Lee Russell is such a unique character, in terms of the blend of his silly affectations and his genuinely sinister inner life. How much of Lee was on the page when you got the script and how much were you able to bring to the character, with the bow tie and the frosted tips and all that?
God, its like what came first, the egg or the chicken, man? Danny had written frosted tips. That was in there, as well as exactly how Lee Russell would dress, with a lot of it coming from our costume designer. The rest of it, Danny said, Do whatever it is that you want to do. When you have writing thats that good, its much easier for someone in my position to interpret it because youre not concerned with having to fix something. Youre just able to let it all out, and to explore this character in many, many different ways. You just kind of see it, at least I do. Like Chris Mannix, for instance, I just knew him immediately. I knew Boyd Crowder immediately. Shane Vendrell, I knew immediately. I knew Venus Van Dam immediately.
How did you hit upon that accent?
I grew up in Georgia and I knew people that were similar to Lee Russell in their mannerisms and behavior. And some were marginalized because they were gay, and others were marginalized because they just had great style and they were different. On some level, I kind of had my cake and ate it too I was a metrosexual way before that word was ever put out into the lexicon. I knew people like that and I saw that, and so for me it just made sense that thats where Lee Russell was coming from. Danny was also privy to those personalities in the town that he grew up in in Virginia, and so I think its an amalgamation of all of it life experience and exposure to people like this, and then things that youve just picked up along the way.
Your specialty is that you can play evil or flawed people and still project a lot of warmth and even likability on screen. Is that something youre attracted to, that dichotomy, as an actor? Or do you find that writers and directors see that in you and end up offering you those types of roles?
I think its a combination of both. I genuinely am attracted to people like this. I dont know if I just kind of keep replaying this cycle or this emotional journey, although its with completely different people under completely different circumstances. I dont know if Im atoning for sins in previous lives. I have no idea. Ive been given an opportunity and I am very excited by the prospect of playing people that have a long way to go, and that more often than not start off at a place of arrested development, and are hopefully walking towards the light of liberation from what has caused them so much pain.
Arent we all Lee Russell, man? Arent we all Boyd Crowder on some level? Maybe theres guys who can play the everyman or the dude in the romantic comedy. But maybe that is farce because that person doesnt exist. Thats like saying you come from a normal family, and none of us do. I think maybe I am being given an opportunity to play the everyman because I think there is Lee Russell, and Boyd Crowder, and Shane Vendrell, and Venus Van Dam, and Chris Mannix within all of us. Some of us just get to the lesson a lot quicker than these guys do.
