How We Got Away with Murder - Charlie Weber: Becoming Frank

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Frank Delfino aka Charlie Weber (Or is it the other way around?) joins Jack and Matt for his very first podcast appearance, calling in from a sunny 72-degree Santa Monica to talk about the winding road that brought him to one of TV's most unforgettable characters. From playing ball at Mizzou to getting inspired by Pulp Fiction, surviving a modeling scam (his looks were so convincing the scammers went legit), and landing some iconic Abercrombie spre ads, Charlie's path to Hollywood was anything but direct. An overnight success, they say! And it only took 14 years. Charlie opens up about the real anxieties of being a working actor, the massive character swing he took with Frank, and why he compares his relationship to the role the way Stallone talks about Rocky. He also shares a major breakthrough: you don't have to torture yourself to be good. Plus: airport bar alter egos, a laughing fit that takes everyone down, and styling his own hair for four seasons. Charlie also has a new film on the way, Highest Stakes, so stay tuned! We want to hear from you! Send us your show and episode questions with the chance to be read on the air during an episode: [e-mail] Matt & JackIG @jackfalaheeTIKTOK @jackfalahee X @RestingPlatypus REDDIT u/ItsMeJackFalaheeIG @mattmcgorry TIKTOK @matt.mcgorry X @MattMcGorry Facebook: @ActorMattMcGorryThank you to our sponsors:Hero Bread: This year, hit your goals without giving up your favorite bready dishes. Hero Bread is offering 10% off your order. Go to hero.co and use code JACKANDMATT at checkout.Ollie: Show your dog some love in the way they understand best. Head to Ollie.com/jackandmatt, tell them all about your dog, and use code JACKANDMATT to get 60% off your Welcome Kit when you subscribe today! Plus, they offer a Happiness Guarantee on the first box, so if you’re not completely satisfied, you’ll get your money back.Quince: Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to Quince.com/JACKANDMATT for free shipping and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too!This podcast is brought to you by Podcast Nation.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey everyone, my name is Matt McQuarrie and I played the character Asher Millstone on How to Get Away with Murder. And I'm Jack Falahee and I played Connor Walsh on that very same TV show. And this is the How We Got Away with Murder podcast. Hey buddy, how you doing? I'm doing well, how are you? I'm so good. It's really cold in New York.

Yeah, I know. I'm so cold. The real feel today is negative 14 degrees. Is it really? Yeah. But it's nice because it's the Olympics and also the Super Bowl. My dear friend Evan Bates skated last night in the Olympics and did really well. That's right.

And this feels like good Olympic weather, good Super Bowl, like good sport weather to watch a sport. And then it's also really good podcast weather. Totally. Totally. The sport of podcasting. The sport of podcasting. Yeah. In which we are the Olympic equivalents.

that's right and also are we have a banger of a guest today who who is arguably maybe the most athletic person from the show yeah i think i think there's there's a couple contenders but he's a couple but there's different types of athleticism too right like you have like raw strength you have like all sorts of you know playing a former football player um we will say A former football player. Some of, if not the best facial hair on the show. That's true. I think that's true.

And definitely makes the best meatballs on the show. That's true. That's true. Straight from Mother's Recipe. Today, we have Charlie Weber. Hey, Charlie. Charlie Weber. Hey, guys.

Hey, guys. Charlie. Charlie. How you doing, man? What is up? So thrilled to be here. I love you guys. I'm so happy you're doing this.

I love you. Thanks for being here, man. This is your first podcast. My first podcast. Here we go. I love that. Wow. I love that.

That's awesome. We're here for you. This is Matt's fifth podcast. This is my fifth podcast. Exactly. Only hosting. Never guest. Always host.

Matt's never listened to a podcast, and he's never been on one. He has only hosted podcasts. That's right. That's how I stay pure. No, he only hosts. And I get that. I dig that about you. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Thank you. I appreciate that you appreciate that about me. Charlie, where are you calling us from today? I'm in my home in Santa Monica, California. Wow. Nice. What's the weather like? It's not negative 15.

It is. No, it's 72 and sunny like every other day. Damn. Beautiful. Beautiful. LA, I miss it. It's pretty great. How long have you been in Los Angeles, Charlie?

uh 25 years 26 years yeah I moved here I moved to New York in 1998 and then I moved to LA in 2000 wow my whole adult life yeah yeah yeah Matt and I gave like a little bit of like a origin story of like how we got because I know the bits and bobs of yours but now that we're already in it Like, I would love to hear how you found your way to acting, I guess. And then it sounds like New York was maybe the stepping stone to get you to Los Angeles. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah.

I would love to hear all of that and how you got, how, where, where we found you on How To Get With Murder. What happened before all that? I was, you know, stars in my eyes as a very young kid. I remember feeling a little out of place, a bit of a misfit where I grew up despite. So sports were my outlet, as you guys tapped on. Like, that's how I got to perform football and track is is how I got to get seen. And it was addictive. I loved it.

And I kind of I just I loved movies and television. I loved them. And I remember a similar moment watching Pulp Fiction when I was like 17. And I thought to myself, like, I, they weren't born in that box. Like they, they got in that box. And so I decided to try to get in that box. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

Yeah. Then yeah. Moved to New York. Oh, I was, uh, I was a senior in high school. Didn't love school. Agreed to play football at Missouri, which I am so proud of. You know, I, I just, I needed to get out. I needed to get out.

And so like, ultimately, I moved to New York, started studying acting. And that was that. That was that. Whoa. Did you did you play college ball at all? Or did you just go straight to New York? Yeah, I played one year at the University of Missouri. Wow. Where did you study in New York? Stella Adler. Oh, yeah, that's right. I think I knew that. It was experimental. They had sort of a film and television sort of thing they tried, which failed immediately. but it was it was a it was a really great start for me yeah and then ultimately back then

it's so different now but I I you had to be in LA right right right so that yeah that motivated the move yeah yeah we talked about that a little bit um one of our first episodes how it felt like we were sort of at the end of that you know the necessity of being in Los Angeles where now it's obviously so global and remote you can be anywhere um you can be anywhere but i'm curious like what did you have any fucking idea what you were doing because you're from missouri like you don't you don't know anyone that's doing this no no no you play you play a year of ball and then you're like i just i gotta be in new york i gotta i gotta go see what it's funny that i i'm comfortable talking about it now uh but i i there was it was a weird thing so i was doing my homework

well pretending to do my homework to my best ability as a senior in high school i know i've got to get out of here i need something and um i you know i was my tv was on my little tiny tv was on in the background while i'm doing homework and and it said uh have you ever thought you could be a model and uh you know it's one of those scam models right oh my god yeah and i'm like you know what like maybe yeah yeah probably yeah so I'm like I'm gonna go and I made my buddy just shout out to Jason Kim my my best friend from high school I made him go with me to a Marriott hotel in Columbia Missouri for a model search thing wow he he goes with me I I get I kind of get held back like they're like hey can we talk to you after this and I said sure and they're like hey so this

is kind of a scam but you'll actually we think you'll actually we want to invite you to kansas city we want to open a legit arm of our scam business yeah yeah we actually think you're gonna make money and i was like great great let's do that and i went you were so you were so handsome you convinced the scammers to go legit yeah i made them go legit right so so so i they're like come to kansas city i skipped my senior prom didn't go to my senior prom to go to a model search in kansas city missouri uh and and sure enough it was real reputable agencies that they do and so i somebody was excited about me they invited me to new york i went and did that next thing you know you know i was doing abercrombie and all that and uh the rest is history but that

was a long time ago i mean you were in some like iconic abercrombie spreads yeah i actually uh you know it's funny um there's one ad that i was part of that i'm in with a girl where we're naked on an elephant yeah and i remember that one but they they actually put that in uh like college college studies like socio-economic like what like sex in the media right became like the staple image of sex in the media because we're you know i was 19 she was 17 they had to pull the ad yeah whoa sure yeah i mean it was at that time too it was like what the late 90s right early yeah would have been 98 yeah where i feel like abercrombie was like culturally it was the biggest thing on the planet yeah yeah bruce weber took the thing over it was like more

of like an ll bean kind of brand and then bruce weber took it over and it became the biggest thing on the planet yeah yeah totally wow it's gorgeous photography yeah yeah yeah yeah i remember like that black and white like all all of those photos are beautiful yeah you know that i got i got approached by abercrombie when i was living in new york to be a model as you and i was like right right and i thought so too and i had that delusion of like yeah maybe i could be a model even though i'm like 5 10 on a good day yeah and they they take me to their uh they took me to the flagship and they were like oh no you're gonna model in the store ah wow pop your shirt and so i was like right yeah then i popped then they had me take my tarp off and so i popped my shirt off

and i was like you know i was like in ballet class you know at nyu so i was i was like a pretty string string bean of a version of myself they're like you know maybe put your shirt back on and we'll just have you on the floor oh my god and so i just stood it stood on the floor and i'd say hey how's it going to people as they came in love it wow love it a really good buddy of mine did that for a summer that was his gig was like the shirtless dude in front of the store right yeah i didn't make the cut to be the shirtless dude but i remember seeing all of like the you know and they of course they were like well sometimes we we hire models from within abercrombie so you could right and uh you know but you were living that reality yeah so you're in new york it was

really bizarre and it happened kind of immediately and so i was kind of kind of thrust into uh this different it kind of worked like the thing worked i went and did the thing and it was working yeah and but it's interesting that like with our show and you guys talking about like me being older like i i had been a working actor for 14 years when i got murdered yeah yeah it was a whole different experience for me than it was for you right so so like talk a little bit about that so you go from new york to la out of necessity because you want to get in the game you want to get you want to get on tv right yeah no i i i came to la for a general visit ended up getting a little part in a movie which was amazing from a general oh wow and yeah general meeting and then

i move here i do a pilot the pilot doesn't get picked up and then i get on buffy i i had not been in in la for even six months when i got buffy oh wow wow wow yeah that's amazing yeah that's similar to me that's like the story everyone hates hearing because it sounds like really easy or like you that's what's so great about the story is that then 14 years later i get our show which is the big thing and i'm i'm struggling that whole time right yeah what was it like going from like six months or not even six months in la to like on fucking buffy it's you know it was it was it was wild and it was like it was such a big show it was that thing that that that matt you probably from orange and then jack on our show yeah that immediate recognition like

everyone now knows who you are right and this is pre-social media so it was like i was just out and about like and people were stopping me on the street like legit like oh i love you i was like oh yeah thank you but like I like the weird kind of like try to identify what this is now yeah and then you know it all spirals from there and like the ebb and flow of one's career and that's what was so interesting I remember being a talk show and I think it's the Steve Harvey and it's the first time I said out loud and I was laughing because I was like yeah overnight success it only took 14 years yeah yeah yeah you know it's just like the trials and tribulations of any actor behind the scenes we only see the product and it's it's it's such a bizarre thing to and that's

why i love you guys are doing this it's like how we all got there yeah and you're all's youthful energy in philadelphia is so refreshing for me i love that because i was already like old cynical sure right right were you at that point also thinking like i don't know i mean i had an optimism certainly at that stage in my life i'd also been very fucking lucky with orange you know like did you have a did you have an optimism that the show might go a long time or were you still kind of like trying to maintain the level-headed like who the fuck knows no i knew this was big i knew it was big yeah i knew the star i've been doing it a long time and the stars were aligning in a different kind of way and obviously i don't know if you guys even remember but it was the

pilot to get like yeah how to get rid of murder was the big one yeah and that can be scary because a lot of times those shows don't go because the expectations are so high yeah right right yeah that sure yeah but i remember uh you guys were talking about you were already in philadelphia when you found out Viola was going to play Annalise? I think that's right, yeah. Okay, so I was on a phone call. They were really struggling to find a Frank. Yeah, you got to take us through that process,

how that came together, yeah. You know, it was moving fast. And it was, I mean, I remember going to the first, it was a producer session, and there were some really good actors there. And I was like, oh, shit, okay. That is worth touching on real quick, though, for the audience that like you at this point in your career like you said you've been you've been

working like you have been an auditioning and working actor for 14 years so when you go in the waiting room which is now a relic of the past because everything's remote but you you would walk into the waiting room and you would see 10 guys auditioning for frank and you know those i know and they're they're good right and they're they're in movies i like yes right yeah you're why i didn't have an actor yeah yeah no it's true it's true and and i felt something about this material about frank and it went great and i called my manager later who i'm still with by the way and i was like something's special about this um they're gonna call you we're gonna get a call and sure enough we got a call about to test yeah and as you all probably have to explain to

people like you know you do the network test you do the thing i signed the contract to go in the room and the there's a couple other guys and i'm like they're big yeah but at this point have you tested for i know you had the pilot before buffy have you tested for a bunch of other pilots and stuff i've tested a bunch okay gotcha i'm no stranger to a test but this is uh how to get away with murder is the first test that i got right yeah right yeah right and it was in it's funny hearing you all you were already in philadelphia so um pete and michael offer were remote because they were in philadelphia scouting wow that's how late in the game i was yeah wow i don't think i quite realized that but that's also interesting that you

you were auditioning for pete obviously created the show but you were also auditioning for michael offer who directed the pilot who was already hired he was already they were scouting right like who wouldn't have been in the room no for me because he wasn't hired yet right because i was earlier and matt you wouldn't i mean matt matt booked his off a off a fucking tape which is insane but yeah really cool um okay so you're auditioning remotely your your test is i'm so happy to be with you guys i just gotta say yeah it's remote and so what but it actually made way more comfortable for me because i don't know if you guys have ever done any old school network tests but it used to go into like an auditorium maybe like 30 people there that's crazy what am

we doing what is this right in the back of the theater in business yeah yeah totally right just to find you know the thing i'm like oh i'm part of this it's like you're on your right right see you on your right that's interesting yeah uh yeah but cut to i get the call from my whole team you know they're like yeah we've got everybody yeah we've got everybody it's like oh my god i've been waiting right i tested on a friday i get the call on a monday and uh uh and in passing my manager bernard was like in viola closer deal today so it was like and i didn't even register right right and then later i'm like but certainly not viola certainly not viola right right certainly not this can't be real and and then like we've we've seen her we were part of this thing where she

became one of the big stars on the planet yeah but at that time she was just like this ethereal actor that just incredible actor exactly yeah and and i was like i don't know like like viola davis doing the show like and i and i was just like so for your question like viola davis shonda rhymes the script is amazing we got something here yeah this is real this is tangible and real and i'd been doing it long enough to recognize that this was special and that's why i went into it so wholeheartedly and and uh i'm so happy jack that asia told you this mattered because you have first line of the day because i'm like these kids know this is yeah no idea yeah yeah yeah no i think that i had like i think i had uh my greenness was was working for me like i didn't have like

i'm kind of glad now that i didn't realize the stakes of the pilot i agree completely but you came in so high because you have the first line right and so we're at this table right and i'm like i hope they know this isn't just some read right like we're basically auditioning for our oh my god so you felt that you felt that way too going into it oh i was i was locked and loaded for that table yeah i knew exactly what was on the table right i have a friend that was just fired after a table read for a show yeah and it's like it it does happen and now we like i know that of course but at the time i was just like i had no clue you get dude if you're an actor there's always something to worry about yeah i got the pilot is it gonna get picked up it gets picked

up am i gonna get fired am i getting replaced i've replaced i won't name names but it's huge but like i actually replaced an actor on a show once oh wow wow and like he's fine but like it's one of those things where just chemistry you never know what's gonna happen and that's a devastating phone call yeah like the show's going but not with you like i i don't think i could handle that yeah i don't feel my internal uh sensibilities collapsing on themselves just thinking about it yeah i mean on that no i like i feel like you you took like a really big swing for frank like you just you you like are doing character work on the show uh head to toe frank is a character that i created yeah yeah yeah totally because

it's like we don't know much about any of the characters right just from the pilot but like frank and bonnie were you know you guys had very tight screen time to convey who these people were and i think you and liza did a beautiful job of like immediately um putting them into the world right um and a lot of people you know i've been getting questions off reddit from the the how to get murder subreddit and a lot of people were asking about your voice like how did you come up with the voice how did you come up with this character especially knowing like oh you can get fired after the fucking table read like it it was a really like honestly brave thing for you to do because it would have been easy for shonda the network anyone to be like yeah we love charlie

but like we don't like this thing he's doing right you know i remember they were that that was part part of um the struggle to find frank was they didn't feel like anybody was doing this like philly street guy right right right right oh interesting um and i i love old movies i love gangster films and i love east coast mentality i love the east coast and i kind of it for me it wasn't about nailing the accent was secondary to nailing the attitude right and so i think that's what kind of made it happen for me is that i understood that forward moving energy of people on the east coast right and that unapologetic moving to the world and and i i was ready it was the perfect timing for me as an actor i wanted to take a big swing and it worked yeah that makes

sense and they needed a big swing they needed someone to take a big swing and have it work right and like you you see that immediately in the first couple episodes where like you do a great job where like they give frank these like really punchy often comedic lines where you just come in you're like let's go get falafel you know and then yeah and and that's it and like but it but it all comes to this this you know yeah this idea of uh uh east coast uh you know he's always moving forward yeah you know i remember hearing a couple seasons in that you were going to philly and spending time there i'd go to philly two or three weeks before every season oh my god and do what just hang out what were you doing to people and oh my god i love that

i love that as we get down this road and then later you know it got to season four or five six where i was like i've got this it's in my bones now but uh one of my and this is not this was it's probably unnecessary but but as a young younger actor i needed to feel certain things i needed to feel like i did something so i um before season three and you can bleep out whatever you want frank uh so frank is uh you know he goes on the run and that's when i shaved my head and my beard and all that before before season three i was visiting my family they rented my family rented a house in captiva florida and i rented a van and drove from captiva florida to philadelphia and lived in philadelphia for like a month oh my god what gets the feeling of being on the run

and in the meantime i would only talk to people on a burner phone and i was staying in motels what do you mean shut the fuck wait you were okay okay first of all i'm devastated i didn't have the the burner phone number my shit like that i did that for me like i just did that for me i wish that i'd gotten a call from the burner phone yeah no i was only talking i was only speaking people as frank it was a whole thing i love also the idea of like you like your accountant calling you and being like charlie why are you putting a winnebago on the company card you're like no research right and you know it's really funny uh because the show was already pretty big right and that's when that's you know oh my god trip oh my god that trip is how fame kind of

interrupted the process because i stopped at a gas station to buy and i bought duct tape and like i was doing my shit right right and uh and the girl the i'm in florida and i'm buying duct tape and she's like you missed you didn't know no chloroform she is she knew exactly who i was and kind of what i was doing was very stupid really interesting but i was like okay so this is kind of fucked like it's already the process has already been interrupted because i used to be able to go to philadelphia and go to a bar and talk to people and then and then it just that went way i used to do this thing um that i can't really do as much anymore where i would go to airport bars which are like one of my favorite places in the world just because you have these

like you have these conversations that with someone that you'll never see again in your entire life right and i used to pretend to be different people just like as i don't know like a weird character exercise in the public is great right and i remember once like pretending to be uh an underwater welder which i knew very little about and then the the person just like fully called me out and was like oh my god like i've seen your tv show this is why are you lying about this i was like no i'm not why it was just i'm doing like a thing like and you seem obviously completely unwell and insane so i could see i could see that so it does create a disconnect and then that's where that's where trouble comes into paradise and so i still went to philly just

to feel it, but it wasn't the same. I didn't go to bars and talk to people as if I was Frank and I, I, I, what was your experience like filming the pilot? Because, you know, Matt and I have talked about a lot where I feel like because all of the law students, we were like similar ages and kind of in every scene together. Like we, you know, we spent so much time together on camera and off camera. What was your experience like? It was thrilling. I understood the opportunity this was uh i really was given a chance to to take a big swing and so for me creatively i was just thrilled uh viola and everybody neural's energy and the whole thing was great and it was working and that's another thing like i was seasoned enough to know i was like this is working

right we're all making this great show and this is gonna be something and so like the experience was amazing in that i didn't know anyone uh liza and i were sort of like wreckage in a storm because we were this singular we kind of were the same character in a way and we just flanked viola and we were both trying to find our way in this in this story and you guys were talking about uh in your first episode about how you were like 7 of 13 or whatever like but ultimately we all did all of them but like i i jarred this memory of like they kind of want to do that with everybody to hedge their bets of like oh we might not need them for this or that but like there was no way around we had to be there all the time because we're just these two entities that

you know that follow her everywhere i knew what we had and i knew it was special and i tried to not yeah i think the trap for like characters like bonnie or frank is them becoming like a plot device yeah but i think that you guys brought so much to to sort of like you know fill in the blanks and like right on the margins like of the you know the script of these characters and and that fleshed them out into what you know become instrumental to the show right and like fully realized characters oh yeah and you know you had to fight for that on the show there's a lot of people there's a lot of what we all did why the show is so great everybody did that themselves so everybody became the entire person uh this this you know had to make frank a real live boy

and i take great pride in that but liza as well created this entire world around bug and you felt that and so we're all living these huge lives together and you didn't have to say much you know matt you were so complimentary about uh something i did with with viola early because she kind of checks me and i kind of deal with it but like those are those moments that that you have to create a world around yourself yeah you're packing so much in there and i mean it makes for great watching and also you know as an actor i've always felt like it's a it's also a survival thing right because you are you're you're always trying to make sure that you're good enough to not you know get fired at the table read or at the pilot and to make people want to write for

you right so you're like there's this dialectical yeah like experience where we are creating and trying to show options that exist outside of the page to excite the writers and entice them into writing more in different things and yeah i love seeing especially the beginning the beginning episodes and you did such a great job at packing so much like history inner life everything into those early moments so we're just like it's just like you get a little fucking tasty morsel you know i'm cursing so much in this episode um for some reason more than all the others yeah we're fucking doing it i think that's my fault i yeah i just started i'm holding a football for charlie for those obviously can't see but i'm holding a football i'm cursing a lot like i'm

really i'm really sat in for this i'm thrilled i'm thrilled that i got you guys i'm curious the if you're open to sharing what the kind of day-to-day process was for like stepping into frank i know you talked about sort of the some of the overarching stuff of like you know actually literally going to philadelphia and whatnot but what what was that like kind of on a day-to-day process because i do feel like you were sort of doing a character in a way that i don't know that any of the other regulars on the show were doing that yeah yeah it was it was deep character work that i to get to do that uh the biggest takeaway from the show is being allowed to go that deep for that long

is something few actors ever, ever get to. And I didn't really think of it. I just created this character, got a job, and I did the thing. And as time went on, it just got deeper and deeper and deeper. And I'm so happy. I love

acting more now than ever because I've come out on the other side of that experience. I enjoy acting in a way I didn't before because i got to flush all that out but it mattered completely to me it was everything to me those years on that show most notably season three i remember season three i i literally was like i'm going to get i'm going to give myself like i'm going to give

myself over to this completely completely i'm going to let it run every aspect of my life and for better or worse it was a great experience uh but but i got to do that and i get to i get to not do that again yeah which is great but but the the the learning the lessons i learned on that show changed me completely as a human not just as an actor but i had to go down but you know i don't i know it's probably a big question would you open to sharing about some of those like lessons that you feel like shaped you from the time on the show well yeah no absolutely i think just that that notion that i had to be tortured to give a good performance yeah it's not true but unfortunately you can't be told that you have to feel it and and and and i value that work completely and i do

i do like to go to certain places depending on the role but i learned on that show that i don't have to torture myself to be good yeah like you can let it you can leave it at the door you can leave it but but like i said like it's like you have to you can't be told that you have to learn it yeah yeah i can relate to that i feel like i didn't get that until like the last couple years of my life like more much more recently you know um so i i could see how especially like you have this career of of working you know a lot and then you have this big vehicle container where you know enough about yourself as an artist at this point but you're still you know you you got this this on ramp in front of you and you're like all right here i gotta swing for the fences

i can see how you knowing what the stakes were for you know and having more experience than me or us would would create like a pressure cooker where you're like all right if i'm gonna do this character work i need to like really go there um but how cool that like you get through the other side of it you're like oh actually like i can treat myself nicely and still be a great actor and have fun and you know all the things yeah no no very that's you nailed it that's the whole thing of like you know i felt all of those things and like because i was a little more seasoned like i understood what this was like if this is it let me leave it all in the field yeah jack i'm curious Did you have any sort of specific kind of like moments or impetus that kind of created that shift for you of learning kind of that you didn't have to feel like tortured to kind of to bring it in the way you wanted to?

It's a good question. I would have to like maybe think about it more and reflect on it before like giving a big answer. But I think it's I think it is sort of like a culmination of a bunch of experiences. and then for me it was on a set of a film where I was just like really uh nourishing myself like I was eating really well and I was like moving my body productively and like having great conversations with my therapist and my partner at the time and and I was just like content and like speaking nicely to myself I think you know I had this like five minute gratitude journal that I was doing in the morning and at night and i remember like halfway through the shoot you know because

it's a pretty dark film um and my friend was like oh you're like you're not like beating yourself up like you're you're just like going to work and like having a good time and like the work is i'm sure great so yeah i don't know i think it's sort of a tapestry of a bunch of experiences and a lot of like failing right and and realizing i think it's also like it's not an uncommon story that's told as an artist right that like the tortured artist is totally a genius and i feel like yeah even like when you feel like at least for me early on in acting i felt like by not doing that i was like is am i doing something wrong you know what i mean like because part of the reason i feel like The way that the stories are often told of like the suffering, it's, it's this very kind

of cultural thing that like connects like suffering to even morality, right? Like in a way that almost like, you know, like everything about like Jesus Christ is the ultimate example, right? Suffering for our sins, you know, but obviously we see in other ways too, right? Like people who are maybe in other professions who are like maybe obsessed with work, right? and and like driven and that's very culturally rewarded in the same way as actors it's culturally rewarded when you have this story of like this person who like you know lost 800 pounds for this role and you know and and turn myself inside out i remember when i was younger right and i think

also having more traditional ideas of like masculinity in my head of like oh shit has to be fucking hard to be good to be really worthwhile but it's it's cool that yeah i love that we've all kind of discovered that that that you know the the final result is what matters right and we don't have to torture ourselves to necessarily get there yeah i love that yeah it's it's it but but again you know you have to you have to learn that especially like you said though that's so interesting that like that blood and gut thing is rewarded and you know and and two back to the show uh i think both liza and i what we felt we had to do was so everybody went to some fancy acting school and i'm just a kid from missouri and so like i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna

make you watch me bleed you're also playing like that character on the show like you're playing the representation of that for the entire show so i could see i could see like the the mental gymnastics of being like well now i need to like you know break my back yeah for yeah and i love him i love him completely i always frank means a lot to me but i remember uh sylvester salone was saying in an interview once that rocky was his best friend because he spent more time talking to rocky than anyone else in his life and that's how i felt about frank i lived with him every second of every day right for seven years and i i know him as well as i know anyone else in my whole life and so it's it was really that that is also a bizarre experience as far as like that's

not part of it you're not supposed to create an alter ego and live with them i mean it was a full on right club situation in my house for seven years god i i now i wish the i love it filming we could have a documentary of like um becoming frank delfino yeah yeah becoming frank it's dark that's a dark documentary did you while we were in philly did speaking of rocky did you run to the statue no you know what so so and i hate this and like i'm not gonna get off my thing i love art and like who's to say what art is they move the statue from the top of the steps down to the bottom because the inst the uh they were like well that's not art i'm like you're a museum you can't who are you to say what art is interesting wow i didn't know that so that rocky statue is now

down at the base of the steps oh man which i disagree with statistically sure we're calling you out philadelphia that's a strong disagreement what it's called yeah put it back yeah we're gonna put it back up but you know anyone who finds themselves in philadelphia and i love that i love philadelphia incredible art incredible museums uh the barnes foundation is a must-see for any art lover in the world oh yeah shout out oh man i would love if we found out that you had like you had like secretly bought a house in philly like you have a whole other life happening it was close i wouldn't have put that past me i just uh you have like a dog there that we don't know about yeah no you know the the one of the greatest gifts of uh the show shooting the pilot

in philadelphia but shooting the show in la because i was you know i was a single father still am technically lotus is an adult wow wow wow oh my god why yeah my daughter's 21 years old yeah that is insane to me but you know we were gonna up and move to philly wow but in viola he just adopted genesis and it just it it all worked out so so beautifully to get to raise her in la the pilot show was potentially going to originally be in philly right that's yeah yeah yeah yeah oh it was planned to be in philadelphia we're gonna shoot that in philadelphia i love philly too but i'm glad i blame i blame viola for that i i'm so thrilled i would have loved to shoot so you'd have been better off you're east coast guys i mean i was i was coming

from the east coast and i don't know i i never like had designs to live in la long term and i just i like i really i i just i really fuck with philly as a city like i think the people are amazing i love philadelphia i i would have i would have jumped at it but then i got my i mean like she was at an age then i mean god guys it's been so long i think she was like so she was like nine or ten or whatever yeah and i could have i could have done that but it was so nice to keep her here and to be here uh totally yeah i mean it's it's completely understandable why viola wanted the show to be in los angeles and advantageous for all everyone on the show that had families and and were more deeply rooted than you know me as a 23 year old yeah exactly yeah which i love that

part of my life when i was doing that but yeah i had i had much bigger things so my alter ego is a single father and dealing with that so that's why otherwise if i didn't have lotus in my life i probably would have had an apartment in philly and really gone for that just bizarre deep dive that would have not mattered yeah well i don't know i mean frank is a crowd favorite i mean i went as deep as i could given my circumstances yeah i think you you you did the thing which i'm just also imagining like the the surrealness of like having like the people at least early on who got to experience you as frank and then see you like maybe like maybe even before like have a conversation with you in a bar and then happen upon the show later and be like oh that's the guy from the bar

but upon like maybe googling you being like i met the character from the show i didn't meet the actor and that just a whole like mind yeah yeah yeah really fun yeah right they think how to get with murder is a an autobiography uh it's a biopic of frank the most complimentary thing is people are jarred by meeting me in person because they only if they know me from that show they're just like what i don't what's happening right now that is a big response on in the reddit community is people saying like oh my gosh i saw an interview with charlie weber and he sounds so different he's so different we're completely different people like frank delfino who i love with my whole heart he and i are very different people what was the experience for you like because this this is a big

and you can talk openly and we can always move stuff to later episodes but like a lot of people were curious given the backstory of frank and what ultimately where you ultimately go as a character what was the experience for you working on a show where we were getting information you know in these flash forwards and only getting information every episode like i even when we were talking with pete i talked about how hard that was for me as an actor and not knowing um and of course pete responding that sometimes the choices we were making were influencing the writing in four or five six episodes or seasons later but i feel like there's so many twists and turns for frank that i'm sure people would be curious to know like how how were you able to

roll with those punches or what were the conversations like that you had with yourself or with peter you know you know i think it was tough at times some some pretty big curveballs were coming i i was so specific in who i thought frank was the biggest the biggest one was when uh annalise we we flashed back and i'm so proud of the work but like we flashed back and she had gotten him out of she basically possessed him in a way but she got him out of jail where he had done something that with his father and he had been in juvenile institutions and then prison uh up to 23 so like 10 years of his life and so for me in a backstory of this brash brash sort of sexual guy um so i now have to i now have to readjust that my coming of age

right i'm incarcerated right so what does that mean as a man sexually what does that mean like where like this is a big like i don't think that like i have to but that's my job to do that work and it was it was uh that was tough but also a fun challenge and then you know do you guys you guys tapped on we all have a statue which i still have and i have my scales matt didn't um but uh you know we all got a do you remember did you get a photograph of yourself from the show at some point like he gave you that so mine is uh from when frank's shaving his head in the first season and it's such a beautiful taxi driver i didn't i didn't get it at first i didn't really i was like it's this is the photo you think that i should have or whatever and then over time i was

i was staring at and really was jarring the look on my face is is it's frank seeing his true self for the first time in many many years and it's i love that photograph now and that's sort of the thing that like even though pete would throw you these curveballs we all could adapt to it and we could all kind of like figure it out and that's why i and i've said this to a lot of people like our ensemble like the actors of this group i will put up against any ensemble never yeah yeah i think that we all benefited from like trusting one another even when yeah we were like getting new information it was a lot and then by the end you're like attorney yeah yeah yeah like you can move this to one later but like pete sat me down he's like

i think i think frank is a great whatever let's let's do it yeah let's see what happens but but i do think that for you and given your process and like the full immersion that you would do and that you know matt and i saw every day like i think it allowed you you could roll with punches like that like i think that they threw stuff like that at you because they were like oh charlie's like he's so he's so dialed in that like if we give him you know this crazy storyline he's gonna he's gonna be able to fit it you know into it like a glove just because he's got he's got the guardrails of his performance and all of the work he's done you know like i think they trusted you with with things like that

yeah and i really appreciate that and you know pete in uh the open door policy you've spoken it was very real and he really kind of let me dictate where frank was gonna go like speaking of season three when i went i went into that meeting like this is what i want to do we went to the writer's room and he we went from that meeting to the writer's room he's like wow yeah cool yeah it was amazing yeah that is amazing i don't think that i ever like pitched in that way but I know people did obviously and it speaks

volumes to Pete and the writers that you know they were receptive of that you know like there are many shows as you know that people would be like alright I don't care what you think get out of my office go back to your seat that's enough

that's right get back on the elephant oh no take your pants off you on the other exactly yeah but that was not our that was not our experience it was really collaborative and amazing especially yeah i mean yeah given your process and everything that must have been so exciting i can understand it just being a a self-motivating thing of like you're like i'm gonna pour it all into this and then having so much ability to like share and influence where you want the character to go like i love i love this i'm getting to see

it more through your eyes as well you know and just understand like what that process was like for you you know we get to we got to work together for you know six seven years just side by side and you know there's so much in there but it's it's nice to have the time and the space to be able to also explore in this particular way you know and hear about what that was like for you you know yeah and you know uh asher and frank had a really special connection that i really wanted to i always thought we talked to pete about wanting to explore that further like let them become real friends let asher right right oh my god that would have been yeah comical that would have been there but what you what you were doing on the show

was so i couldn't believe it worked like i could not believe this was working i don't know how it fits so well like it's essentially like broad comedy on the darkest drama on television and somehow it just completely worked and frank loved that yeah i love that i love that you really really did there's something nice about hearing that from you it feels like funny it's like hearing about a third person like really liking you you know what i mean it's interesting it's like yeah like my friend like oh yeah we hung out that guy yeah and you know yeah he really likes you by the way you know and you're like oh that's nice yeah yeah yeah no it was it was a nice break for frank right yeah what was your favorite uh because i've been thinking about this

a lot especially because certain elements of the show now already feel dated what was your favorite hairstyle that you had on the show you know i was so particular i did my own hair for the first seasons really yeah because i had to have it exactly how i wanted it dear audience that is very unusual no no i would show a uh two set with my hair done and it was a whole thing because the front was like this long oh yeah but i had to it was so so the first two seasons frank frank you know per the photograph i was talking about frank like the suit the three-piece suit the hair of the beard that was all a character that he had created to shield himself from the world so i had to do that myself because other people didn't know how to do that i felt like that um

and then once i started shaving my head and then i also shaved my head i didn't let anyone else shave my head i shaved my head every day uh wow before work so i did my own hair for basically the first four seasons of the show that's so wild and then uh at the by the end of the show i i they were doing this weird thing where like it was too like it looks psychotic but i was like that's perfect so the season six frank the sides like that hairdo which i had completely given over to them wasn't working uh as a human being that's perfect right right yeah yeah yeah because there was a scene after you shaved your head you grew your beard back right you grew your beard back right for like you had a you had a shaved head and and a beard at one

point yes okay so here's what happened i shaved everything off season three season four I got the buzz but a bit of a scruff and then I had sort of a high and tight do you remember between seasons 3 and 4 Matt you'll remember this we were in New York promoting the show for

something and I was not doing the best I'm literally literally crying I remember I buzzed my head before a red carpet oh yes and they got

and they got mad at me understandably because we were i did not ask them it was an unsanctioned because they they own you you sign away your likeness oh yeah that's probably um yeah and i got uh reprimanded a little bit um because you know they didn't know yet like where the story was going to go if it was going to pick up immediately and i had like fully changed my appearance and i remember them being worried because you had a buzz cut and uh facial hair and they didn't want us to look too similar to confuse anyone right and so they made me shave my beard and so i just had a buzz cut and i and it made me look terrible like people i but i know what you mean like it was a tough look and i know you mean like it was terrible for real life but

for the character but i think in my case it didn't work for the character or real life and it's it's my own fault yeah it's my own fault that i shaved right i had an unsanctioned shave i remember that um but i've seen i've seen like comments being like why does connor look so bad in that that that season and i'm like because i did it yeah i think you still look good hey yeah you look good i mean i yeah it's it's a buzz is uh yeah very specific look the only thing like as unusual as you doing your own hair for the first four seasons is and i think this is true but maybe we'll have to have him on to confirm but that billy brown who played nate late nahi never had any hair and makeup done ever never ever never wearing a pair of makeup never once yeah

which is it's it's the coolest thing i've ever seen billy brown is uh uh billy's like i'm just not doing it i'm not i love billy brown i i only i refer to him as everyone he is an enigma an amazing cool guy but like you can know him your whole life and never pin him down he is an entity of himself how long was your hair like i'm still fascinated by this how long was the process of doing your hair every morning about 30 minutes about 40 minutes like i would get up i would shower i would um brush it i put gel in it uh brush it and then cement it in hairspray like my hair did not move yeah i mean it was like it was like the john ham madman very much and styling yes very much the case and then a lot of wax in the beard and brush that and comb that

yeah it was a whole but it was but but again you know it's so funny what we cling to and everyone's process is different but like like frank's physical appearance was everything to me the way he presented himself the hair the beard it was it was the character it but it was the character he was playing in his life and so i i had to control it you didn't decorate your trailer did you it wasn't like frank's trailer no it was my trailer it was yours right you didn't do like a method sort of it was my comfort zone that would that would have been cool yeah if you had like yeah i mean i definitely it's just a philly bar yeah it's just a bar philadelphia there's like peanut shells on the ground come on in um i will say that frank and i had separate dop kits

like like toiletry bags like we had several ones so mine was mine was a brown leather bag and his was a black leather bag and we and so when i stay in a hotel as frank i only took his of course did you have any favorite scenes or arcs as frank and it's a big question but that you can think of from the show oh i mean getting to sort of you know the choose your own adventure that was our show uh and pete being collaborative and getting like um i i go back to season three a lot uh because i was i got to really kind of dictate a lot of what i wanted to do and it was me getting a lot of stuff out as an actor as a person there's some stuff in there uh in season three specifically

to tap one of my favorite stories it was amazing the whole time and everybody's work was so incredible a scene where Frank is going to kill himself and he's got him to his head and

that scene with Viola was one of the most surreal things that's ever happened to me as a person because time sort of stood still like she went there with me and when she displays her full power time sort of stands still and uh we were the only two people in the world and it was a it was that

that was one of those moments where like you're it kind of makes you see acting but like it became a different thing and it was just the most uh incredible moment but those times in season three when i had completely committed to whatever wherever frank was going to go i went and uh to the detriment of my personal life uh and so i i value those times because i came out on the other side but um like that's just me tapping i have to really think about it but like those moments like those moments happened because i had completely given over to this character yeah i don't remember i think i may have stuck because i stopped watching it at some point too but i think i remember reading that and thinking about you and be like that's i feel like that's

going to be hard that's going to be a that's going to be that's he's going to he can do it he's going to do it yeah but i feel like that's going to be costly i remember thinking that i think it was you know it it did it all it all came at a cost and people were very kind about that somebody said that to me once like it uh i it was i don't remember what season was it was bottle yeah yeah camera remember a bottle and uh yeah yeah of course bottle was like uh that was really something the other night and i was like thanks because it must come at a price and i was like yeah yeah and but it was a price i wanted to pay you know i longed for that so it's it's you know i have nothing but fond memories of doing that but it's such an amazing

thing again to get to experience that and come out on the other side and enjoy what this is grown-up make-believe you know i get to i get to play you know i get to play grown-up make-believe it's amazing were you able to i mean just given the the whole premise of us doing this podcast is that i haven't seen it were you able to watch the show yeah yeah i i really i love the show i you know i i felt an obligation to live tweet and do the stuff and i'm a good soldier i'll do the stuff um but i actually just fell in love with the show uh there's definitely episodes i haven't seen because we'd be working so if i didn't see it i if i didn't see it i just didn't see it so there's a lot i haven't seen but i've seen the majority of the show and just love i

love the show and i love the work and i just loved everybody on it and it was just it was a good show this is a good tv at the end of the day it's a great show and like it's so cool to examine how hard it is to make something like that happen you know you yeah but but i i love that like just enjoy the show uh but but you know seeing the sausage made is pretty crazy yeah and it like feels especially watching it for the first time now it does feel like it was such event television you know like it feels even watching it now with like the cliffhangers every episode and and then just thinking back to that time where it's like you know tgit and the tweeting and like like it was there was like an energy in that in working on a show like that that i feel like we don't see

that often anymore just because the landscape has changed so much yeah even then even then i was telling everybody i'm like we are we are on one of if not the last network shows like this is this art what we're doing is not going to be replicated like you can't that's this anymore this is going away i hadn't quite thought of that yeah and we're seeing that now but we were part of this like 90 episodes of television shows and like it's never this you're never gonna do that right it's just never gonna happen you know you do a limited it's eight episodes right eight episodes right eight and like even playing frank in the way that you did over over six seasons like that's not really going to happen that much anymore because

they're right right as opposed to 12 years or yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah to immerse yourself and that's gone right exactly like i think it's kind of gone like there there's just not enough real estate given to shows anymore for you know an actor to justify going to philly for you know i mean no and and i value i wanted that so badly my whole career and like no um our show it was just such i mean what a huge part of all of our lives you know and like you all are now the age i was when we started that and you don't feel older no i don't feel wiser but like i yeah wiser but no definitely not feel i'm still the same guy i'm still that same guy lessons learned totally hopefully become a better person i've become worse but that's it that's all

you get just steady decline yeah i want to hear a little bit about i mean the last time i saw you in the flesh you came to my film premiere which meant so much to me and i really appreciated that but you you were sharing with me you know these exciting updates where you know you're producing now you're you're you're moving into you know like a different part of the game while still acting obviously but can you talk a little bit about that and like what what that has been like and sure well i mean make no mistake i always make my star i love it if it's my movie yeah yeah um but no it's been it's been really fun and and explorative um you know with lotus getting older uh as i said she's 21 um crazy as we came off the show it was tricky

She was at this age where I couldn't really go away for long periods of time. So I just started doing movies and my focus became movies. And that's all I've done since the show. I haven't done television since we ended our show. Wow. Yeah. Not that I don't love television, but it just was an opportunity to go. I can go away for a month or two and come back and do that.

And so then I started becoming a little more instrumental in the choices being made about the movies. and then uh i developed a script uh written by so high ground that you wrote which is the first movie i produced with john thaddeus wrote it my stand is how to go i love that and he's a great guy great friend we've since collaborated and i we we did write a script together that we're doing this year or maybe next year we'll see um schedules you know um yeah sure but you know i developed it made a streamlined it to make it very makeable sold it at paramount made that uh and just had a blast doing it and then have made good friends in that world of of just just making movies and just trying to create and and have fun and so so for me and then that's led to

other movies through that company at paramount um and then i've had so much fun doing so and then i and then i of course i waited until my 40s to do action movies yeah but i love i truly love that the action space but then uh but yeah i i do an action movie and then i'm like oh that was a terrible idea and then i forget about it and i do another one it's a it's a it's a bit of a recurring thing but yeah and then so through and then it's it paramount and i do have a movie coming out i think in april where they let me talking about big swings i kind of got into the whole leading man action kind of thing and then uh this movie came up it was paramount and it and uh it was this i was like hey i know what to do with this character please let me do this and

they're like yeah you're right right actually yeah right you're yeah you're right and i was like no no no trust me and they let me do it it was a big swing but like i got to delve it's the first time i dip back into true character work and absolute blast absolutely what's that called highest stakes is the title that'll be out probably it'll be you know the whole thing of like you know it'll be in theater small release theaters vod and they go on paramount plus but um incredible cast and speaking of coming on the other side of like playing frank and like being able to enjoy this i think it's the most fun i've ever had awesome ambitious script great cast everybody understood the assignment and being in the you know company of other great actors was was was a dream so yeah highest stakes

i almost forgot because you're everyone was so kind the producers like if you want to plug something yeah i love that yeah and i love it i love it but you know you make a movie and you almost forget you go make another movie and like because it is a post is a year right which is crazy yeah we got we we were on like a weird dopamine reward system when we were on a network show and it was like you know coming out once a week i do i do miss that like i'm like that's you know it's funny i'm just now exploring like i think i'm gonna do some telly like i i would like to get like i love i love television i love that television loves you and then be nice to you yes oh well thank you sir um true and you as well but i i yeah it'd be interesting um you

know after the show i was like yeah i can't do this again i can't do this again let's just do movies and i just it's been fun and i love to travel but like now i'm like getting to the place where i'm like be nice just settle down for a minute yeah consistency can i do i'm on the road is i'm on the road you're catching me at home i'm on the road half the year yeah yeah yeah right yeah yeah i'm sure yeah i i want you to do like in a couple years on like the 20th anniversary or something of how you had murder you need to rent you need to rent a van and drive cross country to philly and document it for fans it's one of those things where it's like you have but it's such an incredible it's so hard to describe because like you have to do

that to realize it's unnecessary yeah sure yeah i love it um okay we should we should probably wrap up but um dude this is such a treat it's such a treat i love you guys i love uh that you're doing this love you too and like allowing me to take a trip down memory lane is is just such i appreciate you have such a always such a warm supportive positive energy and also there's uh you're deeply romantic and poetic you know i think and just in in in the way you exist and and it's a real joy and a treat to get to share space with you yeah so oh uh likewise and uh and and listen i i just i love and i love this scene i'm already a fan i i'm so i'm so happy to go down this road with you all and if you if you ever ever want to appreciate you for you yeah love you oh thanks

man likewise i i want to i i think you'd appreciate this charlie but like now this this is like a burned into my memory um that it was advice that you gave me but it was like almost like frank advice where you were like channeling him where we we we all were out at dinner and we were trying to like you know split the bill and so everyone was like throwing cash in and i didn't have cash and you were like you're a grown-up who makes money you should always have some cash in your wallet and now whenever i don't have cash in my wallet i literally think like charlie would be so disappointed you should have some cash i love that i'm with you daily so all the time yeah yeah yeah but yeah man really appreciate you coming on my pleasure and and we'll have you

you truly are a fan favorite so hopefully we can have you back once we get into later seasons i I mean, you know, wherever I am in the world, I'll always make time for you. Yeah, I really do. Oh, man. All right. All right. Thanks, bud. That's it for today's show.

Thanks for joining us and see you next week for a new episode. They drop every Thursday and don't be late because the professor doesn't like to wait. How We Got Away With Murder is an original production by Podcast Nation. Produced by James Brown and Alicia Panier. Audio production by Miles Carter. Original music by Elefante. We'll be right back.