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The Secret Projects of Crashdown: An interview with Sam Witwer, Actor and Musician |
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Sunday, 02 April 2006 |
By Kenn Gold
 Click the image to the left to listen to samples from Sam's Album at CD Baby.
Listen to this week's edition of MediaBlvd Podcast to hear the complete interview with Sam Witwer.
 Sam Witwer is likely most well known for his stint as Crashdown on Battlestar Galactica, but has appeared in numerous other series including ER, Jag, NCIS, Enterprise, Cold Case, Dark Angel, Angel and others. He recently sat down with MediaBlvd to discuss his experiences acting on Battlestar Galactica and the other shows, and to talk about his music. Sam is the driving force behind the Crashtones and the new album, entitled Colorful of The Stereo, has recently been released.
Sam first became interested in acting when his family took a tour of Paramount studios when he was a child. The tour guide mentioned that Star Trek:TNG, one of Sam’s favorite shows, was filming on a closed set that day. Crushed over not being able to see the show he loved being filmed, Sam was thrilled when the tour guide took him and his brother for a one on one talk with Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) who was studying in his trailer. “The guy talked to us for 30 minutes, while the rest of the tour group just sat by and patiently waited. That experience put it in my head that I wanted to be an actor,” said Witwer. Later in school, his grades weren’t that great, and he was in danger of not being able to graduate with his class.
“By the time I’d got into high school, I’d decided I was going to be a rock star-- I was going be realistic and choose something that was going to have a good chance at succeeding,” laughed Sam.
Since his parents pressured him to go to college, he applied to several drama schools since grades weren’t as important there, including the prestigious Juliard School of Drama. “I was this slacker kid who got accepted to Juliard, and had no idea what the hell that meant,” he says. Not really knowing what to expect is probably what got him accepted. “Everyone else is in a turtle neck, doing these breathing exercises trying to become the wall-- doing all kinds of weird stretching breathing exercises, whereas I was this guy in ripped jeans and a t-shirt who showed up and was kind of like- Hey what’s going on.”
However, resentful of having to leave music behind, Juliard wasn’t really what Sam wanted, and he eventually left. “I had several faculty members take me side… telling me to get out and go and do my thing- to be the kind of actor I wanted to be,” he says.
Witwer would move to LA a short time later, and was there for about a year auditioning as much as possible before scoring his first role. He would play parts on several popular series over the next few years. “Little by little the parts got bigger and more challenging,” he said. Witwer says he had a lot of fun guesting on the multiple series in which he landed single episode parts. “Generally the episode is going to be about you. You go in there and are basically playing the lead on an episode.” Witwer comments that as a series regular, “90% of the time you are walking by saying hi John, hey bill, and that’s it. When you guest, you generally have some meaty stuff to sink your teeth into.”
 One of the highlights was his appearance on Dark Angel with Jessica Alba in the role of Marrow, a genetically superior vampire like character who was set to have become a recurring character if the show had not ended. It was also his first acting experience in Vancouver, and he got the chance to film a martial arts sequence with Alba. “I had these pale blue contacts in and I couldn’t see out of them. So I’m there exchanging blows with Jessica Alba, the star of the show, and I can’t see what I’m swinging at.”
 He was worried he might accidentally stab her in the face with the prop dagger his character was swinging, which was terrifying to him, but “luckily no one got stabbed, and I got paid,” he said. Another highlight of his acting career was his appearance on Star Trek: Enterprise. “That was me just calling my agent and saying, get me on Star Trek.” However, his character was a member of the race known as the Zendi Sloths. “I’m affectionately referred to, by my other friends that work on Star Trek, as Sam the Sloth, which totally sucks." Another memorable role was playing opposite Sally Field in ER. “I got to call her a bitch”, he said.”
 Witwer would later be cast as the character Crashdown, on Battlestar Galactica. Sam isn’t sure where the character’s name originated. He and buddy Nick Wechsler, an alum of the WB/UPN series Roswell, talked once about the possibility that the name may be in homage to the Roswell website crashdown.com. “I wonder if my character was named for a website that was named for your show--wouldn’t that be weird”, he once asked Wechsler. Ron Moore, who runs BSG also ran Roswell during it’s second and third season.
(Editor’s note: if Ron Moore indeed came up with the name, it’s likely an homage to Roswell’s Crashdown Café, but since MediaBlvd also owns crashdown.com, we’d like to think that Sam’s notion is the correct one!)
 The decision for Crashdown to die on Battlestar Galactica was something for which Witwer was partly responsible. “I was happy being on Battlestar, was a fan of the show, and loved it before I even joined it…, but also had a lot of things in Los Angeles that I couldn’t get back to.” David Eick promised that if the character died it would be a very dramatic event, and kept his word. The extreme situation (the colonials surrounded by Cylon’s and about to meet certain death) and Lt. Crashdown’s decision as senior officer to essentially sacrifice Callie, holding a gun to her head to get her to step out and attack, provided a very challenging role for Witwer. “I was really happy that they gave me material that maybe not every actor could pull off”. Luckily for Sam, it seems that Nicky Clyne bears no ill will for the final showdown between their characters. The two remain close friends, and sometimes get together with other friends to watch movies together “Mystery Science Theater 3000 style.”
When he isn’t playing music, Sam is currently working on a new “secret project”. “It’s a laser beam that’s going to be targeted on the sun,” Witwer joked about the secret project rumors. In reality, he is producing, writing and directing, an independant film. “It’s a romantic comedy, not quite like what anyone has ever seen.” Witwer has been writing the story for a few years, and might end up co-directing. The project is currently linking up with a production company and has some top industry people stepping up to help it take place. “The general reaction to the script has been pretty positive.” Witwer says nothing is concrete, but there is a possibility that there may be some cameos from the other Battlestar Galactica actors.
 Sam’s real love however, would appear to be his music. The band name “Crashtones” was a second choice, after Crashdown. But Witwer was worried that he probably shouldn’t use that since it was his Battlestar Galactica character’s name. According to Witwer, “there are rumor’s circulating that there isn’t really a band behind the Crashtones music”. The rumors are that Sam plays all the instruments and is every member of the band. “I just think that’s ridiculous!,” he said. “You can see pictures with us all together so I don’t know where that comes from,” he laughs. However, he acknowledges that if those rumors were true, “It’s kind of a solo project.” If the rumors were true he would have played most of the instruments, keyboards and vocals. He would have also had a buddy come into play drums and others to guest in some of the songs.
 “It’s the ultimate expression of what I wanted to do at the time.” he said, of the album. The process of making the CD involved many trips to Northern California to work with his cousin Michael Witwer, who owns a studio and who encouraged him to just come and do it. It also involved the purchase of huge amounts of equipment, and then learning to use that equipment. “It was expensive on a personal level, but not on an industry level,” he says. He went on to say that now that the infrastructure is up, he can do it again cheaply. The music on the album “Colorful of The Stereo” is hard to classify as being any one particular style, and in fact that is largely what Sam hoped to achieve. His musical influences include Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Faith No More, Peter Gabriel, and even James Brown. “I like a huge variety of musical styles, and that was kind of the concept of the album,” he says. Among the songs that have the most appeal in Sam’s mind is The Date Song. “King of the Robots is just fun,” he says. Heavier stuff on the album includes the songs If I could, 16-17, and Reflex which are about slightly more unpleasant subject matter while the song Alone is soft and sweet.
Witwer didn’t want to discuss what the story was behind any particular song. “If I were to tell the story of what it’s about, then no one else has a chance to tell their story about that song,” he says. He goes on to say that sometimes the stories that people tell him about his songs are better than the stories that actually inspired them. “What is art if someone can’t just stand back and look at it, and come back with their own interpretation, and tell their own story about it?” he asks.
Witwer considers himself to be incredibly fortunate. “Acting is kind of my day job, it pays for what I want to do- I wanted to make an album, and Battlestar was funding the money for that, not to mention living, and rent checks”. Though he realizes he is going to have to get back into auditioning since that is what pays the bills, “But how fortunate am I to be able to say something like that?” he aks.”
 Listen to the MediaBlvd podcast to hear the entire interview, the story behind Sam seeing William Zabka in a coffeeshop, what he thinks about his fans who he talks to on his site’s message board, and more detail about all of these subjects. (This article is just a summary, so listen to get the full story.) The excellent album, Colorful of the Stereo is available at CD baby, and samples of all of the songs can be heard there, or from the PLAY ALL SONGS links on this page.
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