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Trekcast: Our Interview with William Sadler aka Sloan from DS9 · Star Trek Podcast: Trekcast

• 0:04
  There we go. Awesome, all right, let me get this going.
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  Hey, this is Daniel Trek cast today. We have an amazing treat for
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  you guys. You know him from the Shawshank Redemption, the Bill and Ted
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  franchise, the MCU and of course we Trekies know him as Luther Sloan from
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  Star Trek Deep Space nine. Right now, you can catch him in his
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  latest project, A Stage of Twilight. It's on multiple different streaming platforms right
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  now. And today we are talking with the actor William Slattern. Thank you
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  so much for joining us. I'm good, I'm good, thank you,
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  thank you good to be here. Yeah, you know, I did get
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  a chance to watch the film. It was a great film, a great
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  drama. How would you explain or tell somebody about the movie. Let's start
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  with that. Well, first of all, it's it's a love story.
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  To put it in to put it in the category, it's a love story
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  involving a couple of people that are a little older than you might then most
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  love. You know, it's not Romeo and Juliet. They've been together for
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  Karen. Karen Allen and myself play a husband and wife who've been together for
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  a very long time and he gets a you know, he as happens,
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  gets a bad diagnosis, and the question arises, what he so, so,
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  what do we do? What do we do now? And and he
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  has some very uh unusual, understandable but unusual ways that he wants to deal
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  with it. But he loved her very much, and you know, he
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  wants to he wants to make sure that she's set up and you know,
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  as best he can. And uh, basically, basically his idea is he
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  doesn't want her to see him deteriorate the way he's going to deteriorate. And
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  so he's going to go off into the woods and live in a trailer and
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  just like get this over with by himself. And I understand the I understand
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  his motivation for that. But of course she's having none of it. Karen,
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  And Karen Allen is just wonderful in the role. She's she's so fun
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  to play with. The two of us had a chemistry that I think is
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  palpable throughout you. You believe that we like each other, you believe that
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  we love you know, we know each other and love each other. Yeah,
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  and it makes it you know, and it's it's poignant, it's funny,
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  and it deals, you know, it deals with end of life issues,
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  but but in an unusual way and in a kind of a real a
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  sort of a realistic way. It was written by a wonderful young director writer
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  named Sarah Schwab, who based my character loosely on her father who passed when
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  of a similar a similar circumstance. But all of that, all of that
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  said, I guess I'm coming away from it I have. I would say
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  that it's probably the best thing that I've It's some of the best acting that
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  I've ever done in my life. It was the most you know, it's
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  the most vulnerable, and it's the most and it's the funniest and the most
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  engaging. I don't kill anyone. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not
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  an arch villain from another dimension or something. The two of us, the
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  two of us have this beautiful relationship and they have to finish it the way
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  they have to finish it in some beautiful way, and that's what they do.
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  So and it's available on all of these streaming services I can tell you
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  about. I didn't even know they were existed, Amazon, Voodoo, Ubiquity,
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  Slash, Verizon FiOS, Ooopla, Charter Spectrum, Comcast, Exfinity,
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  and Cocks. There you go. And if that isn't enough places to see
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  it, I'll come to your house personally and act it out for you.
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  Yeah. I saw the film, and you know, for me, it
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  really touched me personally. I went through something very similar to this a few
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  years ago my mom passed away, and yeah, and I got to be
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  in the room as my mom and dad had a lot of conversations like in
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  the movie. So just that realism was yeah, and it and it resonated
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  with you very much. So yes, it sounded yeah, it it rang
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  authentic. Yeah. Yeah, that's you know, in some ways, that's
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  that's all you can ask for, is that you tell the truth, tell
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  the truth and let people make up their you know, make up their own
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  minds about is it a good movie? Is it a great movie? Is
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  it? You know, I think it's a pretty wonderful movie myself, and
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  and I've heard I've friends of mine who've seen it left kind of left speechless.
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  I don't I'm trying. I'm trying to think of another film that does
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  that explores that exactly that way. Yeah, But anyway, I can I
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  have nothing but praise for the crew. We did it on a shoe string,
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  but everybody was there, you know, everybody was given one hundred and
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  ten percent. Yeah. It was full of those scenes where you'd finish the
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  scene, you know, Karen and I are myself and Marlon replays the young
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  man. We'd finished the scene and the room with everybody in the room is
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  just like, yeah, I can't, I can't believe that just happened.
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  Did you get that? Did you get that? That was one of my
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  questions was this film is so intense and that it felt like that, like
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  a heaviness within the scenes. Was there anything you guys like did that affect
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  you? Was that difficult to deal with? We tried, I think we
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  tried. We tried as best we could to lighten to lighten it up.
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  You know, you can't. You can't tell a story about somebody dying.
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  And it's just like, you know, it has to it has to be
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  a roller coaster, it has to be there have to be funny moments and
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  tender moments and yeah, and I think you And what's more is I think
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  you're left with You're left feeling pretty good actually, which is which is wonderful,
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  which is a gift, you know. Yeah. I think you come
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  away from the theater like with a sense of yeah, yeah, life life,
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  life maybe should work just exactly like that. You know, people love
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  one another and stay together for that long and how do you how do you
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  say goodbye? Yeah? Yeah? That you had mentioned the chemistry between you
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  and and Karen Allen. Was that Was that something that just came naturally?
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  Was it something you guys had to cultivate? Was that Karen? Karen and
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  I? I think it was there from the very first time we read the
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  script together. I couldn't have gone anywhere near what where I had to go
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  as the character if she hadn't been, if she if she weren't there to
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  catch me, you know, to bounce off of. And I think vice
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  versa sort of you have to there's a there's a there's a sort of a
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  social agreement that you reach as actors. Where is it okay if I do
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  this? I said, okay, because you're going to do something. You're
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  going to do things that are not socially acceptable. You know, you're going
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  to get mad at each other in the scene. You're going to have fights
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  or hit one another or grab one another, or make or kiss one another.
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  There are all sorts of things that can happen in the scene that you
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  have to allow for. You have to allow for their your partners feelings regarding
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  that, and you know, and your feelings regarding that. You can't.
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  Yeah, well that's what says in the script that I kiss kiss the hell
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  off. So bucker up, baby, I mean you have to. You
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  have to. You have to arrive at some understanding that and truck that you
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  can you can, Yeah, you can go. You can go as far
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  as you need to go. I'll catch it. I'll be there. I'm
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  not going to be you know, You're not going to hurt my feelings.
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  You know, I'm in this. I'm in this wrestling match too, right,
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  And when that and then when that happens, you have a freedom to
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  go. You know, then you can eat the scenery, you can go
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  go for broke and you know you've got a partner. Yeah, you know.
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  One of the things that that really structured for me is the the depictions
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  of the medical issues that you were having. Was that something that you studied,
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  Was that something you read up about I read up a bit about He's
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  he's in heart failure, and he hasn't I forget what they call the gadget
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  that he has to wear, this gadget that helps his heart pump his blood.
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  So he's got hoses and this thing, and he has to plug it
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  in at night, and he can't be far away from it, and so
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  and I decided to wear it. It has two battery packs that live underneath
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  your arms that you have to charge up at night while you're sleeping. I
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  don't know his I did a bit of research with his, you know,
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  as far as his illness, I think is the primary thing that I dealt
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  with was that he has trouble catching his breath. Is he keeps right,
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  he keeps running out of air when he wants to finish just a sins,
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  he has to stop in the middle and take a breath like that. And
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  the other thing, and the other thing was the emotional you know, God,
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  damn it. This this thing is supposed to work. You know,
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  it's worked for seventy some years. I don't know why. It's you know,
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  just the frustration of, yeah, this thing has decided to crap out
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  on me. Now, I guess Evan, I think that everybody eventually,
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  But I'm glad you saw it. I'm glad you. I'm glad you liked
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  it. I hope people, I hope people get a chance to see it.
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  I think it's a I think it's a damn fine movie. I really
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  do. There's there are young lovers in it, there's old lovers in it.
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  There's I played the mandolin for a minute. Yeah I noticed that.
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  Yeah, you actually played the mandolin or the Yeah, I played the mandolin
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  and the guitar. I actually have an album out now called William Sadler The
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  Kitchen Tapes that I put together with a bunch of friends over the pandemic.
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  I've been writing songs for ages and ages, and I finally got I finally
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  had time to to, you know, make make them presentable, make them
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  at violins and at piano or whatever underneath it. Yeah. So so that's
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  oh and the William Sadler the Kitchen Tapes is available at the real William Sadler
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  dot com. Okay, and the proceeds go to Saint Jude's Children's Hospital for
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  cancer. One. That's great, that's great. Thank you. One of
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  the things I had read about the film was that it was originally a stage
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  play. Yes, yeah, yeah, before I wasn't, I wasn't involved
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  in it. Then there were a couple of other actors who worked on it,
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  and it's been it had been in the works for a couple of years.
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  I think as a play and would have made a great It would have
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  made a great play. Yeah, but she decided to she would she decided
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  to make a film of it. And and frankly, you can do things.
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  I find after all these years of working for cameras, there are things
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  you can do on camera that it's hard to do on stage. And I
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  did eleven years of theater in New York. I know, I know how,
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  I know how to you know, project to the back wall of the
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  theater. But when the camera is you know, eight inches away from your
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  face, you can There's there's this like universe of things that are available.
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  All you have to do is think it and it shows up. This light
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  happens in your eyes or you know, and the audience goes, oh,
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  he knows, or you know, whatever it's it's my cheesier and so much
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  more forgiving if it you know, if you do a scene and it wasn't
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  quite right, you can just go back and do it again, you know,
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  yeah. Okay, so you know, we are a Star Trek podcast,
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  so I did want to get a little bit into Star Trek with you.
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  Yeah. So one of the first questions we had, we had several
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  people in our sever of our listeners ask basically this question. Your performance as
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  Luther Sloan has been the foundation for Section thirty one, right, and now
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  they're making a Section thirty one film. Any chance that we'll get to see
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  you in that. I would love to. I would love to reprise the
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  role. Yeah, in the film. That would be they haven't called a
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  I haven't. I mean, I guess I in the TV show, but
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  but it's Start Triking. People come back all the time. It's Star Tak,
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  It's Star Trek people come back all the time. I would love to
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  reprise the role I thought he was. I thought it was a that was
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  a fabulous I only did three episodes and it was sort of like it's set
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  in motion this thing, this Section thirty one, you know, Juggernaut and
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  Section thirty one is the you know, it's the dark, evil underbelly of
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  the Federation. It's it's it's people doing all of the things that James T.
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  Kirk could never do. Right. It's it goes against everything the Federation
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  stands for, but sometimes they have to be done right. And and that's
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  it. That's sort of what that's what drew me to the role in the
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  first place. I was a fan of the original Star Trek. I never
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  really I guess, I guess I didn't pay much attention to the the other
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  Star Treks. But when they asked me if I wanted to be a part
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  of the series, you know, be a part of that universe, I
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  said, I think I said yes too fast. I love the idea of
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  playing playing this, playing that character. You know, when I first read
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  that, I read the first script He's sitting He's sitting watching doctor Beshier's sleep.
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  M hmm, And I thought, that's that is about It's the creepiest
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  thing I've ever heard. Yeah, I thought, yeah, that's a wow.
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  What a way to introduce a character. This, this guy that you
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  love, doctor Besher, everybody knows him and loves him, wakes up and
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  there's a man sitting in his room has been watching him for who the hell,
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  who knows how long he's been there? Yeah, you know, and
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  then what you know. I had a great time filming it. I'm kind
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  of surprised that it's developed. You know, people people got ahold of the
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  idea and said, yeah. Another question we had from from one of our
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  listeners was, how did you make Sloan simultaneously charming and easy to dislike?
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  Oh? I don't know this. I look back at character act actors like
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  James Mason, who was, you know, incredibly charming and just elegant and
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  thoughtful. And what he was about was, you know, while he was
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  while he was cutting your throat. I don't know they wrote him. I
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  have to give credit to the writers they wrote. They wrote this man who
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  was very erudite and very very thoughtful. He's he's he's one of those people
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  who's always four or five steps ahead of you, which and I think the
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  charm throws people off. He's he's selling something, you know, he's you're
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  never you're never sure what what it is. You're never sure what he's about
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  until it's too late, right. And I've always thought, and I've always
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  those those kinds of characters are great fun to play. That was, you
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  know, every once in a while, I did, and I did it
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  and die Hard too, although he wasn't written as charming, but he was
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  written. Its very very intelligent, very you know. Yeah, this guy,
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  this this guy is is four or five or six moves ahead of you.
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  He can he can see behind himself. You're not gonna sneak up on
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  him. You're not gonna, you know, if you're gonna, if you're
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  gonna trip him up, You're gonna have to do something really remarkable that he
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  doesn't expect because he because he has you know, he's he's playing chess on
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  a different level than you are, right, you know. I don't know
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  if you've got the chance to see this, but one of your co stars
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  from a stage of Twilight was actually made his Star Trek debut just last week.
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  Yeah, ye, bring this up for you, uh, Alfredo,
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  Yeah, yeah, he debuted. Yeah, he was in Discovery on asode
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  called Whistle Speak and yeah, he played a character in there. And there's
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  still a start, there's still a Star Trek currently. Yeah. Yeah,
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  there's a new episode will come out tomorrow. Yeah outstanding. Yeah, so
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  yeah, you got to be in it. And I guess that kind of
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  answered my question. I was gonna ask if you had a chance to talk
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  to him about it at all, or I haven't it all, I'm that's
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  really nice. That's really nice for him. He's a terrific actor. I
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  remember that there's a scene in the there's a scene in the movie where we're
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  washing dishes and we're sort of friends and ring my wedding ring falls off my
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  finger. Yeah, and he ah, we haven't. We have a little
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  exchange. It's sort of like we have an understanding. And I thought he
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  was. He was just delightful with he was. You know, he's a
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  gifted actor. And and again a lot. You know, I could trust
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  that whatever I threw at him, he would he'd be there, he could
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  catch it, he could deal with it. Oh that's great. Yeah.
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  You know. One of the other questions I had for you is you've been
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  in so many shows and movies and stage and all that. What advice would
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  you have for any upcoming actors? Oh? My, well, first of
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  me, just quickly, I don't it's been so long since I went looking
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  for an agent. I did it. I was living in the I was
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  living in the East Village and I did a play in the the in the
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  basement of a church, Saint Clement's Church, and I invited this this agent
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  to come and see me. And she came and saw me and said,
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  I want to I'd like to represent you. And that was the first that
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  was really the first step that well, I guess I should back up.
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  I had six years of acting training before that happened. So what she saw
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  on the stage, I think she thought, oh, I can do something
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  with that. He's got something that he's funny because it was a funny play.
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  It was a very funny play. But again, he was a villain.
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  He was he was he was this British landowner in rural Ireland and he
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  was kicking people off of their farms and in doing it all to song,
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  to a song and dance. It was. It was called the bally Bombing
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  Bequest. You're so nice. I can't picture you kicking people off their land.
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  Yeah, I know I can't either. I'm I'm much I'm much too
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  nice for this game. But anyway, as far as today, I I
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  think I think people need to get film on themselves somehow. I think young
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  actors need to work with young filmmakers and get put together a reel of this
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  is what I look like, and this is what I can do. Because
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  I have a feeling it's much, it's much more films centric, then it
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  is stage centric. It was when I was When I was doing that,
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  I was living in New York. I was doing stage work. She was
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  doing stage work. You know. It ended up with a year and a
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  half on Broadway. Hollywood doesn't work that way, Hollywood. People in Hollywood
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  want to see film. To show me some film, send me a send
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  me a clip, send me a link to your real and if I have
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  a minute, I'll look at it. You know, I don't. I
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  don't honestly know. I shouldn't put myself out as an expert on this because
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  I don't know how you go about it these days. But I would guess
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  it has a lot. I would get some I would do some theater because
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  I think it teaches you a lot of things about First of all, it's
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  actor centered, So curtain goes up, You carry this thing for two hours,
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  you and your friends. There's no one gonna yell cut, There's no
• 29:22
  going back and doing it again. If if this thing is gonna sing,
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  if it's gonna if it's gonna lift off the page, it will be because
• 29:36
  you and your fellow actors have found a way to connect and let them in
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  this. You know, ninety nine people or a thousand people or however many
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  are in the audience and a tear. I think the theater teaches you a
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  tremendous amount. But then but then when I'm when I did my first movie,
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  it took me two or three movies to begin to figure out how to
• 30:07
  work, how to really work to a camera. And that because it is
• 30:15
  because it's very different. And as I get older, it's I like it
• 30:21
  better because it's you know, less stressful. It's less you know, if
• 30:27
  you screw up, they can do it again. And you don't have to
• 30:33
  take the subway every night, and you don't have to skip dinner every night
• 30:38
  before the show and sleep in your dressing room during the matinee days. And
• 30:47
  it's it's not eight shows a week that you're responsible for. It's you only
• 30:52
  have to get it right once, and you have an army of people who
• 31:00
  were there to help you get it right once. Just just all you're responsible
• 31:07
  for is when they say action, when they say cut, everything else,
• 31:14
  the whole the whole army of crew and so on. Yeah, there to
• 31:21
  be respected and you and learn their names and they'll save your life over and
• 31:29
  over again. But unless you get that piece right, just that piece.
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  All the rest of it doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter how that how
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  well they lit the scene. M if if if the audience doesn't buy what
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  you put out there in that tiny moment, it's it's too late. They
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  sit back in their chairs and go ah, you know, yeah, yeah,
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  yeah, that's Is there a big difference between acting and TV versus film
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  or is it about the same? Is TV? I found is it's very
• 32:24
  similar, except that it's faster. Okay, everything in television has to be
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  shot in eight days and movies. Movies used to take eight weeks or six
• 32:37
  weeks or two months or you know, Shaw Jenk took thirteen weeks, I
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  think the whole summer, and you have time to think about. With television,
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  it's it tends to be. It's not always, but it tends to
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  be the first time everybody gets it right. We're moving, we're on the
• 33:09
  wrong set, we gotta you know, everybody's looking at their watch. Just
• 33:22
  my impression is there is there any upcoming projects that you want to you wanna
• 33:28
  tease now? Or the album working on a second album now? I guess
• 33:35
  I'm I'm I keep writing songs so can I keep recording them? And I
• 33:43
  have all of these friends who play accordions and harmonicas and twelve string guitars,
• 33:50
  and they they make them sound. They make these songs sound wonderful. There's
• 34:00
  that I'm going to do the I think I'm going to go back and do
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  the thirtieth anniversary of the Shawshank Redemption, oh okay in Mansfield, Ohio.
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  So yeah, so there there you go. What is it about music that
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  you enjoy so much that being a part of that? I've always liked it.
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  I learned to play ukulele when I was like seven years old, and
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  I've been writing songs my whole life. And I I don't know. I
• 34:45
  I hear music when I hear music in the lines that I learned in in
• 34:53
  plays, in Shakespeare, in movies. I hear music every where where.
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  It's sort of it's in some ways, it's just the reason that music speaks
• 35:10
  to people who don't even understand the words. Right, Like Elvis Presley has
• 35:17
  gold albums from Czechoslovakia. Right, they couldn't know what he was talking about
• 35:25
  when he was singing about. But it's such a it's such a direct way
• 35:31
  of communicating that the human voice. We all respond to it, and I
• 35:40
  love that so and it's also something I can do that doesn't require twenty five
• 35:47
  other people to say, yes, you know what I mean. Yeah,
• 35:52
  I mean I'm looking for the next gig. I'm always looking for the next
• 35:57
  gig. But it sounds almost like it's a creative release if you're listening out
• 36:04
  there. Yeah, but it's a great Yeah, exactly, it's a creative
• 36:10
  release. It's like I can't I can't quite sit still. Yeah, I
• 36:20
  don't know. Awesome. Well, is there anything else you wanted to bring
• 36:24
  up before we No, I think people should stream the movie when it when
• 36:30
  they get a chance. They should rent it or buy it or however you
• 36:34
  do it. Yeah, from one of those places a stage of Twilight,
• 36:40
  and and keep an eye open for William Sadler the kitchen tapes. There you
• 36:50
  go. Awesome, Well, thank you so much for being on. We're
• 36:54
  very excited to have you on, so my pleasure. Yeah, thank you.
• 37:00
  Okay, bye,