Sopranos Actor Matt Del Negro on Playing Cops & Prison Guards on TV
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of the criminal justice system we've had actors on. I know you didn't know what direction this is going to go in, but you've played roles that affect the criminal justice system. And we were talking about earlier outside of how there's like that dynamic of sometimes the actor struggle to get roles kind of resembles people that are getting out of prison trying to find a job and going through that whole hustle. Yeah.

Yeah, I think maybe I told you that last time that in my I've got a book, 10,000 No's all about, you know, overcoming, you know, because you just get rejected all the time.

for decades on end. And in that, I talk about my career philosophy. It's combo. It's a little Rocky Balboa, like just stay, you know, go the distance, stay until you get the title fight. And it's Andy Dufresne from Shawshank. It's like that's like...

The image that I give, it's like having that pickaxe and chipping away, chipping away, chipping away, having that Zewantanejo in your mind of like whatever the goal is that you want. Because I mean, I've been doing this. I'm a lot older than you, but doing this like 30 years. You look young. That's good to hear. Thank you. But I've been doing it a long time and it's like the progress at times is so slow that

And many times feels backward, like you're moving backward. And it is a lot of that. It's just like having the... I always think of that Andy Dufresne because it's like he kept his... It's like, how do you...

When you're locked in, as your title is here, how do you keep your soul intact? How do you keep not getting too cynical and caked over, which is what that movie is kind of about? How do you do that? How do you keep your mind free while you're just kind of getting pummeled and before you get to that Zewantaneo? Because otherwise you're not going to get there. So that's always been like my, you know, when you asked me to do this, I'm like, I'm

I don't know. I'm like, I guess I've, you know, I'm playing a CEO and mayor of Kingstown now. I've played cops, a bunch of cops. I've played lawyers. So I guess I have that. But I was like, what are we going to do? I'm like, oh, actually, yeah, that's my that is my philosophy is that that kind of chipping away, you know. You know, I was reading, too, that you were in The Sopranos as well, like the biggest crime show, which I just watched it for the first time last year. Everyone rips me for that. But I sat through it and I want to watch it again, too. And we'll get into that. But where did you grow up?

I grew up in Westchester County, New York. Very close to here. Yeah, very close to here. What did your parents do? Were they together? My dad was an attorney and my mom was a special ed teacher at John Jay where I went to high school. So, yeah, they were together. They actually split.

when I got out of college, although they're still officially married and my dad is not in my dad's, you know, he said it's been a struggle this year. So he's, uh, it's amazing to see my mom, like my dad's in hospice right now. And my mom is there like a lot. And I tell people that, and they're like, really, is it that that's the kind of people they are that they like, they, you know,

They split, but they're both great people and both just very giving, very supportive, whatever. So that, you know, that was very lucky for me when I was, you know,

decided to be an actor pretty late in life. And they were like, we support you spiritually, just not financially. So you figure that out. Did you have siblings? Yeah. Older sister, older brother. What did they end up doing? My sister was a teacher and now she, she designs a curriculum. She worked for a company that does curriculum for like all of the Northeast. She was a specialist in reading and,

Um, and then she's also, have you ever heard of EFT tapping? She has this business on the side. It's like all these like meridian points and all these kind of, um, it's, it's like working with the central nervous system to kind of get over anxieties and, um,

and kind of make progress if you're stuck in your life. And then my brother was a bar owner. I used to bartend at his bar in the city, um, Turtle Bay Grill and Lounge. Maybe some of your listeners, uh, or watchers, viewers know it. And now he's in finance. Wow. So you didn't know as a teenager, you want to go into acting? No, I was, um, I went to Boston college. I played lacrosse there. I had no,

No clue. I thought if you really forced me to answer and I was like, I don't know what I want to do. I want to love what I do. And I would have said, I guess I'll be a lawyer. That's what I kind of, because my dad, the way he talked about the law was, he's like, you know, it's interesting, like,

And hopefully your parents are still with us. But like when someone's, you know, when someone's in hospice, people, I'll post stuff online. And so people will comment or people have showed up and visited him. And you hear these stories of like people that he's affected. He's like the opposite of like the lawyers are sharks. You know, all the jokes about lawyers. My dad's like...

He's like the total opposite. So we've heard stories of him, you know, like someone got into trouble with drugs and someone introduced her to my dad and he helped her out and represented her and she needed money and he gave her a loan and she's like, I can't pay it back. He's like, I don't care if you pay me $5 a day or $1 a day, like just do it when you can. And like, she was like, it took me like 15 years to pay him back and I'll never forget him. And you're like,

that's, that's, that's the kind of guy he was. And when he would talk about the law, he, it's almost like he could have been a professor of law because he would talk about it in a way that made me go, huh, that's, that sounds kind of cool. Like he would talk about litigating or defending someone. Like, I don't think I put this together at the time, but looking back on it, the way I approach acting is very similar to how he approached defending someone. Like,

You defend your client within the letter of the law. As an actor, you defend your character. You defend their point of view. So number one thing any good acting teacher will tell you is like, do not judge your character. You can't judge your character because nobody, if you ask them, everybody thinks they're doing...

right thing. They're doing what they think is the right thing. So they don't think of themselves as a bad guy. They're like, I'm just doing what I think is right. So as an actor, that's what you're doing. You're trying to get inside the skin of this person and defend their point of view of the world and figure out what is the world that they're living in. How do they fit into that world? So

Yeah, that's his view of the law and how he would present it to me had a major impact. I just didn't go. I decided I'd rather play a lawyer on TV than be a lawyer. Did he do just general practice or he did criminal defense? He eventually had a general practice. When we got into like – I don't know what year it was, but he wanted to be closer to us kids and like go to our games and everything. So –

He set up a practice in Mount Kisco and then in White Plains. It was a general practice. But before that, he was an assistant DA under Carl Vergari, which is in Westchester County. And then he headed this economic crime project, they called it, which was he would go after like white collar crime, like Medicaid fraud specifically. And he would speak publicly.

like, I knew all this, but then we were recently going through his stuff and kind of cleaning out and whatever. And there were like all of these clippings. He kept a lot of shit, but there were all these clippings. Um,

And it was awesome. And like letters from the FBI thanking him. Like, I guess he spoke, he was a lecturer at the FBI a bunch of times and like went to Australia and spoke there and was in New Orleans and Texas and, and whatever. So he, he did that for two years and then he started a general practice. And then he would be like the guy that like, you know, he, I remember playing summer league lacrosse,

against this guy, Rick Beardsley, who went to Lakeland. He's literally one of the best defensive players in lacrosse history. Went to Syracuse, was a great player. And we had a summer league game, and he's like, Del Negro, say hi to your dad for me. And I was like, me? He's like, yeah. I'm like, how do you know my dad? He's like, oh, he helped me and my dad out on a thing. Then I'd go to my dad and go like, do you know Rick Beardsley? And he's like,

I'm like, yeah, he said you helped him out. He's like, I do not discuss my clients. And like, literally we make fun of him, but that's, that's how he was. He was so like such a, a cone of silence that people trusted him and he represented people well. And like all the time people would be like, oh, your dad helped me with this or helped me with that. And,

You know, it's just kind of cool. You have some more connections to the criminal justice system than you even knew when you realized. Than I realized, yeah, yeah, I do, I do. What a small world that you didn't even realize at the time who your dad was and then looking back on it now, you got to see all of that. Yeah, and I did. I knew, but I didn't, oh, yeah, well, in relation to this podcast, I wasn't even thinking of that. It's like, yeah, well, yeah, it's funny. How old were you when you decided you were going to become an actor? I was, I tell you exactly, I was 20. I...

When I was between my—so most people, if they're going to study abroad, they go spring of junior year. Lacrosse season is in the spring, so I didn't want to miss that. Ironically, I went between sophomore and junior year. I went to Italy. I studied. I was going out with a girl. We broke up. I had a journal my sister had given me. I kind of did all this writing. And I had one of those, like, I was 19. I turned 20 on that trip.

And I had like a real, just like did a total 180, like just kind of all this shit came up.

And I realized, I was like, oh, maybe I don't want to play lacrosse. Maybe I want to try to be a writer or an actor. But I was like trying to stuff it down. Like I didn't really want to deal with it because I was like, I don't know. I don't know anything about that. Just fricking like be normal, be normal. And I came back to BC and I played in the fall, that fall junior year anyway.

And then, um, at the end of the year, the end of the fall season, we were running around the field for practice. And I remember specifically jogging and going like, man, I wish I'd rolled my ankle. I don't want to be here anymore. And all of a sudden I heard myself say that. And I was like, this is crazy. I went to my coach and I just said, I think I'm done. He said, think about it. I said, I have. And then, uh,

He said, you got a slot in the team in the spring if you want it. And I said, thank you. And then I, my roommate at the time, who's a great friend of mine, I don't know how it happened, but he, somehow we both started talking about auditioning for something. He had never acted before either. So he auditions, he gets a part. I don't get a part. He does this play,

And like not even on the real stage. It was like somewhere on the campus. And then like a month later, I auditioned for another one and I get it. And oh, actually, this is perfect for this show. It's called Hello Out There by William Soroyan. And I play a guy who wakes up in a jail cell in Texas.

And that I didn't even, that I didn't connect. Your first inmate role. My first inmate role. It's my first role. That's so funny. So that was through the school or that was outside? That was through the school, but it was, it was literally like in a lecture hall at BC. It wasn't even on like the, the actual stage. Um,

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So speaking of my dad, actually, he comes up for it. My parents come up for it. And my dad, who's like so supportive, describes being in the audience. He's like, I remember being there and like sitting in the audience and like, you know, like looking like,

is my son going to like, like he's never acted before. Like, is he going to, you know, like embarrass himself? Like, like, you know, I literally never done it, but it was, uh, it was one of these things where like, I was always looking for like, what do I, what can I do? That's going to fully engage me. I want to love whatever I do. And when I did that play, it was a combo of like that cast, uh,

where I was in my life, maybe that role, I don't know. But it was like, I did two nights of a performance in a fricking lecture hall. And I was like, I'm done. That's what I'm doing. I'm going to be an actor. And like, I would just tell anybody who listened and people were like, what? You're going to be an actor? You know? And I just, I started taking film classes. I got a film studies minor. I was already an English major. And then, um,

Yeah, that's it. I graduated the next year. I moved back home with my mom. I worked for a mason laying patios in Westchester County. I auditioned through some paper. I auditioned for a musical at Wilton Play Shop, not too far from here. I've heard of that. Yeah. Did The Mystery of Edwin Drood. That was great. That was fun.

met a girl who had an inn with some sunrise pizza. I started waiting tables in Connecticut, started taking classes in the city two nights a week. I'd take the train down from Westchester two nights a week, moved into the city January 1st, 1995 in a shitty fifth floor walk-up, rent-stabilized place.

thousand bucks a month, built a wall, had my cousin who like helped me, like just guide me. I built a wall, put a door in, built a loft, had a little fricking bedroom that was like, literally I could like touch both walls. My desk was underneath it. I had a huge metal file cabinet from my dad's office that I made into a makeshift closet. So I was paying 500 bucks a month to live on 82nd and 1st. And I stayed in that place for

seven years. And like my seventh year there, I was paying 632 bucks a month. So that's actors are always like, well, how'd you do it? I'm like, the, the, the real answer is if you keep your overhead low in the beginning, cause you're probably not going to make any money for a couple of years. I made, I made no money. I bartended, took classes, um,

You know, just when I would do a play, it would be like for no money and like a black box theater. So I'd have to take a pay cut because I couldn't do my bartending shifts. So all of those logistics are things that, you know, because you were telling me a little bit about your this this business here, the stuff that people don't hear about. People are like, follow your dream, do your thing. Like, yeah, cool.

The real story is follow your dream, but you got to be like grinding. You can't just like, you know, you got to be smart and you got to be everything was like every minute of every day was either...

somehow related to my scene study class or bartending or work in the counter at California Pizza Kitchen with my freaking wave tie and my black polyester pants and my name tag. They had a California Pizza Kitchen in New York? Oh, yeah, 60th and 3rd. It's got to be gone now, right? I think it might be gone. Maybe it is gone. Because I think it's just a West Coast thing now.

No, no, they have them in Long Island too. At least they used to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It started as a West Coast thing. Okay. I got to go out there. Yeah, I mean, that's the funny thing. So when I first moved into the city, I worked at this place. Do you ever hear of – well, I worked at Virgil's Barbecue. It was near Times Square, and it was owned by the people – I can't believe I'm blanking on the name of the Italian place. It's a huge family-style Italian place in the city. I can't think of it right now.

Anyway, I worked at Virgil's and it was considered like a good job. You know, it was a good job.

I was like 22. And I remember they would go to like give the shifts out. And I was always like, I'll take, you know, give me the shifts that are like, this is not my main thing. My whole point of doing this is to free myself up to audition because I'm an actor. And I saw people starting to get like sidetracked and get too into the restaurant. And I remember being like,

look at them. They're 32 and they're still doing this. And I was 22 and I was like, huh? Then like cut forward 10 years, I'm still bartending. Like, you know, like it really is so slow, but it was, I was there and I heard from some guy in my acting classes, like California pizza kitchens opening. And I was like, all right, I'm going to get in on a ground floor so I can control my schedule. And, uh,

Yeah, man. You just did whatever you had to do. I think that's what gets people scared about starting their own business or chasing their dream. Exactly what you're just describing because it is a grind and you have to sacrifice a lot. Yeah. You've got to be – it's the same thing for what you're doing. Like you've really got to want it. You've really got to love it to the point where you're like, yeah, I'll put up with anything. Yeah.

Because I'm on a path that I love. Because otherwise there's too many other things that you could do that would be, I don't know if they'd be easier, but they would just be a little more certain. Like there's no, in the beginning of an acting career, really in any stage of an acting career, there's not really a lot of certainty. You know, you're kind of like, you're only as good as your last role, right? And so you're constantly, you know,

sharpening the knives and going out and hunting for that next meal that you're going to, you know, bring back into the cave and eat. You know, that's kind of what it feels like. So you always, I like it because it keeps you on your toes. It keeps you alive. It keeps you young kind of to have to be, like, I've never feel like I'm just like sitting back and like coasting.

It's definitely better now than it was, but like in the beginning, it was like living like four lives in one because you're doing like you're kind of like what you were saying in the beginning of this podcast. Like everybody now, they hear this. It's a big show. You get great numbers and all that. But who would be willing to do all the stuff that you did now?

in the early stages? Who would be willing to put up with the uncertainty, the risk in the early stages to now get to be at the point where you get to sit down and talk to people? It's awesome.

Yeah. But there's a price of admission. There really is. I mean, even before that, it was up until, you know, four months ago where I was still doing other stuff. I had editing clients. I was still, and that was two years into the podcast almost. Now I get to do this, you know, just talk to people. Think about this. You're saying two years into the podcast. I moved into the city January 1st, 1995, right? Now I had been taking classes before that. I had done that other play before that, right? Yeah.

I booked Sopranos because you asked about Sopranos. I could tell you the exact date, December 20th, 2001.

Now, that's considered kind of a big break kind of early on. That's still six years. And that was, I think, season four of it? Season four. Season four. So that was started way after. Yeah, it had started in 99. Or way earlier. Yeah, it started in 99. So by the time I got it, I knew it was a huge, you know, it was like a huge phenomenon. Was that your first, you'd say, like,

Big role in a way? That was my first... Like, I did something in Boston called the North End that was a really cool break, but it wasn't... It was great at the time, but it wasn't the way... Like, Sopranos, really... Like, prior to Sopranos, it would be like...

Everybody in my sphere knew I was an actor. I bartended with a lot of firefighters and Wall Street guys and stuff. And they all knew I was an actor. I was like the token actor. I'd have a commercial on. They'd be like, oh, I saw the Head & Shoulders commercial, whatever. I got that after a couple of years of doing this. That finally was money that came in. But most of it was no money in the beginning. But Sopranos was the first time

when I didn't have to tell people I was an actor because they would be like, oh, Cousin Brian. And, you know, you could be on the subway, you could be whatever. It wasn't like I got it all the time. But like,

Before that, it was like a 10-minute monologue when someone asked me what I do because it was – you're so awkward to say I'm an actor because really you're like a bartender who works at California Pizza Kitchen, who takes scene study classes. It's like you do all these things, but you don't really get paid to act. And there was something very like – it was just –

It took a while to be able to own it and be like, I'm an actor. And even like until like semi-recently, people would be like, oh, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm an actor. And they're like,

Yeah, but what do you really do? Like people don't think they're like, oh, so you're doing that acting thing? Oh, try podcasting. But still to this day, I'm like, I've been doing this a long time. And people are like, but what do you really do? I'm like, I'm an actor. Like on my tax return, it says actor. That's what I do. I just went on the dating apps and I'd say I'm a podcaster. They don't know what takes it seriously.

Yeah. Because it's not like I'm an A-list podcaster, you know, and they just don't get it. It's still too new. Yeah, yeah. It's so funny. But what's funny about that is like you – maybe you're not a Joe Rogan or whatever, but you're – this show is –

It's legit. I mean, you're like, you know, this is I know a lot of people with podcasts. You do way bigger numbers than a lot of people. Yeah, I think it's just it's a it's a weird market because of the prison stuff. And I think that the interesting thing about the show is that it gets millions of views like across socials and everything. But there's not a single celebrity on it.

Right. You know, you have a couple here and there. You have people that are known. But the average guest, I mean, you saw the guy that was here earlier was a correctional officer. He'll get millions of views on TikTok. Yeah. You know, and he's not anyone famous. Yeah. So I think it's just like it's a weird beast. But that's kind of better because that means that the concept is the king. That was like something early on with 10,000 Nos that I did. Like I was like, oh, how –

I didn't want to just talk to actors in the beginning. I was like, no, I want to talk to entrepreneurs. I want to talk to anybody that I think is interesting to get their story of how they overcame whatever they overcame to get to where they are. And I made a conscious effort. I want the concept of 10,000 No's to be bigger than stunt casting.

And the funny thing is when you look at the numbers, like the episodes with like Kevin Bacon or Henry Winkler, Lorraine Bracco, some of the people I've told you, those don't have like a lot bigger numbers than the other episodes. Yeah.

It sounds cool to be like, oh, Kevin Bacon was on it. Oh, Kevin Bacon. It legitimizes it for people, but it doesn't mean anything from the business standpoint. Yeah, I had Chevy Chase and 100,000 on YouTube. Cool, but...

I have prison gang shot callers that have 800,000, a million. Right. But people hear Chevy Chase and say, oh, you're at Chevy Chase? And they're like – because they're like, oh, that's Fletch. That's Caddyshack. Like, oh, this is – whatever. Celebrity is an interesting thing. And I actually think you're better to have it the way you have it where the –

The show is the king and your questions, whatever you're doing in the interviews is somehow eliciting something or whoever you're choosing to have on or whatever is, is great.

Getting people in front of the mic that people actually want to hear from. And if you do that, you'll end up having A-list celebrities eventually anyway because then you have a huge platform and people will come on and whatever. Yeah, it'll get there all the time. You know what I mean? But it's like that's not really even the – I was thinking about this. I was kind of shocked the first time I had like a bigger name actor and I was like, huh.

numbers aren't, they're a little bit maybe elevated, not really, sometimes not at all. And I was like, why is that? And you think about it, it's like, well, you can go hear Kevin Bacon on SmartList or you can go hear Kevin Bacon on, you know, whoever else has a bigger platform than me. So do they want to hear him on Matt Del Negro? I don't know. I personally think I'm going to get a different angle, but it's going to be different angle, you know, like every, every,

Every show has its own angle and it's usually a reflection of the host. You look at Rogan and you're like, I think it's awesome that they're just in the middle of a thing. He's like, Jamie, what is that? Look that up. I got to take a piss. We'll be right back. And then they cut and then they come back. It's kind of awesome. But that's just an extension of his personality. And people dig that or they don't.

Speaking of Kevin Bacon, I was on Footloose in high school. I did the musicals all four years. Oh, really? Yeah, I was on Footloose, Annie Get Your Gun, Urinetown, and Hairspray. Really? Yeah, Footloose was my senior year. So you're a singer? No, I'm not a good singer. A dancer? Yeah, I was always lead ensemble. I had a couple small speaking roles here and there, but I grew up going to theater camp. They always...

put me as Milton Berro because I'd dress up as a woman, put the lipstick on, the heels, the wig, Ed Sullivan, all of that cigar in my mouth. I loved it. I lived for the stage. I liked that. That was my background. I hated sports because it was really chubby and I wasn't athletic. I loved theater and being in the spotlight. So that's what I did all four years. I did a Christmas carol. They had me as a ghost of Christmas past.

um, dressed up and, you know, this whole, you know, outfit and everything at the college, I'd be in high school performing at the college shows. It was really cool. It was a fun experience. That's cool. So it's so funny. Like I had no, the only thing I had was like, we would do a variety show at the high school and like there would be a class act and I'd usually get pulled into that somehow and do something dumb in that, you know, um, which would be fun. I always liked it. I, uh,

You know, I played a little piano, sang a little bit, play a little guitar, sing a little bit. So, you know, in retrospect, me going into this is not it's not as shocking as it felt to me in the moment. Like in the moment, I'm like, what? Like because because, you know, so that's the other thing is like so then, you know, I started taking classes and you're in classes with people like you who have been doing this since they were younger.

And so there was part of me that felt like, oh, I'm behind. I got to catch up. So I'm like going and getting like, you know, all these 70s movies and reading all these plays and like just feeling like, you know, I'd be in class with people that just knew more about the playwrights and about the plays and whatever. And...

There there is a disadvantage to that in some ways, but but there's also an advantage, which is like I had a normal kind of like I wasn't ever acting. So I wasn't like I didn't have bad habits. I mean, I'm sure I had bad habits as an actor. Everybody does. But like I definitely but I didn't have like.

I wasn't like overly dramatic. It wasn't like, I, I hadn't been doing this. So I was like very fresh to it. And, and in a way coming to it that, that late in some ways was an advantage because it was like, Oh, I felt like I had real life experience to bring to stuff. Um,

Do you feel like actors, up-and-coming actors, people that want to become an actor still have to move to that big city to chase after? Because I feel like that's still a thought in people's minds today. I mean you moved to New York City to go after that. Is that still – does that need to be done? Well, OK. Everything has changed since the pandemic for –

Everything has changed in terms of like you don't need to be in the rooms anymore. There are no rooms anymore. It's all self-tape. Like I have an office in my hometown where I do the podcast and where I do self-tape auditions with a friend who's on Zoom who lives in California. I have great lights. I've got a great camera. I got the mic, the whole thing. That's where all my auditions, like all the jobs I've gotten in the last five or six years are from those tapes.

So really, in theory, you could live anywhere now. The caveat to that is as a young person going into a field,

Like for me at this stage of my life and the stage of my career, it's fine that I like, it's like, I don't have to live in the city. I'm close enough to it that I can get in and an hour train ride. I lived in LA for 17 years. I was in the mix, but that was before this whole self tape thing for a young, a young person. It helps to be around other people that are going for it. I think community is huge and,

I think like being in those acting classes, there's the acting class, the work itself, but there's also, there's also all of that stuff surrounding it. Like, you know, between scenes and you're outside working on a scene or talking to an actor, I went in for this audition. I went in for that. Oh, did you go to this? Did you see this play? Did you do this? Like,

All that little stuff, you know, being around the teacher. Oh, try this teacher. Try that teacher. You know, going to see plays, seeing your friends in plays, having friends that do this, that are like-minded, that are all as crazy as you to follow this dream. That would be helpful. Like if you're young and you got no experience and you live in the middle of nowhere, you could do it because if you could get representation or you can go on like Actors Access, there's like a website they have now.

You could submit, do self-tapes, sure. You're losing out a lot unless you find a great teacher in that town where you are. I don't know, like, where, like, you might. Prices keep going up these days. It feels like being on an elevator that only goes up. But not at Metro. We're pushing the down button. We

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Feel like you're flailing a little.

You know, I feel like it's kind of like podcasting too. They say you got to get to the big city, like New York city or like Austin's a big hub or even California. But I've, I'm reflecting and I'm just in Connecticut where there's no, there's barely any podcasters. I don't know of any that are like on a big level like that. You know, I know Mike Malak from Logan Paul's podcast is from Connecticut, but other than that, it's very limited out here. So I feel like I'm carving my own little niche. That's the thing too. It's like, I, you know, I don't know, like the,

Podcast space, maybe it's just slightly different in terms of... Well, I don't know, because you have your guests physically come here. Or occasionally I'll go. You'll go. Yeah. But I mean, you think about it, there's just...

there's nothing you would never expect where we're at now to be here. Yeah. Like when you first came here, I'm sure you never were like, wow, this is here. And it's two floors. I love it. Yeah. No, I, I love this. And I love that nowadays. That's the good, the good news of like the, all the zoom stuff and like I've had zoom callbacks for stuff. And, you know, the good news of that is like, I can live where I live on the Bay oceans, two blocks away, uh,

hour train into the city, 25 minutes to JFK. Like it's awesome. And I could do whatever I want. And all my stuff is like five minutes away because it's in my office. Right. That's the good news. I just wonder if I were young, like that energy of being in the city, like there's, there's a guy, I have this like mentor group that's, that's virtual that came off the podcast and

And there's people from all over. There's people from Canada, LA, UK, New York, whatever. One of the guys lives in my town. And I said to him, I was like, it's awesome you're doing this. And the whole reason I did it was so that people would have a community. And it's kind of cool that you have a community with people that live around the world. The flip side is it's on a screen. I'm like-

Get on a train, go into the city. I told him about a friend of mine's class and I said, just go take a class with other humans. Same with another guy. I coached some guy in San Diego and he was like, I'm thinking about taking classes. I go,

take the classes. I go, there's a difference between you being in your office. This guy like owns a company. I'm like, and you're, all of your workers are out there. Like, yes, you're here with me, but there's something different to like physically driving to that place, to a theater, being in a theater, your phones are off. Like, you know, you only get to go on the break in between the scenes. Like you're forced to be in front of people.

And if you suck, you're forced to have humans five feet from you watching you suck. That's valuable. You know, it's easy to like, to hide, I think, on a screen. Like you're not fully there. Absolutely. You know what I mean? And so I just, you can do it just in the beginning, man. I don't know. It's like, there's something about the energy of like, you know, I, and I probably romanticize it, but like,

you know, you're walking through the streets of the city at night or on the subway or whatever. And if you came from a class and you go, you know, maybe you guys go out after and you grab a bite or grab a drink or whatever. And you're like, like a lot of that stuff, that, that kind of stuff that's like not official, that stuff ends up inspiring you or connections happen with people that you're

I'm still friends with to this day, still creating stuff with to this day because you're like, you actually lived, you actually sacrificed together, you know? So now The Sopranos, did you know what role you were auditioning for when you got that information? Oh, yeah. You always know what your audition. So I had auditioned for other smaller roles prior to that and then luckily didn't get them and then ended up getting Cousin Brian. But yeah, when you audition, you get like a specific appointment with specific roles

material, which is going to be like, they call them sides, which is like the scenes that you're going to, the audition scenes. So for that one, I can't remember all of them, but one of the scenes definitely was, um, I'm sitting in on their couch and,

with Tony and Carm in their living room. And I'm kind of like pitching Tony on all these different like trusts and different things. And he's kind of, you know, I say something like,

like financial vehicles. And he's like, Oh, vehicles. And I'm like, Oh, and I don't get the joke. Like I'm a little bit like naive. I'm supposed to be a whiz with numbers, but I'm like, you know, definitely not savvy and like street smart. And, you know, and he, so, so yeah, like I had that specific scene. You get that at the time, I guess it was emailed. I mean, there was a time when they would fax you stuff that might've even been a fax. Like I was telling someone recently,

Actually, it was still facts at that point. At one point, I went out to LA for pilot season. And it's just going to sound crazy to you because you're so much younger, but I had a manager. And when there would be auditions, actually, it was right after Sopranos because it was like that. Sopranos came out and then I went out to LA for pilot season. And I had to drive to the manager's house in LA and she had a basket on the side of her house full.

with all of these faxes in it. And it would be like Matt D and it would be all of my auditions for the next day. And then it would be all of her other clients in there. Like there, there was, she would print it out. No, that's what it was. She would print it out. I don't even think they faxed it because I had to go to her house. Now it's like, you know, you get it emailed to you, but you have the material, uh,

No matter what, back then, now, you have the material, you prepare it. The difference now is that you don't go in for casting, you make a self-tape. Now, for that role in The Sopranos, was it intimidating to know who you'd be in the room with for those scenes if you got that part?

Or were they not at that level yet of being known? They were at that level. I mean, that show, I don't even know if I was... I mean, yeah, you're thinking it's going to be Edie Falco and Gandolfini, and the show itself was, you know, a monster hit. It was like, you know, it was huge. And it was even a different time back then. It was bigger than you can imagine now because back then it wasn't like streaming or...

you know, it wasn't even DVRs yet. It was like, you want to watch Sopranos? You have to be home at 10 o'clock on a Sunday night to watch HBO. So like, I remember being at my in-laws place in Long Beach in the summers. And like my wife and I getting on a train to

Long Island Railroad back to the city, getting on a subway. We lived on the Upper West Side at that time. And like rushing back to see Six Feet Under or Sopranos. And like I could still remember the HBO. Because we would like rush back to get there to sit down before it started. Because there was no DVR yet. No, you couldn't. Yeah, you couldn't. It was like you were on their time. Otherwise, you'd have to watch a rerun. Did they have reruns back then? They might have had reruns by then. Yeah. I mean, because there were reruns of old shows, but like...

Those reruns might not – I don't even know at that point if they had it of a recent show like that. I'm not sure. But what that did was it created more of a zeitgeist kind of thing because everybody was watching the show at the same time on Sunday night and then talking about it on Monday morning. So it was huge. It was huge. So like after doing that, it was like –

Oh, Cousin Brian. Like, it was just, it was very weird. It's cool to see that evolution because now you have TV series that drop the whole eight or ten episodes in one shot. Oh, yeah. And you can binge it. And it still has that effect of binging it and maybe that retains the audience even more. Yeah. And it creates more buzz. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, there's something about when they held it back. And now they have it like some shows, like I'm doing Mayor of Kingstown, they release every week. But...

I think it's like, it's, it's available. It's available before. It's not just like one time slot. Like back then it was like that time slot and you couldn't tape it. I mean, I guess unless you had like a VHS, like two VHS is hooked up to whatever, but like it was, so everybody's forced to be watching it at the same time. So there was like a collective thing in the air. It was, I'm telling you, it was more, it was a way more intense buzz about a show and,

Now, I mean, it's kind of cool now as an actor because there are more venues for good material because there are more little like between cable and, you know, Netflix, Amazon, Paramount Plus, there's Apple Plus, there's BBC, there's all these cool little, like they do like eight episodes or 10 episodes. And there's so much good material out there. But from like a

everybody watching at the same time. It just doesn't exist. Even network shows back then, like the numbers they got were crazy. Like when I was first in the city, I remember they had like, they called it Thursday night must see TV on NBC. And it, the lineup was like, it was something like friends, something else and ER on Thursday nights. And it was like people were,

like friends. I mean, a lot of people tuned in every Thursday night and would watch it. It was just the way it was. Now, you would later play a role as a cop in one of the shows that you did, right? I've played a bunch of cops, actually. But I did City on a Hill with Kevin Bacon and Aldous Hodge and Jill Hennessy. That was on Showtime. And I played the head of the gang unit in Boston.

So it was supposed to be Boston, early 90s Boston. And I was kind of the, I came in halfway through the first season and then they made me a regular in the second season. And I was kind of like, it was like a, it was like an early 90s, you know, prejudice. There was a lot of racial tension on the show there.

And my character was kind of, you know, pretty compassionate. But he was like, he was a guy who got shit done. But Aldis played the, he worked for the DA and he was, you know,

Butting up against like the white Boston police force and my character kind of like joined forces with him a little bit. Did you have to shadow a cop or detective for that role? I did. So I didn't when I first started, I just went to New York and I did like the second half of the first season. I didn't have an opportunity to do that.

Between the first and second seasons, I found out I got bumped up to a regular. I asked one of the producers and she had a hookup with someone on the gang unit in Boston. And that was awesome. I got to go up there and spend a day and a night with these guys. And it was it was like priceless because it's.

you know, the difference between like, you know, an actor's idea of something and then the reality. It's like, I was saying like, I was in a drama, you know, it's like the gang unit. And then I go and I hang with these guys. I'm like driving around with them. I was like, you guys are like a fricking comedy act that gets split up by like chasing after someone or checking on someone who's got the windows tinted and you got this or pulling up to a, you know, um,

the housing project and seeing guys and going and talking to them. Like there was like, I, and I got very lucky the day that I was there. They were like, Oh, you got a good day. I mean, I, I had like, it ran the gamut. Um, and I was with them till four in the morning then that next. So I was like 10 in the morning, uh,

like was with these two guys that were a little upper level. They gave me the overview of the projects that we were presenting, even though we shot in the Bronx, it was supposed to be Bromley Heath in, in Boston, but it was Edenwald in the Bronx. But like, so they took me to Bromley Heath. They gave me the layout. This is what this is. This is what these are. These guys over here. And like, you know, we're like, they're like pointing me all around. Then I went back to the station house and like,

I saw Roll Call, and then I got put in a, you know, like an explorer with these guys. We went around the whole day, and, like, they were all awesome. Like, you know, I went to school in Boston, so I have an affinity for— I have a lot of Boston friends, and I felt like I was, like— It was just a fun, fun, fun day. Did you learn anything interesting about the criminal justice system that you didn't know before? Well, yeah. One thing was the gang unit has a—

They have a motto, which is every day we get a gun off the street is a good day. And at one point, we got a call from the—

I think it was from the DEA. It was a whole thing. It was like, it was like exactly what was being depicted on, on the show, which is like on the show, they had like the FBI and the cops and the DEA, like people didn't like their jurisdictions cross. And what happened that night was like, somebody called in and said, there's a kid with a gun in the park. We went, they chased this kid. He didn't have a gun.

They found out that it was like the DEA was trying to get a hold of this kid and they called the gang unit to get them to do the dirty work of getting the kid. It was like exactly what was in the show. And we searched for the gun and they were saying, "Yeah, sometimes even if you're chasing someone and they toss a gun in a garbage dump and you don't see it, but then you find the gun, they're like, "There's times when it can get thrown out."

And I said, I said, how do you like, how do you do your job? Like if the, if the DA throw, you go through the work, you chase someone, gun gets thrown, whatever. It gets thrown out. And that person's back on the street the next day. How does that affect you? Like, do you lose faith in the system? Do you, do you like, does it demoralize you? And they're like, nope, we keep our head. That's not our job. We can't control that.

our job is to get guns off the street. We do our job and we hope that it gets done at the other levels. And it's kind of like, it paralleled to me as an actor. It's like, you can't control, there's certain things you can't control. You could give a great audition. If you're not the guy, you're not the guy. You're too tall. You're too short. You're too fat. You're too skinny. You're too light. You're too dark, whatever. You can't control that. So you just like,

you don't waste your time worrying about shit that you can't control. You just, you prepare, you do your thing. And that's kind of how they approach this. They're like, this was their, their gig was getting guns off the street. The way they did that, definitely like surprising in that, like you see, like they know everybody on the other side of the law. Like everybody knows everybody. Like,

They're like, what's up? You know, like it's like it's like, you know who they're like. They know that guy did this. That guy did that. Those guys know that who we you know, you pull up in a Ford Explorer like, oh, the police are here. Like it's it's very different kind of than you maybe imagine it. And then every cop says The Wire is the show that got it the most right. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

Now, after doing that ride-along, did previous roles you played as cops become more unrealistic to you? Well, yeah. I mean, even after the ride-along, what I did in the first season, I was like, eh, a little too serious, you know? But then here's the thing. Like, every show has a tone, and every show, you know, you're there to serve the material. And if the material...

you know, doesn't have it. Like my guy was on that show kind of a bit of a lone wolf, deep thinker, kind of like way to the world. You know, he wasn't like quippy and telling jokes and stuff. So it wasn't,

It just overall, like, made me think, like, where can I find humor in this season? But there weren't, like, tons of opportunities. There was a little bit. Like, you know, there was stuff –

Like in my friendship with DeCoursey, who's Aldis' character on the show, like there were opportunities to bust balls a little bit and like, because that's what those guys did. I mean, those guys that I was with that day, they were like master ball busters. They were hysterical. I mean, it really was like a very funny group of guys. And so the overall vibe was just...

Not precious. That would be the biggest difference. It's like this is what they do every day. And that's what you find with anything. If people were depicting actors, they would be like, it was an actor. They're talking about this. It's like, no. If you follow me and my friends around, you'll be like, oh, they're just jackasses talking about the same stuff as everybody else. They just happen to be actors. So when you go and you get an opportunity to be with the actual person,

people that do what your character does. It's just good because you're seeing an actual human and you just realize like, oh, that's, you know, yeah, what they do is going to shade how they think, but it's also like, they're a human first, you know? Um,

But it's like little things that I find. This isn't even like doing a ride-along. This was on a vacation. I remember being in Mexico. My wife and I were on vacation, and we met this couple, and the guy was a firefighter. And I know a lot of firefighters from the city. And he said something about... I said something about like, what floor are you on? He's like, oh, I'm on, you know...

He was like, I'm on the fifth floor, but I never take the elevator. He literally doesn't take the elevators ever. He takes the stairs because he's a firefighter. He's like, I don't want to get trapped in the elevator. That's like a, I tucked that away. I'm like, that's a great little character thing. And nobody has to know it. Nobody, nobody watching is going to know if you're thinking, but like somewhere deep within you, you're just like, that's kind of a cool, it's like,

And it makes total sense. Like a firefighter, like when I go to a, now I'm a little more cognizant, but when I go to a new hotel, I'm not like casing the place a little bit more now. But like a firefighter, they're going like, where are the exits? Where are the stairwells? Like, how am I going to get out if shit goes down? Because that's what they're trained to do. So that I find really fascinating with whatever character I'm playing is like,

What are those things like where they're, what they do, shapes, how they...

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in their day-to-day. Yeah, I was talking to the Wolf of Wall Street's ex-wife. She was on the show because of, obviously, the situation, but she was telling me how Margot Robbie spent days with her, learning her accent, eating with her, seeing how she lived and everything to really study that character and portray that. Oh, it's such a... I mean, it's like if you get the chance to do it, if you have the time and you get the chance to do it, it's...

It's awesome because, like, you just – you get all these little – just, like, little things. So now that brings us to Mayor of Kingstown where you play a correctional officer. Did you get the opportunity to do that? I haven't. I talked to – actually through the guys in the gang unit. I reached out to them, and they've got a buddy who's a CO, but it was, like, just – it was really just, like –

It wasn't like I have not had the opportunity to actually like go do a day, which would be real. I mean, like listening to your podcast, like the one that I was listening to on the way over here, not the one with the writer, the other one was with a corrections officer in Texas. And I was like, man, I got to listen to like I got to really do a deep dive into this show today.

Because there's like everybody you're talking to has eyes on the inside. I have plenty of correctional officers. That one guy earlier was a correctional officer that you're talking to. Yeah, yeah, no, talking to him was pretty cool. And you go like, and that's the other thing is like you listen to the guy I'm listening to on the way over. And then I meet that guy, Bobby. And I'm like, you know, two very different guys from, although that guy was from Boston too. But like two very different guys talking.

You can't just play like a CO, you know, it's like they're both there's they're they're humans first and like they're they have their own characteristics. So like you can't get too bogged down with what it is they do. Some of it is like informed from the material and it comes from like.

For me on Mayer last season, I really didn't have a ton to do. I came in, you saw quick hits of me. The things I did ended up being impactful, but I'm working in the women's prison. I've been transferred recently. I kind of present myself one way and turn out to be

another very different than I present myself at first as being this kind of like nice, charming, you know, whatever guy. And like, it turns out there's like a, a real dark side that was in the limited time I had with that. That was like, that's what I hooked into. Um, but yeah, I mean, that's actually the beauty of like,

And nowadays, compared to when I started, like the research side is so much easier to do with all the like there's a podcast about everything. Like when I was doing City on a Hill, I found some cop podcasts and some of them were good. Some were bad. Some I wouldn't. But like you're hearing stories like some of them, like you're just hearing cops talk about their job.

And I would watch like, you know, documentaries that were, there was a documentary on Flint, Michigan. And it was like, you know, just like there was racial tension. So that helped because that's a lot what was in our show. So you just try to find stuff that is maybe dealing with some of the issues that your character would be dealing with. Right now, this thing I'm doing in Toronto, I play a guy who's like a,

He's like a billionaire biohacker. And I found this documentary on Netflix about a guy who's like trying to reverse his biological age. Oh, I just watched that. You did? Yeah. He's doing his podcast run. He's on all the meat. He was on the impulsive and – Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he drinks his son's blood. Yeah. And his dad's. They all shared it. Yeah. So he –

Yeah. What's his name? Ryan Johnson or something? Is it Brian? Brian Johnson. Is it Johnson? I can't think. I don't know the name. I should know that. I didn't make it through the whole thing, but I did watch it. It was, but that was like fascinating and not exactly like who my character is, but you know,

I read that. Then I, then I found some article, like literally like I was at my mom's house, like in the bathroom and saw a New York times from like 2022, but it was about Liz Holmes who did the, you know, had the whole, yeah. And I was like, oh, that's so like all of a sudden when I'm, I'm working on something, then I'm just kind of like, like I'll, I'll see something. I'm like, oh, that is going to be relevant. Yeah.

So I read that and that, and there's stuff in there where she's kind of presenting her company as one thing and it's actually something else. And so I was like, okay, so I got, you know, some notes from there and then I'll put them in a document. And then this other thing I just did, um, it's coming out this spring with Amanda Seyfried called Lullaby.

Long Bright River. I actually play a cop in that too. Oh, really? Yeah, it's funny. My buddy from high school is like, why do you play cops all the time? You don't seem like a cop. I seem more like a cop than you. I'm like, I don't know. That's how they cast me. No, I think you kind of play, I don't know. I feel like you could be a character on The Rookie, like just the way you look. Oh, yeah. They have like that,

your body tight. I don't know. Just your look on the rookie. I got to get a cast member from the rookie on here. Actually, I know two guys on that show. Really? Yeah. Yeah. You got to hook it up. Yeah. The rookie would be really cool. Two guys. Yeah. Um, so as mayor of Kingstown filmed in a real prison, that's active. Yes. No, not active. Okay. Um, so that's in Pittsburgh. It's not active. And I actually just heard that they are going to be tearing it down soon, which, um,

I don't know why. I think they should just keep it up and like rent it out to TVs and films because how many people, you know what I mean? It's kind of like a built-in studio. It's crazy though. It's so much better as an actor to be filming there than on a soundstage with like...

The interior built out and, and I'll tell you, production designers are amazing. And like the sets that I've been lucky enough to work on, it is pretty amazing what they come up with in a soundstage, but there's something about like driving up to that stage.

prison in Kingstown. And it's like, it's only like, it's right outside of like, they put you up in Pittsburgh and you drive not that far. It's right there. But you drive up and see that outer wall and you're like, holy shit. And there's a river behind it. And it's like, you go and you see the barbed wire and you walk through and you go and you're like,

You know, we were last season, I was with other actors and they put us our holding, our holding cell. It wasn't a green room or it was literally a holding cell. It was a cell. And you look at the walls and you see like black, like marks on the wall. And like, you see like maybe a little dried blood or whatever. And like, you could see where the, where the bars were, but they're taken out. So you could see a little bit of like crumbled walls.

you know, cinder blocks or whatever. And there's something about being in the actual thing that you feel like it's kind of doing some of your job for you. You know, you don't have to, like, you're like, people were actually here. People were actually here going through shit and

And now we're playing make-believe, but like shit went down in this location. Yeah. Do they clean it? And are the bathrooms work or is it everything just like left like how it was? Yeah. They there's, so there's one section we shot a couple of weeks ago. There's, there's one section where they actually built like an ad seg section. And so they built a,

Like an office, like a control room. And like, I think those cells, the ad sec cells, I believe they were built. That's that section. But last year, it was... We didn't use... If there were working bathrooms, we were using like port-a-johns outside. So I don't know if the bathrooms are working. But like...

I mean, it's cleaned up. I mean, I think they would probably have like a problem with sag if it was just left exactly as it was. So it's clean, but it's not like clean, clean. I'm not going to want to eat off the floors or anything. Yeah, I think filming in a real thing like they did with Orange is the New Black in upstate New York just makes a totally big difference to see that outside.

perimeter and everything like that. It adds to the feel of it. Yeah. You drive up. I mean, look, you drive up and you see these walls. I'll show you later, like pictures on my phone or videos, like driving up in the morning and you're just like, holy shit. You know, like it just makes it, it just makes it real in a way that, um, you know, I've never, I've never done time in prison. I know you have, I, I, I can't even, you know,

I don't know. I talk to the guy out there like, I don't know how you do it. You know, actually a guy I worked with on Mayer recently, we started talking. He's a little older than me and something about, I don't know, something he said. And I was like, did you do any time? He was like, yeah, a year and a half. And I was like, like, you know, like real deal prison. He's like, yeah.

And I was just asking him questions about it. And I'm like, how – and he's a fighter. Like he's a – you know. And he's like, yeah, it's not bad. And then like I didn't know he was a fighter. Like he was like Brazilian jiu-jitsu and stuff. But I didn't know this at first. And he's like, yeah. I'm like, nobody – he's like, nah, it's not like in the thing. You keep to your own business. You know how to walk around. No one's going to mess with you. And I was like, really? And then like an hour later, he's like Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He's been fighting since he was younger. I was like, oh, so you're like, you know, totally –

you know, you're not the average dude just walking in. Yeah. You know? I actually had someone just recently on the show from Boston that was casted in the town when he got out of prison. They wanted a bunch of people that were in prison for bank robberies to be in the town as like extras and stuff. So it's cool when they do that and they incorporate that. Well, yeah, Ben Affleck does that. I think it's smart. Like there's something, there is something about like,

And he populates his movies like Gone Baby Gone. He had a lot of that, like just like there were shots of like the people in the street that were like, you know, that he cast people that are appropriate. You don't look like you're getting people off of like Melrose Avenue and extras in your movie and you're like putting them into a certain wardrobe. It's like there is something about the real like people.

there's something about like the guy I worked with who I really like totally connected with. There's a reason I asked him, like, I don't know why, what it was he said or how he said something or what that I wouldn't normally be like, did you, you know, he, he, there's something, there's a, maybe not with everybody, but with some people, I think it's like, there's a, there's a certain like lived in look of like, man, you've, you've seen some,

I would imagine you've seen some pretty harsh shit, you know? When you're in those cells, like in the prison, do you feel like claustrophobic at all? Or do you feel like, just like, like that? I know you were saying that feeling of people being there before and that eerie kind of feeling aspect, but you yourself, like, do you, does that put it into perspective? No, but I'll try to imagine like, what would it be like to be in here? And like, I can't even, I mean,

It's got to be tough. And that's what that guy said, the guy that I met. He's like, you know what? I go, have they gotten it right? Because I think Mayer has a cool, gritty look to it. He goes, the sound. He goes, you know what it is about the real thing? He goes, the smell and the sound. And nobody gets it right. And it's like you can't really mimic that in a show, I guess, because you can't get the smell. He's like, there was a smell that was just...

Yeah. Like, yeah. And he told me some stories that were like, wow, you know, of like stuff that was going down. And he was there in like the 90s. In that same prison? No, no, no, no, no. He was in somewhere in New York. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I remember going to doing the tour in Alcatraz.

There's a thing. Have you ever been there? No, I want to go to Alcatraz. I love the movie The Rock. I've seen it like 20 or 30 times. You should go there. I mean, especially with this. And they have this cool thing where they put you put on. I mean, I was there a long time ago. So now I'm sure it's just like an app that you put in your phone or whatever. But like you walk around and they narrate it.

and they have sound effects. So they're like, you go right, and they're like, you can hear the city, whatever. And then they're like, I remember the thing about Alcatraz was they had a view of San Francisco, but the waters were really cold. So there were sharks in the water. So you didn't want to swim across it.

But they said like on a nice spring day, you could hear the music and you could smell the food coming from the city. So you were so close, but so far away. And like that, doing that tour, that audio tour and walking around that place was also really, because you're really imagining like, shit, can you imagine if you were here and like you had a sentence, like a life sentence? I mean-

You know, I don't know. Now, we were talking about earlier about how the parallels between, you know, an up-and-coming actor and someone that gets out of prison or has a record that hears no, no, no, no constantly. I mean, like when I got convicted, I applied to 100 places and I couldn't even get a job as a dishwasher, you know, at Red Lobster for 11 bucks an hour at the time. What advice would you give to those individuals through your own experience, the ones that are struggling to find a job out of prison or maybe not even that job they –

want, you know, specifically and compared to like a role where like you want to be here, but they're only giving you here. Yeah. What would that advice be? I mean, look, I would feel unqualified because if I were someone who just got out of prison, I heard some actor telling me advice. I'd be like, shut the fuck up. So that being the, you know, qualifier, I wouldn't say that the, you know, I wouldn't say that the parallel is between like an actor, like,

I actually think more of a parallel is like if an actor were to say, I'm not acting anymore and now I'm going to go do other stuff and like I'm putting this away. I'm going to go. There would be like a mindset shift that would have to happen, I guess. In terms of like the, I mean, the stuff that I, you know, kind of always preaching on the podcast. And I guess, again, it would be,

Way more challenging because if you're coming out of prison, you're dealing with people that are pre-judging you based on your past. And so that would be hard. I guess it's a slight parallel maybe because in my business, people can put you in a box and think you're just this person and say,

The way that I've found when I've been able to maybe shift my career, where I've consciously made decisions to act, to operate differently, to shift. One of the things was talking to my representatives about like,

saying no. So it's actually not taking no, but it's saying no and teaching people. Like we would say, it's like teaching the industry how to treat you. So like I was always the guy that was a guest on shows. I was recurring on shows and I did a lot of work for not a lot of money. And at a certain point I said, Hey, we got to stop this. Like I've got to get

I want to be a regular on shows. I want to get actually paid like more. And they were like, all right, well, you know, we're going to have to say no to auditions for guest spots. We're going to say offer only on those things. We're going to have to say no, unless you really have something that you want to do. And they're like, and it's going to get sparse for a while. Are you able to

live through that sparseness because you won't have as many opportunities. But the goal and the hope is that you'll have less opportunities, but there'll be better ones. So when you do land that better one, it's going to be bigger and you're going to be in a better spot. And we did it and it actually eventually worked. But in the interim, there is a dip and it's really hard. So I guess maybe that parallel would be like

I don't even know because if you come out of prison and you need the income- Similar to you. Similar, totally. When you're first starting out. So you've really got to figure out a way. I would think, and again, I'm totally unqualified to answer this question, so I'm a little hesitant to answer it. Well, you're not even qualified. I would think that-

You know, building trust, if you're coming out of prison, building trust is like number one priority because everybody's like, oh, you're just going to do that again, whatever that is. Even if you didn't do it, you were accused of it. Everybody's thinking you did it. So you have to be kind of like,

almost better than everybody else in terms of like how, how you show up, you got to hustle, be early, be like all the stuff that I always tell young actors is like, yeah, it's going to suck. Like for a little bit, you're going to have to, you, you might, you might have to eat shit for a while, but you have to show up and do your job. And it's all leverage. I think like all of life, it's like, it's, it's leverage. And when you need leverage,

If you're an actor and you need the job so badly that you're willing to do whatever, then you don't have leverage. If you're able to step away, whatever that means, whether you piled up savings, so you're able to say, no, no, pass, pass, wait, wait. Okay, I'll go in for that. Or you're just willing to like eat, you know, gravel for a year and say no.

Whatever it is, if you do that, you can get leverage. I think it's like all about that. It's the same thing coming out. Like, I guess you would have to, you know, try to remember like things do shift. It takes a lot of time. But like if you buy into the process of it in any, and this is in anything, like things do shift. But sometimes the hard part is like when they take so long, like I was saying, my career took so long.

There's times when you think you're crazy and you're delusional. And you're like, what am I doing all this work for? Like, I'm doing all this work for nothing. And then if you let that voice in, then you're like, ah, fuck this. I'm not doing the work. Then you don't do the work. And then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now you didn't do the work and now you don't get anything. And you're like, see, I told you.

I guess it would be the same thing. If you're like, I'm going to go straight. I'm going to be, I'm going to hustle. I'm going to take this dishwashing job for only a few dollars an hour compared to, I could go, you know, sell drugs somewhere and make a lot more money, but I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And then like, even doing this, you get blamed for something. And then you're like, well, fuck this. Why am I doing this? I'm just going to go do that. And the minute you do that, now you might get set back to zero.

So I don't know. I mean, it's tough. I don't know. But it's like— I think mindset is a big aspect of it, like, and knowing where you want to be and then just putting in that work with that in mind of where you're going to be. Like, you were working at a pizzeria, but you knew you wanted to be at this level, so you do it. Yeah, it goes back to that Zewantaneo thing. It's that Tim Robbins, the Andy Dufresne in—

Shawshank, if you think about it, he was able to be put in the box, put in the hole. He was able, everything they did to him, he was able to take it because he is so crystal clear on where he was going. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's the parallel for me. And I guess it would be for someone getting out, which is like, but it's interesting. It's like, it's a result. Like that thing that you have in your mind is very clear. But if you get too,

tied into results, like external results, and you don't buy into the internal process, at some point when those external results don't go your way, you're going to get demoralized and you're going to go, ah, throw in the towel. So you have to be so strong in your head that you're like, this is what I'm going to do. Whether it goes well or bad, I put the work in. Goes well, goes bad, I put the work in.

If you do that, I feel like eventually you kind of can get somewhere. But, you know, the question is, can you last to the point when you start, it starts to come your way? And I think that's what makes people successful versus not successful, the people that do last. It's all consistency. I wouldn't have gotten where I'm at without consistency. Yeah. And I'm sure the same with you. Yeah. Consistency, persistence, perseverance.

The support around you, I think, is big. You know, faith in something bigger than you, I think, is big. You know, like, you know, because there's not, you know, I'd like to think if you polled, you know, a hundred of my friends, they would all tell you that I work pretty hard and I'm consistent and all that stuff. Hopefully that's true. But.

I'd be lying if I said there wasn't like something else. Like, I feel like when things come my way, I feel like it's like, it's not all my doing. I feel like things seem to drop out of nowhere when I need them. And that's, you know, some people would say, no, that's just a result of your work, whatever. I don't know. I think it's something higher. I think, you know, for me, I think God has a hand in

you know, like right when I'm on the precipice, I'm like, I just don't know if I could, you know, like, and I've had those moments. I've had, I've had a lot of them where just like, man, if I were smart, I would just stop this and just do something else. And then right at those moments would always be when like something would come in. And yeah, so then I just try to be grateful and then live up to that. And when the opportunities come,

really knock them out of the park because you don't know when the next one's coming. So you got to, you got to,

you know, you want to be great in everything you do. Absolutely. Well, Matt, thanks so much for sticking around today. Thank you. And doing this episode with me, man. Now we can get into politics. No, I'm kidding. This was fun. This was fun. I can't wait to do your show, man. Yeah. 10,000 no's. You'll be, you're like the poster boy. I've heard a lot of no's and I'll still hear no's, but you know, we'll, we'll continue to rise, you know? Yep. But I appreciate you, man. I appreciate you. Thank you, brother.