Fairly Legal set visit: Michael Trucco interview (part 3)

(Check out our set visit in part 1 and our Virginia Williams interview in part 2)

Panel: So what drew you to the role of Justin?
180 degree departure from Battlestar Galactica. Man, people aren’t dying. Not, you know — that has a lot to do with it. You want to go from one project to the next and try to maintain some sort of diversity in your roles. And after three and a half seasons of Battlestar, and the fate of humanity looming in the back of your head every single day on set, it’s kind of nice to get to do something a little lighter fare – be human was nice, literally, play a human being. Not shave my head.

Panel: So you really did shave your head? It wasn’t a bald cap?
No, I would have. That’s another learning – you know, that’s a mistake you learn on the way. At the time, the idea of a bald cap was really cool. For the first episode in the bald cap was, like, “Hey good makeup – six hours, right on. Put me in the chair.” And then six weeks later it was a pain in the ass. And I definitely would have gone back and shaved my head if I had to do that again.

Panel: Now do you ever have a fear of being typecast as that guy who’s in all the sci-fi shows? You’re in Battlestar, you’re in V.
Yeah. There’s always that fear, right? No, not as long as I find those parts intriguing, and fun. You know, the John May thing came up just sort of out of the blue. And knowing just a little bit about that show, knowing in the lore of this new version John May was a pretty significant character, it was a real compliment, you know, to be offered that role. So I jumped on it. And there was talk of, you know, it might extend farther than one episode. And it didn’t, and it may or may not still. So that’s undecided.

But that opportunity to play that role wasn’t necessarily because it was a sci-fi show, I just thought that was kind of an interesting pivotal character that I’d like to associate myself with. And Battlestar was a no-brainer. The complexities of that show speak for itself. Again, it wasn’t about, “Oh, it’s sci-fi, let’s go into space and, you know, blow shit up with lasers.” It was about taking on a really – you know, a culturally significant project like Battlestar Galactica.

I don’t think there’s a fear – we’re not – I don’t know that Battlestar and the actors associated with it are — such iconic status that we’ll never been seen as anything else. There’s some television shows in the history of television, like, i.e., Friends, 90210, I mean, there’s some things that are so iconic that it’s nearly impossible to divorce those actors from their characters.

I think that Battlestar actors have largely proven so far – I think most of them are all working on new – back to new shows in different places. So I think it was a great format for all of us, but I don’t think it’s necessarily going to bury us into — I won’t always be Anders for the rest of my life. It doesn’t seem that way, at least.

Panel: Does it seem like maybe, in a way, it’s the opposite of that? Like, there are certain shows that Hollywood seems to really like, like Mad Men might be one of them, Battlestar Galactica seems to be one of them. That, like, all the show runners watched, and then, somehow have you found it easier to get auditions, or get meetings, because everyone in Hollywood loved Battlestar Galactica?
A hundred percent. A hundred percent. No doubt in my mind that the opportunities afforded to me after having done Battlestar Galactica went up exponentially for that very reason. Because it’s not – and this goes to your answer – we didn’t have 25 million viewers, we had two and a half.  We have a lot of viewers in the ancillary market now with the DVD. That’s where in fact – most people that stop me and say, “Hey dude, it’s my favorite show. I just watched the whole series on DVD.” They weren’t first run watchers.

So we’re not instantly recognizable to the public as Battlestar. We’re recognizable to the people in our industry, because most show runners, producers, writers, studio heads, they loved that show. And the difference in me five years ago walking into a room to audition for a room of producers this big would be just a whole bunch of bored faces like, “Uh huh. Yeah, Trucco – what is it? Trucco? Go ahead. Whenever, doesn’t matter. When you’re ready, that’s cool.” To, like, “Whoa, dude, hey man. Ah, great to see you.” You know, everybody jumping up off the couch. “Best show on television – I can’t believe it!”

“Ron Moore – ” You know, and they all want to ask about Ron Moore, because he’s like, you know, the God among writers. And suddenly you have this new – there’s this shift, this dynamic shift in confidence as an actor that they are actually – they’re happy to have you in the room, as opposed to just like, “Ah, another audition. Yeah, great, have a nice day – thanks.” So I felt that instantaneous shift of a career that became much more open to me after doing Battlestar Galactica, for that reason.

Panel: At the end that you felt like that, or was it while it was going on?
No, it was towards the end. In the beginning I didn’t know – I had no idea. I got hired to do two episodes, and I had no idea what the show was, you know, going to do for anybody at the time. I remember reading the pilot, because I read for the part of Apollo, way back when they were casting the pilot. And I remember thinking – and I actually wrote it down, and I keep a journal – that I’ve read probably one of the best television scripts ever written – ever. And thinking, “Man, if they make this, and this goes, this is going to be huge.” But then I forgot – you know, it was just something at the time, you write it down, and I took note of it.

And then a year and a half later when I started, I had been aware of the show, but it hadn’t really reached its peak until probably our season three, season four, [by the end]. And then it was like, “Oh man, this thing is important.” And Eddie almost made sure everybody knew it was important. He’s like [inaudible], you know. “We’re part of something big man.” You know, Eddie was really intense about it. And we’re like, “Okay Eddie, it’s cool.” And he goes, “No man, you don’t understand. Thirty years from now people are going to remember.” And it’s like, “Cool, right on. Eddie said that – yeah.”

Clacked by An Nicholson
on Jan 10, 2011 @ 13:00 EST5EDT