Note: Dead Eyes transcripts have been generated with automated software and may contain errors. We advise you to listen to episode audio before quoting in print.
Dead Eyes, Episode 02 - “Tristesse”
Connor Ratliff Should we just start talking? Is that how this works? Or—
Jon Hamm I think it's your show.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Jon Hamm Make sure they're recording...
Connor Ratliff When I was 17 years old, I was in a production of Ordinary People in Columbia, Missouri. One of the actors that I worked with was a senior in college there: Jon Hamm.
Connor Ratliff Hi, Jon.
Jon Hamm Hi!
Connor Ratliff How old were you when we did that play?
Jon Hamm In '92 I would have been twenty-one.
Connor Ratliff Twenty-one. You seemed so much older to me at the time.
Jon Hamm Yes. When you were...19-years-old?
Connor Ratliff I was 17-years-old.
Jon Hamm Seventeen.
Connor Ratliff And like, our scenes were all just like, looking into each other's souls, kind of. We were, we were making a lot of eye contact.
Jon Hamm They were, they were two-handers, basically. It was a—it was a one-on-one kind of, kind of scene.
Connor Ratliff Do you have any memory of uh, whether my eyes ever looked dead?
Jon Hamm I will say this: you were playing a heavily medicated, uh, you know, depressed teen. So if they did, that was on character. It was a choice. You made a great choice. I don't know what to tell you. I made a great choice.
Voice of God This is Dead Eyes, a podcast about one actor's quest to find out why Tom Hanks fired him from a small role in the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.
Connor Ratliff I'm Connor Ratliff, I'm an actor and comedian. Twenty years ago I was fired by Tom Hanks. I was told the reason was that he saw my audition tape and he thought that I had dead eyes. And that's the short version.
Actors audition and we either get the job or we don't. But we almost never know if we came close or if we completely missed the mark. People who are casting actors often don't know what they're looking for until they see it. It's kind of a big, jumbled mess. And it sort of has to be because in a lot of cases it's more art than science.
I started doing plays when I was about 10-years-old. I was in a local community theater production of Oliver! where I played one of the orphans, but I couldn't dance well enough to be one of Fagan's pickpockets. Which was fine with me because it actually freed me up to have a line of dialogue in a later scene in the play.
I played a kid who delivered some books and my line of dialogue was, "Here's the books you ordered from the booksellers, sir." I said it in a very poor British accent. I would later work in a bookstore for 13 years, if you're trying to like, make connections.
My dad tried to be an actor back in Chicago in the early 1970s but by the time I was born he was working as the local weatherman on KRCG TV 13 in Jefferson City, Missouri, and in addition to doing the weather on the 6 o'clock and 10 o'clock news, he hosted a live TV kids' show called Showtime.
Showtime Announcer It's time for Showtime. The fun time that's just for kids.
Connor Ratliff This was on Monday through Friday at 3:30 in the afternoon, and kids would watch it when they got home from school. It was my dad and there was a guy doing puppets and the studio audience was made up of groups of local school kids. There would also be guests. There was the Library Lady who would bring in books that were new at the local library for kids.
Library Lady Halloween will be coming soon, so I got a couple of Halloween books. The first one is called The Witch's Hat. And it's the story of a witch who was stirring up a brew and her hat falls in the pot and—Now this is a magic pot, naturally, since it belongs to a witch, and...
Connor Ratliff But at a certain point, a big corporation bought KRCG TV 13, and they decided to cancel my dad's show and replace it with Dallas reruns.
[End of Dallas theme plays.]
Anyway, on the last episode of my dad's TV show, that stage production of Oliver! that I was in came on the show to promote the play. It was my dad, two of the main cast members performing a scene and a song, and me. Now because it was my dad's show, I was given the opportunity to introduce the musical number in character. Although it wasn't really like a character from the show. This was just an intro that somebody wrote and I'm playing a generic British orphan introducing Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger for the musical number, "Consider Yourself.”
Young Connor Ratliff [In cockney accent] 'Ello! I'm an orphan. Over here are a couple of me mates. The chap in the high-hat is called The Artful Dodger. He's a clever one, he is. The other chap is called Oliver. He's new around here. We're trying to make him feel at home. Watch!
Connor Ratliff In my defense, I was 10-years-old and the British dialect I was doing—I was basing it on what the older kids in the cast were doing.
Artful Dodger [In cockney accent] What yer starin' at? Ain't yer never seen a gent?
Oliver [In cockney accent] No, I haven't.
Connor Ratliff It's not a very good accent, but it's what I was hearing.
Artful Dodger Oh I see... You must be running from the Beak.
Oliver The what?
Artful Dodger Now don't tell me yer don't know what a Beak is, me flash mate?!
Connor Ratliff So after the musical number, uh, there was this brief interview and I got to be there even though I was just the kid who had done the intro.
Artful Dodger [in their natural American accent]...to the audience. But I think we'll do okay.
Connor Ratliff's Father Have you ever—you've been in shows before, right?
Artful Dodger Yes, I was in a musical at Simonson called Pure as the Driven Snow.
Connor Ratliff And my dad asks me a leading question. Notice this. He doesn't ask me if this is my first play.
Connor Ratliff's Father And this is your first time, right?
Young Connor Ratliff [In his natural American Accent] Yes, this is my first...
Connor Ratliff He tells me it is my first play and then says, "Right?" And if you watch the clip, you can see it dawn on me that I've been tricked into saying this is my first play, and I realized I had one previous credit as an actor.
Young Connor Ratliff Uh, come to think of it, it, uh, it isn't my first show.
Connor Ratliff's Father You've done other...
Young Connor Ratliff I did a thing for Missouri Players at Tonanzios. I did—I played at clown in the...
Connor Ratliff's Father [Laughs] I know, you did fine.
Connor Ratliff It's a pretty disastrous first interview. I was visibly unhappy with being disrespected on live television by my dad. Even then, my acting career was a nightmare.
Artful Dodger Yeah. We think nine.
Oliver Or later!
Connor Ratliff's Father Which might be later—okay, Hey, you know, I guess it wouldn't be Showtime without a cartoon. Would you like to see a cartoon?
Young Connor Ratliff Uh-huh.
Connor Ratliff After that, I started doing plays every chance I got. I did Fiddler on the Roof, the King and I, Brighton Beach Memoirs. I also was in a couple of local TV commercials for a car dealership.
Young Connor Ratliff The White Sale continues with 7.9% APR financing on selected models no matter what color!
Connor Ratliff I was constantly doing plays. I did school plays, community theater, plays I put on with my friends. But my first professional theater gig happened the summer before my senior year of high school.
Jon Hamm I just remember you being so good in it. Uh, and, and not knowing anything—
Connor Ratliff Really.
Jon Hamm Really!
Connor Ratliff This is Emmy award winning actor Jon Hamm.
Jon Hamm And not knowing anything about you. Like, "Who is this kid?" Kinda just being...Having such a good time doing the play. Because the majority of the play is you and me talking. It's like a therapy session basically.
Connor Ratliff It's very intense one-on-one. Like, those were my favorite scenes in the play, because it's just two actors really going at it. You were like...you were like, pushing me to my limits and, like, both the character and like, the actor. It's one of those things where we're kind of... It felt like sparring matches, kind of.
Jon Hamm Well it's, it's, it's the, it's the theatrical version of therapy. Like, anybody that's actually been to therapy knows, it's not like, [mock shouting] "Tell me the truth!"
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Jon Hamm But, you know, therapy in real life is more like, "How was your week?" [Laughs] You know, like, "It was okay. Like, I guess, you know, you know, kind of bummed out about work or whatever. You know, I—it's not a, it's not the fireworks that everybody, uh, you know, kind of makes it out to be. But that's the, that's, that's the wonder of drama.
Connor Ratliff I'm, I'm fascinated to hear you say that you thought that I was good, because I—
Jon Hamm I'm pretty sure I told you that at the time.
Connor Ratliff Well you were very nice to me. Uh, I wasn't sure...I wasn't sure because I was a high schooler and particularly coming into the summer rep that summer, I had sort of taken a part that could have gone to any number of, uh, drama majors who were at the college.
Jon Hamm Well, so my story was I was a transfer to Mizzou.
Connor Ratliff Mhm.
Jon Hamm And, um. I remember I transferred in in my junior year, so I was kind of in your shoes of like, am I taking somebody else's part? Like I'm the new guy and, and everybody, and it was, it was definitely that, you know, the theater is also very cliquey and very, you know, can be very Mean Girl-y and you can't sit with us kind of, uh, kind of a thing. But I ingratiated myself fairly quickly and...as I imagine you did
Connor Ratliff Well, I—All summer long, I wasn't sure, uh, I wasn't sure whether anybody liked me, uh, whether people were just being nice. I remember being really nervous. Um, whenever they said, "We're going to do the play. We've done the play all summer long with this cast and we're going to do it again for two more weeks in September and everyone can do it except the actor playing the therapist.” And I remember, uh, I remember finding out that, uh, it was going to be a student who's going to be doing it. And my initial reaction, I remember it was like, “What? No.” Like I was, it's like—
Jon Hamm "I'm back to playing with kids, again!"
Connor Ratliff How quickly, how quickly I had gone from being this lucky high school student who scored this great part to being like—
Jon Hamm —to wanting casting approval.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. Wait, what? He's only, he's only, you know, in his twenties he can't be a therapist. It won't make sense. And then immediately as soon as we started doing rehearsals together, I was like, "Oh no, this is great. This is going to be…” uh...
Jon Hamm Well, I remember I had to like grow out a beard, which was a drag ‘cause it was, you know, for those—for those of you who have never experienced a Midwestern summer, it was just so hot and sticky and gross. And I had this big beard and I was like, all right, anything to make me look marginally older. Uh, and so I ended up looking like a, you know, like a shitty little scrappy like grad student, which is probably a pretty good fit for Tyrone.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. I think it ended up—uh, yeah, for Tyrone C. Berger.
Jon Hamm Tyrone C. Berger, the therapist. I didn't even realize like, "Hamm-Berger.” That's amazing.
Connor Ratliff [Laughs] I think it ended up looking like you were like, "Oh, this guy is so good that he's like, a prodigy." You were like the Doogie Howser of therapy and you've been doing this a while.
Jon Hamm [Laughs] Exactly, exactly.
Connor Ratliff Now, skipping forward ahead into, into, uh, later in our lives, past, uh, past that. Um, have you ever, have you ever been fired from a, uh, an acting job?
Jon Hamm Uh, yes, I have. Um, the circumstances were kind of weird. It was sort of out of their hands in some way. It wasn't like, "Oh, you're terrible. We can't use you. Uh, bye." I've never had the experience where–which I know several people have—where they've gone to like, the table read and after the table read like, their phone rings and they're like, “Yeah, don't bother coming on Monday.” Where you're like, "Oh, how bad was I?" And the answer is: bad enough to...[Laughs]
Connor Ratliff Yeah, it answers itself. It's a question that, uh, the firing is the answer.
Jon Hamm So I had so many of those. I still tell John Favreau to this day like, "I lost a part to you." Like, it was for Deep Impact, which was a movie, you know, back in the, whatever it was, the other asteroid going to hit the Earth that wasn't Armageddon.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. It was the one that was like, really emotionally like, nuanced and compelling. It was the Mimi Leder—Mimi Leder directed it.
Jon Hamm Mimi Leder directed it and Steven Spielberg executive produced it. And like, I was like, my mind was blown that I was in this room and they really, really wanted me. And John Favreau was just coming off of Swingers.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Jon Hamm And was like the hottest thing in Hollywood. And they were like, "No, let's get that guy. He's a, he's a, he's a hot commodity."
Connor Ratliff For me, when I—uh, when I was cast in Band of Brothers, uh, it was one of those very small roles. Uh, and it was one of those things where, you know, you're going to audition after audition and there you see they're keeping more people in the room and fewer people going in from the—from the waiting area.
And I was supposed to film my scenes, uh, on a Tuesday and I was getting a train from Liverpool down to London on a Monday and I got a phone call from my agent saying, "You need to get on a train right now because Tom Hanks has seen your audition tape and he's having second thoughts. He thinks you have dead eyes." And so I had to get on—
Jon Hamm [Laughs] Nicest man in Hollywood!
Connor Ratliff I had to get on a train, and the lines—my characters lines were all things like, um, "Yes sir,” “No sir,” “Would you like any coffee sir?” They were—there were not like, there were no like passionate speeches about like, you know, this war, you know—
Jon Hamm You weren't standing in front of a three-story flag.
Connor Ratliff There was not—and so I remember that train ride, riding down to London thinking, how do I make my eyes pop while also playing this very like, utilitarian...like, this very functional minor character. You do not want to draw attention to yourself in that kind of—
Jon Hamm No! That's how you want to like, draw focus.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. You don't want to do like, a Mr. Bean style eye-popping. Yeah.
Jon Hamm Doing schtick. Right.
Connor Ratliff And so the whole time I'm thinking, what do I do? What do I do? And I—I went in and I had to personally re-audition for Tom Hanks and then they took me out of the room and uh—
Jon Hamm —shot you in the head.
There is, there is no feeling like that thing of like...And I—I've had—I've certainly had it where I thought I got the part in the room or I thought I got, you know, the, the, the break that was gonna break me, you know, for the end of time. Because I—when I first came to LA, I auditioned for everything.
Connor Ratliff When you've been on the other side of the casting table like, is "dead eyes" a term that you've ever heard before? Or—
Jon Hamm No, absolutely not. It's a strange alchemy. Like, when it—when it works and you see it. And sometimes I've—I've had this experience too, which I feel like has happened to me on, on, on many occasions, but I've—I remember we were casting a part on Mad Men and this guy came in and he killed it. He was so good. And we were like, "Oh my God, like that guy is such a good actor and did such a good job with the part." He couldn't have looked more wrong.
Connor Ratliff Mhm.
Jon Hamm It was like the guy was supposed to be like, "scrappy, Lower East Side Jew" and this guy walks in and looks like, you know, C. Thomas Howell, and you're just like, "Oh like, no. Like there's nothing we can do to you to make you look this part. Like you, you, you did everything right except the costume doesn't fit." You know what I mean? Like it's just that kind of thing.
Connor Ratliff So that guy didn't get the part.
Jon Hamm He did not get the part. And it was a bummer.
Connor Ratliff Because he just wasn't, he wasn't right for it.
Jon Hamm He literally wasn't right for it. It was one of those things like, “We're going another way.” Like, “We're going the way that the script intended. You were great.”
It's a—it's a tightrope act. You know, you're kind of like, you're...In certain ways, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. My very first film that I ever did was a movie called We Were Soldiers, and it was a, you know, kind of a Vietnam Era, um, war story, basically. It was about the first, um, entanglement between regular North Vietnamese forces and United States forces. The first battle. And it's this battle that's written about and studied and, you know, war college and whatnot.
But my part, which my agents were like, "You should not take this part. There's nothing there. Don't, it's uh, it's, it's, it's, it's useless." But my part was like, I was like, "But I'm next to Mel Gibson in almost all the scenes. Like, I'm the guy who's like, "Sir, this just came for you,” “Sir, we have to do this,” “But—but also, sir." Like, you know, like all my scenes are talking to him. Those aren't going to get cut out. I might. But the, the, the words won't. And, and, and they might—And let me try to be good enough that they'll stay in.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. That was my, that was my—Because my part in this was supposed to be me and Damian Lewis. All my scenes would be me with Damian Lewis. And so I thought, I'm not saying a lot, but I'm—It's who I'm with and all I have to do is like, listen and be there and—
Jon Hamm Exactly. And so the, the—I, I was...It was my first film. So anyway, when the movie came out and I remember going to see a screening and I was kind of like, "Well, I hope I'm in the movie. I guess I got invited to a screening so I must be in it somewhere."
And, uh, I watched it and I was like, "Oh shit. Like, I'm actually kind of in it more than a little." Um, and I, I came out and, uh, the editor came up to me, uh, he goes, "Hey, I want to introduce myself. I'm…” Um, I forget his name, but, uh, the editor of the film. I said, "Oh, cool, thanks for putting me in!" He goes, "You were the only one that was paying attention."
Connor Ratliff Wow.
Jon Hamm I said, “What do you mean?” He goes, "Whenever we needed like, a cutaway to somebody, everyone else was kinda like, fucking around or like, not engaged. Like, you were the only one that was paying attention." And I was like, well that's a good—that's a good note. Like, pay attention!
Connor Ratliff Dead Eyes will be back in just a moment. You should listen to this now, though. Don't fast-forward. Your thumbs are too big. The interface on the thing you listen to podcasts to is too imprecise. You think you're going to save time by skipping ahead. You won't. You're going to skip back. You're going to overshoot it in both directions. Just calm down and listen to this.
See? If you—You tried to shoot ahead. It didn't work. Now let's get back to the show.
I talked to my friend Nicole Drespel. You've probably seen her on shows like Broad City or 30 Rock and we worked together when she was a writer on The Chris Gethard Show. She's great.
Connor Ratliff I've told you this story, right?
Nicole Drespel Yes. Oh, well I, I think I knew it as a story about—I don't even know if you've ever told me, but I think I knew it as a story about you.
Connor Ratliff You just heard it, like the story had made the rounds.
Nicole Drespel Yes, the story had made the rounds.
Connor Ratliff What did you hear?
Nicole Drespel Uh, that Connor almost got a Tom Hanks movie and then Tom Hanks personally nixed him for dead eyes.
Connor Ratliff Okay. Yeah.
Nicole Drespel Great.
Connor Ratliff Okay. Um, I brought something in this envelope.
Nicole Drespel Oh no. I think I know what the—okay.
Connor Ratliff What do you think is in the envelope?
Nicole Drespel I think—Are you going to make me do the sides with you?
Connor Ratliff Yes.
Nicole Drespel Okay, I don't want to.
Connor Ratliff That's okay. You don't have to, I just thought—
Nicole Drespel But I'm going to do it like a casting associate. Does that make sense? I don't want anybody to be assessing my acting ability.
Connor Ratliff I found these...It really, it truly isn't a case that I'm so obsessed that I've kept everything. It really, truly was an accident that when I started working on this podcast, I have this filing cabinet and I put things in it, but I never clean it out. I never sort it, I never organize it. And at some point I just, I have an envelope that has the script for episode five, the full script.
Nicole Drespel [Gasps] Wait, I don't—I acted like, I gasped. But it's like, that's out there. Nobody cares.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Nicole Drespel Fascinating. Can I read this? So this is, so these were faxed to you on June 12th, 2000. I guess originally I was not impressed that you had the sides because—but this is before email.
Connor Ratliff No, it's not before email.
Nicole Drespel I thought we got an email right after 9/11.
Connor Ratliff No. Oh. Oh, Nicole.
Nicole Drespel I don't know it all, you know, I'm so young. I'm SO young.
Connor Ratliff Email...email happened—I graduated high school in '93 and I feel like email became a thing shortly after that, at least for me.
Nicole Drespel Ok, well I didn't have it. But I was also so young.
Connor Ratliff Right. So what I'm curious about, I have the scene here and I think this is the same as what you have and I'm curious to just do a cold read. I haven't looked at these in years, so I—these lines will be fresh to me too.
Nicole Drespel Um, also, I do think people at home should note this is like—first of all they, I think they typed this on a typewriter. And this is a fax copy of a typewriter. It's just, it's hard to read, is what I'm saying.
Connor Ratliff Tom Hanks famously loves typewriters.
Nicole Drespel Yes, he does. He—he made an app.
Connor Ratliff He has a typewriter app.
Nicole Drespel Which I guess, of all the celebrity vanity projects...
Connor Ratliff I like it.
Nicole Drespel Yeah.
Connor Ratliff I dunno if they advertise with podcasts, but that'd be a great sponsor to get for this.
Nicole Drespel Oh, that'd be really interesting.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. [Sighs] I'm just realizing now...No, and I've forgotten this, that the stage direction for the scene says "A slightly overweight Private First Class Zielinski pours coffee into a porcelain cup for Winters" and it's just another one of those examples of where they could have written this without saying that he's slightly overweight. It doesn't factor into the plot. There's not a point where they pack them into a suitcase and they have to pay extra money because it goes slightly over.
Nicole Drespel It's the sort of thing they could tell casting and make sure never gets written down. It's wild to me the things that they will send to actors in a script,
Connor Ratliff It's also such a small slight that it would be so easy to cut it.
Nicole Drespel Yes.
Connor Ratliff There's plenty of characters in countless movies and TV shows. We're slightly overweight and it's never addressed. It's just true.
Nicole Drespel When I did 30 Rock, all the reviews felt the need to mention my weight. And the ones that said "slightly" were my favorite. So I will say I think they thought they were doing a favor by adding the "slightly.”
Nicole Drespel Yeah, that's a thin person's compliment.
Nicole Drespel Yes, it is. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff How about this? I'll read the scene directions just for the listener.
Nicole Drespel Okay.
Connor Ratliff And then you read everything except um, Zielinski.
Nicole Drespel I don't think that's right, either.
Connor Ratliff The listener of the podcast needs the scene directions.
Nicole Drespel I don't think that they do!
Connor Ratliff Okay, let's just try it. So no, no scene directions.
Nicole Drespel In this first take.
Connor Ratliff Great. All right. Um, and I might do them badly. This could actually be...
Connor Ratliff Just a quick note about what you're about to hear. This is the full scene that we read in the re-audition. Nicole will be reading multiple roles and I only say a few lines in it. Most of the time I was just sitting there listening and reacting while the other person does all the talking. If that sounds at all awkward, that is because it was.
Connor Ratliff So, I'll just start out. So basically, uh, Tom Hanks says, "All right, let's hear it!"
Nicole Drespel He didn't—you didn't read with him. Did you?
Connor Ratliff No, he's sitting there though. But he, I remember he said something along the lines of, [sounding as if in a hollow audition room] "All right, let's hear it!"
[Chair creaks]
Connor as Private First Class Zielinski I noticed your light on, sir, and thought you might need some joe. Anything else I could get for you?
Nicole Drespel as Casting Associate [Script paper rustles] No. [Chair creaks] It's one up for Anglo-American relations. How ya doing? Who are you?
Connor as Private First Class Zielinski Private First Class Zielinski, sir.
Nicole Drespel as Casting Associate My battalion orderly. Nice. Hank has its pr—RANK has its privileges. [Laughs, paper flips].
Connor as Private First Class Zielinski Coffee, sir? [chair creaks]
Nicole Drespel as Casting Associate Any news on Pegasus? [Breaking character] Oh, God...Noses? Connor…[Tries to read in-character] Noses brought in all—
Connor Ratliff [Breaking character] That's “Moose”.
[volume of hum from lights swells and suddenly cuts off]
Nicole Drespel Connor, I can't, I feel like this—
Connor Ratliff Here. You take this one, see? Because I feel like I would have fired you if you were the actor for saying "noses" instead of Moose. This is really hard to read. What I gave you is really hard to read.
Nicole Drespel Do you see?
Connor Ratliff Oh yeah, it doesn't—
Nicole Drespel Right? Ok? Yeah.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. All right, so...
[hum of fluorescent lights]
Connor as Private First Class Zielinski Coffee, sir?
Nicole Drespel as Casting Associate [Chair creaks] Any news on Pegasus? Moose brought in all 140 and not a shot was fired. Strayer's pretty well full of himself. [chair slides] He really ought to come down. Well, if it's all squared away, I'm going to hit the sack. [Script paper flips] You can give this to Strayer. Two pages—all that in two pages? Did you break a sweat? Can I trust Zielinski here? Zielinski, that'll be all. [Script rustles] We're moving. Word is down the river, opposite Arnhem. We'll be occupying the easternmost tip of the entire Allied advanced—farther into Nazi territory than any other outfit in ETO. [Script page flips] At least the men on the line will be. Uh...while you'll be back in some cozy HQ with your typewriter and your battalion orderlies.
Connor as Private First Class Zielinski I'll wrangle that, sir. Once these ribbons come undone it's one big mess. I'll have this back in order in a jiffy, sir.
[Light buzz increases and suddenly cuts off]
Connor Ratliff And that's the scene. That's it.
Nicole Drespel That's it?
Connor Ratliff When we finish reading the scene, uh, Tom Hanks said, [in hollow audition room again] "Oh, is that it? Oh, I wish there were more!” [Laughs heartily]
Nicole Drespel Oh, no.
Connor Ratliff Big laugh. Big fun. It was like, a fun moment.
Nicole Drespel Oh, no.
Connor Ratliff And I felt like that was a good sign. We're having fun, right?
Nicole Drespel Yes, right.
Connor Ratliff Like, yeah, it's not that big a part. You don't need to recast me. It's barely in it.
Nicole Drespel Right. Yeah, right. "Oh, I came out here. I reassured you. Everybody feels good. Let's go." Wow.
Connor Ratliff Um, how did my eyes look when I was looking up that time?
Nicole Drespel Intense.
Connor Ratliff Really?
Nicole Drespel Yeah
Connor Ratliff Too intense maybe.
Nicole Drespel Uh, yeah. But, I mean, you felt like you were on the spot about your eyes. I will say—
Connor Ratliff I'm sure they were too intense when I did the re-audition.
Nicole Drespel Yeah. The only thing I'll say is it feels old to play an orderly. I don't know that I would cast you as an orderly.
Connor Ratliff I was in my early twenties then.
Nicole Drespel Right.
Connor Ratliff You're saying now?
Nicole Drespel Yeah. I can only make an assessment based on now.
Connor Ratliff What do you think of that as a—as an audition scene?
Nicole Drespel It's nothing, but I also, I mean this really drums home just how unreasonable the entire thing is.
Can I ask you a question?
Connor Ratliff Mhm?
Nicole Drespel Are you okay?
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Nicole Drespel Like is this a fun anecdote that you're milking? Or is there really something under here that you're looking to examine?
Connor Ratliff There used to be something that was painful about this.
Nicole Drespel Right.
Connor Ratliff Now it's something that's interesting to me.
Nicole Drespel When do you think it stopped being painful?
Connor Ratliff Um...probably in my thirties. Um, this happened in my twenties, and in my twenties, I went through a brief period of success followed by just years of failure. And then in my thirties, like I would say the first half of my thirties was me becoming comfortable with—I sort of redefined what success was in my mind.
Nicole Drespel Which was not having goals.
Connor Ratliff Well, no it was that I had to figure out a way where my like, feeling good wasn't so heavily dependent on whether or not other people liked me or liked what I did.
Nicole Drespel Mhm.
Connor Ratliff In the sense that like, show business is kind of too nasty and fickle a business to put your feelings into. And so... The, the downside of it is I don't know that I'll ever be as excited to book any show business, uh, job or have any, I don't know if there's any show business success I could have that would make me as happy as I was when I got this part on Band of Brothers. I think I've lowered my threshold for how much joy I can feel.
Nicole Drespel Mhm.
Connor Ratliff Even when I—when something good happens and I like it, I can only feel so happy about it. But I can also, I kind of like, um, to put this in like, soundwave terms, it's like that clipping where the high-highs are gone, but the low-lows are also gone, so it's—my showbusiness emotional range is right in the middle. So, if I audition for something and I want it and I don't get it, there's always an upside now in my mind.
There's always, um...I was up for a really cool TV show recently that is filled with people that—it's going to be a big deal and it's filled with people that I like and that I would love to work with. And I thought I did a really, really good audition for it. And it was for like, a series regular, which I haven't had a lot of those auditions. And I did the audition. I thought like, that's good. Like—and I rarely think that about an audition—but I also thought, "This would really screw up my October."
Nicole Drespel Connor...
Connor Ratliff And when I realized that I hadn't booked it, I actually felt kind of good because it was like, great, I don't need to change anything in my calendar.
Nicole Drespel Okay. See, this is where you and I overlap very much. Would you say, "My ideal situation is for somebody to tell me all of my dreams are gonna come true in like a month or in like, two months"? Like, I don't want anything right now and I don't want anything never, but I want it at like, an...a time in the future that feels like it might not even happen anyway.
Connor Ratliff Yeah, I think that's interesting. I haven't thought about it in those terms. It's very hard to transfer some of these things because they're personal coping mechanisms. What do you think I could have done, Nicole?
Nicole Drespel Oh, I don't think you could have done anything. I don't think—I mean not to undermine this whole podcast, but I think like, little pieces, little parts like this really are just random feelings and vibes.
[somber, contemplative music]
Connor Ratliff "Random feelings and vibes." As an actor or going out on additions, booking some jobs, not booking most jobs. It does feel almost random.
You'll recall in the previous episode, I tried for several months to get in touch with band of brothers casting directors, Suzanne Smith, and finally got ahold of her agent who very politely made it clear that this podcast wasn't something she was interested in being a part of. Which is fine and totally understandable.
Connor Ratliff But I figured if she won't talk to me, I'll talk to another casting director. I'll get their take on it because I needed to talk to someone who understands what this whole process is like from the other side of things. So it's not just me and my assumptions, right? And that's when I realized that no casting directors wanted to talk to me about this.
I asked one who immediately said they were not comfortable with it, so I asked another who basically said the exact same thing. This happened several times. I had mistakenly thought that because a handful of famous actors have been willing to talk to me that it would just open the floodgates and I would be able to get other kinds of people to appear on this podcast. But actors love to go on podcasts and talk because actors—and I include myself in this—are not normal people.
Was this podcast a bad idea? I started to worry that I was burning bridges with casting directors by even asking them to be a part of it. I even considered seeing if I could get somebody to talk to me using one of those [voice shifted down] voice-altering the folks people use when they give an interview completely anonymous. [Normal voice]
Fortunately, I didn't have to resort to witness protection style devices. I got a New York City casting director to talk to me.
Connor Ratliff If you had to guess, why do you think they re-auditioned me?
Seth White Tom saw your audition. He was like, this isn't what I had in my head. And the casting director probably said, “You should really meet him in person. We really liked him. Everyone else really liked him. Meet him in person, give him a chance. And then if you hate him then, we can still kind of look to recast.”
Connor Ratliff So you think he hated me?
Seth White Oh, goddamn it, Connor.
Connor Ratliff That's your professional opinion...
Connor Ratliff His name is Seth White and I've been auditioning for him since 2013. He actually was the first casting director to cast me for a TV show after I returned to professional acting. Seth has cast me in a few other things, but more often than not, I do not get the job. And Seth likes me. I'm just not always right for every job, and this is a really competitive business.
Connor Ratliff ...so, uh, I hope you won't take this personally, that you weren't my first choice, uh...
Seth White That's understandable.
Connor Ratliff Since you didn't cast Band of Brothers, I did try to talk to the casting director who cast me—
Seth White Oh.
Connor Ratliff —and then had to, had to break the news to me. Uh, I was told that she didn't want to be a part of this.
Seth White [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff Have you ever heard the term "dead eyes" professionally? Someone has "dead eyes?”
Seth White I've never heard someone say that to me, like, speaking of an actor.
Connor Ratliff Right.
Seth White Um, it's never really come up. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff What about like, "no light behind the eyes"?
Seth White That—like there's like, it's normally like there's something like, "I'm not feeling anything from this person," and—
Connor Ratliff There's nobody home.
Seth White There's—yes, exactly.
Connor Ratliff Did anything about the story surprise you?
Seth White [Sighs] Being in casting for kind of as long as I am, not really...Like, it's...it's an interesting story just kind of because of the timing of things for you, like not even making it to set.
Connor Ratliff Mhm.
Seth White Um, but it's, you know, kind of par for the course kind of in our business, sometimes.
Connor Ratliff And how often do you have to break the news?
Seth White It's—you know, we have to break it to the agent who—
Connor Ratliff To the reps, yeah.
Seth White —then has to break it to the client.
Connor Ratliff Have you ever had to look an actor in the eye and tell him that they're going another way?
Seth White [Laughs] I'm not like [laughs]—After like, an audition you can look an actor in the eye and say, "Have a good day." [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff Yeah, like when I have come into audition for something, you'll always say the same thing, which is like, "Oh thanks, good to see ya." You know, you always say like, nice things whether it goes my way or not.
Seth White Yeah.
Connor Ratliff What's the hardest part about sitting through that many auditions?
Seth White It's just like, it's an—like, an endurance trial, sometimes. And you know, you're reading the same things over and over and over again and seeing the same things and you're ultimately giving the same direction over and over again. It's just trying to kind of break through the monotony of the day to like, find like what you need for a certain part or out of a certain actor.
Connor Ratliff It's interesting to me because I would have assumed that part of being a casting director is that you have like, a photographic memory that you hold onto every audition in your mind.
Seth White Like, you know, we're seeing, you know, anywhere between fifty and a hundred people a day sometimes. Like if I, I—I couldn't possibly keep all that in my head and it would probably drive me insane at some point if I tried to. Some people can, but yeah. You remember the good and you remember the very bad and then everything else is kind of just a wash. I'm sure she remembers that.
Connor Ratliff I don't know if she would?
Seth White I think she would, because like, I remember everyone we've had to like recast in my career so far. And yours is such like, an involved story.
Connor Ratliff Yeah, there's a major movie star in the heart of this story.
Seth White You spent a day with her. I'm sure it's something she remembers and I'm sure when it came across her desk she was like, "I just kind of don't want to deal with this."
Connor Ratliff Yeah. I was surprised by how much it hurt my feelings when she didn't want to talk to me because it felt like I sort of wanted her to know that I turned out okay. You know, like—
Seth White [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff —all indications of this podcast, uh, put to the side.
Seth White Yeah.
Connor Ratliff And I thought like, Oh, she'll think this is like, "Oh great! Like you went through this. But then you took some time off and then you came back and now you're, you know, working in various TV shows and you're doing okay." And I kinda thought it'd be a nice, uh, healing experience. And it's like, I wanted to tell her how nice she was to me that day.
Seth White It's so hard because like, with, with actors, like it's...The casting process is so far out of your hands, you know, you could give the best performance, you could, you know, just be everything that they want, and it was just, it was just one small little thing that, you know, he could have—Tom Hanks could have just been having a bad day, honestly. And you saw your audition and it was just like, "It's not—Not this, not today. I'm gonna, I'm going to take—I'm going to bring some power into my life and just get rid of this one thing."
[Somber Music]
Jon Hamm Things like that can fuck you up. Acting and, and especially professional acting. And, and, and trying to navigate a career in this business is, uh, is so much about confidence and momentum. And when one or both of those is disrupted, you're kind of like, "Am I—What am I—Am I doing anything right?” I'm 48-years-old. Like I've been doing this more than I haven't in my life at this point. But when you're younger and something like this happens—I had it happen to me 15 times with pilots, to the point where Les Moonves at CBS had told my agents to stop sending me in because, and I quote, "John Hamm will never be a television star."
Connor Ratliff Wow. What did you feel like when you heard that?
Jon Hamm Not great! And then you start the, "What did I do in the room? Like, I didn't like, just shit my pants. Like I, I've, I, I know I wasn't terrible. What, what, what is it?” And it's just, who knows, like it's that I'm—Maybe I remind that guy of another guy that he just didn't like or you know, you just never know and you'll never get a straight answer.
Connor Ratliff Does stuff like that stick with you? Like, that, that sentence from Les Moonves? I think that that's such that it feels like aggressive to the point where it could be haunting?
Jon Hamm Well...or just, or just weirdly personal in a—in a business where it's not supposed to be personal. There are so many conflicting theories on like, what to do when you go into an audition room, and the only one that makes any sense is "Try not to feel like a total piece of shit," because it always feels like shit when you walk into an audition room. Nobody—I mean nobody...everybody's distracted. It's, it's—You don't want to do too much and you don't want to do too little and you don't want to be Mr. Bean and you don't have dead eyes and you just want to like—and you just want it to be over. Both sides honestly. Because I've been on both sides of that table. All the people on the, on the casting side of the table want is for somebody to come in and knock it out of the park. And then all you want to do is try to make some kind of connection in some kind of impact. It's such a conflicting, difficult thing.
Connor Ratliff Have you ever crossed paths with Tom Hanks, either personally or professionally?
Jon Hamm I 100% have. I have his email.
Connor Ratliff Oh, really?
Jon Hamm Yes I do.
Connor Ratliff Are you pals? Are you friendly? Are you professionally friendly?
Jon Hamm Uh, yeah. I think we're friendly.
Connor Ratliff Um, eventually, I don't know where this process of investigating this and exploring this would go, but if I get to—if I get to the point where I get the courage and the opportunity to talk to Tom about my eyes, um, would you—would you be willing to come along with me if that ever happened? Or if that ever—
Jon Hamm Of course.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Jon Hamm Of course. The facilitator.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. Um, can I just ask, um, um, do you think you could describe my eyes? Uh...
Jon Hamm Uh oh, there you go.
Connor Ratliff I'm going to get as close-in, now. Hold on.
Jon Hamm See, I think you have quite lively eyes. And they're very clear. Are they blue?
Connor Ratliff I think they're green-gray.
Jon Hamm Green.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Jon Hamm Green-gray. Oh, yeah. I would say that there's, there's a lot of emotion coming through. You wanted specific?
Connor Ratliff Yeah. Anything that, anything that pops into your head.
Jon Hamm The French have a word—tristesse.
Connor Ratliff Tristesse? What does that mean?
Jon Hamm Sadness. [Laughs].
Connor Ratliff Sad eyes. See, that's wonderful. That's a, that's a Bruce Springsteen song.
[Theme music swells and ends]
Connor Ratliff In the next episode of Dead Eyes, I'll talk to my friend Adam Conover, creator and star of Adam Ruins Everything. As a person who has his own TV show, he knows just how many big and small decisions need to be made every day, including hiring people and firing people.
Adam Conover Not a single—not a single person involved in this story thought about it again for the rest of their lives. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff I'll also talk to another Adam: Adam Sims, someone I've wanted to talk to for almost two full decades—
Adam Sims This was weird because there's two other actors in, in this vehicle. We all know that we're going for the same part, but at that point I have no idea whether or not we were told that we would meet Tom Hanks for the audition.
Connor Ratliff —because Adam Sims is the actor who replaced me on Band of Brothers.
Dead Eyes is a production of Headgum Studios. It was created by me, Connor Ratliff. It's written by me and it's mostly me that you hear talking, including now. The show is produced and edited by Harry Nelson and Mike Comite. Special thanks to my guests, Jon Hamm, Nicole Drespel, and Seth White.
If you like Dead Eyes, please let us know by doing all the things that podcasts ask you to do: subscribe, rate, review, follow us on Twitter @deadeyespodcast, and most importantly, tell your friends about this show. Especially if you're friends with Tom Hanks.
By the way, I really want him to win a third Oscar for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. He's played so many iconic American characters like Walt Disney or Sully, and now Mr. Rogers. It's just perfect and he's long overdue to win that third trophy. Anything we can do to help, we're happy to do it. See you next week, neighbor.