|
With the sixth season of the hilarious and successful television series, Monk, scheduled to start July 13, regular cast member, Jason Gray-Stanford recently talked with BuddyTV. Gray-Stanford, who plays Lt. Randy Disher on the show, spoke about how he got his start in acting, his early voice-over work, landing his role on Monk and what’s in store for viewers of the popular show. On how he got started with acting, Gray-Stanford had this to say: “...somewhere, I think in high school, I realized there’s this program called the drama program...it was exciting, it was challenging and I kinda really fell into it, really just as a sideline and kind of from there, really, really fell in love with it and kinda continued on and I studied, I went to theater school and kinda thought `Hell, if I wanna be in this business I better try and get as good as I can get cause it’s pretty fucking competitive.’ So I mean, pretty much that’s it.” Before his onscreen exposure, Jason did a number of voice-overs for Japanese anime. He shares a little on how he got into that gig: “Well I’ll tell you what, honestly, that was a complete fluke. I was sitting in an audition, I think going to audition for small parts in the television show as we all do when we start out and next door they were auditioning for a voice-over for this Japanese animation program and sure enough, I was waiting and taking a long time in the room and somebody came up to me, `Are you next?’ And I guess I went. `Yeah, okay.’ In a way I guess I crashed the audition…” Jason also elaborated on how his voicing experience has helped make him a better actor: “Without question…it’s invaluable, I think, because one of the things that I learned best from it is you gotta make choices on the fly. You have to work really, really quickly…so it kind of teaches you to think really fast on the fly and make choices really quick under the confines they've kind of given you already.” When asked how he got his role on Monk, the actor narrated how he almost passed up on the show altogether: “I was finishing up a miniseries at the time called Taken. I was shooting in Vancouver and I got a script for this pilot that was going to shoot in Vancouver that was called Monk and I looked at it very, very quickly and said, `No, I don’t think I wanna do it.’ Because I was asked to come in and read for the character of the deputy mayor, who was gonna be the bad guy in the thing. And I had just gone four months on this miniseries and I was like `Oh forget it. I’m taking a break. I don’t wanna do it.’ It was right around holiday season, Christmas time. And then they sent the script to me again and they said `Look.’ Tony Shaloub was attached to this thing…Tony being a great actor and coming obviously from a very diverse film and television career, I thought I’d go in and audition for this character and I was told, `Great job, that was terrific but you’re not gonna get it. You’re not right for the part.’ At the end of all the auditions, the director said `Hey look, there was another character and they don’t know what they want to do with him yet, he’s not really written yet, so he’s gonna be like the sidekick to the main cop and we just cast Ted Levine as that guy,’ and I went `Oh shit. Ted Levine, fantastic, another great actor.’ So, he was like `Can you come in tomorrow just if we have something, will you read for it?’ So, sure enough, I went in and read for this character, who was, at that time, called Lieutenant Deacon, which is a little bit of Monk trivia for anyone out there who cares, and I got that part.” As a parting shot, Jason enthusiastically talked about the coming season: “With season six, we really think we’ve got a great one. Once again, we got a host of eclectic, cool guest stars and we have Sarah Silverman coming back and reprising her role - she played a character a couple of seasons before. We have Alfred Molina, obviously a very, very accomplished actor, we have the king of rap, Snoop Dogg, who’s gonna be on the show this season, so I mean we’re really running the gamut of great guest stars. Sharon Lawrence is coming back for a couple, so we’re all over the map and I think by doing that we’re kind of giving a whole bunch of new looks to the show. You know, even if the show will stay very much character based around Monk, I guess bringing all these people really heightens our show. After six seasons, to keep it going like that and still attract great, great, guest stars makes us happy and excited about this new season coming up.” For more resources about Monk or for the full version of the story Exclusive Interview: Jason Gray-Stanford from Monk please review http://www.buddytv.com
Related Articles -
Monk, Exclusive Interview: Jason Gray-Stanford from Monk,
|
