Meet an Artist: Actor Eric M. Messner

One of the features Two Hours Traffic hopes to bring you on a semi-regular basis is a Meet the Artist interview. One of us will sit down with an actor, a playwright, a designer, or any one else within the theatrical field and ask them questions. For the first one, I sat down with actor Eric M. Messner. Eric was expecting the hard ball questions, so was surprised when I started with the mundane.

CS: Where did you grow up?

EM: Really? Where did I grow up?

CS: Sure, why not?

EM: I grew up in the middle of Pennsylvania. About 30 miles north of the capital of Pennsylvania. And it’s not Philly. Or Pittsburgh. A lot of people think that Philly is the capital of Pennsylvania. It’s not. It’s Harrisburg. I grew up in a little town, a little valley in the coal region.

Eric didn’t start doing theatre until he was in college. He grew curious when a cousin signed up for some theatre classes.

CS: Were you majoring in something else at the time?

EM: I was an elementary education major at first. And people have told me, because of my childlike sense of wonderment (I’m assuming), that I would have made a good teacher. I used to teach a lot. I taught swimming lessons as a kid for years, and I taught theatre classes for children’s theatre for a long time.

CS: What drew you to theater? What kept you in it?

EM: It fed my god complex?

I love the storytelling aspect, I love the feeling you get when you’re working with a group of people very closely and it’s going very well. I always loved movies growing up and I still love making people laugh, because that to me – if you can get someone to laugh, you’ve made a connection with them, and I’ve always relished that. ... There’s a certain aspect to the theatre that has a great experimental quality. There’s a writer who said, “When you write, you get things correct that you didn’t get correct in real life.” I sometimes like that about the theatre. It is messy, but you are piecing things together, and it’s a sort of controlled environment for figuring out cause and effect.

Eric received his Associate’s degree in Pennsylvania and completed a BA at UMBC. After graduating, he performed in Baltimore, but found himself continually commuting for work in DC, and soon moved closer.

CS: What show in DC made people notice you?

EM: I think the one that sort of got me some notice was Howie the Rookie which was with Solas Nua. It was Irish, and it was a Dublin accent, and the guy was a fighter, and it wasn’t something that people expected of me. I’m kind of jokey and goofy. It was a lot of fun. It was a one-man thing: there were two 35-page monologues. I played Howie Lee and Dan Brick played the Rookie Lee. I remember distinctly a lot of people I respected coming up to me and saying, “That was really good” and sounding really surprised. I took that as encouraging.

CS: What are some other memorable parts or plays?

EM: So many fabulous parts. So many fabulous plays.

CS: I made a list.

EM: Ha ha ha. Oh my god. Where did you get that?

CS: About the Artists, I think.

EM: Oh! That website is so creepy!

I think the ones that I like the most are the ones that scared me the most. There are two that jump out to me as the scariest. Improbable Frequency with Solas was last October and it was frightening as hell. Improbable Frequency was an Irish musical. Which was just scary to me because it was a musical. It’s not something I had ever really tried. It was good because it kept me scared. I think doing that things that scare you are the things that are the most exciting.

There was also Crumble (Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake) [with Catalyst Theater]. I got to play Justin Timberlake and Harrison Ford.

CS: What was the process, to play actual people, but clearly in, I’m guessing, a show that wasn’t totally realistic?

EM: Both the Harrison Ford character and Justin Timberlake character are fantasies of a mother and daughter. Justin Timberlake was obviously the daughter’s, played by Casie Platt. Elizabeth Richards played the mom; her’s was Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford was easy. You just deepen the voice, gruff it up a little bit. I ended up buying the Indiana Jones movies – for research. You can’t see it, but I’m doing air quotes, “for research”. And there were discussions at first – Are we the Han Solo Harrison Ford, or are we the Indiana Jones -- you know, a lot of debate.

For the Justin Timberlake character, I took two months of Hip Hop classes at Joy of Motion. I tried to sort of immerse myself. I downloaded "FutureSex/LoveSounds", and I put that on my iPod and I made myself listen to it every day. I don’t know what it did, but there was this weird point where I was driving to my temp job and I remember thinking, “I really want to listen to Justin Timberlake today.”

Is He Dead? will always have a special place in my heart – at Olney. It was my first show as a union actor. I sort of got my start at Olney, because I toured with the National Players right after college for nine months as Benedick. And then I did their summer tour and I played Duke Orsino. You learn a lot about dealing with people on tours. You’re in a confined space for the better part of the day, traveling across the country, doing Shakespeare shows at 8 am. It’s a little odd. You learn early on how to pick your battles.

Also, Burn your Bookes for getting me work with Taffety Punk. I’ve loved those guys forever.

CS: You just finished up a show with them. What was that like? Going back to college in Taffety Punk’s Car Plays?

EM: They called me, and I love Marcus [Kyd] and the gang so much, and Gwydion [Suilebhan], I love Gwydion’s writing. As soon as I found out -- Car Plays, Gwydion’s play -- I was like, “I’m in. I don’t care. I don’t need details.”

Like all actors here in DC, Eric works several performance-related jobs to create a living. He has done film work here and there, including industrials for the IRS and Army. He also spends a lot of time doing voiceover work, particularly for a company called Graphic Audio, where he voices comic book heroes such as the Green Lantern and the Atom Smasher.

EM: It’s great. I like doing that. But I don’t think people realize sometimes how tiring that kind of work can be. You’re really trying to convey everything with your voice. And you’re in there for like three hours. Two and a half, three hours man, you need a nap. You think about the extremes of things that you go through in a performance in two hours and how exhausting that can be. I’ve walked out of there completely hoarse. Sometimes you’re getting killed. You’re being tortured in some books. You really have to keep in mind your vocal training, in case you have a show that night.

CS: Did you read a lot of comic books as a kid?

EM: Yeah. Yeah. I think that sort of shows in my persona. I still do read them. I have a handful left. For a while there my mom would get me a comic book t-shirt every year for Christmas. And I’m not just talking when I was from 10-18. We’re talking like 18-29, 30. It was a pretty common occurrence. My brother and I both really like comic books. In point of fact, it’s still a bonding thing for us.

CS: You got into theatre later; it wasn’t something your family did, how did they react?

EM: (a long pause. Eric laughs.) I think my mom got tasked with the talk. The “Well how are you going to make your money. How are you going to survive? “You know that sort of thing. You do what you half to do, but they don’t want to hear that. They want you to go off and get a Good Job. Whatever that is. Again, I’m using air quotes for “Good Job”. At this point with the economy and things being what they are I defy her to give me a completely recession proof job. Never mind the question of it being one you would or wouldn’t want to do forever? But my mom and brother and sister are supportive.

My sister emailed me this wonderful story about when I was on The Wire. They recorded it on her Comcast DVR or whatever and her fiancée set it so that my mom and my sister could watch it and she said, “Mom had the biggest grin on her face when she saw you. We watched it three times.” Stuff like that’s adorable and encouraging.

They’re happy about it. They’re glad I’m happy. But I think they want me to make millions. I think they would like me to get to that aspect of being very famous. That’s the problem with a lot of perception about what we do. There’s either, “Oh, you’re an actor” like you’re a complete vagabond, and a useless dreg of society, which still exists. But there’s also that other thing – as soon as you tell people you’re an actor, they say, “Oh, that’s amazing! What do you do? Don’t forget us when you’re famous!” Which I find weird.

I got asked a question like that at customs when I was in Ireland. You write down your occupation: Actor. And the guy asked, “Oh, have I seen you in anything?” I was like “uh… have you ever seen Ladder 49?” and he said, “Nope.” “Uh… Then no.”

CS: So you were in Ladder 49?

EM: I did about a week of extra work for it.

CS: That’s not on About the Artists.

EM: Well, I said it out loud. It will be in minutes. I don’t know where that dude is--

CS: But he’s updating the site.

EM: He’s got a laptop and an iphone and he’s gonna find out. I had no credit or anything, it was a full week of night shoots. But that was the only thing that I thought he might possibly have seen – I hadn’t done The Wire at that point yet. Not that I had a huge part in that either.

CS: Yes, I see you’re listed as Alma’s boyfriend.

EM: Yeah, I didn’t have a name. I was only on set for like 4 hours. But I did get to meet Dominic West. The girl who played Alma, Michelle Paress, was very nice, we sat and chatted for like two hours. She was actually very pleased to know that her character had a boyfriend. We were hoping he would show up again. Two weeks after we filmed that David Simon announced that that was going to be the final season. So it became about wrapping up story lines versus expanding anything.

CS: What else are you interested in besides theatre?

EM: People may not believe this if they see it in writing but I’m sort of a closet jock. I play golf a lot. I’m not that good. There was a while there where we had a bunch of theatre guys playing basketball on a semi-regular basis. And I run a fair amount. I’m waiting to see how the fall shapes up. If nothing’s happening I might try to run the Baltimore Marathon.

I read a lot, play guitar, video games. I suppose like any other red blooded American male, I like a fine ale. Good coffee. I like music a lot too.

CS: Any dream roles?

EM: Ooo! I knew you were going to ask me that. There’s a couple of things I wouldn’t mind revisiting. A couple of years, some experience, just thinking about it and going, “Oh. I could play the hell out of that now.” Sometimes it’s college roles – where you’re not going to play that role again unless you’re still doing this 25, 30 years from now.

I loved seeing One Flea Spare at Forum because I did that in college. I played the elder, Mr. Snellgrave. I was a foot taller than most of the people in my program in college and that translates into age. I’d love to be in that show again. I like a lot of Naomi Wallace’s stuff. I’d love to do something – anything—by Charles Mee.

I wouldn’t mind playing Benedick again. There’s a great quality to that character. When I was playing it, I was a little bit older than some of the guys. I think that’s important for him and Beatrice. They seem to be set a part a little bit. At least in the context of the show, set apart from Claudio and Hero. It’s love, but it’s two people that hurt and don’t trust it, even in each other. Even if it’s what they want from each other, they don’t trust it.

If you remember seeing the movie Withnail and I, there’s a great speech by Richard Griffiths, and he says, “It’s a tragic day when you wake up and you realize that you’ll never play the Dane.” I’m getting right onto that edge where I don’t know if it’s going to happen. I don’t seem to be anyone’s theatrical darling. And when you do that show you have a Hamlet in mind before you decide to do it.

CS: Do you have anything coming up next?

EM: I’m doing Birds of a Feather with the Hub Theatre out in Virginia. Shirley Serotsky’s directing that. The ever wonderful Shirley Serotsky. A great director and a good friend of mine. Dan Crane’s in that, and Jjana Valentiner and Matt Dewberry. It’s about relationships, but it’s also focused on the two male penguins that raised the baby chick together at [the Central Park] Zoo. I’m excited about that. There’s that and then, after that, who knows? Maybe a show in the fall. Maybe the Baltimore Marathon.

If you are interested in more of Eric’s work, you can check out his voice over work at GraphicAudio.net, or see him perform with the Hub Theatre in Birds of a Feather. That production runs from July 15 through August 7. And if anyone out there is looking for a Hamlet, you know who you can call.