But Legend of the Seeker, equally mind-blowing experience. On that show, they had built my costume up from scratch. Everything has to be made down there. Every last thing -- every sword, every knife, every prop piece -- you can't just go to a retail shop and find an eleventh-century pair of shoes. Everything has to be created out of nothing. What's great about that show is, half the work for you as an actor is done. They do it for you. You're a mapmaker -- you don't have to figure out how to be a mapmaker. You walk on set, they've already got the old printing press, the ink, the work, your costume is masterfully done. So all you have to do is show up and do your business.
So it puts you in the scene, as opposed to green screen work.
Right, where you really have to be a lot more convincing about what you're seeing and doing. They've done some of the work for you, so I was grateful to the behind-the-scenes people there.
You've got long hair as Sebastian, which is unusual for you.
It's fun to put that stuff on. I've always been a kind of conservative Midwestern guy. Like my hair short, button-down shirts, that's kind of my bag. It's fun getting rock-and-roll hair, for an hour of TV.
The character on Supenatural is the classic Ted Raimi geek.
"The classic Ted Raimi geek" -- which is to say, he's a completely normal guy. When you play a geek -- if you play geek, you get Urkel. That's true with every kind of a character. If you're an actor who knows his business, you don't really play the character, you just play yourself -- that's enough, usually. And people you consider a geek are just normal people who just haven't thought about hipness. In that sense, that's what's happening with Wes's character on Supernatural.
Especially if you're standing next to Jared Padalecki.
[laughs] That's right, especially that. People who appear geeky just aren't concerned with looking nice. So people just sort of label them that. And I know I've played a lot of those kinds of characters.
You were a regular on Xena and SeaQuest. If you were offered a steady TV gig like that now, would you say yes?
I'm at a point in my life and career where I can now sit back, take a look at the material, and say, "Is this worth it for me to do now?" When I was in my early 20s I would say, "Oh absolutely," whatever the hell the part is. Unless it's a porno. But now I would have the luxury of taking a look at the material. Because I'm in one of those wonderful phases in your careers where people offer you stuff sometimes and you don't have to hunt so hard.
You've had a lot of fortunate parts. What's the performance you're most proud of?
That's a really good question. There really isn't anything I'm more proud of than anything else. Because the pride comes from working as hard as you can. I suppose there's a couple things I blew off [laughs] -- there's one or two things in my life that I strictly did for cash, but those are few and far between, and most everything I've done I'm pretty proud of. I just think there are things that have turned out better than others. I certainly won't mention them here. I will say, the two shows airing this week, my Supernatural episode and my Legend of the Seeker, I worked very, very hard on and both of those turned out fantastic. They turned out tremendous, and that's due not just to me obviously, that's due to fantastic writing and producing and the other actors I worked with.
Wes wasn't just a comedy role -- he had to make a hard decision and save the town. You had a nice moment at the end with the coin -- I was sad for him, but happy for you that you had that moment.
Thanks. It was fun to play that. And that's not a show that you really can be goofy on. Those guys [stars Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki] are doing the reacting -- you've got to more or less be the straight man on that show, and let them do the funny reactions.
Right now you're filming something called Angel of Death.
Right, I just finished shooting that, it's still in production. It's a movie for Sony Internet, a new full-length feature film for the internet. It stars me and Lucy Lawless and Zoe Bell [who was Lucy Lawless's stunt double on Xena] -- just by chance it drew together a bunch of us from Xena. I don't know how that happened, but it did. I only have a cameo, the director [Paul Etheredge] called me up to do a cameo, and it was a lot of fun.
Why do you think sci-fi and fantasy is such a good fit for you?
Well, some actors you see generally do a lot of cop shows, some actors you see do a lot of dramas, others teen comedies -- it really just depends on what that actor happens to like to watch, what he's attracted to. When you are reading for something in front of a bunch of producers, like any other job in this world, if they smell that you enjoy the material, they're more likely to put you in it. If you come in, say, for a position as an IT manager at some giant corporation, you know about computers but you're the most eager human being in the world, they'll say, "I want that guy. He's going to stay late, he's going to work hard, he's going to kick his butt for us."
So I think that's why. I just love sci-fi, I love the genre, that's why I tend to do a lot of it. But the essential mechanics of acting, of course, are exactly the same. And that was true, too, for Legend of the Seeker. There's no manual to tell you how they behave in some fantasy world of 600 or 700. You have to use your acting chops. And it was easy, because those actors on that show were fantastic. I got really lucky. And hopefully I'll get to go back and do it again.
You're going to hate me for this, but I have to ask -- anything you can tell me about Spider-Man 4?
Yes! Spider-Man 4 is going, it will star Tobey Maguire, and I will be back in that picture as Hoffman with J.K. Simmons, most likely, as J. Jonah Jameson. So that's going on.
And remember, if anyone was ever interested in my stuff in Xena, to definitely tune into Legend of the Seeker. It is smaller, but much more mind-blowing. It's on Saturday or Sunday depending on where you live, but most certainly worth getting into, it's crazy good.
