Episode 3: Neil sits down with...actor Tom Payne Part 2

(Music plays in Background)  00:00:00

Neil Hancock: 00:00:11
(Music) Hello, everyone.  I’m Neil On Wheels and this is my new podcast.  I can’t walk the walk but I can talk the talk.  I’m a wheelchair actor who wasn’t able to work during the pandemic but rather than sitting around doing nothing, I thought I’d sit around doing something.  In this series, I’ll be chatting to people in the theatre, TV and film industry about the challenges they’ve overcome in order to achieve great things in life.  Welcome back to part two of my podcast episode where I’m chatting to actor, Tom Payne.  Then in 2007 and 2008, you played the role of Brett Aspinall which you’ve briefly mentioned, in Waterloo Road.  Now, am I right in saying that you were 24 years old but you are playing a 17-year-old pupil?

Tom Payne: 00:00:54
Yeah, I started in that show when I was 23 and finished around 24, I think, yeah.  And I was playing, yeah, 16, 17.

Neil Hancock: 00:01:02
So how did it feel returning to school as a pupil so to speak?

Tom Payne: 00:01:06
Kind of quite odd actually.  I listened to another… the girl who played my girlfriend on that show, she did a podcast recently which I listened to and she actually caught onto the fact, which I didn’t think she had realised at the time, but I was…  So I was in my early 20s and everyone else who was playing kids were kids and were teenagers, and so they were all living at home and living with their families and I was living with the other actors who played the teachers in an apartment building.  And so that was… (laughs) it was very odd to have that kind of separation and disconnection.  And so I was kind of…  Yeah, so I would hang out and have beers and stuff with the teachers while I was playing this school kid.  But it was a lot of fun doing that show and that character was the rogue-ish guy, which was fun, and I really like Manchester and I had a friend of mine who I went to school with who was at university up there at the time, and Manchester was just…  Manchester had a great vibe and was a really fun place to be at that time, and Waterloo Road then was a big show.  It was weird because I was living… I was still living in London and I would come back to London at the weekends and the kids on my street would be shouting “Waterloo Road” at me like every day which is really odd, and that was my first experience of being semi famous, like semi well-known but I knew who it would be.  It would be a certain… it would be kids and then a certain age group of adults and teachers, like all the teachers watched it.  But that was my first brush with like some kind of notoriety.  Which was interesting.  It was a kind of a…  And I was, I think I was in like teeny magazines and all that kind of stuff, and it was a nice little window into that world of people maybe recognising you but not massive fame which was nice actually.  It was a nice first experience of that.  But then there was also that experience of people thinking that you’re incredibly rich because you’re on television but actually not being incredibly rich at all.  And then even after that job, I, you know when I wasn’t working so much, I took a job flyering at a festival in Clapham and someone came up to me and was like “Oh my god, you’re Brett Aspinall from Waterloo Road.”  I was like yeah.  And so, “Why the hell are you doing this?” and I was like, “Because I don’t have any money because it doesn’t, you know, that show didn’t make me a millionaire.”  That’s a big fallacy and I mean it’s even more so now, I think.  It’s really hard to make a really good living out of acting.  I mean it is and that’s why, yeah like I said earlier, I stuck with the TV and film because I’ve just felt like I just needed to keep building that side of my career to get to… honestly to get to where I am now, to get to a position of being able to buy a house and all these things which you’re just not going to be able to do if you just keep doing theatre.

Neil Hancock: 00:03:57
Well indeed and…  But it must have been difficult because you came into the Waterloo Road on the second season, didn’t you?  So how did it…?  How easy was it to slot in to an already established show?

Tom Payne: 00:04:13
It wasn’t so difficult.  I mean that show ended up going for 10 or 11 years, but yeah, so I was in the second and third season.  Yeah, it wasn’t… there was a few different changes within… in the cast but I was the new boy in the show as well so it kind of… it worked you know in the same way that… with like Walking Dead like I was the new guy in Walking Dead.  I was the new guy in the show, the new guy behind the scenes like those kinds of things kind of dovetail and it was the same way on Waterloo Road.  It was just, yeah, I’m the new guy and “Hey, how’s a everyone doing?” so it…  Yeah, I didn’t really feel left out.  I mean it was a really lovely group of people and very welcoming and, yeah, it was a really nice experience and a nice way to really kick-start my TV career.

Neil Hancock: 00:05:04         
And then in 2008, you were cast as Phil Goldman in Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day with Frances McDormand and Amy Adams.  I believe that was your first film, wasn’t it?

Tom Payne: 00:05:18
Yes, that was my very first film which I was very excited about.  I mean it wasn’t just…  It was Frances and Amy, Ciarán Hinds, Shirley Henderson, Lee Pace, Mark Strong.  Like I mean it was amazing, all these amazing actors and it was Focus Features.  It was an American company and we shot it at Ealing Studios like all these like amazing places that you heard about... these amazing actors and it was… that was another like kind of great experience where I played the young guy who is a bit of an idiot and like gallivanting around town and I was living in London.  And I was living in London, shooting in London with these movie stars I mean… and then who were just awesome and normal like everyone.  I’ve had been very fortunate really.  I haven’t worked with many people who have been a nightmare however famous they’ve been and Frances is just… she was just so normal and down to earth and fun.  And it was… that was, yeah, a very fun experience and yeah that was my first movie and then I used that movie to get my representation in America and that started my whole American journey.

Neil Hancock: 00:06:20
And did you find it daunting at all being your first film and working with these people?

Tom Payne: 00:06:25
Not really.  I mean I think a little bit at the beginning because I hadn’t done a film before so I was like, “Oh shit, I haven’t done this before.” and I think I might have done things slightly different... I might do things slightly differently now but I’ve always been…  I mean… but certainly at that time I was massively confident in my own abilities and where I should be and who I thought I was.  No, and I always lashed out against...like I didn’t think I was arrogant.  I was just very like just confident like, yeah, I can do that, I can do this and I’ve never really seen… I massively respect other actors with long careers and I massively respected Frances and everyone on that show, on that movie but at the same time I was like “Okay I can do this as well.” and we can all work together but I think just in general inexperience, the more movies you do and the more work you do, you can’t fake that really.  And looking back now, I was definitely like inexperienced.  But I did… but I feel like I did good work and I’m happy with it.  But it was, yeah, it was nice that we shot it in London actually and then it wasn’t some big American production that we... it felt like a very… and it was a very, you know, small period comedy so it wasn’t too overwhelming.  So no, I didn’t feel too much pressure.  I think if my first movie was on some massive... like if it was Avengers or something like that then I think I would be terrified at that point of… at that point in time.  I think that would’ve been… and way too much pressure actually.  I’m very happy with my career trajectory and when things have come to me, when opportunities and situations have come to me because I’ve been ready for them.  I think it’s really hard if you get amazing opportunities and big roles when you’re young because you’re just not equipped for it emotionally and you really need some help navigating, I think.  So that was the perfect way for me to start with my whole Hollywood experience.

Neil Hancock: 00:08:26
So things tend to come at the right time when they’re meant to come I think from what you’re saying there and it’s very true that I think. 

Tom Payne: 00:08:36
I absolutely… that’s, yeah.  I completely believe that.  Like, as I said, everything came to me.  I mean I wouldn’t have been able to do things but just not in the same way so Walking Dead prepared me for Prodigal Son and before that, like other things, other jobs like Waterloo Road, like was that little bit of fame.  So like I understood that part of it and Miss Pettigrew like introduced me to Hollywood and I came out to New York to get my agent and have meetings and I started to meet, like going back to Journeys End, I met Tom Hanks at a party in New York when I came out for Pettigrew and we were talking about Journeys End because he came to see it in London and he wrote us all a different… a little personalised note card which was very nice about each of us, and my agent actually used that to get me auditions afterwards.  But so, then when Pettigrew came out, I came out here and I met Tom at a party and we were talking about Journeys End and all those kinds of things and just things kind of slotted in, in the right way, and gradually, like my career…  There’s been many times where I’ve been like, “Oh this is going to be the job that pushes my career to the next level,” and the reality is that there…  A part of-…  Walking Dead definitely like elevated me but each job was an incremental step to get me to where I am now and now things come full circle and people that you worked within the past come back around again and it’s this weird like life is very strange in that way but if you’re open to it, things definitely come when they’re meant to and… but I do think that you have to… you know you make your own luck as well and you have to push yourself and take risks and believe in yourself.  I mean that’s really the most important thing is believing in yourself and the fact that you can do it.  Yeah.

Neil Hancock: 00:10:35
Have there ever been any moments in your career where you have questioned that belief in yourself, where you’ve lost faith so to speak?

Tom Payne: 00:10:46
Yeah, I had a big…  Like I just said there were many moments where I’m like, “This is the job.  This is the job that’s going to do this for me.”  Like I had that with Pettigrew.  I thought Pettigrew was going to be the job that launched me, didn’t happen.  I thought George Best was going to be the one that launched me, didn’t happen.  And then I did Luck, this TV show in America.  That didn’t…  Well, it didn’t really break me.  And then I did this movie called The Physician with Stellan Skarsgard and Ben Kingsley and that my first big lead in a movie and that was a big, epic medieval movie and I’m very proud of it and I think it’s a great movie.  Didn’t do anything for me.  And after that I had a bit of a, not break down, but I definitely got quite despondent and I, well, Jesus I had all these things which I thought was going to be the one that pushed me over the edge and it hasn’t happened and I went to go and see Stellan actually at his house in Sweden and we had like a nice bonding session at his house and he was really… he’s kind of like my acting godfather at that moment and really encouraged me to go back to who I was which is funny because I started this chat talking about young actors coming out and just go back to who you are and what makes you sellable.  And I… because I’d gotten stuck in a pattern. Because I…  These jobs had lifted me up and I was definitely like auditioning for amazing jobs all the time but always coming up against the same people and losing the jobs to the same people.  I was just always like on the edge and then losing it because I was too short or my eye colour was wrong, like just little things like one of the studio executives didn’t want, didn’t believe in me.  And when you’re just knocking your head against the ceiling for so long and you’re that close, it can be very frustrating and I was 31 and all of my friends were getting married and having babies and moving on with their lives and I wasn’t and couldn’t and I… and that’s when a lot of actors do say, “Okay, should I just do this now and settle down and have a baby and get what you called a regular job?” and that it was that big turning point.  So I went and I had this nice pep talk from Stellan and thought, “Well screw it, I’m going to keep going and…”  But also, be more true to myself because I had definitely, in auditions, started to try and, “Well what do they want and what should I… how should I be in this character because this is what they want.” and I don’t think that’s very helpful and it definitely wasn’t… because you end up just covering up who you are even more and you lose a bit of your shine.  So after that I had ended up doing a couple of tapes for different jobs.  I did one for this pilot in America which I screen tested for but that didn’t happen but then the second one, second… I think it was literally the second tape I did was for Walking Dead and I did that in Bath at my parent’s house and it was…  I think, visually, I think it’s one of the worst tapes I’ve done.  It was like on my laptop talking to my wife over FaceTime like just not the best setup and I had spent so much money on tapes up until that point of like lighting and everything but then it turns out that I… that was the right job at the right time and you never see…  When you’re taping something, you never see how many other actors have gone up for it but after I got the job, I know that they watched hundreds of tapes for that job and like looked at hundreds of people and for whatever reason, my natural qualities they liked for that part because for Walking Dead, they don’t give you the actual scenes, they don’t give you the actual… they don’t tell you what you’re auditioning for.  So they write the scene and all you can do is fall back on your natural inclinations which is great.  They’re very clever at writing the scenes because they know what they want out of the character and so all you can do is just play the scene as you basically.  And so, it went back to what Stellan had been telling me of just… you’ve just got to trust in you and what makes you special and that’s it really because that’s all you have.  Like you can be as flashy as you want and try and put as much on top of your… who you are as possible but underneath it all, it’s still coming from you and that’s what you’ve got that will sell.  And I’ve actually only just realised in this chat that’s exactly what I was doing in my showcase and I lost sight of it in my career. Yeah.  And then came back around to it and now here I am playing myself again.  (Laughter)

Neil Hancock: 00:15:28         
And then going back to 2009 which was a very busy year for you, wasn’t it Tom, because you were in Wuthering Heights opposite Tom Hardy.  You did Marple: They Do It With Mirrors and you did Best: His Mother’s Son where you played the character of George Best.  Now, I’m a Chelsea supporter.  Are you a football fan first of all?

Tom Payne: 00:15:52
I was and I actually… I did use to support Manchester United but when I moved to America, it’s kind of you know.  It’s quite hard to watch football over here so you don’t see as much of it so not anymore but it was a great honour to get that part definitely.

Neil Hancock: 00:16:09         
And did you have to learn any football skills or indeed, did you speak to any of the members of the family in order to prepare for the role?

Tom Payne: 00:16:19
Yeah, I went out and spoke to... the researchers from the BBC, took me out to Manchester and I interviewed Mike Summerbee and I interviewed Michael Parkinson which was pretty cool.

Neil Hancock: 00:16:32
Really?

Tom Payne: 00:16:33
I went and met him at his pub and yeah it was very cool actually.  I mean I should try and see if I’m got a recording of that because I think maybe somewhere I have.  But yeah, I went up and interviewed Michael Parkinson which was pretty cool and…  But in this show, I had a footballing double.  There was… there’s one scene where I took a few corners but it just gets knackering basically because you do it over and over and over again so like anything they have a double who can, first of all, do it better than you and secondly do it more times than you.  But that again… when I went to…  We shot it in Belfast and I went…  I mean Belfast is also a brilliant place and I went to George’s grave, I walked up to the graveyard and went to George’s grave and the family weren’t actually involved in making and we… I mean because it was really about his mother and her alcoholism which was obviously a tough subject.  And so we didn’t have that much contact with them but I spoke to a lot of, yeah a lot of different people that knew him which was really, really nice.  I mean I love doing the, the research, if we can… if there’s something that you can do to help you know more about the part that you’re playing then I’ll absolutely do it and… but there’s a lot of pressure playing a real person as well.  But it was great, I was really, really honoured to be doing that.

 Neil Hancock: 00:18:03         
And from that then, I mean you then went out into America in 2012 because you were cast in the role of Leon Micheaux, is it?  Is that how you pronounce his surname?

Tom Payne: 00:18:14
Micheaux yeah.  Micheaux.  Yeah.

Neil Hancock: 00:18:17         
In the HBO drama Luck, now I just want to say for the record, I love Luck.  I think it was a great show.  How did that opportunity come about?

Tom Payne: 00:18:29
Wow.  Well thank you very much.  I mean it was a very singular show that… and it was written by David Milch who writes this incredible dialogue but it can be quite dense.  That was…that was I came out to America because I had been coming up… that was the third year.  I came out with Pettigrew and I did some meetings that year.  Second year I came out for pilot season.  I came out and I tested on so Vampire Diaries and tested on another ABC show.  And then I just felt like there was opportunity and I had… I had had that great year with George Best and Wuthering Heights and I thought…  And then the next year after that with the recession hit and I did a straight to DVD horror movie and a guest spot in Beautiful People and I was like… and then nothing.  And that was…  So basically that was like five weeks work out of the year and I just saw opportunity in America so I did the classic… I got a new credit card and came out thinking I’m going to stay for three months because that’s what you’re allowed to stay for and see what I can do.  And then Luck came along really early on.  It was like in… within the first month of being there I think, I had that audition and I went to meet the casting director first of all and then the casting director brought me in to do a session with Michael Mann and then that was it.  And on a job like that with Mike, someone like Michael like if his word is, his word goes so he made the decision.  He was like “I want that guy” and that was it.  And I think he has said since then that he just… he liked my, you know, I was still very confident and very spunky and he was like I… he was like I like the cut of that guy’s jib (Laughter) kind of thing basically.  He was like I like his energy and that’s what we need for this... this part and so again it was who I was as a person I think that really helped me get that part.  And then again like from… talking about my experience with Pettigrew, it was the same on Luck, it was Michael Mann and Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte and John Ortiz like all these just insane names and that was… that was a real Hollywood production.  I was living in Los Angeles.  I was actually sleeping on my manager’s floor, living in Los Angeles, going to work at the race track.  I slept on his floor during the pilot and then I got an apartment for the… when we shot the show.  I’d a bought a Mazda mx5 and it was just like cruised down the freeway to the race track.  I mean it was just so much fun and really…  I mean really like the Hollywood dream.  I had another friend come out and visit me at that time and he was just kind of completely wide-eyed about the whole thing that he couldn’t believe this was it you know.  It was the American dream.  And then when… then when we got cancelled, it was again kind of amazing because I was at the centre of this big Hollywood story and this huge show at the HBO that everyone thought was going to be this massive thing and it didn’t go anywhere and I was having casting directors asking me about it and direct… you know, it was cool to be a part of this Hollywood story.  And it was also funny when we were shooting it that...we... Game of Thrones were shooting at the same time, the original pilot and that was the underdog and that was the show that we’re shooting in Ireland who like… It’s a weird show about whatever Game of Thrones, whatever people… tits and dragons.  (Laughter) That’s what Norman Reedus called it which I really like.  And yeah, and that was just that show and we would hear like they were like jealous of us because we were the big California show with Michael Mann and Dustin Hoffman and Kit actually came to the premiere of Luck and I saw him after.  He was “Yeah, that’s great.  Yeah, good show.” and I was like “Yeah, how was your show?” and like… and then we get cancelled and Game of Thrones becomes one of the biggest shows ever so it’s the just the way things go.  But it was a really fun time and then I enjoyed it so much and loved California so much that I stayed.  I got my visa through that show and I really… and Americans would just look at me aghast when I said this but it was cheaper than London and the weather was better and I just saw more opportunity and I just thought well this is it.  This is the best place to be.  And I really… and it was really… I could stretch my money longer in California as well so I could work wherever I needed to work and then come back and live on less money in Los Angeles.

Neil Hancock: 00:23:09                      
You say that there’s more opportunity, what do you mean by that, in what respect?

Tom Payne: 00:23:13
Well I think there’s more work in general.  I mean there was then and I think everything has become a bit more worldwide now but there was more work and more opportunity to make money if I’m honest.  Like it’s quite hard in London to really make enough money to buy a house and stuff unless you get to be Sherlock or you get to be Doctor Who or someone and there’s only a few of those parts.  So if you really want to be worldwide successful actor, you have to come to America, you have to work for American companies who make these big movies and TV shows because otherwise the money’s just not there like I would come… Luck, I was being paid what I would get… I was being paid for one episode what I would get for a whole…  For one episode of Luck, I got what I got for a whole season of Waterloo Road and I mean you just can’t… if you’ve tasted that as well, you go, “Well I’m not going back to England” because I, you know, unless the part is like amazing and you really get to do some great work and it’s beneficial to your career, you’re just not going to it like you’re going to stay in America and keep searching for those parts which mean that you can buy a house.  Like really like basic things which you’re just going to struggle, especially in London.  Like you’re never going to make enough money to be able to settle down in London.  And I just… I always had a lot of ambition and just… and anything that I did even if I wasn’t an actor, I always want to get to the top or what I perceived to be the top.  If I was a plumber like I’d want to own my own plumbing company and be the biggest plumber in London.  You know like that’s just who I am.  And so with acting, America was the place that it was and that I had to be.

Neil Hancock: 00:25:04          
Absolutely.  Did you find…?  How do you find the scripts that you’re offered in America differ from the ones you’ll be offered in the UK. Do you think there’s a sort of wider array of stories or do you think there’s no difference at all?

Tom Payne: 00:25:19
Well, if I’m honest I think there’s… I mean there’s more scripts in America.  I would say that the script quality in general is probably better in England but there is so much out here that…  I mean there’s so much good quality here.  Nowadays, I mean TV certainly even since I started TV has just exploded and it’s where all the best writers are now.  So now, there’s just… there’s great scripts everywhere.  But certainly, you would go out for lot of things during pilot season which were kind of disposable crap.  (Laughter) like I can’t believe they’re even making this pilot.  But then some of those shows would go on to be a big hits and you know that’s… like I said right at the beginning as well like you’ve got to audition for everything and even… I would meet actors who came out here for pilot season and this happens a lot with British actors actually who come out for pilot season who are very snooty about things and like, “Well I’m not going to go for that and I’m not going to do this.” and I would, the same thing, I would be like, “Who do you think you are?”  Like and effectively in America unless you come out with a big movie, you’re nobody again.  You’re just another actor amongst thousands of actors who’ve come to make a success out of Hollywood.  You do have a bit more of a leg up being from England because the Americans do look at British actors as being better trained and so you do get a bit of a plus point but at the same time, you’re starting at the bottom again.  You have to go and meet all the casting directors, you have to become known in another territory.  And I mean it’s taken me 10 years to get to where I am now and that’s through just being around for 10 years as well like a lot of it is just familiarity and I’ve met certain casting directors who’ve never given me a job 20 times in the last 10 years you know and jobs haven’t worked out but I’ve still gone to see them for crap as well like I’ve been to see… I’ve auditioned for so much crap in my career but you never know what’s going to turn up and what isn’t going to turn up and at the end of the day, so many things that… everything ends up having its value unless you do something just for the money.  I mean I’ve done a couple of jobs just for the money because I’ve had to and that’s a different thing but, you know, even like George Clooney, all of these people did all of these jobs and some of them were terrible but it’s great to look back and be like, “Oh god, I did this and it was awful” or “I did that and… but look where I am now and I put the work in and I got there.”  And I just think if you limit yourself early on by saying “Oh I’m not going to do that” or “I don’t want do that” then I think you’ve closed the door which you don’t know where that door would’ve gone.  And every single person that works on, you know the runner who got you your coffee on that shit horror film might be doing… might be a director 10 years from now who remembers how nice you were and wants to put you in their new amazing film.  I just… I don’t believe in limiting yourself in any way like you should always, always take opportunities when they come your way.

Neil Hancock: 00:28:27                      
Exactly.  But I want to go back to Luck a little bit if you don’t mind because one thing I loved about it is that it was a show where you really had to pay attention you know.  It didn’t really spell much out for the audience who kind of discovered different plot points and aspects about the character as you went along and you’re right, it was dense in a good way.  I’m just wondering what was it like... because Michael Mann, for those people who don’t know, directed films Heat with Al Pacino and Last of the Mohicans, what was your experience like of working with him?

Tom Payne: 00:29:06
I love Michael.  A lot of people have a hard time with him because his work ethic is so intense.  He doesn’t understand why you’d want to go home to your family when you haven’t got the last shot of the day.  You know he’s just all about… Not to say, he’s an awesome guy.  Nice family man, has a wonderful family and a lovely wife but he’s just so focused on his work and detail.  He’s very detail-oriented which is great.  I mean it works really well.  I mean it didn’t work well for me at the beginning because he wanted me to lose a lot of weight and I got down to… I got down from 135 or maybe it was 140 when I started, 140 pounds to 120 and or 120 maybe 125 and which for me was like, okay I lost a lot of weight and he didn’t even see me.  Like we emailed and said like “So it comes down to 125 now.” and he’s like “That’s not enough.” and I was like “Well, I’m not going to go down to jockey weight” because... for eight months like I’m not going to do that.  I refuse to do that for my own health.  So what ended up happening is that my storyline became that I was gaining weight but I’m also… I was also on the tall side.  I’m five foot seven and that’s tall for a jockey and I had met jockeys who were around that height but they all have eating disorders and they’re all really skinny and I mean really wiry but tough as nails.  Like jockeys are tough as nails and because they’re all starving themselves.  They’re all slightly crazy as well so it’s a pretty crazy world, the world of jockeys, but in the end yeah Michael is very respectful of actors and their own work ethic and no it was… it was great.  I mean I loved, yeah.  He only directed the pilot but then he was obviously around a lot supervising all the other directors of whom we had some other amazing directors who came in and worked on that show as well.

Neil Hancock: 00:31:15                      
How much of Leon’s arc did you know in advance?  Was it simply you got one episode and that was it or did you know what was going to happen to him throughout the entire season?

Tom Payne: 00:31:25
No we didn’t.  It was script by script.  I had kind of an idea but no, it was script by script.

Neil Hancock: 00:31:31          
And as I mentioned earlier, you’ve worked with Tom Hardy, you’ve worked with Dustin Hoffman in Luck, you’ve worked with Stellan Skarsgard and Ben Kingsley in The Physician.  How was working with all these distinguished actors helped you to grow as an actor?

Tom Payne: 00:31:45
It’s always just about observation really and observing other… I mean as an actor… as an actor I’ve kind of always just done what works for me and actually watching Stellan really helped with that because… helped me feel more comfortable with that because Stellan is someone who is very, very playful and will play a scene any which way and like it’ll be funny once second and crying the next like and just he likes to play a lot which I do also and I’ve worked with other actors who don’t and will like they’ll come to set and they’ll be like this is how I’m going to do it and even if the director directs them a bit, they’ll generally, they don’t want to play around too much.  But then what that does is it… it means that in the edit of the film or the TV show, you don’t have many options and that doesn’t help really.  It doesn’t help the whole piece but if you’ve given the director loads of options then they can make the piece better.  And if you give each option the same amount of truth and intention, you’re not going to be bad, you’re not going to end up looking bad and I think a lot of actors are scared that they don’t want to give a certain performance or a certain flavour because they think that it won’t work and it’ll make them look bad but ultimately, no one wants the product to be bad.  And I actually think if you limit yourself.  That can make you look bad because you’ll stand out in the scene in a wrong… in the wrong way.  And so I think… I think you should give options and to have fun with it and yeah so that was nice.  When I worked with Stellan, I was like that’s… he does that and he’s had an amazing career and I’ve actually never seen him give a bad performance and so that gave me a lot of encouragement for how I like to work.

Neil Hancock: 00:33:32          
So the key basically is flexibility really I suppose and adapting to the situation you’re in.

Tom Payne: 00:33:40
Yeah exactly.  Definitely.  Yeah, all about adapting to situations.

Neil Hancock: 00:33:43          
And then in 2016, you joined The Walking Dead, a show that is another one of my favourite shows.  I have to watch it for a bit and then have a break from it, I’ll be honest because it’s pretty heavy and there’s not much light relief in it but you play the role of Paul “Jesus” Rovia.  Now the character is based on the character in the comic.  How closely did you on the show wanted to keep Jesus to the version in the comics?

Tom Payne: 00:34:15
Well I kind of tripped myself up on that show because I, like I said early on, I like to do my research and the only thing I had was the comics so I read all of the comics and looked at the character in the comics and actually in the show he ended up being different to what he was in the comics.  I mean he was pretty similar and temperament and character in general but then there were various things that happened in the comics that didn’t end up happening in the show which was kind of frustrating for me.  But the main aspects of him… him being gay, him being a really good martial artist like they kept those aspects in which was really great and really fun and helped to mark him out as a character in the show.  So yeah, but then that was the same as, like I said, with Luck like we would get the script and then, only then would we know what the arc of the character was and…  Yeah so we… I took a lot from the comic books but I was kind of frustrated that we didn’t do more from the comic books.

Neil Hancock: 00:35:11                      
So how much input did you have into his development in the show?

Tom Payne: 00:35:16
Not very much (Laughter) aside from them like writing to my strengths and knowing how I was.  No, I didn’t… I mean I’m never… apart from… until now where I’m the lead of the show, I never really saw it as my place to say, “Hey, the character should be like this” or like “We should do this, we should do that” like I’m not the writer like I don’t you know.  And even… I mean even now on the show like I don’t tell the writers what to write or how to do it.  I feel more agency on set that I can be like “Maybe I should do it this way, maybe I should do it that way.” or we should rewrite this little bit but I’m never going to tell the writers like “Do this with the character” or “Let’s do that” because I don’t feel like I have the overview of the entire project and it’s… and I’ve... going back to like it’s a team game and like it’s about that.  It’s about the portrait as a whole.  It’s not about one particular colour.  And your… you might think your colour needs to be this but that won’t work with this colour over here and they won’t match together so I, yeah, I didn’t feel like I have enough of an overview to ever put my foot on the ground and say this is how it should be.  So yeah, no I didn’t have any input in the character really.

Neil Hancock: 00:36:27          
But then your exit, which I thought was an incredible exit, I’ve just seen your exit from the show and it was… it was quite shocking actually, quite surprising.  Why did you want to leave the show?

Tom Payne: 00:36:41
Well actually I did have a little bit of input on that because I said like I want him, if he dies then it has to be loads of people because he’s such a good fighter and so capable.  It has to be like loads of people or it has to be like a big surprise and they ended up going with the surprise which was brilliant I thought and like introducing the whisperers like and Jesus was like “Well this is easy, I’m just going to kill these walkers” and then this big surprise are just perfect like I was really, really happy with that.  And because I introduced the Saviours and Negan and then I introduced the whisperers so it was really nice like I was quite well bookended on the show.  But basically, I had just come to the end of my time.  I… that was the longest I’d ever been on one job and I just fell a bit stale and I just… I wasn’t… like I said earlier on like it never really stretched me apart from physically with all of the martial arts stuff which was really fun.  But I didn’t feel like you asked earlier on if… how other actors helped me grow like I just didn’t feel like I was evolving on that show or growing in any way with my acting.  It did help because that… when I joined that show, it was the biggest show in the world and it was and it was enormous and I travelled everywhere.  We went to Tokyo, I went to Australia, I went to France.  Like we went all around the world with that show and it was amazing from that point of view.  And if I’m honest, that’s what I got the most out of, was going to… all around the world and meeting the fans and engaging with people and seeing how much the show meant to them.  That was what I mostly gained from that show is seeing in people’s eyes how much a show means to them and how much it does for them emotionally basically and so that’s really the gift of that show.  But yeah I’ve just kind of had enough and they knew that and I think it was kind of a mutual thing at the end of the day like they knew that I would be cool if they killed me and yeah, it’s good.  It’s frustrating because he never died in the comic books and he stayed on and it would’ve been great to be able to do that but at the same time, we didn’t play him like he was in the comic books and he had a much bigger part in the war with the saviours in the comic books and he has a fight with Negan and he has all this cool stuff and we didn’t do any of it and so I was just like, well what are we doing with this character then if he’s not getting to do any of these cool things that he’s capable of?  So yeah, the showrunner called me and we had just got a new showrunner and I think it was the… I was the first person she’d ever called to say that I was dying and I think she was a bit surprised to how I took it.  She was like, “So Jesus, we’re going to kill Jesus.” I was “Cool, okay.  So how are we going to do it?”  You know it’s kind of fun whereas in the past on that show there’s… it had been a big deal and people had been in tears and people… they’d been yeah.  And I know it was a very… I mean I’m very independent anyway and I loved that cast and I love all the people and we still see each other and stuff but you know, it’s a transient job like I’m ready for the next one like my whole… that was the longest I had been on a job and I was kind of over it, ready to move on and that was exactly the right time.  And then if I hadn’t have… if Luck hadn’t have got cancelled, I wouldn’t have been able to do The Physician because that came along exactly the right time and it was something that I had auditioned for three years previously.  And if I hadn’t me killed on the Walking Dead, I wouldn’t be leaving a television show so everything came along at the right time.  Prodigal Son came along really soon after like I was prepared to take six months to a year to wait for the right thing and then Prodigal Son came along really quickly afterwards, after I left Walking Dead and then suddenly I was in New York and filming the lead in a television show so everything just works out as it’s meant to work out if you go with it and don’t fight it you know.  And if you go with how you feel like there’s a lot of people… I mean who the hell thinks it’s a good idea to leave one of the biggest television shows ever like who on the face of it is going to go, “Yeah I’ll be great after I leave this show.” but I just had a feeling and I was like “This isn’t the end of my career.”  I mean I was… I’m 38 now.  I  was 33  when I joined that show and it’s like the prime of my life like now moving into my 40s, I think this is when you get to do really good stuff and I wasn’t ready to just stay on a television show until it ended.  Like I was I’m… three years was cool and now I want to go do some other cool stuff.  Yeah.  And I mean I hope my luck doesn’t run out.

Neil Hancock: 00:41:24                      
Well, I’m not just saying this Tom but all the TV shows you seem to do, I seem to like and Prodigal Son is no exception to that because I think it’s a great show and on the one side it’s absolutely horrific and harrowing but on the other side, it’s very humorous and you kind of feel guilty that you’re laughing at the subject matter but it’s quite humorous.  But what’s it like being the lead of a big TV show? 

Tom Payne: 00:41:52
Well, I’ll qualify that as well as being the big… the lead of a TV show in America.  It’s exhausting and all-encompassing and I don’t think I’ll do it again.  (Laughter) I love it and I love the show and it’s exactly the right show for me right now and it’s… I mean I couldn’t be happier if I’m honest.  I’m glad I’m doing it at this point in my life without having had kids yet and without having loads of responsibilities but it’s a lot.  Like we, on a normal Monday, I would get picked up at 5:30 and get home at 8:00 at night and then throughout the week, the days generally start a bit later and finish a bit later so I can never like I can’t do anything else during the week.  And then in the weekends, sometimes we’ll film into the early hours of Saturday so then Saturday is kind of a wash and Sunday is the only day, full day I have off.  And I mean when I’m not filming, I’m doing press.  I’m doing interviews or I’m doing photoshoots and promotion for the show so it’s really all-encompassing but Walking Dead was all-encompassing in a different way because I had the long hair and the beard so I couldn’t do anything else in between seasons.  On this job, there is the possibility of being able to do something else just as… just as a palate cleanser type of thing because you’re doing and playing this part all the time and then I’m having a great time and really enjoying it and loving working with all the actors that we have but it’ll be nice to do something else and be on another set and have another experience as well.  But people ask me what it’s like living in New York and I’m like “I don’t really live in New York” like I live here but I… while I’m shooting but I don’t… I stay in my apartments on the weekends just doing nothing because during the week, I’m just so active like emotionally and physically.  That by the time the weekend comes, I’m just exhausted.  It’s been good for me health wise in a way because I can’t drink really like I’d have a drink at the weekends and maybe one or two drinks in the week but not anywhere near the amount of British drinking that I used to get away with which is great so that’s really good for my health and I’m much more aware of keeping myself healthy.  I mean that’s just all to do with getting older as well but I’m much better at looking after myself basically which is great, which has been great for my mental health and my physical health and I feel like I’ve grown up a lot.  The Walking Dead was still kind of… I wasn’t working all of the time and so I could still go and… go out and do stuff in Atlanta and I was flying back and forth to Los Angeles.  But on this job I’m here and I’m working every day and I’m involved in you know.  Like I said earlier on like I would never have thought to pick up the phone to any of the producers or anything on the other jobs.  On this job, I’m very involved in everything and I do have a dialogue with every department.  I mean basically because I work every day as well like I see everyone every day.  I’m part of the team in a way that I never have been before and it’s pushed me also to move forward with other things like I’ve been looking at producing things and with Will actually.  Will and I have been looking at doing stuff together and I feel like I’m growing into a different stage of my life in general and that’s a lot to do with the show as well you know.  But yeah I don’t think I could… I would do it again willingly unless a dump truck of money comes out to my front door.  It’s just too…  You know for personal life reason as well.  It’s like it’s really hard.  I understand why people have a hard time keeping their marriages together and stuff because you just… you don’t see your significant others as much as you would like you and it requires more of them as well.  So it’s hard but obviously it’s worth it and this job is doing amazing things for me and my family so yeah.

Neil Hancock: 00:45:53                      
And of all the roles you’ve done so far, what would you say has been your hardest role? 

Tom Payne: 00:46:00
This one.  This one.  And for all the different reasons that I said like just emotionally and physically and but at the same time it’s the most rewarding in many, many different ways.  But yeah, this has been the part that… All of the stuff that I had previously complained about like when I was on The Walking Dead and I was like “I’m not getting enough to do” and “This isn’t challenging me” like… it’s like the universe just said, “Okay, here’s a fucking challenge for you like have everything.  Like do all of the acting in the world every day and that’s what I’ve been doing basically and this has been the job that has challenged the most but it’s absolutely the most rewarding one as well and I’m really proud of a lot of what I’ve done on the show and I can look at it and go this is some of the best work that I’ve put on screen and I’m really happy with it.

Neil Hancock: 00:46:51                      
And I ask all my guests this question.  What has been the greatest challenge you faced in either life or your career or both?

Tom Payne: 00:47:01
I think the greatest challenge of my life, career or both.  Well, that one… that time when I… I mean the one time when I felt like I this might not work out which I’d never felt before in my life but it was a life thing of like turning a certain age and watching everyone else’s lives move on without you, you know, and they’re getting married and having kids and doing all that stuff and recognising that you’re on a different path and you have to commit to that path.  It’s really that.  And like I’d spent my whole life taking risks of different magnitudes but I guess that was the biggest risk in my early 30s of, okay this is it we’re going to throw everything, all my eggs in one basket and really, really, really commit to this in every way.  And I had also… I had come out of a previous relationship and I was… it was… there was a lot of stuff going on in my life at that point and I used that moment to just recommit because you’ve also like comes so far that to give up at that point would just be so awful, I think.  I think later on in life, I would’ve looked back and been like “What if?” and I never wanted to think what if ever.  I never ever want to feel like any regrets.  And I don’t really have any regrets actually.  I feel like I have done everything that I have wanted to do and then that’s really because of taking risks and just pushing forward.

Neil Hancock: 00:48:29                      
So you don’t feel at all that you’ve had to sacrifice anything at all to do what you’re currently doing?

Tom Payne: 00:48:37
Well, I think yeah.  I mean it’s obviously hard like I spend a lot of time away from my family and especially now when I can’t see them at all, that’s even more obvious.  But yeah, I mean I definitely neglected friends and family for a while in my 20s but I recognised the importance of that so much more now and invest a lot more in that.  But I could always probably invest more actually in family relationships and friendships and that’s definitely the part of my life that would need a bit more work I think if I really looked at it.  Now that my career is a bit more settled then I can, yeah, work on that a bit more and develop that a bit more.

Neil Hancock: 00:49:17                      
And you briefly touched upon this but what’s next on the horizon for you?  What would you like to do next?

Tom Payne: 00:49:22
I’d like to do… get back to film again because I like the closed narrative and I’d like to do like a beginning, something that has a beginning, middle and end.  And looking into bringing stuff to the screen on my own with my brother like to developing stories and brining other people’s stories to the screen.  I like that like being creative in a different way and having a little bit more control over things.  And now I mean that comes now as well because I have access to people who can help me do that as well so I feel like that’s the next stage of things as well.

Neil Hancock: 00:49:54          
And finally, Tom, I just have to ask when you’re… when we’ve obviously been in lockdown, what hobbies do you have that you otherwise wouldn’t have time for but when you were obviously in lockdown you had a chance to chill out, what would you do?

Tom Payne: 00:50:11
Well, we actually did a lot of work on our house which we would never had the time for.  We did a lot of… we have a really nice… it’s not too massive but a nice mid-century modern house in Los Angeles that we… I really like and we wanted to bring it back to its former glory so we spent a lot of time… ripped up the floors and replaced them and all these different things in the house to honour the house really.  And we live in an area where we can go biking so that was really nice.  We did a lot of bicycling around and then just getting out in nature, yeah, and just… but honestly just doing nothing is great.  Like I spent… I had finished filming such… from such an intensive period for the season one that when I got back to LA and lockdown pretty much happened immediately, it was very welcome and we would just go on walks and make a lot of cocktails in my kitchen and cook a lot and just try and get back to the more basic things in life.

Neil Hancock: 00:51:09                      
And what’s your favourite cocktail?

Tom Payne: 00:51:12
A Manhattan.  Yeah, probably a Manhattan.

Neil Hancock: 00:51:15          
I absolutely love Manhattans too but I think my favourite was when I went up to a bar and I’ve always wanted to, as a wheelchair user, want to go to a bar and order a side car.  I don’t know what it was but I just felt the need to.

Tom Payne: 00:51:30
(Laughter) That’s great.  That’s a good one too.

Neil Hancock: 00:51:31          
But Tom Payne, thank you for giving up your time.  I know you’re exceptionally busy and for those who don’t know, this is our first conversation.  This is the first time we’ve actually spoken so it’s nice to have a chat.

Tom Payne: 00:51:46
Yes, very nice.  It was really nice to finally talk to you, Neil.

Neil Hancock: 00:51:48                      
All right.  Thank you, Tom.  Take care.  (Music) If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please follow me on Twitter at neilonwheelspod and also on Instagram, theneilonwheelspodcast.  Until next time.

[00.52.23]

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Duration 52 minutes and 23 seconds