (Comedy Central) Film: Rachel Getting Married (Sony Classic), I Love You, Man (Dreamworks), Balls of Fury (Rogue), The Ten (ThinkFilm), Diggers (HD-Net), Wedding Daze (GreeneStreet), Road to a Greek Wedding (Castle Hill), Caught Up (Artisan) Web: Horrible People (MyDamnChannel), Wainy Days (MyDamnChannel), Honesty (Motherlode), The Scariest Show on Television (Atom)

Interviewed by Joanna Parson

Let’s drive some traffic to the hilarious web series Horrible People on MyDamnChannel.com right now—how’d you get involved? What’s the process? It’s hilarious.

Thank you.  I think it’s pretty hilarious as well.  Horrible People was the brainchild of my friend, the very talented A.D. Miles, who is now the head writer for Jimmy Fallon’s show.  He had contacted me about doing a daytime soap opera as a web series for MyDamnChannel.  I’ve known Miles for some years and have always found him incredibly funny and smart and prepared, so I agreed immediately.  I had done one or two web-based pieces before, including David Wain’s, Wainy Days, but this was the first time I had heard of someone really doing a series with a continuous story and a ten-episode arc.  Everything in internet comedy seemed like a one-off and I liked that this was a little more ambitious.  MyDamnChannel gave Miles a budget and basically left him alone.  That doesn’t seem to happen now, a year and a half later.  Every series is pretty heavily branded these days.

Jon Stern produced Horrible People, along with Miles and Joe LoTruglio.  It was very tightly budgeted, scripted, and scheduled.  We shot 72 pages of material in 72 hours, at a rented New York loft space on a cold December weekend in 2007.  It was also largely cast with actors that we didn’t know before who brought some of the most hilarious performances in the show.  Joy Franz, who played my mother, was a veteran of daytime dramas and hit just the right pitch for what we wanted to do.  She was really able to blend the theatrical scene-chewing style while staying emotionally grounded and the results were tremendous.  She was a fantastic villain.  It’s not easy to say lines like, “I couldn’t be more disgusted by your birth than if I’d shit out an eight pound turd!” and really sound like you mean it. (INTERVIEW CONTINUES BELOW)

Do you have aspirations to write, or to work behind the camera? In these days of viral videos and do-it-yourself comedy projects, is it possible to be just an actor?

I do have those aspirations.  I like creating stories and I like to do things that people haven’t seen before.  But I’m not much of a joke writer.  And if you want to try something a little new, then it better be laugh out loud funny, particularly with web-based stuff.  An audience generally isn’t going to stick around for more than 30 seconds, so you have to suck them in fast.  I tend to get very caught up in plot and motivation and logic—basically I think like an actor—and that is not necessarily the best way to write a web show.  A.D. Miles was very smart to place a ridiculous, unmotivated homicide in the first moments of Horrible People.

That being said, I should probably keep on trying to hone my writing skills, because being just an actor is very limited.  Studios give money to people who can act, write, and produce--  basically to people who can paint them a picture and then carry it out.

Theatre versus film/television. You did a few plays in a few basements, right? When you got on camera, did you shout for joy and vow to never go back?

No, not at all.  As a matter of fact, I did a play in the NY Fringe festival a year or so ago just to get back up on stage.  I think it would be a grave mistake for me to lose touch with the theatre.  There’s no hiding on stage, no fixing in post-production.  And you have to be in shape.  It’s a physical art.  When people talk about the “actor’s instrument”, the body, that’s not bullshit. 

To connect the lines of a play with moment-to-moment experience and then have that experience reach every seat in a 500 seat house—you have to be physically and emotionally relaxed.  Your voice must be relaxed.  You need to vibrate.  And that takes practice.  And you have to do it night after night… jeez, now that I think about it, maybe I won’t go back.  Theatre ain’t for sissies.  This becomes clearer to me the older I get. 

Also-- and I know this sounds obvious-- you have to remember your lines.  All of them.  Actors who only do TV and film aren’t used to those kinds of demands.

In our interviews here at Actorslife.com, we seem to talk to two types of working actors—those who have specific plans for their careers, and goals that they work toward reaching, and those who take every job they can fit in their schedule and leave any master plan up to the gods. If it weren’t for “Rachel Getting Married,” I’d have pegged you to have set your arrow to some kind of comedic actor bullseye—but … [dramatic music] could I be wrong?

I think for a long time I fit into the second type of actor.  I just wanted to work and it didn’t usually matter what it was.  I was interested in different media and styles. I started in theatre and, as you noted, I did a bunch of plays in basements, most of them obscure.  I took it all very seriously, so originally I never had much notion of being a comedic actor although many of my friends were becoming successful comedians. 

Then, in my late twenties, I began doing sketch comedy-- writing and performing—and I found it very freeing because it never had the burden of needing to be significant.  It just had to be funny.  Getting laughs was very gratifying and I fell back in love with performing live.  And my career began to pick up. 

The television industry is always attracted to funny people.  I started making a living in commercials and then started booking other TV work.  Also, I started to get hired by old friends who had made their careers as comedy writers and producers.  I continued to do dramatic theatre, but my reputation and my reel were comedy-heavy.

I originally auditioned for the part of the groom in Rachel Getting Married.  Then I had a meeting with Jonathan Demme and he liked me for the role of the best man, Kieran.  Even though Rachel is a drama there were still laughs to be found.  I personally don’t think actors should define themselves as "dramatic" or "comedic".  They just need to play the character in the circumstances.  Sometimes the more serious you play a scene, the funnier it can be. 

However, I do believe that all actors should refrain from getting tattoos of the comedy and tragedy masks.

You still manage to live in New York and work often in LA—how and why do you pull that off? Do you think that’s possible for beginning actors, or is it something that you have to earn, after your career is rolling a little?

It’s possible, but not necessarily preferable.  It sounds glamorous to work on both coasts, but that also translates into borderline homelessness.  I sort of live out of a bag and I fly coach.

For me it makes sense that I still keep a foot in both cities professionally.  I have been fortunate to find work in both places.  But that is something that I had to earn.  It took me years to establish a body of work that the industry began to take notice of.  At this point I would like to have a job or series of jobs where I am making enough money that I can settle down in one place or the other.  I like the idea of having a big-boy home.

I think for actors who are starting out it’s probably better to choose one place or the other for a while and focus on making professional and creative contacts.  And to work with colleagues who are at a similar point in their careers and have similar tastes.  That is where you can really start to distinguish yourself. 

Also, most newcomers don’t need the added expenses or headaches of constantly bouncing back and forth.

Do you think there’s a difference between the comedy scenes in New York versus Los Angeles? 

Probably.  I’m not an expert on that.  I don’t spend a ton of time in comedy clubs.  My girlfriend worked in casting at NBC and she would travel to clubs all over the country and she said she was always able to tell where a comedian was from based on their style and material.

I think the proliferation of the Upright Citizens Brigade has really put a stamp on comedy in all three cities, Chicago included.  A lot of the young comics coming out of that program are generally well educated and extremely media savvy.  The influence of improvisation training leads to a kind of comedy of the subconscious.  It’s whimsical and bizarre and can be wonderfully personal.  And very popular.  I don’t think I’ve ever been to a UCB show in either New York or LA that didn’t have a line down the block.  This is a theatre that that does three or four completely different shows a night, seven nights a week.

You just shot a pilot for CBS, with Annie Potts and Sasha Alexander. Do you go out to LA for a specific period of time they call “pilot season”? Does “pilot season” exist like it used to, when the majority of television shows were cast during specific months of the year in Hollywood?

I do make sure that I am in LA for the Period Formerly Know As Pilot Season (or PFKAPS).  It still exists, although not the way it used to.  The major networks still do most of their legwork between January and April. 

But they are making much fewer pilots.  I think this year they only produced some thirty odd pilots, whereas they used to make well over a hundred.  And, of course, they pick up only a small handful of those shows for series.  It’s not a very encouraging market right now.  Studios have aggressively slashed their budgets, fired tons of employees, and are paying much less to the people they do hire.  It’s pretty much like what is happening in industries all over the country.  Actors, writers, directors, and producers are all having a hard time making money right now.

The upside is that there are smaller cable networks like FX, AMC, Starz, and, of course, HBO and Showtime who have much more original programming.  They don’t pay as much money, but they tend to take greater artistic chances.  These networks don’t really correspond to PFKAPS.  They make their own schedules.  They don’t even seem to have regular airing seasons. 

Remember when everyone had to wait like 6 years for the 4^th season of The Sopranos?  It’s kind of hilarious when a new season picks up where it left off and the cast is all twenty pounds heavier and losing their hair.

What’s going on with that pilot, The Karenskys? Do you have any policies for mental self-preservation when it comes to the politics of network TV pilot season?

The Karenskys didn’t get picked up.  I generally tend to hope for the best and expect nothing.

Congratulations on Rachel Getting Married.  There seems to be a fair amount of improv in the party scenes, were there? And how did they get the verite style in the 12-step meetings? Was it all scripted?

Some of the larger scenes had a fair amount of improv, but it was much more scripted than people might think.  Jenny Lumet’s script had a wonderfully natural flow and the dialogue was very personal, very specific to the characters, particularly the family members.  There was nothing generic about it.

The rehearsal dinner scene was a great combination of scripted lines and improvisation.  We did two 45 minute takes of that scene with multiple cameras, so we got the written lines plus extra.  The 12-step meetings were mostly improvised, with the exception of Kym’s share about the death of her little brother.  There are many talented and successful New York actors in that scene who came in for a day to be part of the ensemble.  Jonathan chose to open that scene up and allow people to do their own shares, which made it feel very real.

You went to NYU undergrad—why’d you choose to go there? Did you get what you expected out of it? 

For me, the most exciting thing about going to NYU was being in New York.  I couldn’t wait to get there.  As a new student, I requested to study at Circle in the Square because they advertised an “eclectic” approach to training, which sounded more sensible to me than the “Strasberg” method or the “Adler” method.  In truth, I had no idea what to expect.

Quite honestly, I don’t think that conservatory training was the best thing for me at that age.  I had many different teachers telling me many different things and I wanted to do them all right.  Getting it “right” was a big deal for me at that point.  I wanted everybody to think that I was the best thing ever and that I could do anything.  I’m sure a lot of 18 year olds feel that way. It’s a lot of pressure to put on oneself and it doesn’t leave much room for learning or experimenting. 

Of course, there isn’t a “right” way to act.  Every actor has his own method, because everyone is different.  By the time I left the program, I was very rigid and I wasn’t enjoying myself at all.  I had lost the ability to walk and chew gum.  It wasn’t necessarily that I was given bad advice, it was just that I didn’t know how to interpret it.  I didn’t know how to make it work for me. 

I continued training with different people after I left NYU, but it wasn’t until I was about 26 when I suddenly could identify specific things that I wanted to work on.  And I could do that because I was more experienced, both onstage and as a person.  Suddenly lessons that people had taught me made sense.  I knew what they were for.  But I was miserable during the first years after I left school.

Let’s talk about some business basics-- how’d you get your first agent?

My very first agent was a woman named Eileen Haves who worked in the commercial department of the Fifi Oscard Agency.  I met her because I had attended a seminar called Actors Connection.  This is a service where an actor would pay like, 25 or 50 dollars to go to a class to meet someone from the industry and hear what they had to say.  An agent from Oscard was doing a workshop on on-camera commercial auditioning.  I volunteered to read some copy on the video monitor and I guess he thought that I could make some money because he brought me in to the agency and I started freelancing with Eileen.

Shortly after, I booked my first commercial job, an industrial video.  I was all ready to quit my day job, because I had no idea how much an industrial film paid.  Needless to say, I didn’t quit my day job for another 7 years.

No web site, no Wikipedia page. What gives, are you above all that crap? 

I don’t have a web site, but my girlfriend set up a Facebook fan page for me.  As for Wikipedia…are you really supposed to enter yourself into Wikipedia?  Isn’t that a little like voting for yourself for Most Popular in high school? 

You played Bill Murray in the 2002 TV movie Gilda Radner: It’s Always Something—would you consider that your first big break? Tell us about that audition—were you confident that you could pull off a young Bill Murray?

I guess that probably was my first real break, at least in television.  I didn’t have an agent at the time.  Marci Phillips who casts for ABC primetime, brought me in.  She is a very sweet woman and very supportive of young talent.  She had seen me do sketch comedy about three years prior to the Gilda Radner project and apparently I had left a Bill Murray-esque impression on her.  Later, when she was casting the project, she tracked me down.  I’m very grateful.  Not many casting directors go outside the agency lists like that.

It was a strange audition to prepare for because even though I’m a life-long fan of Bill Murray and had seen so much of his work I had to play these personal scenes between he and Gilda.  I think one of the most important things for me was convince myself that Bill Murray was never going to see this program.  That would have been way too much pressure.  Playing a real living person feels a bit invasive.  I had a similar experience when I played Yankee outfielder Lou Piniella in “The Bronx Is Burning”.  I never met either of these men and I have no idea if they ever saw the shows they were being portrayed in.  But playing Bill Murray was very exciting since he’s an actor and comedian that I’ve always looked up to.

It seems like your second break was Reno 911! —how much of that show is improv? Is there anything that’s too broad or goes too far for a show like that? Do you think it’s a tone that you either get or you don’t, or can actors be adjusted to fit into an ensemble like Reno?

That show is just about 100% improvised.  Of course, the premise of an episode or scene is mapped out beforehand.  Obviously, there are a lot of physical gags and stunts that would be fatal if they weren’t prepared.  But there is no written dialogue and no rehearsal.

I think one of the show’s strengths is that the jokes can be very dry or extremely over-the-top silly.  Different guest stars bring different tones.  I tended to underplay a lot of my scenes-- it was a good fit, playing straight man to the regular cast.  But there are other actors like Toby Huss and Jack Plotnick who would do these really crazy hilarious characters.  It would be pretty tough to go broader than that, but those guys can make it work.

Either way, the regulars on the show are so flexible and so supportive that no matter what you do, they will keep throwing the ball back to you.  They usually shoot two or three takes at most and keep the scene rolling for as long as it’s funny.  Sometimes a take will go on for half an hour or so.  They keep up the dialogue and keep making such sharp jokes, that they have this great wealth of footage at the end of the day.  And often they can spread that material out over several episodes.  It’s a very efficiently produced show and it gives great leverage to the guest stars.  All in all, it’s a real treat to be on it.

And finally, full disclosure: you played Tevye opposite my Hodel in our high school production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Do you ever expect to scale such fulfilling heights again? And how do you forge ahead when you’ve peaked so early?  (On a related note—do you still have black motorcycle boots? Readers, to my knowledge, he wore those for four years straight.)

That’s a difficult question.  It is painful to know that your finest work is behind you.  My father often tells me that it’s the best thing I ever did.

I retired the black engineer boots some time ago.  I went through a couple of pairs.  But I never had a motorcycle, so finally I had to think, “Who am I kidding?”  I also got rid of the cop mustache that I used to sport in high school.  Some things are better left in the past.  Thanks for asking, though.

 

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