The Delta Flyers - Tim Russ

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

The Delta Flyers is a weekly podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. This week’s episode is an interview with Tim Russ.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, Brannon Braga, Bryan Fuller, John Espinosa, & Ariana DelbarAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Chris Knapp, Janet K Harlow, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, E, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Jenna Appleton, Lee Lisle, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Lori Tharpe, Mary Burch, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Tim Beach, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Tae Phoenix, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Roxane Ray, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Michael Dismuke, Jonathan Brooks, Gemma Laidler, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Matt Norris, Stephanie Lee, Daina Burnes, Morgan Linton, David Smith, & Matt BurchAnd our Producers:James Amey, Patrick Carlin, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Samantha Weddle, Chloe E, Nikita Jane, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Species 2571, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Cindy Ring, Alicia Kulp, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Aaron Ogitis, Ryan Benoit, Megan Chowning, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, Clark Ochikubo, David J Manske, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Will Forg, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Christian Koch, Lisa Gunn, Lauren Rivers, Shane Pike, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Akash Patel, Jennifer Vaughn, Cameron Wilkins, Steven Hunt, Ken McCleskey, Walkerius Logos, Abby Chavez, Preston Meyer, Amanda Faville, Lisa Hill, Cerise Robinson, & Benjamin BulferThank you for your support!“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail].”Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

All right, everyone, we are back with another episode of the Delta Flyers, and this week, we have none other than Tim Russ. So Tim Russ, thank you. Congratulations on being back as our, what, your third time now maybe, fourth? I don't know. You've been a second or third at least. Yeah, a habitual guest. So thank you for that. We appreciate that so much.

Yeah, we, I can't believe Garrett and I got through the whole series every week for three and a half years. We did an episode and, uh, it's so funny because I was talking to Robbie earlier. I said, it's two and a half years. Robbie's like, no, no, dude, it's three and a half years. I go, oh, my God. But we just, I can't believe it, but we're through it. But now with this, uh, you know, this labor thing going on, the strike, the stag after strike,

We can't do any more content that, you know, talks about projects. So we were talking to Michelle Hurd on one of our podcasts. And she said this, she said something that just struck me, which is she talked about the relationship between actors and the audience and how that is at the heart of why people watch these shows and, you know, elevating the actors, talking about the creative process. that's what we should be talking about. So that's kind of what we're doing is we're talking to our castmates and our friends, our actor friends about, you know, their creative process and their relationship with the audience and all that.

So so happy to have you here. Yeah. So we're going to begin with a little pre before we get into the creative process. We're just going to begin with just the setup of your background. You were born in D.C., Washington, D.C. June 22nd, 1956, you're 12 years older than me. Your year of the monkey in the Chinese zodiac, just like I am. McNeil is the year of the dragon.

So we are very good friends on the Chinese zodiac. You, me and McNeil, we're buddies, okay? And I know you've moved around. So U.S. Air Force has moved you around. Turkey was a great part of your growing up period, your formative years. Is that right? And then Rome as well. So one thing that's kind of new to me recently,

is the fact that you played football in high school. And that's something that Beltran had no idea of when we were on stage in Vegas. He had no clue. But playing football, you know, just for everyone's sake, did you begin that in grade school, like peewee? Did you play then? Or did you only play in high school? No, it's just high school varsity, it seemed, in high school.

And that was overseas in Turkey because, you know, there were, one as many kids over there. So, you know, for them to fill out a team, you know, everybody damn near had to play. Yeah. There's no way I could have played on a varsity team in a high school in the States unless it was in the middle of nowhere because the guys were, you know, three times my size and strength. So I, you know, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity because I was in a, you know, a place where there was only a handful of guys to play football. Right. And you played offense and defense, correct? You had to play. Offensive and defensive end.

That's right. Which is a pretty big size, you know, position now in the NFL. At the end, they're big. They're huge. I had to stay on the field the whole time because this went from one side to the other. So there was no break in there. It was wonderful. I was a kick in the pants.

And I did have a wonderful moment during one of the games where I was able to score a touchdown on a pass. actually helped to save the game because we were behind by two touchdowns. So I got one of them. And then the quarterback threw just a Hail Mary for the last one. And the receiver caught it in the end zone and we actually won. That's exciting. Wow. You're a hero.

That's a big moment in high school. Yeah. That was a wonderful moment. Rob, you know that Tim's middle name or middle initial was D for D. So TD, he's touched down Russ, is what he is. That's awesome, dude. 100 years ago, and it was very cool. Yeah, but when did you get the actual, you know,

creative urge to start acting or your music? I mean, did that begin in grade school or is that high school later? That was the same place. I was in Turkey, and we were in high school and I took an acting class when I was 16. At the time, I took an acting class. I thought it was just the most amazing thing in the world. It was so much fun. It was so interesting.

Wow. And consequently, the teacher put on a couple of musicals during that time, and I was able to, I got cast in them and performed them. Oh, so the acting bug bit you in Turkey. Right there. Wow. What led you to take that first acting class, though? Was anybody in your family doing theater or performing?

No, well, at the time, at the time, I was already by that time, playing music. So I'd already, you know, started playing guitar and playing music. My brother played drums. So I was performing, you know, you know, live in that sense prior to taking the acting class. And, and then the acting class was just like, you know, it was almost like an elective, you know, thing. It was just like, let me do this just to see what it's like. And it was just wonderful. It was amazing. I just took to it and it was, and it was bit me. I got to say, that's what happened. It just bit me. And then, you know, I worked in the two shows at the time.

So the closest I came to other boys before that was playing music, you know, and it's still kind of the same thing in terms of people compared to performing on stage live. So it's kind of the same thing. But your music began in Turkey as well. That's when you started. Okay. And what instrument did you play first?

What was the first thing? Guitar. It's playing guitar. Guitar number was the first thing. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Mostly.

Actually, I started even before I got to Turkey. I think I started playing guitar when I was. in Colorado Springs before we left to go there, I started playing guitar. And why did you choose that instrument, though? Was there someone that, a role model that played guitar that you tried to emulate? Not really. It was just, you know, my brother was playing the drums at the time. So I figured, well, if he's playing drums, I'll play guitar. You know. So he was playing guitar, you'd be playing drums.

Yeah, yes. I might have picked up drums. I don't know. I really like the guitar more than the drums, and hell, it's a lot easier to schlep around than a drum. set so that's true uh and a lot less noisy uh you can play guitar people don't mind you know as opposed to banging on drum who are your who are your guitar role models in terms of people who are super proficient at playing the guitar who do you love back well back in the day the influences were terry kath of chicago uh carlo santana um and a couple others hendricks uh but but those two mostly Santana, Carl Santana, and Terry Kath of Chicago. And beyond that, there's some guys that are out there right now that are just incredible.

But those were the ones that influenced me earlier on for even the style that I, you know, play lead guitar in. So, yeah, I was impressed by all of that. And at the time, you know, rock was guitar driven. It sort of is still today, but it was really driven by guitar back then. you know i just took to it and and that was it you know did you ever play with your brother

oh yeah yeah yeah we played uh we played in a couple of different bands along the way played in a band in upstate new york and my senior year high school and we played overseas in turkey in a band as well it was an eight piece both those bands were eight piece seven piece bands we had three a full horn section wow you know playing rnb at the time and it was fantastic and then after that you know i was often to school and you know we didn't get back together again to play until much much later and that was just intermittent you know but at the time we played both of those times we played in upstate new york and also in turkey and it was a big you know seven eight piece band um which was fantastic

what grade were you in when you took that acting class that first one i was a senior in high school senior in high school okay and also when you were in turkey uh did your brother play football with you as well. No, my brother played junior varsity. J.V. football. Yeah, J.B. football, yeah. But not varsity. Was there, was there anything in that acting class? So you just got bit by the bug.

Yeah. Was there anything like that your teacher that happened to you really early on that you still think about? Like, did you learn things right at the beginning? Or did you really learn things later in your acting kind of? journey. Yeah, most of the stuff, you know, that it came in in terms of learning techniques and processes came in later on, and that was in college. Most of the stuff that I got from the high school class was just an introductory to improv and some scene work and things like that. And being in the shows. What happened in that was actually being on stage and performing live in front

of an audience. That's what did it. You know, that's what really, that's what took it over the top was being out there on the stage, man, and, you know, performing in front of a live audience, man. You know. Well, yeah. Can you, can you take us from the point of graduating high school in Turkey and then going to St. Edwards University, a Catholic college in Austin, Texas, of all places? What, why, how did that happen? I mean, why did you choose that place? Well, you know, I sometimes think about, you know, the hindsight we have. We can't see into the future because otherwise that would be a Twilight Zone episode. You know, and I always think about the fact that you, you know, you have to look at the, you look at the path that you're on. All of us have this path that we've

been on, but we can only go back and look and see, you know, what decisions we made at the time. And we have no idea how those things are going to play out. And this is a perfect example. When I got out of high school, I had taken the SAT test and all that stuff. And then you get offers from colleges and stuff based on your interest in whatever the scores are. So I got a, you know, a college invitation from Akron University, Akron, Ohio. Yeah. This is a big established, you know, big university. And then I got this little one from St. Edward University in Austin. And, man, I looked at their theater program, which was unbelievable at the time. Really? Wow. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was unbelievable. And I've sold you, clearly.

100% and there are a couple of stories to go with it at least one story to go with it but at the end of the day I said this theater program is incredible they have there it's so focused so heavily focused on theater the idea and the concept was Edward Mangum who established the help co-established the arena theater in Washington DC he came to that college that didn't have a theater program and he started the theater program he got an arena theater built on the campus. Wow. He ran the program. And he would have celebrity actors from Hollywood come in and perform in the shows with the students. What? Wow. Let's see, during the school year, two shows in the fall and the spring. So it's four shows during the regular school year. And three

shows of Repertory Company Theater shows in the summer, back-to-back rep company shows. full on stage, full on, all the goodies, and every one of them with a celebrity professional actor out of Hollywood. That was his program. And I think we had to take one or two prerequisite courses, you know, outside of theater every semester. So I was averaging 11, 9, 10, 11 hours of theater starting from freshman year, whereas all the universities, you don't even get a chance to do anything until your last two years. It started out as almost, it's like a training. It's like you went to a specific school, like an associate's degree school and just focused on one thing.

In this four-year college, the idea was that when you got out, you could either work in any number of the areas of theaters and actually open your own theater. They would train you enough to start your own theater by the time you got out in four years. That's what this school was. That's insane. I've never heard of a school with that type of focused. You know, I think one of my kids, my youngest Carter, looked at St. Edwards pretty seriously because their whole liberal arts program is incredibly strong. And he was playing rugby at the time, and they had a big rugby team at St. Edwards. There you go.

I don't know if they did when you were there. No, they didn't have any. No, that was not their thing at the time. That would have been perfect for Carter, but he didn't go there, though. He did not. He was very close to going there, but it's a great school. I remember looking at it, and it's a great school, and Austin's a great town. Did you have great experiences in Austin as a, like in the city?

Austin was fabulous because the University of Texas is almost all downtown Austin. Yeah. It's a 40, 50,000 student university. So it's very diverse. It's very cosmopolitan. It's very progressive. And it's, you know, there was a lot of music that came through Austin as well. Oh, yeah.

I bet you love that. That was because with your musical passion, like, Austin is an amazing town. It was fantastic. It was party town, great party town. You were a hog in high heaven in Austin. You got everything there. And that university, right? Four years.

What celebs came out? What celebs do you recall coming in to do productions with you guys? Roger Mosley, who I think was on a series before we got there. And also William Shatner was there. What? William Shatner came through and did, does a tiger wear a necktie? That was the play he did. And there's more than that.

Mercedes MacCambridge we worked with, Donnie Most we worked with, the late Salmino. Salmideo, oh my God. Godfrey Cambridge. And a few others, and there's one actor in particular who came through, who I worked with in the play called Caligula. and that was Leonard Nimoy. Whoa. Nimoy was in Caligula with you. Oh, holy moly.

Wow. I've never heard this. I had no idea. That's incredible. Yeah. And so obviously. What are your memories of Leonard? Did you get to interact with him much?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We would stage the play and block the entire show out before the celebrity actor would get there. Yeah. They would get there about two weeks before the actual performance. Okay. So we would have the entire play blocked out. Yeah.

They would sit and watch the performance with the student playing the role of the actor the actor is going to play. Right. And so the doctor watches the entire play through. Then they start blocking rehearsals the next day. So at the time I was understudying his role, playing the role of Caligula. Wow. That's incredible that you end up playing a Vulc Kitchen.

Yes. And then he played and did his own style in his own way of performing Caligula and playing it, which was not necessarily classical. The way we were directed was in a classical style, with how we walked, how we talked, how we physically sat. Everything was done in a classical style. But he did it more of a modern style. So he kind of fit that into what we did.

But at the end of the day, I end up playing. a character based on his character. That's crazy. Did he ever come up to you after you got onto the show and said, hey, St. Edwards, did that ever happen with you guys? Well, I think I did bring it up when I talked to him briefly. I said, we were together on Caligula, and he remembered. Absolutely.

Yeah. It was a very cool play and a very intense part. But you were, but Tim, you were his, you were a fan of his, right, at that point, yes? Yeah, I mean, we were, as a. I've always said. We were watching, all of us were watching reruns. They just, it just kept doing this constantly. So, you know, there's no, and there's nothing else. I mean, there's no streaming. There's no, you know, DVD. But in comparison, in comparison to the other guests that came in from Hollywood, I'm going to say, I'm going to go on a limb and say you were more, yeah, you were more

excited about Shatner and Nimoy being there than the other, the other four or five. Yeah, he was a very big name uh to have in at the time he he garnered a lot of attention a lot of for sure so absolutely and and again you know uh edward mangum who was the guy that the theater director of the time was just he was brilliant that he ran that program the way he did so we ultimately uh you know as it were down the line again you can't see into the you can't see into the future right you can't see what's coming in the future um but that is i i would have had no idea not clue not a dream, not anything that would have, you know, led to so many decades after that, you know, ending up playing that role.

So what are the creative processes or tools in your toolbox that you learned in college that you still dip into when you're approaching a character or a scene or play or whatever? I think the one of the things I learned in college was a concept of, phenomenology. It's a term that's a scientific term that applies to several different things, but one of the professors used it in terms of extracting everything you need to get out of the script. Phenomenology and that concept has to do with everything that is needed to understand the whole is within the whole. So you need to have whatever you're getting from that character is coming from what you have is the information from the script, getting all that information

from what's in front of you, what's been written, and trying to put together and create that character based on what the word is, you know? And the word is important. It comes down to being more important than anything else, actually. It makes so much sense. I was in an acting class a lot long. I was auditing an acting class a while ago.

I was years ago, and I remember sitting in there, and these students got up and they were doing a scene that they had chosen together and you know about halfway through it the one of the actors says something to the other actor and the and the and the teacher stopped them and said wait a minute that makes it's not realistic it makes no sense it's not real it's not genuine that person would never say that under these circumstances the other person that said where did you get that material from and it was something that they had written one of the two of them had written themselves and so they she was making the point that it was not a realistic moment it was not an

honest realistic moment based on the motivation of the characters because they did not have the word right the word wasn't wasn't written properly and correctly and we know that when we see something dramatically enacted you know sometimes we sit up and said wait a minute you know that doesn't make sense or that's not believable or this is that any other thing so If you've got to create this moment, this character, and you're building the layers of this person, you've got to be able to glean whatever you can out of the material. What are the actions of the character? What do they decide to do? What do they, you know, how does that work?

Well, this leads me to a question. When you have had as an actor, even when we work together, when you've had a creative difference with the script where you're like, this doesn't make sense or playing it this way. way or saying these words, how do you navigate that creative difference, whether it's on set or beforehand with the writers, or even if you don't get the change you hoped for, how do you navigate that conflict that you feel and make the performance make sense? How do you deal with those creative conflicts? It depends because if it's an independent project, say, for example, independent feature yeah and those are just you know they go from one end of the planet to the other as far as the scope and scale um generally before i even get started you know i let them know

that and for me to take this role i'm going to want to be sure that everything makes sense with this character the dialogue is working and i'd like to have the opportunity to to change the dialogue if i feel it needs to be changed and that may just be just because it's it's repetitive or it's roughly or phrases just to have that opportunity but if there's a major motivational thing I will definitely bring it up with them if it's a television project

a television show most of the time they're all pro writers so it's not that much of a I don't have to change anything it's all there on the paper and it works just fine I might ask for clarification about something here and there that comes up I might say well does that mean

this that and the other thing whatever for clarification generally I'm not on there trying to you know change the direction of the whole scene or the character because I usually don't have to but if it's an independent project where people are you know maybe striking out for the first time and their script or whatever and they don't have experience writing then yeah I'm going to have something to say about it even before we get started I'm going to look at that thing and I say I want the latitude to be able to discuss the character's motivation and or all the way down to just the the way the dialogue is written in a scene or another.

So I will approach them and I will ask in a minute if something doesn't make sense. You know, if it's contradictory, you know, you have me doing one thing in one scene and something in another. That drives me mad, you know, if it's not consistent, you know, in terms of what the character's motivation is, unless you give the character something that he sees or does or whatever, something happens to him, then changes his mind, that shifts his perspective. yeah sure then it's in the script it's in the it's in it's it sounds like you do a lot of research and you're very meticulous about that when let me ask you this when you get on set

and you've done your research you don't have a problem with the words or what the script says or anything like that but you get on set and the actor across from you is doing something that you don't expect or that or that you know the actor is like doing something that they have you know, they've gone off on a tangent somehow. How do you deal with that creative difference if you're a scene partner with somebody? Yeah, Tim, when that person's in another reality, okay, an alternate reality that's not your reality, how do you deal with that? That's a tricky bit.

Yeah. So far, so far, I haven't had to worry about that or I haven't had to deal with that. Good. You know, especially on television and film, I've been very lucky. You are lucky. The only thing that I might have run into is that their performance may not be up to par or it might be subpar, just they could do a little better with the performance and that's it. And otherwise, if I have a situation with an actor like that, I'd have to go to the director,

whoever's in, you know, one in the show or producer, whatever it is, and discuss with them and said, look, I don't know how, I'm not sure if that's going to work with what I'm doing. I mean, I ask them, does that look like it's working or is that makes to you? because you've got to be careful with fellow actors if you're an actor with another actor to go to that actor and say hey you should do this or don't do that you can't do that no no no you can't

it's like giving them a line reading basically no no you've got to use the director yeah you have to go to the director or producer and just exactly here's you know I'm wondering if this is going to I'm wondering if this is work what do you think I mean, I'm doing this and he's doing that or she's doing that and this is not, this is funky. I don't know if this is going to play or not. Fortunately, again, I have not had anything that was that dramatic in terms of an issue like that.

I've just had maybe a couple of occasions where the other person might not have been as experienced as I was. And, you know, that was all there was. And, you know, in some cases like that, the director would work on them and get them up to speed. So I've been very lucky. I do have a question. Your father was in the Air Force. Your mother worked for the government. So neither of them were in the theater or in the performing arts or music. So the question remains. Did they support your decision to major in theater when you went to college? I'd say my mother was supportive more than my dad was. My dad wanted me to, he would have liked me going to the military and followed his tracks. So he was not excited about me going to study theater at that university. But he did not forbid you either. No, he did not stop me. He just didn't think it was going to pay off at all down the line. And, you know, it's being in the military and being in something, it's very secure and financially secure and would establish a career compared to that.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Did you remember the time where you finally got validation from your father of where he kind of looked at you and said, hey. Yeah. It would have been when I was here in L.A. and I was performing in Dream Girls at the Schubert Theater. uh had a fourth male uh principal role in that show so uh he came to see the show and it was very excited about that very excited about that yeah you know roxan dawson was an usher at the schubert theater we found out no way really she was she ushered for chorus lines so not far before your dream girls

that's true that's absolutely true would she have been there then might have been an usher for I think she might have maybe or she may have left she might be she might have been in dream I mean in chorus line at that point right but that's crazy that you both performed at the Schubert which is no longer there sadly no longer here it's gone that theater is no longer there yeah yeah yeah it's gone did you Tim did you make that decision to go to illinois state because you felt like you wanted more time before moving to L.A. or New York I mean what was the at the you know at the time, they offered me a fellowship, so they were going to pay me a stipend per month to be a student in a graduate program there. Wow. And it was very disheartening that whole

thing because I would have had to stay there like another year to get my master's and I chose not to. I was there for about a year. Oh, you left. Okay. Yeah, I did freezing my keister off in the winter's there. Okay. I've never seen cold like that before. But it was a different, that was an academic program more so than what I was doing at St. Ed's. I came out of St. Ed's with this visceral, organic, hands-on sort of experience, you know, in all these areas of theater being able to, you could write, you could play right, you could direct. I was directing plays at St. Ed's in my second year. I was actually directing one acts on an arena theater stage. I mean, just you could do any.

Anything. And then I'm going up here and it's all concepts and book. I mean, it's just, it's just. And you're freezing your keister off and basically. Yeah. I mean, it's a letdown. Let's face it. It's a letdown because you were at the superstar program for the undergrad. So now you're trying to get the MFA in Illinois State. You're freezing your butt off. There's no celebs coming in to do the productions with you guys. It's like, it's like you went from eating like filet mignon to oatmeal. It was so plain. You were like, oh, no. I like oatmeal, Garrett. for you sometimes it's good cholesterol it's got a lot of benefits i got some bits and pieces from there um you know academically that i could uh use uh here and there you know since that time i've got something out of it right it just wasn't i just didn't feel i wanted to stay another year there i wanted to get out to california so i just decided to well i'm going to cut out and go do this instead so 84 85 what was the year that you moved moved uh back to california in 80 and then came down to L.A. and then came down to L.A. and 81. Okay. So you were, because your first credits don't happen until around 85. So you were putzing around for about

four years, right? Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm trying to, you know, pay rent and find a, of course, of course. Some bullshit job to keep me alive and pay, you know, all that stuff. So I was, you know, struggling like everybody else that comes here for the first time for at least five years. Yeah. And then finally. It worked out for you though, Tim. It worked out. Yeah, if it worked out, I would not have been able to see that necessarily in front of me. No. I made a couple of decisions here and there, and bingo. And in fact, one of those decisions that I can only look back on was just one of the agencies I was with at the time. I was going to leave them for another agency because they weren't, to me, they weren't getting me in the door for larger projects.

And so I was going to leave. then I talked to the, and the receptionist there, said, you know, why don't you just stay for a little bit longer? We're going to get a new agent next week. Just hold on before, you know, you go trying to find another one because you may not be able to find one for a minute. So just stay here and we're going to get another agent. Don't worry about it. We're hiring next week. And I decided, okay, and I was reluctant to do so, but I decided, okay, I'll stick around. And sure enough, the agent that they picked up, who was a rookie, you know, she was just starting out, but she hustled her ass off. So she got me in the door to feature and I was

able to book it and that was the end of that. So everything from that point forward, if I had left that agency, I don't know if I'd be talking to you guys right now. Wow. Was that feature the Charles Bronson one or no? Nope. Okay. Something. Okay. That was Virginia Madsen and Craig Sheffert and we'll feature film with those two actors in it as a lead and I have a supporting role. So once that was out and released. I was able to garner, you know, a couple of the future projects and then went from there to television. So if I had not stayed there, I don't know.

You may not have done that. Did you have scenes with Virginia Madsen in that film? No, I didn't. Because I was in, it was Romeo and Juliet sort of thing. So there was a boys in a girls camp. Yeah. So I was the supervisor at the boys' camp. So there was not supposed to be any mingling.

Yeah. Did you even mention that to her when she got started on our show later? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I've worked with her three times. Oh, oh, funny. And I worked with a brother two times. Wow.

You're an honorary Madsen. You are? You're a touchdown Madsen. Timothy Daryl Madsen. That's your name. Okay. I know. It's crazy, man, that work with it that many times is just wild.

Yeah. Again, you know, could you predict it, you know. Yeah. And then the night that you were working on the Charles Brons movie, I was there, too. Remember, we talked about that. Oh, yeah. How coincidental is that? Crazy.

I'll tell you something else that's coincidental. I worked one day with Avery Brooks, LeVar Burton, and Avery. Baby Brooks, LeVar Burton, and Kate Mulgrew. Oh, she was in there, too. We all worked the same day. We worked the same day on set. That's insane. Way before, way before all the other stuff getting involved.

how that's incredible yeah well again how could you possibly have no i know i know it's it's insane but i want to say thank you so much for joining us today uh we really appreciate you and your time and your wisdom we've learned some new things for sure yes we have stories i've never heard we've never ever heard of some of these stories but we know about them now so thank you for that i don't break them out that often i just won't break them out yeah they're very relevant for this particular conversation. Yes, absolutely. Thank you, everyone, for tuning into our episode with our wonderful guest, Tim Russ,

and join us next week when we will have yet another guest that we will be having a deep dive with into their life and their early formative years and whatnot. And for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. You know, B. B. B. B.

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