True Blood fans know John Billingsley- as Mike Spencer, the lovable, weird town’s coroner/ funeral director. For you Si-Fi fans, he also played Dr.Phlox in the Star Trek: “Enterprise” series. In a recent interview by Clint Morris with Moviehole.net, he tells us although anything can happen since he is not under contract, he will probably be back in season three of True Blood.
In addition to things on the horizon for Billingsley, he plays Professor West in Roland Emmerich’s end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it hit ‘’2012″ and he is filming a comedy called “Losing Control.”
Firstly, how did you enjoy the new ‘’Star Trek” movie?
I wasn’t all that enamoured of it, to be honest. Terrific performances, I thought, but the script was pretty mundane, and as is often the case with the movies, there’s too much of a premium put on ‘action’ at the expense of character development. I also felt that it was a colossal cop out to create a ‘parallel universe’ – this allows the filmmakers to do whatever they want in subsequent installments without worrying about Trek continuity, plus now they can kill actors off if they start bitching about not getting paid enough. Personally, I could stand for a moratorium, in Trek-ville, on all ‘time travel’ yarns: I’m sick to death of characters meeting themselves, their long dead mothers, etc., etc, etc. Still, if J.J.Abrams reads this: don’t take it personally, J.J., all is forgiven, and don’t you think you could stand to introduce a Denobulan into the mix sometime soon?
Ha. Now you’d obviously miss ‘’Enterprise”… but you’re now on ‘’True Blood.” You never seem to be short of work… or is that how we see it?
Well, if you’d said that a few months back I might have agreed (modestly), but right now I’m completely shut out of things, not an audition to be had, much less a gig. Our industry is going through some real upheaval: the major corporations that own the film and TV studios have mandated massive cost-cutting, which has meant fewer movies are getting made, for one thing. And financing for indie films has completely dried up. On the TV front, the dearth of advertising has meant that a lot of shows are slashing their budgets – i.e, smaller casts, and this of course comes on the heels of 8 years of reality TV programming, which has reduced opportunities for actors by 20-30 percent, by some calculations. All of this, coupled with the overall insecurity about the future of residuals – as shows become available online, DVD sales plummet, etc. – has encouraged ‘namey’ actors to lower their quotes and take gigs they never would have considered taking a couple of years ago. All in all, it’s meant that everybody on ‘the ladder’ is being pushed, somewhat violently, down a few rungs – at best – or off the ladder entirely, if they don’t have the means to keep pursuing their careers.
That’s a story I’m hearing from a lot of actors – that it’s only got tougher out there.
Fortunately the missus is still appearing on Chuck (as General Beckman) and, as you say, there’s a chance I’ll be returning to True Blood this December, when it starts up again – I’m not under contract, however, and last season’s story line demanded using me quite a bit, which I suspect was an anomaly. The good news is that Bonnie and I have had a very nice run for a long time, and we were quite frugal, so it’s not a hardship hanging out, reading novels, traveling, visiting pals. We’ll see if things change over the course of the next six months or so – in the meantime, we’re doing a few more conventions than we’re used to, which can be fun (NZ in the spring and Australia next fall, at this point, among others) and we’re working with a pal on a film project which we hope to bring to fruition this spring – a black comedy about a middle aged couple who run a bed and breakfast that caters to wannabe suicides. That is to say, if we can procure the funding . . . buddy, can you spare ten grand . . . ?
For full interview: SOURCE
WOW! Thanks TC. I love how John is so candid, it’s not the interview I would have expected. I loved it.
I recognised him straightaway in 2012 and LOLed. Oddly enough, Aidsburger dude who got eaten by Eric was in New Moon as well, so its a TB random actor spotting week.