Klye Davis – Enlisted

Q) What are the recent projects that you are working on?

A) Besides “Enlisted,” I have a new movie coming out on August 8th called Into The Storm. It’s a twist on the old version of Twister. I don’t want to say I’m typecast, but I play another redneck in this movie, as well. I play Donk and I have my redneck partner Reevus who is a good buddy of mine and a well known comic by the name of Jon Reep. We are kind of dumb storm chasers and we see the real versions of storm chasers so we follow them around and get into some shenanigans. I just had a movie released about a month ago calledSkinwalker Ranch that my best friend and I did. That’s out on iTunes and Redbox right now.

Q) How was your character Dobkiss on “Enlisted” originally described to you?

A) I’ve been friends with Mike Royce, the Executive Producer and Showrunner on the show because I did the show “Men of A Certain Age” with him. They had called the casting director about some things and the role was called “Private Sick.” All of his lines were, “That’s so sick, bro! Dude, that’s sick!” I didn’t know how far they were going to take that character. When they gave me the job, they said they were going a different direction where he is a redneck, but I didn’t have to do an accent or anything. A while ago I went and visited my brother when he was in the military and saw some characters there that were pretty redneck with the same mustache that I had. When I did this part, I kind of based it off some of the guys I saw when I met my brother there.

Q) What do you find challenging about playing Dobkiss?

A) Nothing! It comes so naturally and it is easy to do. He’s fun! He’s not the brightest guy in the bunch, but in the end they all stick together and are brothers. He is not hard to play, he’s kind of close to the cuff.

Q) We’ve seen you do some rapping on the show. Is that a talent you already had or was it written as part of the script?

A) I don’t know if it is a talent, but my brother and I grew up as big Beastie Boys fans. I remember we used to put on rap concerts for my parents, family and friends in the neighborhood. We’d always do Beastie Boy songs. In about 2007, there was a show called “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” that I auditioned for as a mentally handicapped rapper. I ended up getting the job and doing this crazy long rap on there. That’s originally how I met Mike Royce. He saw me on the show and loved me and my rapping. That’s how I got on “Men of a Certain Age.” I think it was definitely incorporated. I don’t know for sure, but I think they actually incorporated it into the character since Mike knew I could rap.

Q) There is great cast chemistry. Was it immediate between everyone or did it take some bonding?

A) It actually was right away! It was pretty sweet because I’ve been on a bunch of shows and there is always a couple people who hang out in their trailers and don’t really talk to anybody. Here we all just got together because I think we all have dirty sick senses of humor, which if you had that on another show you’d probably be fired by the PR people. We kind of just met up and had a lot of stuff in common. It just clicked right away because it made us look like we were a family and the brothers had a bond.

Q) You have great comedic timing. Has it come natural to you or have you had to work at it?

A) I don’t really know. I grew up not wanting to even be an actor so I don’t know where it came from. I grew up wanting to be a skateboarder and after some injuries to my knee I kind of fell into the whole acting thing. Maybe it’s from my dad or mom. I guess it just comes naturally because I never took any acting classes. My cousin wanted to be an actor and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was kind of at a crossroads in my life. I ended up moving out to Los Angeles with him and unfortunately for him he didn’t make it. I got lucky and made it. So, here I am!

Q) “Enlisted” has become a fast fan favorite show. What is it about the program that you think has captured so many viewers?

A) I guess it is probably the chemistry with the cast because we all clicked and kind of know our places in the show. Everybody on the show is so funny. A lot of them areimprov actors so when they let us run and go with the flow I think that resonates with the audience. Also, a lot of people probably recognize the cast from other shows and it just clicks. There are some military people out there who at first I don’t think gave the show a shot because we messed up in the pilot and did some stupid shit we shouldn’t have done with the haircuts. After they watched the second or the third one, I think we kind of got them on board. It is a half hour show so it is hard to squeeze in a lot of heart and comedy, but we do the best we can in the twenty-two minutes we have because we don’t want to upset or offend anybody. My whole family was in the military and there are a lot of jokes and shenanigans that go on. It’s not always serious every single day. If you were serious 24 hours a day, it wouldn’t work.

Q) You are a part of the social networking site Twitter. Are you enjoying the instant feedback you’re receiving after episodes?

A) To be honest, I was never on Twitter before we did the show. They kind of encouraged us all to get on. Since then, I’ve really liked it a lot. It’s cool to be able to hear all the feedback, do the live tweeting and see all the responses. It’s great for building an audience because there are so many people on Twitter and they are the ones who passed along the message. We’re trying to build an audience and they ratings jumped up from the previous week.

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and the show?

A) Thank you all for supporting us and please just keep watching, DVRing, go to FOX and Hulu. Kevin Reilly, the head of FOX, knows the numbers count. We just have to keep building the audience and hopefully everyone will keep watching because there are a lot more episodes to come. I’d really like to come back for a season two and show everybody else what we can do.