The following interview for Backstage’s on-camera series The Slate was compiled in part by Backstage readers just like you! Follow us on Twitter (@Backstage) and Instagram (@backstagecast) to stay in the loop on upcoming interviews and to submit your questions.
Jonathan Tucker’s acting career has taken him from indie darlings to big budget blockbusters, from character-driven TV dramas to horror series, and everything in between. But one thing hasn’t changed as the actor has moved from project to project: his dedication to finding the human truth at the core of each performance. Previously beloved for his acclaimed performance on “Kingdom,” he can currently be seen starring as Bryan on NBC’s hit sci-fi series “Debris.” In conversation with Backstage, he says he relies on all of his experiences throughout his career, from both successes and failures, to inform the work he does to this day.
Shooting during the pandemic has reinforced some of Tucker’s core acting tenants.
“I think [the pandemic] has underscored something that I already knew was true, which is that nothing really matters other than what you’re capturing on the day when the cameras are rolling. It’s critical to be kind to people, to be respectful to people’s processes, to show up with enthusiasm and excitement in your heart and in your body, but you have to recognize that what the cameras turn over is what people are going to see and remember as an audience. And there’s so many extraneous factors, from somebody standing in your eyeline, to having somebody cut you off in traffic that morning, to the set not being what you might have expected, to a department failing you in some respect, and none of that can influence the work that you’re doing. You can’t be grumpy because something happened, or excited because you got some offer for some other job. You gotta be present in what’s happening.”
Playing Brian on “Debris” gave him the opportunity to play something quieter than “Kingdom.”
“More than just the script, I was interested in sci-fi, and I was interested in [working with series creator] Joel [Wyman], who worked on ‘Lost’ and ‘Fringe’ and ‘Almost Human.’ You know, this is one of the things where the cross between traditional business and entertainment business, you can start to find those parallels: The best investors invest in people, and I was investing in Joel. And this was a project that had a number of key elements to it, and a role that would allow me to kind of unspool over 13 episodes. Jay Kulina was a privilege on ‘Kingdom,’ and I certainly know I can do that, I think people recognize that I can play a character with that grandiosity. This gave me an opportunity to do something quieter.”
An Acting Teacher’s Take on What the Alexander Technique Can Do for You Tucker’s technique as an actor comes from multiple disciplines.
“I’m very interested in this idea that the body knows more than the mind does., and Alexander Technique is a great way into that. I work with a guy named Jean-Louis Rodrigue out here in Los Angeles with Alexander and animal work. And then I’ve been working with a coach named John Markland for a long time, who kind of ties together all of these disparate disciplines or ways into the character, and applies them into this fun, Freudian, self-conscious work, dream work. And we have very long, intimate, deep conversations that look much more like a therapy session than an acting session. But it brings you back to the fact that one of the privileges of being an actor is that it is an all-encompassing experience for your life. And the better you know yourself, and understand yourself, and what you’re capable of, the more you can eliminate fear from yourself so that it’s not interfering with your choices from your intuition, and your gut instinct, the more successful you can be in your life, and as an actor. So, I’ve found that working with these different people and building a character from multiple places has been the way in which I find a reliable method to getting to the character.”
Tucker wants actors to know that they can always be working, even if they don’t book a job.
“In your heart and your mind, you have to bifurcate work and employment. People often say, ‘Well, I haven’t worked a lot,’ or, ‘I haven’t worked in six months,’ or, ‘I don’t have a lot of work under my belt.’ No, no, no. You can always be working, you can always get up as an actor and work, or as a filmmaker and work. In any creative source, you can get up and work. Whether it means you are going to a coffee shop with a notebook and ordering a water and just taking notes of people for a few hours, how they walk, and how they move, and how they hold space, and hold utensils, and communicate with each other. You can go to the zoo and look at animals, you can read plays, you can do scene work, you can be in class. Just because you haven’t been employed, or you’re not as employed as you want, doesn’t have any bearing on whether you’re working or not. And what you end up finding very quickly is you feel good when you’ve worked. You feel content, you feel satisfied as an actor. You go to bed at night going, ‘I’m an actor.’ It reminds you that you are an actor, you are a filmmaker if you’re actually doing something. And it’s the same feeling you have when you put your head on the pillow after you’ve shot all day on a film set with a huge budget. Your body doesn’t know the difference, your heart doesn’t know the difference.”
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