Rick Worthy – The Magicians

By starrymag | July 18, 2018

By: Talya

 

As a person who is legally blind it is hard to find characters in media who truthfully represent what it is like having a visual impairment. We are mostly portrayed in television and movies as the bumbling idiot and are usually the butt of the joke, which can be very disheartening for someone in the blind community. So, when I find a respectful representation it truly stands out to me.

 

Dean Fogg (Rick Worthy) on the SYFY television show “The Magicians” is, in my opinion, one of the best representations of a blind person ever put on film. They have created an intelligent man who just happens to be blind. He has real experiences. He goes on adventures and keeps up with his students. He even runs a major university and he never “acts blind.” This is a man, despite recent events, who the blind community can look up to and someone for which we can be proud.

 

I am eternally grateful to the producers, writers and Rick Worthy for giving me a character who I can point to and say, “I know this is a fantasy show but he’s like me. He is a, somewhat (because I’m not magical), representation of my experience as a person with a visual impairment.”

 

Rick Worthy is a character actor with thirty plus years of acting experience. You may have seen him in shows like “Battlestar Galactica,” “Star Trek: Enterprise,” “The Vampire Diaries,” “Supernatural” and many other TV shows and movies. I recently had the opportunity to thank Rick Worthy for his portrayal of Dean Fogg in person at a convention. During our discussion he graciously agreed to an interview.

 

(Courtesy of Derek Reed)

 

Q) Can you tell our readers a little bit about the television show “The Magicians”?

 

A) “The Magicians” is an amazing television series on the SYFY channel. We are getting ready to start Season Four. It is based upon a series of books by Lev Grossman: The Magicians, The Magician King and The Magician’s Land. My dear friend from “Supernatural,” Sera Gamble, took the books to her producing partner John McNamara. They decided to get the rights to the novel and make a series out of it and they did.

 

From what I understand I think they pooled together their own money and got the rights in an unorthodox way of getting the rights and I’m so glad they rolled the dice and took the risk to do it because it paid off big time. Low and behold, we find ourselves working on a show that people are tuning in to. So, that’s a wonderful, wonderful thing. It’s a blessing.

 

Q) It’s a fun show.

 

A) It’s a lot of fun and I try to tell people that it’s kind of an adult show. You know there’s some heavy stuff going on there. I think people really need that. They want that and also they want fantasy. I think the show has a really nice balance of both.

 

Q) Did Dean Fogg know the chaos it would create not accepting Julia into Brakebills?

 

A) You know he’s lived through thirty-nine timelines and the timeline that we all know is the one where Julia did not get accepted and The Beast, Fillory and all those things happened. I think that, I’ll just go ahead and say it, I think that he truly adores Julia. I think he sees Julia (Stella Maeve) as his prize student. I would say Julia and Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley). For some reason it just wasn’t working those thirty-nine other times and this last time he decided, “Well, maybe I won’t admit her this time. Let’s see what happens,” but that doesn’t seem to work either.

 

One of the things I tried to do with Season Two is that I wanted to create him so that behind the sunglasses he’s just falling apart but the mirror is that he has it together. That was sort of a tricky balance to find. A man who cannot see but he still has to run a university and still be the boss. Still be the father figure. Beneath those shades he’s falling apart.

 

When we started Season Three I wasn’t exactly sure what they were going to do with Dean Fogg. I didn’t know if they were going to kill him. I had no idea, but I was ready for whatever. What they decided to do was he basically starts self-medicating. When they wrote that in I thought, “Oh that’ll be interesting. I wonder where that’ll take the character and take me as an actor,” and I really sort of found this dark humor. This sort of apathetic person and beneath it all he’s still in a great deal of pain, but still has a great deal of hope that something will happen. As we saw in Season Three this time Julia became a God, or Goddess, and in the matter of less than a second she healed Dean Fogg’s vision. What a journey for Julia. She’s gone from being a Hedge Witch to a Goddess. That’s pretty cool to me.

 

Q) I really liked the story line of Julia becoming a Goddess. I think the writers did a really good job on it.

 

A) I totally agree, and she’s given up so much. She had a chance to stop Reynard and she didn’t. They had the chance to stop The Beast and that didn’t quite go the way they planned, in terms of Julia’s involvement. It’s almost like she’s being catapulted to this God status. In some way it seems like it’s sort of a reward in a way. Like she’s been through so much and I don’t think she saw this coming at all; that she has evolved to this highest level.

 

Q) I don’t think that she saw it coming either and I don’t think that she particularly wanted it. At least that’s the impression I got.

 

A) Yeah. It’s almost like, “I have this power, but I didn’t really ask for it and now what do I do?” I love the scene where the other Goddess is trying to coach Julia and trying to mentor her into, “What do we do now that we have this power?” I love how the other actress played the scene because she played it like, “Don’t worry about your friends. Now you’re a God.”

 

Q) It reminded me of the old Greek mythos where the Gods were like that. They were like, “Eh let’s do this to this person just to see what would happen.”

 

 

A) Did you see the old “Clash of the Titans” movie that they did back in the 80’s?

 

Q) Yes, I have.

 

A) I just love that film because it’s like humans on Earth are sort of like these trivial play things. The gods are sitting up on high and they can make these casual decisions on what’s going to happen. That’s pretty powerful stuff. It’s like the other Goddess was like, “Well, we can make an island, we can heal a child. We can do all these things,” but it’s like what do you do and I love the choice that Julia made that, “I can feel his heartbeat and now he’s on his knees.” She’s talking about Quentin (Jason Ralph) when they’re in Castle Blackspyre. She makes the decision to go back to help them. She uses up all her power, just like Prometheus did. I thought it was so smart. I just loved it. It was really cool.

 

Q) I really loved it, too. I just loved that story line. I really liked the whole journey this season with the mythos behind the keys and the story woven into it. I thought they did a beautiful job with it.

 

A) Yeah, I totally agree. We just got back to work this week and we start filming next week. We’ve already got the first four scripts. I think a lot of people are going, “What’s going to happen next?” Man, you have no idea. I cannot wait to read these scripts because I want to know myself. What’s going to happen now? They’ve all, essentially, at the end of Season Three we see that they’ve all had their identities erased. Except Alice and now what does she do? Believe me, it all makes sense. It’s all going to pay off.

 

I’ve got quite a few haters out there on social media asking, “Why did you betray them?” I can assure you that you guys are going to love Season Four. It’s already off to a great start and it all pays off in terms of the whole thing. Hopefully, I have a really good feeling I think we’re just going to rock and roll this season.

 

Q) What did you think when they first told you that Dean Fogg would be blind? 

A) As an actor I’ve been doing this for a long time. When we did the pilot for “The Magicians,” that was December of 2014, so that’s coming up on four years ago. It doesn’t seem like it was four years ago but man time flies. We did the pilot in New Orleans, December 2014, and essentially Dean Fogg does die in the pilot. That was the original decision, but after the producers saw the pilot they really enjoyed Dean Fogg’s presence and from what I understand they thought he would be a good character to keep around so they decided to keep me around. I immediately asked them because I thought his eyes were gone. They were literally pulled out of his head and Sera and John said, “The scenario and setting for the series is about magic and there’s a way that we can work that in and use that. It will all make sense.” They said, “Essentially, you’re going to be playing a character who can maybe see with the sunglasses on. They’re enchanted, and they allow him to see certain shapes and colors.” I think they say that in episode four or something in Season One. One of the professors comes in and he brings a case full of sunglasses and I say, “I think I’m getting a strong sense of blue with this one or green with that one.” But that’s it. He can’t really see anything. He understands the layout of his office and much of the university, but he’s been there for so long. He can directly stand in front of someone and he can’t see the color of their eyes, but maybe he can see the outline of their face. He knows that that person is there. He’s the kind of person that, you and I were discussing at Con, he doesn’t like asking for help. It’s important for him that he figure it out on his own. I wanted to approach it that way and play it that way. Sera told me that she has a relative who is visually impaired and I was a little nervous because I didn’t want to offend anyone. I wanted to do it honorably. It was important to me. I’ve never done that before in my career. I’ve done a lot of things in my career, almost thirty-one years, but up until now I have not played a character like Dean Fogg who’s lost his vision. So, hopefully, I did it well enough.

 

Q) Dean Fogg didn’t appear to want to be healed by Julia. Why do you think Dean Fog was apprehensive about being healed? 

A) Well, I think he knows that she can do it. He’s had his eyes literally taken out of his skull and put back in and he’s had to learn how to learn how to dress himself, learn how to tie his tie – all his fancy ties and the way he dresses. He has to learn to do all of that essentially blind. Again, he’s the kind of person who doesn’t want to call for help from anyone. He wants to be able to do it. Essentially, and I humbly say this (this is just Rick speaking), but Fogg is Brakebills. Everything that happens at Brakebills is him. It’s his university. He makes every single decision about who goes there, who gets hired and who gets fired. It’s all him. He’s the kind of person they say real power is quiet and that’s how he is. He’s not going to come out and just be “I’m the boss,” but he is the boss. It’s important to him to be a leader and a father figure for the students and to lead the university. To have one of the students, who’s more than half his age, help him and someone I think particularly Julia who he rejected this time…I think it’s the only option he has left and he knows that she can do it. He can feel that. It’s breaking through his shield, his armor. He’s always got armor around him. The way he dresses. The way he carries himself. Beneath all that he’s a vulnerable man and she broke through to him. She is probably one of the few people that you will see in this series that he will allow to touch him and she did. She healed him.

So, when we filmed it I was thinking about it the whole day I was like, “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if I’m going to break down in tears. We’ll feel it out as we’re doing it.” I always have an idea how I’m going to approach a scene, any scene, but this one was kind of unique in that he was being touch by someone who essentially has the power of Christ and that’s amazing. It’s literally unbelievable and amazing. I think it’s one of the most powerful moments in the series so far. If she can bring someone’s vision back just by touching their head what else can she do? Can she cure cancer? Can she end war? Can she bring someone back from the dead? Like what else can she do? I think that’s a very rich area to explore. Hopefully, we’ll go into that.

 

Q) I hope so too because I think that would be pretty interesting as well.

 

A) I think so. It was Prometheus who made the keys. Alice melted them. I love those two together. I think they’re great. Alice melted the keys and decided that we can’t have magic again. Then, I love when Katie says, “You don’t get to decide that the whole universe doesn’t have magic.” I agree with Katie in that regard. One person can’t decide. That’s when Julia comes in and recreates the keys. Gives them the magic. See what happens.

 

Q) Your portrayal of Dean Fogg’s blindness is very respectful of the blind community. Was this a conscious decision by you and the producers?

 

A) I would say yes. It was a conscious decision by Sera Gamble, John McNamara and myself. It’s their show and I’m a hired gun. I’m part of the show. Whenever I take on a character I just do my level best, my utmost best to bring out the best I can; to portray the character the best I can. It still may not be over. We don’t know what’s going to happen. There may be an alternate universe where he’s blind again. So, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I didn’t want to be disrespectful to anyone on this planet at all. I wanted to play the character honorably. That’s critical to me. It’s very, very important. When I saw you at the con you really touched me because you come up to me and told me that you appreciated how I portrayed the character because you, yourself, are visually impaired. To me, that’s far more than any critic can say about my performance. What you said to me means more to me than what any critic can write about Rick Worthy. You’re someone who directly came up to me and said, “Thank you.” To me that means more than anything. I thank you so much for what you said to me. It really touched me and I’ll never forget it.

 

Q) At the end of last season we learned that Dean Fogg was working for the Library. Can you tell us the motivations Dean Fogg had for joining them?

 

A) I will say this he’s not exactly happy about this business arrangement. He’s not happy. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like the fact that he has to partner up with them or really anyone to get magic turned back on and to keep magic in place, but it’s something that he understands that had to be done – when he and Irene McAllistair (Jaime Ray Newman) reach Gavin (Daniel Nemes); when they all blip in at the very end of Season Three in the finale and they take the magic with the siphon. No one saw that coming. I think Elliot (Hale Appleman) is the first one that says, “Dean Fogg is that you?” I wanted to play that like it’s strictly business. This is what must be done. It was cold but again it all pays off and it all makes sense when you start to see Season Four.

 

He’s not happy about the arrangement but he’s the kind of man who’s got a lot of tricks up his sleeve and he doesn’t tell anybody. He’s a great poker player. He doesn’t tell anyone anything. When he makes his move it’s a really strong move, really powerful and game changing. So, that’s how I like to play him and just very close to the chest. You never know fully what’s going on with him and we don’t really know what Fogg is up to. I think a lot of people initially thought Fogg was a villain. He’s not a villain.

 

Q) There was so much gray area this season. We saw Tick (Rizwan Manji) become a villain, Fogg’s betrayal and even Alice (in my opinion) makes these selfish over selfless decisions. But as they say, “no villain sees themselves as a villain; they see it as doing it for the greater good.” Can you tell our readers about how you explored that this season and the themes we see?

 

A) We were blessed with an amazing. I know every actor says this, but it’s true. We’re blessed with some fantastic writers. They work around the clock to make these stories. I can guarantee you they’re probably, right now on the weekend, sitting down, figuring out how they’re going to write the next episode. The head writers and the producers, I think one of the things they wanted to do was to keep people guessing as much as possible. Who’s good and who’s bad this week? The characters keep shifting depending on what they need. Are they good or are they bad? It depends on your point of view I suppose. I think that’s rich character development. I think it’s also probably very realistic. Sometimes you have to go into the dark side in order to come back out for the betterment of everyone else. People have come up to me and said, “I really don’t like this character, but I really love that character,” and some people love Margo (Summer Bishil), but some people absolutely hate Margo. It just depends on who you are.

 

I don’t really think any character is a bad character. Even if you look at The Beast (Charles Mesure), if we can just go back to that. You can understand what made him that way. He was abused, sexually abused by a trusted father figure and that’s some tough stuff. First of all, that was very brave of them to write that and then tastefully show that on screen, but man it’s disturbing. Like it’s so disturbing that when you finish watching the episode that you’re like, “Oh my god! That poor little boy.” Then, you understand him; what drives him to consume as much magic as he can because he wants control. He wants to be able to control who he is. He doesn’t want anyone to bother him anymore. That’s what makes him this monster. So, is he good or is he bad? Well, with one movement of his finger he can chop off our head but at the same time it’s like you understand who he is. I don’t know. I think it’s a really interesting character an,d so far, he’s one of the most interesting characters we’ve had. Ember (Dominic Burgess) and Umber as well; they’re some very interesting characters. I think as an actor I’m drawn to characters who are not necessarily on the straight and narrow path but walk a bit on the dark side as well because I think that’s in all of us. I think we’re all good and bad. It’s in us and we have to decide which way to go.

 

Q) At Brakebills there are many different schools of magic. If you were to attend Brakebills what school of magic do you think you would have gone into?

 

A) I would probably say, I very much love what Penny (Arjun Gupta) can do. Someone asked me if you could do magic, like on the show “The Magicians,” what would it be. I said I would love to be able to teleport. It’s like watching one of those really cool…Did you ever see that really cool movie with Hugh Jackman called The Prestige? It’s these talented young dudes who are magicians and they’re trying to top each other. It was a really cool trick where Hugh Jackman, his character is on one end of the stage in the theater and it’s a full house then he instantly appears on the other side of the stage and the way he did it was they found someone who was his look alike, his twin. Imagine if you could really do that. I mean that would freak people out. Yeah that would be really cool.

 

I think any of the disciplines are, the physical kids, people who can move things and levitate, Alice can bend light. They all do really cool stuff. First thing I keep thinking about is I love what Penny does.

 

Q) How did you get into acting?

 

A) Before I was an actor I was a dancer back in the ’80s. Early to mid ’80s. Believe it or not I was 6ft 2in and a half and 40lbs lighter than I am right now and I was a break dancer back in the mid ’80s. There’s video of me actually dancing. Me and my brother we actually got caught up in the breakdance craze back around 1983 and Michael Jackson and Prince and they were the rage. They were the thing at that time. There was an underground movement of hip hop and break dance that was coming out of New York, Detroit and Chicago and we’re from Detroit, Michigan so it came and we just jumped on board and taught ourselves how to dance and how to do all the moves.

 

I have to credit my mom because when we were five years old my mom put me and my brother in the talent show in school and taught us how to dance. People don’t believe it but we were Moonwalking long before Michael Jackson. My mom put us in the talent show and we didn’t have a lot of money at that time. My mom took the living room curtains (they were red) and she made our costumes out of the curtains and we looked great. We looked like these little space dudes with afros and we won the talent show. So, I’ve always kind of had the performance bug in me because of my mom and also I think it was because of my soul, of who I am and my brother as well. He’s a musician.

 

Long story short, we were breakdancing and it all culminated with us, my brother and I, we appeared on “Dance Fever” back in 1985. We didn’t win, but they flew us out to Hollywood. If I might humbly say so, we were great. We brought it. We worked our butts off, but they went with someone else and we were heartbroken and I really think we should have won.

 

When it was over we flew back home. We had a good three days in L.A. I went into theater and my brother went into DJing and he became an amazing DJ and music producer. He still is to this day and I went into film and TV.

 

I scared my mom and dad because I told them I wanted to be an actor. I could still hear my dad screaming right now like, “Aww man,” but my mom I remember after my dad was screaming at me, “How could you do this? You can be anything you want. We sent you to college. Blah, blah.” Then, after he had this five minute rant and stormed out of the room my mom came up to me and she hugged me and said, “Honey, I believe in you. I want you to go for it.” I’ve never forgotten that. I had my mom’s blessing to just go for it and I’m so glad I did.

 

People don’t see the tough parts of being an actor. Like if I post something on Instagram, like I just landed in the airport somewhere and I’m getting ready to go to work, people think you do that all the time and that’s not true. It may be true for Will Smith or Tom Cruise, but I’m a working actor. I’m a guy who is a character actor. It’s what I consider myself and I work and sometimes I’m not working for a while. Then, I’m back on it. So, it’s kind of like a rollercoaster. It’s a blessing. God has truly blessed me these last three years I’ve also been working on “The Man in the High Castle” as well, which is a great series on Amazon. It happened to be shooting at the same time as “The Magicians.” We were able to work it out, so I can do both. I clearly know how blessed that I am, and I just want to keep doing it until I can’t do it anymore. That’s the plan anyway.

 

Q) Many of the writers at Starry Constellation Magazine and our readers are geeks. What is something geeky about you?

 

A) Oh God, if I could show you my apartment right now. I have a Batman letter opener. It’s a Batarang. I have that. I have all kinds of Batman items around my apartment. I have a Batman robe. I have a Batman figurine I got at San Diego Comic Con. He protects my bedroom. That’s on top of my Bruce Lee poster. Bruce Lee is an idol. If I have an idol in this world it’s him. I’ve learned a lot from him. Not just about fighting but about life. I have pictures of Bruce Lee around my apartment. I have all kinds of Batman paraphernalia. I have Batman shirts. I have Batman socks that have the cape on them. I might be wearing a suit somewhere, like at a convention, but if you ask me to pull up my pants and show you my socks they probably will be Batman socks. I have Superman cuff links. It’s like I have little things that people don’t know about unless I show them or sometimes I just directly have it out. Like a lapel pin or something that’s like a Batman thing.

 

I’ve always thought it was extremely important to let my inner child always live fully and not be afraid to express who I am and I never want to be the kind of person that loses touch with their inner child. I’ve always been curious and I want to be learning something. I’m excited to go see the next Avengers film. That’s who I am. All my close friends who truly know me they say I’m the biggest geek in the world and I’m proud. I’m a proud geek! At the age of fifty-one I cannot wait for the next Black Panther film. I’ve seen the first one like ten times. I am a huge Marvel fans as well as DC. I thought Wonder Woman was amazing.

 

That’s the stuff that makes me happy. My dog Buddy, he’s sitting next to me, he has a Batman collar and a Superman collar and a Batman leash and a Superman leash. The hero mythos is strong in me. I think it’s something that’s always been part of my soul.

 

One of the things I love about conventions is that I’m around my tribe. I’m around my fellow nerds. My fellow geeks and we’re all having fun. For just forty-eight to seventy-two hours you’re forgetting about the bills. You’re just there to live and enjoy life and I just love that. I’m just so happy that I get a chance to be a guest at a convention, but I also go to them sometimes. If I’m not invited, I’ll probably show up and just hang out on my own. I love to buy swag and all kinds of stuff. I love comic books. I love to just look through comic art and meet people who make the art. I’m a fan too. I’ve never lost that.

 

Q) Do you have any future projects you would like to let our readers know about?

 

A) I will be working on “The Man in the High Castle” Season Four. We’re going to start later in the year here in Vancouver. It’s alternate history. What if we lost WWII? What kind of world would we have. So, they show it. They show this world where we have lost WWII where Hitler and Mussolini and the Japanese empire have divided up the world between them. It’s really disturbing and intriguing as you can imagine. It’s fascinating. I started working on that in Season One. It’s a recurring role. I come back in Season Two and a little bit in Season Three, which hasn’t aired yet. I can say that I will be returning for Season Four.

 

About twelve years ago I wrote and directed, with my best buddy, a short film because we were tired of being unemployed actors. I had just finished “Battlestar Galactica” (2004). I was like, “Manm the phone isn’t ringing. I gotta do something.” So, we wrote and directed our own short film and we ended up getting three nice, respectable film festivals. Not huge things like Sundance, but respectable film festivals. We were so proud of that. It was just amazing. It was a lot of work. I have been thinking about doing this again and basically sitting my butt down and writing a short film script and get the ball going again. It would be based on a character that is sort of like a superhero. He’s kind of been in my mind for the last five, six, seven years. I just have to do it now because I’ve been thinking about it so much I’ve gotta do it now. Otherwise, I’m going to let it go. I’m kind of formulating that in my head. I don’t have a name for it yet or a title for it yet but when I get it going I’d be more than happy to talk about it.

 

 

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