Revenge has become the guilty pleasure of the season that's not so guilty anymore. Its story lines, characters and Hampton's roots that are about to be torn at any given moment is nothing to feel guilty about. Break out twists, deaths and actors is what has come from the ABC hit series and Ology was lucky enough to chat with the best of them all. Nick Wechsler. He's the usual collared shirt wearing bartender Jack Porter who we're all dying to see get with Emily Thorne all the while wanting him to find out about her Amanda past. These are some details for those of you who don't know, which means you are clearly missing out, by the way.
Nick was beyond any other interview. Giving details, humor and a bit of a Jack Porter vibe himself. His relaxed conversation and details on his own life could make anyone feel like they were talking to a long time friend. He may have had other plans than acting, but lucky for us the show snatched him up. He might say he's just going to 'ride it out' but something tells me this whole Revenge gig will last quite awhile.
Check out his other interview: He talks spoilers and the love triangle.
Hey Nick, thanks for talking with me today.
Of course.
So bare with me because I'm obsessed with the show and have so many questions.
Of course. I might not have great answers but I'll try to help you out. [Laughs]
Alright well let's start with this. [Laughs] When did you know you wanted to become an actor?
I went and saw a play in high school and I thought everyone
was terrible. Maybe it was my interpretation that I didn’t like everyone.
[Laughs] I felt...they deserved attention. It was like, ‘No, you weren’t really good.’ I was like
‘I can do it and I’m not even any actor.’ So basically I started acting out of
spite. [Laughs] I think I’ve always had an interest in it in a sense. I always
liked sitting around and joking around with my friends and that was just a form
of performance or something. I didn’t have like a dream of being an actor or
anything.
What drew you to Jack Porter’s character and wanting to be a
part of Revenge?
Well I’d like to say that I had all of these amazing options
and that was sort of the one I chose. But it was really hard. I’d been out of work for a while with a guest spot here and there. In the past few years or so.
The show really took a chance on me. And also Mike Kelley. No bullsh*t, I really did want to work with
Mike because I almost was cast in his previous pilot…ever since then I’ve been
a fan of Mike and I had no idea he wrote Revenge.
Wow! That’s crazy.
Yea, when I got the pilot script and went and saw him I went
‘Oh my God!’ And I saw his name on it. So I was really hoping to work with him.
He’s just so good at what he does.
Would you consider yourself like Jack? How are you
different?
Interesting. [Laughs] Here’s my dirty little secret about
acting. Or maybe it just shows in my
lazy performances or something. [Laughs] I play every character like me.
Basically I don’t build some character from the ground up. I just start with me
being myself, and then if he’s supposed to be different I try to fit that part
and think how I would end up in that situation. Other than that, I would love
to be a character that’s nothing like me and completely different than me but
I’m not. I’m just a dude that’s me in everything. Actually when I went
into the wardrobe fitting they were like ‘Yeah can we just use your shoes and
your pants…’ So I guess I’m a lot like him in ways that I didn’t have any
control over. They just thought him.
Well everyone clearly loves Jack! What’s your schedule like? Is all filming done in L.A.?
I think they do some exteriors, like some of those aerial
shots, which are f*ckin gorgeous actually. [Laughs] I love it. I think it does
a lot for helping us believe that it’s there because the rest is shot on sound
stages in Manhattan Beach and the boats that we do are shot in Marina del Rey. We’ll
leave occasionally around L.A. Some establishing shots are real shots from the
Hamptons. They do an amazing job of. In particular, we have Emily’s house built
on on a sound stage and the Grayson’s mansion built on a sound stage. On Emily’s place
she walks up onto the deck—in the background you can see water sometimes. And
sometimes I imagine that’s supposed to go all around the house. We didn’t
actually build a whole house [though]. And then they’ll just change out the background.
Once they took this water shot they got I think in the Hamptons and composited
it in the background using the green screen on filming day—its f*cking amazing! I
couldn’t believe it, at first it was like ‘Oh God this is not going to work or convince anyone
that we’re in the Hamptons. Like its going to look so phony.’ But I was really
impressed on how convincing it was. I couldn’t tell it was a composite shot
unless someone pointed it out to me.
They are gorgeous and the storylines are insane, but so good! Are they just as
much of a surprise for you and the rest of the cast when you first get the
scripts?
I don’t have any idea what’s going to come. [Laughs] I think
certain others might because they talk to Mike or Joe [Fazzio], who started out by the
way as Mike’s assistant and graduated full fledge as a writer and he’s great.
So some of them contact them and try to get information out of them. [Laughs]
So I just kind of wait until it comes.
Now when it comes to the
deaths and freak accidents--your dad, Lydia, Frank and of course the shooting
of Daniel. Are any of you ever nervous your character will be a surprise
kill-off?
[Laughs] I think there was a little talk of that in the
beginning but we all know, we know who. I think we know some stuff by now. The
audience doesn’t know but we do. Like I have an idea where they hope to take my
character over the course of the season, or the course of the show if it goes
for another season. So I have some idea of a couple of major things. I knew in
advance that they were going to kill our dad off. Which it’s a bum because I
really liked Brian [Goodman], the guy that played our dad. And by taking out his
character, audiences didn’t get a chance to care about him. They could have had
him stick around for a while but at the same he was used as a way for basically
giving a difficult decision to my character and Declan. Once he’s gone then
there’s this huge burden and decision for us to make. Are we going to move on
are we going to stay? So that made it so I’m stuck taking care of everything.
Yea, it was almost like to develop the story line.
Yea.
Now I know you probably can’t give too much away so its
going to be hard to even ask, but do you think at this point Jack is starting
to pick up that Emily is really Amanda? Have you filmed an episode like that
yet?
[Laughs] We have not filmed an episode like that yet, no. He
doesn’t know yet.
Is there a specific way you’d want Jack to find out? The
plot is so intertwined its hard to know how it would even be revealed.
God, I haven’t thought of that. I mean I’ll tell you—what
they’ve got, the way I imagine they’ll have to do it—its pretty good. I know some
of where it’s going. I don’t know all the details before we get there but I
know sort of longer-term plans where he might find out by the end of the
season.
He might find out by the end of the season?
I think so. I’m not positive but I think so. But nothing
we’ve shot so far reveals—like I don’t find out by episode nine. Actually, we
just got a script for episode 10 which I’ve not read yet because I’m going to a
table read later today and I’ll just read it there but unless there’s something
revealed in there we won’t know by episode 10.
Well Jack and Amanda share Sammy in a way. Do you and the
cast joke about how he would really be dead by now? You’ve definitely heard of
this I know it.
Oh yeah. We talk about it all the time on set. [Laughs] What
people keep saying is—they have a problem with
the idea that this dog shouldn’t be alive anymore. He’s clearly way too
f*ckin old. [Laughs] But also, would a nearly dead dog be walking three miles to the
Hamptons from Montauk? Because it runs away twice and she brings it back to me,
and the Hamptons is like 40 miles away from Montauk. [Laughs]
I didn’t even think of that! So is it kind of just brushed
to the side at this point?
I think so. I’ll say this--now we haven’t seen Sammy in many
episodes at this point and nobody’s said anything. Its not like there’s been a
line that he’s gone. He’s not dead as far as I know. We just haven’t used him
in awhile and I don’t know if it is a response to it.
So maybe it’s just like okay, Sammy was used to bring Amanda
and Jack together and now we’re moving on from it?
[Laughs] It might be, it might be. It might be to get to
Jack and then ‘Oh yea, we don’t need him as much anymore.’ It might be that. It
might be that it’s expensive to hire the dog. [Laughs] But it also might be a
response to the fans noticing that the dog should be dead by now. I don’t know.
So is it so far off that you don’t even know why exactly you
shot Daniel? Will we be left with that scene as this season’s finale?
I don’t know for sure but I think they want that to be the
end of the season. I think the hope of the show is—the pilot starts us off with
this dramatic, shocking scene. And then spend the rest of the series catching
us up, showing how this is how they ended up in that situation. This is how
that ended. So I do think that by the end of it we will. I think that’s the
idea at the end of each season. Like if we get picked up I think they want to
start the second season with another dramatic scene where we’re like ‘what the
f*ck?’ [Laughs]
That is amazing! This show is too good. Like as a fan I want
to find out so many spoilers but at the same time it would ruin it.
And that’s the thing! Friends of mine are asking too. They’re
like ‘Okay so your character and with this person’s character, why are they
doing this? Like who did it?’ [Laughs] And I'm like I can't tell you. And
they're like ‘tell me, tell me’ and I’m like, do you really want me to tell
you? I could tell you but I'll ruin it for you. Friends of mine keep asking me
information and its always ‘I can’t tell you.’
And then some parts you yourself don’t even know about.
Yea and then it’s like look, if I tell you then I’ll blow
the whole thing for you, that whole moment for you. That’s a reveal later and
you’re actually watching a show you’re interested in so don’t ask me this.
The show has to get a second pick up too, there’s no
way it can’t. So being that Jack did what he did to Daniel in the last episode, you’d think his story line will be increased even more next season.
Well, I hope but they told me how it would go. [Laughs]
No! What are you saying?
No, no! Its not like you’ll see less of me but where they
let him go—basically we’re not going to lose my character. What they told me early
on, I’m like ‘Oh sh*t’ that means I’ll be kind of in my own little world. I
don’t know, I don’t know, I can’t go on beyond that!
Oh no, you are going to prison or something like that!
It’s nothing like that. I’ll say that! Its nothing like
that, but I'll just leave it there.
You’re killing me but okay fine. What do you think you
would be doing if not acting?
I've had some lean times here in LA. I've had some years
where I was pretty much out of work. I would get like a guest spot a year or
something but I had some f*ckin lean times. Recently, sometime in the last two
or three years, I decided to go back to school to college for the first time to
pursue a degree in psychology, one that would allow me to be a therapist.
That’s awesome.
Yea but I only took some GE classes… I was supposed to do a
movie with some friends, which fell through. I put school on hold for the movie
and hadn't gotten around to going back yet and then started getting auditions.
I feel like Revenge is a good fit for you then in a sense
and so great that you landed the role.
Yea. Yea. What every actor in this situation has to remember
is--especially in my situation, because I wasn't a name. I was the least namey
person and I just won a lottery--I got really lucky. Its not like I'm so
brilliantly talented and I’m where I deserve to be. There are a lot of talented
people that are as talented as me if not more so, and that's not hard to do.
I'm not that great but I’m the lucky one. So I’m going to ride this out.
--
Well, if Nick isn't giving himself a lot of credit, you know his fans will. His name is definitely resonating with audiences more and more now too!
Stay tuned for yet another interview with Nick and some talk with some of his other cast members!
Revenge airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on ABC.
Twitter: @rosewebber
[Nick Wechsler ]
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