Sam Witwer has appeared in both television and movies.  He has also been involved in voice work for video games, such as, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Infamous, and has written and produced an album with his band, the Crashtones (mostly Sam with a few friends).  However, he is probably best known for his work on Battlestar Galactica, playing Crashdown, and on Smallville for playing the part of Davis Bloome/Doomsday.  Witwer will also be appearing in the upcoming movie Gamer.

Witwer recently made an appearance at Screaming Tiki Con where he participated in a panel discussion for Smallville with Michael Rosenbaum and Helen Slater.  Later that day he sat down with MediaBlvd Magazine for an exclusive interview.

Jamie> What got you started in acting?

Sam> Well, it’s a two tiered answer.  When I was in 5^th grade, my parents took me to Los Angeles and we went on a bunch of the studio tours.  I was a big fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation at the time.  I met Wil Wheaton and he was really cool to me.  I think from seeing the studios and getting a little bit star struck, I wanted to be an actor.  As the years went on, that sort of shifted to a much more realistic career goal, which was to be a rockstar; a musician.  That was my thing in high school, being a musician and in a band.  My parents were pretty hip on me going to college, and made ma audition for a bunch of schools for drama.  The reason that happened is that my grades were maybe not the best.  So they figured my best shot of getting into a school would be through drama.  They are not as strict about your grades.  One of the schools I auditioned for was Julliard, and they don’t look at your grades.  So they take you on audition only, and I got it.  Then after that, I trained, and thought, “I trained, so I may as well give this a shot!” So I tripped into it, it was completely by accident. 

Jamie> So you mentioned your music, you’re in a band now right?  The Crashtones?  So how did that start?

Sam> Well, that started with me just writing songs and recording them myself.  And my cousin, Michael Woodward, would keep saying, “When are we going to do this for real?  We should record this.  We have more than enough for an album and a half, so we should do this for real.”  He’s a producer and a musician in California, and he was running a studio at the time. So he talked me into it, and then I got a drummer friend of mine, Tim, to play for me.  Then I played most other instruments, with a little addition here and there from a buddy of mine named Patrick Allen.  We recorded an album with mostly just me, like a solo project.  Then when it came time and we thought it might be fun to play in front of people, I had to get together a band, so I got Tim and I got Patrick, and my buddy Glenn who was mine and Patrick’s classmate.  You might actually know him from Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Glenn Howerton.  It’s a very funny show and you’ve got to check it out.  He’s a producer and one of the stars of the show, he plays Dennis.  Then we got another guitarist,  BrianTaylor who is the writer and director of Crank.  He’s an awesome guy. So we got this group of people together; a friend of mine named Dimitri who plays Bass.  We just play shows every now and then when we have some down time, and we haven’t had much down time lately.  So we haven’t had a chance to play shows.  It’s such a great thing and so much fun, and we all love to do it, but we all get busy.  I’ve tried to get a second album out, it’s kind of what I’m working on now.  It’s difficult, just because I’ve been so busy with acting.  So that’s a little bit frustrating to try to get momentum, then you have to work for awhile.  The music thing is just for fun, so that takes money.  Then you try to get the momentum back.  So I’m at the point where I’m trying to get the momentum back and hopefully I’ll have some down time to continue that.  I should be so lucky to work as an actor.  I don’t mean to be ungrateful for that.  It just scatters my focus.

Sam> I’m not even clear on how I can tell you this story and have it be truthful, but it is the truth.  I saw the mini-series for Battlestar Galactica, and fell in love with it.  I thought it was so cool.  I don’t know if you remember, they aired the mini-series first and that was sort of the pilot.  Depending on how that performed, the four hour mini-series, that was going to determine whether they had a series or not.  I saw the mini-series and fell in love with it.  I thought it was the coolest thing ever.  A guy named Robert Alrich was one of the casting directors for that, and I have a good relationship with him.  So I called my agent.  At this point, I hadn’t really worked that much.  I called my agent and said, “Hey, can you tell Robert that I’d like to guest star on Battlestar Galactica?”  And Robert comes back with a series regular role.  I auditioned once on tape, and then two months later got the call to move to Vancouver, which was such a strange thing.

Jamie> So you went after it?

Sam> I did, and it worked!  Which was so strange.  You kind of here stories like that, but you never think they actually happen to you.  I told Robert I want to be on Battlestar Galactica, and it happens.  I was like, “Yeah, I meant that totally!”

Jamie> Now on Smallville, when they had Doomsday, under all the prosthetics, was that really you? And did that take a long time?

Sam> It was really uncomfortable makeup and it was really hot.  It took a really long time to apply.  The best thing about it though is it wasn’t me!  But take it from me, it was very uncomfortable.  I was sitting in my trailer, or I was home in Los Angeles, probably playing X-box or doing something useless.  That was one of the cool things about the role, is it could be kept alive on screen by Darion in the Doomsday costume, and I didn’t have to do much.  There were a couple of times, there was one episode where I showed up for work, I flew in, and worked for about 3 hours and that was it, and I flew home.  The rest of the episode, he is just killing himself to make that episode happen.  Everyone thinks of that as such a me-centric episode, and I was barely in it.

Jamie> So what out of all of them has been your favorite role, so far?

Sam> I think I enjoyed working on The Mist the most.  I loved the part in Dexter.  I really liked Neil Perry, which was a character in the first season.  It was a lot of fun to do, especially since I thought there was no chance in hell I’d be getting that role.  Everyone they auditioned was a good deal smaller than I was.  They wanted sort of…The way they described it, he was sort of a squirrelly computer nerd.  And I just really, really wanted it.  That’s all that I knew, and he was kind of a smart ass.  I just wanted it for that reason, because at that time, I’d only gone in for just a bunch of big guys.  Then that character turned into like Kevin Spacey, which was something I didn’t see coming.  But really, I think my favorite was The Mist. 

Jamie> That was a great movie!

Sam> Have you seen it in black and white? Oh you must, if you get the deluxe DVD, there is a version that is in black and white.  For whatever reason, that movie works.

Jamie> Because of all the mist and the effects, I can see that.

Sam> Yeah, sort of, but it’s more than that.  There is something about it, maybe because if you watch The Mist, it looks like a move, so your mind is like, “Ok, I’m watching a movie.”  But if you take out the conventions of modern film, it just becomes a story.  For some reason, you buy into it more.  Or maybe it activates our collective memory of Night of the Living Dead, or those old movies.  The Mist is a bit of a throwback, so to have that stylistically match up with the feel of the film, in black and white.  It’s quite good.  I talked to Frank about it, and said, “I don’t know why this movie works so well in black and white.”  He goes, “Yeah, me either.  I just wanted to put it out in black and white.”  He actually wanted to release the film originally in black and white.  But the studios wouldn’t do that.  But I really loved that movie. I really loved that role.  I showed up, and Thomas Jane was playing this artist.  For whatever reason, he’s the guy who has presence of mind to actually do something about all of this insane stuff going on around him.  He’s a… I don’t want to say action hero, but he’s taking the initiative.  Having watched him, I was like, “Ok, then this military guy needs to be the opposite of what you’d expect from a military guy.”  Tom Jane is taking the role of the guy who is stepping up and doing something, so this guy has just got to be a scared young man, who is totally in over his head.  It’s not something you’d expect from a guy who is in the military.  I thought that was kind of fun.  Had Tom Jane played it differently, I would have.  You don’t want to double up or anything.  With Tom Jane being the star, whatever he was doing, it was our function to support that and to paint in different colors underneath what he was giving us.  So yeah, it was all about that.  I liked the fact that in the novella of The Mist, the David character, the Tom Jane character, has this romantic encounter the Laurie Holden character, the name escapes me.  The Laurie Holden character, and the Tom Jane character, in the midst of this bad situation, Tom Jane’s character is worried about his wife, doesn’t know what’s become of her.  And they go off and they do it.  They have sex.  You’re like, “I kind of get you’re totally stressed out.  And human beings, when you strip away the veneer of civilization and you put them in stressful situations, and there’s some sort of primal need to make more humans.”  There’s this procreate now type of drive.  For the film, I liked that element of the story, but for the film, he took that element away from David.   David is my character, who didn’t exist in the short story.  Then instead of turning it into the primal need to procreate, kind of “bang someone before I die”, that type of thing, he turned it into something very sweet, which I thought was very cool.  Here’s another thing to think about.  If you thought the world was coming to an end, and you were going to die, you would probably take that moment to tell the girl that you had a crush on your entire life, that’s like the moment where you’d go, “Got to tell her now, got to connect with this person, because this might be my last chance.”  I thought that was a really awesome move for that story, and I enjoyed taking that function as well.  It also sets up the expectation for horror film aficionados that we’re both going to die horribly.  Wait a second, maybe I want to take that back.  Because we didn’t just bang each other.  We had a very sweet, romantic scene and then really didn’t touch each other.  So by horror film standards, young love should have survived!  And we didn’t.  And I just love how that film goes from fun, popcorn monster movie.  And I got to be the guy to hearken in the shift in the movie’s tone.  That when my character dies, it’s a very personal, very ugly, not fun death.  That’s when the movie starts becoming not fun.  I’ve watched audiences and they are screaming and freaking out and laughing.  Then when that happens, the air is kind of sucked out of the room, and then for the rest of the film it’s a very grim movie all the way to the end.  So I thought Frank was dead on with the whole thing, and you’ve got to respect a guy who… This is Frank Darabont I’m talking about.  You’ve got to respect a guy who refused to make that movie unless they would let him do his ending.  And no one would let him do it.  He could have made The Mist for twice as much money.  But he wasn’t interested in doing that.  He was interested in doing a piece of work that had some integrity.  Weinstein was the only guy who would give him money to make that movie without changing his ending, so far as he slashed the budget in half. 

Jamie> That’s good.  The movie and story is what is important.  If you don’t have a good plot, it doesn’t matter how much money you spend on it.  Now do you watch yourself when you are on television, and criticize yourself?  Is that hard to do?

Sam> Criticize myself, yeah, absolutely.  Sometimes you have to.  You have to watch some of the stuff because you need to know how it’s coming across.  You need to know that whatever your intent is, is in some way translating because it’s your job to be a story teller.  It’s your job to get some things across.  I don’t like it.  I don’t enjoy it.  I don’t like watching my own performances, but it’s definitely educational.  You learn a lot.  And you take a lot of notes.

Jamie> I can definitely see you picking it apart.  Or I think most people would anyway.

Sam> It’s terrible.  Yeah, it’s awful.  What’s worse is watching your work with a bunch of other people, with friends or something like that.  You want them on one hand, if you’re proud of something, you go, “Yeah, I want you to see this!”  But simultaneously, you’re somehow ashamed.  So you just kind of want to crawl into a hole or something and die.  My girlfriend at the time, was going to throw this big eighty person party to go see The Mist.  And I had to explain to her, I’ll shoot myself!  This is not easy.  So yeah, it’s a werid weird thing.  Especially when you know millions of other people are seeing it as well.  You just go, “God why did I do that?” or, “What am I doing?”

Jamie> You notice all of that stuff.

Sam> It’s terrible. 

Jamie> So do you have any new stuff coming out?

Sam> I put in a little appearance in a movie called Gamer.

Jamie> That sounds like a very good movie; my kind of movie. 

Sam> Yeah, I hope you like it.  It’s out there, very out there.  But yeah, I have a small role in that.  Other than that, I’m just trying to get some music finished.  It’s really, really tough to get the ball rolling again.  Other than that, there have been some weird, some really cool stuff that’s come along that I’ve had to turn down for various reasons.  What’s kind of neat about it is it’s been stuff that I really wanted to do.  So for various reasons, or for stuff that has nothing to do with the material, I’ve had to turn down a few things.  I’m encouraged by some of the stuff that’s come looking for me.

Jamie> Was there any dream role, if you could pick something?

Sam> Oh goodness.  I don’t know.

Jamie> Even if it’s something that’s already been done, or if they did a remake?

Sam> Well, I don’t know.  I’ll play Gary Mitchell in Star Trek, the next one.  I’ll do that. What is a dream role?  See, the thing is, I never conceived of… I never really thought of what kind of roles I want to play.  I never really put that much thought into it.  I just kind of show up to auditions or meetings and have people kind of tell me what I want to do.  The thing is, Hollywood has a very specific idea of what any given actor is capable of.  I’m not really sure why that is.  Maybe people don’t have a big imagination.  Or maybe in their experience, an actor can only do one thing.  When there are so many actors that can go across the board and do all kinds of crazy stuff.  When it comes to what I look for in roles, it’s always try to gauge what people are perceiving me as at the moment, then try to go against that.  Which is tough to do, because when they are perceiving you as this one thing, at that time, that is what they are calling you in for.  So it’s this weird typecasting mentality that Hollywood has.  But I think it’s a little bit looser than it was back in the day.  I think it’s not nearly as bad.  I think people are getting a little bit into the fact that some people can do two things, or three.  You never know.

Jamie> That’s true, because you got to play good and bad in Smallville. 

Sam> Yeah.

Jamie> Which do you like better, evil or good?

Sam> I tell you what, the good stuff is a lot less work.  The evil stuff, I mean it’s…  You just go to all of these unpleasant psychological places.  That is why they said they offered it to me.  They said, “We need an actor who can go in both directions.”  I hope that I did that.  I wish that we’d had more time with normal Davis.  I really wish that we could have taken more time, but we couldn’t.   They paced out that character for one season, eighth season.  That was supposed to be it, that was supposed to be wrapping up Smallville.  So when it turned out that there was going to be more than that, I think there was definitely a feeling of, “Wow, man, we could have really stretched Davis out over two seasons or so.”

Jamie> But you never know how that’s going to go.

Sam> Yeah, well that’s the thing.  You can’t blame anyone for that.  What the producers were doing was trying to make the best television that they could.  To their credit, they raised the viewership.  The show was going on because of what they did in the eight season.  They deserve a lot of credit for that. 

Jamie> I have more, but I don’t know what time we were supposed to quit.

Sam> Go for it!

Jamie> Ok, in Galactica, how were the challenges different in doing something like that versus Smallvile?

Sam> Galactica, that was challenging because I was in a situation where I was dropped into the middle of an ensemble cast that already existed.  So that was nerve wracking because you had all of these amazing actors, some of the best actors I’ve ever worked with.  And they were all established.  So trying to create a niche on that show was very, very difficult.  The thing with a televison show is they make it look like they’ve planned it all out.  It’s all this seamless story.  It’s not.  They’re rolling with it every week, they’re trying to figure out what’s working and what’s not.  How do we make this show as good as it can be, especially in that first season?  They were trying things out.  They were trying to make things happen.  Crashdown was originally supposed to be comic relief on that show.  And then, I don’t know if it was…  I think it was a combination of some of the stuff they though was funny were some very grim situations that I just couldn’t see how you would bring humor into it, or something like that.  But mostly, I think they had a hard time writing humor into the show.  As a matter of fact, we tried an episode in the first season where Tigh’s wife is introduced, which was the comedic episode.  And after that they were like, “You know, some things can be amusing on the show, but we don’t know how far we should take the comedic thing.”

Jamie> Yeah, it’s a more somber show.

Sam> Yes, it is.  It’s not a feel good show.  And for awhile, they… For example, my audition scene for Crashdown was very funny stuff.  If you read the scene, it was very funny stuff.  If you read the scene, it was just really amusing, with this guy sticking his foot in his mouth and saying all the wrong things.  I loved it and I was a little bit disappointed that I never got to do that on the show; that I never actually got to do that version of Crashdown where he was just kind of a loudmouth, and just totally made people dislike him wherever he went, but in a funny way.  We even did things on the set where we’d improve a bunch of funny stuff, and I’d have the crew and the actors laughing.  But we couldn’t use it because it’s just not that kind of show.  So really, it was just trying to figure out, sort of in the way that Thomas Jane was doing, what’s everyone else doing in the show and really my function is to just add a different reaction to what they are doing.

Jamie> Is that how you draw your inspiration when you are doing a character? I know some people really go and study stuff, but I guess in Battlestar, there isn’t a lot of real background.  Do you do that, or do you see what they do?

Sam> It’s see what they do, because that serves the story.  But it’s also…  You kind of take the temperature of the room.  I was walking into a very crowded room.  So I had to know what was going on before I started inserting my stuff in there.  But one of the things that David Eick and Ron Moore said to me, they called me at different times and they said, “Oh, he’s Han Solo.”  So I was like, “Oh, you want me to be Han Solo.”  Then, “He’s like Bill Paxton from Aliens.”  Oh, he’s Bill Paxton from Aliens now.  Ok, you know what, he’s both Han Solo and he’s Bill Paxton from Aliens.  So basically, with Crashdown, I tried to give the sort of anxious energy of Bill Paxton from Aliens.  “Oh great, why don’t you put her in charge, game over!”  That kind of thing.  But I tried to do a little bit of the sort of grounded Harrison Ford voice.  If that makes any sense.  So I tried to put those two characters together, and that’s what I was trying to do with Crashdown.  It actually doesn’t matter if I hit the mark or not, because no one knew that’s what I was trying to do. 

Jamie> Now they do. 

Sam> Yes, now you do!  Now you understand, that’s what Crashdown was.  But that’s what they told me, and that’s what I was trying to do.  Really, that show was just so amazing to work on.  Because the rule on that show, from the first day I was there, David Eick says to me, “Ok, here’s the room, you get one take as written, then say whatever you want.”  You could ad lib.  There were times where I had script supervisors trying to get me in trouble saying, “No, you want to say this line, why are you changing it?” And this and that.  I was like, “David Eick told me I could.”

Jamie> Usually I think it sounds more natural if you kind of mix things up.  Do a lot of shows do that, or do most of them make you go strictly by script?

Sam> A lot of them prefer that you stick to the script. For example, Smallville.  You asked about the differences between Battlestar and Smallville.  That is obviously a mostly by the script show. But for me, one of the reasons I took it is because they offered it to me.  They approached me for the role and they offered it to me, which said to me, “Ok, I can do this the way that I want to do it.  They are going to put up with me if I change a few things.”  Whereas, if you are an actor who is auditioning and looking for a role, asking for a role…

Jamie> You keep your mouth shut!

Sam> Yeah, because they’ll fire you.  They’ll do it, they’ll definitely get rid of you.  But if they come and ask you, there’s a little bit of confidence there.  There’s a little bit of, “Ok, they’re  probably going to trust me.”  So I definitely shifted a few things in Smallville, certainly not as much as I did in Battlestar because it’s not that type of show.  And I know that probably a couple of the producers,,,  It was funny, because one producer would come up one day and say, “Love what you’re doing and keep going and come up with stuff, we love it!”  Then a different producer would come up and say, “Yeah, could you just keep it to the script?”  I was getting conflicting messages from the producers and I certainly didn’t tell them about that.  But I was like, “Ok, I’m just going to do my thing.”  And I don’t think that they hated it too much, because they tried to figure out some ways to keep me on the show for another season after this. 

Jamie> So are you coming back then?

Sam> Yeah, well, they came up with some ideas.  There was one idea in particular that I didn’t feel served the show very well, and also didn’t know how I felt about doing it.  But it was one of those things where there’s going to be a lot of work painting yourself out of this corner if you do this.  So I sort of respectfully brought up some of my apprehensions and they were totally cool with it. And I think what it was, they, to their credit, those producers are extremely nice people, and dare I say, well thought of by Warner Brothers since they took Smallville and revitalized it and brought it back. 

Jamie> Yeah, they changed a lot.

Sam> They changed a lot.  They lost two characters and brought in new characters and the ratings went up.  Good work guys! 

Jamie> It’s a lot of things that wouldn’t work.  Like, “No, that’s not in the comic book, you can’t do that!”

Sam> Exactly.  They’ve been rolling with a lot of stuff, and they’re extraordinarily nice.  I almost took one of the methods that they thought of to keep me on for another season, and kind of took it.  It was a very generous move on their part to say, “Hey, we want to reward you for what you’ve done on the show.  And we were just kind of like, “Worry about the show first.”  I don’t know if we actually said that to them straight up, but that’s how I felt about it.  Don’t worry about me, I love jumping from role to role.  That’s what I like to do as an actor.  I think when I’m a little bit older and wiser, I’ll say steady work?  Give me steady work, and put away a bunch of money and live a life where you have financial security.  But right now I’m kind of stupid and I don’t mind hopping around.  So we just kind of made it known, just do your thing.  Don’t worry about us.  We’ll be fine.

Jamie> So does that mean there’s a possibility, or you’re not going to do that?

Sam> Well, beyond what we discussed and decided not to do, they asked, very non-specifically, if I’d be willing to come back in some capacity.  Yeah, depending on what it is, sure!  I had a lot of fun.  It’s an extraordinarily nice set.  If you’re a fan of the show, don’t worry about any of the people that you are a fan of, be it Tom or Justin or Allison.  Don’t worry about any of those people being jerks, because they’re really not.  They’re really nice. 

Jamie> Would you ever be interested in writing or directing?

Sam> Yes, yeah, I would.  Yeah, there’s some stuff I really would like to do.  But I’m only now getting the courage to ask some of my more connected friends what they think of a couple of my ideas, and how to get something launched.  It’s an extraordinarily difficult thing to do.  But yeah, I would love to stretch out and see what’s out there.  I don’t know about directing so much, but definitely writing.

Jamie> So what’s your favorite scene you filmed in Battlestar?

Sam> Battlestar.  Well, you know, I don’t know if this is my favorite scene.  But I’ve been happy when I’ve gone back and seen the stuff that happened when Crashdown dies.  I felt like that could have gone wrong.  When I watch it now, I’m actually pretty happy with it.  There’s another scene, this is kind of a random thing.  There’s a scene where Baltar wanders in from the wood on Kobol, and we are all talking and going back and forth.  I grab him and say, “What the hell have you been doing, where have you been?” We have all this of dialogue then we actually get into the script, because we actually improved the whole front of the scene.  It’s something you can only do on Battlestar, and something you can only do with Michael Rymer at the helm, with Rymer going, “Let’s just make something up.  Let’s just make up a scene.  You guys want to make up a scene?”  But I’m generally happy when I go back and visit Battlestar and see some of the stuff.  I didn’t embarrass myself too much. 

Jamie> Is there a particular actor or director that you’d like to work with someday?

Sam> I tell you, I just want to work with Frank again.  He’s such a cool guy.  For any fans of Frank Darabont out there, I’m a bigger fan.  He’s just the coolest, most down to Earth guy, and he’s our people.  Total geek, totally into everything that a geek should be into.  He’s extraordinarily literate and he knows stuff and is just an awesome guy.  And he’s funny. 

Jamie> You’ve done mostly televison.  But how do you feel about the differences between movie and television because you have done The Mist.  Do you feel that it’s easier to do one compared to the other?

Sam> Sure.  The Mist was done almost on a television schedule.  We shot that in seven weeks.  The film stuff that I’ve done hasn’t felt that much different.  The stuff I do like about film is that you have a start date and an end date.  You go in, and do the job, and it’s done at this point and you can go on and do another one.  I like that.  Television, I don’t enjoy so much being owned by something.  But again, any actor should be so lucky to be on some show.  I was a series regular on Battlestar, and a series regular on Smallville.  Both times, the part of not being able to go out and get other work, I didn’t like as much.  So I think for that reason I like film.  You do it, you’re done.

Jamie> I guess it’s usually a lot slower pace, but you said you filmed it about the same. 

Sam> Oh, it was insane.  It was very similar to the Battlestar Galactica experience because we had all these guys running around with steady cams, and you never knew when you were on camera, so everyone was always getting your performance.  You could be behind the camera man and he could be shooting this way at Bill Sadler, then they could literally just swing around on you for a close up.  You better be ready, and you better be doing something cool. 

Jamie> Is there anything in Smallville, or Galactica, or even The Mist that you filmed that they cut out that you wished had been in?

Sam> I wish that I wasn’t always getting showered on with green kryptonite getting dumped on me.  It seemed on that show that I was often times not very dressed and often times cold with things getting dumped on me, or getting wet.  I don’t know that I’d say cut those.  You know what it is?  You have these easy days where you go in a lot of time, and you are not working half as hard as the crew.  The crew is just busting ass, making things happen everyday, non-stop.  And the crew on Smallville is great.  But every now and then, you have a day where you earn your pay maybe, and then some.  Like shooting 9 hours for a shower scene that lasts for 35 seconds.  The scene where I get the kryptonite juice dumped on me was like a fifteen hour day.