On this Comcastro podcast, we speak with Geoffrey Gould aka Badger, career character actor in Hollywood, on his love of film and television, the struggle of acting, his podcast “The Paranormal View,” encounters with ghosts, and a hard look at Star Wars. Badger was featured in the film “Strictly Background” and narrated the recent Slamdance-winning animated short “The Pride of Strathmoor.”
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Good evening Internet. Viva comcastro! Viva la revolution. My name is Max groves and right now I’m introducing our interview with Geoffrey Gould also known as Badger. Geoffrey hosts his own podcast called the paranormal view if you believe it was on Saturdays and was on iTunes. He’s also a career background and stage actor who was featured in a documentary called Strictly Background and also voiced a horror short that won the slamdance competition. Geoffrey is the biggest fan of film and television and has immersed himself personally into this entire culture. He’s going to share stories of his experiences and offer tips for those who might be going the same path. Please enjoy as we enter through an income a large amount of topics across all interest really. Here is Badger everybody. Well the last the last gate I had previous to that the bigger the bigger gig not like a one day or two which I did recently. They said well they just need to organize their files it should take you about five five days maybe two weeks to get in there I look at it to this day I regret not taking a photo of the horror that over you know I was just banker boxes not even stacked they were like almost crumbled together. And it took me about a year to get it into a semblance of order. And then several months to get into a filing system that I thought was extremely efficient to the point that everybody fell in love with me because they come down stairs for the for and it’s for an old invoice that they need for a report and instead of taking forty five minutes or longer to find it I could find it within a minute. And so they were all happy about that so I became their file curator as it were. You were actually. When it was going to ask if there was a filing cabinet in a shutdown mama Tory with a sign of the door that’s where of Leopard there was not actually I was not of the city council. I just missed out on a whole raft and I was like this guy can’t remember the first one but it was a very beginning. That’s what I noticed was the No that actually makes sense because that was the part that I read the furthest back because you know so of course I wouldn’t worry about truth. I suppose it was actually it was all banker boxes in a store room which used to be the where the safety deposit boxes had been when the building was a bank and back in like the twenty one thousand twenty inch or something. And what was really cool was that the building was haunted So not only did I have footsteps following me and empty hallways when I came in in the morning but occasionally since I was in the cellar. Where were all the files where I would hear footsteps coming down the hall saying all troubles come in for you know a file and they would come right up to my gate and stop and I’d look at you know and they’re like oh that’s so cool you think you think you are followed by ghosts. Yeah that’s reason I was followed by goes like OK so you don’t think you’re confident but you know it definitely goes very well. Yeah because I don’t wear high heels nose with feet following me up stairs in the marble with the marble floors because I didn’t have a key to the office. The way to get in this is a previous building from not giving away any terrible secret service workers there now to get in without a key. You go to the floor below walk all the way around to the fire stairs and walk up and there was a door that was always unlocked and you just walked in. So I never had a problem no one ever safe can’t be in here you know this early you know whatever. And there would be times I’d be walking down I’d have my leather shoes on and I’d hear the very distinctive high heel clip clop behind me and I’d stop and the footsteps would keep going and sometimes they’d stop and sometimes they wouldn’t. And this one time I thought did they want. One time they walked past me I stopped before I got to the second turn to go to the stairway. I thought I could hear the footsteps coming so I just stood there and waited say OK Either it’s it’s a physical woman who’s going to turn into an office before she gets that T. junction or she’s going across a T. junction to the other office or she’s going to turn left and come at me and footsteps without a cop or a person came to the T. junction walked down the hallway all the way down to me and stopped and I was just like oh that’s so awesome. I hope you’re not offended if I take the segment of a conversation employer Thurmont over it. OK I’m going to question what is good and I was not. You hear those footsteps I had other people mentioning it as well. Well I guess I was going to get to a broader question about ghosts and you know what. Well you know they were like why is it that after people die they start doing the most mundane things imaginable. I mean Mike you would think that if a ghost were out there they’d have better things to do than on locked doors and follow you down a hallway and you know you know take chains in like you know where a car very Yeah exactly stuff like that that I mean there are theories that there are things in between what’s called residual hauntings and intelligent hauntings intelligent hauntings it’s an earth bound spirit. It either knows your around or is out of phase and just thinks it’s a lie and doesn’t realize that it’s dead and that it’s in an altered state of consciousness because. My my brother and I used to theorize about reality. You know when young people passed you know fossilize and all. Do you notice when you’re dreaming. You don’t question the weirdness that’s going on. You don’t question when suddenly you know you trip and you’re you didn’t actually hit the ground you sort of floating there you don’t notice when a horse walks through the apartment or whatever weirdness happens. It’s just perfectly normal. The only time we question reality is when we are awake. So what if our dream state is what is reality because we don’t question it’s perfectly normal and our waking state is the illusion because we’re constantly wondering what the heck’s going on. I’ve definitely heard of people saying that before. What do you think is is gone out. I mean why is it that only some places get haunted. And you know others don’t. Well usually it’s something so emotionally traumatic that it essentially impresses itself on to reality of the fabric of reality because a lot of most hauntings people come across are as I say residual audiences like you walk in and somebody has got a D.V.D. player on you know the D.V.D. doesn’t know you’re there it’s just or it’s just playing back the same thing over and over and over again. So a lot of times when you hear footsteps walking you’re not being followed by a ghost ghost in that particular moment the sound effect that’s impressed on the ether just happened to be playing back again and you just happen to be in the right place at the right time is a little bit like the Harry Potter professor who is so boring he didn’t even realize he died so he just kept going to teaching the same thing or just got up from his chair or left his body there. That’s similar but that he was a ghost he just didn’t realize he was. Those three didn’t. He didn’t care that he was goes this is this is my job just like this is hard to know what experience did you have in life that made you start believing in ghosts because like the vibe I’m getting from you is like you’re like you’re in like you’re not just like you know open minded You’re like you’re like flat out like you believe I have. I believed in weird stuff since I could read to my knowledge I don’t know if it was a past life or what but when I was I had wondered which is earlier I had a weird experience in my bedroom my brother and I shared a bedroom in our house in Ponta Plains New Jersey this little suburb and it was in a room that didn’t exist when we bought the house when we bought the house it was a one car garage and we my brother and I stayed in a small room and my parents realize well we’re going to need to expand. So they brought in subcontractors they took out the one car garage and in its place created a two car garage and a room above it attached to the second floor indoors. So it was a room that never existed prior to our living there and we were the first homeowners this was all new tract housing back in the one nine hundred sixty S.. Well one time in the one nine hundred seventy S. when my brother had a friend sleeping over and they were down in the rec room in the basement with you know sleeping bags and all that something was in his bed of full size human shape was in his bed in the darkness that I could hear on the mattress under the sheets and I was completely freaked out it was one of the few times that I actually had fear about something this weird normal. Nowadays I’d be like oh I’m turned on the light what the heck is this. And I’ve been to haunted places where people freak out when they. Here’s something and I just heard like oh and with that ones start walking in that direction I hear I was just petrified and I was like oh my God Oh my God is saying and I went downstairs and my brother of course is like you know you just want to you know foist in because I’m having fun with a friend go away so I go back upstairs to the room and after a few minutes I start hearing this body in his bed again moving around. So finally I managed to muster up just enough courage to say Who are you what what do you do you know who is anybody there. And the sound effect I heard it was a body in the bed facing the wall rolling over as though to hear me better. And there was no way my brother wasn’t you know saying still absolutely done here tonight I know what the hell is going on in the bedroom you know and I’m down here but that’s the only time that I experienced fear regarding that now I you know I I had the footsteps in the saying I’ve had experiences on the Queen Mary which is very haunted. What I don’t count. Yeah well it’s California. Yeah. They there’s a swimming pool that is haunted by a little girl ghost named Jackie. Apparently there’s a woman named Sarah who people theorize is sort of Sarah’s protector and there’s also a male ghost that tends to be referred to as grumpy because he’s always you know kind of growing and not pleasant and he thought I think Dan and I was just trapped on the shelf. It’s like the point where you’re like Well and I get back to normal times OK of all hell on earth to be stuck in a hell of a vacation is the lighting not the work that you know when a vacation is goes wrong in every way and then you just wanted to be over with. But then you die and you haunted as a ghost forever. That’s you know that’s a pretty Monday. I’ll take that one. If they were just like an uncomfortable family vacation and I die and I’m just stuck there are a I at least if they have at least the families left Bajor you would not believe we actually right before we started talking to you. Matthew showing me the still remaining website of Heaven’s Gate them up and running maybe the knowledge that Michael should you know film you he then. Yeah well know what I see your Heaven’s Gate I remember the Michael Sheen you know film which I actually saw in its original full entirety with the New York press crew in New York City to the point that it was just so horrifically mind knowing that when we got to all of a sudden intermission it had a friggin intermission tire fallouts just rolled like a badge of being a director and hearing everybody just wanting to kill themselves because they realize they have an entire half of a movie they still have to sit through when putting up the last time I went putting up some of the show out I just have thinking what would be worst everyone hating it or no one listening. Which would be poison. Well the thing is is people that you know as a troll and they go I know this is terribly should never listen. That’s when people like wow how bad can it be a lot to them and I don’t actually God if if there’s like a film where either love it or hate it I like Oh now I have to check it out. Right right. Never say a movie is bad I haven’t seen I’ll say that I have no interest to it while horses are not going to get me to see the new any I’ve seen Broadway way too many times even. Someday I’ll make a movie about any They haven’t yet they they too. That’s not the movie. OK Broadway. They show way too many times when the French as an O. yeah like one of these days are finally going to make prequels to that Star War series which was just exactly in one of these days. Sequel to that Matrix movie due there was so much opportunity to expand the universe. But you know oh yeah I’m sure someone with the right mindset is going to do a great job someday. Have you ever seen the documentary The People Vs George Lucas. Oh yeah I have a one dollar is so friggin funny and it’s pay I don’t know it’s based on the book at the same name but I came across the book at the same name and one of the articles points out that the way that the succession of films were made if you watch them from four five six one two three you realize that each film makes a previous film and films more in comprehensible because the in the second film when and I should say that just before I saw the film the John blue book adaptation came out and I actually read the book and it got up to I’m your father and I was like OK he’s lying he’s tricking Luke to come to the dark side so that once he’s on the dark side he can’t get out and in the movie I’m watching a movie and I’m like and every like GAS GAS that I like the act is just lying you know because he’s not complaining about how many years it bother take yourself. Exactly and then when Vader looks at the Millennium Falcon and says Luke and a close look saying Father I’m like excuse me what. What a low what. No no no no this doesn’t work out because when Obi Wan was describing Luke’s father he was referring to an equal each bullshit i night. They had adventures and you know Vader who was of people mind until eternity Vader being his name was later he turned evil state Vader. Yeah. Doesn’t say if it’s grammatically if they would a least got away with it with saying you know well you know a young guy who was a pupil of mine so eternity will help the Empire hunt down the jet which of course they didn’t have they didn’t do. You know you’re overlooking love only Lonnie Obi Wan Kenobi his love for Anakin was so strong as well as for Luke that he couldn’t accept the fact that Darth Vader in Anakin Skywalker were one and the same Darth Vader killed Anikin Skywalker and not Obi Wan statement in the fourth movie in episode four is completely logical. Well people actually tried that you know that. Well it’s a person point of view like no he didn’t like it. Odilon would have been lying through his flippant teeth. Well you know as yet I know right. As a side point what was the name of the runner who killed his girlfriend who had mechanical legs might betray us or something like Yeah it’s like so he broke records for running with these like fake legs. But clearly he was more machine than man at that point and has so lost his humanity to the point of murdering the one he loves it much like the earth. Yeah but if you’re also if you lost so many limbs and we all knew you know from a lot of the backstory even as far back as when Star Wars was made was that he and Obi Wan had had a fight near a volcano and that’s how Vader became injured and burned all that I didn’t realize he was going to get cut in half when he tried to do a park or back for a while because to be more machining to lose like fifty percent it was too risky and any idea I see when I when I saw The Phantom Menace and everything all I could say to me when they were making. The first movies I thought well the first three chapters have to go this way the first film would be a standard jet movie this is the jet at the prime and they’re there doing all kinds of cool stuff and they succeed. Meanwhile this empire is trying to invade and they come in with all these clones it’s not a all we corrupt from the inside like James Madison has warned our country about that the clone the Clones were from elsewhere. Now if you watch the original Empire before Lucas started playing with it the the Emperor hologram was played by Alec Guinness and the concept originally was is that that was a clone that he was or we want to clone I really I don’t know that. Yeah before they put it in German to Ivan but the actor’s name eludes me was in Sleepy Hollow as well when he date now they stick him in there. That’s like where now if you watch the last return of the jet I and all of a sudden and again pops up on the bridge and people just want to throw things at the screen. At least those of us who know that it’s at the end again. And even that is kind of lame that he he showed up as abilities to try. But either way it’s no better than the whiny bitch that he was and the prequels you know the prequels are no good. I always thought that it should have started like somewhere in the Clone Wars like everything already going on. You think it would have been a much more compelling tale to sit there and see like a fully charged up and again and then honestly quite dungeon was just awesome. I mean I guess it was Jeff Bridges to do that. Liam Neeson Liam Neeson Yeah he he really owned that role and without any regard to the original trilogy. Liam Neeson deserves some credit for that you know. He Darth Maul a Didn’t you know kind of a taciturn guy but he should have been all three of those lovely to have to have had you know that core of characters can to continue telling him a student it was all right so there are there are some high spots from from the pre prequels. I mean how can you know that. I mean I’m sorry nothing objects and you would regret or did a great job as well as young Obi Wan he was he was really I thought it was brilliant. But I like I say if they had done the first film where the chair I had managed to succeed against some for is some horrible dilemma and then the emperor the Republic had been weakened enough for the Empire to come in and then actually have a big hunt down the jet I instead of like OK order number whatever it was just turn around and mask that gotcha. Yeah I was like that is not hunting down shit I want. Well I should say I do think that it is a credit to George Lucas that he can take an actress as good as Natalie Portman and draw out the most stale uninspired performance possible from her. It’s like it takes a real level of out there to be to have someone like her so checked out the entire time. I don’t know how and Keira Knightley Yeah hoose to the fact they look so much alike their own mothers couldn’t tell them apart on set was not the point. Yeah with care and body double She was the fake queen yes but I don’t think she was in the second film she was no one that got blowed up. They had somebody else for that. Hey what about Kira appealing to a large degree. Stars get by on one movie. I mean the first one was a cultural impact but the only one. But for me that really stands to us Times Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the John I was I I I am I can watch it I just find a new hope a little slow. I well I went I thought that the trilogy ended when Jarvis and barge blew up and it went off into its own little fever dream you know I think it’s you know is Star Theater my father her father isn’t like him to find out how those teddy bears with the Empire. Exactly you know. And originally though it was supposed to be the Wilkie planet and I thought oh we need marketing you know cute I love the articles I’ve been reading lately that the e walks were almost in league with the with the Empire because they let them come in and De Forest for a lot of their area and they just were like you know I never will just let you go and we’ll just be over here. But then they realized they had you know a nice trade agreement but then they changed the deal and told to pray that they wouldn’t change it further alter any Then I got to work with Bill Williams in a movie called Bury Monday directed written and directed by Chris De are going to mess up his name. I should’ve written it down. D.R. right. I’m sorry Chris I can’t tell that spot yet but I hope that I work with Patrick Wilson who’s probably the nicest actor you’d ever want to work with ever. He was so super nice and two weeks later I came back for a different scene and he remembered me by name and we were very pleasant but in the office environment will believe William starts the scene at my desk and he’s pointing out stuff and I’m sitting there you know in my head being all nerdy that nerd it out but of course I’m acting so no one realizes I’m saying I’m working. And so he was there the second week but he left you know before I could no risk asking for a photo which normally is bad protocol for even featured background to do. However at the beginning of the second day’s hours the director came over to thank myself and this other girl for coming back for another you know shoot day as though we wouldn’t want to be there and he was so close when I said you know would you mind having a photo with me. Yeah no problem. So I have a nice photo of me with the writer director went on to make the movie Rock of Ages and later at the end I Patrick had been so pleasant chatty with me I said you know really bad protocol for me to ask for a photo with you know he says yeah no problem. And a lot of times the assistant directors I got really upset if you know you’re trying to do that so I Chris walked by and I said Chris and he turned to go I said Would you mind taking a photo of me with no problem so I had the actual director taking the photo of me with Patrick Wilson Facebook. OK well it’s like you almost need more cameras just a document the oddity of the entire experience. Did you say did you get to talk with those Williams about his role as land I did not because he was just acting and acting and when he was done he was like OK God by any just a god before I could really do anything you know but but I understand he is very cool about it is he’s been a Robot Chicken a number of times playing a land out. Oh oh cool yeah. Whenever they do Star Wars sketches they’ll have Billy to come in and he’ll either play Lando and has a he’ll do other voices for other sketches and such and such a weird show to have become a place to express. It’s why old fan enthusiasm you know they have carte blanche. Star Wars Loves You know they have no problem taking all of the fan theories and expounding on the or the plot holes and just widening them. One of my favorites was well the rebels one says What do you mean he says well they blew up the the death the second Death Star. Just yes but we have hundreds of though they won because the emperor was on board you know. OK I guess we’re done. Oh I love the one where the. Turns out the guy’s intimidating Luke in the messed up Mos Eisley bar one of them was playing a prank on a guy who can’t speak English and so on and so I do want to see that. Yeah I don’t like you you know talking about me. He’s an architect that he didn’t want to get his arm sliced off and I don’t see how we can employ architect without attracting a hand through his left hand drawing as she is going to go over his family explain that he got drunk one days from was Dom another got to sell the house. Jesus Christ. So you really thought the stars opposite side of the trailer when I saw the first and even the second trailer I didn’t realize how choked up I was until it was over I was like oh my god I’m so looking forward to seeing. I love J.J. Abrams work I know that everyone is upset with the Star Wars film Well not everyone but a lot of people are upset with Star Wars franchise the rebooted and likely ever to get around the fact that he’s not going to just make all the seventy nine episodes movie version he created it. Kylee new timeline doesn’t like the thing look like Star Trek is like a step up in the Star. Our wars now and they could be naturally competitive as giant franchises I know that’s what also makes it cool because you know it’s usually an in-joke that Star Wars fans and Star Trek fans are are at loggerheads with each other but I love both franchise. But it doesn’t like the natural inborn sort of animosity when it’s off to such big opportunities as opposed to just kind of homogenizing into a fun happy family. I don’t know I mean it’s sort of like I have a lot of friends in the in the pagan community and there are so many different ways to practice that particular religion and how to worship specific gods and rituals and such. There’s no right way to do it. I’m sure some are to straight up Catholic book I’d say. So can a lot of a lot. Well oddly enough the definition of cult Kefalas that was right up there. You know he’s a charismatic leader with a specific dog that everyone follows. But with a pretty broad definition a cult by that definition you can throw ideas in the Google Microsoft in the United States. I thought exactly. You know I think anyone who follows the main parties you know they’re pretty much cultish Yeah first leaders thought leaders euro coldly You know now not going to have any charismatic leader with a dull with with an idea. Well that’s brought down a little later but then there’s like the personality cult where like everyone has like a warship like the leaders. Everything you know when you like the movies or the T.V. show the following and such like Gandhi I don’t personally halted on the phone to Kim Jong Il definitely did. OK North Koreans. Yeah that definitely qualifies as a cult although. It’s complicated due to the political mileage but I don’t think a personality cult is the same as Heaven’s gate that’s a damn cult like that Heaven’s gate that had people drink the Kool-Aid to commit suicide so they could jump on board Hale Bopp the comet and go to heaven with that mind and cult. Alright I think the Tea Party for tangos then they were should have lemurs instead of living ones. You’re just trying to rise out of me at this point that’s not thoroughly that goes nowhere near a cult that the political idiology in their little little further right than the likes of the Republican. Well I think it has much the actual policy that you know well it’s more like it’s more like how dare these people want freedom and the government to leave them alone and for them to live their own lives. That seems to be the argument that both Republicans and Democrats out especially Democrats are like how dare you not let us cradle to grave take care of you and have you owe us all your money that you worked for. Well I do think it’s pointed to grow. Well the thing is is that now a days it used to be that the Republicans were more rightish than you know they are now. Now it’s become to the fact that if people say well I’m a Democrat or Republican I’m like yeah but there’s a different wing of the same demon bird attached to the back of one demon bird whereas you get people in and yeah the Tea Party has you know hiccups here and there like they’re like we should have a fair tax I’m like why don’t we just do the income tax the way it’s flippin written so. So when Wesley Snipes got thrown into jail as a tax protester. Where you on I really know because he filed and lied that factorization not for me and I don’t know when he was actually found like so he was in fact filing. It turns into his recordings and I don’t know if he was filing what’s called as I think he was probably filing a zero or what’s called a zero return where you say well I’m filing because I believe I have to. Even though there’s no law or regulation that requires me to file a specific form and the thing is law has to be very specific and the trick is if you don’t know that somewhere in a statute it’ll suddenly say something like for purposes of this chapter red means blue and you go in saying well I know Red means red and blue means blue and they’re like well do you think red you know like Why yes of course I do because you’re using the dictionary definition and I hear a court saying Well he clearly means blue because he said Red and off you go to the to the pokey as it were so I could you know what was the name of the name of your program the paranormal view like the T.V. show The View except peril do you have the ghosts of TED talk show hosts as the panel. We did not. Yeah we’re on paraffin X. dot com on Saturdays East Coast Time eight ten in the pacific time where five to seven are very laid back sort of like this. We have guests who are a lot of authors who write about and research haunted places locations or the ghost investigators. We’ve had Stanton Friedman who you can see in almost every U.F.O. documentary and he is talking about Don only Area fifty one but like the RA The Roswell case and what I mean Barney Hill with the weird hair that on the History Channel always goes aliens sure it’s something like George two suits calluses or something and I think he’s Greek Yeah yeah yeah yeah. I imagine if we should have that style programming we don’t talk about the estate tax all the time. So you had a long career in film acting right. Oh. Yeah yeah I started I grew up on the stage in a little community theater in Upper Montclair New Jersey called the studio playoffs and I became a member there when I was sixteen and a life member there since. Twenty years later and I’ve done countless stage productions both for adult audiences and for children’s audiences I love doing shows for kids because it’s a more stylized form of acting. You can be a little more funny and a little more physical and sometimes a little more at Libby and such which you really frowned upon in adult productions unless it’s comedy or something is going horribly horribly wrong and you have to cover for something doing terribly wrong a little bit like in Shakespeare’s time when someone would heckle them and you just return it back is like a joke. Oh yeah like that’s like Convention that’s classic theater yet everyone needs it like reproduced in the text now but and it’s like so inappropriate for that drunk guy to be shouting even though that’s actually part of the entire scene recreation in. Well we had we were doing a show where I was playing a genie and the bad guys were trying to grab the bottle from which I was the owner of the bottle owns the genie and all wishes and the kids who had originally found the bottle are trying to get it back and in the script any original blocking they toss the bottle to me and I toss the bottle and when the bad guys from running at me I toss it back to the kids and then the kids officially have the power to freeze the bad guys. Well in the first performance of like twelve or eighteen performances the kid throws a bottle and it goes sailing away re my head into the audience. So I jumped down and worked. True that. And I realize I have the bad guys right in front of me now. And there was a gag where essentially I was clothesline dropped down to the floor by one of the bad guys before the kids get the bottle so I’m like I don’t want to miss that that’s pratfall that’s funny. So I ran across the the front row and thankfully both the bad guys and I had worked together so many times we knew out what what funny was. So they come running to me. I run back across again able to leap up onto the stage so that the original guy is able to close to the clothesline bit as I toss a bottle to the kid and we kept going and the director comes out saying I like it didn’t look right OK And I think we had one director who is normally one of the nicest guys you’d ever want but the minute he became a director it was like you might as well put on the parade and the monocle in the riding crop and he became this tyrant we’re like what god you’re normally not like this what the heck. And for a kid show during the rehearsal process a lot of it is making up funny stuff and doing silliness and getting it all out of the way and certainly laughing and getting. But he’s like no you got to get serious and let’s get this done. Well the show was about the last dragon smuggling himself on to Noah’s ark and I was playing the male frog and I had a you know frog wife and we had aardvarks and hippos and and alligators and he gets caught and he’s put on trial and the alligators are the judges and I’m one of the witnesses in the Aardvarks are witnesses and hippos are the bad guys who want him kicked off the ship and they had this elaborate make up that the guy playing the alligator was a professional makeup artist say he was doing these really awesome elaborate facial make ups so that you knew what animal. We all were without percentages. OK Well he meant it to pass the time he and I came up with a sort of a game of quoting classic like Universal horror movies or other lesser known movies and see if the other person guessed what movie it’s from who said it. Contacts at one point I kind of paraphrased and I came. Why are you doing this to me and he kind of got it he says wait that that’s from Byron Frankenstein is it’s the blind man coming out of the burning hot I’m like yes. And the line is actually you know why do you do this. But why are you doing this to me became this running gag that we always sound hilariously funny. Well one of the shows we’re about to go on and we were making up stuff backstage and I’m thinking you know I’m wearing these construction gloves that were green for my outfit and I said you know if I put my hand in like a fist and I keep the fingers empty you can hit it with the gavel and they thought I was funny. We started snickering and we get on stage and I had a line where my character was decided he wanted to be an alligator he was a frog you want to be an alligator. And throughout the show he offstage he would go and try and live with the alligators he keep coming back and by the end of the show I’m all bandaged up because they keep trying to eat me obviously. Well we’re sitting there and the line was I’m really glad to have a chance to talk to with Your Honor’s because after the trial is over I like to move in with Your Honor’s and by accident I said Show. I said after the show is over I liked it and I stopped I thought Whoa that’s a wrong line I said after the trial is over and I look up and Kevin the lead alligator has its mouth close but he’s trembling because he’s trying not to laugh. And it set me off. I started laughing the entire. We took down the entire cast. We just couldn’t stop laughing because all of the pent up laughter. The director wouldn’t let us do had come to the boiling point we hadn’t realized until that happened. The audience got it that we were God we are nothing we could do apart from maybe you know an ice bucket challenge and I was like oh my god. And we managed to gasp out our lines to keep going and I get over and I would play my wife was the only person who has managed to keep from laughing. She says you know Rupert come over here you know I just looked at her and she started laughing and said It’s all up again for another five minutes and the audience thought it was brilliant they thought it was hilarious because they knew that we were stuck and it was nothing we could do about it. Any kind of situation to find the most Exactly. Well and the very last show led by Y. pulls me away ahead to light my line is along the lines of I’d rather be a dead alligator than a live frog. She’s pulling in a real recovery you know and I look at I say why are you doing this today and then I looked back at him to say the other line and sure enough he’s like God is looking all jaw locked because I’ve got him laughing and the woman playing you know his wife that is to say he has lied for him because he knew he tried vocalizing even God is the only time we prank each other you know that. See if some of the laughs. So when did you switch from doing because it sounds like your background is in theater and as I understand it you know most of what you do now as extras work right. Yeah I’ve been doing background work since about nineteen ninety five ish I guess I started with I’m not Rappaport and in and out. I did a few student films in New York and then I had a girlfriend who said well if you’re going to be an actor you need to be in L.A. and without any research at all she just moving out to California and for a time I stayed with a friend of hers and she had a good paying job in Manhattan and the plan was she was going. Save all her money so we have a nice nest egg. And I do my best to try and get real acting work I got an agent really quickly. I got some commercial work so I became a member of SAG very quickly. I actually got a commercial free De Lay’s Phantom Menace tie in. It was my first national commercial and not in the finished version so I didn’t get any residuals. But I got paid for it twice because they made a European version of it. So even though I wasn’t in either version the fact that I worked on it and they made a second version I got made. So whenever I’m watching a commercial and I see it again. But now a different edited version over like everybody just copied twice you know or three times depending on if it’s a longer version or a shorter version. Yeah I know. No problem with that I mean I got I did a buyout commercial I was directed by Roman Coppola of that of that clan for a game show network promo called botulism where all these different people myself included are screening botulism getting more and more frantic. And it turns out we’re all watching the same game show across the nation and they show the game show contest going salmonella you know the idea is everybody at home knows the answers and the contestants are all idiots. And but that ran for about almost two years so every thirteen weeks I get a check for like two hundred dollars as what’s called a session fee because by having you through another thirteen week cycle they have to pay us again and so we made it again. Now that was a buyout so I didn’t get any residuals every time it showed. But I was making more money from that then the regional commercials I was getting that they only played in maybe one or two cycles. I had one playing in Illinois I had another. I had a few playing another few buyouts before I became SAG That was sports. They were like N.F.L. players I think was pre Play Station that kind of a game and it was I got where I was working I was working at a telemarketing place at the time and some of the I mean hey I went to the Lakers last night and your commercials on the jumbotron. But it’s funny and because I’m so it’s a character face I don’t really bland. So a lot of times when they’re looking for something interesting they’ll come to holding and like they’ll look around and they’ll see me you commit regret and they’ll put me and I usually visible very well in films. I worked on I have people seeing the day Danny Collins film with Al Pacino and they didn’t know I worked on it and all of a sudden they’re saying hey I saw you in the Alps you know Phil Denny Collins of like all cool. I finally saw it about a week ago and sure you know I knew where to look of course but I’m like yeah I can see where anybody who knows me in passing will recognize me and then I heard a strategy for professional actors is that they want to like hide their face and stuff whenever they’re in a movie so they can get you know cast several times. Do you do then call back. Yeah I I don’t I’m. I’ve been fortunate I’ve been I’ve had multiple day gigs. The closest time I almost had that not happen I was working on Charlie Wilson’s War and during the day one of the assistant directors Basil Grillo recognized me because we had worked for seven days in the Garfield movie I had played. If you see the Garfield movie with Jennifer Love Hewitt and all and Breckin Meyer at the very beginning. I’m the milkman delivering milk that Garfield feels and so I was there for seven days not being used which was fine. No problems that is one thing about working in a movie whether your principal or background is sitting around and waiting for them to be ready for you. You know learn how to confront off in the mean time right. Yeah just hanging out and such like that dug out someone out in the professional baseball. Oh yeah I’m sure they’re just checking their tweets and such but Basil recognizing says oh I’ve got something I can get you to do and I didn’t see him for the rest of the day and the guy was one of the production assistants called P.S. was saying OK your rap do not come back to rap you know come back and he gets to me and says OK you’re wrapped I say will Basso Grillo has something for me to do he goes OK you’re not rap you can come back tomorrow. But there’s also a trick and not a trick but it’s something that is not well publicized is that if if your book for two days or multiple days and they wait till after like five o’clock or five or four and you don’t have a chance to get work for the next day because you know you’re working the next day on the project you’re standing there. If they say OK you’re wrapped. They have to pay you for the next day because you were booked and now you can’t get work now that you’re apt so Charlie Wilson’s War there was a girl that did that he said well your raptures Well are you going to pay me for tomorrow that because I you know I was booked for two days. Oh OK you can go back and whether they used her and I have no idea. You know but a lot of times that will happen you know. You know show up and they’ll say OK here’s your voucher and you can go home. But I’m sure they would just keep you around some hustle. I mean I’m just trying to find every little poking it is in fact like I haven’t gotten much. It’s I don’t even know when I worked a thing a few months ago but it’s been very calm out here. So my my call I have a calling service which is essentially I pay them. I hire them paying them sixty dollars a month and what they do is they just submit me for anything that they’re looking for a large crowd or someone of my age bracket or a character face or something like that. But as we mentioned I was in the offices the other day I was getting updated photos I was paying for another month and they said you said well you know you’ve got a great face and casting directors do love you but we’re getting all these call it’s pilot season we’re getting all these call for twenty and thirty something and you know we all admit you don’t blend. You have a very recognizable faces a very distinctive face whether it’s recognizable or not it’s distinctive. So if you wear the feature documentary strictly background written and directed by Jason Connell know what come out recently if it was filmed in two thousand and five I think it was either released and oh six or seven it was a couple of words film festivals but it’s very heartfelt. I thought it would be OK but it turned out to be much more heartwarming than I expected. I’m in and I’m one of the ten people that they interviewed and I said I may be on Hulu but I think it’s somewhere online uncut so you don’t have to have dumb things like Hey let’s interrupt the flow of what you’re watching has something completely different you have to do that all the time specially like reality T.V. style you know like manufacturing a story or something. Yeah it’s it’s it’s it’s very well me and my the girl who brought me out to California when she saw it she says well you know they really didn’t focus on you a whole lot. I like actually they kind of did because yes they they focused on one or two other P.. People there they’re real back story because they were really having it even tougher than I was so they tended to focus on these two guys. But whenever they got to me they showed clips. And when you saw clips to clips from the films and they would be black and white everything but the background person that’s there. Well well then she’s like yes I’m in the movie the Jack Nicholson film with Helen Hunt. It’s not some like it some some Something has some in the title where he says I want to be a better person you make me want to be a better person that’s all right and as good as it gets you nowhere. Yeah. And they show her in it and they stay have to freeze frame it and show it. She’s behind a couch sitting on a couch. All you see is literally from her eyebrow to the top or read this other guy’s like oh it’s really cool because I got to see myself in the Academy Awards a show the split from the usual suspects and they have to stop and it goes back and it freezes and you see he’s just this little blob across the street. But twenty you know one hundred yards away walking slightly out of focus. But he knew it was him and for him that was a big deal. Whereas with Nate there I am there’s no misson in a show me and in and out they’re showing me in Pearl Harbor and they’re showing me in all these movies where there I am. Do you like being an extra I mean do you miss being the you know I love Act which is why I do a lot of student films. U.S.C. L.A. Film School. Occasionally you see at U.C.L.A. they don’t post a lot. New York Film Academy started to post a lot. They have an office out here which makes me wonder why you still call it New York Film Academy I guess it’s their brand of Broadcasting in Atlanta. They say no. Your first quiz spell Connecticut. So I love doing student films because I’m usually the leader of the co-star. I very rarely do a background for student films unless it’s something so compelling like I have to be a part of this I do that on two projects one was a project where it was going to film at Warner Brothers backlot at night with fake rain and then I found out the director the Stude director her mentor was the guy who directed Das Boot names names believe me but the other one I did was for it was going to be a fake airport like fake airport what kind of fake airport sat so I went and I did that and yeah it was background but it was this fake Airport in North Hollywood they have a big fake terminal so that because it’s tough to get certainly post nine eleven this is before they’re getting rights to film in a an airport is really difficult. So here’s an airport. You just go in they got a fake terminal they got the screening area they got bar and I just thought it was brilliant and now I was watching an episode of My Name is Earl my dog there in the fake airport. Suddenly it’s been used in all these different movies and they have all these different fake airplanes so that like where they were shooting last where they’re getting on board the plane that was most likely in this warehouse and a day or two later I got a call from the same production. It was an A.F. I fell for when Gavin Heffernan he called me and asked me to be in Santa Croce because I had worked a second day in a bar scene filmed elsewhere and I spent the day chatting with him and the main assistant director because they were having a lot of technical difficulty setting everything up. So I spent four or five hours Chad. It’s guys and they were very friendly and when he was making Santa Croce call up to say you want to come have the have an actual role in my film like yeah and it’s still it sold somewhere in Europe because I got a check for you know like thirty bucks or something but it’s sold on D.V.D. or something in Europe I’m like OK check clears. Are you a fan of the T.V. show party down. I know is that the reality show part yeah. No no it was so the male the male lead of Parks and Rec and the aggressive gym coach from Glee Jane Lynch Jane Lynch Yes and they’re all caterers who want to be proactive. I actually started watching that because now that you know yeah that’s the one I couldn’t get into it I actually did start watching it has Jane Lynch was in it I heard it was really really funny for some reason it just didn’t sing to me I never got into parts Iraqi either as much as now I’m a big Chris perhaps started by guardians of galaxy is one of my favorite movies. So right now you know you mentioned something there that caught my ear You said it’s been kind of quiet out in L.A. with the parts but not so much in New York. Well I don’t think my parents are my particular grouping as it were. You know my mother is turning eighty nine or something at the end of May and she still get work. I spotted her show forget to tell me she worked on something on occasion so I’ll see her and like it. You just worked on this like you know yeah. What will why didn’t you tell me you know like I was watching two weeks notice and also I think Bob I’m like What. And I color up I say you worked on two weeks notice and Republican Hugh Grant says well yeah I told you about it well eighteen months ago you’re supposed to remind me so when she tells me she works out. Something I had to write it down and it all I put on my calendar so that when it comes out of like oh now I go see my mom worked out but I was watching an episode of Inside Amy Schumer and there were all these women men and women over a slightly older category at all I think has managed this kind of thing mom should be and also has the family business. You’re both professional you know. She actually got me sort of in the background aspect because I mean she and my mom both did community theater when I was growing up and they sent my brother and me off to a like sort of more drama class thingy more like now we have time to ourselves kind of a class is supposed to really do this and we had a blast I caught the bug and began acting more regularly and I took classes in college but generally I learned more from experience then taking classes if that makes any sense. Oh yeah all the arts. Man it’s been stuck in the trenches of it. Exactly you know but but you know the two of them occasionally get more work. I don’t know if you ever saw a royal pains on the USA with Mark Feuerstein and eventually Henry Winkler was added to the cast as his dad will wipe my brother was Marc Christine’s stand in for the first two seasons of that until a change production companies and so he got to get some nice photos of him with Henry Winkler much to his own geek out at that and I was one of the self-referential jokes on the Arrested Development who was throwing back to happy days between him as a lawyer and Ron Howard is the same. No producers narrator type I never go I should probably watch that I know it’s supposed to be very good but I never got caught into that some shows I mean I think most of the culture that’s like weird like I can’t laugh at Silicon Valley being a software developer because it just feels almost cringe worthy because it’s almost too real you know. Oh well I don’t that’s part. Yeah because I I so I try I tried watching the office when it came out and I could get past Iowa I was just like I can’t watch this it’s just it was to me was terrible. They were trying to aim for. Right. Yeah I don’t know how well they were certainly succeeding. Well the thing was is I eventually saw the British version with Ricky Gervais’s and it was just knock down drag out funny I couldn’t stop laughing I thought why couldn’t they do this kind of thing. Now there was a British show called coupling which I watched because I’m a big Steven Moffat fan and I know he’s got a very twisted sense of humor and I knew they brought it over and they were bringing it over here and I thought Oh that does not bode well and I keep meaning to check it out and it was gone within two episodes it did not. They couldn’t translated properly. One of my cats is demanding attention. I would guess I was going to cat like leaping and on top of them but I know I will say again when I was on the happened for one woman who called him for her Sherlock Holmes convention which was Sherlock Holmes convention was that it was called to twenty one in which one because there’s so many that start to you know I mean I when it comes to say Dr Who It is my big huge not even guilty pleasure I attended Gallifrey one which is. The biggest Dr Who convention and that’s to decide to create the Sherlock Holmes. They were hanging out of their hotel room over the weekend like let’s do it let’s just do it and then et al if they want. Yeah they were a gala very well I think so excellent. Last year I should say a few years ago it was this intimate little convention we had a very loyal you know group of people who all showed up and it tended to get very close to selling out or it was increasing almost by a thousand people per year and then Craig Ferguson who is a huge Dr Who fan on his show. Promoted the convention he said well it was this big convention going on in L.A. Xperia and all of a sudden on Saturday we were deluged. And I say we as in you know a lot of staff and I’m not I I’m just a fan I just go I’ve never worked at our volunteer or anything but I still consider it like we all consider it this is our convention and he said OK we’re not going to be camp by next year’s membership just here at the Con You have to wait we’re going to do it probably in April or May So we all had like oh my God you know so I set my calendar and I was at the computer and I bought it really fast and I was set a year after that. Same thing they said OK got away a couple of months. And so again I was right as a computer and I kept heading up five until that entry fields came up which is rumored server and through it all information OK you’re all set you’re paid for her Am I good. Excellent. Later that day I figured I would say well you know I’m sure it’s you know going to do well. It sold out thirty five hundred memberships and seventy five minutes. When the ball is launched. I’m like the thing I missed any of the computer Thanks Craig Ferguson. Exactly. We have we have the same deal here whenever trying to book a room for Dragon Con It’s the second I don’t want to go to drag the past the second the hotel rooms open up it’s like all gone. Luckily we live in town so you know it’s there but you can’t have that next level. Total Dragon Con experience with that. I have friends are saying is that counting down yesterday and heading to Atlanta. So like pick the common industry like have you put You’ve been how long have you been in the Dr who con how many years. Ronnie you mean this particular one in general. Well yeah. GENERAL Well let me let me put it this way when I was a child in one thousand nine hundred eighty six our family back when it was a little more affluent went to Europe and we went up to London to visit our friends we had relatives in Birmingham Bournemouth and there were these big posters for Peter Cushing film called Dalek Invasion earth twenty one six fifty eighty. Well fortunately my family family apart from being state actors they ALL my parents loved science fiction and even horror films so they thought well we do we know who Peter Cushing is from the Hammer horror films and try to kill it all at Wyatt. We don’t know if this film is going to come to America so we should watch it here. And out came the Daleks and like everyone else back and back then of course at Oxford Street in one thousand nine hundred sixty three we were so used to aliens being made of rubber suits. All of a sudden here come these you know rolling pepper pots with the most awesome Well bases in the world being really creepy and scary and we were just blown away by it. And Ali Khamenei was at its height so we bought the Dr Who Annual which was confusing to me because it had William Hartnell in the covered up your coaching and doll like Annual which was called Dollar world that year the Terry Nation role with David Whitaker and I met Carrie Nation decades later when I used to man P.B.S. pledge drives when P.B.S. used to show the bakers. Peter Davison episodes and I showed it to him he says Oh my God I completely forgot I wrote this you know and he signed it and we only paid a few shillings for one thousand nine hundred eighty S. and then the in the one nine hundred seventy S. when the Don Baker started showing up W R NEW YORK albeit with commercials and Howard so were doing these weird previously on kind of in their ration at the beginning of each episode I became I was saying can this be the same Dr Who that they were talking about because I had no doubt it was a T.V. series but it never got into the concept of regeneration. And so they they showed you know at the very beginning they showed John we turning into Tom Baker and eventually it made sense but I was so used to once the Daleks showed up in Genesis of the Daleks I was like OK yeah this is this is it all right and then creation and other conventions started cropping up and I started meeting friends who used to cause play and this is years before the term cause Flavin existed and I was at one convention in Ohio meeting in Collin Baker who had just become the new doctor at the time and a friend of my dad met looked at me at the time I had a full beard he says you know looking at your forehead and your nose. I think if you shave your beard back you would probably look a lot like Roger Delgado who played the master during the one nine hundred seventy S. really. So I went downstairs one of the master episodes was showing and I’m like Damn we do have the same nose and forehead and almost the same hairline. Well well Roger Delgado insult died in one thousand nine hundred. And yeah and then Anthony Amy became the master during mostly the Peter Davison. Sarah and then he he passed away between the classic era and the current era. And then they brought in John Sam as the kind of insane master and I was like you sort of don’t remember what that character was supposed to be but I when I realized how close I looked like Delgado my mom was also a customer. I had her do up. I managed to get some really good photos of Delgado’s outfit and so I have never seen anyone and I have seen some Delgado cost players. I had never seen a costume accurate as accurate as mine was and I can’t really fit it now. It would need to be let out of that not fat group bigger than I was when I was in my twenty’s. And so we had in our group we had a perfect flawless Tom Baker very good flawless Peter Davis and myself as Delgado and we began adding other people being gravitating to our group and we refer to it as conventions the Golden Age If you go to my Facebook you can people I don’t know if it’s public it’s only my friends can see it. But one of my galleries is photos back from the Golden Age of Dr Who convention. So this sounds like a professional like it to be like a super fan of everything I just kind of energy gets kind of thrown constantly back into you know even a casual something special side. Well that’s the thing is that’s why I love doing student films is because first off you never know you never know if the footage is going to be really good for real and you never know which director you’re working with that’s going to be the next Peter Jackson. You had any of those like surprise like blow ups from the students and like a big student director becoming Peter Jennings not yet not yet not. Yet I doubt a lot of very good student films however it should be noted I just did. I for U.S.C. student film I wrote I was at an audition or waiting to go in for an audition this filmmaker went by and he says the two actors are and he says do you do voices I say Yeah he says do you dialects I’m like well yeah. So he had me do something of a Southern dialect and he says Would you mind being the voice for my animated film. I’m like yeah cool you know I haven’t. OK You were talking about some previous guest I was going to name temporarily experts in dialogues where you got it. Well I I I’m not trained in southern accent so I did sort of like this weird homogenized version of a cross between a Bostonian and Pepperidge Farm remembers and it works because most of it is very special and such like that and I saw the short and it’s awesomely Crispe it’s very Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe ask and it’s very dark and very twisted and very unsettling is a good way to put it. And it’s called the pride of Strathmore with two hours two hours Strathmore and it won Best Animated Short at slam dance which is the festival that takes place during Sundance right. Because it won and I just found out while the other night they showed they screened it with other shorts at the Director’s Guild and I was at that screening of the about to last Friday this was and while we were there the director who is like literally the height of a Walkie is over seven foot tall. Look at this guy like he’s very very friendly fellow from essentially from Iceland named you know are bold of them. He’s just a super creative guy. And they screened it and I saw it on the big Director’s Guild screen which was even better than at the screening room they have at U.S.C. So I’m like wow this is like really awesome to see and it was very well received as it usually is. And while we were there we showing at a Florida Film Festival a day or two later he contact me he says well we won the Florida one to two as well. But the fun thing about flam dads having one slam dance makes the short eligible for consideration for the Academy Awards. So that would be awesome. I don’t think we’re going to be on Lovecraft one as a winner. Well it may not win but even if it’s nominated. Yeah. So is showing a clip and realizing that’s my voice everyone’s hearing on A.B.C. would you get a nose as well. No it’s what’s called copying credit. But if if it wins you know or even dominated that UPS like three credit pretty much you know because if people say wow I saw that film it was really weird I have to check that out he says all this is a guy who did the voice OK you know and it was only me there was nobody else doing you know it’s just me voicing this pastor in the one nine hundred twenty entries from his journal. And it’s all fake. It’s a narrative fiction. But a lot of people think where did you get these journals. They were asking the other night at the screening is like I just wrote The War of the world to Lovecraft story then people start getting real Exactly. So when you’re working on his actions you have a new strategy is going to be trying to pick up a new accent. I will sometimes sort of think in my head and an actor doing that role and I’ll try and sort of do what would that guy sound like. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a weird Nickelodeon car to gold invaders them but a vigorous image is very bizarre. Show a very very dark and White House just for kids but zoom had this very over the top layer speaking. And I did this one U.S.C. student film