S C O T T S P E E D M A N
Interview} John Russo
Photographs by} John Russo
Digital cover & video by} Ken Waller
Produced by} Ken Waller for Photohouse Productions
Location} Los Angeles, California
Grooming} Joanna Ford for The Wall Group
Styling} Jennifer Austin
JR: How are you?
SS: Just getting ready for the day.
JR: You are taking the, “I’m just getting out of bed” to the next level. (laughs)
SS: I have been up since six, but it takes me a while to really get my head around it.
JR: Today is my birthday and I get to talk to you.
SS: Happy birthday. What are you going to do?
JR: I will probably play some tennis and then I am going to have a little party at the house, for twenty people, which I never have tons of people over, but I have this big house and I am like shit, I should probably start to use the backyard and have a party, so that is what is going to happen. You will have to come up.
SS: Yeah I have to see this.
JR: You will be like, shit, I need to live here now!
SS: Yeah, don’t tell my girlfriend that, she will be all about it. (laughs)
She wants to go there sooner than later I think. But yeah, we will see.
JR: That’s awesome. Well you sound like you have a nice area where you are, so that’s a good thing.
SS: In time yeah, we are still waiting on permits, but it’s going to be soon I think.
JR: Well finally I got to work with you after all these years, so that’s a really good thing. Yeah it was fun. The photos were pretty awesome!
SS: Yeah they were good, they were really good, I like them.
JR: Nice. So we will jump right into it. So on set you mentioned to me that you finally watched Felicity. What took you so long to do this?
(laughs)
SS: Oh wow, what a big question. I think at that age, everything is just so dramatic, I was twenty-two when I got that show and I got that show out of, I was sleeping on my mom’s couch in Toronto, three days later I was in LA shooting the Pilot. Tried to leave, wanted to go back to Toronto, they were like no, no, we need to put you in a school, they rented me an apartment, rented me a car, gave me a hundred dollars a week to live off, and I had to pretend to be a student in Pasadena so they could get me in the country legally, it was just so crazy and emotional and dramatic. And then I saw the Pilot, I remember seeing that and being of course very insecure, traumatized by me, but I saw that it was, whatever my abilities were, I do think I had a good idea of what was going to work and not, even at a young age. I thought that show was going to work the minute I got around all those people and that kind of thing. So it was just pretty much a roller coaster from that point on. And when it did come on and became the show that it did and popular, it was just hard for me, for my brain to understand that five million people were watching it every Thursday at 8 or whatever it was. So I definitely back other people with a different sort of extroverted look at being an actor or an entertainer or whatever, to lean into that and I definitely leaned out. So I did not see the show at all, although I saw ADR stuff and clips and I understood the tone and the tenor of it, but I never sat down and really watched it.
JR: I was in my 20s when that came out and I watched it and it was like a huge deal, you couldn’t wait for a new episode to come. So it was kind of like a part of my life and many people that are my age, like wow, Felicity, that was the show. So that’s cool.
SS: It was cool. Going back and making me watch it to do this podcast that JJ did with his company Bad Robot, it was cool to go back and they picked good episodes for me to watch. And I was blown away by it to be totally honest. I mean just the way it was shot with Matt and JJ and the way it looked and I didn’t know what I was doing at all as an actor, but that worked so well in a way that almost you have never been better in a way. They were shooting me in the right way and the writing was so good and the part was so good for me at that time, it was sort of overwhelming to watch, to be honest, to see what an engaging, the actors were so good at that stuff.
JR: That’s awesome. Well now your new show, Teacup is produced by the legendary James Wan.
SS: Yeah.
JR: Who I just photographed like three weeks ago.
SS: Oh you did?
JR: So random. I photographed him for Esquire and he is such an awesome guy and fun.
SS: Yeah he’s really nice.
JR: He’s just an awesome guy. I hope to hang out with him, really fun. So how was the experience of working on one of his productions? I mean he is kind of like iconic in that genre.
SS: Yeah. Look I mean I am a big fan of his movies and when this script came around, the person that wrote the scripts, I knew. Ian McCulloch and I had read his unproduced TV show, The Fade and it never got made. But I had read this script and fell in love with that script and fell in love with him as a writer. And then we were working on another script together and I brought him on this thing that we were developing, this movie that never came to fruition, not yet anyway. So when I heard he was doing something in the horror space with James Wan, it was really interesting to me because Ian is, he is kind of this really interesting, almost he does these like neo-Western type things. So I was really curious how he was going to meld the world of James Wan and his world and when I got the scripts they were the best of both worlds and in a sense that they had all the elements of his impending dread, but also with Ian’s really specific writing. So he didn’t know I got the scripts, I got the scripts and read and devoured them and then went on a campaign to try to get hired to be on this show to work with him really. And then just having Atomic Monster and James Wan there to guide us and work through everything was obviously invaluable.
JR: So what is it about horror films that you think resonates so well with audiences?
SS: Well I think, I remember just to bring up something, The Conjuring, when the first one came out, James Wan’s movie, I thought well, I was with my buddy that I see a lot of movies with, I was like, we got to go see it with an audience. And I think some of the comedy space that we have diverted from is going to come back and there’s that too with the comedy space. But I think something, there’s something weird and great and I don’t know if you have seen the Jaws footage of people watching Jaws for the first time or The Shining or The Exorcist, how people reacted as an audience, as a whole. And they use it in marketing campaigns and I think there’s something about this communal space of sitting down and being terrified all together and going through the jump scares. We have a friend we always try to see horror movies with because she screams so loud, almost inappropriately loud at everything, so it becomes this kind of fun thing to go and do. And I think that’s why it’s really enjoyable to watch all these movies altogether.
JR: So looking back on your career, is there anything you would have changed?
SS: Oh my God yes, of course, yeah, sure. (laughter) It kind of goes back to your first question and how I answered that, absolutely. It’s a good luck, bad luck thing when you get your first break, but I look at some guys coming into their big moments now and they are older and more seasoned and have gone through the ups and downs of understanding who they are as men really. And I was twenty-two and that was awesome and I wouldn’t change a thing for the world, that’s been my experience. But when that first wave came, that was a tough one for me to sort of get on the horse and just go with it and take that ride. I had a very kind of reluctant engagement with whatever, quote-unquote, the business and fame what have you, who I was at that time. So yeah, that part of it, there were opportunities that I just couldn’t deal with at that time. I hate when people get into specific movies that they had turned down because I don’t feel like that is a good thing, but there definitely things that now I would jump at the chance to take on those opportunities.
JR: Do you think there is one defining film in your career that you think changed the perception of what you can bring to the table?
SS: I think internally, not so much from an audience perspective, but I think something like My Life Without Me was, this movie I did with Sarah Polley and Mark Ruffalo and it wasn’t like the most groundbreaking role or anything like that, I was just coming off of Felicity and I had a movie called Underworld that was happening at the same time and it was commercial and successful and then this film came out which was like an indie film that kind of presented me in a different light and sort of allowed people to see me in a different way. But honestly, more now I think of things that I don’t think have happened in a weird way, I am actually still kind of like finding that role now that redefines me in a different way, as this older dude in his late 40s. So there is kind of stuff in the past that I have done, but I am always trying to do that now. There’s stuff like five years ago that I am doing now that I could have done five years ago. And I am just trying to find something that really, not just scares me so much, but like oh I didn’t know I could do that and take that on.
JR: So Hollywood has changed since the Felicity days. Do you think it has changed for the better or the worse?
SS: No, look, I mean I was lucky enough to not have cameras in my face. I lived a pretty classic 90s existence as somewhat of a well-known guy around town and thank God there was no Instagram in my face and people taking pictures and doing all that, the ubiquitous nature of phones and cameras really, of filming everything, that would have been a disaster. And I think that also dictated our behavior and we were allowed to be a little freer and made mistakes and fuck up and all the things, in good ways and bad ways. But I don’t think social media at large has been anything but terrible for our business to be totally honest with you (laughs), I don’t think that’s a good thing. I worry about bad for sure, I am glad I didn’t come up in it. I remember when it started becoming more popular in 2012 it was sort of this drawing line I think of where the entertainment business went to.
JR: I couldn’t agree with you more most of my friends are actors and I have seen lots of them be vocal and I don’t want to say put their foot in their mouth, but once it’s out there, you will be punished for everything that you say. And it’s so unfortunate and even though my Instagram is just really about my work…
SS: Your pictures are your work…
JR: Political shit I don’t talk about, candidates I don’t talk about. These rights, those rights, it’s like why would I give people ammunition against me? And I think in our industry it’s the same thing. I mean you watch so many actors that because they spoke up big they got canceled or because they did this, they are a piece of shit or they get canceled and it’s very unfortunate and it’s that fine line of like do you do the social media or do you stay away from it?
SS: Yeah I am in the middle ground. I do it, but I am half-ass doing it. It’s not anything like, again, I remember there were certain people coming out when I first started coming out and they were just so extroverted and there was the natural fit and I think some people have a natural fit with that and I just don’t. But the sharing of the personal side of things, that’s a tough thing for me to get my head around, but I am not out of it. But I mean there is a big movement and I think there are a lot of people who don’t do it that I love and respect and some I know and some I don’t. And I think I would like to see, I have a kid now and when she goes off to school there is a big movement about getting phones at school and I think that’s been not good for any sort of discourse, political, entertainment, anything, in education it hasn’t really been a good thing. So I am hoping there is sort of a movement away from that. But we will see, I don’t know, we will see.
JR: Thank you. Great talking to you! That was quick, easy, and painless.
SS: Yes, just like your photoshoot man, they told me you were fast, but I didn’t know you were that fast. And you are really good, so I appreciate that too.
JR: Hopefully we will get to work together again soon, I would love that.
SS: Yeah man, for sure. Happy Birthday!
To learn more about Scott Speedman follow him @scottspeedman
Watch Teacup on Peacock.