Too Close to Home’s Britt George is always ready to attempt new roles.
I recently had the chance to speak with George about his upcoming role in Too Close to Home, working with Tyler Perry, and the biggest challenge of his career.
George is excited for us to see his character in action. “I play Tony, who is the owner of the local honky tonk. The cool thing about the character is I’m sort of the place to hang out where everybody is passing through, looking for somebody. So, the bad guys are running from my bar, and the good guys are coming in looking to see where they maybe have went,” George explained.
We’ll get to see George’s character for half of the season. “I will pop up in episodes 4-7,” he said. “It’s sort of alluded that I’ve got my own baggage and stuff going on in the place.”
A lot of what made George want to be a part of this project in the first place was working with Tyler Perry and getting to put his own twist on the character.
“I think he’s amazing, and I’ve heard things about him over the years — about the way he works. And he has a tendency to shoot really fast. The guy wears so many hats, and he does such a great job doing it that I just wanted to be around him on set just so I could witness it,” George stated.
“Tyler [Perry] has a way that he wrote this character, and he just let the characters talk to each other. He doesn’t put a whole bunch of character description in his notes. That way, he allows the actors to read it to interpret it and to see what they bring to [the role],” he continued.
“I auditioned for it, and I was told that my interpretation of the character is why I was hired to play the role. I took that and ran with it — and just wanted to create any little nuances that I could. Tyler didn’t shut anything down, he welcomed everything that I brought to it.”
With no character descriptions being given, it gave George the opportunity to research and make the character the way he wanted.
“He gave a really good blueprint with the dialogue. But yeah, he didn’t put any character descriptions on there. He didn’t even put that it was a southern character necessarily, other than the fact that it was at a bar. So I got to find that and discover stuff on my own as an actor, which is a lot of fun,” George added.
One of the perks of this role was definitely being on set and getting to see Tyler Perry work his magic.
“I’m such a fan of his. I’ve watched so many of his movies over the years. I think he’s such a great actor, and the fact that he’s accomplished as much as he’s accomplished — I was sort of in awe of the guy and I wanted to be around him just so I could sort of be a fly in a wall and witness it. He’s sort of a General,” George said.
“There’s so much going on, and he’s doing so much. He’s got to have his act together. He’s a General, but at the same time, he’s very nurturing, caring, and giving of himself. He’s prepared 100% and he expects you to be the same way. He’s very professional, such a joy to work with the guy.”
Too Close to Home is the first scripted show to air on TLC, something that we’re seeing on more and more networks.
“When they first started advertising it as the first scripted show, I thought that was really cool, and I’m glad that they’re doing that. I prefer more scripted shows over reality, personally,” George said.
“I really enjoyed the storyline, and that was the main focus for me. Reading all the scripts that I got, reading that this girl was in trouble, started off in DC, the political scandal that was going on, and the fact that she returns to her roots kinda reminded me of the movie Sweet Home Alabama, and the TV show Scandal. I’m a fan of both of them. In no way did I feel like it’s copying either one, but I am just such a fan of both of those that it intrigued me.”
George has been in the business for a long time, and he shared one of the biggest challenges of his career.
“Probably the biggest challenge, I played this character, Luc Baptiste, on a TV show called Cryptid: The Swamp Beast on the History Channel. It was very similar to the way Tyler worked also. They gave me an outline for where this character was and where he came from, but I had to dig deeper to find it myself. One of the things, to me, that was a challenge, but I loved the challenge, is that this character, Luc Baptiste, is an animal control specialist. If somebody has an alligator in their backyard, he’s the guy they’d call. And he goes and gets the alligator out no problem. He grew up in the swamps of the bayou down in Louisiana, and nothing fazes him,” George recalled.
“Well, Britt is fazed by that stuff, and I’d say the biggest challenge was they had me out in the middle of the swamp, and we had to take a boat about 5-6 miles out to nowhere land. They had these old hunting cabins, and I had to do this scene where I’m up on this marsh, and when you stand on this marsh you start to sink into it. I’m looking for these kids that have [gone] missing out in this swamp,” he continued.
“They’re out looking for this creature that’s out terrorizing the town. Here’s the biggest challenge: I had to walk probably 30 yards through, they wanted me to go chest deep — thank God that didn’t happen — but it was waist deep swamp water and you couldn’t see anything. It was all just the green grass and slime,” George said. “I was really brave in between action and cut, but as soon as they would say cut, man, I would just go far away from that stuff. I had to be carrying alligators around, close to snakes, crawling under houses, and just doing a lot of stuff that’s out of character for a guy like me.”
For George when it comes to getting older it means caring about the roles a little more and digging deeper.
“As far as being an actor goes, it’s really interesting because when I was younger — in my twenties and after I went to acting school, drama school, and had done plays — I used to approach things by memorizing the role. And I would just try to live it and be as real as possible. The longer I do it, the more I feel they’re all a challenge, they’re all an equal challenge,” he said.
“Things I used to read that were just two people having a conversation, I feel like I need to dig deeper now to find a backstory and find out where these guys come from. To bring any sense of honesty to what I’m saying. So, to me they’re all a little bit of a challenge in that way. And maybe it’s just what makes it kinda fun for me. It’s so much more than just saying the words.”
Even with his busy life, George still finds time to binge-watch as well as keeping up with his favorite shows.
“I watch a lot of independent films, but what’s funny is I made a comment about reality shows vs. scripted shows, and I never really thought of TLC as just reality stuff. But I find myself watching it all of the time. I can’t even believe Say Yes to the Dress is on and I’m not changing the channel, but I just find myself stuck watching it. That and Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on [Food Network]. I don’t know anybody that doesn’t just get sucked into that one,” he laughed.
“There’s a show on HBO right now with John Turturro, The Night Of, and I’m five episodes in. I watched all five episodes last night, and I just love to binge-watch these kinds of shows. The only ones I stay current on are Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, just because I don’t want the spoilers. I love independent films, so I try to watch everything the Duplass Brothers do. They had a wonderful series that just got canceled on HBO called Togetherness. That show was awesome, and I’ll watch anything those guys do.”
One type of role that George would like to attempt in the future would be the villain that you love to hate.
“The first one that comes to my mind is the anti-hero. The bad guy that you can’t help but root for, that’s a character that I would love to play. In Dexter, you couldn’t help but root for the guy. He was a bad guy doing awful things, but everybody he was going after was worse than him. I like those kinds of characters; I’m drawn to them but I haven’t played any as of yet.”
Be sure to catch Britt George as Tony on Too Close to Home, airing Mondays at 9/8c on TLC.