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Sunday, April 1, 2012
Q&A with Jon Bernthal, aka Shane Walsh on The Walking Dead
Jon Bernthal is a super-nice guy, which you might not guess given that Shane, the character he plays on The Walking Dead, rubs a lot of people the wrong way (to make a massive understatement). But Jon is gracious and funny, and he was kind enough to chat with me in anticipation of his appearance at Emerald City ComiCon this weekend. Warning: We talk about major Walking Dead spoilers, so if you're not caught up and you're the sort of person who hates spoilers, don't click the jump. Consider yourself warned!!
Jon will be appearing at ECCC with Laurie Holden (Andrea) on the "Talkin' Dead" panel on Saturday from 1–2 p.m. You can meet them Saturday and Sunday all day on the show floor.
SPOILERS AFTER THIS JUMP!
I have to admit, I did not see Shane's death coming, especially so quickly on the heels of Dale's untimely demise! How long have you known this was coming?
That was always the plan. I got the luxury (which is rare in episodic TV) to know what my arc was, to know there was a beginning, middle, and end. I always knew when it was coming, and I'm really grateful for that. It made it possible for me to do my best to make a three-dimensional character and show as many colors as I could. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to still be around, but it was great.
Did you read any of the comics?
No, I didn't. I mean, they sent me the stuff when I got the job, and I was so excited and I opened up the source material and then my character was dead before I finished the first book and I realized, "There's really no reason to read this."
I thought it was interesting that they brought that arc back, that Carl was still the one who killed Shane.
I thought that was really cool, too. I think that's really good. I always said it's not about whether Shane dies, it's about that death resonating with Rick and Carl and Lori. And that's what's important. And I think it's great they had a way that both Carl and Rick took part in that.
It was so cool to watch the other night's finale because it was the first episode of the Walking Dead I could watch as a viewer and NOT know what was going to happen. I didn't read the script, I had no idea what was gonna happen. And that was really cool, I got to see the great work that everybody does... I was blown away by Andy (Rick) and Sarah (Lori), I thought their scene regarding Shane was really just beautifully done. They're such awesome actors.
What do you think of Shane?
I actually read for both Rick and Shane, but really loved the character of Shane. I think Shane was happy to be Rick's pit bull. He never looked at Lori the wrong way before the apocalypse, he was part of the Grimes family… the kind of guy who'd breeze on in during dinner and make himself a plate. He had a social life and never envied what Rick had. And then when the apocalypse happened, he had this woman and child who were looking to him, and out of loyalty and love for his best friend he took care of them. But then it's really hard for someone like Shane, once you've had power and realize there's no consequence to your actions, when you think you're making the right calls and someone's trying to stop you, it changes a person like him. I don't know that I would have made the same calls that Shane did, but I understand why he did what he did.
And how was it to play the other side, to be a zombie?
Yeah, it was weird. I mean, look, I'm a preparation freak, so any time I'm on camera I really try to figure out what's going on in the scene, and when they were like, "Okay, time to put on your zombie make-up, put in the contacts, it's time to play a zombie." And I'm like, "I don't know how to play a zombie! I haven't practiced my walk, I mean, I have no idea how to do that." I mean, it was— I always knew it was going to happen, we had always talked about it, but it was very surreal. I didn't love being a zombie, I'll be honest with you. [Chuckle] People are always like, "How do I get to be a zombie? How do I get to be a zombie?" And I'm like, "You really want to wear 40 lbs. of makeup and sit in the sun all day?" That's what those guys go through.
The make-up on the show IS amazing; it just blows my mind every time I see it.
That's the thing, I mean, Greg Nicotero, we're just so lucky to have him, he's the best in the business. I think it was such an awesome decision of Frank [Darabont]'s to do everything real and not do CGI.
Yeah, I think it makes a huge difference in the feeling of the show, the way it feels gritty and real.
Yeah, we shoot it on film, we don't shoot it on hi-def. I mean, there's all these decisions that I think people don't recognize... This show could be such an unbelievably epic piece of shit, you know, if done the wrong way. I mean, think about it: a zombie show, and a bunch of actors talking in a Southern accent running away from people in make-up. It could be freaking horrible. I think it's funny that for really, really good stuff, you gotta take that risk. You gotta go all the way and realize, "Okay, if we fuck this up, we're gonna fall so flat on our face, but if this works, it's gonna be gangbusters," you know? I think that's the kinda group that Frank assembled for this show. I mean, I've never met a group of more game actors and crew. It's such a badass group of people, and that's the thrill, and everyone realizes how lucky they were to be there, and everyone there goes full out. And it really is a family... and I know actors say shit like that all the time [mocking], "Oh, we're a family!" I've been on a lot of jobs—they weren't a family. THIS is family, you know? It's really special, and I'll miss that with all my heart.
Are you worried about the character of Shane haunting you, given the popularity of the show?
Not really… Actually, I hadn't really thought of that [laughs], but no, I try to make each character distinctive, and I'm proud of my work so I don't mind if I'm known for Shane.
So now that you've left The Walking Dead, you're going to be in Frank Darabont's new project, L.A. Noir?
Yeah, I'll be playing a cop, Joe Teague, who goes up against the gangster Mickey Cohen. I'm really pleased to be working with Frank again, I mean, he's one of the greatest directors of our time. And it'll be interesting to flesh out this new character who's so completely different from Shane.
You've done a bunch of stage acting as well…
I love stage acting. I was able to do a really cool play out here in LA last year. We did it for no money, a teeny little theater, just word of mouth, and the play totally exploded and had this awesome life out here; we won all kinds of awards and got all this really cool awesome recognition, and we're actually moving it to do it off Broadway in New York when I get done with the new series. And I'm just really excited 'cause being onstage, that's it for me.
Your bio on IMdB says you studied theater in Moscow… What took you all the way to Russia?
I went to college in America to play sports and that's really what I was into, that and getting in all kinds of trouble. Then I found acting in college, but I was all sorts of messed up. Then I met this wonderful teacher named Alma Becker. She said that I had something, and made me believe in myself. I had to leave school, I didn't finish, but I said, "Alma, I know this is what I want to do, I know I want to be an actor and become the best actor I can possibly be," and she said, "Move to Moscow. Go study at the Moscow Art Theater, it's the best theater school in the world. It'll make you grow the hell up, it'll teach you a respect for the craft, it will give you a much broader understanding of human nature. Go somewhere where to be an actor is not just something you can decide you are one day, but you have to earn it." I said, "Alright, that makes sense."
And I did it, and sure enough it really did change my life and prepared me for a career for the rest of my life. You know, this is what I'm going to do forever, and I love it and I realize how big of an honor it is. I studied acting literally every day of my life for five years before I ever went on a single audition. And I'm so grateful for that. I feel like so many actors out here focus so much on trying to get in the right rooms, or trying to meet the right people, or trying to get an agent. And then when they get in the rooms, they don't have the first idea of what to do. I feel really blessed that I spent time figuring out what I was going to do once I got in a room. So I owe Alma all my talent, and she actually was the woman who married my wife and me last summer. So, an extremely important person to me my whole life, and will always be.
I also read that you're a boxer… is there overlap with acting? Are there things you take to the stage that you also take into the ring?
I think it's all related... I mean, I love boxing, and when you get in the ring and you're fighting somebody, you're all by yourself. And I dig that. There's a repetition and a focus on the craft of it, the training, the every day. I'm in a boxing gym six days a week no matter where I am. When I was in Georgia doing The Walking Dead I didn't miss a day. It's something I kind of have to do at this point. I think the downside is my face is completely smashed in, I broke my nose a few times, I look like a complete mongrel... But the good thing is since it's already bashed in, my agents can't really get mad. [Chuckles]
It sounds like you're a super-focused person; whatever it is you're doing you're just taking it by the horns.
Sometimes, but I'm also super laid-back, I love Willie Nelson, I love the Grateful Dead, I love chilling out and eating a pizza and lighting up a spliff and hanging out. [Chuckles] It's just the things I really dig... I really dig 'em, and I figure if you're gonna do it you better go all the way. But yeah, I've got a little boy now, and if I could have it my way I'd just sort of be hanging out with him all the time. He's 8.5 months. He grew up on the set of The Walking Dead, and he's gonna be something else. He ain't scared at all, he's not scared of anything [laughs].
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Frank Darabont on His New TNT Show
In his first interview about the new project, Darabont talked to TV Guide Magazine about how L.A. Noir came about. And for the first time, Darabont addresses his exit from The Walking Dead, including why he thinks he was forced to leave, and how it wasn't easy for him.
TV Guide Magazine: Talk about tackling noir, and how did you first come across this specific book?
Frank Darabont: I've loved noir my whole life, and I've always wanted to go into that area of storytelling. I'm a huge Raymond Chandler buff, which is actually why I grabbed this book off the shelf at LAX in the bookstore as I was about to get on a flight. It seemed right up my alley. I read it on the flight, and then the following day after I couldn't put the darn thing down. When I got back from that trip I called my agent to find out if the rights were available and word came back to me that the rights were with [former New Line president] Mike De Luca, whom I've known since 1986. So I called Mike and said, "What are you thinking of doing with this?" He said "I don't know, you want to do something with me?" And boom, it was that easy.
TV Guide Magazine: That sounds almost too easy. It's rare that a project can come together so fast and with that much ease.
Darabont: I know, isn't that lovely? The strange confluence of good fortune extended beyond that because Mike had a meeting to go in and talk to Michael Wright at TNT, and no sooner had this come out of his mouth that Michael said, "I want this." It's a book he had read because he's also obsessed with this era and this genre. He knew the book intimately and was quoting from it in this meeting. It should always be this easy. It's not always, but this has been great.
TV Guide Magazine: Tell me about your adaptation of L.A. Noir. What's the focus, and who are the main characters?
Darabont: That's going to be the fun of doing this, to invent that tapestry of characters. The very first character I came up with, an invention of mine, is a character named Joe Teague, who was on the police force. And he's caught in that moral gray zone between the William Parkers of the world and the Mickey Cohens of this world. And what a great, fun gray zone to be in. Caught, as he puts it, between the white hats and the black hats.
TV Guide Magazine: There are plenty of people who might argue that Parker was a bigger villain than Cohen.
Darabont: Yes, both very interesting and very complex characters. Mickey Cohen actually maybe not so much. He was a one-track minded fellow, but Parker, yeah, a very interesting guy.
TV Guide Magazine: How will you strike a balance between the real-life and fictional characters?
Darabont: I think that's yet to be determined. I've focused on writing the pilot script and I've got some sort of long-range arcs in my head, what would comprise the first season. Certainly Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Siegel and William Parker will be vital components of that. But where exactly the mix lands, that's work yet to be done. Joe Teague is the lead of the pilot, he will be a good way to step into this world. And what's a good noir without a great noir dame? I definitely have in mind a very, very nice, complicated girlfriend for Joe. It's not quite a meet-cute scenario but they're definitely going to have some heat to it I think.
TV Guide Magazine: Will you be incorporating real-life events and real-life crime into the mix as well?
Darabont: Oh yeah, there are a lot of ideas to be kicked around. God knows, in this era there's so much going on. The book couldn't deal with them all, of course, and it would be somewhat off the subject of the book's intentions. But for a dramatic TV series there's all kinds of stuff, so many avenues you can go through. One thing we're talking about and I'm tremendously interested in is what African-American culture was doing at that time in L.A. There was no reason for the book to delve into that. What was the Hispanic culture doing at that time in L.A? How does that tie into the mob world, on either side of that fence? 1947 was in fact the year of the Black Dahlia. I'm really looking forward to picking John Buntin's brain, now that I have a good excuse to do it. There had to be stuff in his research that he left out, wonderful stuff he left on the table simply because he was writing a book and he had to be editorially selective.
The pilot takes place in 1947, this is that massive post-war boom where the soldiers came back and they settled here because they weren't going to go back to the farm or Detroit. A little bit of Joe Teague is based on a gentleman that died back in 1992 but he was the father of a best friend of mine. He fought in the Pacific and was originally dirt poor from the slums of Detroit and he went off to war and when he came back, he settled in Los Angeles like so many others did. That's kind of an interesting world because the whole city is being reinvented. The Valley is being uprooted and turned into housing. There was so much that was happening at the time.
TV Guide Magazine: Any other key roles you can talk about?
Darabont: There's a wonderful character named Hecky Nash. I won't tell you too much about him, but he's definitely a key piece of the pilot. He's got a little scheme going that might backfire on him that ties him in with the mob. That's going to be just a terrific role for somebody. We've got a few people in mind, one guy in particular. Cross your fingers, because he's a great actor and I'd love to get him into this for the pilot.
TV Guide Magazine: Where did the idea come from to adapt non-fiction and merge it with fiction?
Darabont: It troubled me for a moment because I tend to be pretty faithful when I adapt. If you look at the Stephen King stuff that I've done [The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile], they tend to be pretty faithful even though you re-engineer story where you have to in order to make it work for the screen. I thought, as good as the book is, it is a historical document. And it is tremendously absorbing, but it is still non-fiction. I thought that this could run the risk of being a very earnest and well-meaning docudrama. I wrestled with that for a little bit, and my sense was that if I gave myself permission to invent, and I've seen this done very beautifully in other television projects, to invent fictional characters that guide us through the non-fictional landscape, then I felt I would be in a really good strong position. I really want to deliver a show that lives up to that title. L.A. Noir is a certain kind of show in my mind's eye. The book is always my guide, of course, but there's going to be a tremendous fun we have with mixing fact and fiction.
TV Guide Magazine: Most recently, Boardwalk Empire managed to combine fact and fiction successfully.
Darabont: Exactly, Boardwalk has done that very well. And one of my favorite miniseries of all time is Rome, which invented this wonderful ensemble of fictional characters woven into the actual events and did such a beautiful job of it. That's somewhat the approach that we're taking. We don't want to be limited by facts, because we never want to abuse the facts but we don't want to run the risk of this being a dry thing. I want it to be a bright, vibrant piece of fun drama.
TV Guide Magazine: People also are already familiar with a lot of the real-life noir stories, hallmarks like the Black Dahlia.
Darabont: It will be really fun to work around the real characters as well, the Mickey Cohens and the Bugsy Siegels and the William Parkers, and bring all that stuff into it. It will be tremendously fun to weave the tapestry. It keeps it fresh and exciting for me.
TV Guide Magazine: Plus, you'll get to shoot in downtown Los Angeles, some of which remains untouched from that era.
Darabont: Oh brother, can I tell you how excited I am to shoot in my hometown? Everybody on the project so far, and I've got a lot of my most trusted and valued colleagues and key people jumping on board this thing, are also excited. And then nice bonus, everybody can't quite get over the fact that, hey, we get to shoot in L.A. We get to sleep in our own beds at night. That's going to be so great. It's gotten rarer and rarer through the years. Now, it's kind of like winning the lottery, oh boy, we get to shoot in town!
TV Guide Magazine: It's indeed a rarity, especially for a cable drama. Even in the movie Battle: L.A., Louisiana doubled as Los Angeles.
Darabont: That would be really hard with this one. We're not going to pass off Shreveport or Atlanta off as Los Angeles of this era. What is on the badge of the LAPD, it's downtown, it's City Hall, it's the stuff that Curtis Hanson captured so beautifully with L.A. Confidential.
TV Guide Magazine: L.A. Confidential captured that era perfectly. Any other pieces of work that inspire you in doing L.A. Noir?
Darabont: What a great movie. I've complemented [Hanson] on that movie every time I've seen him. I'm just a rabid fan of it, they really got it right. There was also another one I particularly loved that not too many people know called True Confessions. Robert Duvall, who was brilliant in this film, Robert DeNiro, Charles Durning. It's a marvelous film. It is a fantastic cast, it was a wonderful film, it crafted at a high level. I believe it was Ulu Grosbard who directed it.
I'm renting a house here at the beach for a few months, and rumor has it that Robert Towne wrote Chinatown in this house. I only found out the day I finished writing the script, on New Year's Eve. Whether it's true or not, I'm choosing to believe it is.
TV Guide Magazine: When do you start casting and shooting?
Darabont: I'm raring to go. I'm primed. I'm planning to shoot in April. And I think that's cool with Michael [Wright]. He's so sweet, he wants to give us as much time to prep as possible. But especially in our own hometown, this is not going to be a massive prep. I'm actually wanting a little less than he was thinking. I'm ready to go in April, baby, let's do it.
TV Guide Magazine: What made you decide to return to TV so soon?
Darabont: I love the medium. I love that I finished the script on New Year's Eve and we're already greenlit and planning to shoot in April. I love the pace, I love the momentum of it. I love you can get in there and not second guess everything to death. For the guy that directed The Green Mile, by comparison that was a generous schedule. In recent times I've really gotten to like the brisker pace. I really have.
TV Guide Magazine: And there's the ability to tell a bigger story over a longer period of time.
Darabont: Yeah, that's a terrific form. I really enjoy that. I love the oblique nature of how stories can be told. Rather than jamming everything you want to say into a two and a half hour movie, you go, "OK, this year we're making an eight-hour movie." We don't have to get to the point right away. We can hint at it. We can come through the backdoor, keep the audience intrigued by something. It's completely different because you can come at it from a completely different, sneakier angle or perspective and that's really fun.
TV Guide Magazine: It sounds like you've developed a great relationship with Turner so far.
Darabont: They are by all accounts a fantastic place to work. They treat their creative partners with respect and dignity and humanity and integrity, and after the last two years I'm really looking forward to experiencing those things.
TV Guide Magazine: What can you say about your departure from The Walking Dead?
Darabont: It was, for the sake of my cast and my crew, a tremendously regretful thing to face, to have to leave. But I was really given no choice. I don't understand the thinking behind, "Oh, this is the most successful show in the history of basic cable. Let's gut the budgets now." I never did understand that and I think they got tired of hearing me complain about it. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's as far as I want to go with it because otherwise it's just provoking more controversy and that's not really of interest to me. I just want to keep my head down and do my job and be allowed to do my job, that's key, and continue to, hopefully, enjoy it and do good work.
TV Guide Magazine: From all accounts, your departure was particularly hard on the cast and crew.
Darabont: These people are like family to me. It has not been easy for anybody. Let me put it that way: It was like a death in the family. Only I was the dead guy. I felt like William Holden, face down in the swimming pool, narrating this thing.
TV Guide Magazine: There was never really an official explanation about your exit.
Darabont: It was a lot of obfuscation and on my end just maintaining what I thought was the most dignified silence that I could. Who needs a cat fight in the press, oy vey. There's plenty of stuff in this world that I'm excited about doing, and how lovely that we're getting the opportunity to do this with TNT. How great is that.
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