Sometimes you see an actor, and while you might not know his name straight away, they just can’t help but make an impression.
In a nutshell, that’s Michael Kelly.
From roles in Dawn of the Dead to a huge run on House of Cards; Michael Kelly is one of those guys you just love seeing pop up on your screen and he plays Mike November in the second season of Jack Ryan that is now on DVD, Blu-Ray as well as Amazon Prime for all to enjoy.
We talk a little about the challenges of jumping from hit show to hit show, what he looks for in a script, iconic lines from his past and the freedom and joy to have a little fun while on the job.
Dave Voigt: Obviously congratulations on the show, but I’m always kind of curious because you just came off such a long run with House of Cards; is there any hesitation to come into a big show like Jack Ryan after such a long and unique run on another show, or is it helpful for you to be able to flip that switch and jump into something like this where you are making a pretty big contribution right away?
Michael Kelly: A little bit of both to be honest because one of the most appealing things with Jack Ryan inviting me to come on what was already a very successful show is that it was a one year deal. I had just finished seven years of my life for six months out of the year in Baltimore doing House of Cards. Just having this one year deal was really incredibly appealing to me because to be quite honest, I just wasn’t ready to commit for another 6-7 years to something and it was an opportunity to not only really play a character who was very different from what I had been playing, but also to work with someone that I already knew, because I had done a film with John (Krasinski) already and had worked with his wife Emily (Blunt) before so this felt like the perfect band-aid and something I could be comfortable in after all those years on House of Cards.
It was such perfect timing and I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better thing to jump on to because it was just so much fun. We had an absolute blast shooting Jack Ryan and it let me take a breath and release the weight that was House of Cards off of my shoulders. Don’t get me wrong I loved my time on House of Cards but Jack Ryan was such a change of pace for me both personally and professionally and it couldn’t have come at a better time.
Is that something you find draws you into a role when you are going out for parts because Mike November really is different from many of the roles you have played in the past?
Yeah, it was so important to me because as I face timed with everyone on the show after I had gotten the offer, I wanted to be very clear that after I had read the script I could see different ways to play the character and I really didn’t want to be this buttoned up “suit & tie” kind of guy every day. Thankfully they were really open for me to bring anything I wanted to the character and I felt very free to make this into a guy who was a little different that anything you had seen from me in the past, and they trusted me and gave me the freedom to play something I felt a little more in tune with. The funny thing is that in real life, I’m usually a very jovial kind of guy with a smile on my face because really ever since Dawn of the Dead I was just getting type cast as the heavy bad guy who destroys everybody and that’s just not me.
I really needed an excuse to laugh while on the job and that made this job so joyous on many different levels.
I’m so glad you brought up Dawn of the Dead because I am up here in Toronto and am a huge fan of some of the lines you have in that movie. Every actor always seems to have one line that follows them around in their career; is “Fucking Figures” the one for you or is there something else that gets quoted back to you when you’re out in public?
(Laughs) That is a big one, but I think my favourite is when we’re getting chased and we all pile into the elevator with the musak playing and I remember Zack Snyder just telling me it’s going to be dead silence in there and I asked him, what’s going to be playing? He said “Probably Girl From Ipanema and we’ll just put it in during post and during the scene I just ad libbed “I like this song” and the room just erupted in laughter and it made it into the movie.
The really cool thing about Dawn of The Dead is just how much of it we made up on the spot because Zack and the producer Eric Newman where literally writing in their trailers every day and we filmed something that ended up being totally different then what we went there with. It was just a blast, and the zinger I had when I called Ving Rhames ‘Shaq’ just had the place in stitches. In that scene Mekhi Phifer had a gun in my face and when I delivered the line he just burst into tears laughing.
That movie had a few classic lines in them and they get quoted back at me quite often. (Laughs)
When you’re working does the real joy of it all come from having that freedom to improvise and riff rather than being dedicated word for word to the script?
Oh yeah, Jack Ryan was very similar and if you had a good idea it was OK to go off from the script once in awhile. It’s OK to try things, on House of Cards it was NOT OK (Laughs). Plus especially on House of Cards it just wasn’t a language I was familiar with, I got an education to be sure but it was a learning curve where meanwhile someone like CJ from Dawn of the Dead was a little closer to how I might sound in real life, same with Mike November when he’s just being a person and not CIA guy, there’s definitely some room to riff and try things. I like working both styles and I don’t necessarily have a preference but when the opportunity is there with great actors like John and Wendell (Pierce) who can just react to what you are saying, it’s a lot of fun.
Do you think there is any kind of traditional or straight ahead comedy in your future because you’ve obviously got the chops but when you roll down your IMDB page you have been playing the “Buttoned Down Bad-Ass” type for awhile now?
I know, it’s funny but to be fair, since House of Cards I’ve been exceptionally lucky in that most of my jobs since then have come in the form of an ‘offer’ (or a meeting) rather than me needing to go audition for something but they’ve also been the type of roles that I’ve played in the past. But for me personally, I did a bunch of commercials for Supercuts just so people could see that I can be funny and it’s worked out. There was a guy who called my team who flat out said that I never thought in a million years that I could do comedy and we went down that road talking about a half hour show for awhile.
Ultimately would I like to do a comedy?
GOD YES!… but every time someone considers me for something comedic they just say “OK, send us some tape of him being funny and we’ll push it on through”…BUT THERE ISN’T ANY? (Laughs). That being said hopefully I can find more stuff like Mike November and I can ease my way into that world.
Jack Ryan: Season Two is available on DVD, Blu-Ray, On Demand and Amazon Prime.
