What do you do when you’re locked in your house?  Do you play games or any of that stuff?

No, I don’t know if I’m actually locked in my house but I live in Vancouver as well so I’m there a lot. My family is there and I’m usually doing a circle between New York, L.A. and Vancouver.

Do you still ever get approached by fans based on your role as Billy on 15?

My God, you don’t say anything the whole time and this is like the one thing you know? 

Sorry.

No, I don’t.  There were no fans of that, come on.  Really super baked college kids got that on the air for 3 years.  No, that was the first job I ever did.  No, I don’t think anyone ever recognizes me other than you for that.

Well, you’ve got a whole litany of fans out there that are saying ask about 15.

Oh my God, wow.  Oh boy, I should watch that sometime.  I don’t think I’ve ever even seen those shows.

Not even when you were younger?

I lived in Canada and it was only shown in the States. They were so cheap they didn’t ever send us like video cassettes of it. I mean we were literally like paid in laughter.  I still haven’t really cashed in on it.  Your fee for this project will be humiliation.

What would you say to some other kid in Canada or in some small town in the U.S. who looks at you and says he went from this little teeny show to this big career?

I wouldn’t say I’m not different from a lot of people, I mean, you know a lot of guys started in like Jordache commercials and stuff.  People break into it in many, many different ways. Most people don’t walk in and their first film is Schindler’s List. I’d just say to do it.  Most people that ask what is the best way to break into the industry, I just say like if you love it then do it.  Do it in your town, do it in a bigger city, go to another place. That’s how you kind of find it and it finds you.

Was there one thing you told them not to do?

Crack.  It’s important.  It doesn’t actually get you into the union like I tell people.  But yeah, no I think the important thing to not do is to lose faith in yourself and your abilities if it’s something that you really love and your chances are you’re going to be good at it.

I noticed the 9 on your tattoo.  Is that coincidental? 

No.  That’s the 9:00 gun. It’s a cannon in my hometown that goes off every night at 9:00.

Is that a real tattoo or is that just for show?

It’s Wal-Mart. This will just rub right off.

Is that a reminder to stay true to your roots?

I don’t know what it is. It’s really a reminder to not get tattoos when you’re young, I think that’s pretty much it. Usually it’s covered up.

On a movie doesn’t it cost money to cover that up.

No, not quite, no.  Not quite.  Probably in time it might—time is money it’s probably somewhere around there but tattoos are like the Wal-Mart of rebellion these days. I don’t know if there’s much point to it.

Are you the type of person who can enjoy watching yourself on-screen when you’re at like a premiere or do you just bail out the minute it starts?

I fuckin’ hate it.  It’s so hard to watch myself.  If I can get away from it long enough, I’m ok. I just watched The Nines again when I was away and I hadn’t seen it in a long time and it was actually great to watch it because I watched it with a few other people and I kind of saw it how they saw it.  It was great. I really fell in love with it.  I was like oh, great.  If I can get away from myself enough, if I’m far enough away from it that I forget what the options were in that particular scene—wasn’t it done angrily at one point or wasn’t there…I sort of do this Rubix cube process in my mind and it’s really frustrating.  If I can get away from it and forget it and then see it again, I can relate to it. It’s an honest test, sometimes I’ve seen…I have other movies that I’ve been away from a long time and not liked and that’s usually the biggest indicator of whether I like it or not.  It’s just enough time between it.

How long of a shoot was it?

I think it was like 3 weeks.  It was 3 weeks.

Wow, that’s like a 30 minute piece a week.

Yeah, 3 weeks and it was in L.A. and New York. I mean it was pretty incredible what you can do for no money and just nothing but dedication.

You said something about filming the 2^nd sequence was like 1 camera, 1 sound guy almost no one there.

We had a crew of 5. 

So did you have a lot of people watching or you just blended right in?

I kind of blended in.  We occasionally had a little glitch but for the most part everything we did was so fast.  We hit ‘em so fast. The extras were just people on the street so by the time they could figure out who I was or what we were doing it was already over.  It was like reality television when we were shooting it.  One take and we’re moving on.

There was even one shot when you guys were on the street where you might have moved where the camera wasn’t expecting and got behind someone?  It seemed…

Yeah, that was at the end I think, right? Towards the end of part 2 I think I’m just trying to get away from the camera.  Yeah, I’m just trying to get away from the camera. My show is over, their show should be over too and now this camera is still following me around and I was just trying to move out of its way and get past it and obviously the guy kept staying with me.

Was that like a planned shot or was it a lot of improv?

Oh, it was all improv.  It was just you know, we’re in a little alcove where no one can see us and we’re going to walk down that way and that’s kind of the plan.

Have you explored television opportunities or would you be interested in going on TV?

No, TV’s great but I just feel like the mediums I would have most fun in be it like a live audience type stuff would probably be the thing I’d have most fun in.  I think that medium is a little bit corpse-like at the moment, so probably not.  If I don’t have to I wouldn’t.  Yeah, why would you want to play the same character for 6 years unless it kept evolving?  Who knows?  Never say never.

There’s a lot of really good quality stuff going on with television these days.

Yeah, I know. I mean, So You Think You Can Dance? I mean it’s a real reality driven industry.

What about an HBO show that was a 6 or a 12 episode sort of thing?

Oh, that stuff I love.  Oh yeah for sure.  I mean, HBO does great television and so does some of the other outlets like Showtime and all these other guys like FX and stuff. I’ve seen some shows on that station that are great.  I don’t know.  I don’t have a wife and kids and I don’t need to be anchored anywhere so I can see why it might be appealing though somewhere down the road.