Copyright ©2007 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved.
Posted:
September 26, 2007.
Brilliant scientist. Guitar hero. Adventurer. Professor’s son. Sci-Fi
icon. Runway model. Surf bum. Eccentric. Reputed iron man. Dog lover.
Respected actor. Renaissance man.
Ed Quinn has worn a lot of hats over the years.
In a career (and life) that has been fascinating for its refusal to play by
the supposed rules, Quinn has put together an intriguing body of work
without forgetting what is really important in life.
Quinn grew up in an academic family and he has translated that to a
questing, experimental career in which he is willing to take chances and
think out of the box to find the most interesting projects.
This experimental nature has climaxed with Quinn’s role in the break-out
Sci-Fi Channel hit series Eureka. The story of a mythical town
populated by brilliant scientists, Quinn’s character of Nathan Stark may
just be the most intriguingly ambiguous of all of the eccentric characters. Stark has all the knowledge in the world at his fingers, but he
also has his own agendas and can’t quite be trusted.
Quinn checked in
with us recently to tell us all about his career and life in Eureka.
You grew up in
Berkeley. That must be an interesting environment to grow up in. Do you
think that played a part in you making a living in the arts?
You know, it was. Growing up in Berkeley was amazing. It was a really
magical time to be there in the 70s and 80s. It was still sort of [like]
the halcyon days of the 60s were vividly in the rearview mirror. In time it
kind of changed. Well, Berkeley will never change, but there’s definitely
been an evolution of the city. My father was a professor at Cal and it was
a great place to grow up. I grew up playing music and playing sports and I
had just never gotten into acting. You would think that Berkeley would be
the kind of place where everybody would be an artist, but the truth is it
was a very intellectual city. People are very passionate about everything.
People follow their own path. No one from Berkeley does what they’re
supposed to do. That’s probably where I got the idea I could come down to
Hollywood and maybe make it in acting.
You studied guitar
with Joe Satriani. How did that come about?
He
taught at Second Hand Guitars in Berkeley. Now
Guitar Hero
is a video game, but back in the early 80s guitar hero was the dream of many
young kids – myself included. He was the best of the best, so it was a
great pleasure. It was also kind of sobering – to realize this guy was
teaching guitar to punk kids like my friends and I. He was better than all
of our heroes. That was something to take note of. If you want to make it
in music, it’s very difficult.
You have had a couple
of bands and have done a solo disk as well. How long have you been playing
and singing? Is it hard to balance your musical and acting careers?
No
not at all, because I don’t make any money as a musician.
(laughs)
So there’s a priority there. The truth is I’ve played music my entire life
and I always will. There was a time in which I got paid a bit of money to
play, with a kind of a recording deal, but for the most part, I love acting
and it is my career. I treat it with that kind of respect.
With the
looming possible writers strike do you think you will concentrate more on
your music?
I
will definitely concentrate on the music. I’m in the midst of tracking
about eleven songs right now. The one thing about my music career is I’ve
never ever gotten to put a song out that I was happy with. It was always
‘we did the best we could.’ In one day we were trying to record five
songs. Demos, whatever I was doing. Working with a lot of producers, it
was always – you know, you’re collaborating, quote-unquote. Collaborating
means that they want to write music so that they can get part of the credit
for it. In the end always, nothing I ever did I was very happy with. I’d
like to do the stuff now that I don’t care. Now that I have a job. Now
that I can pay for my own recording. Now I can do it exactly like I want to
do it. I definitely will be trying to ramp up [the music.] Hopefully,
actually, I just finished – I went straight from
Eureka
to
a movie and I’m going on a little vacation for the rest of September, then
from October I want to stop rehearsing it and hopefully be in the studio.
When you were young
you also lived in Europe as a model. What was the life like there? Was it
hard to leave behind?
No. Not at all. My whole modeling career was kind of a joke. I always
wanted to study abroad and really couldn’t afford it. I was pretty buried
at Berkeley and I didn’t feel like it was the right call to leave at any
point. That being said, I really wanted to see Europe. I really wanted to
spend a good amount of time abroad. In my last semester I had been sort of
modeling over in the city. It was a lot of fun…. I was also a valet. I
made a lot more money as a model than I did as a valet. But you have to
realize I was 6’4” and about 210 lbs. Not the ideal height and weight to be
a model – especially because the clothes don’t fit. I went over to Europe
and I did very well, but I did very well because I shot a lot of
commercials. Over two years I shot 35-36 commercials. Then I was able to
do the big runway shows. It was amazing being 23-24 running around Europe
and going from city to city and actually working and making some good
money. But, there was no challenge to it. There really wasn’t. Modeling
has got to be the most boring job in the world – having your picture taken
in some crummy clothes. All the talent was the photographers and the
designers and stuff like that…
Well it wasn’t so much
the modeling I thought was interesting – it was the ability to live in
Europe at that age…
Yes, I based myself out of Barcelona and spending a lot of time in Milan and
in Paris. It was an incredible, incredible journey. But by the time I was
done with it, I was really done with it. My friend who was over there with
me we always joked “oh, yeah, we should go over to Europe now.” It’s
probably the last thing any of us would want to do.
In your acting career,
you seem to get a lot of roles in the sci-fi and horror genres. Is this
something you’ve searched out or just the way it’s come up?
I
think it’s both. I just really love the genre. When you show up and you
have a passion for it the people who create projects know that. It’s the
kind of stuff that I really, really want to do. So, typecast me all you
want… I’m perfect for it. It’s been nice. In fact, right now I’m up for a
big sci-fi horror film, which would be a lot of fun, and I’m hoping it will
all come together. Then there’s a couple of other things on the horizon
that I know are going to come to fruition, but I don’t know if they will
happen before the strike or not.
The one film you were
saying you’re up for – is it still in the planning stages?
They’re casting it and they want me for the lead. It’s just going to be a
matter of do they want to go that way or not? I’ve already had the meetings
with them. I think it’s right out there. Knock on wood.
Your first series was
Young Americans,
which was the spin off
of a popular series
[Dawson’s Creek]
and getting good buzz but the plug got pulled after just like eight
episodes. Was that disappointing?
Yeah, it was definitely disappointing at the time. It was my first series –
in fact it was my first pilot season. I was excited I got a script that was
already on the air. So you don’t realize how hard it is to get a show on
the air. It was a great show. It was an amazing experience. Unfortunately
all the grown-ups didn’t get along, so they cancelled the show. But as far
as all of us, we had a great time – a great experience. It was a horizon.
Who knows, maybe Katie Bosworth wouldn’t be Katie Bosworth [without the
experience]. Ian [Somerhalder] wouldn’t have been able to do
Lost.
My
buddy Matt Czuchry wouldn’t have been able to go to
Gilmore Girls.
Yeah, I interviewed
Matt during the
Gilmore Girls
years. He’s a really great guy.
One of my best friends. We met on the plane to Baltimore. We ended up
becoming roommates during that series. We now live about a mile from each
other down at the beach here in Southern California.
For so long, the only opportunities on TV were the major networks. How
has cable opened up the market for shows like Eureka?
It’s fantastic, for a couple of reasons. For one, we’re on a small little
network called Sci-Fi. But Sci-Fi is owned by NBC, which is owned by
Universal, which is owned by General Electric. They’ve got distribution.
They can sell DVDs. They have global reach. In the end of the day, you
have the visibility to make a great living and be on a show that doesn’t
have the kind of pressure to perform that the major network shows do. Our
show would be cancelled in a New York minute if we had premiered on any
other network. But because we’re on Sci-Fi – we’re the number one show on
the network. The other thing is when you do a cable series, you only do
thirteen episodes, which means you can do thirteen really good episodes. It
will free you up so you can do a film. For me it’s perfect. It’s exactly
what I’ve always wanted. To have a good cable series, take chances and be
different, build a small core audience and then I basically wrapped late
July. I was on a movie immediately. Would I have gotten the film
otherwise? They would have had a lot more choices if all those big network
shows weren’t going back into production, but they were. So, basically I
got the offer. I’ve had a couple of other offers already – a couple of
films that I’m passing on so I can go on vacation.
(laughs)
There’s a lot of work out there when you work on a cable show and you only
in production for five months. You get seven months off. Where, you know,
Matt Czuchry, for example, he hasn’t done a movie in years. People say,
“Oh, why can’t you book a movie?” Well, Matt would have two-and-a-half
months off. If the movie wasn’t going to start shooting within two or three
weeks of him wrapping
Gilmore,
he
couldn’t do it. It’s hard. It’s a hard schedule, because you never quite
know when a movie is going to come up or when it’s going to be done. So, I
think cable is just the greatest. You look at the shows on.
Battlestar Galactica
on
Sci-Fi. Look at what’s on FX these days. What’s on Showtime. There are
amazing series. It’s a great model.
Going back to the
networks, just a tiny bit, your character of Frankie on
CSI: New York
definitely has a lot of interesting levels – starting off as a love interest
and ending up as a psycho. How hard is it to get into the mindset of a guy
like that? Did you know the turns he was going to take from the start or
did it surprise you as the character went on as well?
No, I didn’t know it. Anthony Zuiker [CSI:
New York
executive producer] is just one of the few people in Hollywood who is a man
of his word. At one point we thought I was going to get an offer for
Detective Flack. Eddie Cayhill ended up getting the offer. [Zuiker] called
my manager and said I’m going to put Ed on one of my shows in some
capacity. Sure enough, the first episode of the second season of
CSI: New York,
he brought me in. He said I want you to be a Melina’s [Kanakaredes] love
interest. The problem is – Anthony Zuiker is a lunatic.
(laughs)
So halfway through the season, he came in and he was like, “I got it Eddie.
You’re going to go crazy. You’re going to hunt her. You’re going to try
and kill her. This is going to be our big finale.” I’m just going, oh… my…
God…. You are out of your mind. But, you know, it’s Anthony. He literally
wrote and hand-delivered that big finale script to me. He called me on the
phone, brought me to the office. He really is just a great, great guy. But
it was a hard shoot; because Melina is so wonderful and so gorgeous and so
sweet. To have to do that. To have to film those horrible scenes one day.
But the good thing was, I literally finished filming that and then two days
later drove to Canada to start
Eureka.
I was able to put it behind me pretty fast.
Eureka is such
an eccentric show. How much fun is it that you get to play a truly
brilliant man and yet show all of the faults and quirks?
That’s the best part. That really is the great part about the character.
It’s so multifaceted. It allows me scene to scene to make whatever choice I
want and try to keep the show interesting. What I’ve found as we film the
show and watch it – the more ambiguous the choices for Nathan, the more
conflict and greater dynamic it sets up within the show. I do my best to
try and keep other characters on the show on their toes. I think the
audience really likes it, too. Sometimes I go, oooh, I went a little far
with that. I probably shouldn’t have done that so silly or so flippant or
so mean or whatever. Then the episode airs and the audience
looooves
it. They love it.
It seems that the
second season of
Eureka has been
more serious and less comic than the first. Was this something that was
planned from the beginning or did that sort of come with the direction the
show took?
I
think it was planned. Andrew Cosby, who created the show, left the series.
So there was going to be a huge tone shift. I think the creators decided
that it was a big hit show and there was a certain importance involved. The
show became a very big, procedural sci-fi. A very serious tone, less
humor. We were finished the series [at the time that] maybe one or two
episodes aired. So we didn’t quite know what the tone of the show is while
you’re shooting it. We thought we were kind of still making the show like
the first season. The show was definitely very different. It’ll be
interesting to see what they decide… I mean I’ve heard rumblings around that
there is a pretty good chance we’re going to come back. [ed.
note
– Soon after the interview took place, the show was, indeed, renewed for a
third season by the network.] What are they going to do with the third
season? If they are going to continue with the more dark, kind of
procedural sci-fi or if they are going to bring it back to the quirky, fun,
light summer dramedy we were the first year.
I have always been a
huge fan of Joe Morton’s. What is he like to work with?
Joe’s such an amazing actor. He’s just an amazing professional. He’s been
there and done that and seen it all. The reason Joe is so good is Joe works
so hard. Never stops reading the script, looking at our character arc,
wondering if we’re going with this, we’re going with that…. He’s just an
incredible talent. We’re just so lucky to have him on the show.
Matt Frewer is great,
too, but does anyone tease him with Max Headroom imitations?
Oh, you can try to tease Matt all you want, but Matt is just on another
planet. I just absolutely love Matt. He’s such a lunatic. We get to spend
a lot of time together in the finale. It was just great. It was great
seeing him. He only did, I think, four episodes this year. I think that
the general consensus is that he should be doing a lot more than that next
year, because the show just isn’t the same without him.
Do you have any sort
of fantasy storyline you’d like to see Nathan involved with?
No, not really. I don’t really have those wish lists. I just kind of go
week to week’s script and really hope there’s a lot that’s really fun and
really grounded and you can have great scenes and great moments. But there
was some talk about some different directions the characters take last
season and this season. We’ll just see what happens this year. There was a
lot of talk about where the character was going this year, and by midway
through the season, he wasn’t going there. Actually, every season. He’s a
very interesting character. Every season you go in one direction, then all
the sudden the writers change their mind and do an about face. It would be
really interesting to watch all the Nathan Stark scenes that didn’t air.
(laughs)
There was a lot of stuff that was cut out because we were changing the
storyline. I always thought it strange.
I also noticed in your
TV guest starring roles you’ve done a lot of comic roles – like
What I Like About You, Jake In Progress
and
According to Jim
– I also believe you
have a couple of light movies coming up. Do you enjoy doing comedy and do
you find it harder or easier than drama?
I
do really love comedy. It’s a lot of fun to work on a comedy, just because
the energy level is so fun and so up. But there is also a great energy
level in doing drama that’s a lot of fun. It doesn’t really matter, as long
as it’s good. That’s really what it comes down to. You just want the
material to be good. You want it to be honest. I always try to bring a bit
of humor, even into my serious roles. Once I found I could really execute
comedy well, I tried to bring it in to all of my roles.
Would
you like merge your musical and acting talents in some projects?
Yeah, as long as it’s not cheesy. You say that now and I kind of got a bad
taste in my mouth. It sounds good, but then you think of
Cop Rock.
I don’t think so… So those kind of things always seem to feel a little
forced to me.
I was thinking about
something a little more serious, like an
Almost Famous….
Oh, that. Yeah, that’s completely different. [However] every time an actor
can play five chords on their guitar in their trailer, all of the sudden
it’s suddenly the end of the episode, they’re pulling it
out and the actor is
playing and you’re sort of like: Oh, Lord. I just don’t want to be that
guy.
The Neighbor
sounds funny and has an great cast – Matthew Modine and Richard Kind are
amazing. What is the film going to be like?
It’s supposedly fantastic. I haven’t gotten a chance to see it because I’ve
been working. But it’s been screening. It’s doing really well. It’s up
for a couple of film festivals here that I think they are just about to lock
down this week. Everybody who has seen it said it’s hysterical. Michèle
Laroque is just phenomal – she’s a French actress. Matthew Modine of course
is fantastic. It was a lot of fun to do. It was a great way to start the
year. Hopefully, it’ll find a home somewhere.
I know this is pretty
much in the early phases, but apparently you are going to be in an upcoming
movie called
The Rainbow Tribe.
What can you tell us
about that project?
Yeah, that’s the movie I just finished. But it was a lot of fun. Grayson
Russell from
Talladega Nights
is the lead kid in it. It’s kind of a
Dennis the Menace, Bad
News Bears
summer camp kind of thing. David James Elliott (Jag)
and I had a blast. Really good people. It was a tough shoot, but everybody
did everything they could to make the movie better. It’s going to be really
fun to see.
There were a bunch of
rumors out there that you may be in the
Iron Man
movie. Obviously, Robert Downey Jr. ended up getting the gig, but were you
ever in the running or was that just wishful thinking by people trying to
get you another character named Stark?
I
think that was a lot of very kind people out in the sci-fi world. They
wanted to make sure it was going to be cast well. By the time people told
me about it, they go, “Hey, Ed, a bunch of people are clamoring on the
internet that you should be Iron Man.” I called my agent and they’re like,
“Yeah, Robert Downey Jr. will be doing that.” I’m like, oh, well….
(laughs)
He got it? He’s a famous dude. A famous actor. So I’m probably not going
to get that… That was that.
What is
more of a high – a perfect wave or getting a role?
Ooh. That’s a tough one. You know, I don’t think you can even compare the
two, because, you know, a wave is just a moment. A storm brews a thousand
miles away and a little bit of energy travels through the ocean and it
breaks once. Yeah, I leave on Saturday for Indonesia and I’ll be out in
Sumatra on a boat trip. But that’s different. The thing about a role is
it’s forever, once you do it and you’ve filmed it, it’s out there. It’s
something permanent that you can look back on and remember fondly. With a
wave, maybe your friends see it, maybe someone snaps a photo, but for the
most part that’s just your own private moment. It’s what keeps you driving,
keeps you searching for the next wave. It’s not something you can really
share or reminisce about.
What is something
people would be surprised to know about you?
I
have a nine-pound dog named Newt. I call him ten pounds of muscle. He’s a
little min pin. He’s this little bowling ball, a miniature pinscher.
Say we went forward in
a time machine like 50 years. How would you like people to see your career?
Just when you mention my name, they would go, he’s good. Yeah. He was
good.
Are there any
misconceptions you’d like to clear up?
Misconceptions?
Wow. (long pause) I don’t know. Not really. I think it’s what you
see you get. People who work with me know me. If people are going make up
stories about me, it’s like forest fires. You’re never going to put them
out. Let them burn out on their own. There aren’t too many rumors out
there that I have to track down.
Email
us Let us know what you
think.
Features
Return to the features page.
