Well, congratulations on the second season of High Town.
I mean, it's always great to have a show renewed.
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's so wonderful.
We had a lot of fun shooting the second season
and congratulations on your performance as well.
And I know when the series started, you said what interested you about Ray was?
He was such a fascinating character.
He sort of like got under your skin.
But what's kept hold of your interest for this second season?
Rebecca Cutter, the creator of the show that had writers.
She she's just given me such a gift of material.
And, you know, I asked her,
you know, she said, what do you want to do for the second season?
I just said, you know,
just just use me, grind me up, throw me this way, throw me that way. And
I've had so much fun working on this material.
And I think everyone has it's it's beautiful writing for everybody involved.
So how much of an involvement did you have in the way
the character goes forward in season two?
Because he's quite different to season one. Yeah, yeah.
You know, I stay out of the writer's room.
You know, I don't think it's a good idea
for an actor to come up and say, I have this idea and I have that idea.
You know, you just give me the material and then I'll interpret
it and I'll give it back to you. You know, so.
But Rebecca has gotten to know me
over these past few years, so I have noticed she's writing.
She's writing into my strengths, which has been great.
Because he's not in
a very good place, I mean, at the end of the first season, things weren't going
terribly well at the start of this new when it gets even worse for him.
Thank you. So did you have to do
any special research for the way that the characters developed?
Because I know in season one,
you spent some time with narcotics, cults and things like that. Right.
What did you have to do for this this time around?
You know, there there comes a point.
Where I think you really need to look inward sometimes and.
You know, I'm not Ray - Ray's not me,
you know, but I think we all had a lot of.
You know, personal
hurdles to overcome in life, you know, so so you draw on these things and
you know, so, you know , I've a lot of conversations with with Rebecca
and what what we're trying to do as a whole and as a as a film crew
and try to move the whole story in a certain direction.
So you can say, fortunately or unfortunately,
I didn't have to do much research for season two for Ray.
And there are so many cop
shows on TV, I mean, it's such a familiar format.
Yeah, I guess finding a premise for for a new series
to start with must be hard enough.
But when you get to the second season stage, how do you keep it fresh?
Right. What do you do?
How do you keep it fresh?
You know, and that's that's that's kind of our job every day when we show up
to work is like, how do we keep this going?
You know, and in television, I think there's the
the fear of what I call like the endless middle, you know, where
you find a formula that works and everyone just sits in the formula and stays safe.
And we don't want to stay safe.
We want to keep pushing it every day, show up to work,
OK, how do we take this scene and make it this and make it this and turn
it on its head this way? And
we have a really kind of vibrant, creative set
that we set a good tone and culture at work. It's beautiful.
And does the fact that you've played quite a few cops in your time
actually help with this, or is it more of a hindrance?
I know I you know, that's a really good question.
I think the trap
is you start thinking, I'm playing a cop.
I'm not playing a cop.
I'm playing football. I'm playing a human being.
You know what I mean?
I'm just, you know, forget the cop element,
you know, because that comes with a certain stigma.
You don't get that. Get that out.
Get that out. You know, so
I've had fun playing Ray because now I'm allowed to explore all
these other sides of her, you know, and and by the way, he's not a cop anymore.
As much as Ray thinks he's a cop, he's not acting.
He says it does seem to be ingrained in him.
It's a cop, I've got to say.
He seems reluctant to let go, doesn't it?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's that I like playing on that. If
if someone told me I couldn't act anymore
lutu I've been doing this for 20 years.
That's why I identify as as a human beings, my Jobs, my occupation.
You know, I mean, I'm more than that.
But am I? I don't know.
And of course, everybody, I guess, remembers
one of your your early roles, which of course, was in 24.
Yeah, when I guess he must have been
in your mid twenties, you weren't actually 24 when you made it.
You know, I was 20 that I was right there. Months off.
So what was it like at such an early stage of your career,
having a role in a series that was such a big deal?
Oh, I remember being so nervous because it was a big deal.
That was the third season. It was,
you know, 24....
It was a groundbreaking show.
But I had a great time working on it. I learned a lot
I learned a lot from Kiefer.
I learned a lot from that film crew.
That show also had a good tone and culture on set
for for taking something and taking risks with it, you know?
So, yeah, I look back fondly on my year
there, getting getting beat up on 24.
I think the first actual time I just got to say that I'm
one of the only characters who didn't die and I've died a lot in a lot of ways.
I didn't die on 24
You know, going to die in High Town... Not certainly. Not yet.
No. Actually, the first time I saw you in a feature
film was in Parkland, where you played Lee Harvey Oswald brother. Yes. Yes,
that's right. It's a small role, but it was actually quite a crucial one.
And of course, in High Town, you're actually playing
a central character, which you don't often do.
You tend to do the sort of smaller supporting roles, if you like.
And I wonder if you actually prefer that to being.
Well, I suppose you're one step away from the limelight, if you like.
You know, that's a good question.
I don't look at it that way.
I think if you look at Parkland.
You know, that's it really is an ensemble piece, but
Robert Oswald always drove the scene.
So if you look back at it, if you look at it structurally,
he's always moving the scene. Yeah, it is all this stuff happening.
But he had a very clear through line, and that's what I look for.
So if it's one scene in a movie, but I feel like you can never edit
that character out
because they push the story forward because they matter. It's worth it.
You know, doesn't matter
if you're in every scene of the movie, but you don't move the story.
That's not exciting to me.
I just want to I want to I want to move the story.
Yeah, I think I think that's why he was so memorable, because it gave us
an insight, really, that we didn't really expect from the movie at all.
Yeah, he's a different viewpoint.
You know, it's a funny thing about that movie,
I learn something that, you know, if you're doing a film about,
OK, that film was about the 72 hours between the JFK assassination
and the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Everyone had an opinion of it.
So it didn't matter what we put up there.
Everyone had an opinion, you know.
But that's that's why we do it
so the audience can have an opinion, you know?
Yeah, absolutely.
And of course, now you've finished
making Rebel Ridge, which of course, has been delayed by the pandemic.
But it's done now, I believe.
No, we are we're we're going to go back and we're
we're we're going to go for it again. Really? Yeah.
Gosh, so there's more to do on that.
There's more to do.
Oh, we've got away long enough!
Film business. You know, it's been a weird time for everyone.
We're all. Oh, good.
But it's I mean, it's got a cracking cast because, you know,
you're alongside the likes of Don Johnson and James Cromwell.
Can you tell me anything about the role that you've got in the film?
I'm going to I'm going to keep that little, little silent.
You know, it's funny you say I played some police officers.
I play a police officer who may or may not be a crooked police officer.
I think that, you know, we dive into some
some deep, dark territory there,
you know, but I've worked with Jeremy Saulnier before . I love him.
I love him as a filmmaker.
And, you know, he's he's a true artist and he stands by his work.
I was going to ask you about about working with Jeremy Saulnier, because, you know,
I think the very fact that he's directing it builds your expectations.
You expect something electric or maybe he doesn't do anything by halves, really.
They'll say, well, what's so great about working with him?
He's he's it's it's that razor's edge.
I like working with talented people who are risk takers, you know,
and it's that thing of like he's he's
what he's doing is so unique to himself.
And if you meet him and you see his personality,
which, by the way, he's actually very quiet and very intense, but.
I get him, I get his his filmmaking style,
you know, and you work with certain directors in your life where you just
you look at each other
and you understand, you know, so we don't have to talk about it much.
We don't have to intellectualize it.
We're here. And then it's like, go play and then adjust and go play and adjust.
And to be honest with you, we have we have that on High Town.
I think at this point, we all know each other so well.
It's so cool to show up to work.
And, you know, I'll show up to work and just watch other people.
You know, I'm just so excited to see what Monica [Raymund] is going to do today,
what Riley's going to do today, what Don Norwood is going to do today.
It's just it's it's a good environment to work in.
And it's great when it's that instinctive, really,
where you don't actually have to think too hard about it.
Right. Right, exactly. Exactly.
You know, comes naturally.
James, it's been lovely to talk to.
Thank you so much for your time.
Really appreciate it. And good luck with the show.
All right. All right.
So next time. Thank you, . Bye.