During the promotional run for his new film, Borderlands, actor, Benjamin Byron Davis spoke with me over Zoom about his career, advice he has for filmmakers and actors starting out and shared stories with me.
The actor is has had an illustrious career for over 20 years on screen. You might now know his name but you will recognize his face and even his voice. As I prepped for our interview, I realized he has been on pretty much everything, from Gilmore Girls (which I geeked out on, more on that later), to Parks and Rec to Bones to the Marvel franchise.
Originally from Boston, he graduated from the Noble and Greenough School (MA), where he was awarded the Eaton Prize for Excellence in Performing Arts, went on to attend the University of Chicago where he sat on the board of the University Theatre, and finally to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where he graduated with honors and a Playwrights Horizons Theatre School “Achievement in Acting” award (1996). His theater work continued as he moved to Los Angeles and he has made lifelong friends with people like James Gunn which we discuss.
In his most recent project, Davis is playing Marcus Kincaid, a weapons dealer and entrepreneur who appears in all the main Borderlands video games and opposite Cate Blanchett’s outlaw, “Lilith”.
Here are some highlights from our chat.
(Please note you can watch the full interview or listen to it for MediaMaker Spotlight Podcast, which I co-produce/host for).
Source: Geek Parade
Tara: This video game is so successful, were you nervous being in the live action film version of it?
Ben: I viewed it as a responsibility and I have continued to view it as a responsibility in the sense that when I have an opportunity like this one to highlight the work that this is based on. The character that Bruce (DuBose, the actor for the video games) created is so dynamic and so fun, it was a great challenge but it was a great honor to get a chance to try and to help translate that character into another medium.
And it wasn’t just front of mine, it was front of mind for all of the actors and I’m going to go even further and make clear it was front of mind for Eli (Roth, the director), it was front of mind for everybody in the in the design team, everyone.
You have a long friendship with James Gunn, working with him from big budgets like in his big budget, like and the “Guardians of the Galaxy” and then smaller budget films, like The Belko Experiment. Can you share that experience, seeing someone with so much success and responsibility and still working on low budget or passion projects?
I knew James through his then wife, Jenna Fischer when we were in theater. We’ve known each other a long time…The reality is that what successfully means, the more work you have to do, James is one such person. But James, he’s never been somebody who’s waited for permission, who has waited for someone to grant him an opportunity. He would find work and generate scripts of his own.
The Belko Experiment is a fine example, that was a script that he had, I think at that point it was in a drawer and because of the success (of Galaxy), that should put him in the catbird seat and all of a sudden everything that he had that was written was not something the studio wanted to produce. So he went and found a way to do it independently.
You worked in so many tv shows as well, I geeked out particularly for “Gilmore Girls” season 7.
That was particularly tough. An hour long television show typically has 60 page scripts but this show had more like 80 to 90 pages. And I was a tow drunk driver and as an actor, it is absolutely critical in my mind that if a director gives me a note, they only have to give it to me once and managed to until Gilmore Girls when the note was, “go faster.” They had to keep giving me that note to the point where it became a vocal exercise. The thing is, you’re working opposite these actors that have been on this show for seven years so you’re just trying not to screw it up which eventually you did! But that show is so beloved and I do still get requests for autographs because of my appearance on that show.
Do you have any advice for people who want to work in the film industry?
Ultimately, a lot of actors I think put themselves through a great deal of unnecessary stress because this whole notion of rejection is part of the perception of what a career in acting is and I reject the notion entirely. You will have parts that you want that you don’t get. You will have parts that you don’t want that you do get. If there is that the notion that you are rejected when you do not book is a pervasive one and it’s a mistake to think that because there’s all manner of agents and managers and casting directors that will go to actors and they’ll say, “You didn’t get the part because of XYZ” but none of those reasons are the reasons why person doesn’t get it.
The reason a person doesn’t get a part is simple: they are not the one that can help. You get hired because you could help with this thing.
Why did you not get hired? Because you can’t help with the thing. And just because I get the part, does that mean I’m better than the people that didn’t get the part? No! That means I could help and they couldn’t and that’s the same with every job. So my advice to younger actors and actors starting out is to understand that to pull your ego to the best of your ability out of the casting process because it doesn’t matter. You never know the why so why concern yourself with the why.
In my opinion, the most important part in life in the arts is to avoid bitterness because you can’t make good art from a place of bitterness.
Benjamin Byron Davis
The other advice I give any actor is when you are on a set, find somebody with more experience than you and watch them. You don’t have to talk to them, you don’t have to engage with them, you don’t even have to know them you don’t have to tell them that’s what you’re doing. Just watch them, watch how they conduct themselves, notice how they treat people, notice how they treat people that are working as extras, notice how they treat people that are working as co-stars, notice how they treat people in the sound department, people in craft services, learn all that you can.
I think, ultimately that making a movie, making the TV show, it’s an ecosystem and you’re a piece of it and I think the actors that worked the most are the actors that are that make that ecosystem better. In my experience, the sort of higher up you go on the food chain, the better behave everybody is there is and I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside do it because they love telling stories and if that’s what you’re doing it for.
He has shared so many interesting thoughts about the movie