- 2 days ago
Paul Anthony Kelly and Patrick Ball have had similar career paths in Hollywood. After struggling to find roles for over a decade, they both have found recent success on TV. Kelly discusses the challenges of portraying John F. Kennedy Jr. in ‘Love Story’ and the scrutiny that came along with it. Ball, meanwhile, has been gaining acclaim in the high pressured, but tight-knit set of ‘The Pitt.’
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00:00Does he take his own advice though? He rides a motorcycle without a helmet as a doctor.
00:04Every guy walking around Brooklyn thinks that he's JFK jr.
00:07It was the same day I found out that we were having a baby.
00:10Man! Yeah, it's crazy. Look at God. That's crazy, yeah.
00:26Okay, okay. Hey Patrick, I'm Paul. Paul, so good to meet you.
00:29Pleased to meet you. Thanks for being here.
00:33Dude, this is...
00:34This is cool.
00:35This is cool. This is rare air that we're breathing here.
00:38Yes, it is. Let's start it off.
00:40I heard that it took you quite a while to break into the scene, into the industry.
00:46Television. You were a theater actor before, correct?
00:48Yeah, yeah. I did theater almost exclusively for about 15 years.
00:53Nice.
00:54Based out of New York, I took a little detour and went and got some training at Yale,
01:00but spent about 15 years traveling all across the country doing regional theater
01:05and learning how to tell a story with an audience.
01:08But it took until about a year and a half ago when the pit came along to get my first
01:15swing at television.
01:16Look, I guess we should talk. I've got a lot of things I need to...
01:20At some point, not right now. Right now, I've got to hit the head.
01:21And I would like you to go help Donny out in triage.
01:24Triage?
01:25What was that like for you?
01:26It was a series of running panic attacks there for a while.
01:30The first time walking on the Warner Brothers lot and seeing all the sound stages
01:34and seeing they have these little plaques on the side of each sound stage
01:38that tells you like all the historic things that have been filmed on that set.
01:42And I, you know, walk onto the set and see on the waterfront was shot here.
01:47Cool.
01:47And like giant was shot here and it took about three weeks for me to breathe.
01:52Uh-huh.
01:53Then after about three weeks, then it just becomes the place that you work.
01:57Yep.
01:57It becomes the mill that you clock in at and...
02:00Your punch card.
02:01And then I was able to start learning and start flowing and it was really fun.
02:06But we have this story in common because this is your first big moonshot...
02:11Correct.
02:12...moment.
02:12Yeah.
02:13And it took you a while.
02:15It did, yeah.
02:16Pretty much the same timeline as you.
02:19It was about 13 years of auditioning.
02:21A lot of no's.
02:22Some close to things.
02:24Never really locking it in.
02:25And then, you know, I was thinking about giving it up.
02:28And then this opportunity came.
02:30And then, you know, here we are.
02:32It's crazy.
02:33How'd it go?
02:34Great.
02:35They're gonna love you.
02:36They already love you.
02:39Look at you.
02:40And what did that 13 years look like?
02:44A lot of hit in the ground.
02:46A lot of auditions.
02:47A lot of silence.
02:48But I always knew that this is what I wanted to do.
02:51This is what I wanted to pursue.
02:54Play characters.
02:56Just kind of explore human emotions and what have you.
03:01So I knew that if I stuck it out, eventually something would hit.
03:06But, you know, after about 13 years, you're like, oh, maybe this isn't for me.
03:09Yeah.
03:10But there was a period of time when I was living in L.A.
03:12And I just had to do something.
03:14I also did some theater work.
03:15Just community theater.
03:17But I had to do something and get out there and start stretching those muscles.
03:20Did you catch the bug?
03:22Oh, I caught the bug in a big way.
03:24Yeah.
03:24It's great.
03:25It's fantastic.
03:26It's so fun.
03:26You can get hooked on it.
03:28Oh, my gosh, yeah.
03:29Yeah.
03:29Best drug there is.
03:30Yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:31When did you know that this is what you wanted to do?
03:34I knew I wanted to do this from a very young age.
03:38In high school, I did drama, like the drama class.
03:42And I felt like at that period of time and in development of who I was, once you get a
03:49few laughs from your comrades, you're like, this is it.
03:53I have to do this.
03:54And then it's just kind of like slowly built up from there.
03:57And, you know, some projects would come through auditions and I'd be like, this would be so cool.
04:01Or I would watch, you know, old TV or whatever and just kind of envision myself doing this.
04:09So it's pretty magical that this is my life now.
04:13Yeah.
04:14Yeah.
04:15And the first thing that fell into place was playing a Kennedy.
04:20I know.
04:21Yeah.
04:21Never in my wildest dreams had I ever thought that this would be the case, but.
04:25I don't even know where to begin.
04:26Like, what has that been like?
04:31Wild, to say the least.
04:33Yeah.
04:34First off, you're so good.
04:36Oh, thank you so much.
04:37You're so good.
04:38You're so, you're so truthful and so sincere and like, just like, just immediate, immediately fall in love.
04:48Oh, thank you.
04:49It's, it's incredible.
04:50So.
04:50That means a lot.
04:51It's tough to believe that this was your, your first big swing.
04:54Yeah.
04:56Preparation, right?
04:57I guess.
04:58How did you prepare for this?
04:59I had three weeks to prepare from when I was hired on.
05:03Wow.
05:03Ryan Murphy and his team really just took all the outside thinking away from me during this process.
05:09Cause you know, I got the job, then I have to move to New York.
05:12I, just a plethora of things that, that had to happen within this short period of time.
05:17So they got me a, a dialect coach.
05:20I worked with a dialect coach, an acting coach, a physical trainer, cause I had to get a little bit
05:24bigger.
05:25Uh, John was a very active guy.
05:26He was always running, always biking, rollerblading, working out.
05:30Which is a stretch for you.
05:31Yeah.
05:32Big time stretch.
05:34But to find like his physicality and his voice, he narrates his father's book, uh, Profiles in Courage.
05:39So I listened to that almost religiously, you know, every morning when I wake up, I'd be on the treadmill
05:44listening to it in the shower or whatever.
05:46I'd go to work.
05:47I'd listen to it in between takes just to get into his rhythm and flow and speech patterns.
05:54And then the way he moved, like I was a model before.
05:57So I got pretty good control of my body.
05:59So I would watch a lot of interviews.
06:01So I really tried to match that physicality and you know, he's left-handed.
06:06So I had to, I spent six months being a left-handed individual.
06:10Did you learn how to write with your left hand?
06:11I did everything with my left hand.
06:12Yeah.
06:12It's terrible.
06:13It's not very good.
06:14Okay.
06:14Yeah.
06:15But I can do it.
06:17But you can eat with your left hand?
06:18I do everything with my left hand.
06:19Cook with my left hand, eat with my left hand, shake people's hands with my left hand.
06:22All the football stuff was all left hand.
06:25Everything I did.
06:26I didn't even clock that.
06:27It was really, watch now.
06:30I will.
06:30I gotta go back.
06:31Yeah.
06:32Even just that little thing switches something in your brain.
06:37You, it's that extra little layer of, of diving in, you know?
06:44Um, were there anything, was there anything like that with Dr. Langdon for you that would
06:50help you drop more into that character?
06:53Yeah.
06:54See, it was so funny.
06:55Uh, season one, there's very little opportunity for sort of editorial input on a costume level
07:02because we're all in scrubs every day.
07:03Yeah.
07:03So putting the scrubs on sort of, is sort of like a neutral wash.
07:08It was almost like an act of, of sort of eliminating detail.
07:12Ready to go.
07:12One of the very few opportunities for detail that we have is what shoes that we wear.
07:18Mm.
07:19And season one, I was put in these trainers.
07:22They had like super curved heel.
07:25Mm.
07:25Made for people that are on their feet all day long.
07:28And the heel was so curved, it sort of gave me this almost like clown-like walk,
07:34which felt like a very different way of moving.
07:37It felt like a very different gait than, than I carry in my day-to-day life.
07:42But after eight months of going and clocking in at the pit on the same sound stage under
07:47the same fluorescent lights, and the whole season is one day.
07:51So all the background artists are the same.
07:53If there's somebody, you, you walk in the door and you see the same guy sitting in the
07:57same gurney every day for eight months, and you really do, uh, sort of just enter into
08:04this real Groundhog's Day sort of alternative reality.
08:09That's right.
08:09Like there's not really a lot of set changes.
08:12You're really in the hospital.
08:14It's 99% on, on that same set.
08:17And you don't really realize how into it you get.
08:21And I think Noah has talked about this.
08:24You don't really realize how in that world you are until you wrap and you step out of
08:31it and, and you go away for a couple of weeks and you're like, Whoa, I have been so depressed.
08:39I have been a hot mess for the last eight months.
08:41And I did not even realize it until, until you come out of it.
08:43But it is sunshine instead of fluorescent lights for a little while.
08:47Yeah.
08:48Yeah.
08:48Yeah.
08:48Uh huh.
08:49But there are little things, the shoes, you know, in season one, I had a, a little bracelet
08:57that my kid made me coming into beginning filming season one.
09:00I asked Lynn Powell, I was like, I think, I think I would have this.
09:03She's our costume designer.
09:04I was like, I think, I think Langdon would have a little gift from his kids.
09:08I think maybe like, maybe somebody made him a, my kid made me a bracelet or something.
09:13And it became this thing and it became this sort of like emblem of this guy that despite
09:20his circumstances was trying to cling to some sense of whimsy, some sense of joy.
09:25And then you come back in season two and that dad bracelet has been replaced by this in a
09:34recovery bracelet that is wooden and stark and sort of much more traditionally masculine.
09:40And in, there is this, there is this sense that Langdon has maybe lost his whimsy in the
09:49course of this recovery process and the fear that that whimsy will be gone forever, which
09:53is something that anybody that has gone through recovery, that is a, that is a fear.
09:58If I give up my crutch, will I?
10:02Be the same.
10:03Will I be the same?
10:04Will people still think that I'm funny?
10:06Will they find me interesting?
10:07Will people want to be around me?
10:09And that can be a real fear that you're going to lose an integral part of yourself if
10:14you give up these habits.
10:16Gotcha.
10:16And that was something that I would talked about all the way down to the bracelet with,
10:21with John Wells and our costume designer.
10:24And I am very excited to have a third act to this story because I, I do not think for
10:32a second that to, to get help is to give up your joy.
10:37I think the sense of joy that you can have in the healing process of going through recovery
10:43is far more profound and far more fulfilling than anything that, that you could experience
10:48hitherto.
10:49So I'm very excited for the next chapter of this story.
10:52I've been working the 12 steps, trying to make amends.
10:56I was, I was really selfish.
10:58I lied to myself and I lied to you.
11:00I'm really sorry.
11:01You could check me off your last kid.
11:02What was your process like in embodying the recovery and almost the humility that Langdon
11:11goes through, um, on his first day back?
11:13And then in that he battles quite a few different things.
11:19There's, um, the humility of coming back, the excitement of coming back and being in
11:24the place he works, but then there's also the animosity with the mentor father figure.
11:30What was that like?
11:31What was your process like in embodying those emotions and navigating that?
11:38The fact of coming back after 10 months away from the pit was a, was a real opportunity.
11:47And it was 10 months getting off of substances, going through rehab.
11:52It was 10 months at home with my family in a way that I had not been able to be
11:57home with
11:57my family previously because I've been at work 12 hours a day, you know, five days a week.
12:04And it's also been 10 months outside of the context and outside of the tempo rhythm that
12:12one has to move at when you're, when you're working at the ER every day.
12:17Normally, uh, we only experience these characters within the context of the hospital.
12:23And having Langdon come back from having been away for 10 months gave us a very sort of unique
12:29opportunity to see, okay, what of the behavior of these characters is dispositional to them.
12:36And how much of it is a necessary adaptation to the environment that, that we see them in.
12:44And so you see in season one, you have a Langdon that is very confident and moves very quickly.
12:50And when, uh, trauma walks through the door, uh, does not pause to say, I'm going to jump
12:57on that thing.
12:58I'm the, I'm the person for this job and, and moves at a clip.
13:02And that clip is informed by necessity that he at any given moment has six patients in a
13:10state of, uh, sort of need for critical care at all times.
13:16And it's also, it's also a tempo rhythm that is informed by the fact that he is out running
13:21his own shadow and is carrying a lot of secrets and coming back into season two, knowing that
13:27he has spent the last 10 months facing that shadow.
13:30And he's also spent the last 10 months, not having to attend to all of the fires that you
13:38have to attend to in the pit.
13:40I was very, very interested in, in establishing a different tempo rhythm coming in the door.
13:46And then, and then watching the tempo rhythm of the pit creep in across the season, which
13:53I think, I think kind of comes to a head in the last couple of episodes.
13:58Yeah.
13:58It's exciting.
14:00Did that sound smart?
14:03Yes, it did.
14:13Hey, off the car.
14:15To me as a, as a viewer of the show, like so much of it is about fame and about
14:22this guy who,
14:24who really want, wants to believe that he's a regular guy.
14:28And it kind of blew my mind to think that you filmed all of this before you became famous.
14:35Yeah.
14:36Now that the show has come out and that the entire world has fallen in love with it and
14:41fallen in love with you.
14:43Do you find it harder to, to be a regular guy?
14:45Do you find things that you were trying to tell in the JFK Jr. story that have proven
14:50out to be true or?
14:51That's a great question.
14:53I think, I don't think it's really changed my perception of me as a regular guy.
14:59I mean, I don't live in any of these major cities where I think it would be a little
15:04bit more difficult to go out and, and be a regular guy out in the world.
15:09You're up in?
15:10We're in the Pacific Northwest.
15:12Nice.
15:12Nice.
15:13It's great.
15:13Beautiful.
15:14So nice.
15:15You live out in the land?
15:16No, we're like in a neighborhood in the city, but it's great.
15:20It's just very green.
15:21Food's great.
15:22People are nice.
15:23It's quiet.
15:24That's great.
15:24Yeah.
15:25It's nice.
15:25It's nice to just be able to like focus on family and personal time.
15:30And it's just my wife and our new child.
15:33It's great.
15:34How old is your child?
15:36She's like four months.
15:37Wow.
15:38First?
15:39Yeah.
15:39Congrats.
15:42That's a huge change.
15:43Yeah.
15:43My life has changed.
15:44We've gone through a lot of changes all at once.
15:45A lot of changes very quickly.
15:47Yeah.
15:47My goodness.
15:48Yeah.
15:48Well, congratulations.
15:49Thank you so much.
15:51I assume they are what allow you to stay feeling normal despite all of the whirlwind.
15:57Oh, absolutely.
15:58Yeah.
15:58Yeah.
15:59My family are my rock in this whole crazy whirlwind.
16:05Yeah.
16:05Yeah.
16:06Do y'all move about?
16:08Are you being ushered back to New York and LA?
16:11Are you doing like the press tour and all of that?
16:14We're not doing it together.
16:15They're at home.
16:16Baby's still a little too young for that.
16:19But eventually they will.
16:22It's kind of nice.
16:23You know, I just have to go to work again and do the press and these wonderful things
16:28with people like yourself, which is so exciting and great.
16:31I wish they were here for this, but, you know, they're comfortable and I'm out working.
16:37It's great.
16:38Chin up.
16:40Geez.
16:40You tailor this bossy.
16:42Maybe never will you.
16:47This was the first big, big job.
16:50This was the first big payday.
16:54It was maybe the first big sense of financial security maybe that either of us have had after
17:02a lot of years of hoofing it.
17:04What was the first gift you gave yourself whenever the check came in?
17:10Like yourself, took care of my debt.
17:13Yeah.
17:13Yeah.
17:14That was a very nice weight to relieve myself of.
17:19Debt is terrible.
17:21It sucks.
17:22It just is there always until it's no longer there.
17:24And then I felt like there was more breathing room, certainly for myself, also with my wife.
17:30And, you know, during filming my wife was pregnant.
17:33So I knew that there was more responsibility coming.
17:38What an insane gift.
17:40Yeah.
17:41It was really, really nice.
17:42It kind of cleared the slate a little bit.
17:45And it was like, okay, we'll get rid of this.
17:49It's not looming over us.
17:51We don't have to worry about it anymore.
17:52And then when baby comes, it's not something we have to go back and envision or tackle.
17:59Then we just focus on being a family unit.
18:03And I think that that was probably the best gift that I've ever given to myself.
18:08Well, the gift of the job allowed me to give the gift to myself and my family of like, we're
18:14okay.
18:15Now let's focus on baby.
18:17Whatever baby needs, we get, we do.
18:19Whatever mommy needs, we get, we do.
18:21Y'all were already in the process of starting this family before the job came along.
18:26Oddly enough, the day that I found out, it was the producer's session callback.
18:32It was the same day I found out that we were having a baby.
18:36Man!
18:36That's crazy.
18:37Look at God.
18:38That's crazy.
18:39Yeah.
18:39That's crazy.
18:40Totally wild.
18:41Which was also our second year wedding anniversary.
18:43Wow.
18:44Yeah.
18:45Three for three that day.
18:46I mean, as somebody that has been there, that can be very scary feeling of being like, man, is having
18:54a family, is that going to be something that's available to me?
18:57Can I pull that off?
18:59Especially in today's day and age, it's just, it's crazy out there.
19:05Wow.
19:06Congratulations.
19:06Yeah, thank you so much.
19:08Yeah.
19:08Very, very lucky.
19:09It all just happened at the same time.
19:12Man.
19:13Yeah.
19:13Can't write it.
19:14Nope.
19:15But you can live it.
19:16You can live it.
19:17Sure can live it.
19:18Wow.
19:19What about you?
19:20What was the first thing that you took care of or gifted yourself?
19:26The first thing I did was I paid off my student loans, which I...
19:30Was that Yale?
19:31That was a collection of debt that I had from undergrad at UNC Greensboro.
19:37Okay.
19:37And then I think probably two-thirds of that was from Yale, which ironically, the year that I graduated from
19:44Yale, David Geffen made a huge gift to the university and Yale then became free.
19:50Oh, great.
19:51Cool.
19:51It became tuition free in perpetuity for the rest of time and I missed it by a year.
19:56But yeah, I was carrying about $80,000 worth of student loans and that was an albatross as it is
20:06for many people in this country.
20:09And I think I actually had it better than most at $80,000.
20:12I think people that go into med school or law school would ever come out carrying a lot more than
20:17that.
20:17Double.
20:18True.
20:19True.
20:19But whenever you're working as an actor, working a month, two months at a time doing theater, that becomes something
20:27that you think you're going to carry for a long, long time.
20:33Sure, yeah.
20:33And so paying that off was a huge moment.
20:36And then since then I've kept it pretty low key.
20:39Good.
20:40No fast cars, expensive watches.
20:42No, I know that we are very lucky right now.
20:47I have spent a long time being like, oh, I'm going to go be the lead in this show in
20:52St. Louis for two months and be the star of the show.
20:55And then that job ends and then you move back to New York and you have to get a restaurant
20:59job.
21:01And I've done that long enough to know that this too shall pass.
21:04Yeah.
21:04And so I'm feeling very lucky right now and trying my best to save my acorns.
21:09Good.
21:10Smart man.
21:10Yeah.
21:11Yeah.
21:11Yeah.
21:12The finale of your show, Baby Jane Doe, Dr. Robbie.
21:16What do you think goes on there?
21:17We do not get any information.
21:20Yeah.
21:20How did you get your scenes and stuff for the show?
21:23We get episodes one at a time.
21:25Okay.
21:25We get scripts one at a time.
21:27And so we never quite know where the plane is headed.
21:31We just stay on it and sort of learn as we go along.
21:36And also we don't get advanced copy of like the edit when it comes on the back end.
21:40So we watch with-
21:42As it's released.
21:43With everybody else.
21:44Nice.
21:44And so now that I saw the finale and I thought it was amazing.
21:50I thought John and Scott and Noah did an amazing job with the finale.
21:53But now I'm left hanging on the same cliff as everybody else.
21:57So I have no idea what happens with Baby Jane Doe.
22:00And I know that online there's a bunch of conspiracy theories about what happens with this baby.
22:06Yeah.
22:06And I think some of them are very interesting and I can't wait to see how it plays out.
22:11Does Robbie adopt Baby Jane Doe?
22:15That would go against a lot of the advice that he has given to Whitaker early in the year.
22:21I don't know but I can't wait to see.
22:23Does he take his own advice though?
22:24He rides a motorcycle without a helmet.
22:26As a doctor.
22:27I don't know.
22:28He doesn't make a habit of it.
22:29He doesn't make a habit of taking his own advice.
22:32Yeah.
22:32Hey, I'm sorry that I didn't find the time today to have that conversation.
22:38Yeah, that's alright.
22:39Seems like you didn't really want to.
22:40What's it like working with Noah Wiley?
22:42It's so neat for him to have originally been in ER and then now he's in the pit.
22:47What has his like father figurative-ness to your character in the show, how did you find that with him
22:57as an actor?
22:58Oh, it's amazing.
22:59I mean, he's an incredible mentor and I want to say quarterback but he's also kind of more like a
23:06player coach.
23:07In season one, he was the guy surrounded by a bunch of us that were completely new to this.
23:13And I showed up season one not knowing how to read a call sheet.
23:16And he has been so patient and so generous in offering all of us advice and guidance through this incredible
23:25moment in our lives.
23:26And has also been really great about leaving space for us to each have our own journey.
23:32Nice.
23:33And let us figure it out our way, which I think is a sign of a really wise and generous
23:37leader.
23:38He directs.
23:40He writes.
23:41He's been in the writer's room while we're all off on vacation doing our various things.
23:47He's been in the writer's room since three days after we wrapped season two.
23:51Oh, really? Wow.
23:51So this is a around-the-clock, year-round endeavor for him.
23:55So he is locked in.
23:57Awesome.
23:58Yeah.
23:58That's cool.
23:59I got a hot and unresponsive child.
24:01I need a room, Dana.
24:02Trauma two.
24:04We need a core tempestap.
24:07What's like...
24:08Well, your parents are both in the medical field, are they not?
24:11Yeah.
24:11Yeah.
24:12My mom is a lifelong ER nurse.
24:14My dad's a lifelong paramedic.
24:15Wow.
24:16Cool.
24:16And so I grew up and obviously all of their friends are nurses and paramedics and whatnot.
24:20And so I grew up in this.
24:20What are their takes on the show?
24:21They love it.
24:22Yeah.
24:23They love it.
24:24You know, I happen to be with my parents whenever I got asked to come over to LA and do
24:30the screen
24:31test.
24:31And I got to read through some of the pilot episode with them.
24:35And the first thing they said was they were like, oh, this medicine checks out.
24:39This is real medicine.
24:41And they haven't always felt that way.
24:44Gotcha.
24:45Cool.
24:45I think oftentimes in hospital dramas, like the demands of entertainment take precedent
24:52over...
24:52The correctness of...
24:54Yeah.
24:54The cure.
24:55The authenticity of medicine.
24:57And I think John and Scott made a real experiment.
25:00They made a real experiment about what happens if we don't do the things that you're supposed
25:05to do in order to be an entertaining TV show.
25:08And we just put the medicine forward and we tell it how it is.
25:11Cool.
25:12Will people watch that?
25:14I spent much of season one not convinced.
25:17I remember we got an early screening of the first episode and the next day Noah stops
25:24me at lunch and he goes, so what do you think?
25:26And I go, man, I like it.
25:29Yeah.
25:30I like it.
25:32And I said to him, I was like, I feel like it'll be one of those kind of shows that
25:35like
25:36people feel smart for having watched, but...
25:39Learn a thing or two.
25:40But like how accessible is this?
25:43Like are people going to be interested in watching a bunch of medical jargon?
25:46Mm-hmm.
25:46And I'm very, very thankful to have been wrong on that.
25:52They knew what they were doing and they've been doing it for a long time.
25:54So I have learned to just hand it over and trust.
25:58Hi.
26:00I'm here to see Carolyn Bessette.
26:03If you could just point me in her general direction.
26:08Man, it is just so cool to talk with a Kennedy about how an artist or a creator relates to
26:18a
26:18fandom or to public scrutiny because it's been a journey for me.
26:23Like, you know, I started off coming out of season one when the show started coming out and people
26:28started reacting to it.
26:29There's a lot of temptation to look and to engage.
26:32Oh, people are paying attention for the first time and they have all of these spinoff theories and all of
26:37these opinions
26:37and everybody's really excited.
26:39This is so fun.
26:39I want to stay as normal as possible and just engage and have fun and be part of the party.
26:47It got intense.
26:49And I realized the necessity of boundaries and putting up walls and maintaining privacy.
26:56And that is so much of what your story is about and why those boundaries are essential.
27:03Yeah.
27:04It's essential because it can get really scary out there.
27:07Yeah, definitely.
27:08Everyone has an opinion.
27:11And sometimes it's best just not to know those things.
27:15The outside world can be scary, especially as like a creator or an actor or, you know,
27:19somebody who's putting their heart and soul into something for it to then just go and grow some legs and
27:25run.
27:25The Pit has had obviously like this, this huge online sort of experience, but Love Story has similarly had an
27:32unbelievably vocal and passionate sort of fandom.
27:37And especially playing two iconic characters like JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, who are American royalty for a plethora of
27:47reasons.
27:47One of which being that they are both fashion icons and have now created this whole moment where I'm in
27:56Brooklyn right now.
27:57And every guy walking around Brooklyn thinks that he's JFK Jr.
28:01Yeah.
28:01How has that been?
28:04It's been pretty wild to see and also, you know, be at the forefront.
28:10I can't say the cause of because we're reimagining or bringing to the forefront these two individuals and what they
28:20stood for and how they looked and what they brought to the table.
28:23So we're just kind of giving that a little boost, but it's been really wild to see the reception of
28:31that.
28:31You know, there's like JFK Jr. look-alike contests every other weekend.
28:35And the turnouts are, looks like thousands of people.
28:39It's really quite wild.
28:41It's been great.
28:42You know, when we first started, before we started filming, we did a little screen test situation just to see
28:49like the coloring and stuff.
28:50And those images were released and there was a little bit of backlash over it.
28:54But I think that that was kind of a good thing because then it really showed how much people care
29:00about these two individuals and it really tightened the grip on us to get it right.
29:09Which then made it that much more believable, especially in like executing it when everything's so spot on, the costumes,
29:16the look, the hair, the 90s nostalgia of it all just made it so transportative to that time.
29:23And you, it was incredible.
29:26I think we had lightning in a bottle with this situation and it's just been amazing.
29:32People are completely bought in.
29:33They're so into it.
29:34It's great.
29:34I'm one of them.
29:35Yeah.
29:37Me to you.
29:38The pit is incredible, dude.
29:39It's so fun.
29:40Oh, thanks, man.
29:41You're fantastic at it.
29:43We're grinding.
29:44Yeah.
29:45You're doing it.
29:45You're doing the thing.
29:46It was very important to get as accurate as you could with like the fashion and the style of it
29:52all.
29:52What was it like playing a character that is so well known as a public figure, like playing a historical
29:58figure like this?
29:59Um, I mean, it was a little daunting for sure, especially given who it was and how highly regarded he
30:09is in this country specifically, but definitely, you know, very well regarded around the world.
30:15So there was a pressure to get it right.
30:18But in that and in my research of, of who he was at his core, there were a lot of
30:23relatable things.
30:25And I think that it, for me, that made it easier to just drop into him.
30:30My circumstances are completely different.
30:32I'm not a Kennedy.
30:33I'm, I have no idea what that's like.
30:35Yeah.
30:36But for him as a human, I can understand that.
30:40And like his emotionalities of things that he would go through core level, obviously the, the specifics are different, but,
30:49um,
30:50But we all know what it feels like to, to need to be loved.
30:54Totally.
30:55Yeah.
30:55To feel free.
30:56At the end of the day.
30:57Yeah.
30:58That's it.
30:59And you just tap into that, um, sprinkle in a little of these extra things and you're off to the
31:05races.
31:06It's like whenever you're doing Shakespeare and you're being like, okay, well, this is, uh, me as Hamlet.
31:14Yeah.
31:15This is my, my version of it.
31:17And this is how I attach to this thing.
31:19You did Hamlet in LA.
31:22Do you have Shakespearean, uh, training or did you just go for it?
31:26Uh, yeah.
31:27Yeah.
31:27That was, that was, that's a big part of, uh, the pedagogy at Yale.
31:33Spent a, spent a long time in New Haven doing Shakespeare.
31:36I love Shakespeare.
31:37Amazing.
31:37Uh, and it felt really, uh, awesome and appropriate that I spent 15 years doing, doing theater.
31:46I get finally sideswept into television for the first time and I get to come off of season one and
31:52check off like my bucket list dream role of Hamlet.
31:57And I got to do it with, uh, with Robert O'Hara, who is one of the great auteur directors
32:04in the off Broadway New York scene.
32:07Mm-hmm.
32:07And his whole thing is about taking these great plays out of the museum and making them accessible and not
32:16being afraid to mess with them and find, uh, uh, where the fact and the fiction meet.
32:23Mm-hmm.
32:24And how to tell the story in such a way that contemporary young audiences can identify with it and feel
32:32like they have a room, they have room to engage with it.
32:35And, and that is, I mean, back to my line, my, my question.
32:41I feel like that's something that, that you and, and Ryan Murphy and Sarah Pidgeon and, and everybody did such
32:47an amazing job of taking these historical figures sort of out of the museum.
32:52Mm-hmm.
32:52And being accurate and being honest to, to who they are, but also telling these stories in such a way
32:57that a 2026 audience, uh, can, I can, I can hear this story and, and feel it.
33:03And not just see sort of a.
33:05From the past, like that's what it was.
33:07Yeah.
33:08You're bringing it out from behind the plexiglass.
33:10Yeah.
33:10Uh-huh.
33:11Thanks.
33:11Yeah.
33:12That's kind of what we went for.
33:14Um, yeah, it was incredible.
33:16How, how was it working with Sarah, Sarah Pidgeon?
33:19Working with Sarah Pidgeon is incredible.
33:20She is so gifted and just so giving as well.
33:24From the moment we met, it was just instant chemistry.
33:28Like we understood the assignment.
33:30Um, we had each other's backs and from there we just went in every day and it was either, we're
33:36falling in love with each other.
33:37Or we're falling out of love with each other.
33:40But after every take, it's like a high five.
33:42What are you doing this weekend?
33:44How's it going?
33:44The whole ensemble really was people I've looked up to for a long time.
33:49Naomi Watts.
33:50Playing my mother in the show was incredible.
33:52Never in my wildest dreams did I ever thought I'd be working with her.
33:55And to be up close and personal with her and to have that familial connection that was just really organic.
34:02And we had a lot of fun.
34:03Every day on set was like, oh my God, this is my life.
34:06This is cool.
34:07You once told me that you had no choice but to go on after what happened.
34:11That anybody would.
34:13But you're wrong.
34:14You did have a choice.
34:16Grace Gummer plays...
34:17My sister Caroline.
34:18Your sister?
34:19Yeah.
34:19How was that?
34:20Again, amazing.
34:21She's also such a talent and I've seen her in most of the things she's done too.
34:26And then I'm like, oh my gosh.
34:27And again, the familial relationship that we had just felt so organic and easy and it's to truly feel like
34:35she's the sister I never had.
34:37We talk all the time.
34:38She's awesome.
34:38You worked with your girlfriend.
34:40What was that like?
34:41Oh man.
34:42How fun was that?
34:42It was amazing.
34:43It was amazing.
34:44My girlfriend Alicia got to come in.
34:47Glue her eyes shut.
34:48Yeah.
34:48She played Willow, the patient that glues her eyes shut.
34:51And I got to be her doctor.
34:52Nice.
34:53Which was amazing.
34:54We met doing a play.
34:55Oh, cool.
34:56We met doing a play in Miami.
34:57She was sort of the femme fatale lead and we were the two Americans and everybody else in the cast
35:03were sort of Venezuelan TV stars.
35:05And we did it in the middle of South Beach and the play was 75% in Spanish and I
35:10don't speak any Spanish.
35:12Did you have to learn it for the play?
35:13Me and Alicia played the two Americans in the story.
35:16Gotcha.
35:17And she sort of, her character gets sort of swept off to Caracas and learns all about Venezuela through a
35:27series of mishaps.
35:28And I play her idiot boyfriend back home that spends much of the play just on the cell phone saying,
35:36hey, baby, when are you coming home?
35:39Where are you?
35:40Where are you again?
35:41How do you spell that?
35:43And it felt really cool to come full circle and get to play pretend together again.
35:48You know, she comes in and Willow wants absolutely nothing to do with Langdon.
35:52She just wants to talk to Dr. J the entire time, which felt like a real continuation of the story
35:58that we were telling back in Miami.
36:00Uh huh.
36:01And really feels like, I guess, maybe that is the pocket for us.
36:07That's a good pocket. At least you know.
36:09It was amazing.
36:10And she's become such like a member of the Pitt family.
36:13It was really special.
36:14Awesome. That's cool.
36:15Paul, dude.
36:17Patrick.
36:17Such an honor.
36:18Honor's all mine.
36:19Such a pleasure.
36:20Yeah.
36:20So fun.
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