Interview: James Urbaniak (Pt. 2)

WARNING: If you haven’t yet read Pt. 1 of this piece, then you’re going to want to do that. I’m not saying you can’t read Pt. 2 first, but you’re only ruining the experience for yourself.

P.S. If you like what you’re reading here, don’t be afraid to upgrade to a paid subscription!

So here's another reader request: how did you enjoy fighting Hayley Atwell in Agent Carter?

Oh, yeah! That's my little corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. [Laughs.] You know, that little one-off part. But that was just so impressive, because the sets were really big, right?

They were. They went all out to capture the era.

Yeah, and I remember there was a moment when she whipped out a...zapper or something? A weapon of some sort that she used to fire at me. I was a duplicitous scientist, if I recall. But she pulled it out and - quite understandably, it happens to every actor - stumbled with it, and then it fell through, like, a grating. And they had to go under there and find this prop, and she felt bad. A look behind the scenes! [Laughs.]

But, yeah, that was impressive to be a part of. I forget where it was shot. It wasn't in a soundstage, but it was some sort of giant warehouse or ex-factory that they had dressed. Maybe a former power station. It was very impressive. When you're a part of something like that, it's fun. And I'm a show biz freak. I love sets and soundstages. They're fun to be on. 

I get it. I live in Virginia, so I only get out to L.A. when there's a TCA press tour or whatever, so I'm never jaded. Every time I'm there, I'm, like, "This is awesome."

You know, neither am I! I love going to Warner Brothers and looking at plaques outside of soundstages to see what was shot there. You know, it'll say, like, Casablanca... Mildred Pierce... Full House... Wizards of Waverly Place... [Laughs.] 

Which you did an episode of, I know.

[Laughs.] Yes, I did!

You're not fooling anyone. I know you slipped that in just because of that.

That's right. Can't fool you, can I?

No, no, I'm sure that was purely coincidental. Although I do know that you've done your fair share of shows from that realm. You also did Just Add Magic for Amazon.

Yes! Another kids show, and I had a recurring role on that one. 

And you were also in the latest Sabrina series.

I was, although that's not a kids show. 

No, that's a wife's show, at least in my house.

Same here! [Laughs.] Yeah, that was fun. They shoot that in Canada, and we shot late at night, and it was extremely cold! But, yeah, that was pretty fun, because that character - the Trinket Man, right? - there's a lot of fan debate about who that character is. Is he a deity? Is he the deity?

[If you’re a fan of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, then I’ll bet you wish that the next minute or two of conversation hadn’t been off the record. Indeed, perhaps you wish it almost as much as you wish that there’d been a fifth season of the show. And yet here we are, moving on to the next topic. Consider it the price of a journalist knowing the importance of the words ‘off the record.”]

Okay, this one’s from a Difficult People fan: “How many nicknames for Julie [Klausner] can you name off the top of your head?”

Oh, gosh! Not that many. I saw a Reddit thread where they list every single one, and it's, like, fifty names. I can remember "Noodles." And random ones like "Bell Sleeve." [Laughs.] "Mousepad" was a favorite. I liked "Mousepad." I pitched one to Julie once, which was "Bitcoin," which I thought was great, but she must've forgotten, because it never made the cut. And people often ask if those were improvised, but they were not. They were all quite scripted by her and her small writing staff. That show was one of the great experiences. So great. I've known Julie Klausner a long time. I'd met her in New York years before that show, so we were old friends, and I'd done a couple of little video projects with her and things like that when she asked me to do that.

It was delightful for many reasons, one of which was - as we've noted - I play a lot of creeps and red herrings and ne'er-do-wells, and in my opinion, Arthur is the most normal and grounded character in that show. He has his quirks, but he's not a creep. He's basically the nice, supportive boyfriend, a role I am never really cast in. And I knew Julie knew it would be funny that there'd be a certain chemistry because of our old friendship, that it would just land as a couple, and I think it did. So I appreciated her casting me outside the box. I'm not normally cast as the nice - albeit quirky - boyfriend. And that was shot in New York, and although I lived in New York for 20 years, I've lived in L.A. for the last 15, so I loved going back there, and...that was a very funny show and an amazing cast. A wonderfully diverse show, too. I think Arthur was the only white cis male character who had a regular part. [Laughs.] Which is great!

Well, somebody had to be, right?

Yeah, she squeezed me in there. [Laughs.]

Speaking of well-received shows that should've lasted longer, how was Review to do?

Yeah, that's... That really has a cult following for the ages. 

It popped up on Paramount+ and I've been revisiting it. It's amazing.

I think that came about... [Hesitates.] I think Andy Daly is someone I probably met through Thrilling Adventure Hour, when I started doing that, because he had done it now and then. I'm at a point now where... I still audition all the time, but there are offers occasionally, because some people know who I am. And Andy knew me, so they asked me to do that part, which was very nice. And that was just a great group of people. The Blitz brothers! Jeff Blitz directed that, and he had the perfect sort of tone. He had a light touch and really let those characters land as real people. Forrest MacNeil is such an extreme character. Someone - maybe one of your cohorts at the A.V. Club - wrote a great piece about how Forrest was sort of a Walter White type character, in the tradition of characters from dramas who, through their own volition, get into these very dark places. And I thought that was kind of fascinating to compare that show to Breaking Bad. 

And yet I can see that, even from the first episode.

Yeah, they're both sort of normal guys who make choices in their lives that end up destroying their lives and alienating everybody and endangering themselves. So I thought that comparison was very astute, actually. And that was another character that I tend to play, which is sort of a malevolent, Mephistophelian figure. [Laughs.] Because Grant, the producer, was sort of an evil figure. An amoral puppet master, if you will.

I like the fact that you're doling out this suggestion as you're stroking your beard. It really helps sell it.

Oh, my God, you're right. And it's at the perfect length right now. Now I should steeple my fingers.

100% you should.

I’m realizing that this interview is just a catalog of me praising these various shows. [Laughs.] Fortunately, I've worked on some very satisfying projects. Oh, sure, I've done a lot of crap. But you're talking about all the satisfying stuff.

This is the price of having good taste. By the way, I should also mention that I have on my shelf the complete-series set of Kidnapped.

Oh, my God! That's a deep cut of the Urbaniak oeuvre. [Laughs.]

I loved that show.

And that was, what, only one season?

Yep, just the one. And not even a full one, really. They pulled it from air pretty quickly and then eventually burned off the remaining episodes on Saturday nights.

You know, I vaguely remember that. Yeah, that was in New York, and it's heading toward being 20 years ago. But this was the first time this had ever happened to me: I had a recurring part on that as a hitman known as The Accountant - because he was a James Urbaniak-style hitman, a skinny little man with glasses - who'd say things into the phone like [Intoning.] "The account has been canceled."

He said, giggling.

I mean, every actor loves playing sort of a gun-toting bad man. [Laughs.] But Jeremy Sisto apprehended me, and... Oh, yeah, and we were on the set one day, and the producer - or someone from the show, anyway - came out and said, "Folks, that's it." We're three-quarters of the way through shooting the season! But they said, "We've been canceled, but they want us to complete the season so they can sell the show on DVD." So it was a strange thing where we still had, like, three episodes to go, but we were aware that we were coming back. And...my memory was that these episodes were not even going to air.

I mean, like I said, they aired on Saturday nights, so they might as well not have aired, at least in terms of getting any ratings.

Yeah, the plan was definitely that they might be able to at least make some money by selling the DVD set of the whole show. Because this was before streaming, and...it's gotta be something like 20 years, because I moved to L.A. in 2007, and I was still in New York when I shot that.

I think it's more like 15 years, so it must've been one of the last things you shot before leaving New York.

It's funny to remember that and think that DVD was what they were concerned about. And it's amazing how quickly... [Hesitates.] Well, 15 years is a long time...and yet it's not. And to think that, when I first moved to L.A. in 2007, people - especially the Screen Actors Guild and their contracts - were still using terms like "new media." The idea that something streaming was "new media" and therefore was under different rules in your contract than traditional TV, and how quickly that's all changed... The convention now is, "Yes, you stream. That's how you watch things. That's not unusual." [Laughs.] Yeah, it took awhile for SAG to try to figure out residual issues with that. Also, another funny thing is that the writers strike happened in, I think, 2007, so I got here, started getting some gigs, and then was out of work for, like, six months. 

Then that ties in with my memory that Kidnapped aired just before I joined the TCA, because I came out for the summer 2007 tour, was excited for the winter 2008 tour, and then it was canceled because of the writers strike.

Yes, I had gotten a part on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles...

...which, as it happens, was a request that someone wanted me to ask you about.

Well, there you go. I'd gotten a part on that, it was a recurring role - playing a bad guy - and I was very excited about that. And then the writers strike happened and the show had to strop production sort of halfway through the season. And then six months went by, and when the show started up again and they were going to continue... Well, in the interim... [Starts to chuckle.] This was so long ago that I got a hand-delivered script to my door, which does not happen anymore. I feel like I'm talking about the olden days! But in 2007 you were still getting hand-delivered hard copies of scripts at your door instead of PDFs, and my wife at the time had gotten that envelope and looked through it, and I...think I came home that day, and she had already looked at the script, excited to see where I was going to go, and she said to me with a very sad face, "You get killed within the first five minutes." [Laughs.]

They had re-thought the show in the interim. It was one of the great open questions - showbiz is full of these - as to whether, if the strike had not happened, they would have continued the trajectory of my character, and would I have had more to do? But it was not to be. It was fun while it lasted, though, and then the show ended up getting canceled anyway.

One of my prized artifacts from that era of transition within the industry actually ties into a show I was going to ask you about anyway: I have a VHS copy of The Office: An American Workplace - because it was still being called that at the time -which contains the first few episodes of the series.

On VHS?! [Laughs.] Wow! 

It had to be one of the last runs they did of promotional screeners on VHS.

Well, I had auditioned for the American version of The Office, like every working character actor at the time, but for the role of Dwight. And of course I'd seen the Ricky Gervais version and loved it. Say what you will about Ricky Gervais's personality, but that's a brilliant show. In fact, I remember when BBC America was showing The Office, and a friend of mine in New York saying, "James, there's a show on BBC America called The Office, and if they ever make an American version, you have to be in it." [Laughs.]

And time went by, and they announced they were doing an American version, and they had auditions at NBC in New York. And I did something... I was so excited to read for the role of Dwight, based on the Mackenzie Crook role in the original series (Gareth) that I actually cut my hair in a weird way to look like Mackenzie Crook. And he used to wear a holster for his cell phone, so... I basically went in looking like Mackenzie Crook, which - looking back - wasn't a rational thing to do. But the audition went well, and I got a callback, and I was told, "Casting liked you, but...you don't have to go in looking like the guy from the British Office." [Laughs.] So I went in looking less like that.

And then Rainn Wilson got it, and I had known Rainn a little bit through the theater world in New York, and I thought, "Well, that's a good part for him." And actually, when I moved to L.A., Rainn was helpful to me when I first got here and helped me get an agent. And when they were casting that little part of Rolf, he called me. And I had to audition, but he gave me a heads up and said, "This'll be great!" So I got that...and again, like being on Sex and the City, I'm still remembered for that, even though I'm really only in two episodes. I actually shot four, but one I was cut out of, which happens, and then I'm briefly glimpsed in the series finale, when they wanted to bring everybody back. At one point, there's a sequence in a bar, and there's a lot of us there. But even if you're only a little peripheral character, people still remember you!

But it's funny that people still remember that character, because he was just written because... [Hesitates.] I forget which season it was - season five, maybe? - but it was the season finale with the volleyball game. "Company Picnic" was the name of the episode. But they basically wanted that character to make Dwight look sympathetic. Rolf comes in, and...he's, like, Dwight's id. [Laughs.] He's really mean, he calls Angela a whore, he does terrible things...and they sort of cut to Dwight feeling bad. So that character basically existed to put Dwight in a more sympathetic light.

But originally Michael Schur, the big TV producer who wrote for the show and played Mose... It was written as Mose going to the volleyball game, but Michael Schur had started Parks and Recreation by that time, so he was unavailable to play Mose. So they were, like, "All right, well, I guess Dwight could have another friend..." [Laughs.] So they came up with this other friend named Rolf, and I got that.

And then they brought him back for another episode where there's a job that's opened up at Dunder-Mifflin, so Dwight brings in a bunch of his weirdo friends...including Mose, because Michael Schur was apparently available that day! But I came in, too. So those are the two that I'm really featured in.

But in addition to the season finale, I was in another one, where Jim and Pam are having a baby, so Dwight comes in and, like, wrecks their kitchen to redecorate it. Well, in the original episode, he brought Rolf in to help him, and I had lines and stuff, but - as happens - they cut the Rolfe stuff because it didn't further the story. They shot a lot of stuff on that show. So they cut it out, but there's actually a shot where you see me in the background. I'm kind of blurry, and I turn to the camera, and...I look like a background actor trying to get his face onscreen. [Laughs.] And that episode... Even though I was cut out of it, Harold Ramis directed that episode, so I have fond memories of it because I got to meet him and work with him for a couple of days, which was just nuts.

I did an interview with him for all of 10 minutes - and a phoner, at that - and yet it was a full-on bucket list moment.

Seriously! I got that part on that episode, I came to do a table read, and I saw a grey-haired older man standing there, and someone said, "Oh, good to see you again," and he said, "Oh, yeah, yeah, good to be back!" And at that moment I went, "Oh, my God, that's Harold Ramis!" [Laughs.] No one had told me he was directing. I just found out when I showed up! And then it was really fun to be directed by him. And my scenes got cut, but it was fine, because I still have the memory of working with Harold Ramis.

I'm sure you'll be called upon - if you haven't been already - to do the episode of The Office Ladies podcast when they get to "Company Picnic."

That would be delightful! I haven't heard from them yet, but when they get to it, I'd hope that they would ask me. But we'll see! I'm easily reached if they want me.

My understanding is that - to use their phrase - they slide into people's DMs to invite them.

Well, we'll see, then. I'd be happy to. I'd talk about that quite happily!

I'll save the majority of the Venture Bros. questions for a sequel closer to the release of the long-awaited Venture Bros. movie, but since we're in the home stretch, I'll ask if you can offer a status update. 

It's still in the early stages. It hasn't been recorded yet - in fact, Doc and Jackson may still be writing it! - so probably not until sometime in 2022.

Fair enough. Any answer is an acceptable answer...to me. Mind you, I'm sure there will be plenty of people who'll drop to their knees screaming, "2022?! Why, God, WHY?" But now that we have an update, I'll close by asking about a film from 2006 with a title that - when coupled with its premise - makes it hard to imagine it being made now: Death of a President.

Death of a President! Interesting... [Hesitates.] Death of a President is a simulated documentary that's a criticism of the George W. Bush justice department, and the device of the film is that George W. Bush has been assassinated, and then we explore what led into that, and... I gotta say, if you watch it, it's not as exploitative as it sounds! It's really just sort of a jumping-off point for a genuine criticism of that presidency, made at the time. It's a relatively obscure movie.

And yet it's on Tubi, I have discovered.

Ah! Oh, and it was improvised, by the way. I played a forensic expert, so I did research and stuff, because the director wanted it to all seem very real. It spawned a little bubble of controversy when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, but it kind of came and went.  And it's true: if you were doing a movie where you suggested that a living leader was dead, it probably would get more attention today, in terms of social media and how both sides are sort of coiled and primed to attack and defend.  There wasn't as much of that when that film came out. But as I say, it's a relatively obscure film. An oddity.

And definitely one of those things where, given the way things are nowadays, it could suddenly find itself the center of attention even now, with some random Republican shouting, "I can't believe some Democrat would make a film like this and would dare to criticize a U.S. President in this way!"

Well, Death of a President was actually made by a British guy: Gabriel Range. He's the same guy, in fact, who made the Bowie bio-pic that came out last year (Stardust). And it actually feels very British. The British have always been a lot more... You know, the movie's actually not savage, and it's not a satire, either. It's a political movie, but its penchant isn't satire.

But there is sort of a tradition, I think, in the British arts, in playwriting and film, where they're much more comfortable with attacking sacred cows than Americans are. So I think it may come out of the fact that the filmmaker was British. The idea of the movie is that the great irony would be that the corruption of the Bush justice department ends up causing the death of Bush. But that intellectual idea is not framed as, like, happy vengeance or anything. But just that concept is perhaps more British than American, to push an idea to that place.

Well, this was certainly an upbeat way to wrap things up, wasn't it? Fortunately, I still have plenty of things here on my list to ask you about if we do indeed do a sequel closer to the arrival of the Venture Bros. movie.

Oh, that'd be my pleasure!

Actually, I just realized that I do have a better closer, relatively speaking.

Please!

The very specific question goes as follows: "Please ask James the correct pronunciation of the word 'k-i-e-l-b-a-s-a,' and if he gets it wrong, he must renounce his Bayonne, New Jersey citizenship, may George R.R. Martin have mercy on his soul."

Well, thank you so much, James. This has been a lot of fun.

Oh, yeah, my pleasure!

Hopefully I've sent you in at least a few unexpected directions down Memory Lane.

Absolutely! And if you want to do another one sometime, just let me know!