How Matt Bomer Gets Into Character

[Music] how are you been I'm good I'm good it's good to see you again Wow yeah for those just tuning in Matt was featured on our cover at backstage a few months back and I had the pleasure of sitting with him for that yeah and thank you so much for making the time to chat with us today thank you all so much yeah the season 3 finale of this I really loved watching along this season and you of course we're so excellent and I feel like obviously we're living in pretty extraordinary times right now and what some people want is just a good TV show well my goodness if it gave anyone just an hour of escape then how's it feel now that I mean I feel like this was such a big part of your life it's all out in the world yeah I mean honestly at this point in time just with everything going on I'm even doing something like this feels almost indulgent I just I'm so grateful that people stayed with the story and and stayed with the journey these characters were on over the course this season and and stuck it out with all of us so I guess I just feel really grateful right now to everyone who committed to going on this ride this season and it certainly is an excellent turn from you of course but Jamie is a pretty dark character it's a grueling devoted performance what was it like for you to kind of tap into that and make it all come to life well I was getting to work with wonderful creatives all around me which always makes it a lot easier even when it's darker material but it was you know it was a story that asked a lot of the audience it asked a lot of all the actors involved and telling the story in a good way I would say the more challenging aspects were keeping the character grounded in a sense of real humanity and truth [Music] and keeping Jamie someone who could do anything at any given moment and and making sure his unpredictability in his sense of danger was something that came from a really organic and true place and wasn't just you know twirling a moustache or you know contrived in any way you know a complex character just in the sense that he has that kind of magnetism to him and you can tell especially in the earlier episodes that he means well that his heart is in the right place at least for the first half of the series yeah so what was that like for you to kind of negotiate the fact that you might be sympathizing with someone who was performing these atrocities well um I think as an actor you're always your character's defense attorney you know I could never come at him from a place of judgment because I figured once I did that it was kind of over for me would it would lose all its appeal the challenging aspect was knowing everything that he was feeling and everything that he was holding down and subjugating within himself and having that inside him even in the earlier episodes even though I couldn't really reveal it all to the audience it was sort of like playing a game of poker both with Ambrose and Lila but also with the audience but yeah I tried to always come at it in terms of human behavior and his truth and what he was going through and what his sense of convictions were in terms of his his morals and philosophies I always think of him you know if you think about like there is a certain magnetism about people when they are so committed to certain philosophies even if you look at somebody like Manson you know there there is a certain magnetism about these people and the egos involved and I think that sort of who Nick was to Jamie the tricky thing about Jamie as these trying to take he's having this romance with this philosophy but he really doesn't have emotional life and he certainly doesn't have the spiritual life to be able to bolster himself when his life starts to fall apart because there is that whole line between Harry and Jamie in the final episode where Jamie feels like he's taking on the role that Nick played in his life for Harry why do you think that characters like Harry characters like Sonya I was especially fascinated that they were so drawn to Jamie despite the fact that he's a dangerous what did you make well those are a couple different questions I can't really speak for their characters or the actors who played those characters but I think certainly from knowing Ambrose and getting to know Sonya over the course of the season we we've seen that they're people who tend to think outside the box so they could understand or maybe see a little bit of themselves and somebody who also was calling into question a society where we're all glued to our cellphones and not really connecting with each other but in terms of Jamie what was the question you asked oh yeah exactly you can't really have a shepherd without a flock no you need it's it's a road you want to go down with somebody else and I think when Jamie realized he lost that a Nick he sees Ambrose as somebody who he can reinstate that relationship with and have somebody to push himself to the edge with yeah to to dire consequences to say the least I said before you joined us Matt that we are going to get into a bit of spoiler territory so for those who haven't watched the season finale which was last night be sure to catch up on it but also spoiler alert I did want to ask you specifically about that last standoff between Jamie and Harry because aside from the emotional capacity news that I've seen there's fight choreography there's violence like how do you go about approaching something like that a co-star like the opponent well you're so grateful you have someone like Bill who's such a professional and is gonna be as dedicated and committed to it as you hope that you are as an actor um you know it was it was strung out over the course of a few days between all the physical violence and then you know the subsequent kind of standoff and ending but I remember there were scenes where bill and I it was two o'clock in the morning it was freezing cold neither of us were dressed for the cold and we were just sitting there beating beating each other beating on each other for hours on end yeah but there was an amazing thing that happened and bill was just fantastic to have as a partner because I knew he was gonna be right there for me wherever it went but also having Derek Simons the Creator was a wonderful artist to have him directing that episode he was so invested in the characters and particularly in Jamie's last scene we had this experience we have a wonderful crew on the show who are lovely people I love working with them but it was the last thing we filmed really and he just called everyone to order on set and just said let's give this scene the respect and the gravity it needs and if the performers need and let's really bolster Matt in this moment and I've never had a director like aspera everybody's support on a difficult scene but I felt it and it really I don't know it just freed me up to go places that were outside of my head or anything I'd preconceived for the moment you know I haven't seen it our cable one out yet so I will be watching it you can take my word and everyone watching know we are getting a few audience questions in and just in terms of Jamie Instagram user Mariana Saranga curious to know what your prep is like when you're preparing for a role like Jamie I know that we talked about that in our cover story but can you give us a give us an overview on how you actually found your way in yeah this this one was really unique because as we've spoken about when we we talked a few months ago we did this workshop where we incorporate our dreams and our subconscious into the work which was the first for me and I know that seems really kind of esoteric and numinous but it really does get the material under your skin and gets you out of your head in a really great way so we did that work with Kim Gillingham who is phenomenal and then I always have the incredible Larry Moss as a resource in New York and Nancy banks in LA who I could always check in with on certain scenes and it was a lot of work it was really immersive and then I tried to just make sure I carved out you know a couple hours when I was home or an hour sometimes not even that because the turnaround would be so quick but just to kind of shake it off and go on a walk and be myself for a while before having to dive into the next day's material but yeah I mean it's not like we were walking I was walking around in a cloud the whole time but you did just because the nature of television and how fast it moves you did in the space where you needed to be sounds like it was important for you to have that time to shake it off yeah it did mess with my psyche in ways I didn't even realize I guess I've been working on the role for about two months or a month and a half before I had a chance to go home and I was at the airport and I've been looking at the lines for the next week and I started looking around at the people around me and of judging and assessing people attached to their phones are disconnected from each other and a very similar way to Jamie yeah and it started to freak me out a little bit so it did you don't really realize it when you're in the thick of it how deep it can go and then thankfully Kim and I came up with this big ritual at the end of filming to kind of let go of everything and I thought that would be kind of a clean break but then you know the show comes out and you're revisiting some of the material when you're watching it and there are these little echoes and hiccups and I don't know I guess if you ask for your subconscious to be involved in the character then good or bad whether the character is right or wrong a part of you is a part of them so it's ultimately always gonna be a little bit of you as well just kind of big picture now that it's a rapt project do you feel like you learned something on this project and if you could pinpoint it no question I mean just that whole using the dreams and the subconscious to influence your work and really exercises we learn to get out of your head a television in particular can turn into a very cerebral game because especially if you're in most of the scenes on a show because you're constantly learning new material and having to churn it out try to make choices quickly but to be able to get deep enough in the character where you've still felt like you didn't have to have anything planned when you came to work you knew you'd be able to work from that character and where they were at that given place and time I think that was really great and also just getting to work with great artists all around Derrick Symons who's so collaborative and chris messina and bill were both wonderful and and furry sets who are wonderful actors who never approach a scene in a contrived or linear way there's always going to be a sense of freedom discovery in the moment when you're working with actors like that and that's something that I would love if possible to carry with me on jobs to come this start is a group effort it started as a workshop with what the cast members us all getting to know each other and take risks in front of each other and bond and so it had that sense of ensemble from the get-go and I my very first acting class wasn't an Bogart workshop so that kind of group mentality and I grew up playing team sports so anytime a project has that kind of group connection where we're all in it together I felt the same thing on white collar actually we were on together just trying to make the best story we can that's always my favorite environment to be in well congratulations again before we get going here I would be remiss not to mention the fact that we're talking in pretty extraordinary times we're all isolating we're good I say we because we're a family yeah three children and I'm three boys who all have spring fever so there's that it's like just trying to prevent it from becoming Lord of the Flies I'm kidding we're great I'm so thankful to have them you know I'm thankful to get time with them I feel you know really blessed to be able to say that but they kids keep you in the moment and I think what I've found just from talking with people and connecting with people is that all the the news cycles and the media cycles can really keep you out of the moment and oh my gosh what could happen what's going to happen this just happen here is gonna happen to me as US and we're all in a place now where we're starting to have people who are we know and love were directly affected by this so the more I find that I can just try to stay in the moment the better but as much as I try that you know dirt I'm like something comes out where I think I'm fine then all of a sudden I drop a dish and I'm just an ass that's like I think we're all experiencing those kinds of things but it's a great time to connect with those who love and I just started I'm gonna do a like some group video conferencing with friends the kids have been in school we've been doing the homeschooling so that's been that keeping them engaged you know it's been pretty full-on I'm not gonna lie but now they're technically on spring break with spring fever so I'm gonna have a little bit more time to socialize the people outside of our immediate group a bit and we're gonna do some video conferencing and I've been trying to like stay engage with my artistry and things like that and I actually been doing we have an old rickety upright piano and I've been doing piano lessons that you can do online all right and it's just a great way to kind of give myself something to do creatively yeah it's not first because I minored in music at college but it was really just chords and and learning to flaunt things out but this is kind of starting from scratch with the classical piano training so to be that rudimentary it's something at my age is kinda like wow going back to kindergarten was a final question for you then of course a lot of the backstage readers out there are the working actors of the world it's a it's a time where a lot is up in the air so what advice do you have to stay creatively engaged during the period when everything is kind of pushing against that yeah it's tricky times and I see from all angles in the biz but in the business you know people are like what's gonna happen how's this gonna affect us how's it gonna fall out I would say it's a great time to read books if to act like I'm gonna start reading the Elia Kazan's book on Direct because that's one that's been on the back burner for me I would say it's a great time to write if there's anything you've ever wanted to write for yourself or for someone else just to as a creative exercise it's a great time to do that you've got all the solids food you need for the most part or if you have a family like we do you can try to carve out some time to do it or you know if you want to do something like piano lessons there are great online companies if you've wanted to take voice lessons or piano lessons whoo I think the piano lessons that I'm taking are actually you know they're not exorbitantly priced and you're getting a pretty good education for an hour a week just to keep the creative juices flowing so and you're supporting another artist who's still trying to carve out but living for themselves in a time when they can't directly interact with someone it's a matter of fixing your mindset a little bit it's good not to be a time to be isolated yeah and I find for me I'm somebody who needs some kind of physical outlet every day so I'm finding things like online yoga classes or exercise classes really helpful for me just to try to stay centered well thank you for those who haven't tuned in to the season finale sure to check it out and thanks for your time thank you so much everyone out there I wish you and all those you love the best of health and safety at this time Ben it's always great to talk to you and thank all of you for all your support this time it really means a lot to me and for watching the show and going on this this wild ride with us this season thanks everybody you too

Channel: Backstage

Views: 5,426

Rating: 4.9402986 out of 5

Keywords: actor, actress, castings, auditions, backstage, back stage, matt bomer, the sinner

Id: cNxW4BFAX0k

Length: 20min 3sec (1203 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 23 2020