Hobo Radio Interviews

Most kids secretly dream of being Batman, so its ironic that the man who played the Dark Knight for the past 18 years grew up having no clue who Batman was.

Still, it seems like a role Kevin Conroy was destined to play. Like Bruce Wayne, Conroy’s unique childhood left him feeling isolated from his peers until he found his true calling and got his life back on track.

For Conroy, that calling was acting. He graduated from Juilliard and pursued a career in theatre and television before landing the role of Batman on Batman: The Animated Series. Since then, he has played the character in a variety of television shows, video games and movies, including the recently released Batman: Arkham Asylum and Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.

We recently talked to Conroy about the Caped Crusader, Mark Hamill and Christian Bale’s ill-advised Batman voice. This week, we bring you audio highlights from that interview. You can find the full interview here: http://www.hobotrashcan.com/2009/10/01/one-on-one-with-kevin-conroy/

You know you’re a smooth operator when

Playing Briggs on the hit show is David Ramsey, a man so cool that he openly admits to owning a moped, which he used to drive around the streets of LA. Ramsey recently talked to us about the new season of Dexter, his affinity for “charactery” roles and the love scene with Kerry Washington he can’t show his wife.

How did you get into acting? When did you decide it’s what you wanted to do for a living?

It’s strange for me because my parents have been together for almost 50 years; I’m from Detroit, Mich., and I have two older brothers, an older sister and a younger sister. There are five of us. And my second oldest brother is an incredible artist and actor. I saw him perform in some little church community play when I was about 12 and I always idolized him. I wanted to be like him and so that’s what I really wanted to do.

Oddly enough, it turns out that he and I are kind of estranged at this point. We don’t really talk very much and he went off to do different things with his life. But originally, that’s what the deal was. I wanted to be like my brother. And then, as time went on, I realized that I really did have some talent in these areas and I just decided to keep on doing it. And listen, for a nerdy kid like me, 12, growing up in Detroit, it got a lot of attention from girls. So I kind of appreciated that. And the rest is history.

So did you start doing local theatre in Detroit?

Yeah, just kind of local stuff. I went to this school called Wayne State University in Detroit and before that, in high school I was doing school plays and I went to college and did some stuff and I worked in the local professional theatre as a college student. So I was doing pretty well in Detroit and I was accepted to USC Film and didn’t go. I just stayed in Detroit and studied theatre. I didn’t quite know if I wanted to go into film production or theatre. And I was 17 and my mother was like, “You know, I don’t want you going all the way to California.”

And I’ll tell you something. I came out here after I graduated from Wayne State in ‘93 and I was 21 or whatever when I came out here, 22, whatever. And if I had come out here when I was 17, I don’t know what I would have done. Seventeen in Southern California from Detroit or any of those Midwestern cities, it’s just you don’t want to do that. There’s so much temptation. You’re like a kid in a candy store at 21, so if I was 17, it would have been crazy. So my mother was right.

I stayed in Detroit; I did local theatre around the city. I did a lot of professional theatre, a lot of community theatre and just kind of earned my stripes. And there was a dean of the theatre department at Wayne State University, who knew I was interested in coming out to California and he had a contact. He knew the head of casting at ABC Daytime casting and he called her and said, “You know, there’s a great actor here, a young actor named David Ramsey, and he’s coming out to Los Angeles and I would love for you to meet him.”

And she sent me what are called sides. I didn’t know what sides were at this point. It was of a scene in General Hospital. And she talked to me on the phone and said, “You come out here, have the audition ready and let’s meet.” I did, I came out and I stayed in Orange County with a friend of a friend and I drove from Orange County to Los Angeles and I auditioned for her.

She said, “You know something? You are really talented. You need an agent. You have to have an agent in Los Angeles.” So she called about six people and I went on these interviews with these agents and one agent, Bauman and Associates, they’re still around, we fell in love with each other and I was with them for a number of years. That’s how I first got into LA. It was just a matter of some people kind of doing me a favor here, doing me a favor here and thinking maybe I was somewhat talented and giving me things I probably didn’t deserve.

Did you work pretty steadily starting out? Were you able to be just an actor?

When I first came out here, I was like Quentin Tarantino; I worked at a video store. And I was on a moped. I came out here with about 700 bucks in my pocket. And I had a headache for about two days when I first came out here because you come out here from like Detroit or any of these cities like Detroit or Ann Arbor, Buffalo or something; they’re nice-sized cities, but you just can’t compare them to the metropolis of a city like Los Angeles, how sprawling LA is.

And when I came out here, it was just so much. This isn’t a city where you kind of have a downtown where most of the action is and then the city is built around downtown. That’s not the way LA is. You kind of have these districts like Culver City, Beverly Hills, West LA, Santa Monica, The Valley, Downtown, Korea Town. You know, all these things that kind of exist within their own as a personality, and I just wasn’t used to that. So I had a moped and I just drove around the city and I was just flabbergasted at how much culture and the landscape of the city just kind of amazes me.

So anyway, I had a job at 20-20 Video. That was my first job and I worked there for a few years. Within about 26 months, maybe two years, maybe a little less than that, I kind of started to work and I got a little guest spot on The Bold and the Beautiful and there was a show called Murder One, which was this [Steven] Bochco show that dealt with a case for a whole season. The premise was kind of based off of dealing with one murder trial for a whole season from the O.J. trial. I got that. And then I got Con Air, which was a big movie. I did Nutty Professor. So I couldn’t continue working at my video store. So after about two years, I became a legitimate working actor in Los Angeles.

At what point did you sell the moped?

You know what’s weird? I’m staring at the moped right now. It doesn’t work. I don’t even know if it can be restored. I banged it up, but I will not get rid of this thing. I’m looking at it right now. It’s a Yamaha 200, it’s black and it’s completely beat to crap, but I just keep it as a reminder of how it started.

You could start a thing with the paparazzi. You’re starting to get bigger now, so you start driving a moped around, it might become like a cool thing. You might bring back the moped.

You know, I hadn’t thought of that. It’s not real high on the cool quotient, but you know, I might consider that.

But it’s so uncool, that it’s almost …

You’re right, you’re right, and then it becomes cool. You and I agree. It’s so uncool that it just might become hip.

You have had guest spots on a variety of shows, including CSI, CSI: Miami, The West Wing and Criminal Minds. Are you someone who enjoys getting to go in and do different characters?

The character actors have all the fun, I’ve come to realize. I kind of somewhat, at first, got pegged as a leading guy a little bit, but the character actors have a lot of fun. And the guest stars get to kind of be charactery. It’s weird because, listen, at the end of the day, does everyone love that regular job on a show as a series regular? Yes, of course. And I’ve had that and I’ve done Dexter for a season, I’m doing Dexter right now. It’s a guest star role and he gets to be a little charactery. And that’s fun. You kind of get to sink your teeth into a character.

And oddly enough, when you’re in an ensemble sometimes, as a regular on a show, you just kind of facilitate the show and facilitate the script. Not that that’s bad, because that’s great and it’s fantastic, but sometimes as a guest star, you kind of come in and you add a spark and you get to do things that even the leads don’t get to do in some cases.

A great example would be this role I’m playing on Dexter. I got to sing and play the guitar and I nearly get murdered on the show. I mean, these are things that didn’t happen to the regular cast. It has been and it still is a great character and sometimes the guest stars get a lot of meat. I’ve been very fortunate.

With Dexter, we’ve got to say you have definitely had a presence on this last season. They introduced you and all of the sudden you are dating one of the main characters, you’re getting kidnapped; you definitely had a big impact on the season. And you were certainly a welcome addition to the show. But how did that come about? How did you end up on Dexter?

I was just coming off of this movie called Nailed, which is with Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel. And we shot that in South Carolina, which that movie, by itself, has a lot of personality. But anyway, I came in and my manager called me and said, “There’s a great guest role for Dexter and the producers would like to meet you.” I said great.

I went in and I met with producers, Sarah and some other people there and we just hit it off. It was great. It was just a meeting and they wanted me to read and I did. But it was really just about a connection that we all kind of shared in the room. And that was it. The next thing I know, I’m playing Dexter’s sister’s boyfriend. And I’m playing the guitar.

And listen, they jumped right into it. They called me and said, “We want to give you guitar lessons.” I picked around on guitar back in college, but I never really played it. Now I’m having four lessons a week for the next three months. I’m becoming a fairly decent amateur guitarist. I’m working with a great jazz guitar player, who is incredible, and I’m learning the guitar. They’re teaching me the guitar for this role.

That’s what I’m saying. When you look at the regular characters on the show and then you have this guest star come in and he gets to sing and play the guitar, that’s a great role. I don’t even know if the regulars get to have that type of meat to play with. This role has been really a great treat for me. Anton has been incredible, not just because of what they are giving me in terms of playing the guitar and singing, but just the personality that they’ve allowed me to bring to him. The words they are giving me.

Dexter is a great show. It’s just been nominated for an Emmy this year. And it’s just been great to be part of it. It’s been a lot of fun.

Do you have a hit song that you’ve got down at this point with your guitar lessons? Do you have your own “Free Bird” yet?

I don’t yet. There is a song that Anton made famous on the show called “Una Puta Flaca Mala,” which is Spanish for “white skinny bitch.” And he was talking about Debra in the song. I got a lot of hits on my website and blog about how funny that song was. So that song, Anton’s made famous, but I don’t have anything personally for David yet. But that one has been a hit for me.

Did the writers give you any indication of where things were headed with your character or when Anton got kidnapped, were you looking at the scripts every week wondering if Anton is going to get out of it?

It’s interesting you asked that because David Zayas, who is on the show as well, he told me: “A lot of times, we don’t know necessarily week to week what’s going to happen.” So no. The quick answer would be yes and no. First of all, they do tell me where the character is going, but no they don’t tell me ultimately where he will wind up. They kind of give me a roundabout suggestion as to where he’s going for the next couple of episodes, but ultimately, do I know what will happen to him at the end of the season? No. Did I know that he was going to survive the skinning? No, I didn’t know that.

For example, when I came in and I read the script and I found out I was being skinned, people came up to me at the table reading like, “David, it was great working with you.” Other actors and other people from the show were like, “David, you did a fantastic job on the show. We were fortunate to have you.” I was just saying thanks.

And the producers won’t even look at me. The writers won’t even look at me. Because they know. They’ll just say, “Hey, great read, Dave,” and they’ll disappear. They gave me no time or opportunity to probe them at all. Fortunately enough for me, I find out the next week that no, I do indeed survive the attack and I go on and we continue to live together.

So no, they are not forthright with letting us know exactly where the character will end up.

You are filming season four now. Obviously, you can’t say much, but can you give any indication what is in store?

Yes and no. The relationship between me and Debra deepens, I can tell you that. She moves in. We live together now. But I can’t go much further than that.

In terms of the show, you may or may not know this, but last season Jimmy Smits was the season-long heavy on the show. He was the ultimate nemesis for Dexter. And that same format will be followed this year. There will be one actor who is a nemesis for Dexter the whole season long. That you should probably know just in general for the show.

But in terms of me, Anton, I can only tell you that the relationship between me and Debra deepens to a new level.

You mentioned the film Nailed with Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal. What can you tell us about that film and your role in it?

Catherine Keener, myself and Paul Reubens, a.k.a. Pee Wee Herman, play kind of the group of nemeses for Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s a political satire. And it was a lot of fun. We shot it over a year ago in Columbia, South Carolina and again, it’s another charactery role where I kind of get to play. David O. Russell directed it and he let me play. I’ve been fortunate to get to work with directors that let me play. I worked on Pay It Forward some years ago, with Haley Joel Osment and Kevin Spacey; another funny role in that movie where Mimi Leder, who directed it, kind of let me play.

It’s interesting when you work with directors. They’ll have an idea of what you should do and you do it. Then, you kind of come in and say, “Can I try one take doing this?” And, they’re like, “Alright, just try it.” And you do and they love it. That ends up being the take that they keep, the one that you came up with. So, like I said, I’ve been fortunate to have directors who have allowed me to play around.

Do you know when Nailed will come out?

Nailed is supposed to be out hopefully next year, along with the movie I just finished called Mother and Child. That was directed by Rodrigo García and that’s with Naomi Watts and Kerry Washington and I think Sam Jackson has a role in that as well, and Annette Bening. That should be out next year, as well.

Mother and Child is a more of a dramatic film and you are married to Kerry Washington in it, correct?

I am. And we have a love scene in it. You know what’s funny? Rodrigo, who is the director, I was doing ADR and he said, “Oh man, your stuff in the film is fantastic.”

I said, “Great, great.”

He said, “The love scene between you and Kerry …”

I said, “Uh huh.”

He said, “Don’t let your wife come to the premiere.”

I said, “Really?”

He said, “Oh, hot.”

I said, “That hot?”

Everyone in the room said, “Hot.”

I was like, “Oh my god. I can’t wait to see it.” They didn’t let me see it.

But that was a lot of fun. Me and Kerry are playing husband and wife and we can’t conceive and it deals with some of the drama and the tragedy of that. It was a dramatic turn for me, I guess a lot like Anton on Dexter. But, you know, you’re working with some of the best actors in the business with Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, Kerry Washington, Sam Jackson. You have a tendency of just getting better when you are around that type of talent. Either you shrink or you rise to the occasion. Hopefully, in my case, I rose to the occasion.

Most important, how does your wife feel about the scene? You haven’t had the premiere yet, but did you already warn her about it?

Well, we haven’t had the premiere yet and so she hasn’t seen it, but I told her what Rodrigo said because she would have killed me if he has said something like that and I didn’t tell her, so I made sure I told her. And she said, “Great, I won’t be coming to the premiere.”

What other projects are you working on?

Well, Dexter is really taking a lot of the time right now. Like I said, I just got finished with Mother and Child. So we’ll see how long we can ride this Dexter situation out. Fortunate for us, we were nominated for an Emmy and so, all of that bodes well for the show. The show has been picked up for this season four and season five, so it has at least two more seasons. So it will be around for a couple more years. We’ll see what happens to Anton on the show.

Try to stay out of trouble. No dangerous situations.

I know. This guy, this guy. That’s what happens sometimes. He’s a confident informant, C.I., and sometimes they get skinned. What can you say?

Occupational hazard.

It’s an occupational hazard.

What would you be doing for a living if you never got into acting?

I heard someone once say, “Only become an actor if there is nothing else you can do.” I think they were right, for a lot of different reasons. It’s a very tough business. There’s a lot of rejection. There’s a lot of second guessing. That can do a lot to your psyche, to your personality, to your self-assurance. Obviously, if you just hear that once or twice, it’s one thing. But when you have that happening to yourself every single day, then it can grow old.

That’s one element of it. The other element of it is just dealing with creating a character, the politics of it. This is a very political game.

So I don’t know what I would be doing if I wasn’t an actor because I think I was born to do this. And I have that type of resolve and I think that type of resolve is needed to really be successful in this business. I think you have to have a determination that says, “I’m here to stay and I’m giving it up until the tank’s empty. I’m not saving anything. This is who I am, this is all I’m giving, this is all I am. And I’m married to it.”

So a quick answer to your question would be: I was born to do this and if I wasn’t doing this, I just wouldn’t be here. This is what I’m here to do.

Tell us something most people don’t know about you.

Well, I’ve been in this business a long time, so I’m immensely private, so that’s probably why people haven’t heard about me as much as they have. Because I haven’t chased after the paparazzi as much as probably other actors have. I am very private and most people probably know that about me.

What most people don’t know about me is that I’m an avid kung fu practitioner. And maybe that helps me keep some sense of solace in this business. It centers me. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. And I meditate a lot.

I guess something else about me is, even with practicing kung fu and trying to shy away from the paparazzi, I’m an action junkie. You would think those things wouldn’t coincide. You meditate a lot, you stay away from the paparazzi, yet you like and are drawn to a lot of action. How those two contradictory things exist in the same person is I guess what makes us human.

But I love to jump out of planes, I love fast cars, I love fast motorcycles. I have a couple of motorcycles and I had a fast car before I totaled it. So I love fast things, but at the same time, I’m a very, very calm person. I kind of work with those dualities, like a lot of actors do. I think a lot of actors have a few personalities they deal with.

What does the future hold for you?

I think I’m here for the long haul. I think that I’ll be in this business doing acting until I’m retiring age, until I’m 80 or older. I think the sky’s the limit.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy. Season four of Dexter begins September 27 on Showtime. For more information on David Ramsey, visit his official website.

You can listen to audio highlights of our interview with David Ramsey by clicking on the play button below or by subscribing to our Hobo Radio podcast:

From the moment he first arrived on screen claiming to be an innocent balloonist marooned on the island, Benjamin Linus has been an unstoppable force on Lost. While normally depicted as a cold and calculating villain, it now seems that Linus is the only character who can bring the Oceanic Six back to the island, saving humanity in the process.

Playing this complex and captivating character is Michael Emerson, a stage actor who made a name for himself on television by playing serial killer William Hinks on The Practice. We recently caught up with Emerson to talk about the complexities of Lost, the lighter side of Benjamin Linus and having microwavable food thrown at your head.

How did you get into acting and when did you decide it’s what you wanted to do for a living?

I got interested in it when I was a kid. The earliest memory I have of an urge to be on stage was I saw a kid that went to my church doing the school play at the high school and I just thought he was so great and so charismatic. I thought, “If I could ever be half that cool, I would want to do that.” So I studied it as an undergraduate in college and then I lost track of it for a long time. I fell into another line of work – I became a magazine illustrator and I did that all through my 20s. I didn’t become an actor again until my middle-30s. So I’ve come back to it late and I guess I’m still trying to make up for lost time.

Was acting something that you just couldn’t let go? What made you decide to go back to it?

I knew that my life would be in the arts and I had skills and sensibilities that lent themselves to the theatre or the graphic arts or what have you. But the longer I pursued the graphic arts, I realized that I was happy to be pursuing a creative field, but I wasn’t enjoying the process of it very much – the lonely hours hunched over a drawing table, the solitary nature of it. So I was glad when I got back to the theatre and I realized that the same set of tools could be brought to bear but in a somewhat more celebratory and social work setting. I felt that I then found the best of both worlds. So the theatre seems to work fine for me.

One of your first big television roles was playing serial killer William Hinks in The Practice, which earned you an Emmy. What was it like playing that role and how much of an impact do you think that character had on your acting career, including Damon Lindelof and Carlton’s Cuse’s decision to cast you as Benjamin Linus on Lost?

It was the first character of that sort I had ever played, whether it was on stage or in front of the camera. As you can see, it has colored all of the work I’ve done subsequently on TV for sure and possibly in the cinema as well. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It was a departure for me. I had always played mostly comical characters previous to that, but now that sort of positioned me into the “damaged and dangerous” kind of category, which is fine with me.

They continue to give me interesting characters and certainly Ben is a great and complicated and mysterious and wonderful undertaking. But it’s a type of playing that I wouldn’t have predicted would be my meat and potatoes and I wonder if there will be more of it in my life or if I’ll find a way into some other sort of type of character.

Lindelof said in interviews when Sayid captured Ben and first introduced the audience to your character, the plan was always to have Ben eventually revealed to be the leader of The Others, but the writers had a “trap door” in place to have Ben end up as just another Other in case the actor who played him wasn’t working out. When you were originally cast for that three-episode arc, did you know that was the case?

No, but that was my sort of intuition. Look, when you take a guest spot on TV, every actor sort of has that tiny kernel of hope at the back of his mind that you’re going to play this character so well that they’re going to figure out a way to keep you and that happened for me on Lost. And then, in hindsight, you say, “What was the dynamic of that exactly?” And I think it is just as you described – a sort of an onscreen screen test. They had written this character. They thought they liked it, they thought they would do things with it, but they were going to wait and see how it played out. Luckily it played out well with me with my portrayal, so they kept me in it and they ran with it. It was a kind of an audition that I passed and I’m glad to have passed it.

At what point did you start to get the sense that Benjamin Linus was going to be a big deal on the show?

In the early going, I don’t know, in the third or fourth episode that I was in when Sayid was still pressuring me to reveal my secrets or who I represented or who I was working for, it came to me one day, “Wouldn’t it be a neat twist if instead of being some henchman that I was actually the guy in charge?” And I actually mentioned it to a director on whatever episode it was and he said, “I can’t really discuss that with you.”

And then I thought, “Well, if I’m not on to something that’s true, I’m on to something that should be true or would be cool if it was true.” It turned out it was true.

So did you decide to play the character like that at that point?

I always played the character sort of the same, which was give up as little as possible, play it as earnest and let the business of who he was or what he was up to be a contract between the writers and the viewers.

Lindelof said that what sealed the deal for him and Carlton Cuse was the way you delivered the line “You guys got any milk?” during the chilling breakfast scene with Locke and Jack.

(Laughs.)

It’s the first time we see how cold and calculating the character can really be and your delivery of that line is perfect. Ben has had many more bone-chilling lines since then and you have a tendency to deliver his more disturbing lines perfectly calm, which makes him creepier than if you were adding inflection to his voice.

Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?

How did you come up with that? How did you decide to deliver his lines without any emotion?

I learned it on stage, where I learned everything that I do as an actor. I have played some villains, Shakespearean villains like Iago, and I learned that something that scares an audience is when the subtext of a line reading does not match what the line says. In other words, if someone is inappropriately cool in a hot situation, it unnerves the audience. They’re suspicious. To say the right words, but in the wrong tone is a good tool. It sends a signal. It suggests to us that this person doesn’t think like I do. Either this person is warped or crazy or this person is up to something.

With Ben, you certainly get the impression that there is a lot going on below the surface and that he’s constantly up to something.

And I think that’s an important effect to achieve in our work, at least with a character like Ben. One of the things the audience longs for is a sense of a character’s inner-life. And if you play a character that gives up little, then you want to suggest or promise that it’s not because there’s nothing to give up. It’s because they choose to keep it to themselves. It’s much more interesting.

When Ben was first introduced, it seemed quite clear that he was a villain on the show, but as the story has unfolded, we’ve become more sympathetic to him. The scene last year when Keamy killed Ben’s daughter in cold blood right in front of his eyes was truly heartbreaking and it showed just how vulnerable and human Ben actually is. Do you think of Ben as a villain? Do you think that as he says he is, he’s actually one of the good guys? How do you see the character?

I probably view him a little more sympathetically then most of the people who watch the show, but partly that’s craft and partly it’s that I really think he’s a more ambiguous creature than some people do. I think it’s entirely possible that he ends up being one of the heroes of the show because we don’t know what the stakes are for him. We don’t know who he’s fighting and for what. Maybe if we knew, we would admire his steadiness and his relentlessness.

And he definitely thinks that he’s right.

That’s certainly true. That’s safe to say. Ben believes pretty much everything he says and he’s not much of a liar really. He’s a manipulator, but he doesn’t tell that many lies. And he really hasn’t hurt that many people, in the present day at least.

We saw his honesty again in last week’s episode when Jack attempted to defend him and Ben admitted that he hired the lawyer who was attempting to prove that Kate isn’t Aaron’s mother.

Ben is nothing if not practical. He’d already gotten what he needed from that play, so why hide it? It’s a new deal now, they’re on the docks. So we need to talk frankly and they need to know the score. Or at least the part of the score that Ben is willing to reveal.

But this business of Ben becoming more complicated and less patently villain, that’s part of the whole mechanics of the show in general. The show started out to seem like a very simple story and as it’s gone it’s grown in complexity and ambiguity, as have most of the characters. All of those stereotypes seem to be in Lost to be broken down and reconfigured and recontextualized. And they’re great at that.

Your character has had some truly memorable interactions, particularly Locke, Jack and Charles Widmore. Do you have a favorite actor to work with on the set? Is there a particular character that if you see Ben has a scene with him you really look forward to it?

When I see that Terry [O’Quinn] and I are on the call sheet together, I know that it’s going to be a good day’s work. It’s going to be well played and it’s also going to be a fast and easy and lighthearted day because I think the Ben and John Locke scenes are brilliantly written and their dialogue or their dance is near the heart of the story of Lost. And we just work so well together. We’re of similar ages and similar craft and similar attitude about our work, so they are effortless days, they are carefree and the product always seems to turn out great.

Ben is definitely in Locke’s head, which is always great too.

Yeah. Well each of them is the nut the other cannot break somehow. They’re like irritants to each other and yet brothers in some strange way.

Earlier this season, you got a Hot Pocket thrown at your head when you spooked Hurley. How tough was it to keep a straight face during that scene?

Well, we did a lot of takes of it as you can imagine trying to get the Hot Pocket right. Some of them were too dry, some of them had way too much pizza sauce in them and they blew up like all over the place, so that was hilarious. Then it takes 10 minutes to get your straight face back on. But yeah, it was an interesting evening’s work. And, of course, they cut my deadpan response, which was: “Now that’s just a waste of a Hot Pocket.” (Laughs.) Which I thought was a classic downbeat Ben dry read, but they cut it.

They give Ben a lot more funny lines then the audience ever sees because that’s the first thing they’ll cut of Ben is when he’s being funny.

That’s too bad because he actually is a very funny character.

He’s very witty, I think. (Laughs.)

There are countless websites devoted to analyzing Lost and coming up with theories about the show. As an actor on the show, do you try to figure out what it all means or do you just focus on the script in front of you and focus on that day’s work?

We do both but like the viewers we’re sort of watchers of the show too. And as readers of the scripts, we’re continually trying to figure out what’s going on, where it’s headed or “Does this mean what I think it means?” We have those discussions on the set. Some people are more interested in that than others. I mean, Jorge [Garcia] is always a good one to talk about “All right man, where’s this thing going and what do you think?” because he keeps track of all of the most bizarre theories about the show and he’s also a sharp reader of the script. He can sort of read the mind of the writers a little bit, so sometimes he has a great idea of where a thing is leading.

Which is interesting too since the writers have said that his character a lot of times stands in for the audience – that he is used to represent what the audience is thinking.

He is. He is us if we were in that situation. Bewildered, bemused, out of place, ill-equipped, all of that. He’s an earthling amongst aliens.

Your wife is a huge fan of the show and she even played your mother in a flashback episode. Does she try to get inside information from you about the show?

No, she tries to get me to shut up. She’s a purist, you know? She doesn’t want to know anything before she witnesses it in the official and legal telecast. So I have to kind of be quiet. I’ll come home and say, “You’re never going to believe what I did today.”

And she’ll say, “Shut up! Shut up!”

Obviously, you don’t know what the writers have in store for your character or the show next season, but how would you like to see Lost end and how would you like to see things end for Ben?

I don’t know that Ben will end up being any different when this is all said and done than he has been right along. It may be that Ben is unchanged. We may just, because of circumstances that the writers create, we may just come to see him differently. The change may be in the viewer, not in the character.

The end of the whole story, the final conclusion – I hope it’s sort of contextual. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a thing that was in plain sight all along. I hope that it’s a thing where we go, “Oh my god, I should have known. It was there all the time. How did I not get that?” I hope that’s the note that we feel at the end of it all.

If anyone could pull that off, it would be the writers of Lost.

It’s going to be something where there’s one more dimension to the events we’ve witnessed than we thought or than we dreamed. Something that repositions everything. And I think these are the guys for the job. They’re deeply experienced and deeply read in science fiction and fantasy and horror and comic books. They are structurally brilliant. So if you can depend on anyone for an ending that means something, I think it will be these guys.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy. Lost airs Wednesday nights on ABC, but you probably already knew that.

You can listen to audio highlights of our interview with Michael Emerson by clicking on the play button below or by subscribing to our Hobo Radio podcast:

He’s brought life to a beer swilling, cigar chomping robot and twice saved the world from a horde of underground locusts, but now John DiMaggio faces what is perhaps his most difficult challenge – making Aquaman cool.

DiMaggio is known for his role as Bender the robot on Futurama and Marcus Fenix in the Gears of War video game franchise, but now he can be heard as the voice of Aquaman on Batman: The Brave and The Bold. We recently had an opportunity to talk to DiMaggio about portraying the king of Atlantis, the joys of playing a video game that you star in and the impending robot apocalypse.

You are originally from New Jersey. What was it like growing up there and where do you call home now?

It was great growing up in Jersey because it was so close to the city. I grew up in kind of an interesting suburban neighborhood. And now I live in Los Angeles. I lived in New York for a couple of years because that’s what you do when you’re from Jersey. But I live in Los Angeles now and I love it.

You originally began your career as a standup comedian.

Well actually I was acting and then I went into standup and then I went back into acting. I had a good couple of years – a good six years.

What attracted you to comedy and what was it like starting out? Is it terrifying to get up there in front of the crowd the first time?

Well, I was in a comedy team; we were called Red Johnny and the Round Guy. We were on MTV for a while. So it was a little easier getting on stage with somebody with you. But we came up with Dave Attell and Dave Chappelle. Dane Cook, his first gig was opening for us on the road at this little crappy club in Vermont. It’s pretty funny. I came up with all of those guys. It was a good time and we did well too, but comedy teams just don’t work out.

So I started going back and doing voiceover in New York when I was there and then I auditioned for a show out here, I got it. I did a pilot and then I got fired from it. Then I auditioned for another show and I got it and I came out here to do Chicago Hope. I’ve been out here ever since ’96.

How did you get into voiceover work? Was that something you were always interested in?

It’s interesting because I asked a friend of mine who is an actor, “How do you pay your bills, man?” He said voiceover. I was like, “Really?” He was like, “Oh yeah.” And I had always done a lot of voices in my act and a lot of accents and all that kind of stuff, so I said that’s a natch. That’s easy. So I got my new manager to get me a voiceover agent and she got me one and I booked a job within the first week. It was a Toyota ad for radio. I remember it was an ad campaign. Then I started doing that and when I came out to Los Angeles, instead of it being mostly television and radio commercials, it was more animation. That was a lot of fun, it was a great change.

How do you come up with the voices that you do?

You just kind of have an ear for it. There are people who just have a certain ear for voices. It’s kind of similar to having an ear for music. When you can mimic the cadence of someone’s voice or the pitch of someone’s voice, it just happens. I’ve been making voices since I can remember. I can say that I think everybody who does a lot of voiceover stuff can say the same thing. You just pick up on stuff. I would always be the guy who would imitate teachers or people that I work with. It was just a mimickery thing. What you hear, you incorporate into what you do. That’s all.

Many people know you because of your role as Bender on Futurama. What was it like working on that show and what has it been like to go back and do this recent series of direct-to-dvd releases?

Well anything Futurama, I’m all for. I love the show. I’m very proud of the work that I’ve done – that we’ve done, that everybody on the show’s done. It’s just a great group of people and an extremely, over-abundantly talented writing staff; the most overeducated in Hollywood. Really, they are. They’re ridiculous. But working with that cast and getting that gig – I mean, I had been doing voiceover before I got that job, but that job just really opened up doors. It was just phenomenal.

And to be able to do it again doing these DVDs is spectacular. I just love it. The more I can work with those people, the better off I am in my life because they’re just a great bunch. It’s been a wonderful experience.

It seems like a lot of people discovered that show on cable once it hit syndication.

Pretty much. That’s because Fox hadn’t really promoted it.

So you think it just wasn’t promoted well?

No, it wasn’t promoted well at all. And that was their decision. But good for them, they’ve been kind of slowly coming around and we got to do these movies. And Comedy Central, who picked us up for our second syndication run, has agreed to air the DVDs as original episodes on Comedy Central, which is great. So we’ve got an avenue; we’ve got a place for this stuff to go. So that’s great.

Fox has kind of come around. But it was difficult. The show was on at six o’clock in Chicago on a Sunday during the fall and winter. Everybody’s watching the Bears or the Packers or the Kansas City Chiefs or St. Louis. It was kind of mind boggling because they buried it. But it’s the show that won’t die.

How many Futurama DVDs do you have left?

We have one more that’s going to show up in March, I think, 2009.

One of our theories has always been that robots are eventually going to enslave us all. Having played a robot, did you get any insight into their plans? Do you think you’re prepared?

(Laughs.) Nah, I’m not, but none of us are prepared. We’ll never be prepared for the takeover, man. It’s all coming down, bro. It’s all coming down, man. The robots are going to come and get you, man. Especially old people.

Speaking of apocalypses, we also wanted to ask you about your work on the best video game franchise ever, Gears of War. You are the voice of the main character, Marcus Fenix. What is it like making those games?

A lot of fun. Great gig. Again, the guys over at Epic are a fantastic bunch of people. And the other voiceover actors on the game are really a good bunch of guys. And it’s fun. I love playing the game. It’s really kind of sad because I paused the game to do this interview, so I’m waiting to get back into some hordes, man. I’m going to kill some stuff off before I’ve got to go see my trainer because I live in California; that’s what we do. We fat guys go get a trainer.

Is it surreal to play the game and hear your own voice as you’re going along?

Yeah. You know what’s weird though is when I get angry at the game and I start yelling and I start realizing that I’m actually saying the lines from the game during the game and if anybody is listening outside my apartment, because the windows are open, they’ll be like, “What the hell is that guy doing? Is he talking to himself? Why is he talking so much and saying the same thing over and over and over again?” I don’t know. It’s pretty funny, but it’s a good game and everybody at Microsoft too, they really do a great job promoting the thing.

Doing the voice of Marcus Fenix, does that give you any insight into how to beat Gears of War 2? Does it help you when playing the game to have done the voice?

Nah, when you do the game, when you are doing the voice for the stuff, they tell you what you’re doing. It’s not like you’re just making boring noises and grunts. They’re like, “This is what you’re doing …” They describe it in full. “Okay, you’ve got to pick up a Gatling gun and put it down, so give me that.” So you do that. And it’s for every little thing. There’s a lot of prompts. So it’s interesting. It’s kind of tedious, but it pays off in the end if you get it right. And I think we got it right.

So have they talked to you at all about Gears of War 3?

Nah, I haven’t heard anything. If you hear something, you tell me.

Most recently, you played Aquaman on Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Aquaman is a character that’s had a rough history – he’s not the most liked superhero. He’s been a punching bag at times.

Listen, listen – this is the story about Aquaman, okay. Listen, Superman controls the earth, whatever, right. Well, the earth is made up of 75 percent water. So Aquaman rules that kingdom. That’s huge. Nobody gives him any respect for that. None whatsoever, except himself, which makes him seem so gregarious and egotistical. He’s the king of Atlantis, for crying out loud. You can’t mess with Aquaman. I will break out some hammerheads on you. Forget it. Aquaman, he’s the man.

I’m really excited to play him. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a very broad, broad character. And the way the show is done is really great. It’s gorgeous. It looks great. It’s fun; it’s a lot of fun.

You and Batman already managed to stop your brother from overthrowing you in last week’s episode. What else can we expect from Aquaman in future episodes?

I’m not sure I can really tell you what’s in store, but I can tell you this – “Dawn of the Deadman” is coming up and Michael Rosenbaum from Smallville is playing Deadman. We’re also introducing Speedy, played by Jason Marsden, which is kind of cool. Then there’s some other characters that have been leaked. Green Lantern is James Arnold Taylor. Wildcat, that’s R. Lee Ermey, the sergeant from Full Metal Jacket. That’s pretty heavy. Gary Sturgis is the Bronze Tiger. Plastic Man is coming up. This is pretty cool – Tom Kenny is Plastic Man, which is pretty awesome. Of course you know who Tom Kenny is; he’s Sponge Bob for crying out loud. And Will Friedle, who is a good friend of mine, is playing Blue Beetle. Will and I worked together on Kim Possible, he was Ron Stoppable and I was Doctor Drakken. We got to work together a lot; we had a lot of fun.

It’s nice. The show is really cool because the way it’s drawn up, the way it’s illustrated, all of the character designs and the storyboards, it’s in the style that we grew up with or at least I grew up with – 50s, 60s, 70s. The 70s stuff, that’s what I grew up with. It’s still kid friendly and that’s the thing. Batman, you’ve got to fight some crime, some heavy duty stuff goes down, but it’s not as dark as the other Batman stuff we’ve seen in recent years. It’s like the stuff that we grew up with. We want kids to see stuff that’s a lot of fun, has a lot of action and can be funny, but isn’t as crazy as the stuff that’s on right now.

Diedrich Bader mentioned that for The Brave and The Bold, all of the actors record their lines together as if doing a radio play.

That’s usually the best way to record.

Is that typically the way it’s done?

Well, sometimes you come in and you record alone. But the thing is is that they animate to your voice. So that’s the key thing. If you’re not there with everybody, then you know how to work it out. But when you’re there with everybody, it’s interesting because there is a lot more flow to it and you can react off of what’s going on. But also, if you want to hear what the other actor did before you do your line; you can do that as well. It’s not like you’re in the dark on something.

An ensemble record is a lot of fun if you have the right cast. Right now, I’m working on Penguins of Madagascar, a show for Nick, I’m Rico, one of the penguins, and we all record together and we have a blast. We laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. That’s a lot of fun. Those days, when you get to record like that – remember when you used to go to school in like fifth grade and you had a substitute teacher and it was just the teacher that was like the biggest ball busting teacher that separated you from your friends because they didn’t want you to talk and you come in and it’s a gorgeous day and it’s like springtime and the teacher’s gone and you’ve got this substitute teacher and you get to sit next to the kids that you don’t get to sit next to and you laugh all day and you have a great time and gym class is great; it’s just a great day. That’s what it’s like sometimes when you record. That’s the only way I can compare it. It’s like that.

Were you a comic book guy? Did you read Batman stuff growing up?

Not really. No. I did get a subscription to Spider-man Team-Up when I was a kid. Spider-man teams up with The Falcon was one and Tigre was one. There was “Spider-man and The Not-Ready-For- Prime-Time Players,” that was my favorite. That was awesome. Peter Parker goes to Rockefeller Center to go see Saturday Night Live with Mary Jane and this thing breaks down. It’s Silver Samurai, I think. Something gets sent to John Belushi, it’s like a sword or something like that, this samurai sword. It’s awesome. I don’t have it anymore though. I need to find it. I’ve been to so many Comic-Cons and I haven’t tried to find it. This is killing me. But yeah, I loved that one because I was huge into Saturday Night Live when I was a kid.

What would you be doing for a living if you never got into acting?

Well, if I had graduated college, I could have taught because my family is all teachers. So I could have done that. I could have been a cop. (Laughs.) Yeah, right. But I probably would have worked in the restaurant business. I was working in the restaurant business when I was younger. I worked all over – front and back, cooked in the kitchen, worked in the dining room, bartended, the whole nine yards. Yeah, I’d probably work in the food service industry.

Are you a good cook?

Yeah, I’m a pretty good cook. I can cook.

What is the best thing that you make?

I make a pretty mean chocolate chip pecan pie. I do sausage and peppers, Italian style sausage and peppers. I can sauté all kinds of vegetables. I can do it all. It’s fun. It’s whatever. Give me some ingredients and I’ll make something.

Tell us something most people don’t know about you.

That’s why they don’t know it, because maybe I don’t want them to know. (Laughs.) Man, I’ve got to keep that to myself. I’ve got to have something for me. I like that answer. I’m going to stick with that one.

What does the future hold for you?

The future? I don’t know. I guess if all goes well I’ll just be able to continue doing what I’m doing, hopefully. As long as nobody gets sick of me. I really like what I do and if I could keep doing this, I would be very, very happy. I’m in a good place. I’m in a very good place. I’m a very fortunate individual. And I try and be humble about it and try and do the right thing. As long as I stay on this track, I’ll be fine.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy. Batman: The Brave and The Bold airs Friday nights at 8 p.m. on The Cartoon Network.

You can listen to audio highlights of our interview with John DiMaggio by clicking on the play button below or by subscribing to our Hobo Radio podcast: