December 2018

Somewhere between enigmatic badass and low key scene stealer. That’s the vibe Lance Reddick gives off every time he appears on screen. A favorite of ours since his days as John Basil in the HBO prison drama “Oz,” he has built a career on making smart choices in smart projects, including series like “Fringe,” “Bosch” and the “The Wire,” a show that altered the television landscape and continues to build on its audience a decade after its finale. On the film side, he has given life to one of the most interesting characters in the “John Wick” franchise, Charon, the concierge at the hitman-geared hotel, and although he’s coy when asked, it is our hope that the character will return in the episodic continuation of the world when “The Continental” arrives on Starz in the near future.

Most recently the Maryland native can be seen as the over-the-top CEO Christian DeVille on Comedy Central’s “Corporate,” which rounds out its first season tonight. (A second season has already been ordered.) We recently sat down with Reddick to discuss career expectations, the draw of comedy, and how he has continued to benefit from the popularity of “The Wire.”

TrunkSpace: Regardless of the project or the size of the role itself, even when the character is by his very nature subdued (such as the case with Charon in the “John Wick” franchise), you always stand out – your work always memorable. As you look over your career as a whole, has it gone the way that you had hoped? Has it met or exceeded any expectations you may have had for yourself when you set out to pursue a career as an actor?
Reddick: Well, actually no. I always had grand plans for what I thought my career would be. I thought, “Well I should be this famous by this age and have that amount of money by that age and win these awards by this other age,” etc… but I am reminded of watching television when I was in high school and seeing Joseph Maxwell Cleland, who was the Administrator of Veterans Affairs for President Carter at the time. He is a disabled Vietnam veteran. And he told the story of “The Blessings Of Unanswered Prayers,” attributed to an unknown confederate soldier. And the ending says, “I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.” That is where I feel my career has lead me to at this point, both professionally and artistically.

TrunkSpace: The first season of “Corporate” is just about to wrap up, with a second season already picked up by Comedy Central. You’re also on “Bosch” at Amazon, which is not only about to kick off Season 4, but has also been renewed for a fifth season. Is it a bit of an emotional gift for an actor to have these kinds of early renewals and commitments on projects that you’re involved in?
Reddick: I haven’t thought about it as an emotional gift before, mainly because “Bosch” consistently tends to get early renewals and so I have been spoiled. But in looking back on my career, especially given how long HBO took to renew for seasons four and five of “The Wire,” yes, it is definitely a gift. It takes the pressure off of, “Do I have a job to come back to next year?”

TrunkSpace: Most viewers probably associate you and your work with projects of a more serious tone. Was part of the appeal of working on a project like “Corporate” the chance to get to show a less recognizable/serious side? Was the comedy element of “Corporate” part of the personal draw for you?
Reddick: Well, the fact that the role of Christian is such a scene chewing, over-the-top character in such a smart dark comedy was definitely a draw. But actually, I have been doing cool off-kilter comedic stuff for the past few years now. I’m sure part of the reason I was cast in “Corporate” is because of the “Toys R Me” skit I did for Funny Or Die several years ago. And then you never know where people are going to recognize you from. I recently met Tim Blake Nelson, and he greeted me by saying, “I wish I were LeVar Burton,” from a crazy skit I did on “The Eric Andre Show” a few years back. And I was on the elliptical machine in the gym a couple of years ago and a woman came up to me and asked me if I was the guy from the gay wedding advice “Key & Peele” skit.

TrunkSpace: Your character Christian DeVille is obviously fictional, but are there aspects of his personality that you plucked from personal experiences? Has there been a boss like Christian in your own life at some point in time?
Reddick: I wouldn’t say I’m anything like Christian as a personality. In preparing for the role I read the autobiography of billionaire Reginald F. Lewis, and read up on the personalities of psychopaths. Apparently in current thought on the subject of psychopaths, there is actually a scale on which everybody can be measured, and most corporate CEOs tend to score pretty high on that scale. I had a boss once who was an ex-combat soldier and clearly an intellectual genius. He was uber alpha, incredibly charismatic, extraordinarily competent, and a real dick. It took me a while to realize that it wasn’t personal. It’s just the way he was.

TrunkSpace: What has been the most enjoyable aspect of this particular project strictly from a character standpoint? What is it about playing Christian that has you excited to delve back in for Season 2?
Reddick: The most fun for me about this character is how extreme he is and how well he is written. From script to script, I never know what outrageous things he will say or do in order to get what he wants.

TrunkSpace: As we mentioned, you’re also starring in “Bosch,” which is a show that is extremely popular, and yet, no one really knows how popular because it’s not like network television where viewership is revealed. Is there something nice about that, being involved in a project where the focus is on the art and not necessarily on the size of the audience tuning in?
Reddick: Yes, definitely. Working on HBO for so long (“The Corner,” “Oz,” “The Wire”) where ratings rarely seemed to be the focus of the discussion of how to write the stories or play the characters, I was spoiled into thinking that was just the way TV was. “Fringe” was my first experience of numbers affecting artistic decisions. And although it was a great show, that was a bit of a culture shock. So with “Bosch,” it’s great to only have to worry about doing great work.

TrunkSpace: Does it change the experience for you as a performer when a series like “Bosch” rolls out its new seasons all at once? Does the binging that comes along with present day content consumption make the season-to-season payoff shorter lived?
Reddick: Well, it is interesting that it’s almost like a movie premiere, the way dropping a series all at once affects viewing. But because my first experience as a series regular was “The Wire,” and because the unique way it found its truly world class audience was binging the DVDs, after the fact, I’ve kind of gotten used to that. And as a viewer, that’s how I watch everything now.

TrunkSpace: There’s so much talk about the quality of the content these days, particularly in television, but is the quantity just as exciting? Are there more interesting jobs out there now than ever before?
Reddick: Well, I think that the nature of the beast of much higher content forces higher levels of quality artistically to be greater to stay competitive, so a byproduct of that is going to be a lot more interesting jobs.

TrunkSpace: Is there a character, even someone you inhabited briefly in a guesting capacity, that you wish you had more time to spend with, and if so, why?
Reddick: Charon, in the “John Wick” series. Definitely want to explore that character more. But that’s an example of “we shall see.” (Laughter)

TrunkSpace: “The Wire” remains one of the most revered series of all time and constantly makes the tops of any and all “Best Television Ever” lists. Is there something special about being involved in a series that not only left its mark when it first aired, but continues to do so?
Reddick: What can I say to that? How can I not feel honored to have played an iconic character, in a series that literally changed television history? And because the show has the unique trajectory of continuing to become more famous and revered the farther away we get from it, the benefits to my career continue to grow as well.

TrunkSpace: We mentioned “John Wick” at the start of our conversation. It’s been announced that a series is in the works. Will Charon be on duty for the series or will he be calling out sick?
Reddick: I have no idea. That’s another, “we shall see”… (Laughter)

The season finale of “Corporate” airs tonight on Comedy Central.

Season 4 of “Bosch” kicks off April 13 on Amazon Prime.

Featured image: Reddick in “Corporate”/Photo courtesy of Comedy Central

If you steer clear of people with yellow eyes, call your car Baby, or recognize the value of salt in places other than the kitchen, chances are good that you’re fan of the series “Supernatural.” And if you are, you know that the Winchester brothers have had their fair share of friends and family come into their lives throughout the course of the show’s first 13 seasons, though none have left an impact quite like Sheriff Jody Mills. Now the maternal ass-kicking ally, portrayed perfectly by Kim Rhodes, is on the verge of spearheading her own spinoff series, “Wayward Sisters,” which viewers will get a taste of tonight when “Supernatural” returns to The CW following its mid-season hiatus.

We recently sat down with Rhodes to discuss her “Supernatural” road so far, the power and magic of the fandom, and what she’s most excited to explore with Jody in the new series.

TrunkSpace: “The road so far…” is a popular phrase associated with the series. Could you have ever expected that your “Supernatural” road would lead you here today, on the verge of your own spin-off series, “Wayward Sisters?”
Rhodes: I was so grateful every single second on that set. It never occurred to me to wish for more. And then when people started whispering, “Wouldn’t this be a good spin-off? Wouldn’t this be…” like, in my darkest heart there was a tiny little flicker of, “Yes, please! Please! I want to do this forever!”

But really, no expectation. No belief. I am astonished and I have no idea how this happened, with the exception of a group of powerful, vibrant, unbelievably joyous fans that were like, “No, no, no. We’d like this. Look what we can do.”

TrunkSpace: Obviously the fandom is very strong, but to be able to have a creative say and help a network venture towards a particular idea or concept is a very rare thing.
Rhodes: I’ve never heard of it happening before. Ever. Now, “Supernatural” has a very unique relationship with its fans. I remember being on a different show, and they actually said, “You’re here because of your fandom. We want to know how to do that with our show too.” I was like, “You can’t.”

I think the magic of “Supernatural” and the relationship with the fans, it cannot be recreated, because you can’t tell people what to do. This is the other thing. The fans are all individuals. It’s not a hive mind. You can’t just feed it. It is not a foregone conclusion that this spinoff will go. Because you can’t just seed somebody something and say, “Here, we call this ‘Supernatural,’” and have them say, “Yes, we love this.” They’re smart. They’re opinionated. They’re vocal. And they’re powerful. And it all comes from different ways of expressing love for the show “Supernatural” and for themselves and their own relationships and place in that. It’s pretty miraculous.

TrunkSpace: And because of that, it is called the SPN Family for a reason. They’re not afraid to say what they love and they’re not afraid to speak up when they don’t love something, but even then, it comes from a place of love.
Rhodes: It is, in all aspects, a family. I was talking to somebody else and I was like, “You know, nobody pushes your buttons like your family because they installed them.” It’s very easy for fans to be passive in this world, because nothing’s expected of them. But the “Supernatural” fandom expects a lot of itself, and they are passionate. I love that. It makes me identify. I’m like, “Yep, you’re me, I’m you! Yes!”

TrunkSpace: We know creatively the table has been set for “Wayward Sisters” throughout the course of the season, but this week’s episode really serves to put viewers at that table. Are you experiencing any sort of nerves in terms of how it will be received by the fandom?
Rhodes: You know how Holly Hunter cried in “Broadcast News?”

TrunkSpace: Yeah.
Rhodes: There you go. That’s me. I was fortunate enough to have four episodes on a completely different show, playing a completely different character. I’ve been on “Criminal Minds” for the last couple months, and it kept me distracted. Today is the first day I’m not on “Criminal Minds.” I was like, “Oh, maybe I’m not completely okay. Maybe I’m just repressing all of the terror and hope I’ve ever felt in my entire life that has culminated in this moment.” Yeah, that’s far more likely is that I’ve just been repressing it.

TrunkSpace: Would you say tonally that tonight’s episode of “Supernatural” is going to be representative of what “Wayward Sisters” will become?
Rhodes: Boy, I wish I could answer that. I don’t know. They haven’t told me anything because they know I don’t keep secrets well. That said, what is definitely indicative of everything they’ve said they want is how high the bar is set. We didn’t cut corners as actors. We didn’t cut corners with storytelling. It is brutal. The fights are hard, the work was tough. We trained, all of us, trained. Both physically and with weapons. The bar was set high. I can safely say that should this go to series, we will only keep raising the bar for ourselves. We want to exceed the fans’ expectations. And their expectations are pretty damn high.

TrunkSpace: That’s the thing. Sometimes expectations can be a blessing and a curse, because people are excited but at the same time they have their own set ways of what they envision something will be.
Rhodes: Yes. Now that is definitely something we are aware of. I had said before, I would like to say again, give it a chance. Just because you don’t see all of your expectations met in one episode doesn’t mean we aren’t laying the groundwork, particularly in terms of representation. “Wayward Sisters” has really opened up the number of voices and perspectives that the stories are being told from. Within that, if you don’t look at something and go, “Oh, well they forgot this…” Maybe not. You can’t eat the entire meal in the first bite.

TrunkSpace: Yeah, it’s not a movie. It’s not an hour and a half. It’s a long journey.
Rhodes: Yeah. And also, you’ve seen the episode so you know what I mean when I say there’s probably going to be a moment when the fans feel a little betrayed. When they’re going to be like, “Wait a minute, you did it again to us?”

TrunkSpace: Right.
Rhodes: Just hang on. And that’s going to be my motto for the entire journey, is just hang on. Just hang on. You think you know. You don’t know. Just hang on.

TrunkSpace: Obviously you’ve seen the character Jody grow over the course of your time on the series. What are you most excited about from a character’s journey in terms of what we could possibly see her go through over the course of her own series?
Rhodes: I am so excited to see Jody make some mistakes, and watch other people have to clean up her mess. Jody’s been pretty on-target so far, because that’s how she’s served the show. We know she’s made mistakes, but we haven’t needed to watch any of them because that wasn’t pushing the storyline of “Supernatural” forward. I would like to think that within “Wayward Sisters” Jody’s going to make mistakes. And she’s going to have to learn some stuff, which is hard as a senior member of a group. Because a lot of my identity as a person when I’m in a situation like that is, “Oh yeah, I got this. Let me tell you how to get this.” And Jody’s going to have to realize that she ain’t always got it and she’s going to have to learn from the girls around her. I’m looking forward to seeing what she learns from them.

TrunkSpace: Jody’s always been very supportive of Claire, Alex, and Patience in terms of them taking on the responsibilities of being Hunters, but as she becomes more invested in the group and as dangers increase, do you think she’ll have second thoughts about that?
Rhodes: I think that’s always going to be with her. I think that’s definitely a note to her, because she’s experienced loss at the hands of the supernatural. And really, nobody else has lost the kinds of things that she’s lost. Jody is the one who’s painfully aware of what’s at stake in this kind of life and so she’s always going to have to struggle to allow people to be who they need to be, to fight the fight that needs to be fought.

TrunkSpace: She’s taken these girls under her wing at a time when they needed her, but we would imagine that Jody needs them just as much, if not more given those holes left to be filled in her personal life?
Rhodes: Well, I also think for me, I prefer to phrase it not so much filling the hole – because those holes have unique shapes and nothing will ever fill them – but to remember that someone’s capacity to love, and I have personally experienced some pretty traumatic losses in my life, the loss will never be replaced. But the love continues to be expressed when I choose to love someone else. And love myself. I think that is something that Jody is aware of. She’s never going to replace her husband and her son. However, being of service and finding hope again is the best thing she can do for their memory. And those girls give her both of those things. She can love again, and she can hope again, because those girls are in her life.

TrunkSpace: Finally, Kim, you sort of touched on this at the start of our chat… how grateful you were to be on the set each and every time you got the call. Everybody we have spoken to who has been involved in the series or who has worked on the series, they all have that same point of view, which is that they genuinely love the experience and being a part of this universe. Having been in this industry for as long you have, is that rare? Because it seems pretty rare from an outside perspective.
Rhodes: Do you believe in love at first sight?

TrunkSpace: Actually, yeah.
Rhodes: Have you experienced it?

TrunkSpace: Yes.
Rhodes: That’s pretty fucking rare isn’t it?

TrunkSpace: It is.
Rhodes: It’s like that. It exists. People who have never experienced think it’s a myth. People who have experienced it know how precious it is and how rare it is. It’s magic.

“Supernatural” returns tonight on The CW.

Sarah Shook doesn’t write music for fame or adulation, she writes because she has to. An outlet for emotional purging, the songs she creates – gritty and authentic – are part of her own internal healing process. And while her latest album “Years” may have aided in exorcising the personal demons of the North Carolina native, it is also helping listeners of her brand of twangy AmericHONESTa search for answers to their own questions about the confusing world circulating around them.

We recently sat down with Shook to discuss songwriting catharsis, going boots on the ground, and why it’s necessary for artists to be transparent in what they’re creating.

TrunkSpace: What emotions do you juggle with internally as you gear up to release new material to the masses and is it important to tamper expectations given that once its released to the world, so much of how it is perceived is then out of your hands?
Shook: I don’t make music to please anyone. I make music to exorcise my demons and heal. The people who listen to my songs and feel connected to me, this music is for them, too. Their pain and suffering, their failures and victories, are every bit as valid as my own. My band and I worked incredibly hard to make an excellent record with “Years,” not because we want accolades, but because we challenge ourselves personally and collectively to be the best we possibly can. That’s its own reward in many ways.

TrunkSpace: Is there ever a moment when you finish an album and you feel a sense of loss or sadness because the experience is over and those songs no longer require your attention? Is it difficult to let go of the creative in the process?
Shook: Hell no. These songs are my catharsis, I don’t get tired of howling out the same words night after night because this shit is real and at this point this is bigger than just me, this is about bringing some relief and catharsis to the people who show up for it. Shared experience is powerful.

TrunkSpace: “Years” has been out for about a month now. Creatively are you a different person than you were when you first started writing the material for that album?
Shook: Creatively, no. Same old me. For better or worse. (Laughter)

TrunkSpace: From our perspective, there seems to be a revolution happening in country music with singers/songwriters pushing back against the polished, packaged country that has dominated the genre for the last decade or so. Is that an accurate reading, and if so, why are artists hoping to redefine the country sound and vibe once again?
Shook: There’s a mighty thirst to find something real in a sea of glittery bubblegum superstardom. People are looking for something that speaks to them because it’s authentic and from the heart. Pop country artists might be selling out stadiums, but the little people like us are out here, boots on the ground, working hard AF, connecting with people. Pretty sure you won’t find Brad Paisley doin’ shots at the bar with his fans. We make ourselves available as much as possible.

TrunkSpace: You describe yourself as shy. How does someone who is shy ultimately settle on a career where being in front of people, both physically and emotionally, is part of the job description?
Shook: I’ve come a very long way in a very short amount of time. As an introvert, after a shit ton of socializing, yes, I’m definitely gonna need some alone time to recoup. But I totally enjoy meeting new people and the chaos of touring life. Being incessantly thrown into new and unfamiliar territory with so many unknown factors, this way of life requires fast and lasting change in one’s way of thinking. You just gotta roll with the punches, keep your head on straight, and keep moving forward.

TrunkSpace: With that in mind, if you could spend the remainder of your career making a living writing and recording exclusively, could you walk away from performing in front of people or is there still a draw there?
Shook: I love touring, I love performing, and most of all, I love my bandmates. We’ve worked so fucking hard to get to where we are, I would totally be letting them down if I quit touring. I could never do that. They’re my family when I’m not home.

TrunkSpace: You seem to put so much of yourself into your music. On the lyrics side, do you ever feel like you’re saying too much about yourself and your experiences, and in the process, opening yourself up to third party dissection… especially in this social media age?
Shook: No. Artists need to be more honest and transparent in their art. I make mistakes, I’m not perfect, and when I fuck up I’m not afraid to talk about it.

TrunkSpace: You have a great rock star aura about you, but really, the first “rock stars” with swagger were the classic country artists. What are your thoughts on persona and attitude when it comes to an artist’s point of view? Is it all part of the necessary equation?
Shook: I don’t give a single fuck what anybody thinks about me. I know who I am. I know what my strengths and weaknesses are. I work really hard to better myself. It’s impossible to intimidate someone who has lived through the shit I’ve lived through and clawed their way kicking and screaming towards freedom and independence. Nobody is ever gonna keep me down again and there is no more liberating feeling.

TrunkSpace: We love great music, but within great music we are particularly drawn to great lyrics, the kind that make us curse the universe for not coming up with ourselves. What is a favorite line of yours that you have written and why?
Shook: “I didn’t come here to be seen, but I can feel your eyes burning holes in me.” Because I’ll never forget that feeling with that person in that moment at the bar. Ain’t desire a hell of a thing.

“Years” by Sarah Shook & the Disarmers is available now from Bloodshot Records.

Featured image by: Jillian Clark.

We fell in love with Ash Williams as easily-impressionable preteens, marveling in his brazen foot-in-mouth false bravado, but had his recent sidekick Kelly Maxwell been with him 30 years ago, we’re sorry to say that the chainsaw-wielding anti-hero would have been an afterthought. Portrayed by Dana DeLorenzo in the Starz series “Ash vs Evil Dead,” currently in its third season, Kelly is, as she would say, a breath of mother f@#?ing fresh @ss air!

In reality, DeLorenzo is also one of those freshly inhaled breaths. Eager to discuss her place in the Evil Dead universe and genuinely grateful to have been invited on board, the Ohio native is ecstatic to see her character take more of a leadership role this season, which she says will culminate in a moment that has Kelly seizing upon an opportunity in a extremely unforgettable way.

We recently sat down with DeLorenzo during a bomb cyclone (yes, that’s a thing!) to discuss where the series has impacted her life the most, the star dust that follows Sam Raimi when he leaves a room, and her mother’s spot-on chainsaw impression.

TrunkSpace: How has “Ash vs Evil Dead” impacted your life the most?
DeLorenzo: Oh man, that’s such a hard question to answer because, first of all, brevity is not my strong suit. I’m trying to answer questions in a short amount of time. It’s tough, and something that big and magnified is… something that huge of a topic is still hard for me to articulate. Let me try.

Well for one thing, it gave me a steady job in the entertainment industry, which has been something I have been dreaming and making birthday wishes for my entire life, and just busting my ass, really. I’m from Youngstown, not really the hotbed of entertainment. I’ve just always loved to perform. It was very innate. I was telling jokes to myself on my Fisher-Price tape recorder when I was three, cracking myself up with my “Sesame Street” stuffed animals. It was one of those things that always drove me. And my parents have always kept me very grounded, and are two of the hardest working people I know. So in that sense, I never really thought that it would ever be something I could do for a living, I just always wanted to pursue it on the side. I was working five or six shifts a week, 12 hour shifts on my feet, when I got this audition, in fact. The bar that I was working at was incredible and kept me afloat all those years in LA, for like five years. It was called Beer Belly. The fact that I get to wake up every day and do what I love, I’d say that is the biggest thing. And then there are all the little branches. I mean, what a thrill as an actor to be on a show like this, that has all the things. I get to flex so many muscles. I get to learn so many incredible aspects of the craft, whether it’s doing stunts in action, or doing comedy, which is my number one love, opposite Bruce Campbell, the king of one-liners and comedic timing. Or, I’m there walking in the woods with Xena: Warrior Princess. And also, I get to do drama, and obviously, the horror. I have gotten to cross off so many things on my acting bucket list.

TrunkSpace: Well, and from an outside perspective, that seems like one of the amazing things about being involved in a show like this, is that, anything is possible. You could show up to work and be doing anything on any given day.
DeLorenzo: And that’s really how it is. We move very quickly. So many of the days, things get switched around, and all of a sudden, I’m hanging upside down by my ankles in a tree fight, and then the next day I’m getting covered in blood and viscera with a cannon being shot at me. It definitely keeps it exciting and keeps you on your toes. And that lends itself to the final aspect which is, having fans is obviously something new for me. I’m just so grateful because, this is so sincere, meeting fans gives me life. It’s such a symbiotic relationship to the point where I actually think I get more excited to meet fans than they are to meet me, where I’m the one creeping them out. I’m so intense all the time and I’m so passionate. I mean, I am Italian, that comes with the territory. Truly, when I get to do these conventions or comic cons and meet them, they’re the ones usually backing away from me slowly, asking for security. I just get so filled with love and passion, and as an actor that’s such a great feeling, ’cause the work is the reward, to be honest, for me. I go crazy when there’s nothing going on and I’m not shooting. Right now, usually we’re shooting in New Zealand at this time, and so, I’m having a little bit of a panic attack not being on set. But luckily, I can go to some of these conventions to meet fans and it’s like, how great to have people, first-hand, in your face, and be able to respond to your work and get as excited as you were to shoot it. That, to me, has been the crème de la crème. Like I said, considering my roots and considering the journey and the real tough road it took to get here, there’s not a day that goes by that I am not grateful and feel so lucky to be on the show about a guy with a chainsaw arm. Who knew?

TrunkSpace: As it relates to the fans, this franchise, more than a lot of the genre franchises, it feels like people have a sense of ownership in it. It’s almost like they found their indie band that they loved and they want to share it with their close friends. How long did it take for you, being a part of it, to feel that ownership as well?
DeLorenzo: You know, I don’t know that I feel ownership in this, I just feel like I’m a cog in the wheel. But in terms of when did I feel like people were receptive, to welcome us as part of the group… pretty early on.

It’s interesting you say that because I was actually terrified at the possibility that it could go in a very different direction. And that’s not a secret, if you look at the early responses, when it came out that finally, after, what was it, 20 or 30 years, they were gonna have a follow-up to “The Evil Dead” with Bruce Campbell, the response was a little bit, what’s the word I’m looking for?

TrunkSpace: Cautionary.
DeLorenzo: That’s exactly the word, cautionary, or even adversarial. And understandably so. I knew the franchise, I was a fan. It’s about one guy, and finally, finally, here we got ’em again, Bruce Campbell, doing this next leg, transitioning from film to television, and what, he’s gonna have two sidekicks? So I was a little worried that, “Oh boy, what if they hate us?” Luckily, I’d say, straight away, from the very first time I got to meet fans… I think it was New York Comic Con before the show had aired, so we did a huge thing there for like 2500 fans… and they just went nuts. Then, I think my first convention was in Chicago, my home away from home… I’ve lived there for 10 years… and it was Days of the Dead, and only three episodes had aired of the first season and already I was blown away by how receptive they were and how immediately they invested in Pablo and Kelly. And I have to give credit to Rob Tapert and Bruce and Sam (Raimi), and our showrunner at the time, Craig DiGregorio, because they knew what they were doing. They knew that in order to let this character, Ash Williams, this flawed human being that we know and love, they knew that in order to let him still be that character with some often offensive, sometimes ignorant comments and views, they knew that in order to let him still be him, they needed to surround him with someone who has a heart and who was his cheerleader, and also someone who is willing to go toe-to-toe with him and call him out and also sort of be the common sense.

TrunkSpace: It’s a new layer that didn’t exist before, this wonderful family element that binds them all together.
DeLorenzo: Absolutely. You hit the word, which is the buzzword for Season 3, because for two seasons we built up this family and even have introduced, or brought back members of Ash’s family. His father, played by the great Lee Majors, which I think is one of the best additions to the show. And then, of course, we have Cheryl, his sister, which, oh my goodness, what a thrill for the fans, the lifelong fans of the franchise, to have that. But now, for Season 3, we introduced a daughter, his actual daughter he never knew he had. So there is so much great richness and conflict that now directly affect Pablo and Kelly, who the audience has grown to love, and you see how that sets that in motion. Now it’s the family that is bound by blood, and the family that is bound by bloodshed, and I love that. I love watching Ash Williams, the last man on earth who should be, now have to be responsible for a teenage daughter, no less, who already has the rebellion that a lot of teenagers have, but then with the same stubbornness of Ash Williams. It gives a whole new meaning to sins of the father. It is heartwarming but also so funny, and often very real and emotional, and I’m very excited for fans to see how Ash grows just enough this season in such a real and fantastic way.

TrunkSpace: From what we could tell, this is the longest time you’ve ever spent with one character. What has that journey been like for you to discover somebody over an extended period of time?
DeLorenzo: It has been one of the greatest thrills of my life because I absolutely love my character. I love Kelly Maxwell, and that, again, is a testament to the writers and to the showrunners, but also, Sam Raimi set the bar from day one, about collaborating and letting me bring my own aspects or thoughts or different layers that I wanted to bring to the table. From day one, they have been so receptive and collaborative, and I think that always lends itself to being… when creatives all work together for the same goal, it takes a village to create a strong character. I’m talking down the line, not just collaborating in terms of dialogue and in terms of ideas and who Kelly Maxwell is, it’s been collaborative from behind the scenes.

So, it has been such a magnificent experience, and I feel like art imitates life imitates art, because Kelly’s journey has been very similar to my own journey playing Kelly. That sounds so meta, but it’s true. (Laughter) She was thrown into the fight against evil, I was thrown into this. Yes, I’d been working for a long time, but I think I had no more than eight seconds of screen time on any major movie or TV show. Also, just how she came into her own, how she became her own warrior by her own right, I feel like I can look back at where I started and I feel a lot more comfortable in these shoes now… and in this purple leather jacket.

I have nothing else to compare it to, so maybe we should add this to the other ways that this show has impacted me, because I’ve never gotten to create a character and never before have been able to have so much creative input in a character. That’s been a huge thing for me, and again, something that I’m just so happy and grateful for.

TrunkSpace: The bar has been set high with this job. Any future jobs will always be compared to your time on “Ash vs Evil Dead” now.
DeLorenzo: Oh yeah, I’m screwed. (Laughter) But also, it taught me a lot, and I feel like this was such its own beast, if you will. I feel like not all the characters I play will I be able to find so many ways to bring out these little aspects, so I feel like every character is different. So even if I don’t get to collaborate again, at least I have this. But I do feel like, in my experience, there are many people in this industry who do believe in the good of creating together. If you look at any of the shows that are successful, and beloved, you hear the same thing every time, that everyone gets along, everyone takes part, everyone stays in their own lane, that kind of thing. So I do feel like it is possible. I hope there’s more of that to come.

But yeah, nothing will ever top the moment that Sam Raimi sits you down day one and says, “Hey, I’d really like you to help me rewrite this scene.” And you’re like, “I’m sorry, Sam Raimi, what?” I thought he was kidding. I’ve said this before, he is both the least and most intimidating person in the room, in the sense of, when he talks to you, you’re the only one there, he’s looking at you, he makes you feel so good, he listens to what you have to say, and then he walks away, and you’re like, “Holy shit! That was Sam Raimi!” You’re talking to him, it’s like Sam the butcher from the grocery store and you go, “Hey man, how you doing?” And then he walks away and there’s like this trail of star dust that’s left in view.

TrunkSpace: (Laughter) Well, what’s amazing about Sam is that, where he doesn’t get enough credit is that he really kick-started this whole superhero craze with what he did with the Spider-Man franchise.
DeLorenzo: Absolutely. And also, things like the POV of the object, that was him. He created that whole thing of like, the ax flying from the ax’s point of view. I mean, how genius? So again, I would have been happy to be Screaming Extra #72 in a show like this. (Laughter) Which, by the way, I think that was my biggest credit before getting this show.

So I’m just so grateful to all of them, the producers that took a chance on me, because I’m not the typical horror stereotype. I’m not the beautiful blonde with blue eyes who can scream. I’m a very different-looking, different-sounding character or person that screams like a 75-year-old man. I really thought I was never gonna get this job ’cause I actually can’t scream. I have nodules. My mom, when she saw the first episode, she was like, “That was great but why didn’t they dub your screaming? You sound like you’re a 75 year-old man.” Mom, you’re not wrong. I cannot scream.

TrunkSpace: How great is it that your mom is in on the lingo with dubbing and stuff like that? That’s awesome!
DeLorenzo: (Laughter) Oh, I know. Whenever my parents will call me, immediately after the show airs, this is what I get every time… her impression of a chainsaw. So the show aired. “Hi, Mom and Dad. What’d you think?”

(DeLorenzo does an impression of her mom doing an impression of a chainsaw.)

And it’s actually pretty good. But it’s so funny, ’cause this is not my parent’s cup of tea or anything, but they have grown to absolutely love the show. They give me their full Roger Ebert critique.

New episodes of “Ash vs Evil Dead” air Sundays on Starz. Seasons 1 and 2 are available now on Netflix.

As bingers of pop culture, we’ve all been burned by the continuation of our favorite film franchises and series. The buzzy term “reimagnation” has become a bit of a dirty word, leaving many viewers skeptical of the projects that have come out of Hollywood in recent years. It’s the reason “The Karate Kid” faithful were leery of “Cobra Kai” when it was originally announced as a YouTube Red series, and it’s why so many who have already soaked up the show have been praising it as a love letter to them, the original fans. It hasn’t just met expectations, it has exceeded them.

Taking place 30 years after the events of the first movie, which made its debut in 1984, the 10-episode Season 1 reunites Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) as their heated rivalry is rekindled upon Johnny reopening the Cobra Kai dojo. And when the original sensei, John Kreese, shows up, as a viewer you realize that this is a show that you never knew you wanted but now you absolutely need to have. (Editor’s Note: Please greenlight Season 2, YouTube!)

We recently sat down with THE Cobra Kai, Martin Kove, to discuss the character’s backstory, why he’s the Darth Vader of the karate world, and the prophetic dream he had just before he slipped back into the sensei’s skin.

TrunkSpace: Is it a bit of a surreal experience sitting down and talking about John Kreese 34 years after you first brought him to life?
Kove: Yeah. It’s a character that we’ve relived often, but not onscreen. It’s quite interesting. The people don’t forget it because the movie means so much to so many people. Back in ’84, they loved to hate John Kreese, so they love to respect him, or they love to love him, you know? The journey of that character is quite interesting because I wondered why the people loved such a beast, and he really wasn’t, per se, a beast. He was just someone who vowed never to lose again, which was a backstory that I personally created – that he was a champion forever. In high school, in college, in the armed forces, and when he went to the Vietnam War he wasn’t allowed to win like so many of our other boys, so many of our other soldiers. So, when he came back he swore when he opened up the dojo that his students would never lose, under any circumstances.

TrunkSpace: Without a backstory like that, he could have been a very one dimensional “bad guy.”
Kove: Yeah. It kind of went in that direction because you always create a backstory when you’re creating a character. A great luxury for doing a character that is basically non-fiction is that it’s a real life person and you can go research, which is my favorite – to go research someone, talk to the relatives and read papers, and there’s different scriptures of what that character’s done. The other end of the spectrum is you create it yourself, on the fictional character front like John Kreese. But John Kreese was a real life character in Robert Kamen’s world. He had a marine sergeant who was a disciplinarian like that. He based it on that. I said, “Was he worse than John Kreese?” Robert said, “He was far worse than John Kreese.” (Laughter) So, I could imagine that, you know?

TrunkSpace: Regardless of how bad Kreese gets in the films, the audience really loves to hate him. In many ways, he was a part of the childhood of so many impressionable viewers who absorbed that first movie in 1984. Like you said, it meant, and continues to mean, so much to people.
Kove: It really does. He’s the Darth Vader of the karate world, you know? It was really tricky. I remember when I got this series called “Hard Time on Planet Earth,” and at that time I remember my agent telling me, “Oh, I can get you out of the series. I can get you out of the series.” And I said, “If it’s going to conflict with ‘Karate Kid III’ then I don’t want to do it.” And he never could get me out of the series, and it was kind of a bittersweet experience. It was a series on CBS after I did “Cagney and Lacey.” It was heartbreaking because most of the people involved – John Avildsen and Jerry Weintraub who, bless their souls, have gone now – but I don’t think they ever believed me that I didn’t know that I could be in that show. So, the assistant director Cliff Coleman suggested, “We could make this work.” Because it was my vehicle and I was to do a sting operation against Ralph (Macchio) and also train Sean Kanan, the other bad boy. Ultimately John didn’t want to risk it, so I came in on the periphery of the movie and sent on vacation by the character Terry Silva. That character was written into the script because I couldn’t do it. I was supposed to, basically, do everything he did. As good a job as Terry did – Thomas Ian Griffin was his name – as good a job as he did as the associate of John Kreese, he still wasn’t John Kreese. You can’t disenfranchise the villain in these kinds of movies, because everybody’s looking for the same guy, because he’s meant so much in the initial outing of 1984. Whether they were bullied, whether they had a romance that didn’t work, or whether they just were fish out of water – that movie meant one of those elements to a lot of people, and certainly John Kreese was right there in the middle of the mix.

TrunkSpace: You made a great comparison to Darth Vader. There have been plenty of movies in the “Star Wars” franchise now, and plenty of villains, but none of them have lived up to Vader.
Kove: No, they haven’t. And I like the movie very much – the last one – but I missed that ominous quality that James Earl Jones put to the voice, and that was put in the costume. You have to remember, to everybody, Sean Connery was the best James Bond. For the same reason, when we’re young we’re so impressionable, and these characters mean so much when they’re written well. Because to me, the bottom line is, with “The Karate Kid,” I don’t care what anybody says, and I used to have this argument with Robert Kamen all the time – the real star is Robert Kamen. He put pen to paper and did “wax on, wax off,” “sweep the leg” and “no mercy.” He did it, and without that, despite the charisma that he always says was the star of the movie, between Ralph and Pat (Morita), the real star for me has always been the written word.

TrunkSpace: You can be a cool character in a not-so-great movie, but that probably doesn’t carry the same weight personally when you’re working with a great script from start to finish?
Kove: Yes, exactly. Exactly. You can do five lines in a hit and… I had two scenes in “Wyatt Earp” and I remember chatting with Jackie Collins one day and she said, “You’re the funniest thing in the movie. He throws a cue ball in your throat and takes your rig and wears it for the rest of the movie. He feels his power after he knocks you out against the bar.” And I had a great time on that movie. I cried when I left the set. I mean, working with Kevin Costner was heaven. But, the bottom line is, two scenes in a good movie is far better than starring in a film that nobody goes to see.

TrunkSpace: Right, because it probably means more to you as a performer when something means so much to so many people.
Kove: Yeah, God knows how many times I’ve made a mistake in my career of being arrogant enough to think that my performance would make the movie better, and the script wasn’t up to par, but I would agree to go do a movie because I loved the character, and my arrogance would say, “Well, you’re doing a good performance, it’ll help the movie.” Bullshit. Doesn’t happen. Doesn’t happen. If it’s not on the page, forget it, and if you’re that arrogant then probably you should go back to class.

TrunkSpace: And then there are those instances where you might have the greatest script with the greatest cast being spearheaded by the greatest director and yet, for whatever reason, the universe just deems it not the time and it never finds an audience.
Kove: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I think that kind of happened with a couple of wonderful movies that I still loved. That happened with “Goin’ South” with Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando, Arthur Penn. You really figured, “Whoa, you got it, man.” You got the “Bonnie and Clyde” director, you got two big stars, and there’s something missed in that, you know? It’s just strange. It’s all strange. It’s just, when the elements come together, like this series… I didn’t know every episode would be written so well. I knew that Josh (Heald) and Hayden (Schlossberg) and Jon (Hurwitz) were wonderful. We sat around in September saying, “You’re going to come in in episode 10,” and I had to hold and bite my tongue for eight months with people asking me, and I’m telling them I’m dead, I’m telling them I’m the KGB, I’m telling them that I work for the CIA, that I’m in prison. I made up all these stories, you know? Because it was hard. And nobody believed me to be perfectly honest, nobody ever believed it. They said, “How could ‘Cobra Kai’ be a series without John Kreese?” I would say, “I don’t know.” (Laughter)

But these people pulled out the best elements, the very best elements of the movie, and put them in the series, and they wrote the dialog so well. Billy is brilliant, and Ralph is terrific. Billy and I have done a bunch of other movies together, but this by far is his best performance, and he touches all kinds of emotions here. Ralph does the same.

TrunkSpace: Even beyond being so well written, in many ways, it feels like a love letter to the fans.
Kove: Exactly. Very well put. It is a love letter to the fans. For these people this is their “Star Wars.” This is, if it was me and I was writing, would be my “Wild Bunch.”

TrunkSpace: As you mentioned, you come in at Episode 10, and while you didn’t get to really dive into the series during the first season, your appearance at the end was really cool and serves as both an exclamation point on the first season and a question mark for any second season to come.
Kove: That’s how they always expressed it to me. And I wanted to come in earlier and they said, “No, no, no. We’re going to have you come in at…” I had a bit of a dream about what that scene would be like. I dreamt a couple of weeks before, and I don’t remember telling it to Josh Heald, but it was similar. I was leaning against the window, and because I know what the dojo looks like now, it’s not far from my home – it’s divided into two stores, the dojo that was the Cobra Kai on Lankershim Boulevard in Los Angeles. I’ve driven past it. I had this vision of me leaning against the store front glass window, and then they both walk out and I’ve got a cigar and I’m saying, “Well, you’re doing well my heroes, but which one of you is the real hero?” And that’s what I had a vision of saying. In the scene they constructed I come into the dojo and it’s just Billy, but in essence it’s the same dialog. And I am smoking a cigar when I walk in. So, it’s kind of like God’s watching over me, you know?

TrunkSpace: You’re being fed lines beforehand from high above!
Kove: It’s fascinating!

Season 1 of “Cobra Kai” is available now on YouTube Red.

Crafting one of our favorite albums of 2018 thus far, Michael Rault has created a modern-day classic with “It’s A New Day Tonight,” a 10-song masterpiece of vintage rock sounds and lyrical narratives reminiscent of breezy summer days. The Montreal-based singer/songwriter set out to construct a record that could be spun on a turntable and absorbed front to back in a single sitting. He has done just that, and in the process, has left a musical longing within the listener for more.

We recently sat down with Rault to discuss music’s therapeutic qualities, how “It’s A New Day Tonight” is an album about the subconscious, and why he needs to start sleeping with a dream journal.

TrunkSpace: Your new album, “It’s a New Day Tonight,” drops in just a few days. What emotions do you juggle with in your head as you gear up to release new material to the world?
Rault: Oh, a lot of different feelings come to the surface. There’s a little bit of anxiety, a little regret, but mainly, I’m just really excited. It is intense finally letting go of something you worked on for so long, though.

TrunkSpace: We read that the album sprung from a period of creative dissatisfaction. Are you someone who tends to hit walls creatively and then needs to refuel the tank? Do you find yourself taking breaks from music?
Rault: I don’t take very long breaks from music. I tend to take breaks from writing. Sometimes, it can be too much to keep squeezing the toothpaste tube once it has given all its got. I find that practicing instruments and learning songs keeps me in a state of expansion so I can avoid getting stuck in my writing.

TrunkSpace: The album as a whole feels like more than just a collection of songs. There is a cohesive vibe to it – a sense that it was crafted like an album from the ‘70s where each track to track transition was important to the journey of the listener. Did you set out to create more than just a package to wrap your songs in and how much thought was put into the order of the songs themselves?
Rault: At the beginning of the whole thing, I was just writing and trying to come up with enough material to fill a new album. At some point, I noticed there was a theme emerging, and I definitely pulled a handful of songs out of the pile and thought “these ones go together.” A bunch of tunes that might have been pretty good on their own just couldn’t get included, because they didn’t mesh well with what had become the core of the record. We fully tracked eleven songs, and had one other partially done, and once we had finished tracking and got into mixing, we eliminated one of the tracked tunes and opted for one of the other songs that seemed to fit the vibe better. After everything was mixed, Wayne Gordon (my engineer and co-producer) and I definitely put a bunch of work into sequencing the record. It was important for it to sound good when somebody put it on their turntable and listened to each side all the way through.

TrunkSpace: We know the title comes from a hockey pre-game interview, but we found something very music-focused in it, at least from our perspective. Music has the power to impact people in profound ways. Someone can be having a rough go of things and then put on their favorite record and then WHAM, they’re viewing things differently. Essentially, a bad day can become a new night. Yes, we took a long way to get here, but have you experienced a moment where a fan shared how your music impacted them directly and do moments like that help fuel your desire to continue forward with your career?
Rault: Yeah, definitely! Occasionally, someone will message me and say that my music has made them feel better in a hard time, and that’s encouraging to me. I have been helped throughout my whole life by my favorite music, making life more bearable and giving it all some meaning. I also find that working on my own music can give me insight into my own emotional life, and connect me with my inner life in a way that can have a positive impact on my day-to-day experience. I think you are right, that is the more true meaning of the album title. Although it did come from a hockey player’s awkward pre-game interview, the title itself meant something different to me, which is why I wrote the song.

TrunkSpace: What does “It’s A New Day Tonight” say about who you were as an artist at the time of its inception and have you already moved on creatively and found a new headspace to approach your writing from?
Rault: I am moving on. It is interesting to finish a huge project like this and see how certain ideas or concepts that have been in central positions in your mind for so long start to fade away. I find myself being attracted to different bands and genres and songs after drawing inspiration from other areas for so long when I was gathering ideas for this record. I’d say that “New Day” is a record about the subconscious, and maybe was my way of dealing with some things that I was unaware of. It seems to me like it was a more intimate album than anything I had done before, but also simultaneously was this sort of impersonal fantasy about being a rock and roll star in the sense that the sounds were so heavily based in this classic rock aesthetic. So, it seemed like it was both unglamorously personal, and fantastic at the same time.

TrunkSpace: Do you write primarily from experience or do you take a more storyteller’s approach to your lyrics?
Rault: The most recent thing I’ve been doing is writing subconsciously, and I guess that is something I’ve done since I started writing in my teen years. I try to just let things run their course and sometimes a song just comes out lyrically well-formed. Other times, you need to edit it and do more work on it to bring it together. I guess that makes the songs pretty personal, but in a way they also don’t seem like they are necessarily direct representations of what is going on in my life. It’s more like a reflection of my personal experience, but maybe through a fun house mirror or something. It comes out different on the other side, if it is working right.

TrunkSpace: We love great music, but within great music we are particularly drawn to great lines, the kind that make us curse the universe for not having come up with them ourselves. What is a favorite line of yours that you have written and why are you proud of that particular snippet?
Rault: That’s hard to say. I feel like some of my older material had some better one liners that I could just pull out and quote here. As far as this album goes, one of my favorite little lyrical snippets was from “Sleeping & Smiling,” when it goes “all the days run together like colours in my mind, leaving me looking through a blur, til it’s so hard to see through as dark as night and I wish that things could be just as they were…”, I liked the imagery in that line.

TrunkSpace: Sleeping and dreaming were two themes you focused on while writing “It’s A New Day Tonight.” Are you someone who can shut off the creative brain or are the gears always turning? Do you wake up with a need to jot down lyrics or concepts for songs?
Rault: I sometimes do wake up with ideas, and I often times decide that it isn’t good enough to get out of bed and find a pen for. I think I need to start sleeping with a dream journal / notebook type thing on hand. I wouldn’t say that there are just always great ideas pouring out of my skull, though. Only occasionally something comes up unprompted.

TrunkSpace: Where are you hardest on yourself as an artist?
Rault: Everywhere. (Laughter) I need to be better about that.

TrunkSpace: Finally Michael, if you could sit down and have a conversation with 16-year-old you, would he be happy with the artist you have become today?
Rault: I think so! I’m guessing 16-year-old me would have a pretty good perspective on the amount of work present day me has done to improve and expand my skills and such. I also think I still share a lot of core interests with 16-year-old me, but I bet there would be some musical tastes that I have developed that I wouldn’t have liked at all at that age. It would definitely be a trippy encounter.

“It’s A New Day Tonight” is available May 18 on Wick Records.

One of our favorite shows these days is “The Magicians.” There are a great many reasons why the series has cast a spell over us during its first three seasons, but the most prominent of these entertaining factors is actress Summer Bishil. The California native shines as bright as the tip of a wand in her portrayal of Margo Hanson, a character we love to hate and hate to love, but even she admits that the ringer of zingers may have had difficulty achieving fan favorite status had they not highlighted the Filory ruler’s vulnerable side.

We recently sat down with Bishil to discuss how “The Magicians” has impacted her life, the Buffy parallels, and why she is most comfortable on a series that is willing to take risks.

TrunkSpace: You’re currently in year three of “The Magicians.” Aside from the work itself, where has the series impacted your life the most?
Bishil: It’s kind of transformed my life in all aspects. It’s really informed who I’m able to even spend time with because I’m living out of the country for five months out of the year. I didn’t know anybody in Vancouver when I first got there. I didn’t have time to go out and meet people outside of my cast so that’s really my world for five months – the crew and the cast and the people that I work with. Then I come home to LA and have this other second life. Just on a practical, geographical level, it’s affected my life.

This is the first time I’ve ever really had a steady, steady gig this long so it allows me to sort of relax a little for the first time. I’m not constantly hustling to that next job. You can sort of take a step back and be a little pickier because you’re making your income. You don’t have to run around like a crazy person.

TrunkSpace: That must allow you to live in the moment more.
Bishil: It really does. This is the first year where I was able to step back because the first year I was so worried about doing a good job and then the second year, pretty much that as well. But, by the third year, you know who your character is so you can relax and enjoy a lot of the blessings that come along with being on a show for this long. Your life is just more comfortable because you’re happier… you have a job.

TrunkSpace: From a performance standpoint, what has the experience been like for you to spend that much time – over 30 episodes now – with one character and see her grow in ways that perhaps weren’t who she was when you first read for the part?
Bishil: Well, part of the reason I’ve always wanted to expand on Margo and expand on who she is is because I watch a lot of episodic television and I watch for existing formula and the thing that sticks out the most with a great performance is when they evolve, when they change, and I haven’t gotten bored after watching for four seasons, two weeks in a row. When you watch a show like that, you really see how crucial it is to continue to add dimension and change your character because people will get tired. They’re looking at you, a lot of times now with binging, every day for a month. And if you’re tired, if you’re bored of something on set, then they’re probably gonna be bored of it, watching back to back.

TrunkSpace: That’s a really excellent point. Because of how people consume television now, it is probably much easier for an audience to see when and where a character is sort of idle because they’re sitting down with the episodes all at once.
Bishil: Exactly. And you have missed those characters more too, like in the old days. I’ve always liked television, even when I was a kid. My parents would let me watch and it wasn’t a thing in my house. I liked “Will & Grace.” I thought it was hilarious and I liked it. I liked the comedy. Now that I’m an actor, I know what I like and it’s the performances. I would rush home every week and wait to see it, and so when you have that much faith in something you really love and you have a chance to miss it, you’re not gonna be as critical as you would if you were binging. I’ve watched “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” a couple times now, all the way through, to study it actually, and what I think made it so successful is that Sarah Michelle Gellar really switched it up.

TrunkSpace: As did the supporting cast around her. Everyone grew, which made the grounded aspects more believable.
Bishil: Yeah, exactly. That cast always expanded as well, kinda like ours. I think that’s one of the reasons why “The Magicians” works because we really have a huge cast of regulars and then, in addition to that, we have so many recurring characters, so many great actors, that come in and out of our show.

TrunkSpace: Another thing you get with the “The Magicians” that also relates to “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is the really rich dialogue that manages to walk the line so perfectly between drama and comedy.
Bishil: Yes, you do. On “The Magicians,” especially the Eliot/Margo/Filory storyline, we deal with a lot of fantastical situations and high stakes scenarios that are really drawn out with comedy. There’s constant humor running through it so it can be challenging to figure out the tone that you should deliver your lines in. Honestly, a lot of the times it’s a game of experimentation for me. I don’t like to go to set with one idea in my mind of, “This is how the scene’s gonna play.” Every time I’ve done that, I’ve been unhappy with the edit. I like to just give as many options as possible because, a lot of times, my instincts I do trust and 99 percent of the time they’re right, but sometimes you’re not seeing something. If you’re not taking direction, the performance is gonna suffer if you don’t have other insights.

TrunkSpace: We would imagine that it all changes depending on who you’re in a scene with as well. The energy changes.
Bishil: Exactly. On our set, given the world that we’re playing in, a lot of times, the variables are changing a lot. Drastically. Constantly. You can’t be set in your ways.

TrunkSpace: You talked about finding the tone of a specific line, but just finding Margo’s tone in general seemed like it might have been something that was a malleable process at the start because she’s somebody that, in a lot of ways, we should hate, but we can’t help but love.
Bishil: Well, thank you for saying that. I think what I read when I read Margo in Season 1 was the potential for how much vulnerability was there, but also the potential for how much she could be hated, like you said. I kinda knew that and I wanted to really play against that in fact. I was a little scared sometimes because some of the stuff that was coming out of her mouth, stuff that my character was engaging in, wasn’t always emotionally sympathetic. I definitely wanted to and tried to figure out a way to make her appealing and sympathetic and not grating on the audience because, you play it a certain way, it could have gone the other way.

TrunkSpace: You mentioned how you were a fan of “Will & Grace” when you were younger. That’s a show that, even during its heyday, was very safe for the network, but now you have places like SYFY taking these huge leaps in terms of how they present their content and they’re really raising the bar and pushing the boundaries in terms of what we’re seeing and hearing. Is it freeing as an actress to be on the forefront of this less censored wave of storytelling?
Bishil: For me, my background and what I’ve done in the industry, my career background, it’s definitely more comfortable to be on a show that’s taking more risks because I’ve done kind of controversial stuff. I’ve not been in very PC stories, so I think I would feel probably very stifled if I was on a show that had to mind its Ps and Qs for the sake of some arbitrary rule which applies to them. That would just get so boring because it is boring storytelling, I’m sure, for who gets written for and how they get written for, obviously.

I’m glad I’m on a show that does that, for sure. Sera Gamble and John McNamara , they’re pretty fearless and they’re gonna take the risks that they want to take and that’s why the show’s good.

TrunkSpace: Which is great, because in its current form, “The Magicians” is probably a show that wouldn’t have made it on the air even a decade ago.
Bishil: Probably not. It probably wouldn’t have. I think it would had been cast very different. I don’t think both me and Arjun (Gupta) would be in the cast. This experience of just being cast and auditioning for so much, I don’t think that would have happened 10 years ago. Even if it did get made, I think it would have been a vastly different show and it would’ve just clipped the wings that makes it good.

TrunkSpace: One of the things about the show as a whole is that it sort of has this underlining message of diversity and acceptance. Was that something that you could feel in the early going, even before you first stepped on set?
Bishil: You know, my casting alongside Arjun, I thought was more progressive than I had seen in other castings and in other ensembles that I auditioned for. I thought that was a great step. The material that I got was not weighed down with any stereotypes. There were no limitations put on Margo because they had now hired a woman of ethnicity, which sometimes happens. Some shows are like, “Well, we got to spend an hour talking about where she comes from.” (Laughter) They’ve never done that, which I appreciate.

TrunkSpace: Fans are still eating up everything that Season 3 has to offer. What were you most excited about headed into this season?
Bishil: I think this season what I was most excited about was that I had the eye patch to work with. It just gave me something else to do in my third year, which was really great. It wasn’t always easy and it definitely presented some challenges, but I was glad to have something challenge me a third year into a show because, it’s like you said, other shows, procedurals, I would be doing the same thing, probably wearing the same outfit, for literally this long. I can’t imagine. I think I would go crazy.

TrunkSpace: Imagine a doctor show, wearing the same set of scrubs for 13 seasons.
Bishil: At least you’d be comfortable when you do it. (Laughter)

“The Magicians” airs Wednesdays on SYFY.

Featured image credits
Photographer: Diana Ragland/Makeup: Helen Robertson/Hair: Harper/Wardrobe: Matthew Peridis

Here in the Boston area where winter seems unwilling to relinquish its grasp on the thermometer, spring is the forgotten season, which is why we were so eager to speak with Violett Beane, whose very name sparks thoughts of April showers and May flowers. As speedster Jesse Quick on The CW series “The Flash,” the Texas-raised actress sprinted into the hearts of fanboys/fangirls everywhere. Earlier this year, Beane took a dramatic turn, appearing as cancer patient Lily Kendall on the medical drama “The Resident.” And now, proving that variety is indeed the spice of life, she’s set to star in the horror film “Truth or Dare,” which opens today in theaters everywhere.

We recently sat down with Beane to discuss going all-in on acting at 18, bonding with her “Truth or Dare” costars on a road trip, and why she’s so grateful for the jobs she has landed thus far in her career.

TrunkSpace: It’s impossible to plan in this business or any business for that matter because life always zigs when you want it to zag, but has your career these last few years met or exceeded your expectations when you thought of this career as a path for yourself?
Beane: Oh, absolutely. I really started focusing on acting as a “career” when I was 18. When I was applying for colleges and stuff, I just kind of sat down with myself and really figured out, “Do I need college to pursue this creative acting career?” And for some people that answer is yes, but for me I kind of decided that I would take acting classes outside of college, but that I didn’t need the normal route, and I think personally that was the best decision I ever made because it made me go out and find work. I didn’t have the excuse of, “Oh, I have so much work from school. I don’t have any time.” Because all I had was time so it really made me go out there. And I found an agent in my hometown and I started auditioning for things and sending in tapes and then that’s how I booked “The Flash.”

TrunkSpace: To have so many projects all being released at or around the same time as you do right now, is that exciting when all of the work comes to fruition?
Beane: Totally. You have some idea of how things are going when you’re filming and you’re enjoying yourself and living in the moment, but the reality is that it comes out and that’s kind of an amazing moment to see all that hard work. My favorite thing is watching – if I do watch it, I don’t always watch every episode – but if I do watch my work, I’m remembering the times that I had during that scene or how difficult it was to get that or whatever, and I find that kind of fun. It’s like reliving that moment over.

TrunkSpace: Your new movie “Truth or Dare” hits theaters today. Horror tends to have a built-in audience as fans of the genre will give new projects and characters a chance. Do you think the movie is the kind of horror that will appeal to both die-hard fans of the genre and general moviegoers as well?
Beane: I think it actually will because I have a lot friends who are very into horror films and they consider horror to be the gore, the gore of it, and not necessarily the storyline. And so I think there’s a lot of gore. You see some pretty gnarly deaths in this movie, but at the same time it’s great for people who just like suspenseful movies and that’s kind of where I am on the spectrum. I love being on the edge of my seat and not knowing what’s going to happen and who’s going to live and that’s what I like in a horror movie. So I think it has equal parts of both and people are really going to enjoy it.

TrunkSpace: It also has that creepy factor too because of those sinister smiles that pop up in the movie… they’re very unsettling.
Beane: Oh yeah!

TrunkSpace: What will you carry with you for the rest of your life and career from your time working on “Truth or Dare?”
Beane: From “Truth or Dare,” definitely the first day we all met. We actually met for the first time and then drove out to Mexico for one night to shoot the beginning opening credits. There’s a montage of all of the characters on spring break in Mexico, and so what we did was we all got in a van, we drove out to Mexico and we all had our cast phones and we were just videoing and photoing for 24 hours while we did random things in Mexico. And that was just such a great bonding experience. I think a lot of TV shows and movies don’t realize that people have to have immediate chemistry in these roles so when you meet someone five seconds before you start your first scene, it’s really hard to have that natural chemistry. But doing that with the cast was the perfect thing.

TrunkSpace: Your character has blonde hair in the movie and her physical appearance overall differs from your other recent characters in “The Flash” and “The Resident.” Is that something that’s fun for you as an actor, to be able to make those physical transformations?
Beane: It’s absolutely one of my favorite things. I feel like hair, makeup and wardrobe is a huge turn for me when I’m working as a character because, especially with wardrobe – also in hair and makeup – you’re making decisions that your character would make and all of a sudden it doesn’t matter like, “Oh, do I think that’s cute or would I wear that?” It’s, “Would my character wear that?” And I think once you’re in that headspace it’s easier to tap into the other intricacies of the character. So for me it’s an amazing, amazing time to work on the character. And what I also think is kind of cool is, I know a lot of people have messaged me or commented like, “Oh, I didn’t even know you were in ‘Truth or Dare’,” because I was blonde. I find that kind of interesting. I’ve had a couple of other people mention that about “The Resident” because I wear a very short wig and I wear a scarf on my head. And so I think it’s kind of cool that maybe people are seeing this character and liking it or not, but not knowing it’s me and then finding that out. I think that’s kind of fun.

TrunkSpace: Your character in “The Resident” has a pretty emotionally-heavy storyline and backstory. Again, speaking from a performance standpoint, do you think that character allowed you the opportunity to show a side of your work that some of these other projects haven’t been able to just because of the nature of the role?
Beane: Oh, definitely. “The Resident” was a very dramatic television series, so a lot of the issues that you’re dealing with are real issues and you dive deeper into them. And playing Lily, I was able to reach a different side of myself that’s a lot more calm. In my life I tend to be frantic and loud and Lily is very demure and she is very kind and soft spoken and that’s something that I’ve never played in a character either, so it was really interesting to try that.

TrunkSpace: And what’s so interesting is that all of the characters you’ve been playing recently from “Truth or Dare” to “The Resident” and “The Flash,” they’re all so different. Is that a bit of living out the dream, getting to play so many different types of characters and not being pigeonholed into any one type of role?
Beane: Yeah. It’s been pretty amazing. And I only started when I was 18, so to have these kind of opportunities right now is something I’m forever grateful for and I’m just trying to enjoy the moment.

TrunkSpace: Is it hard to do that, to enjoy the moment when you’re probably moving at a million miles a minute? Do you still sit back and go, “Wow, this is it. I’m living it.”?
Beane: Oh, absolutely. I sit there and I’m doing something crazy or silly or weird and I’m just like, “I get to do this for a living?” (Laughter) When you’re able to do what you love and live your lifestyle based off of that, that’s the dream. Money is a non-factor as long as you’re able to enjoy your life to the extent you want to enjoy it while doing what you love. That’s amazing.

TrunkSpace: Add in the fact that you’re getting to play a superhero and that’s a pretty nice addition to getting to do what you love.
Beane: Yeah. (Laughter) That doesn’t hurt.

Catch “Truth or Dare” is in theaters today.

Featured image by: Storm Santos

For those of you in America who think that rock ‘n’ roll is on life support, it may be time to venture outside of your cozy little comfort zones.

Finnish rockers Santa Cruz are scheduled to return to the States on February 28 as they kick off an opening stint with Fozzy in New Orleans. Their latest album, “Bad Blood Rising,” is filled with big guitars and an even bigger attitude, a winning combination for a young and ambitious band set on a path to becoming amphitheater icons.

We recently sat down with Santa Cruz bass player and backing vocalist Middy to discuss America’s relevance to international artists, why he recorded all of his stuff for “Bad Blood Rising” from a couch, and the most magical experience in his Santa Cruz journey thus far.

TrunkSpace: We read that the band was first inspired by Los Angeles-based acts like Motley Crue and Guns N’ Roses. Both of those bands were part of an era of rock where a look and an attitude were just as important than the songs themselves. When you guys started out, was that important to you as you looked towards the future – finding who the band was and not just the sound itself?
Middy: I think at first those things came kinda hand in hand, but at some point we must have watched Pantera’s home videos on repeat too much or something and started going easy with the hairspray thing or then we just got more environmentally conscious.

Nah! But I think these days it’s more about the music than about the looks.

TrunkSpace: Here in the States, rock music doesn’t have the same mainstream appeal as it once did in the heyday of Motley Crue and Guns N’ Roses. You’re set to return to the States on February 28 as you kick of a tour with Fozzy. From your perspective, what are your thoughts on American rock fans? When you first came here and performed live for U.S. audiences, did the crowds live up to expectations in terms of how you perceived them?
Middy: Well, I think these days the whole musical landscape is more diverse, people have easier access to all kinds of music and the only place to find new bands is not your big sister’s record collection anymore. I don’t see the “rock is dead” in any sense of the brutal word. And as far as we’re concerned, the crowds in U.S. were still living and breathing rock music.

TrunkSpace: For all of our readers here in the States who are unfamiliar with the musical tastes of Finland, can you give us a little insight on how rock music is consumed there? Is it just as popular there today as it was say, 20 or 30 years ago?
Middy: Well rock/metal music has been pretty relevant in Finland since the early 70s, even though back in those days all the mainstream things came to Finland a year or two late. In early 2000, late 90s, this huge metal movement started in Finland cause of bands like Nightwish, Him, and Children of Bodom. I think at some point everyone from a kid to a grandmother was showing the evil horns and maybe that was why a counter movement called Finnish rap music came up. These days when it comes to the younger generations, rap is the big thing out there, but the metal music still has a solid fan base in Finland.

TrunkSpace: There was a time when bands looked towards the States as the promise land in terms of where they hoped to one day make it and break it. Is that still the case or have the changes in the music industry altered the way people view America’s musical viability?
Middy: I think that the American market is still a big deal, one reason being the size of it. And I still feel that many countries are looking for what is big in the States at the moment and it really reflects the markets outside of the States. I don’t see why the changes in music industry would take any credibility away from it.

TrunkSpace: Your new album “Bad Blood Rising” debuted at #5 in your native Finland. What was the journey like to bring that album into fruition? As you look back now at the process, did it go as planned or were you forced to make changes on the fly?
Middy: I think it went down pretty much as planned and for the reason that we made it ourselves. We were not forced to make compromises with anyone else. Even though in the beginning we didn’t have this kind of concept for the album, we just started putting songs together and seeing where it took us. Of course, some of the ideas for songs were more than two years old, but from that point, when we got into our rehearsal place all together with the early demos it took us about a month to put the songs in such a form that we were able to walk into a studio with them. So in some sense the process was pretty swift.

TrunkSpace: For the listener, it’s the album that becomes memorable, but for the people putting it together, the experience becomes just as memorable. What’s one of your favorite memories in recording that album that you’ll carry with you through the rest of your life?
Middy: To me personally there aren’t many stories about recording the album since it took me two and a half days to lay down the bass tracks. But I recorded all my stuff sitting on Johnny’s couch and we had loads of fun during that time. So nothing to put in the great history book of rock ‘n’ roll.

TrunkSpace: If we had a group of people lined up who had never heard Santa Cruz before, what’s the one track off of the album that you’d confidently throw out there to win them all over? What song off of “Bad Blood Rising” sort of says, “This is who we are!”?
Middy: I’d go with “Young Blood Rising” since to me it’s probably the most “Santa Cruz sounding” song there is, and I think the reason is that it sounds more like the stuff that we’ve done before. On “Bad Blood Rising” there are lots of stuff that is at least, in some way, experimental to us and might give people the wrong picture of what the band has done in the past. Not saying that the songs are any less us.

TrunkSpace: Can you tell us a bit about your songwriting process? Does everything come together in a room together, or are parts and pieces worked on separately and then brought together to be fine-tuned?
Middy: On this latest album we had raw demos for about 15 songs made by Archie and Johnny and then we got into our rehearsal place together and we worked daily for a month and walked out with 11 finished songs. Of course during that month we focused on structures and tempos and what not. We kinda baked the cake in that month and in the studio we added the jam between the layers and decorated the whole thing.

TrunkSpace: What about from a lyrical standpoint? What is the point of view of the songs… are they told from a first person perspective or as a storyteller’s perspective?
Middy: Well, actually to that question Archie would be a better one to answer. But my point when it comes to lyrics has always been the “don’t explain them too much, rather let the listeners make their own conclusions and interpretations.”

TrunkSpace: One of the best things about music is that it can bring people together who otherwise see eye to eye on nothing. In a club, you could be standing next to two different people who you may having nothing else in common with other than a love for Santa Cruz. In this day and age where everything everywhere seems so divided, is there anything like a live rock concert experience… because in a lot of ways, it feels like one of the last true communities?
Middy: Since my teens the rock concerts and festivals have probably been the only mass events that I’ve taken part in cause I’m not into Black Fridays or Christmas shopping. But to be serious, I don’t see why the so called “rock community” should be so privileged compared to other music genres for example, cause I bet that people at techno raves feel that they are part of a big community rather than just a large number of people who happened to walk into the same field at the same time. But that is true that rock music brings people together and when you walk into a metal festival you don’t see people fighting each other or anything like that. I think that metal heads have always been proud of belonging to one big family.

TrunkSpace: As you look at your time in the band thus far, what has been the best part about the journey for you? What wouldn’t you give up for any amount of money or fame?
Middy: The past 10 years have been an ongoing chain of great memories and sometimes I even start to feel nostalgic about it, which is kinda scary being a 24-year-old and all. But one day that sticks out was when we got the opportunity to open up for AC/DC in Finland in front of 55,000 people. That feeling when I walked on stage was magical.

To find out if Santa Cruz is coming to a city near you, check out their tour dates here.

As Matice on the Amazon Prime Video series “Jack Ryan,” John Hoogenakker is the kind affable bad ass that you want to battle alongside of and then have a beer with, and that’s not because he’s the costumed king responsible for making “Dilly Dilly” a part of the pop culture lexicon. A versatile performer with a seemingly limitless character reach, the actor is an on-screen chameleon poised to pop the top on his already fizzing career.

We recently sat down with Hoogenakker to discuss the chance to dig deep in television, reveling in the way Matice fills his space, and why some people who wear his likeness on a T-shirt don’t necessarily recognize him in real life.

TrunkSpace: You always bring memorable characters to the screen, John. Do you approach finding each character – uncovering who they are – in the same manner each time or does each character require a different path?
Hoogenakker: That’s very kind, thank you! Getting to play roles that are different from one another has been one of the great blessings of my career. With each role, you get to explore a different facet of your own humanity, which hopefully makes you a more fully rounded human being. I do try to look at them as completely different people, though, and I do my best not to ‘fix’ the character, which is to say I don’t want to necessarily wrap them up in a neat little bundle to make them more palatable to the audience.

TrunkSpace: Your new project “Jack Ryan” feels more like a film than a television series. As someone who has worked in the industry for over 10 years, is it exciting to have seen television storytelling mature and become so much more character-driven?
Hoogenakker: Oh man, without a doubt! The opportunity to see an arc expand and grow and mature over many episodes and seasons is the ultimate gift for an actor. So much of that, though, is up to the writers and creators. As actors I think we’re always waiting for another opportunity to go as deep as we can.

TrunkSpace: “Jack Ryan” has a real buzz surrounding it since it was first announced. As an actor, is it difficult to not get swept up in that excitement and place your own individual expectations on a project prior to its release? How do you manage that “will it” or “won’t it” when it comes to a series or film finding an audience?
Hoogenakker: That’s a great question. There have been some wonderful projects that I’ve gotten to be a part of in the past, and I’ve learned over time that I do my best work when my primary focus is on connecting with the other people that I’m working with. Essentially, I try to do the best I can to be connected and to behave like a real human, and leave it all on the field. It is certainly gratifying, though, when people respond favorably to something that you’ve put so much time and effort into.

TrunkSpace: In the series you play Matice. What was it about this guy, a block ops CIA bad ass, that intrigued you when you first read him on the page, and how did he develop into what we ultimately see today in Season 1?
Hoogenakker: I really enjoyed the way the guy filled his space, and his comfort level with his work. One of the first scenes I read of his was when he was giving Jack a primer on how to load his weapon and chamber a round, and it just felt so casual. Which is of course how it would be for a person who lives and breathes the realities of armed conflict on a daily basis. When John (Krasinkski) and Wendell (Pierce) and I met each other, we kind of hit it off right from the start and had a lot of fun working together, which I think translated into them allowing me more wiggle room to find as much humor as I could.

TrunkSpace: It seems like everything about the character needed to be researched, from the way he moves into a room or the way he holds his weapon. What is that detailed research like and does it help you better understand who he is, not just how he exists within a particular circumstance?
Hoogenakker: The research began the very first day I arrived on set in Montréal and met our technical advisor, Kevin Kent. We started by working on drills with the M4 and practicing how to clear a room and move with the weapon. Beyond that, I feel that some of the most important research I got to do was more passive, and came with the time I spent hanging out with Kevin and the rest of the advisors on the project, all of whom had been career Navy SEALs. Just the way that people who have been in dangerous situations, and had one another’s backs for years, interact in regular social settings. The way that they joke with one another was probably my favorite aspect of my time with them.

TrunkSpace: As stated, Matice is pretty bad ass. What have family and friends thought of your portrayal? Would they say that playing a bad ass is in line with who you are in real life or a far cry from the John they know?
Hoogenakker: It’s funny, though I am definitely not a Special Ops bad ass in real life (and only play one on TV), I’ve had lots of friends and family reach out and talk about how close they feel Matice is to me, which has been a first among the roles that I’ve played.

TrunkSpace: You also have some great lines/quips within the series. As an actor, can you get a sense of a line when you read it in a new script from the perspective of it being dialogue that will stand out with the audience? Is it a gift getting those memorable snippets?
Hoogenakker: I think there are absolutely times when you read the script and things stand out to you as funny, for whatever reason. We all have to be kept in check when it comes to keeping the joke simple, though. You don’t want to put a hat on a hat, as they say. As an actor working in the medium of film and television you really have to take the temperature in the room when you’re filming a scene; for instance, if it makes the crew laugh you’re probably onto something. I think John is hilarious, too, and when I can see that I’m cracking him up, that’s also a good barometer.

TrunkSpace: Speaking of memorable lines… “Dilly Dilly” kind of became a cultural phenomenon. Was there any part of you who saw that coming? Could you have prepared for the type of response that advertising campaign received?
Hoogenakker: No, if you had told me that once “Jack Ryan,” starring John Krasinski and Wendell Pierce, premiered I would also be answering questions about my work in an iconic Bud Light campaign I probably wouldn’t have believed you. The director (Jim Jenkins) and I have worked together a bunch in the past, and I have a lot of faith in his ability to make things funny, but beyond that, we were all blown away by the response to the first spot. I’m starting to see my face on T-shirts, which there is really no way to prepare for.

TrunkSpace: The beauty of that part is that you’re in wardrobe that kind of disguises who you are in real life. Has it been a situation of having your cake and eating it too – you get to be a part of this massive campaign, and yet still walk down the street and have a level of anonymity?
Hoogenakker: It’s so funny you should ask that question. A couple days ago I was walking down the street in Chicago and a guy passed me wearing a Dilly Dilly T-shirt. I thought, you know what, I’m gonna speak to this guy, and see what happens! So as he walks by, I say to him, “I really like your shirt, man!” And he looks right back at me and says, “Thanks!” And just kept walking… at home and in the business it’s different. Family, friends and co-workers love bringing it up, whenever. In fact, when I was introduced at the “Jack Ryan” premiere, Carlton Cuse, an icon, and one of the creators of the show, leaned into the microphone and said “Dilly dilly!”

TrunkSpace: “Jack Ryan” is hitting right now, with a Season 2 already on the way. What else do you want to accomplish in the year ahead? What are some of your goals that you hope you can check off and achieve?
Hoogenakker: I’d love for the notoriety and the visibility of the project to draw attention to the different roles I’ve gotten to play, which people might not even realize were played by the same actor, and to keep challenging myself by playing new and different roles in the future.

Season 1 of “Jack Ryan” is available now on Amazon Prime Video.