INTERVIEW: PAUL WALTER HAUSER

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I N T E RV I E W Paul Walter Hauser

ON HIS JOURNEY FROM VIRGINIA TO CRUELLA

INTERVIEWED BY DAVE CURTIS

When did when did you realise you wanted to be an actor? Where did the love come from?

I was always trying to have my voice heard because I was one of four kids; I have a brother and two sisters. So, part of it just came from having a voice amidst a cacophony of family members. Then I got into theatre and I remember at a young age like seven or eight years old, audi�oning for a school play and they gave me a one liner and the one liner wasn't funny. I remember, kind of being chapped about it like “hey they should have given me a bigger part or a be�er part!” That was at seven so clearly, the pathe�c actor psychology of “Look at me, look at me look at me” as Olivier said, that was already taking place at a young age. But it wasn't un�l I saw the movie A Few Good Men, when I was like 10/11 years old, that I realised there was more to the cra� of ac�ng than, you know, the guys I had grown up with. No offence to them, as they're brilliant comedic people, but I'd mostly been watching Chris Farley sketches on Saturday Night Live, Jim Varney playing his famous character Ernest and Mrs. Doub�ire was the height of my film watching. So, watching Cruise and Nicholson go at it, that was a big deal to me, where I said I want to know what this genre is. I want to know why I believe that these two guys hate each other. Why do I even believe that, what are they doing to make me believe that they hate each other, even though it's a fake circumstance and that kind of fueled my interest. Then I got pre�y obsessed with all this stuff.

What did you do to get no�ced, did you do school plays, is that where it started and then local theatre?

I didn't do any local theatre; I didn't like the local theatre, to be honest, it was always a li�le cheesy for me and at one point I had a guy come to our high school for career day and he was very sweet and kind of offered me a $2500 scholarship to go to a college and take the theatre programme. “Well, that's cool but I don't actually like that theatre, I don't think it's very good.” So, I kept telling them I wanted to move to LA and in front of a classroom se�ng, this educator who I respected said you shouldn't move to LA, you shouldn't go to Hollywood, nobody ever makes it doing that and I kind of said to him in front of the classroom. I was like, “Well, I'm going to try it anyway.” It got kind of awkward and conten�ous where it was the adults who told me I couldn't do it I was like, “fuck you, I will do it!” Also; “thank you for saying that, because now I'm pissed, and now maybe that's going to help me do it.”

“You get to hang out with creative people, you get to fraternise and socialise

I had a lot of support, but there were a couple people who said don't do New York, don't do LA, it's going eat you alive and I just knew that I had the desire and some of the talent and that hopefully I could make that work. So, I le� my home state and I started doing stand-up comedy, taking improvisa�onal theatre courses, I took a few of those and I wrote screenplays like a madman. I wrote a movie every year for a decade. I ended up ge�ng represented, booked a part in a movie in my hometown and then shipped out to LA with some money in my pocket, a bunch of scripts and I got my first movie with Jennifer Connelly and Ed Harris, which is a pre�y terrific entry into the business.

That was Virginia right, did you get any good advice while on that? I saw an interview with Jimmy Kimmel when you told the story about how you got that part. When you went for an audi�on and you thought I'll try my luck just talking to the director.

I just wanted to be a background actor and then I ended up cha�ng to Dus�n Lance Black for a minute, 90 second’s totals. It was nothing, but he wrote my name down and invited me back, then I booked the part and that was my entry. I think as far as lessons learned on the set of that movie, one lesson I learned was preparedness, you know, Jennifer Connelly was very prepared. You know she's a mother, she's got kids at home, she's leaving them to do work. That's got to weigh on you. We did a night shoot �ll two in the morning and she had a fever of like 103, and she was all going at, it working really hard. So, I think her work ethic and preparedness is great and that I think the sort of leisurely nonchalance with which Ed Harris carried himself was equal parts helpful, because there was a day where I my character dies, a death scene I had to do. I didn't know how they were going to shoot it. I didn't know if they were going to end on a close up or something pulling out. I had no idea. So, I just prepared emo�onally, really heavily and kind of carried that burden of what was going to happen to me on screen. Ed Harris at one point looks to me, “like you okay bud?” because I was like, “yeah, I have to die today.” I'm pacing around listening to Coldplay or some such borderline nonsense. Then I said “Ed, you've probably had to die in movies any advice?” He goes; “Cowboys and Indians. You get shot bang you fall over.” In the moment, I thought it was kind of a BS sort of remark and I was not offended, but a li�le hurt. But later on, I would realise the intellect with which he was describing that choice which is, “don't treat it like a Movie Moment and just, keep it simple, and keep it honest.” Keep it simple, keep it real, don't overthink it.

So that was your first movie, what was that feeling like finally being on set. Was it everything you imagined it to be?

I remember a lot of fascina�on with the small details. The fact that I could grab a case of beer in a scene, and it was not a Miller Lite or a Budweiser. It had a fake name on it. The li�le things were fascina�ng and fun and, you know, just a lot of fresh gra�tude that I try to make real every �me I am on a movie set or TV set. You're ea�ng two meals a day for free, somebody puts an umbrella over your head when it's raining or if it's blistering hot. You get to hang out with crea�ve people, you get to fraternise and socialise. I did this Disney movie Cruella and I would be in my trailer six to seven hours a day, not doing shit. So, I would basically grab a snack and some sparkling water and sit in my trailer and watch movies all day. It was, one of the 17 Pinewoods or whatever. But I mean, even as a young guy on my first movies there were chunks of �me where there was nothing to do and I was already prepared for my scenes. I would just watch movies or talk to crew members, read books. It was so fun. It was so freaking easy some days and I thought, I can't believe I get to do this.

And that really got you excited and wan�ng to do that for the rest of your career?

Yeah, well I always wanted to do that, I just didn't know how realis�c it was, but I knew I was going to at least try, even if I failed. At least I can say I tried.

So, the next move was to move to LA?

I moved to LA and I booked a couple of TV shows. I did a pilot with Larry Charles, Anthony Hines and Paul Kay. That did not move forward at CBS and then I did a guest on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and co-star on Community. I booked a movie with Aaron Paul called Adam, which was shot in 2010 and came out like last year. Total freaking mess, but at least I got to work with Aaron Paul - that was cool. I just kept doing gigs and trying to work my way in and, eventually, my big break (or what I call my break)

was in 2014 when I booked the show Kingdom with Frank Grillo, Jonathan Tucker, Nick Jonas and Ma� Laurie and that was that was sort of the first real gig I had, in the sense of qui�ng my day job, making not huge money, but enough to live off ac�ng. I was ge�ng to make choices and kind of be the curator for all of my crea�vity, whereas before it was a lot of fear. It was, “maybe I'll try to improvise on the third take or I'll pepper in li�le things, but I don't want to rock the boat.” But with Kingdom, I was only supposed to be in two episodes. The only reason I stayed as long as I did and they kept wri�ng me in was because I improvised, I kind got to be man of my own ship and made it my own, and that was a big moment of growth for me. By the end of those 25/26 episodes, it felt like I had finally earned my bachelor’s degree in ac�ng. Since then, 2016 �ll now, I feel like I'm earning my master's degree, I'm trying to try to get my masters in ac�ng a�er ge�ng that baseline of knowledge and experience.

I've watched your demo reel earlier, it's on IMDB weirdly, and at the end there's a sec�on where you make the whole cast of Always Sunny laugh. That must have been so nice, did that give you confidence?

Yeah, moments like that feel good. There's maybe three people I've made break character. That was a big moment, it was a moment for me privately. One of those people is Charlie Day. Another one of those people was Vince Vaughn, I worked with Jane Krakowski on Kimmy Schmidt and man oh man she's so funny. Weirdly effortlessly funny, and moments like that, ge�ng to crack up people that you know are really funny that feels good.

“The version of comedy I really love is something like Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading

Do you prefer doing comedy, or do you prefer drama?

I've tried to be funny in my daily life, just keep things light and do characters and make my friends and family laugh. So, I kind of scratch that itch in real life daily. I would prefer to do drama, because I keep wan�ng to prove that I can crawl into somebody else's skin now. The version of comedy I really love is something like Brad Pi� in Burn A�er Reading or John Goodman in Big Lebowski. It's not full-on comedy but it's a very comedic character or a heightened character in another way, in different genres that aren't straigh�orward comedy.

Does comedy give you more room to improvise or in working with someone like Clint Eastwood, is there any improvisa�on on his films?

My best improv has been in dramas not comedies. I improvised a whole scene with Sam Rockwell that made it into Richard Jewell, a scene where I kicked the table and I yell at Sam and I go for a cookie, I break the cookie jar. That whole scene I would say, at least 85 to 90% of that scene was improvised. People would never know it watching it, but I think, really great improv works in drama because you're giving the same inten�on, you're hi�ng the same beats, but you're also pu�ng in words that feel right coming out of your mouth. Now Billy Ray is a tremendous writer who wrote Richard Jewell, I would never need to rewrite Billy Ray. It's not a necessity. It's just a nice crea�ve op�on if things get stale or wayward or a li�le lost. Like the day I shot that scene I was ge�ng lost. I didn't know where the fuck I was and I was freaking out. I was like, “I don't know if this scene works” and we're about to wrap up. Sam, being the great team member which he is, he sensed this, then he goes, “you know what, why don't we just throw it all away. Hauser let's do it again, let's just try it. Let's not even think about it, just go right away”. We did that and that was the take they used in the movie. The one where we just kind of threw everything away.

I bet when you see that back now, that puts a smile on your face, knowing that you and Sam Rockwell are just improvising.

It just makes me relieved that it works. For me once again it's best idea wins. It's not like I'm oozing with pride that I you know my words are on screen it's more, “Thank god the audience felt what they felt and that we gave that to them”. In the moment it's hard to tell. There were moments on BlacKkKlansman, now I love Spike Lee, especially 25th Hour and Do the Right Thing. I love that dude, but there were moments on set, when we're all yelling racist crap at a movie screen. I'm looking around, I'm like, “the guy from That 70s Show is playing David Duke, and I look like an absolute, you know, beastly gross disgus�ng person.” We're having this moment where we're saying these terrible things. I just had a couple of flash moments of, “is this movie going to be good?” What are we making? This feels crazy!

Same with I Tonya, yeah, we're amusing ourselves and we're doing the work, but this feels kind of crazy, is this going to turn out the way we want it to? I'd be lying if I said I walked away from BlacKkKlansman or I Tonya and did a “knuckle crack, stretch your hands, I feel good.” It's like an inside joke. You and your friends have an inside joke and you think, “God, this is hilarious”, but when you try to explain the inside joke, it doesn't always translate to other people. So that's kind of how these movies have felt some�mes.

How do you keep your cool when you're around people like Spike Lee, Clint Eastwood and Kathy Bates for example, is that something you've got used to? Was there ever a point when you thought, fuck that's Jennifer Connelly and Ed Harris?

I think I'm used to it now. I made a lot of rookie mistakes. I remember I did stand-up comedy with David A�ell one �me in front of 2000 college students. I remember I said to him, I was like “what was it like wri�ng for SNL?” and Dave A�ell just got me in a headlock in front of all these guys, and he goes “look at who fucking Wikipediaed me,” you could tell he just really didn't want to talk about it and I was like, “oh.” There were moments early on where I'd bring up projects and stuff that actors or filmmakers wouldn't want to talk about and that's the fanboy coming out rather than the teammate, the occupa�onal equal. So, it's hard for me to shed that skin, but I think I've shed it for the most part. I s�ll have occasional moments of, “oh wow I just met so and so.” Those s�ll happen once in a while, but not as much.

Is there anyone that you'd lose your shit over if you met them now?

I don't think I would even lose my shit over mee�ng anybody so much as I would be deeply engaged and excited to meet the actors, not even meet but I want to work with. Guys like Peter Sarsgaard, Laura Dern, Michael Shannon and Regina King. There's maybe 8 to 10 people that I really put on another level, and ge�ng to work with them would be a real treat.

And they are all on your list at the moment, are you knocking on doors trying to get parts with them?

I don’t knock as much anymore; it's more just reading scripts. Then I would say four or five �mes a year, I get heated and passionate about wan�ng to pursue a movie or something, but I kind of just see what people think I'm right for and see what they envision me doing. Some�mes it's like hey, “you want to play this fat guy who lives with his mom and plays video games and dies by ea�ng a bag of, you know, snack crackers” and I'm like, “Nope, I don't want to play that guy.” Then because I pass on that, I'm available when someone comes around says “hey do you want to do this biopic with Amy Adams” and then it's like “holy shit yeah, I do want to do that biopic with Amy Adams” and that's kind of how it goes. You kind of have to wait and see what comes to you, but you can't be afraid to say no, you have to you have to look out for yourself and I'm s�ll learning how to do that.

CREDIT:20THCENTURYFOX