The Devil In The Details with Mark Pellegrino pt.1
Mark promised me to say a lot of embarrassing things…let’s see if he lived up to his promise.
Lots of spoilers for “AMERICAN RUST” and “CLASS OF ’09” ahead. Beware.
Rose – How are you? And how do you feel to be back in the UK?
Mark - I feel good, but of course, I feel tired and I shouldn't because I've been in Europe for the past week and a half, but that jet lag won’t seem to leave me. So, I think it’s my age. I'm just finding it harder and harder to bounce back from travel if we are used to it. But I love it here in the UK. I mean, the UK is America's ancestor, our spiritual and intellectual ancestor. So we share a lot of things. Culturally, we share the same...I don't know that we do now, but we share the same kind of view of human nature and common law and rights. And it's nice to be in a country that believes that those things are natural to people, and not given to us by our overlords. And so it's great to experience the culture again and to see it in great weather. It's been sunny the last couple of days. I'm not used to that. It’s been warm, And the venue’s in the country, so I get to see the beautiful English countryside. It's nice. I like it a lot.
R - Do you remember when was your last time in the UK, was before the pandemic?
M – Yeah... my last con in the UK I think was Starfury – Crossroads.
R – I never attended one!
M – Yeah that is nice too. It’s a great venue.
R - I want to next year!
M – But I like these guys!
R – Amazingstoke!
M – Yeah these guys are amazing, I hope they do this again.
R – A lot of people are hopeful for that. Jeffrey Dean Morgan wants to be here next year. Do you remember when was literally your first con? And how you felt, because it was like a new experience?
M – My first con ever was in the UK, Birmingham. A bunch of actors from Supernatural were there. I remember being very awkward...a very small venue. The room was about like this… there were about 40 or 50 people there and we were on a Q&A panel all of us together for the first time for all of us. We didn't know really how to act or what to say, probably fell out, too much of an impulse to entertain, so we're probably doing too much but it was fun and I liked it, and I wanted to do more of them so that I could get better at it. I loved being with the fans and over the years it sort of exploded and that will room with 40 people became a room with you in 3000 4000 people. It's nice to see how this type of business has exploded! I mean they’ve had conventions for 40, 50 years with Star Wars...etc. The conventions used to be looked such a fringy thing to do you know, but now it’s cool to be a nerd.
R - It's more than that, it's like a family. I know the Creation has been around since the 60s or 70s it's crazy! It's different there; they were extremely organized but everything was on time...
M - I like creation yeah..good peeps.
R - About that...do you have any convention stories that you wanna share? Fun, weird anything you remember?
M – I get asked questions like this a lot, cause I get the feeling fans think our lives are so exotic that we must have all these crazy experiences to talk about. For some folks, it can be true, but I’m sort of like Jennifer Aniston camp from friends, a great actress. I feel like my life is sort of boring to other people if they were to see it right. I mean I have a few loves. I watch films with my wife, we get into TV shows for TV talk, I do my podcasts, I read a lot, I write reality checks and then I go to these conventions and I try to give value to people when I'm here and inspire when I can. But I don't have any particularly crazier funny experiences to talk about, other than maybe the time that Richard Speight, you know gave me enough alcohol to get me to go up on stage and sing for the first time.
R – That is on YouTube so everyone watched *chuckles*
M – Yeah I wasn’t gonna do it, now I don’t drink anymore so…
R – He doesn’t have that power over you anymore. Thank you. About Supernatural, I just have one question because you’ve been answering about it the whole weekend:
Did you imagine playing Lucifer like forever if they presented you with that opportunity?
M - No I don't, I don't ever consider there's anything forever. Like shows go for a while, and they get a cold status, and reruns, an indication that goes on for a long time, but you never know, and in Hollywood, you’re short of an itinerant worker, you’re vagabond, contractor for hire. You hope that whatever you’re doing has purchase and works, if it does, and luck and this is one of those shows that luckily was the most popular sci-fi show on CW.
It's definitely gonna be around for a long time, which is great for the writers, and good for us, and people will always associate me with one of the most interesting historical mystical figures in history. I never thought it would go on for as long as it did, but I’m happy it has.
R – We are happy it did, and we love your character.
Okay, so let's go a little back. I remember that you mention the story in a few podcasts, and interviews that you were in a GarageBand, what was your function in the band? I remember that you played guitar.
M – I was a singer in the band. At that time I was having vocal lessons, I had 3 and a half range, which is a very good range for a singer. The only reason I talk about that range is that I was in the band at a time when Heavy Metal and hairbands in the 80s were alive - all about the high-octane voices. My voice is deeper. I didn’t have my own identity at that time like those guys, I was a young kid. Our band was mostly friends from school and there is a festival they had at this school, with thousands of people, we were like let's make a band, and let's take a few months to write a bunch of songs so we can play the May festival.
And that's what we essentially did. We wrote about six songs original songs, and then we had like 4, 5 cover songs, so we had 11 song sets. Our first concert live was in front of like 3000 people! And it was fun…It wasn’t fun but it was good! But I didn’t enjoy it, because I wasn’t singing in my own voice, I didn't know what I wanted to be musically yet. I had these standards of vocalists that were not me. I could never live up to their level.
It was like always performing with an eye on myself, and that's never fun to perform with always an eye on yourself.
We did that, and we played together to like a couple of parties, and then you know people went to college and they just separated in their own way, and I know the drummer I think is a professional drummer, the bassist became a major doctor and he could play any instrument, and the guy who was the guitarist works in computers, but he's a genius, they’re all great real musicians. But we never got together like a reunion again, but if we did, we would do very different stuff.
R - What gender you played in the band?
M - Heavy metal. Our cover songs were from Saxon, Billy Idol, Judas Priest…
R – I love that. I would love that. So, at that time you didn't have the dream to pursue a musical career? Get that higher like the bands that you admired?
M - I couldn't get out of comparing myself. You have to have your own thing you know, and that means when you're doing a cover, it should have your own signature on it. Can you listen to Led Zeppelin do “Ramble On” right and then you listen to Train doing a cover of that song. And it's fucking great because it has its own signature. The musicians know who they are and they make it just as nice and maybe even better.
And I didn't have that sense of self yet. I think I have that sense of self now, the genre that I would play now would be more Blues, something quieter.
R – Cool I really enjoy Blues. We know that you recently finished American Rust, can you tell me how was the experience in this second season in comparison to the first one? - SPOILERS
M - Yeah so the first season took place in the middle of the Covid epidemic so we literally flew out to Pittsburgh to do a cast return to start production when the Covid hit. We all flew back home, we stayed isolated for eight months. Then we flew back in, and we're under strict Covid procedures.
That whole first season was very antiseptic. You didn't have the experience that you normally have when you're in a series regular on a cast, you bond with all the other cast members, you go out to dinner together, and even the producers in the network get you to have a dinner together like so they get everybody talking with each other in familiar and comfortable. None of that happened because of the Covid protocols and then they started changing how they film films because of the Covid protocol.
And it sort of started happening a little bit before Covid. I remember doing it on “13 Reasons Why”, because instead of shooting an episode at the time, they’re shooting two episodes so you're always shooting two episodes, so they block shoot each thing. So yeah you get all your stuff on in a week and then you have like a couple weeks off, and then all your stuff again in another week, and then you can have a couple weeks off instead of you know working every other day for a couple of weeks. So it's a more efficient way of filming, you just don't get as much intimate time with the cast and so it feels like you're not connected with anyone. This time there less of those protocols, but they're still there, so you know I spent more time in the cast. Especially the person who plays my wife, Maura Tierney, we have great chemistry, and we went to a football game together, one of my bucket list things that I didn't mention was going to a Steelers game, Pittsburgh Steelers game. I went with her, her sister, and her sister’s son, and Maura’s boyfriend was stuck in Afghanistan.
I hung out with my son, and my son and I did some grappling in, so that was cool. My tv son, not my real son. That was nice, and the script gave me a lot more to do. My character is a lot more developed, more flamboyant fun and and some crazy arcs in that character are sort of interesting and make him sympathetic. I think season two is going to be really good, faster than the first one, adventurous, the stuff that's going isn’t so internal, there’s a lot of exterior crises that everybody is going through, mysteries to solve I'm looking for the season two. Not necessarily looking forward to the nude scene, that's in there...but I’m letting know in advance that is there.
R - I’m not going to say anything about that Mark. Let’s move on to the next question. *laughs in the background*
M – Because it’s Freevee they were very specific about everything. Because these sex, sexy scenes are sometimes in certain film genres.
So we had to move a particular way. The camera had to go over us in a particular way, and everything was very antiseptic. And there was a kid on the set because he is the one that is supposed to discover us, we had to film in a way he couldn't see any of the stuff that was going on, it was weird. I'm always very professional with that kind of stuff...and the poor girl I mean we’re both except for the little covers, we were completely naked, so it’s a very vulnerable place for her to be constantly, so I’m covering her, making sure she was ok and safe…but it’s there it's there for eternity now.
R - But I know you did a lot of those scenes. How is that for you? I did theatre once and I was playing the main character and I had to pretend a sex scene and I was like uncomfortable.
M – It’s mostly not cool. It's not as cool as it would be. Sometimes you have chemistry with a girl, and if there is no other attachment or commitments, so yes sometimes you can feel things during the scenes, but it's mostly there's too much going on through that to actually happen. And but it certainly makes it nicer when there's chemistry between the two of you, but you always have to make sure that everybody is aware of boundaries cause it is very easy for boundaries to get crossed in those areas, and actors and actresses are notorious for crossing boundaries in those areas using them, men using that moment, and sometimes women as well, to take vantage of the moment, and do more than they should be doing.
But it’s business. You’re doing business.
R – Yeah, it’s what I think when I watch actors in TV shows and movies it's business, they’re paid to do that to perform that.
How different is the American Rust set from Supernatural?
M - I mean the cast more than the crew, but in Supernatural you bond with the crew two.
We all know each other and we're talking to each other between takes, I'm not talking to the Dolly grip you know between takes, but me and Dave we were talking about coffees we like, there was this that he turn me on to, it had coconut oil, butter, and really good for you, and also we talked about Hell; me and Brad when I was drinking he was the first camera guy operator, he and I went to the camera trunk at the end of the day and have a couple of shots of bourbon together, he was the funniest guy. And my wife plays words with friends with a surge the DP of Supernatural he's from Montréal speaks French, and my wife, beats him by 100 points on French. It’s different like I could see myself going out to dinner with all the guys from the crew in Supernatural, I don't see that happening in American Rust unless you know we go for a few years ago and we get to know each other.
R - Makes total sense. Recently you had “Class Of 09”. What can you tell us about your character, Mark Tupirik? - SPOILERS
M – Not much...it was a strange show for Fox, big production value ambitions show about the FBI that takes place in three timelines past, present, and future. I guess the main story point is the development of AI in the criminal process. Process of catching criminals and stuff. I played this rather cliché character, a cult leader, survivalist militia guy, white supremacist fuck, that was at war with the federal government, as we all are, and plotting to take down the FBI which I do, I blow up the fucking FBI. Unfortunately, they never really resolve my character. Strangely, they had lots of their turnover in the production, and creative party production crew because of the director who said you have to resolve his storyline he just disappears after the FBI blows up. Like what happens? And I don’t think they knew what happens. So that’s the story, I blow up the FBI, I’m caught I go somewhere but we don't know where, what happens or if I escape, or if the explosion killed me, I don't know what happened, but you know all the future stuff everybody is affected by that event that I did. I read some reviews on it, and they’re as confused as I am so you can see it for yourself and tell me if it's confusing.
R – Oh okay! I’ll tell you my feedback when I read it.
Ending of part one.
Part Two is coming soon :)
