LA Times: If the Emmy Drama Roundtable proves anything, it’s that even the stars of TV’s buzziest shows are familiar with the indignities of the working stiff.
When asked, in regard to his role in “Severance,” if there’s a job on his résumé he’d prefer to forget, Adam Scott said even his less memorable work moved him forward. But, he noted, “My first job ever, I was in the background for a Tia Carrere music video. … It was in the fall of 1993 and it was at a coffeehouse and I had a beret and I was drinking coffee. I actually can’t find it on YouTube, so I guess the world has forgotten about it.”
Rhea Seehorn, starring to broad acclaim in the final season of “Better Call Saul,” said, “I have many auditions I’d like to forget.”
“I would forget every audition if I could,” said Melanie Lynskey, who stars in Showtime’s creepy survival tale “Yellowjackets.”
Sebastian Stan, in the process of obliterating his Marvel superhero image with a transformative turn in “Pam & Tommy,” used to submit elaborate VHS audition tapes.
“I think my first big movie job came off of a tape,” he said. “And I remember I was really cool about it because I had a cigarette. You couldn’t really do that in the auditions. And this particular time it worked because the producer smoked cigarettes and he really was just …”
“‘Someone that smokes cigarettes is right for our cast,’” Scott interjects.
Kaitlyn Dever of “Dopesick” recalled one of her first jobs, at age 14, on Scott’s show, “Party Down”: “I played a girl named Escapade. … I sang ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ in front of the entire cast.”
Jin Ha, who holds degrees from Columbia and NYU and is currently featured speaking three languages (four dialects) in “Pachinko,” said, “There’s a babysitting job I wish I could sever [from] my brain. It was just once because they never asked me back. It was two young girls and I made bacon for them and it did not go well. I poured the hot oil into the trash bin, which must have melted.”
Here, in excerpts from their sit-down with The Times (edited for length and clarity), the six actors explain the inner workings of their characters, learning from teachers, collaborating with directors and watching themselves onscreen.
Many of you have what I’d call strong internal conflicts in your roles. Jin, for your character in “Pachinko” to seal this big deal, you’re going to have to manipulate an elderly woman and enlist your wonderful grandmother.
Jin Ha: I’ve been thrust into this position of responsibility as the second or third generation of this family that’s gone through so much. What are the expectations that are put upon that generation? The first generation that has opportunity available to them, the weight of that expectation can be heavy. What was the line from “Evan Hansen”?
Kaitlyn Dever [costar of “Dear Evan Hansen”]: Oh …
Ha: “We wear it well, but it doesn’t mean it’s not heavy.”
Dever: That’s it.
Ha: It’s about those internal struggles for Solomon of, “I am Korean and I was born and raised in Japan, therefore I am also Japanese. I went to school and worked in America, so I am also American in that way.” And the way that he tries to straddle those three identities is a lot of the source of his tension.
[Seehorn’s character] Kim, we can see every step of the way being charmed by what Jimmy does and then starting to buy into it herself. Are those arcs as well mapped out as they seem over six seasons?
Rhea Seehorn: There is an architecture to being a prequel; we have some mileposts that have to be hit. But no, they’re not mapped out. [The writers] love to paint themselves into corners and figure out how to get out.
Adam Scott: That’s crazy.
Seehorn: The famous Krysten Ritter scene in “Breaking Bad” when Walt lets her choke on her own vomit and somebody has to come and clean it up. … There is only a Mike Ehrmantraut character at all in that universe because they didn’t plan ahead. Bob Odenkirk was busy on a film; it was supposed to be Saul.
[To Lynskey] Do you get told the whole arc and where your character is going?
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