Danny Masterson – Men at Work

Q) Now that you’ve been doing this show in its third year. If you were to look back at what you thought when you first started, what would have surprised you the most do you think, just about everything?

A) I guess that it would take us three calendar years to do 30 episodes. No I’m kidding. What would surprise me? I guess, you know, when I read the pilot I’ve known Breckin [Meyer] for a long time and he sent me the pilot. And he’s like hey, would you be interested in this? I was like yes. This is kind of interesting. It’s nothing groundbreaking. It’s nothing new. But I really like the way that you talk. And I like the way that he writes. And then when we shot the pilot I thought okay, this is fun. And these three other actors are really great guys and good actors. And I figured that it would kind of probably be the end of it. And then I saw the pilot and I was actually shocked. I was like wow, this is actually funny. And I enjoy the show. And then from there just that we’ve gotten to I guess sort of the edginess or raciness of – that the most of the writing that Breckin’s able to do in terms of what we’re able to get away with because we’re on cable. And TBS is so nice enough to not since us so much. And so I guess that’s been fun. And then also just how many like amazing well-known actor,guest stars we’ve been able to have. Which is a hell of a lot more than I ever got on That ‘70s Show. And it’s just been a lot of fun.

Q) What about this year? Can you talk about some of the guest stars you’re going to get?

A) Yes. I mean, you know, I just got to have an amazing sexual romp with the Jane Seymour. So that was a lot of fun. We have many hours of coach exercise, or Milo does. And we had Ed Asner who comes and plays an intern at Full Steam Magazine, which is incredible because he is 107-years-old and still runs around like he’s 40. Milo starts dating Emmanelle Chriqui. And it turns out her character used to be – is to have a girlfriend. And so Milo thinks this is fantastic. And every time he has sort of fantasies about Emmanuelle’s character and her ex-girlfriend is played by Shoshana Bush, he imagines Ryan Phillippe. And so Ryan sort of stops by to sort of ruin Milo’s sexual fantasies because every time he thinks he’s getting a hot blonde girl, he’s getting a hot blonde dude. That’s been a lot of fun. And then mostly what I’m really excited about is that David Krumholtz joined our cast this year. And I’ve known him forever. Were both from New York and both were working as kids. And I’ve probably seen 60 of the hundred and 20 movies he’s been in. But having him on set as our new boss has just been so fantastic.

Q) Was there anything about Milo that wasn’t originally scripted for you that you added to this character?

A) The beard. Breckin wanted me clean-shaven. And I thought Milo had to have a beard. I would say that and then mostly kind of, you know, I feel like what kind of keeping Milo how he was originally written. He’s a little more sensitive. He’s not sort of the first person to shit on his friends. He’s kind of the last person. Or he’s the one that gets dumped on a little bit more I would guess. But halfway through Season 3, he decides to make a huge career change. And leaves Full Steam Magazine to become a novelist. And from this point on in like the last couple of episodes I’ve basically turned into – I’m basing the new version of Milo off of Nick Nolte’s DOI Rest photo from Malibu years ago where he was like in his pajamas and his hair crazy. And so Milo literally last week has become that characters. So that’s now how I’m playing him, as Nick Nolte.

Q) Now you’re part of social networking sites like Twitter. Are you enjoying the instant feedback you’ve been getting to the episodes?

A) Yes. I mean the episodes haven’t aired yet. So but, you know, last year it’s funny. It’s like I would say it’s one of those things with twitter. I love twitter. I love chatting with people. And I like try to post something that’s interesting or funny. But what I find is that you have five or six people who are like hey, I like this show are like this. And you’ve got one guy who was like you’re a douche bag and you suck. And so you sort of just sort of you’d have to know that the ratio is basically that 20% people are going to make fun of you. And then the other 80% generally like you unless you’re doing a bad job. So I like that ratio. It’s more fun for me to like make fun of the people making fun of me. And then also it’s really nice to hear that people actually like what we spend a week rehearsing really hard and then shooting live in front of an audience that it turns out that people are entertained. That makes me really happy.

Q) So can we expect you to like tweet then maybe the season premiere?

A) Yes. We’re trying to figure that out. What we want to do is I don’t think we want to because there’s four of us actors right. And so we don’t want to like sit on our own Twitter feeds live tweeting. I just feel like that would be annoying for people who would follow you because you would kind of fill up their box. But we want to take over either the Men at Work TBS feed Twitter page, or create a new one if we can’t do that. And then be able to all four of us be there together answering questions and writing jokes and writing comments. And just sort of we’ll put our initials at the back of who is doing the speaking. I think that’s a good idea. What do you think? I promise that this Wednesday we’re going to do a four of us live Twitter feed. I’m not sure of the address. But I guess just check out Danny Masterson sometime that Wednesday. And I’ll sort of announce what the address is going to be for the live feed.

Q) The show is going into its third season. What’s the most rewarding part about playing this role so far?

A) I think probably the fact that I haven’t had to sing on this TV show has been the most rewarding because I’m a terrible singer. And the writers on That ‘70s Show used to make me sing. And I was always really bad. And it really just drove me crazy and made me nervous and gave me anxiety. So the most rewarding is that I haven’t had to feel like I’m going to throw up before I shoot on a Friday night. Besides that, I think it’s rewarding that people watch the show and don’t think that were bad. And think that we’re funny. And so I think that any time that people appreciate what you do for a living, it’s unbelievably fucking rewarding.

Q) If you could bring back one person from That ‘70s Show to guest star, who would you bring back? And what kind of role do you want them to play?

A) Well I really liked all the characters that we’ve had, Prepon, Kutcher and Wilmer play so far. I definitely want to bring Wilmer back to do – to continue his character as the guy living in the building. And I want him to still be literally stuck with the crazy girlfriend, Mircea Monroe that I pawned off on him. And I want him to be begging me to save him from her. And I think we need to do that like Season 4 or 5. And then basically I’m hoping to get like, I want to get Kurtwood on the show as my dad. And so whenever we have an episode where Milo has a father, I’m hoping that I can get Kurtwood Smith if he’s not working to come do it.

Q) So you said you’re glad you don’t have to sing. But what is it that does challenge you about the show? Is there anything?

A) I’d say the only – no, nothing’s challenging. It’s like I’ve done sitcoms for a really long time. And been working since I was 4. So in terms of how I prepare, how I find it the jokes, I don’t know. Those are things I’ve always just been able to do really easy. We rehearse all week and come up with 22 minutes of comedy. And so we have plenty of time to come up with it. And then if something’s not working it gets rewritten. So you never have to get forced into doing something that you don’t feel confident in. Breckin Meyer runs our writers room and writes almost every episode. I mean we have the other writers. Obviously they write episodes. But Breckin really just, if they’re re-writing, he’s the one that’s doing it with them. So we sort of all have our voices because they’re all parts of his brain. And we basically get the best directors in TV to come to our show. And it’s really an easy job in terms of like the amount of work we put in pays off so that on Friday night when we should live. We should show live in front of an audience, it takes about three hours to shoot it. We all know what we’re doing. And we all know where the jokes are. And if they’re not there, we change the line and come up with something new. So challenging is going to bed early because we have to wake up early. I hate that. That’s probably the only challenging part about my job.

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