Whether you know him as wily Ryan O’Reily on the lost, lamented prison drama Oz, or as Denis Leary’s younger brother on Rescue Me, or Dennis on the hit comedy, 30 Rock, Dean Winters is one of the most recognisable faces on television.  Dean took the time to chat with us about his new feature film, Splinterheads and along the way talked of Terminators, Beeper Kings, popular Nazis, carnival barkers and Lana Turner’s milkshake.

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Splinterheads

Dean Winters

The Lady Miz Diva:  You’ve been everywhere on TV lately, with Rescue Me, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and 30 Rock, but there were a couple of years right after Oz ended where we didn’t see too much of you.

Dean Winters:  Yeah, well, you know, when Oz ended, I got really picky with what I wanted to do. And the jobs I wanted to do, I wasn’t a big enough name for and the jobs that people wanted me for, I didn’t think the writing was any good.  So I did Rescue Me for the four years after Oz and I did little things here and there, but the last couple years have been pretty good to me.

LMD:  How did that happen?

DW:  I think I just got lucky and I felt like it was just probably my time.  You know, Oz was such a particular show; who would have thought that the breakout star of Oz would be the Nazi?  I think Oz was so good; it was so ahead of its time; I really think that Hollywood wasn’t ready to start buying into the actors, but things change and like I said, it’s been a good couple of years.  Knock on wood.

LMD:  How did you come to Splinterheads?

DW:  It happened a long time ago. The director, Brant Sersen, he had this script out there and he and I took a meeting together, it must’ve been a few years ago.  I told him if it ever got made, I would love to be a part of it.  I remember it was July fourth, two years ago; I got a text message saying that they were shooting in August and September and two months later we were shooting.  It really turned out to be one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve had.  It was a really great group of people, it was fun, there were no egos and a great crew.  It was just a nice job all the way around and Brant had only directed one other feature before that, this is really, I think his first true feature and he did a really good job.  It was a really nice time.

LMD:  Tell us about the research you did to play Reggie, the crazy carny?

DW:  When I first met with Brant, he had this big book with him it was all his research; photographs and sketches and real life splinterheads.  There was a picture of a guy with a mohawk with star tattoos all over his arms.  I told Brant, “I wanna be that guy.”  I was in LA doing the Terminator show and I left Terminator early to come back to do Splinterheads and when I was in the hair and makeup chair I told them, “Give me a mohawk,” and I came back and I remember Brant -- he was not happy.  But we got to the set to with the real splinterheads - cos it was shot at a real carnival - and the lead splinterhead had a mohawk.  So, I told Brad, “See, there ya go.”  I couldn’t really do a lot of research, I couldn’t go work with the circus; I’d been doing another job across the country.  I’d go on the internet and got a little history on them and we shot during this carnival and I spent some time with a number the carnys.

LMD:  Do you need to find something in yourself to relate to when you play a bad boy like Reggie or Ryan O’Reily?

DW:  No... I mean, I guess if I said that, I’d be setting myself up.  For me, the character is in the writing, and if the character is not in the writing, then I’m not gonna take the job. I don’t wanna have to do that much work.  You know, Oz was my first major gig and the writing on Oz was just pristine, so I got spoiled right out of the gate.  So I think that with every character that I play, whether it’s someone like Ryan O’Reily, or Reggie, or whoever, even on 30 Rock, the character I play is really kind of a moron, I think with every character I definitely find something in that character that I can relate with.

LMD:  Who you do prefer, the bad boys or the good guys?

DW:  Oh, bad boys.

LMD:  Why?

DW:  They’re so much more fun.  You’re able to go to work and just kinda be an asshole for twelve hours.  Look, who doesn’t wanna be an asshole for eight hours a day?  There’s something kind of liberating about it.  Yeah, the bad boys are fun.  I haven’t been offered a lot of hero roles and I’m not saying I don’t like playing them, but if I had a preference, yeah, it’s always fun to be bad.

LMD:  Do you find that people come up to you on the street expecting you to be like Ryan O’Reily or Dennis from 30 Rock?

DW:  Yeah, I think some people are stupid enough to expect that and you know, for that I’m truly sorry.  I’ve had my share of psychos over the years, I’ve had many incidents.  For the most part, people will respond to the characters and most of their questions have to do with, “Well, how did you inhabit that person?”  I think when they meet me on the street, they know I’m neither one of those people.

LMD:  What’s been the reaction since 30 Rock has everyone talking about you?

DW:  30 Rock is such an intrinsically New York show, and once again, it’s about the writing.  You know there’s all this geek humour right now on television, where people are talking to the camera and Tina {Fey} kinda flipped that on its head, and Robert Carlock and John Riggi, all those guys, their writing is so sharp and it’s really, truly funny.  I mean a lot of these shows I watch, I don’t laugh at, and 30 Rock I seriously laugh out loud at the television and that doesn’t happen a lot.  I don’t know if that’s because I’m from New York, or because I’m able to reference the humour, or because of the age I’m at, but whatever, it’s working for me.  But I’m really happy for their success and I’m really happy to be a part of that show even though I’m kind like a cousin.

LMD:  How seriously do you take acting now? It seems like Oz came to you through Divine intervention.

DW:  It came to me through Divine intervention, but I had been working extremely hard for seven years before I got Oz.  I had been doing theatre, I had been doing TV commercials, I did all the requisite guest stars on shows like NYPD Blue and New York Undercover.  Oz was not a Lana Turner story where I was buying a milkshake in a drugstore and they discovered me.

LMD:  That’s been the lore about you for years; that Tom Fontana discovered you when you were a bartender.

DW:  That’s not it at all. I was working in a theatre downtown selling tickets, I was doing little plays, I was guest starring on TV shows and I studying with William Esper.  I was bartending with my brother {Scott William Winters} in a bar, when we met Tom Fontana, the creator of Homicide at the time, and two years later he gave me a shot on Homcide.  Then three years after that, he was doing this experimental pilot for HBO about a prison.  Yes, he wrote the part for me, but I’d been working very hard for years before that to get to where I am, but Oz was the kickstart and that was the first show that brought me any notoriety, but I’ve always taken the craft extremely seriously.  I mean, there have been times where I’ve gotten a little bit lazier than I would have liked to have gotten, but still, to me, it’s still what I know how to do and I love to do it and every time I do it I learn something new about myself and about the craft.

LMD:  What’s next for you?

DW:  Well, I’m going back to 30 Rock soon.  I took a little break in the last two months, but I’ll be going back to 30 Rock, probably in January.  I have this movie I did last year, right after Splinterheads, called Today’s Special, with Aasif Mandvi {The Daily Show with Jon Stewart}.  It opened at the London Film Festival and it did really well.  It’s making the rounds right now and I think they’re hoping it’s gonna come out some time in the spring.  I haven’t seen it, but I heard it’s great.  It’s a really great New York story; I have a really small part in it, but Aasif plays a sous chef in a major New York restaurant and I play the top chef and we pass him over when we open a new restaurant and he gets very upset.  He ends up going back to Queens to work in his family’s restaurant to revamp it.  It’s a really great story that he wrote.  I was happy to come in and do a couple of days on it.  I just really believed in the story and I’m happy that it’s got some legs right now.

LMD: What do you think people are going to take away from Splinterheads?

DW:  You know what?  It’s not one of those movies that’s gonna shake anyone’s core, but you know what it is, it’s a nice, feel-good movie.  There’s really not a lot of those anymore.  Everything is usually really serious, really dark, or just super-over-the-top CGI bullshit, and this is like a really sweet movie.  Mike Simmonds, the DP, shot the shit out of it.  It’s so beautifully shot.  I saw the rough cut in the spring and I was just rocked by how good it looked.  Between Thomas {Middleditch}, it was his first movie, and Rachael {Taylor}, who’s kind of new at the game and you have people like Chris McDonald and Lea Thompson, that just kinda add to the flavour.  I just think it’s a really sweet movie, you know?  It’s a stop-and-smell-the-roses story and I’m just happy to be a part of it.

~ The Lady Miz Diva

October 29^th, 2009

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