Actor Mark Pellegrino - from LOST, Supernatural, DEXTER, and currently The Returned, and my latest movie, Bad Turn Worse. AMA!

Who was your favorite person to work with in Supernatural, and why is it Misha Collins?

Just because he's SO sexy.

Hi Mark! I was wondering, how is Michael and your chewtoy Adam doing? It has been a while since we heard about them!

Well, I mean, Adam is my bunk buddy and we are doing just fine. I'm abusing him as often as possible. Michael's a bit surly, he stays at the other end of the cage as far as concerned. But i'm just waiting for the day to break out.

Your interpretation of Lucifer on Supernatural was fascinating. So soft spoken, with a hint of danger that would come out full bore in specific situations. I'm curious as to how you're directed to play a character like that. Do they tell you how they want you to play it, or did you get to build the character yourself?

Yeah, I think it's in the script? The script tells you how to play it, and they hire you because they think you're right for it to some degree. So you just kind of get into it, throw your ideas out and see what sticks.

MARK!! HUGE FAN!!! There was a big rumor that you almost got fired from the Big Lebowski because you wouldn’t stop farting in one of your scenes. Something like that. It sounds made up, but it’s been a huge rumor for years. Is there any validity to this???

There is, actually.

Um... hehehe... but the good news is, you know, it got them to quit serving tomato sauce at lunch, which was the culprit.

What is hands down your favorite moment From Supernatural and or Lost? Also, I'm sorry Revolution didn't work out it had a good premise.

Hahaha - yeah...

Favorite moments on LOST... you know... I gotta say that I love working with Titus Welliver. We became such good friends on the shoot, and pretty much working with him on any scene was great, but it was going to PF Chang's afterwards and drinking wine that was the best experience of all.

And SUPERNATURAL is a really, really unique show, because once you do that show, you enter a family that's really really cool to be in. So I think one of my favorite moments in that show was getting to knock the crap out of Jensen Ackles. Just the expression on his face, because he thought the gun would kill me, and I just went "ouch" and gave him a push.

Mark, my username is obviously inspired by a supernatural quote, but what was your favourite part while you were working in supernatural?

I think my favorite part as Lucifer was killing all the Pagan Gods. Yeah, I killed them all. They all ganged up on me, thought they were going to get the best of me, and I wiped them out. It's called "Hammer of the Gods," pretty cool episode.

Hey Mark! Thanks so much for taking the time to do this AMA. I loved you on Supernatural and I was wondering if you had any favorite moments while on the show? Also, any chance we will ever see you back? Thanks! :)

Yeah, I don't know about coming back, that's definitely a Bob Singer / Jeremy Carver question? I think he's got to come back, because you can't kill Lucifer, for crying out loud!

And Gabriel's come back! And I think Rob Bennett's character's coming back, so maybe there will be room for Luci on the horizon. But nobody's told me anything bout him coming back until this point. So I think season 10 will probably be Lucifer-free.

But these moments - you know - these stellar moments of working on the set don't necessarily stand out to me because it's work, working with the guys is great because they are funny, they keep the set light, they're smart and down to earth, so that makes working pleasurable. But I'm not in the Mischa / Jensen / Jared inner circle where they riff on each other and play practical jokes on each other. Maybe one day!

What is your favorite brand of sparkling water?

Also, how secretive were the writers on “Lost”? Did you have much of an idea on where your character was heading from week to week?

Hehehehehe!

What do YOU I think?

I'll just say Perrier. I like generic club soda.

The writers were VERY secretive. I had no idea where my character was heading from week to week. I think the regular series characters had more insight and got scripts more in advance than I did, like maybe Michael Emerson or Evangeline, they probably got their scripts a bit more in advance, and might've known a little bit more about plot lines than I did. I was definitely in the dark.

You're known for playing the bad guy, and I must say, you're damn good at playing one. Anytime you're on a show, I automatically assume you're going to be an antagonist.

My questions: are you afraid of being type casted? What's been the most difficult role you've had to do? If you could play a super villain, who would you choose?

Thanks for taking time to answer questions.

I'm not afraid of being typecast. Because nowadays characters are very complex. So good guys have elements of bad in them, and bad guys have elements of good in them, and in really good projects, it's hard to tell who's who. It's not like the days of old, when characters were archetypal and clear cut.

And most difficult? That would have to be Hamlet. My wife and I did a production of Hamlet in 2005, she directed it, I played the principal part, and we rehearsed it for a year and a half, and it ran for about 5 months. And the director wanted to keep doing it in perpetuity, but it was so exhausting to do it the 4 x a week that we did it, that I couldn't see myself doing it for years.

What was it like working with Michael C. Hall? What's he like on set?

Hehe.

He's a really good actor. So it's like working with a really good actor with good craft & knows what they are doing.

We had an interesting relationship for the first couple weeks of DEXTER because we had such antagonism towards each other on the show- our characters, I should say - that it felt like it bled over into everyday life, because we never seemed to do (*for the first couple weeks) between takes what actors do - we didn't get to chat. And then one day I was over at Craft, noshing on something, and he came over tentatively, noshing on something, and I looked over at him and he looked at me, and i think I asked him a question, and he responded, and I said "I thought you didn't like me?!" and he said the same thing - and we realized we were working off each other's character instead of the real person. So we became friendly after that!

Most recent dream you can remember?

This is an extraordinary question because for the past year and a half, I've marveled that i can't remember a single dream I have had.

It's a little disturbing.

I know that i had some very significant dreams last night, which I remembered fully this morning, but they are all completely gone from recall.

What was it like working on The X Files?

Oh! I was on an episode called MONSTER I think. And it was pretty fun. It was the first time the show had moved from Vancouver to LA, so that was pretty fun - I think it was the first show. It was a scary episode, about a guy who's tormented - I was Durwood Spinks, I was his coworker at the fast food joint who figures out he's this monster, and goes to extort money from him, and he shoots his tongue through my forehead!

For Mulder and Scully - they asked some questions at the counter while I was near the fries, but it might've been my first time working with Kim Manners. And that was great. It was funny, because one of my first scenes - Kim would block out a scene in advance, he'd come in, tell you where to stand, where to walk, he was very very efficient and quick - so he tells me what to do in the scene, and I say "Well, wouldn't it be more logical if I did this, this and this?"

And he thought for a second, and he said "You're right, but we have 34 setups to do, so we have to do it THIS way."

It was great, because there was nothing mean about it, it was just totally cool, and it still worked out, and was a fun scene.

I thought that was a good episode too.

Hey Lucifer Mark Pellegrino! Thank you for giving us this chance!

• Do you have any favourite off camera memories from Lethal Weapon 3?

• What was it like working with the cast and crew of The Big Lebowski?

Thank you again for giving us this opportunity, I'm a huge fan of your work, on behalf of this AMA I'd like to commend you on your amazing talents and wish you luck with your current and future projects

You know? FINALLY. YES, I actually DO.

This was way pre-Mel Gibson meltdown, when he was at the top of his game, and I had a big fight scene with Mel, I was just a bit actor, I had one word in the entire movie, I was lucky I had a character name - Billy Phelps - so the fact that Mel asked me to his trailer to fix me a cappuccino, and talk Shakespeare, was pretty frikkin cool. He made me a cappuccino, we sat, and I talked to him about HAMLET because he had done Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet, which I thought he was very good in - and he told me a couple horror stories about working on that - which it's difficult enough to do Hamlet let alone under constraints that Zeffirelli put on an actor without going out of their mind - we bonded man. I thought he was great. He showed me some gag reels, because they liked to make gag reels on the LETHAL WEAPON movies. He's really really smart and really really funny.

Hehehe! It was cool, man. I mean... I always thought Jeff Bridges was a genius. Ben Gazzara - I remember everything about him - Route 66 and i even came up with the play he improvised in the 50s! He was the only other character, besides Jeff, who I really worked with on the set. And it was fun. They're just good guys. Focused, you know? They're busy working like me.

Did you actually learn how to play Senet while filming LOST?

Yeah, that crazy stone game. No I did not. So what you saw up there was fake Senet.

I'm a huge fan of Being Human, especially in regards to Aidan and Bishop's dynamic. How do you interpret their relationship? Did you play it as a strict father-son dynamic, or was there a sense of the 'jilted lover' on Bishop's end?

No, it was father-son to me.

It was the love relationship of the Prodigal Son to his father.

And I think what made Bishop so passionate about Aidan - he admired his qualities. I think Bishop admired his qualities, but was also very intertwined with Aidan, because he felt guilty for the way he ruined Aidan's life to get what HE wanted.

And it's like a parent's guilt that makes him keep trying to make things better, in not always the best ways.

how was it like working on The Tomorrow People?

It was - I don't know why I'm laughing every time I hear these questions - it was good, you know?

I'm kind of a couple generations outside of the core group of actors there, so for me, after the first couple weeks, it was about working and going home, and not really mixing too much with the kids (so to speak). But they were good kids and it was nice working with them.

Hey Mark, I appreciate everything you make. Were you satisfied with the ending of Dexter? I was not at all. Thanks.

I didn't see the ending of DEXTER. I couldn't get over the fact that they killed Paul. Because I thought Paul was going to be a sort of nemesis for Dexter for a while. But actually, I think he was only supposed to be a nemesis for about 4 episodes, and then they extended him to 7 or 8, so that's not too bad.

how did you feel when the tomorrow people got cancelled?

I was kind of bummed. But that's the way network television is. It's hit or miss. And they tried a formula that didn't work, and it's on to the next thing now.

How was Lost directed? Was directors of single episodes influential or did you actors count rather on your habits from previous episodes? Or were executive producers more influential? And what about writers, were they advising on the set?

You know, Jack directed me in a number of episodes and he's an executive producer on the show, but then when they would bring in other guys - Tucker Gates, I think, did a number of episodes if I'm not mistaken, but i don't know if he was privy to all the mythology, but he's got a good eye for the script that he's doing - I don't remember writers ever coming up to me making corrections or filling me in on story at any points. AN EP would sometimes direct, or outside directors, but somehow the product made it out okay.

The Internet says you're 49. You don't look 49. Why does the Internet say you're 49?

Because I'm 49. It's one of the few times the internet is right.

IMDB had me at like 59 at one point!

You're definitely a "that guy" actor. What's your best story about a fan pointing you out as being "that guy"?

One of the worst things for me - one of the things i HATE, to be honest- is when somebody comes up to me and they say:

AAAAH WHAT HAVE I SEEN YOU IN!?!?!?

Because I'm not going to stand there and rattle off my resume like an asshole - I'm just like "I don't know, you look familiar to me too!"

I don't want to go down that route!

I mean, I like it better if people ask "Are you an actor?"

Wouldn't that put you in an awkward position? It's weird. I'm not going to rattle my resume off. Although there's the other weird phenomenon of being involved in an intense argument or discussion with somebody and being interrupted in the middle of it. That's a very interesting phenomenon as well. Because then that person isn't being sensitive to the moment. I love being interrupted, and taking pictures and talking with fans, but you gotta see what the lay of the land is before you pop in.

Just like i would - I wouldn't come up to you if you were in the middle of something intense!

Did you have fun playing the Devil?

I did!

Who wouldn't have fun playing the devil? Especially the way they wrote him in SUPERNATURAL!

So, who in fact was Jacob?

Hehe! Didn't the show answer that one?

Because if you're expecting any insider info from me aside form what you saw on the show, you are definitely not going to get it. Other than what you saw, you know? Part of a sibling pair whose mother seemed to be the guardian of the island, whose death orphaned us and made me pretty much the de facto guardian of the island.

Other than that, I don't know. I don't think he was an angel, or demon, he was just in this rather mysterious place that endowed him with certain kinds of powers I guess.

Two questions... Have you ever dyed your eyebrows for any role? and, If you had the opportunity to have your own show, what type of show would you imagine it to be?

Thanks for doing an AMA, I thought your acting in Lost was perfect. Gonna check out BTW, and hope to see you in more stuff in the future.

I have NOT. But I did dye my eyebrows once just to try to make them a little bit darker so they wouldn't have to fill them in the way they do in the makeup trailer. And they came out BLACK, and I had to go into a callback with John Wells looking like Groucho Marks - it was one of the more embarrassing moments of my life.

I don't know? A good one that's deep and has elements of comedy and drama in it. Like BREAKING BAD is a great show, where a character gets to go on a TOTAL journey, a great arc that's deeply personal all the way through. That'd be the kind of thing I'd want to do.

What is David Lynch like? Does he treat his actors differently from, let's say, Jon Turteltaub?

Oh yea, they are very different guys. David Lynch is a really eccentric cool artist who's just... totally unaffected and himself. Smokes like a chimney, wears button downs buttoned to his neck, has a very off kilter vision of the way things are and isn't glued to a straight story. And is a very interesting character. And Turteltaub is a really funny guy with a really sharp wit and - I couldn't see him telling those non-linear bizarre stories that a David Lynch would tell! But he's every bit as equal in the intelligence department, that's for sure. He's a very cool, interesting, sharp guy.

Were you eaten by a dinosaur in The Lost World: Jurassic Park? I can't seem to remember. My second question: What is your favourite dinosaur?

No, okay...me and a group of PLAYHOUSE WEST actors did a favor for Jeff. So we just kinda were extras in this bar somewhere, supposedly in Morocco but really a backlot of Universal Studios, we're supposed to be some crazy white boys living it up rather stupidly in some tropical bar, I don't even remember what happens but somehow we get bested by a character - the real reason to have done the favor for Jeff was not so much to play that, but to sit with Steven Spielberg at lunch and listen to him talk movies, which was pretty amazing.

That was great.

And I also got to be on the sound stage when they were testing out the 2 t-rexes when they pick up the guy out of the truck and tear him in half - and those monsters were gnarly. from the legs up, they were about as realistic as you could get, and they moved realistically and fast. They were huge, scary, creepy dinosaurs.

And Gigantosaurus. That's BAD. It probably had feathers too, right?

Your number came up in Person of Interest. How did it feel to be kidnapped by John Reese?

I think Jim Caviezel is a really, really cool guy. We kind of hit it off. He's an athlete, very intuitive dude, and we just hit it off - like Harvey Keitel, there's no explaining it, you just like each other insight and that's the way we were.

I think because he's an athlete, he like that i box and do Jujitsu and stuff like that.

Any words of advice for those of us without stubble as great as yours?

Hehehe!

Well, that could be a good thing if you're a woman, I think?

Otherwise, just give it time. It'll grow out in time.

Nowadays in the movies they can put adhesive on your skin and they can shoot actual HAIR onto that adhesive that fully LOOKS like a real beard.

I did need it once because i had to do a flashback sequence in THE TOMORROW PEOPLE and i had to have a beard - so they did this static gun thing on me and it looked perfect, it even matched the gray patches!

I've been waiting all day for your AMA! Mark, I love your work. (Just watched your episode of Grimm a few minutes ago.) You are one of the best of the jobbing actors (and I mean that in a good way.) What is your favorite role to date?

I think one of my favorite roles is Gavin Q. Baker the Third.

He was a defense attorney on THE CLOSER, who - I was Kyra's defense attorney because she was in hot water, so for 7-8 episodes, her and i locked horns. And what i loved about Gavin - it was the best wardrobe i ever had to wear, they were like $4,000 suits, for real - I had different designer glasses, priceless brooches - and my watch was $450,000, no joke - that was one of them. I had a Cartier watch, rings, these really beautiful independently designed rings from artists, I was decked out in the best wardrobe i ever had, and my character was flamboyantly gay, which i loved.

And I was hoping he would find his way over to MAJOR CRIMES, the series that took over after THE CLOSER.

Hey Mark - have you ever met a member of OutKast?

No.

Mark, saw the BAD TURN WORSE trailer and your character looks like a badass. How do you channel that kind of darkness for a character? (you sound like a nice guy when not in character.)

Hehe. Yeah, I think, we all have all the dimensions of good and bad in us - that's what makes us human.

So I guess it's just a matter of finding what makes that character tick, and emphasizing those character elements over anything else.

I really miss Revolution. How was it on the set?

A little confused. It was very long (the days were) - the times between work were very long, because it was a first year show so they didn't quite have it down to that machine that shows that have been rolling along for a while get to. But you know, it was - I kind of wished I could've been in it in a more significant capacity, because i thought my character didn't really go anywhere.

Hi. I am really excited to see Bad Turn Worse! But my question is more Supernatural related. Are you planing in attending any more conventions soon? I am going to see you at Purgatory Con in Germany though ;)

I am planning to going to San Francisco and Houston in January.

And I think I have - there are a couple other places and then the Purgatory Con In May. there might be Washington DC in May - that's if I'm not going back to Vancouver to do the second season of THE RETURNED.

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I think the secret (if there is one) is 1) you don't think of them as negative.l So you find all the positive qualities, and emphasize those, but good bad guys have to have - a lot of times they're given the best lines, the best things to do, the most active things to do. So it's a bit of a cheat to think there's any secret or formula to it. It's finding the good in the bad, I guess.

Hello Mark! Since you starred in Capote, please can you share some special memories or anecdotes about Philip Seymour Hoffman?

Yeah, man, Philip was great. Philip - I used to love to sit with Philip and talk plays. And acting, and he always had such great insights, you know? And we all - all of us - would go out - Chris Cooper, and Philip, and Clifton, and I - and I would always, always always tap Chris and Philip about acting and plays. Chris has a pretty phenomenal story as an actor - he didn't do his first film until his 30's. He studied under Stella Adler, and then did regional theater, to doing lead parts.

And Chris also said "Don't let anybody tell you that winning an Academy Award will change your life."

If you weren't an actor, what do you think you would have done instead?

I'd be a history teacher, I think. American History teacher.

Hi there Mark! How was the experience of dunking Jeff Bridges head throught a toilet? It's like, I have no ideia how I woud feel.. Proud, happy, sad, disgusted, ashamed... so much confusion!

Cheers!

I was just happy we got through it, because Jeff has a bad neck, so what you see is him dunking HIMSELF In a toilet, and me acting like I'm pressing him into the toilet, but I'm not - he's putting his own head in there! Every time!

Did you get to keep any props from the set of LOST?

Just my dignity.

No, I didn't get to keep any props.

Can you tell us any interesting story from filming No Holds Barred? Were you (are you) a fan of Hulk Hogan?

Haha!

Oddly enough, before I did that movie, i was a bit of a fan of wrestling.

I wouldn't say that Hulk Hogan was my wrestler du jour at that time, but I definitely thought he was cool.

And I mean - there's not a lot of funny stories, the movie itself is a funny story, and Terry running around in those blue tights half the time, that in itself is high comedy! But we did have a scene where I get paralyzed and I'm laying in the hospital, I didn't know anything about acting at the time, first project, which is PERFECT For the movie, but i was able to pull these emotions up for a time until the camera turned on me and I was dry as a bone -but I remember Hulk Hogan was really crying, and then in-between takes, he said "Mark... I can't tell you how hard it is for me to cry like that... I keep looking down at your bare feet and that one bird toe of yours poking up above the covers is freaking me out."

Good ol' NO HOLDS BARRED, ya know?

Oddly enough the director from that ended up directing me in an episode of SUPERNATURAL. Tom Wright.

What was it like working on set with Nick Cage?

Hehe.

I always laugh, I don't know why I'm always laughing?

Yeah, he was quiet, you know? And reserved. And nice, but to himself - actually, for that show, the guy that i had a really great time with was Harvey Keitel. We just laughed our asses off. For some reason, I had a kind of comedic muse for Harvey, which you would never think of for me, but i would imitate things, and he has a very honest, heartfelt, childlike laugh, and i used to love to make him laugh.

But it was nice working with Nicholas. I love actors who are focused and watching them work.

And that's the thing too - when we had to do reshoots on that, and Nic was shooting in Africa, we had to do shoots in London, pretending it was Philadelphia. This was NATIONAL TREASURE.

And this was where i got to see John Turteltaub's editorial abilities, because he was working out this complicated scene with the agents - saying "Okay, so YOU say what agent-so-and-so is saying" - he was forming the story of the reshoot in his mind - and i don't even know, in the end, how that sorted out. I don't remember, it's been so long since I've seen the movie, but it was interesting to see a real technician working, and composing a scene in various ways to get different values out of it.

Has there ever been a situation where you thought, what would Lucifer do?

No. Hehe. Although maybe I should use that as a barometer of what I should do every once in a while, just to see.

Oy, Mark. What do you like to write and/or find yourself writing most?

I'm on a 4th draft of my horror movie.

Hear you love zombies. Favorite undead film, game.. zombie survival tactic?

Ooooh. Let's see...

I did like World War Z a lot. I thought it did things with the Horde we hadn't seen before. It made it a force of nature that you looked at and thought "There's no possible way to escape this." Unlike the staggering zombie that anyone can beat up, including a 12 year old kid, it takes the infected genre and pushed it even further, which I thought was really really cool.

And I love LEFT 4 DEAD - although the Last of Us was great. I love the strategy of the fight in that.

And I just would plant myself in a place where you couldn't be snuck up on from behind and you have multiple guys just attacking and let them come to us and just build up bodies!

What do you think of Interstellar or have you seen it?

I haven't, I'm dying to see it, it looks fantastic from the trailers.

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Hehehe.

Well, days off - I used to teach, so I would teach acting and my wife and I would work on plays, and she would teach acting as well.

And I've been writing.

And I like to box, not anymore, I've given up being punched in the face, but I like the exercise of boxing when i can. And in my trailer, I just read. I have my dogs in my trailer with me, and read or write.

Hi, Mark. Would you like to return to the island in the future if Lost came back to TV?

I don't know if that would be possible for my character. And I hope it doesn't come back, because it had its life. It's lived it. It's properly finished, I think.

What do you think of the movie Moving Alan which you did with Misha Collins before either of you were on Supernatural? (ps I am a HUGE fan of your work)

Never saw it. I heard from Misha it's not that great, so I'll take his word for it.

Are you a fan of any specific movie genres?

Yeah, i LOVE horror movies. I do love horror movies.

What does Matthew Fox smell like?

He smells like a vanilla snap cookie.

I don't think I ever got close enough to smell him.

But I threw that out there because that's what I imagine you think he smells like.

So The Returned, eh? What'd you enjoy about playing the role you did, not being a big (though complex, I'll give you) 'baddie,' and favorite things about filming the show in general?

I love that this show is really complicated. That the characters are complicated. And that I'm, you know, a normal guy, heheh, who's experienced some pretty deep tragedies and riffs in my relationships and is trying to come back from that as best i can. And I love that. I love that people are going to see a very different character than they're used to seeing from me - and it's going to be sexier for me.

What made you start doing that whole "can of worms" thing on your twitter account? Do you ever regret starting the discussions?

I don't.

What made me do it?

I forget which came first- it might have just been my desire to have deeper conversations about roles and TV and answering fans like that, but getting to know THEM on a deeper level, because when you're talking philosophy, you're getting to know people for real. And then it became something even bigger when the palestine / Israeli conflict went through the roof, and I became embroiled in some intense "tweet abates" with people around the world, but I think the ideas are really important and they need to be out there. They shouldn't be hidden, they need to be out there, and that's why I think it's important - more than anything, I think ideas are important.

And I like stirring things up, maybe it's the devil inside me.

What is the thing that you personally wish they had explained or explained more fully on LOST?

I don't feel that they should've explained anything more fully.

I like that they left things where they did.

Hey Mark. Quick question, how's your day going?

Not bad, having fun!

What's one role that you look back on and think "I can't believe I got to do that"?

cough

I'm taking this as a good thing.

Um... I don't know that I've reached a role yet where I can say "I can't believe I got to do that." Other than theater stuff, I don't think there's anything in TV or film I could say that about.