We Love TV!
This is just an unofficial fan page, we have no connection
to any shows or networks.
Please click here to vote for our site!
By
Suzanne

Interview with Colin Hanks of "Fargo" on FX 4/30/14
I sure enjoyed this call and speaking with Colin Hanks!
For someone who is so famous, and not to mention the son of
someone famous, he sounds very "real" and down-to-earth.
Enjoy it!
Final Transcript
FX NETWORK: Fargo
April 30, 2014/10:00 a.m. PDT
SPEAKERS
Kristy Silvernail / Senior Manager, Media Relations, FX
Networks
Colin Hanks / “Gus Grimly,” Fargo
PRESENTATION
Moderator Welcome to the Fargo conference
call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only
mode. Later we will conduct a question and answer section.
I would now like to turn the conference over to our host
Miss Kristy Silvernail. Please go ahead.
Kristy Hello, and welcome to the
Fargo conference call with series star, Colin Hanks who
plays “Gus Grimly.” We would like to thank everyone for
joining us today and remind you that this call is for print
purposes only. No audio may be used. Due to a high volume of
journalists on the line, we respectfully request that you
limit yourself to one question at a time and then get back
into queue for any follow ups you may have. As a reminder
Fargo airs Tuesday nights at 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific
only on FX.
With that said, let’s go ahead and take the first question.
Moderator Our first question comes from
the line of Jamie Ruby please go ahead.
Jamie Hi, Colin. Thanks for talking
to us today.
Colin My pleasure.
Jamie So, did you do any
preparation or research for the part?
Colin Really the only preparation
that I did was just working on the Minnesota accent. That
was really it. “Gus” is not necessarily—well, he is not a
good cop really. He is sort of out of his depth, out of his
element so there wasn’t really any police training that I
had to do.
In fact, I sort of specifically did things poorly. You
train, if you play enough cops, eventually you say I know
how to hold the weapon, I know how to do this, and I sort of
undid all of that to make “Gus” look a little bit more out
of his element, but the only real preparation I did was work
with the dialect coach to try and get a little bit of his
accent down. We didn’t want to go too big on the accent, but
we wanted to make sure that there were some subtle moments
in his speech that would indicate he definitely has an
accent.
Jamie Well, I think it sounds good.
Colin Thank you.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Adam. Please go ahead.
Adam Hey, Colin. How's it going?
This is Adam Coppola from Entertainment Tonight. Go Giants.
So, what has made “Gus” an enjoyable character for you to
play regardless of some of his shortcomings or was it kind
of frustrating for you?
Colin Well, at times it could be
pretty frustrating. You try not to judge your characters too
much, but there were definitely some moments where I was
frustrated. I was frustrated at “Gus’” inability to do
things—do certain things, I guess I should say, but “Gus” is
as well, and so, that was really something that I sort of
leaned on and drew from.
The thing I enjoyed most about “Gus” was the fact that there
was an awareness to him. Oftentimes you see these characters
and they know that they're not good, but they're just
instantly beat down, but this is something that slowly eats
at “Gus”. He makes this decision to let “Malvo” go and
although technically he does the right thing, it's the wrong
thing. It's not something he should have done.
It obviously leads to very bad things, and so, I like the
fact that here was a character that made this mistake and
spends his time, even though he doesn’t necessarily want to,
atoning for it and trying to fix it, and he fesses up, to a
degree, as to what he did and he actively tries to right the
wrong. That really appealed to me. That was the initial
kernel when I read the pilot, and then, as the show
progressed, I kept trying to come back to that regardless of
my frustrations of “Gus” not being able to get his act
together, so to speak.
Adam Thank you.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Preston Barta. Please go ahead.
Preston Hi, Colin. I'm not sure who
you knew in the cast before doing the show, but do you feel
that not knowing someone makes it easier or harder when
doing scenes with them?
Colin Well, it's definitely easier
if you know the person or if you’ve worked with the person
before because you already have that shorthand, you're
already sort of comfortable. When I say working with, what
I'm talking about is really when you're not working, when
you're both sitting around in between takes and you're
basically just trying to pass the time. I had worked with
Billy Bob [Thornton] before and spent a lot of time just
hanging out with him. So, I was very comfortable with Billy
Bob, and that was really sort of it.
Rachel Blanchard, I had also done a film with, but I didn’t
have any scenes with her. So, in terms of the majority of
the people that I worked with, the majority of them were
new. But everybody was so great and so much fun to work with
that I would jump at the opportunity to work with all of
them again at the drop of a hat.
Preston Thank you.
Colin No problem.
Moderator Next question comes from the
line of George Stentil. Please go ahead.
George Hi, Colin. I'm from
[indiscernible]. Nowadays, there are more actors making the
transition from [indiscernible] to the television. What
appealed you to make that transition into [indiscernible]?
Colin Well, I think in this day
and age now an acting job is an acting job. I don’t really
see any difference between whether it's a film or a movie in
so much as a job is a job. Is it a TV series? Okay, great.
How long will it be? Is it a movie? How long will it take?
They're both sort of the same in that regard.
The way that I find that they're very different now is that
the quality of television is so great, and now, you have
television series that are not necessarily entrenched in
this old—the old television rules. For example, our show is
very different. It's a ten-episode series. There's a
beginning, a middle and an end, and so, in that way, it's
almost like a ten-hour film. It takes its time to tell its
story, but yet, it also doesn’t follow by the rules of you
have to introduce the eight main characters in the first ten
minutes. I'm a season regular and I don’t show up until
about 40 or 50 minutes into the first episode.
So, those sort of rules, while still in effect for some
shows, are not necessarily—they don’t have to be followed
every time, and so, I find that now storytelling is a lot
more freeing in that regard in regards to television, and I
kind of like that. I like the fact that now you can really
spend time with these characters and get to know them and
it's not this sort of paint-by-numbers storytelling or
paint-by-numbers acting. You really get to take your time as
if it was a film, but you get to take nine more hours as
opposed to just one. That’s kind of refreshing, but for me,
it's all about the writing and the characters. I don’t care
if it's a movie or a television series, whatever is best.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Earl Dittman. Please go ahead.
Earl Hi, Colin. How are you
doing?
Colin Good. How are you?
Earl Doing great. Obviously, the
series has picked up obviously for obvious reasons. The
audiences are loving it. It's wonderful. When you read the
first pilot, did you have an idea that this show would be
appealing to audiences?
Colin I wasn’t necessarily even
thinking about that. I found it appealing to me, and I like
to think of myself as the audience as someone that watches a
great deal of some of the fabulous shows that are on TV now.
For me, I was engaged, and that first pilot, that first
episode that I read was so well done, I wasn’t thinking
about the movie, I wasn’t thinking about how people would
respond to it. I thought it was so engaging and I was so
involved with it that that was really it. That was all that
I needed.
The fact that people have taken to the show the way that
they have, they love the show obviously is great and I'm
relieved in that regard because you don’t want to spend all
this time and energy doing something that then people go eh,
not interested. So, it is nice to find that the same things
that I liked about reading the pilot or reading that first
episode, people are enjoying as they watch the shows. That’s
always good to know. It's good to know that there are
like-minded people out there.
George It's great. You're all doing
great job. Thanks so much.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Kara Howland, TV Goodness. Please go ahead.
Kara So, I'm assuming and hoping
that you'll have more scenes with Billy Bob Thornton's
character. Are you allowed to talk about that at all, and if
so, what can you tell us?
Colin I'm not really sure if I'm
allowed to talk about any of those things. I don’t know if I
can really talk about them to be quite honest. No one has
said don’t, but I'm always of the mind of not necessarily
wanting to say too much, but “Gus’” and “Lorne's” paths do
intersect again, and it's not necessarily what you think is
going to happen, I think is the best way to describe it. I'm
trying to be really coy. I'm not sure if I'm doing a good
job.
Kara You're doing a great job.
Thank you.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Kristyn Clarke, Pop Culture Madness. Please go
ahead.
Kristyn Hi, Colin. Thank you so much
for speaking with us today.
Colin My pleasure.
Kristyn I'm curious—as you were able
to delve into this character, was there anything that you
were surprised to learn about yourself as an actor or
person?
Colin Well, for me, I think it was
much more of a liberating experience. I was talking earlier
about the confines of television sometimes, the rules of TV,
and sometimes I find that as an actor that can be very
constrictive, and this character but more importantly the
job as a whole and the writing really allowed for, I like to
call it breaths; it allowed for a moment of really being
able to sit with a character and see them stew with their
decision and see their wheels turning and really become
involved in their journey whereas most television programs,
and I don’t mean to badmouth TV on the whole. I've been on a
lot of different kind of programs and they're all great and
they all serve a purpose, but as an actor I found this one
to be very exhilarating and liberating because there wasn’t
this incessant cutting from one angle, so here's the
coverage, here's the close-up, here's the two-shot and going
back and forth and you sort of almost become dizzy from all
of the fast editing, and here's a show that really lets it
lie, really lets you live with these characters and
experience the moments that these characters are having, and
as an actor to not have that be rushed while you're doing it
was great, and for me, I've always really been a fan of
scenes with them and actor and stories in which you're able
to be as natural as you want, and so, really I sort of find
that this show, Fargo, is really more about observing these
characters and what they do as opposed to just watching the
story and eventually the characters tell you what's going to
happen or tell you how they're feeling or there's that
ambiguity there that I really enjoy.
Kristyn Great. Thank you so much.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Sabienna Bowman, TV Equals. Please go ahead.
Sabienna Thanks so much for talking with
us today.
Colin Of course.
Sabienna My question for you is was the
scene last night between you and “Molly” or “Gus” and
“Molly,” I was wondering what it was like for you working
with Allison [Tolman] and how you see the relationship
between “Gus” and “Molly.”
Colin Well, that scene was
actually a treat because that was the first time I had
actually worked with her. I had gotten to know her while we
were shooting the first two episodes, but we hadn’t had a
scene together. So, I had spent a lot of time with her,
really enjoyed her company, but hadn’t worked with her, and
so, to be able to finally get that scene with her was great
because I was so impressed by her skill to be quite honest.
She was so comfortable and relaxed and also so good in the
role that that scene was almost sort of a relief not only
for “Gus” and his character and his journey but also for me
because I said, well, she's fabulous, this is going to be a
lot of fun being able to do more scenes with her. I hope we
have more scenes together, and so, that really set off—it
was the beginning of really sort of a very strong friendship
between me and Allison whom I love dearly. She's great, and
in regards to “Gus” and “Molly,” this is the beginning of a
journey of them together trying to solve this case and
they’ll probably be spending a lot of time together, yes,
but that’s about as much as I will say.
Sabienna Awesome. I'm looking forward to
it. Thanks so much.
Colin Thank you.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Suzanne Lanoue, the TV Megasite. Please go ahead.
Suzanne I was wondering if you'd tell
us anything about working in the cold up there in Calgary
and how that had any effect on your performance or working
conditions.
Colin It has effect on every
single aspect of life. The cold—look, snow and cold
temperatures, that’s a character within the Fargo universe
and you have to have that, and it is a joke, but it really
does affect every facet of your life when you're living up
there. I love Calgary. It's a great city. I enjoyed my time
there quite a bit.
Shooting and filming in that cold could be very difficult at
times. When you're shooting nights and it's 3 in the morning
and it's minus 35 degrees, that’s hard. That’s hard to work
in. The conditions are difficult for everybody, not just the
actors but for the camera crew who wrap the camera in an
electric blanket and the teamsters who have got to get these
big trucks in and out of essentially snow fields.
So, it definitely becomes trying, but in terms of
performance, look, it's all part of the show. Again, it's
part of the universe. The irony is sometimes you have to
play like it's a little bit warmer. I know it's cold, but
remember, on the show maybe it's not that cold, so maybe
lower your shoulders a little bit, but it's kind of hard
when you can't feel your face. So, you just try and do the
best you can and you make sure that you become really good
friends with wardrobe and they give you all sorts of hand
warmers and body warmers and things like that.
Suzanne Thanks. I look forward to the
rest of it.
Colin Thank you.
Moderator Next question comes from the
line of Alisa Steinberg, Starry Constellation. Please go
ahead.
Alisa Hi. It's a pleasure to speak
with you.
Colin Yes, same here.
Alias I was wondering—you have
great comedic timing. Is it something that’s natural to you
or did you have to work at it at all?
Colin Well, I like to think that
it's a combination of both. I've always been a big fan of
comedy and sketch comedy and I like to laugh, and so, I'm
constantly—I'm a big fan of comedy, but you can't just be
funny. You do kind of have to work at it, and you have to
try and know what your role is and when you can insert humor
or when it's best not to, but oftentimes I find, especially
in regards to Fargo, there was a balance to it.
Obviously, it's not a straightforward slapstick comedy.
There are realistic moments, but yet, there's also levity
and humor. As much as snow was a character in Fargo, humor
is as well. So, you just try to play the funny moments as
real as you can and hope that people get the joke, but it's
not necessarily dealing with punch lines or anything like
that. So, it's a little bit of a tight rope that you have to
walk, but I remember when we were shooting a scene, I think
it was in the second episode where “Gus” has to like fall
and get the dog, Noah Hawley looked at me and says oh, so
you can do like physical humor too. I go hey man, I'll do
anything as long as it's right and as long as you like it.
He goes no, that was good, and so, we only did one take and
that was the take that was in the show, but I'm a big comedy
nerd so I'm always looking at a chance to be funny, and for
me, for whatever reasons, I always get this question. There
are people that have only seen me in dramatic stuff and they
go oh, I didn’t know you could do comedy and then there are
comedy people that go oh, I didn't know you could do drama.
It's like you want to try and do both, you want to try and
do as much as you can.
Alisa Great. Thank you so much.
Colin No problem.
Moderator Next question comes from the
line of Steve Eramo, SciFi Talk. Please go ahead.
Steve Hi, Colin. Thanks for your
time today.
Colin My pleasure.
Steve I'm really enjoying the
scenes between “Gus” and his daughter, “Greta,” and I was
wondering maybe if you could talk a little bit about perhaps
filming those scenes and what it's been like working with
Joey King in the series.
Colin Well, Joey King is a force
to be reckoned with. Within the first day of filming, I
turned to Noah and some of the other producers and said wow,
okay, she's really good, and she's still young, but she's
been doing this for a long time so in a lot of ways she's
probably more professional than I am.
For me, this was a great experience. It was the first time
that I'm playing a father. I am a father in real life. I
have two kids. So, it was nice to be able to act like I have
an older child as opposed to a three year old and a ten
month old so we can pretend to have conversations, but it
was again, Joey is so good and so easy and their
relationship is—“Gus” is the father but they really do learn
from each other and they really do—she really does guide
“Gus” quite a bit in regards to how he deals with this
circumstance that he's found himself in even though she
doesn’t really know any of it, and so, I really enjoyed the
beauty of that and the simplicity of that and look, that’s
not too different from any parent/child relationship. You
learn stuff from your kids every day. So, that was a really
fun sort of world to play in and I think it brings a lot
obviously to “Gus’” character, and it really focuses him and
really drives a lot of the action that “Gus” ends up taking
throughout the course of the show. So, those were gems.
Those scenes were treats to do.
Steve Well, again, Colin, thanks
for your time and looking forward to seeing more of your
work on the series.
Colin Thank you very much. I'm
sorry there's no SciFi in the show but we'll see what we can
do.
Steve Hey, I'm loving it anyways.
Thanks again.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Michael Gallagher, StayFamous.net. Please go ahead.
Michael So, for you, what's the most
rewarding part about being an actor and having the career
you’ve had so far?
Colin Well, I don’t think any
working actor like myself, it may seem really sort of
glamorous and all that stuff, but at the same time, we're
all still sitting here going when's the next job, when's
that going to come. I think that’s an inherent thing in all
actors regardless of where they're at in their career. For
me, I still really enjoy the creation of it. I enjoy the
doing of it, if you will. I enjoy being on set. I enjoy
working. I enjoy collaborating with people and trying to
make the thing come alive, make it hum, and when you get an
opportunity such as this, such as Fargo where the writing is
so good, the characters are so good and it's a challenge and
yet it's a challenge that you’ve been hoping for and waiting
for. It's really fun when you get that opportunity to be
able to do it.
At no point did I feel like I had “Gus” nailed down. At no
point did I feel like I knew exactly what I was doing. I was
constantly trying to discover angles, discover facets of
“Gus” and how to bring that across. I really, again, I
talked earlier about that ambiguity of these characters and
sort of observing these characters. I was really interested
in the challenge of okay, well how do I make “Gus” not
so—seemingly not so transparent, how do I keep a little bit
of “Gus” a mystery so that people will actually be engaged
and not just say well I know everything that this dude's
thinking and I know everything that he's going to do, and
so, he's just this pushover character. Those sorts of
challenges, that kind of stuff I really love doing. I loved
having that opportunity to do that.
So, that, to me, is always something that I'm looking for,
that sort of naturalistic performance. That’s always
something that I'm wanting to do. So, I was very happy that
I got the opportunity to do it and I really hope that I get
the opportunity to do it again on the next gig whatever that
may be. Hopefully, that next gig will come soon.
Michael Well, thank you very much.
Colin Thank you.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Greg Staffa, Your Entertainment. Please go ahead.
Greg Thank you for taking our
call today. Maybe after doing Fargo, you can do another
series in a warmer climate like Miami.
Colin Yes, right? Then it'll be
too hot and too sunny and you'll go can we shoot someplace
else. The grass is always greener someplace else.
Greg Exactly. I'm calling from
Minnesota so I'm hoping everyone out here can understand my
accent that apparently we all have. I really enjoyed your
performance as “Gus”. I think there's a certain sincerity to
him that makes him extremely enjoyable to watch.
I'm wondering a little bit—you talked about finding who
“Gus” is and constantly kind of learning who “Gus” is. How
much input did you have in your character, or was it mostly
relied on the writing and Noah's kind of direction? How much
freedom were you allowed to tweak with it and what did you
do during your free time when you're up in such a frigid
temperature?
Colin Well, really to be quite
honest, I had a conversation with Noah very early on before
we started filming, a few months before we started filming,
just about sort of what the show was going to be like, not
plot points or anything like that but just sort of the idea
that this is going to be a miniseries with a beginning,
middle and an end and here's what we're going to do and
“Gus” is a very well-meaning guy that’s out of his elements
and is not necessarily a cop to be a cop and save lives but
to be a cop as sort of a form of community service, and that
was really sort of all that I had to go on until I would
read the scripts, and then, I would really just go off of
whatever Noah had written, and oftentimes, you find out
stuff down the line about why “Gus” is the way that “Gus” is
or you get these kernels of his back story later on. I have
no problem with that.
After my experience on Dexter in which I spent pretty much
an entire season thinking I was actually talking to—thinking
my character was talking to a real human being to only find
out that it was a figment of his imagination, I now realize
all I need to know is what the scenes are and what is talked
about in the scenes and everything else sort of magically
comes together within the magic of television or movies. So
for me, I would just try and play the beats and play
emotions and things like that and connect that way. I don’t
necessarily—I didn’t necessarily know a lot about his back
story or his history but I just knew enough and knew what
his goal was that sort of righting the wrong of letting
“Malvo” go, that was really sort of all I needed and then
everything else I found was pretty much on the page.
Greg Thank you.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Kelly Schremph, TV Rage. Please go ahead.
Kelly Hi, Colin. Thank you so much
for speaking with us today.
Colin My pleasure.
Kelly Obviously, we, as an
audience, don’t know how the scene will end, but
hypothetically, if “Gus” makes it out and if it's possible,
would you be open to participating in a second season if the
show got picked up?
Colin Of course. I'm always open.
Anytime Noah calls, I will always take the call and I will
be there with bells on if he ever needs me. It would be
great.
Kelly Awesome. Well, I look
forward to seeing you—
Colin And that’s all I'm going to
say.
Kelly Well, I look forward to
seeing how everything plays out with your character.
Colin Thank you very much.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Alicia Wheeler, Mike the Fanboy. Please go ahead.
Alicia Thanks for taking the time
today. I know you kind of touched on this, but I was just
wondering if you'd go into more about how you think being a
father kind of helped you get into “Gus”' mindset and
understand some of the motives that he has for the things
that he's doing.
Colin Well, it's all there in that
first scene. The reason why he really lets “Malvo” go is
because of his daughter, and not even necessarily because
“Malvo” threatens his daughter, but if something bad happens
to “Gus”, what then happens to his daughter. Once you have
kids, it sort of makes you reevaluate things, and all of a
sudden, you're important but only to a certain degree, and
so, really in that scene, he decides to make this decision
to let “Malvo” go because he needs to be there for his
daughter because their mother is not there. “Gus” is all
“Greta” has, and so, that right there, that tells you a lot
about “Gus” and tells you a lot about the way that he sort
of looks at things, and then of course, in the subsequent
episode, he pretty much says so, like look, I have two jobs.
“Gus” has two jobs, and his first job is being a father. His
second job is being a policeman and really what that is, is
getting the dogs when the dog catcher isn't there and doing
the sort of menial cop tasks, and so, those two scenes
together really as a father, I just went oh, I totally
understand that, I get that, and that really said I felt
that that told me everything I needed to know about “Gus”
and the way that he sort of looks at things. In comparison
to the way “Lester” looks at things, in comparison to the
way “Malvo” looks at things, I understood where “Gus”'
mindset is within this universe. Do you know what I mean?
Alicia Yes. Thanks.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Bill Harris, Sun Media. Please go ahead.
Bill Hey, Colin. First of all,
did you ever talk to anybody about why they gave your
character such a cartoonish kind of name? You sound like a
ScoobyDoo villain or something, “Gus Grimly”.
Colin I never brought it up. I
just dig the name. I think it's such a great name. I feel
like that’s maybe not Scooby Doo. I think it's like the cool
guitarist in like a 60s surfer band, “Gus Grimly” and the
Grimtones or something like that and I kind of dig that.
Bill Well, that sounds like the
type of movie that Tom Hanks would make, so you might want
to talk to the family and get that going.
Colin Yes, exactly.
Bill Do you think that in the
grand scheme, in that first scene that we set up with your
character, it speaks to me as to what is a hero because
we're used to entertainment presentations as heroes being
these sort of Rambos, never look back guys, do or die, like
it's always very clear. Do you think that it speaks to the
question of what is a hero because he has different things
to worry about in his life? And also, we have to believe
that your guy is nice enough and cares about his daughter
enough that he has that stuff going on in his mind and plus
Billy Bob has to be threatening enough that we have to buy
it that him just looking at you would have all these things
going through your mind.
Colin Well, I think it's an
interesting point. Obviously, with “Gus”, you definitely
don’t think oh, well here's a hero. He doesn’t necessarily
hold himself in a heroic stance. He doesn’t necessarily
speak in heroic tones or anything like that, but again, in
approaching this in as realistic a manner as we can, and
that was a goal for all of us with the show, oftentimes,
your real heroes are not necessarily six-pack abs and huge
biceps that come and save the day.
They're people that maybe don’t want to be heroes. The thing
that they're doing, they don’t want to be doing, but they
have to do it because they're compelled to do it.
Oftentimes, I find that the people that you really call
heroes, they're just doing their job. They're doing what
they're supposed to do because they have a sense of duty,
but it's not this super queue the music telling the audience
how to feel, here's our hero moment. They call them hero
moments for Christ's sake.
But for “Gus”, I feel like he doesn’t want to be doing what
he's doing. He would much rather have not pulled—I think if
you ask his daughter, he says, I probably wish I didn’t pull
“Lorne Malvo” over, if you ask “Gus”, but he's doing what
he's doing out of a sense of responsibility because it's the
right thing to do because he's trying to set an example for
his daughter and I think it's fair for you to say that
that’s heroic. I don’t know if it's fair to me to say it,
but I think “Gus” is a good guy trying to do the right
thing, and sometimes—and clearly, in that scene, sometimes
doing the right thing is technically the wrong thing to do,
and so, he tries to right that. If that’s heroic, then yes.
Bill Do you think he can cut
himself a bit of—there's a bit of cutting of slack a little
bit too in the sense that in this situation, it's almost
like a referee in a football game or a basketball game. He
actually has a split second to make a decision, and then,
it's easy for him to regret it after or think about it or
for everybody to criticize him, but your character had a
split second to make this decision, and you have Billy Bob
staring at you with his evil eyes and he's thinking about
his daughter. So, I know he's tearing himself up about it
later, “Gus” is, but does it speak also to the fact that
this is actually more complicated? This was a hard decision
and he had about three seconds to make it.
Colin Well, and you can even argue
that “Gus” didn’t even make a decision. You can argue that
“Gus” just was so scared and had so many things running
through his brain at that time that that caused a paralysis
in him in which he didn’t even let him go—he tries to make a
move but he ends up not making a decision and “Malvo” just
leaves.
Bill Yes, he just rolls up the
window and it's over.
Colin So, for me, again, I
really—that scene, you're lucky if you get a scene like that
as an actor. You're lucky if you get one scene like that,
and I remember some people are like God, that must be a
bummer, you're only in one scene in the pilot, and I'm like
look, if you're only going to be in one scene in the pilot,
that’s the scene you want to be in because there's so much
going on within that moment, within that moment between
those two characters, within that moment just within “Gus”,
and I think that that scene, everything is at work there.
You see “Malvo” and the way that he plays people and the way
he manipulates people with fear, with intimidation. You see
“Gus” completely out of his element, not sure what to do,
and his indecision is in a way his decision, but that eats
at him and it will eat with him for the rest of his life.
That is a decision that he will have to live with forever,
and so, man, that kind of complexity within a scene, within
characters, as an actor, you salivate for that stuff.
Bill So true. Thanks very much.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Jamie Ruby, SciFi Vision. Please go ahead.
Jamie So other than that scene that
you just talked about, do you have another favorite scene
that’s aired so far? I mean we've seen further.
Colin Well, there were a couple of
scenes. The scene with “Gus” and “Molly” was one that I was
very excited about, and also the scene with “Gus” and the
lieutenant if only for the creation of the word dipshittery,
but also the way that “Gus” has to—I mean, those are great
scenes, the way he's stepping up and making that decision to
go forward and admit this mistake that he's made while also
covering his tracks a little bit to try and lessen the blow,
but the scene actually—the scene that actually kind of
surprised me was the scene between “Gus” and “Greta” at his
desk where “Gus” is wrestling with trying to—how to initiate
this, how do I go and tell a cop from another precinct that
I've made this horrible mistake and let this guy go that
could be responsible for some serious, serious, serious
crimes. To see him wrestle with that and then to hear the
simplicity from his daughter, there was a connection there
between “Gus” and “Greta” that I was not aware that we had
done, and I was really pleasantly surprised by that scene
and impressed that they let that scene linger as much as
they did because you really got to, again, you got to live
with “Gus” at that moment. I really enjoyed that scene
tremendously, watching it.
Jamie Good. Thank you.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Diana Price, Examiner.com. Please go ahead.
Diana Hi, Colin. Thanks for joining
us today.
Colin Of course.
Diana I actually was going to ask
you about the scene with Billy Bob Thornton but I think
we've definitely covered that. While you do seem to play a
lot of clean-cut characters, I mean even on Dexter when you
were this homicidal character, you were very clean cut, do
you ever wish you'd get a character where you can grow your
hair and get a scruffy beard and get down and dirty?
Colin If you know of someone with
that role, will you give them my name and my headshot? Yes,
oh gosh, yes. For me, sort of along the lines of comedy or
drama, I always want to try and do different things, and
I've had an opportunity to do it a couple of times and I'm
always looking for a chance to do something different and
always trying to—I don’t necessarily want to repeat myself
at any time, and I don’t want to just do the same version,
the same guy over and over and over again. I want to be able
to do different things and to evolve and constantly trying
to find those roles, but also at the same time, trying to
find characters that on the surface may seem like that but
have things underneath that maybe come to light that are
revealed later on, and I'm constantly trying to find
different things, different angles, but yes, there is a part
of me that is desperately wanting to not necessarily be this
cute, endearing, heart on his sleeve type character that
just wants to be liked because that’s a part of me but not
all of me, so to speak.
Diana Well, maybe if we put this
out there you'll get flooded with scripts like that.
Colin Well, there you go.
Diana Thanks so much.
Colin Thank you.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Corey Panati, GuysGab.com. Please go ahead.
Corey Hey, Colin. Thanks a lot for
taking the time out and talking with us today.
Colin Sure thing.
Corey So, setting aside Fargo, what
would you say is your favorite project that you’ve worked on
over the years that didn’t get the love that you thought it
deserved?
Colin That’s a tough question.
Nowadays, everything seems to live forever. When I started
out, a lot of things had a relatively short shelf life.
You'd be on a television show, it would be on that night and
then maybe you'd never see it again, and now, you can pretty
much find everything. There's a way to pretty much find it
all, but I don’t really know. I've sort of—I'm always
pleasantly surprised by the amount of attention that Orange
County gets. I'm always very proud when people say they’ve
seen The Great Buck Howard because that was a movie that I
was very proud of, but overall, I try not to think about
that too much. I really just try and focus on what the next
thing is.
Corey Great. Thanks a lot.
Colin No problem.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of Preston Barta, North Texas Daily. Please go ahead.
Preston There's all this pressure
riding on “Gus” to kind of right his mistake in the eyes of
the law and take down “Malvo.” I'm curious to know what your
career equivalent is. What's the most pressure you’ve felt
working in this business as an actor?
Colin Well, it's different. I
think more than anything else, you want to do good work. You
want to serve the project in the way that it needs to be
served. There's no point in signing on for some job and
you're off making some other movie or TV show in your head
that’s the complete opposite of what everybody else is
trying to do, and so, I always just try and bring whatever I
can to an audition. Hopefully, it's in line with the vision,
and then, I try to support that as best I can, and it's
different for every job, but the pressure is always there.
Obviously there have been some times where I feel like
pressure has gotten to me a little bit more just because—I
remember on King Kong, I was like, the entire world is going
to see this. Better be good. That led to a sleepless night,
more than a few actually, but really you just try and focus
the best you can on the work and let that be both the
pressure, accept that pressure, but then also have that be
the pressure release. I would much rather be doing the work
and try to do the best you can and then forget about it and
not worry about anything else. That is really sort of the
pressure that I put on myself. No one puts any more pressure
on me than I do myself. So, I would much rather just try and
feel like I am okay and then move on and try and find what
is next on the call sheet.
Preston Great. Thank you, sir.
Colin No problem
Moderator Next question comes from the
line of Adam Coppola, Entertainment Tonight. Please go
ahead.
Adam So, working with such an
eclectic cast, Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele included
on that, I'm not sure if you had any scenes with them, but
I'm just wondering what you guys did for fun during your
down time up there. Any like Canadian sports or anything?
Colin Yes. Someone asked me this
earlier, and it was probably you. Look, I have my tried and
true things when I go on location. I always find it's good
to have an excuse to get out of the hotel and/or apartment
and go do something that is not just drinking, and so, I
travel with a portable turn table, and I don’t bring any
records with me and I go out to all the record stores in
town. It’s a great way to get the lay of the land, and then,
I label the city that I buy the record in. The irony is that
eventually I'm going to have so many records that then I
have to stay indoors and listen to them because it's of
course not necessarily a portable media.
But the biggest one, and it was the thing that I really sort
of drilled Allison on is where are we having dinner tonight,
what are we doing, what restaurant are we going to go to
because I am not just going to just sit at home and make
toast for dinner. I want to feel like a normal human being
and go out and talk and try and have a good time and make
the best of it and have a good time. So, that to me was the
big thing, and luckily, Calgary has a slew of fabulous
restaurant so we were all good there, and I'm a big hockey
buff, and so, I always like shooting in Canada because they
love hockey there. I went to a few Flames games, and there
was always a hockey game on TV.
Adam Thanks.
Colin No problem.
Moderator Our next question comes from the
line of George Penta, Metropolis. Please go ahead.
George Hi, Colin again. The pilot TV
series is one of the best that we [indiscernible] and one of
the [indiscernible] casting is fantastic. How do you feel to
work in such environment and do you feel that you have to up
your game to be on par with such great actors?
Colin Well, I mean we were all so
blown away by how well the show was written. It was
all—pretty much the first thing out of everybody's mouths
were, hey, can you believe how lucky we are that we get to
say this dialog, that we get to be involved with this, and
that's everybody, that's Billy Bob. Billy Bob and I talked
about that the first time I saw him up there in Calgary. I
said the same thing with Martin [Freeman] and pretty much
said that with everybody, and I remember saying that to
Jordan Peele and Keegan Michael Key about that. Just like,
hey man, I so glad that we all get to do this because this
is a really rare thing to be able to be in something this
good on the page.
So, when it's that—when the material is that good it makes
your job a little bit easier. When the person you're acting
with is good like Billy Bob or Martin or Bob Odenkirk or
Allison Tolman, that makes your job a little easier as well.
Not to say that it’s a cake walk, because it's still a
challenge and you still work hard and it still can be
frustrating, but then, it's not, hey, how do we make this
good; it's how do we make this the best that it can possibly
be. Look, when they say action and you're working, that's
the best part of the day. That's the part that we all want
to do.
That’s the part that they don’t pay us for. They pay us to
wait around. They pay us to go on location. They pay us to
do all that stuff , the acting stuff we all love to do. When
you're surrounded by as many talented people as you can be,
and I think everybody on the show is incredibly talented
from Billy Bob all the way down to the two boys playing the
Hess kids, literally everybody. It's all fun, and it's been
a treat. It was a treat to make it, and it's been an
absolute treat to watch it and see what everybody does.
George Thank you. Looking forward to
seeing it.
Colin Thank you.
Moderator Our last question comes from the
line from Earl Dittman, Digital Journal. Please go ahead.
Earl Hi, again. In this age
where there is Twitter and Ask.fm and Facebook and all the
stuff like that and the show is encouraging people to live
tweet during the show, do you find yourself in social media
as a thing you like to do or just a necessary evil that
comes with what we have to do now?
Colin As someone that was once,
let me—this will be the only time I will really name drop.
As someone that was once voted Time magazine's 140 people to
follow, I clearly tweet and clearly am pretty into it. I was
really against it all sort of at first, that sort of more of
I tend to be the grumpy old man quite a bit, but I initially
got into it as sort of a means to be able to advertise and
publicize things that I was doing that did not get
necessarily the advertising and publicity that I was hoping
it would, and I ended up finding out that it ended up being
this really great fun thing that I actually enjoyed quite a
bit. Obviously, it can very helpful for the very reasons why
I started doing it, to publicize things that I'm into,
voice, to be able to voice concerns that I have about
issues, to be able to talk about how crappy the weather is
or how delicious this pie was or how beautiful that sunset
was, any number of things. I still wrestle a little bit with
this concept of live tweeting a show or anything like that.
Me, personally, I like to watch the show.
Earl Yes, me too.
Colin Without any interruption.
I'm so glad that I can now pause things because if someone
else comes into the room I can pause the show and say what,
do we need to have a conversation right now because I am in
the middle of watching a television show. We didn’t have
that luxury a long time ago.
That said, a lot of people like to watch and tweet at the
same time. That's a different kind of, that's another level
of enjoyment, and I am not—who am I to poo-poo that? Who am
I to say like, oh, well you're enjoying it wrong? Enjoy it
anyway you like. If you like it, by all means do it. It's
not hurting anybody. As long as it doesn’t hurt anybody, I
think is the best thing I can say.
And so, look, I think it's all part of the world we are in.
Clearly, it's been great for me with this experience with
Fargo because it's instant feedback as to people loving the
show and people digging the show, and it gives me a much
better understanding of what people like about the show and
their involvement with it and I get to sort of interact with
people in a new way and that can be a lot of fun when people
like the show. If they don’t like the show, and there
haven't been too many people in regards to not liking Fargo,
but when it's something else and they don’t like it, well,
you have to deal with that. Don’t check Twitter first thing
in the morning unless you don’t mind people chirping at you.
The sword cuts both ways.
It's nice. That said, I will be live tweeting an episode
this season. I don’t know, I am trying to remember, I don’t
have it off the top of my head which one, but I sort of made
the decision like look, if people really want to hear what I
have to say about those things, I will be happy to tell
them. So, it is what it is.
Earl That will be good. We will
be tweeting away back at you.
Colin Beautiful, sounds good.
Earl Thanks, Colin, for the
whole day. Thanks for the call.
Colin No problem. Thank you to
everybody. If everybody can still hear, thank you,
everybody, for participating.
Kristy Thanks so much to everybody
for joining us today, and especially, Colin, we really
appreciate your time. As a reminder, Fargo airs Tuesday
nights at 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific only on FX. A complete
transcript to this call will be emailed to everyone within
approximately 72 hours, and you may now disconnect. Have a
great day.
Back to the Main Articles
Page
Back to the Main Primetime TV Page
We need more episode guide recap writers, article
writers, MS FrontPage and Web Expression users, graphics designers, and more, so
please email us
if you can help out! More volunteers always
needed! Thanks!
Page updated 5/6/14
    
|