LA Times –Adam Scott, Kaitlyn Dever and more on that particular torture actors deal with
If the Emmy Drama Roundtable proves anything, it’s that even the stars of TV’s buzziest shows are familiar with the indignities of the working stiff.
When asked, in regard to his role in “Severance,” if there’s a job on his résumé he’d prefer to forget, Adam Scott said even his less memorable work moved him forward. But, he noted, “My first job ever, I was in the background for a Tia Carrere music video. … It was in the fall of 1993 and it was at a coffeehouse and I had a beret and I was drinking coffee. I actually can’t find it on YouTube, so I guess the world has forgotten about it.”
Rhea Seehorn, starring to broad acclaim in the final season of “Better Call Saul,” said, “I have many auditions I’d like to forget.”
“I would forget every audition if I could,” said Melanie Lynskey, who stars in Showtime’s creepy survival tale “Yellowjackets.”
Sebastian Stan, in the process of obliterating his Marvel superhero image with a transformative turn in “Pam & Tommy,” used to submit elaborate VHS audition tapes.
“I think my first big movie job came off of a tape,” he said. “And I remember I was really cool about it because I had a cigarette. You couldn’t really do that in the auditions. And this particular time it worked because the producer smoked cigarettes and he really was just …”
“‘Someone that smokes cigarettes is right for our cast,’” Scott interjects.
Kaitlyn Dever of “Dopesick” recalled one of her first jobs, at age 14, on Scott’s show, “Party Down”: “I played a girl named Escapade. … I sang ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ in front of the entire cast.”
Jin Ha, who holds degrees from Columbia and NYU and is currently featured speaking three languages (four dialects) in “Pachinko,” said, “There’s a babysitting job I wish I could sever [from] my brain. It was just once because they never asked me back. It was two young girls and I made bacon for them and it did not go well. I poured the hot oil into the trash bin, which must have melted.”
Here, in excerpts from their sit-down with The Times (edited for length and clarity), the six actors explain the inner workings of their characters, learning from teachers, collaborating with directors and watching themselves onscreen.