411 Movie Interview: Ugly Betty's Grant Bowler
Posted by Al Norton on 02.05.2009
411's Al Norton sits down for an exclusive interview with Grant Bowler (Ugly Betty, Lost).
Grant Bowler has been a highly successful actor in Australia and New Zealand for over a decade, working steadily on multiple hit series. In the last two years he has become more recognizable to American audiences, first as Captain Gault on Lost and this season as a regular on Ugly Betty.
Al Norton: It's interesting that you play Connor on Ugly Betty using your natural voice as it seems foreign actors doing American accents is all the rage.
Grant Bowler: The funny thing is that I tested on Ugly Betty and started speaking as an American. A couple of days in the producers came to me and said they had this idea that maybe it would be unique if I used my own accent. I haven't told anyone this actually but I shot the entire first episode in both; first we'd shoot it with me in American, than we‘d shoot it with me in Australian, and then we'd move on to the next scene. They cut them together and had a look and they decided the Australian was more exotic. I said, "not to me" (laughing). It's great because the truth is I'd have to work harder doing an American accent, so this way makes my life easier.
Al Norton: How do you do an American accent?
Grant Bowler: We all have an accent. To us we sound normal and it's everyone around us who has the accent. At first it's hard but in acting you come up against them, and I've done a lot of them now…I guess it's a lot like learning to play music, you get a better and better ear for it over the years. It always takes a bit of work at the beginning and then gets easier and easier. Like learning lines, too. If you haven't worked for a little while than learning lines is quite hard, but once you've been working day-to-day for about a month you can pick them up and learn a page in about a minute.
Al Norton: You never seemed to be lacking for work in Australia, so was coming to do TV in the states a conscious choice or did you just happen to get those jobs?
Grant Bowler: It was a conscious choice and I'm lucky enough that it's worked out You're right, I've done a lot of work at home – I've done an enormous amount of work in Australia and New Zealand – and I've wanted to come over for a long, long time. I was always waiting until I had a break or ran out of work at home and then one day I woke up and thought, "I don't know if I'm ever going to have a break or run out of work at home." I've been working for about 12-15 years non-stop so I just started chasing work over here (the U.S.) and I'm lucky it's panned out for me.
I'm in heaven; I love working over here. I love the scripts. It's like starting all over again working in a new industry. It's like starting my career again.
Al Norton: We Americans think our entertainment industry is the end all, be all, but do working actors in other countries think, "I'm successful at home but I really want to go to Hollywood."
Grant Bowler: Well, it's the biggest game in town, you know? It's kind of like mountains; you can climb your own mountain but you want to climb the tallest and the biggest, and this entertainment industry is that .We do think that. Every industry has its own strengths and there are wonderful things about the way we tell stories at home that I love. I love the sheer volume of the work here and the sheer muscularity of it, it's fantastic.
Al Norton: What are some of the differences, both in terms of finished product and production?
Grant Bowler: At home the biggest limitation is money. You're always dealing with a very small market and it's hard to find funding. The greatest strength about coming over here is that things get funded in development, they get developed well, so you get really well developed, well rounded, well polished scripts. You get the best script writers, you get the best directors, because you're operating in this market. At home I guess if we have strength it's that we learn how to tell stories that we can tell with very little money, so the emphasis goes back on the creativity. You get these lovely original small stories, and our practitioners get very good at solving problems purely through creative choices. We can never take the option of simply spending more. There are no car crashes and no explosions.
Al Norton: So there's no oil tankers blowing up in the middle of the ocean.
Grant Bowler: Not unless it's a toy boat in the middle of a bath tub (laughing).
Al Norton: How familiar were you with Ugly Betty coming into the roll?
Grant Bowler: Ugly Betty was one of the rare American shows I did watch. I remember watching the pilot and falling in love with the show right from there. It grabbed me, something about the style of the show and how it manages to walk the line between that Suarez household where you've got the loving family and the very gentle friendship with Betty and Daniel, and then on the other side you've got this broad, almost farcical and clowning comedy that takes place. I love the line that show walks between the two and that it can actually do both. It can pull on your heartstrings and be outrageously broad all in the same episode.
Al Norton: Is it intimidating to join a cast that has already has a couple of seasons to gel?
Grant Bowler: Oh yeah. Particularly on this show because the style is so unique. The acting and performance style of the show is so specific to itself and they're up to such a great pitch where you can see them operating very quickly and everyone is so adept at it. I found Ugly Betty the most daunting show I've come in to because of that. There's no other show really with the same performances as Ugly Betty. Coming in cold to the third season, it was a little daunting.
Al Norton: You're living in New York now; did you move there for this job or were you living there when you got it?
Grant Bowler: I was in LA and got this and moved out. When this came up there was nothing that gave me a moments hesitation; when they said, "do you want to go film Ugly Betty in New York" I went "yes and yes." I love this city.
Al Norton: Did you get to experience New Year's Eve in New York?
Grant Bowler: I wasn't here for New Year's Eve (laughing). I've had a couple of great nights in New York. One was Halloween. Halloween on Manhattan Island is hysterical. I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's like the R rated version of Los Angeles' Halloween. In Los Angeles all the kids go around and trick-or-treat, in New York for some reason all the girls go around dressed like naughty nurses and all the guys are Blacula. It's the grown up version of Halloween.
The other great night I've had was the night Obama won the Presidential race. I went down to Times Square as the results came in and there was about 100,000 people there going nuts. And the inauguration as well. It's a really interesting time to be around this city. I think it's a really interesting time to be in the United States. It strikes me as being the start of a defining period of recent American history. It's amazing to be here. The last five months have been so…I was here when the stock market crashed again, and when the financial crisis hit, and then whole Presidential race…It's been an amazing time.
Al Norton: Did you know that by doing several episodes of Lost (Bowler played Captain Gault) you'd be opening yourself up to the huge revenue stream that is Sci Fi conventions?
Grant Bowler: (Laughing) It's so funny you say that – I hadn't finished my stint on Lost for three weeks before I was invited to the first one. It was hysterical. And Lost fans are dedicated, they know the show backwards.
Al Norton: Did you have to do any research so you knew what was going on during your episodes?
Grant Bowler: I'd been moving around, shooting so much in so many different places before I turned up. I'd been in and out of Australia, New Zealand, and the states for a rotating basis for 18 months before I started on Lost so I turned up and I thought I knew what was going on. I'd watched as I traveled around but some places were on one season and others on a different one, and then there would be repeats. I turned up on the freighter and they said, "do you know where the show is at" and I said, "yes", and then Harold Perrineau (Michael) came on set to work and of course the last time I'd seen him he was dead. I looked and him and said, "well, if Harold is back, then you've got to assume I know nothing." I really had to start from scratch.
Al Norton: How long after you started the job did people want to start knowing any secrets you had?
Grant Bowler: Instantaneously. Starting with friends and family. It's hysterical how Lost has a way of driving people a little bit crazy. You're still in the dark even when you're working on the show. I literally found out my character was dying when I turned the page in the script and read the word "boom."
Al Norton: You've done a lot of theater in your career and I'm curious what are the challenges that TV has that theater doesn't and vice versa.
Grant Bowler: They're very different animals. For me personally it's important to always go back to that live audience because it keys you up again to those instincts that tell you when something is working and when it's not. When you are working in front of an audience in live theater you get instant feedback. They'll really tell you when a moment is working and they'll tell you when a moment is not. It's those same instincts that you hone in theater that you take back when you're shooting and you can judge in that slightly more sterile environment if those moments will work when they do go in front of an audience.
Shooting is a really artificial environment. Say you're shooting comedy – you may get a giggle out of the crew the first or second time but after that they've heard it before. You've really got to be able to go back recreate what happened in that moment when you did the thing that was funny accidentally.
Al Norton: Some actors who work in television aren't big fans of reality shows - it may be that they feel threatened because those shows take jobs away – but you don't seem to have any issues with them (Bowler hosted multiple reality shows in Australia, including three seasons of their version of The Mole).
Grant Bowler: I think that the advent of reality TV has been great for drama and comedy and I'll tell you why; I think that we had gotten so complacent about what we were dishing up to audiences that we almost created reality television. I think why audiences flocked to reality in the first place was that what we were producing, especially in terms of television drama, had become so predictable and so staid that we'd ceased to surprise anyone. Once the audience got the opportunity to be surprised again they ran to it in droves.
Nobody wants to watch something where they already know what's going to happen and I think that's the TV we'd started to serve up. I think when reality came along audiences decided that even if the surprised or unexpected thing that happened was completely mundane, which it most often is in reality, that was still better than not being surprised at all. What reality TV did really well was it gave all of us as practitioners – actors, directors, producers, writers – a good kick in the butt and made us realize that audience do have a choice and don't have to tune in to whatever we dish up to them, and that maybe we should raise the bar again. Now I think we've never seen such creative and original comedy and drama content as in the last five or ten years since reality popped up.
Al Norton: I know that some say, "TV isn't as good as it was 10 years ago" but people say that every 10 years. I think that dramatic TV from the last five years or so will be looked back at as a golden age.
Grant Bowler: So do I, and I think it's because of reality TV. You've got to have something to go up against and I think the massive popularity of reality has been the biggest spur to creativity and effort that's ever been.
Al Norton: Can you give me a preview of what's coming up on Ugly Betty?
Grant Bowler: You're going to see the friendship between Connor and Daniel get tested quite severely and some chickens come home to roost there, which is great. I had a lot of fun on my end of that. I don't know if Eric (Mabeus, who plays Daniel) had as much fun (laughing). And the love affairs get very complicated.
Al Norton: Is it possible that your stay on Ugly Betty will extend into season 4?
Grant Bowler: It's possible and it's my fondest wish.
