Paul is really trying to stay on the side of, like you said, this kind of idealism. But that’s starting to crumble. What is this idealism? Why can Perry navigate the world and be a little messy, be drunk, going to work, get a law degree in 15 minutes? You know what I mean? He’s starting to see the DA’s corruption. Perkins is flirting with good and bad. Moe, his brother-in-law, is putting awful pressure on him. There’s a moment where Paul shows some vulnerability and comes to Moe to help with some information.
The relationship between Paul and his brother-in-law touches on an interesting masculinity aspect of those days. In the beginning, Paul isn’t working and his family’s taking care of him, but then as you get to episode five, now Moe isn’t working and Paul is seeing his private eye career taking off.
I like that within the season when you get to see a little confidence switch, especially because the guy that plays Moe is a big boy. I mean, I’m a strong 5’9, but that boy towers over me and he could wrap me up pretty easily.
And he’s blue collar.
Which is what we identify masculinity with and he starts off providing for all of us, a whole family. And then to have Paul switch that with his brain, I think it triggers Moe. Paul’s walking around with a different swagger. Not on purpose, but he was down and now he’s back. I’ve had this in my own family because I am the littlest in my family too. And I’m the most sensitive. And maybe though I do Jujitsu I’m still probably the softest and there’s often conversations of, “Yeah, but you do art.”
You’re a theater kid.
And they love it and they respect it and they’re big fans, but still like, “Man, look at your hands. They ain’t got no calluses on them.” They don’t, girl, I get manicures. [Laughs] If Paul didn’t have his brain, he probably wouldn’t be alive because he’s almost useless physically.
You were a reader at the LAByrinth Theater Company in New York. Were you able to work with Philip Seymour Hoffman?
I babysat his kids a couple times. I was a reader for a couple shows that he did. I’ll tell this story as quickly as I can. I was a reader for Our Lady of 121st Street and I was going in to be the understudy of Russell G. Jones and Ron Cephas Jones. And I did this audition and Phil said, “That was brilliant, Chris. I was just doing this as a favor, but now I really got to think about this.” Man, that was absolutely amazing. I mean, Phil is great, but he ain’t the end all be all. There were some bad people at LAByrinth. Not even just actors, like producers, writers. To be exposed to that, coming from where I came from, which is a primarily white education, I didn’t know anything about LAByrinth until I got there. And this girl I was dating, thank God for her. She hands me to them. I’d love to say I did it myself, but I was shell shocked when I got to New York.
I brought Phil up because he came up as a secondary actor in the beginning that stole scenes, and you often steal scenes, so I wanted to draw that line.
Let’s go! Let’s go, baby, I love it! Let’s say it. It’s so hard to talk about theater and film and not get comparative, but I will say this, in my specific journey through New York and the way I like to do stuff is I’m a nerd. I love building character. I love being specific. I love being messy and then throwing it all away. And that was kind of a whole company idea. That’s what I took from those people. Phil in particular, you do the work, whether you got one line, no lines, or you’re the lead of the movie. You do the work.
Angel Diaz
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