The Point Radio: James Wolk – Yeah THAT Guy

We all loved actor James Wolk as the slightly creepy Bob Benson in MADMEN, plus his run with Robin Williams on THE CRAZY ONES. Now he’s part of CBS’ next big summer event, ZOO, and the star of a new quirky indy film with the folks from SONS OF ANARCHY. He covers it all with us. Plus the new sitcom, THE McCARTHYS is really a family affair especially for third generation talent Tyler Ritter who explains what finally brought him into show biz.

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Transcript

The Point Radio. Hey, it's Mike Raub. The new CBS comedy, The McCarthy's, truly is a family event. It's based on the life of stand-up comedian Brian Gallivan, and it stars third-generation actor, Tyler Ritter.

We got the whole story for you here. Plus, James Wolff. You know him as Bob Benson in Mad Men, a role in The Crazy Winds, and now part of the new James Patterson science fiction project,

headed to CBS next summer. And he covers all that and more. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio.

Get The Point Radio. From shows like Mad Men to The Crazy Winds, actor James Wolff is making a name for himself. I talked to him about his acting career and how it actually all got started.

I grew up in Farmington Hills, Michigan, so I had no connections to the entertainment business. And my dad owned a shoe store. My mom was an art teacher, and I just loved acting. I really fell in love with it at a young age.

My dad used to put on old Jimmy Duranny clips and old Elvis movies and old Sinatra movies, and I just kind of fell in love with the magic that was on screen. And when I got into high school, I was really fortunate to have an amazing theater program at North Farmington High School

by a guy, old radio DJ. He was an old radio DJ. This guy, Dean Kopp, and he just made me fall in love with the stage. And so I applied to acting school, and I got into acting school and decided

that's what I wanted to do with my life. One of James' most recognizable characters is that of Bob Benson in Mad Men. Now, the character himself was created by Matthew Weiner, but James put so much physicality in the role

that he truly made it his own. I ask him how all that came together. Yeah, I think it was really a marriage of those two things. Matthew was so wonderfully supportive of me creating that character. Obviously, I stuck entirely to the script and to the dialogue as written,

because it's important to, on that show, they really put a great onus on kind of word perfect. And, you know, the product speaks for itself. The show is amazing and has been for seven years, so as an actor, you're happy to do it.

But within those parameters of staying in the dialogue as written, I was allowed to stretch it and pull it and push it and make the character my own, and Matt was incredibly supportive of that. It was a marriage of the two. James' latest project is Always Woodstock,

an indie film with some pretty interesting company involved. Yeah, so Always Woodstock has a great cast. It's Katie Segal. Allison Miller plays the lead. Rumor Willis is in it.

She's amazing. Jason Ritter, great guy. And it was really fun. I mean, you know, when you get to work with actors who you respect and appreciate and you take their work, it's always a good experience.

And it was very interesting because the music has huge music elements in it. It takes place in Woodstock, New York, where a girl kind of rekindles her spirit and falls in love. There's some great singer-songwriters in the movie, and I didn't know this, but Katie Segal is and was a singer-songwriter,

so she plays some live original music in it, and it's beautiful. Right before we talk, CBS announced picking up the new James Patterson Project Zoo, a thrilling action series that they'll debut direct-to-series next summer. And in the lead role is James. Yeah, so it's amazing how news travels, isn't it?

This signed on this week for Zoo, which is a summer event series over on CBS that's based on the James Patterson novel, and I am just thrilled to be boarding this project. I think that there's an incredible group of writers on it, and the world is really amazing.

In fact, I read the script, and that was kind of how I became familiar with it, but right now I'm three-quarters of the way through the book, and I can't put it down. I think that we're really going to create a fun world over there, and we start in January down in Louisiana, so I can't wait.

There's no doubt that James has worked with some pretty exciting and inspirational people, so I was curious as to whether or not he ever had any aspirations himself to write or direct. As I get further down the line in my career, I'm realizing what a wonderful route it is to take to be able to create and write your own material. I'm not there yet, but I certainly have aspirations to do so.

When I look at some of the incredible careers out there, the Matt Damon, the Paul Newman, they definitely had a hand in that. Then I look at the film that we did, written and directed by Rita Merson, and she got to create her own world. I just did a film this last year by a good friend of mine who starred

and co-wrote a film, Another Indie, and it's a beautiful process, because you get to choose the story you're telling, and there's nothing better than that. So yeah, I'd love to do it. Always Woodstock with James, along with Katie Segal, Rumor Willis, Brittany Snow, and Allison Miller, right now available on Video On Demand and in iTunes,

and look for Zoo to debut on CBS next summer. The Flight Radio We've had a pretty interesting week in a world of pop culture. At this point it might be speculation, but at this point in time, deadlines reporting that DreamWorks Animation might be in a possible merger with Hasbro.

If it happens, a combined company would be run by DreamWorks and CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. Hasbro is definitely the bigger financial dog, it's worth over $7 billion, where DreamWorks value is just under $2 billion. Let the speculation begin on what we might see here, including of course a new strong presence with toys and games,

including Wizards of the Coast and of course the Transformers. As you know, DC Comics is planning a relocation from New York to Burbank. It has been in the process of planning for quite a while, but now it will affect the publishing aspect as well, and DC will cover that with a new miniseries called Convergence.

It will last for two months in April and May, and give the editorial staff a time to regroup and to move between New York and Burbank. Convergence actually consists of a weekly series and 40 two-part miniseries. Again, that all begin in April. Convergence will be co-written by Jeff King,

who you know from TV as having done White Collar and Continuum. Various DC artists will work on this series, and some of those miniseries, by the way, have already been announced. Those will include Superman, The Question, The Atom, Batgirl, Nightwing Oracle, Harley Quinn, Speed Force, The Titans, and Justice League, as well as Batman and Robin.

The overlying plot of Convergence will pick up where DC's two weekly series for the new 52 and Earth 2 have just left off, but there also is talk that some of the characters in the miniseries will hark it all the way back to the pre-new 52 days, the ones that were around at the end of the Flashpoint miniseries.

Again, everything begins with Convergence 0, and that will be in stores on the 1st of April. IFC has launched their new online presence, the IFC Comedy Crib, and it will feature original and acquired series from the network's comedians and a number of the partnerships that they have as well.

There's new material up there right now, but a lot more to come, and if you'd like to check it out, you can do so at IFC.com. Keyword, Comedy-Crib. USA has picked up Graceland for its third season. The drama did pretty well this year,

picking up some 2.6 million viewers during its second season. Not so good news over on TNT. It looks like Franklin and Bash will be coming to an end. TNT has canceled the series, ending with season 4. Fullscreen has acquired Rooster Teeth,

the YouTube channel that does things like Red vs. Blue, The Gauntlet, and The Slow Mo Guys. Fullscreen promises to use their resources to boost live events and merchandise business on Rooster Teeth, including adding some new premium programming to the channel.

There's two new names being added to the cast of Community for when it debuts on Yahoo's screen in a few months. Badget Brewster and Keith David both will join the cast. As we told you a couple weeks back, Yvette Nicole Brown had left Community.

Plans are for Yahoo's screen to debut all the episodes on the line coming up early in 2015. Showtime has given Homeland a new season. Season 5 will begin next year. In addition to that, the affair, which debuted on the network this year,

has been given a second season as well. Of course, both decisions were based on the fact that each show and its current run on the network has shown some great ratings growth over the past few weeks. It's not even quite the holiday season yet,

and sales are pretty good as far as graphic novels go in comic book stores. When compared to last year, so far the first ten months of 2014 have graphic novels up some 5.31 percent, again compared to 2013. And for the month overall in October,

graphic novels grew some 12, almost 13 percent in sales. Top ten best-selling graphic novels of the month in October in comic stores begin at number ten with Batman, Death of the Family, The Book and the Mask set. At number nine, Moon Knight volume one from Marvel

at number eight, Amazing Spider-Man volume one. Harley Quinn's first volume comes in at number seven. At number six, Southern Bastards, the first one of those from Image. At number five, Batman volume five from DC. At number four, the third volume of East of West from Image.

At number three, Batman volume four. Number two, best-selling graphic novel of the month goes to Marvel, Hawkeye volume three, and the number one spot also belongs to Marvel as well. Ms. Marvel volume one was the best-selling graphic novel in comic stores in October. The new CBS comedy, The McCarthy's, is the brainchild of stand-up comedian,

Brian Gallivan, who says it's basically his own life. His faith on my life, it's loosely inspired by my family. They require me to say that. Jokingly, I think, I don't know. It can be tough.

And, you know, a lot of the basics are true. I'm the sort of one gay son. I actually have more siblings. I have three brothers and two sisters in real life. So the characters are sort of a mixture of qualities

and quirks from my real siblings scattered about. And my dad was a very successful high school basketball coach in Boston and three of my siblings coached basketball. And I didn't, I did run track in high school. I jokingly say I was running away from my sexuality in high school.

But the basics are there. And I've never had to coach with my dad, but I sort of pitched this idea to my siblings. Like, what if dad had to choose me to coach with them? And they all went, oh my God, that's funny.

Yeah, you should do that. Then I just ended up pitching that idea, just sort of, you know, there's a lot of family comedies, but I think adding that sort of the specifics of Boston and that sort of Boston attitude of how we love in Boston.

And so I think that's where I grew up. And I think that's where I grew up. And I think that's where I grew up. And I think that's where I grew up. And I think that's where I grew up.

And I think that's where I grew up. And I think that's where I grew up. And I think that's where I grew up. And I think that's where I grew up. And I think that's where I grew up.

And I think that's where I grew up. And I think that's where I grew up. And I think that's where I grew up. And I think that's where I grew up. I love Tyler.

They think he's great. And they love everybody. And my mother's, you know, she refers to Lori Metcalf as Sheldon's mom from Big Basket. She's like, oh, Sheldon's mom is so good in this.

And they're just so excited. And they compare it to basketball, like when my family has teams that are in the state tournaments every March is sort of the time when it's big high school basketball tournament time in Massachusetts.

And every time someone wins a game, they get together and get Chinese food and talk about the game. And I'm mostly there for the Chinese food. But my brother compared watching the episode, he's like, I felt like I just won a tournament game.

And I needed to talk about the episode and break it down. And, you know, so they're having a blast. And of course, making it somehow connect to basketball even when it does. And as far as Lori Metcalf goes, she is amazing.

And I've been a huge fan for years. My friends in Chicago, I lived in Chicago for a while. And my gay friends there, we always like just referred to her so reverentially as the calf. We shortened her name to the calf and just would always talk about how amazing

she was. And so when her name came up, I said, oh, I think she'd be amazing. I had to get on the phone with her and try and, you know, woo her a bit. But and she had seen some videos I'd done called Sassy Gay Friend on YouTube. And she was a fan of those.

And that was so flattering to me. And she was suggesting we, Sassy Gay Friend, the character helps out sort of historical ladies like Ophelia and or from literature or Eve from the Bible. And tell them like, you're in a bad spot. You know, get your shit together.

Can I say shit in the newspaper? And so Lori is like, you should do one of these with Jackie from Roseanne, my character from Roseanne. And I would just I was like, screw the pilot. Let's just do that.

Let's do that, Lori, because I think she's amazing. She's so good. Brian also inspired actor Tyler Ritter to get involved with the show. The first thing I noticed when I first got the sides for this was the writer and creator of the show who I'd be playing, who's Brian, whose work I was

familiar with. I had seen him perform live and I had seen some of his online sketch work as well. So I was already a big fan. I knew he was a brilliant comedian.

And so to get a chance to play that guy loosely again, that was it was it was a real treat for me. But from from, you know, just looking at that first pilot, you get a sense that this is a unique sitcom, that there is a humor is there. The jokes are there.

It's a unique sense of humor. But there's a lot of heart in this show. And like we talked about before, there's also a lot of dysfunction kind of covering that heart. But at the end of the day, you you can feel safe with this family because you

see that they really truly love each other. And that's something that I, of course, I'm going to gravitate to as an actor. You want to feel safe and know that you're entertaining people, but also that you're hopefully making a positive impact in their lives. And so it's a project that I've been really proud to be involved with.

It makes talking about it so much easier because I can literally just speak off the top of my head because I'm I'm so happy with it. And so it makes my life much easier to be a part of something special. As the son of John and grandson of Tex Ritter, Tyler actually had avoided his family business and began a career in education in Argentina.

So what made him change his mind? You know, I think there was, if I'm honest, I think there was a little piece of me just as a young man who kind of wanted to blaze his own path and felt like, you know, my grandfather and then my father and my brother have all been so brilliant at it in my eyes.

I just think of them so highly. And so it kind of felt like the avenue was somewhat crowded if I'm trying to, you know, make up my own identity. And so I think those are some of the thoughts that propelled me to go to Argentina. And then while I was out there and teaching and falling in love and getting married,

I think I gained some of the perspective that I needed and that I do love acting. And when I am even auditioning in Argentina and Spanish, I was loving it. I love the process. When I finally did come around to the conclusion and when I was confident enough in myself, just as an independent person, that I could do this and that if I succeed,

it's great. And if I fail, it's okay. If my family will still love me. When I finally told them that this is what I wanted to do, all of my whole family and my friends were just like, finally, man, it took you long enough.

We all have just been waiting for you to come to terms with it. So that was really nice. It's just been a positive environment for me throughout this entire process. And once in a while, so good. New episodes of the McCarthy's every Thursday on CBS and C-Full episodes right now at CBS.com.

That might be it for now, but we're back again in a few days as always and in all the usual places too. Like MichaelDavisWorld.com, ComicMix.com, GetThePointRadio.com, and of course, in the iTunes podcast directory. On social media, we're The Point Radio on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. And again, be right back here with us in a few days. GetThePointRadio.com