but it's peaks and troughs yeah and i know you know there's always a trough coming
yeah you know and that's part of life um
sorry i'm getting very intense but that's that's the truth of how i see it
we would like you to transfer to another prison and befriend someone to elicit a confession
taryn hi hi hello nice to see you again you too i mean we're just talking it's been a while hasn't
it yeah years yeah since yeah i have to be honest i only really vaguely remember that interview
me too to be honest yeah it's one of those red carpet craziness moments
nice to see you again you too i mean a lot has changed since then yeah so many projects yeah
blackbird i mean when you look back at the past years like is it just a blur in your
head or do you remember these specific moments of your career um yeah no i do i've got a sort
of weird memory for dates and things and i'm able to kind of you know i've got a good chronology of
the past 10 years of my life because it's broken up by different projects different movies and so
i sort of go oh i was there i was this age when i did that so this must have been then
um but yeah i've been very very very lucky i've had great opportunities and
i'm just hoping it carries on really it definitely will carry on i can assure you that thank you
when we said hi earlier and you asked me how i'm doing i was hoping you'd say in the accent
that you used in this film in the series you were hoping i'd sound like i'm from chicago yes because
i think it's in episode one episode two you was like how you doing and i was like taryn
just said how you doing in this chicago accent yeah i got to sort of live my italian-american
gangster fantasy doing this it suits you very much thanks very much yeah you're not the first
person to say that i feel like i'm a little bit of a disappointment when i start talking and i
don't have that very sort of you know urban east coast thing going on were you tempted
to keep the accent after filming no that would be insane wouldn't it no you can adopt listen
you can just adopt a new identity no one has to know what other the chicago italian vibe like yeah
maybe less the sort of thuggish drugs yeah yeah not the drug dealing stuff no no just the sort of
smooth charming yeah you're charming the accent yeah yeah not that you aren't no no i can't i'm
feeling like you're making me insecure i feel like i'm not enough for you as the welsh version oh no
we love the welsh tariffs that's why we love you it's good i hope so yeah we do um but blackbird
it's such a deep show i mean it's got some dark themes to it what was it about the show and the
role that compelled you to take it because it's quite heavy it is heavy and i think you know um
i think you know so my last live action project was the elton john musical biopic rocket moran
and um i don't know why i gave it that funny long name the elton john musica
um but you know that was sort of everything was kind of fluorescent neon technicolor lights yeah
exactly glitz sequins all that good stuff yeah exactly so i think blackbird not only represented
a great acting challenge because of it being just a very complex role it also had this very
this darkness to it that i found very appealing it's just not really like anything i've done
before um and yeah it's obviously a true story so kind of you know it's almost you know you almost
don't believe it's really happened um so yes the darkness was definitely something i was drawn to
as the actor and us being a you know human being normal person like how do you balance
that darkness with trying to be okay i guess whilst you're on the project yeah well paul
who is opposite me in the show he's a very have i told have i set up the premise in this interview
you'll have to forgive me i've found no i mean feel free to take it okay so yeah so i will do
that so you know the show is about a guy who i play named jimmy keane who gets 10 years for
dealing drugs and possessing weapons and um he's offered a full pardon if he transfers to a high
security facility to get a confession out of a suspected serial killer so that's the setup of the
show and it really happened and the guy who i'm opposite is an act called paul walter hauser who's
phenomenal in the show and um you know but we go to some pretty dark places me and him and discuss
some pretty dark things and yeah i mean you know i think the way that we kind of navigated it was
we just had a lot of fun in between we didn't sort of indulge and sit in the heaviness of it any more
than we felt we needed to for the sake of the show we just you know we'd mess around dance make each
other laugh sing and you know go home and put on easy popcorn movies for kids really to try and
sort of you know as you say balance it out a bit what was your favorite song to like dance to and
sing to on set there's a video of me and him we were actually we got trapped in a corridor when we
were on location on one of the days and um we sang uh what the hell we sang stand by me ah yeah and
there's a video of it of us sort of dancing around singing it maybe i'll stick it on instagram stick
it on the ground on the ground but do you think in this series fans are going to be surprised
by your performance like you said it's darker than ever do you think fans going to be taken by
surprise like whoa like don't know i mean i hope so you know i part of i find it i think you know
lots of people now associate me with rocket man and um and think of me as as that thing
and i don't like the feeling of anyone thinking they know what i am literally
and i think actors often get there's that danger of being pigeonholed and i really don't want
that um i'm easily bored so i like to try and mix it up so i hope people are surprised but
i mainly just want them to think it's a good show yeah one thing that made me go
like whoa in the series is your gains can we talk about your gains taran and we need to give
the people advice because it's summer summer is here so how can we get gains like yours tell us
so to build muscle you've got to eat we know that you can't build muscle without eating and to
burn fat you've got to eat less it's not about carbs okay uh it's not about what you eat it's
about how much you eat it's all calories okay so there's no quick fix because the sun
is standing taryn you need to be outside yeah there's no there's no quick fix i'm afraid um
to lose weight it's all about calorie deficit calories in calories that's it you've got it
you've got it you know it you see that i mean i know it i'm just for the people out there that
don't know it yeah but you know bread's not the enemy you just can't eat a whole loaf you just
can't eat a whole lot not the whole load yeah um there's a monologue in the show where you say you
know there's times when you think something's going to go one way and then it goes sideways
do you have an audition story that you felt that way but then obviously you still got the role
uh i don't know i mean i think the ones that have gone sideways the ones that have gone the ones
that went sideways were normally because i wasn't well prepared enough and if i wasn't well prepared
enough it's because i wasn't invested in it and if you're not invested in it then you shouldn't
be playing the role so but i don't have like a story where i went in and you know insulted the
director or anything like that um um this but i've got plenty of stories in my life from when things
have gone sideways but not once not ones that i want to share on the radio oh god oh my god
but speaking of yeah preparation that's like jimmy like he had to prepare for this like task
that he was like gonna do yeah well that's one of the things that was really interesting for
me about playing the part was that i'm playing a guy who's playing a guy you know he has to
kind of act his way through this extraordinarily dangerous situation because in prison what he
what he has to do what he agrees to do for the fbi you'd be labeled a snitch
and um you know in a high security facility like the one like springfield springfield being the
name of the prison he went to that's a really dangerous place to be so for me i there's a
great challenge in being a guy in playing a guy who's playing a guy but also you know signaling
to the audience when you need to first for the storytelling um so there was a challenge in that
for me as an actor that i enjoyed and in playing jimmy like you must have had time to think like
what would you do if you was in that situation i think yeah of course you wouldn't have taken
it i don't think so yeah i don't think so i mean i don't think i'd end up in prison
yeah it's a weird thing i relate to you know he part of the reason he makes that decision in the
show is because he wants to be with his father who's in ailing health and i relate to that i get
that part of him that's one of the sides of his character that's most appealing he really loves
his father because you know there's not a lot to love about him other than that really terrific
abs aside he's um he's not you're a massively likable guy at the start of the show not at all
but he's got that love for his father which is beautiful yeah i think that's why the audience
get on board with him really because otherwise you would sort of go why am i you don't you wouldn't
want to root for him you know because he's sort of quite conceited um i hope this isn't the spoiler
but it is in the first episode but there was a bit where jimmy got tricked into taking a deal that
led to him getting yeah that's right that's right so for you is there anything about the industry
that you are not tricked but like once you're now in it you're like wait i didn't expect this this
is a scam and i asked that to say a lot of people relate work in life sometimes nine to five it's
more like six to nine let's be real you know so is it anything like that about the acting industry um
yeah there are things you know i mean if to be you know like really frank and real you know i don't
think it's healthy to uh to always be reviewing images of yourself and footage of yourself i
think that for me has led to a situation where i'm quite i can be quite in my head about my own
self-image that's being totally candid that that's probably one of the greater pitfalls of an actor
and also reading things that people say about you which i try and avoid but it's actually
not always avoidable those things i don't think are very good for your mental health um
but there's a lot i love about it as well i go home at the end of the days filming and
and it's a good job and i'm excited about what's happening i feel incredibly creatively fulfilled
and creative fulfillment is really is a really healthy place to be i think
so swings and roundabouts you know um but it's definitely not like i don't i think
acting's been demystified now you know i mean 40 years ago everyone thought it was glamorous
and kind of elevated somehow and it's not really you know yeah it's just it's just a job yeah but
a lot of people see you doing it you know and um and there's great things about that and you know
when you're in a show like blackbird which is being well received and people are saying nice
things about it feels great but it's peaks and troughs yeah and i know you know there's
always a trough coming yeah you know and that's part of life um sorry i'm getting very intense
but that's that's the truth of how i see it yeah i remember i heard mahershala ali say like
five percent or even one percent of the work is on camera like yeah the whole job so true and
you live and you live for that bit yeah because that's because that that bit where the camera
rolls and you get that take that one minute that 90 seconds or whatever it is you know that's when
you go okay now i'm doing my thing yeah and now i feel good but the bull sugar plums around it
that goes with it yeah i didn't get it i didn't do it i didn't know i caught myself i caught myself
there's so much you know that goes along with it that is less pleasant um but look no one wants
to hear an actor moan about being an actor it's it's a great it's a great life and i'm very lucky
and you bless the people with your great works and your entertainment uh you charma thank you
very much thank you and for jimmy like playing him is there anything that having the experience
working on the show that you're going to take with you into your next roles working with rayleigh
otter was something that really really really affected me as an actor you ha i've had so many
great experiences with other actors but i've never felt um i've just felt that what the relationship
that he and i built it just felt very real to me and i felt we bonded very intensely very quickly
and um i've no and it's to do with i think it's partly to do with how good the writing is of the
relationship we both arrived feeling like we knew these characters intimately we knew who they were
there's so much nuance written into the relationship but ray turned up and he just
was big jim and as a result i kind of just slipped into being jimmy and it felt
like it had a just a reality to it you know um i suppose the way i would put it was i felt very
moved by the experience of working with him and portraying those characters as an actor you know
i i always remember adam driver saying like i think actors can get a bit caught up on feeling
the emotion of what the character is experiencing and i think adam driver put it exactly right he
said it's not your job to feel something it's the audiences wow and it's true it really is true i
believe that 100 but sometimes you get lucky and you do get swept up in it and you do feel
something of what the character feels you can get that caught up in it and they're the moments
where you really feel 100 inhabited and involved in what you're doing and working with ray was
was like one big experience of that i felt very very connected to him and the situation
and so in terms of like to get back to your question what i'd take away from it it's that ray
turned up fully inhabiting the part he was playing and it was a reminder for me that you can you can
give all of yourself to something it's it's not just your shoulders and head in your close-up you
know what i mean um so yeah that's what i'd take away from it wow that's so beautiful yeah like
giving your all to something because yeah he gave his all and it was yeah sorry no but like when you
give you all that only translates into a beautiful picture like whatever that looks like in life not
just like working on screen but like in all areas yeah give you all like totally exactly and he's
mesmerizing in the show as a result definitely 100 i've got one question before we finish it's quite
a fun one so you're calling me the charmer but it's jimmy he's a charmer in the show
he's very charismatic very charming knows how to use his words so how much is taran like that like
have you ever befriended someone just to like get a little something i'm talking like almost like
flirting with like waitresses or like airport security i do it so do you do it um look i mean
jimmy is me so you know i play him so anything he does is in me yeah um i'd suppose maybe
he's he's very knowing about his charm and i think the secret to proper charm
is not being too aware of it if you can help it yeah um but uh in terms of
you know charming a waiter or a waitress i think that's i don't
know that's too near to manipulation for me i think okay but we love free stuff
but yeah that's all the questions i have thank you so much