The Hollywood Reporter continues their roundtable discussions, in anticipation of the Emmys, focusing now on the dramatic actors. The hour-long long conversation features J.K. Simmons (“Counterpart”), Jeff Daniels (“The Looming Tower”, “Godless”), Michael B. Jordan (“Fahrenheit 451”), Darren Criss (“American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace”), Jason Bateman (“Ozark”), and Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”), and touches on everything from auditioning to being typecast.
Beginning the talk, Matthew Rhys opens up about the sometimes brutal auditioning process, recalling, “I went to a casting, and I hear the casting agent on the phone, and the assistant said, ‘Ooh, she’s in the middle of a very important call, if you’d sit down and wait.’ The call went on and on and on. I’m sitting there, the assistant kept apologizing. And then about 45 minutes later, the assistant goes, ‘Um can you come into the office?’ I could hear she was in the middle of a heated conversation and … (nods head no). And the assistant just went (motioning Rhys out the door) and I went, ‘Thank you.’ That was it.”
But now that all the actors are acclaimed enough to have their pick of projects, they are often given projects that play off of what they previously have done, with Criss pointing out, “There’s a certain lack of imagination that happens sometimes where if the last thing you did was a bit of success … Right after ‘Glee’ there were several teenage roles that were very similar to ‘Glee’ – which, hey on one hand, you go ‘OK, I guess you believed it, great, I did my job.’ And now, after ‘Versace,’ it’s like ‘Oh we’ve got this weird kid of creepy killer type.’ I’m like, ‘Come on, guys, we’re actors.”
Daniels, who is having a stunning year with back to back critically acclaimed miniseries, agrees. As he said, “What keeps me in the business are the challenges of not repeating myself” and recalls “There were three agents on the phone the night before I flew to do wardrobe for ‘Dumb & Dumber.’ Three agents, one in New York, two in L.A. The two in L.A. were going, ‘We’re going to stop you, you’re not going to do this, you’re a serious actor, we’re trying to get you to the Oscars, this will be the end of your career … Say no and we’ll take care of it.’ I said, ‘You know what? I’m bored with the career, I want to change it up. If this is a mistake guys, it’s mine. I’m going.”
Yet the roles that these actors take don’t always announce themselves immediately. Jordan, speaking about his experience on HBO’s “Fahrenheit 451” was initially hesitant and not “ interested in playing an authoritative figure with what was going on in the world with police and my community. And being a black man, I didn’t want to play somebody who was an oppressor. I just didn’t want that in my head. And the character just didn’t sit right … But sitting down the director, Ramin [Bahrini], and knowing Michael Shannon was going to be part of it, and understanding the vision and the themes and messages that he wanted to send through the movie” convinced him to take the role.
Bateman agrees, saying “the things I’m drawn to say yes to are less about the role, even the script as a whole, than it is about the people who are doing it … because you can read a script and there’s 60 different ways you can do that script, and who they’re going after says a lot about their creative intention”
In usual roundtable fashion, the entire conversation features a fascinating discussion on a number of topics. Check out the full roundtable below and next week features the dramatic actresses.