This is Frosted Tips with Lance Baths and I heart reading a podcast. Hello and welcome to Frosted Tips. I am Kristin Krook. I'm your guest host for today. I have never hosted a podcast before, so this will be interesting and please bear with me on this adventure. So, I have a new series coming out on Fox on September twenty fourth called Murder in a Small Town. It's you Know about. It's a murder mystery that follows a detective as he moves from an urban police work environment
to solving crimes and a picturesque Pacific northwestern town. And this town seems to attract an inordinate amount of murders and at the center is a love story. And the lead of this television series is the actor Rossif Sutherland, who I am interviewing today and you may not know him, but now you will get to know him. So, Hi, Hi, Nice to see you.
Nice to see you.
How's your day going?
It's going just fine?
Great. Do you wanna do you want to tell people about how you got into acting?
How I got into acting. I come from a family of actors. My dad, his dad.
Is Donald Sutherland. Just so they know, we might as well just get it out of the way.
My father, who recently passed away as Donald Sutherland. My mom, Francine Roussette, was a French Canadian actress who made a career in France. My brother, Keifer is an actor. All my other brothers, my sister, they're all in the industry. I had no ambition to be an actor as a young man. I became an actor because I was studying philosophy at Princeton. My ambition was to be a writer.
And a friend of mine that approached me to direct this short film which was going to be her senior thesis, And on the first day of shooting and I was directing. I had no experience directing whatsoever. I'm guessing it was my last name that must have given her the impression that I would know what I was doing, which I did not. I'd been on sets as a child, but that was the extent of it. And on my first day of shooting, my lead actor was nowhere to be found.
I don't think he thought very highly of the project. Probably didn't think very highly of this Sutherland kid who was going to direct him. Yeah, what the hell. Indeed, luckily i'd cast somebody who who was my height. So after three hours of waiting, I put on his clothes and I directed for the first time, acted for the first time, and after months of added and chopping these
pieces together, I showed it to my dad. I showed it to him as a director, really forgetting that it was my face on the screen because I chopped at the bits. But my father watched it on his own. I didn't have the courage to watch it with him, and a half hour went by. The project was twelve minutes long, so I figured he was just coming up with things he could tell his son as to, you know, you should do something else with your life. But it
was quite the opposite. He'd watched it twice and he called my name, Rossiff, and down I came, and he had tears rolling down his cheeks, and he said, kid, that's what you're supposed to do. And I said, to be a director. He said, well, well, who knows, but
you're supposed to be an actor. And I started training out of curiosity because my father had seen something in me that I didn't grow up seeing, and my father was away for most of my childhood, so this notion that I belonged in that world that that he was in was so intriguing to me that that I studied and and it has not been an easy journey by
any means, however privileged I may be. I've I've, you know, I've I've worked here and there, mostly in Canada, mostly doing independent films, and I've this wasn't necessarily love at first sight, but I do. I'm madly in love with my job now. I'm a bit like falling in love with your neighbor. Somebody you see every day and then one day she she's at that door, that door that you see every day, and there she is with the groceries, and you think, my gosh, she's so much more beautiful
than I ever realized. That's my life. I fell in love with my neighbor.
So would you say that acting itself is something that you love or is there something else about it that has kept you invested for all of these years because you've been doing it a long time. It's not an easy profession.
No, No, I've been doing it for I guess over twenty years now. And the job for me, my first job on a film set was as a boom operator. I was capturing sound and doing a very poor job at it. I kept hitting the microphone against the ceiling, falling into frame. I didn't know about shadows on people's faces. I also didn't know that you had to learn the actor's lines as you bounced the microphone around right and left the whole you know, dance of it all. But
I loved being on set. I loved being part of this circus of misfits.
And really is that a circus of misfits?
And so acting became an opportunity to be part of that set life. Not to diminish the job, I do love the exploration of character. I studied with this gorgeous coach in New York. He was the one who actually made me want to pursue this professionally. His name was Harold Guskin. He wrote a book called How to Stop Acting.
And he was the one when I asked the question, when he asked me the question whether I wanted to do this with my life or not, and I said that I didn't particularly I want to be an actor because actors pretended to be other people, and I wanted to figure out who I was. And he corrected me and said that acting, in fact was not pretending to be other people, but it was permission to be all
the people that you could have been. And for this kid who had studied philosophy at Princeton, who wanted to write, who wanted to explore those grand questions or the meaning of life, and all the idea to put on other people's clothes, clothes that I could have picked, and living in a home that wasn't my home but could have been my home, with parents that could have been my parents.
But he taught me never that the job was never to deny your own heart, that I was never going to put my soul on check, that I could always bring that to life, just in a different form, through a different voice. And so that exploration was fascinating to me. And I guess just like just like being with a with a lover who I won't go there anyway.
It's like, where is this going to come? Of all of the roles you've played in your life, what do you feel like has been the most gratifying for you as an actor?
Well, I've truly enjoyed working with you, Kristen Krook. I've never been given an opportunity like this to be the I guess the lead of a show.
Not I guess you are the lead of a show, right.
I'm the leader of the show. Actually, I kept seeing that number.
Next time, number one, you are number one.
Gosh, yeah, every day it was a panic. Number one. Really that's you. If only they could change it from one day to the next. But but but yeah, I've listen. I've been doing this for a while. I've seen I've seen the gorgeous behavior of a functional set where people honor each other's ideas and and it's it's a bunch of storytellers who will get to come with their own
ext with tease and bring something to life. I've also seen it when everything you know seems to go wrong because of egos and divas and and it was a great honor to have a voice that actually was somewhat listened to as we as we told our story. And you were such an extraordinary partner.
So thank you, thank you.
You're wonderful done Little films too, And I've I've really enjoyed working with young creators who are who are just filled with passion, more passion than experience, but just have a vision. And obviously hopefully everybody has.
A vision, but not everybody has a vision. No, No, absolutely not. Sometimes you work with people and they do not. But yes, it's wonderful to work on things with that are really about you don't have the money and you don't have the resources, and you just try and make it work. And there's a lot of joy to be found in those experiences and a lot of freedom. Yeah,
within the constraints anyway. So this show, our show, Murder in a Small Town is linked to your father in some ways, which you didn't know when we started all this.
I had no idea, and I.
Wonder how it has been for you, kind of launching this show and also grieving your father's passing and having to kind of face that within the promotion of a television series.
My father passed away in late June, and the family we've really kept to ourselves. I know there was a bombardment of articles and honoring my father's career, and people kept emailing them to me, And I don't know if it was lack of courage or just that I would. I knew that I would do it at some later point, but I haven't read any of it. I've mourned my father, not so much the actor, but here I find myself
doing this TV show. I auditioned for this thing another detective, and i've you know, as my young son THEO would say, you know, that's what you do with that detective. But here I am another detective and I wasn't you know. The text was was good. So I did it. I did the audition, and then two weeks later, I got this phone call that, you know, they wanted me for the part, which was quite unusual because usually if anybody is ever interested in casting me for anything, they make
me go through the ringer. I mean, I auditioned again and again and again until they've really exhausted every other possibility and then they maybe settle on me. Usually it's the other guy, so.
It's very optimistic outlook. Settle on me, I don't think.
So, but they with seeming enthusiasm, they said he's our guy, and I was very you know, it was It's quite quite empowering to feel like, you know, okay, well, these people seem to know that they want me, and therefore maybe I belong here. I described it to my father because my father has been my champion ever since I started in this industry, and I'm an actor very much because of him, and he's been very involved, and we you know, it's a subject. There was a subject of
constant conversation. I don't particularly like talking about work, nor acting, but I would do it with my dad, So I explained it to him, and the project seemed all too familiar to him. I had said, there was the Auburg Mysteries, and he said, I know these books, and I don't know how involved he's been in the past years. It seemed to be a surprise to him that this was being turned into a TV show. But here I was about to play a part in a show of which the film was going to be made with my father.
They were trying to do it thirty years ago. Listen. I haven't really processed it yet. This is, in many ways the big break of my career, if there is such a thing. And I've been an actor very much because of my father, and now my father's gone and I'm playing in a show that that he would have been a part of. It's a All of it has been serendipitous, a little surreal, very emotional. I've I've met people on this project that I will have in my life for the rest of my life. Regardless of the
future of this thing. Yes, I hope there is a life for the show. I really do. I hope people invite these characters into their lives because there's there's a lot for us to do with them. You know. It is a detective show, and in that that cozy way I guess of a show like Colombo. Or it's not a it's not a it's not a series of bloodsheds. It's not a it's not there to necessarily scare you, frighten you. It's more about the psychology, the motivation of people.
It's a lot of people trying to make sense of their lives, trying to find their purpose. But at the center of it, which is the glue which fascinates me, are these two characters played by you and I, who are lovers who've reached what they can hope is the half way mark of their lives with the baggage of their failings and their their hurt, their betrayals, and they get to try and make the most of this gift, this true love, this passion for one another, and it's
full of full of fear and hesitation. But as mature adults trying to define love and I think in their case, love is to give the other person wings. It's not about two people becoming one, about two people being whole for the first time. And I think that's a story we're telling.
Yes, I agree, So I mean we're talking about the show.
Yeah, reluctantly you say.
No, no, not reluctantly. Absolutely not. Was there I mean this is a very classic question when we get asked all the time, was there anything different for you in preparation for this role?
I think this was the closest I've ever got to play myself. People seem to have wanted to cast me as a bad men bad men.
Yeah, you're very scary, I know. Yeah.
Yeah. I think it's the perversity of it, because I don't think I'm scary. I mean, I'm tall, sure, but other than that, you are tall. I'm tall. Yeah, So I cast a long shadow.
And you have a serious face.
Thank you, thank you, thank you very much.
It's a serious face. It's a lie, but it's a serious face.
Yes, it is a lie, isn't it. Yes, But yes, I guess my resting face is serious. I went to a chest a school and Fred, there's there's no space for the curl of the you know, the dimples and all that stuff. Anyway, there are dimples, I just hide them behind them.
See the photos of Ross Child. Yes, the cutest face. It's still serious, well less serious, but yes, serious with.
Your glasses, yeah my glasses.
Serious guy.
I uh, this was the closest I ever got to play myself. The producer Jeff Wantell, we were speaking to him the other day and we were talking about this this press business that we're doing to try and launch this show, and I mentioned the humanity of this character and he said it wasn't necessarily on the page. And I didn't realize that because to me it was so obvious.
It was it was. It was there, blatant that this character, this detective who's not burdened by all these demons, but instead of somebody who thinks outside of the box, who's an observer, a listener, who does things his own way. He much is by the beat of his own drum. But he doesn't behave with intimidation. He doesn't behave with the power of his gun or the flashing of his badge. He's somebody who confuses the people into revealing the truth
thanks to his humanity. And that that that part of this character fascinated me and if I could bring that to life, then I thought, you know, I realized that we're not reinventing television here. But no, no, but there is there is that that character hasn't been on TV for a while. I don't think.
No, And Jeff's right, I mean on the page, I mean, every character on the page is quite flat. But you you brought a lot of that humanity to the character. I think that that is in large part because of you. And then I think that you know, Ian also responded to that, and they work together to.
Be the writer. Lovely beautiful man.
But I so you're saying that you didn't prepare, you just channeled yourself.
What a way to sum it up.
That's what I answer that, you know, well, sometimes you got a massage those things into the lines sometimes, and and luckily and who you just mentioned.
Was responsive to my instincts and my impu laugh.
I'm laughing because nobody knows quite what this means.
Responsive the word response.
He was responsive. No, they know what responsive.
I know, But in my context, do you make no, I mean, in.
The context of the way that Rossif went about communicating, Yes, yes, he has it's lovely. But he always had a lot of notes and thoughts.
I have ideas well.
It's great, yeah, yeah, speaking of and.
You know, it doesn't mean that I'm always right.
No.
Of course, having ideas, being passionate.
About something, caring about it, yes.
But also having ideas means that that I he can explain to me why I'm wrong.
Yes, and he did not all the time, because you were right a lot of the time.
Right, yeah, yeah. Working with you was my preparation. They they they kept speaking of chemistry and the and it's it's true, there was. I've never had such an easy time.
Oh, it was a joy.
Working with somebody. Where As you say, sometimes words appear flat on a page, but as soon as we'd start to play. And I don't mean to say that acting can sound like music, but there there was, there was a there was a quality of jazz to it. Not to flatter my acting as I'm flattering her.
No, I think we're talking about process though, we're talking about experience, where being in the moment in the scene was just a lot of fun and being able to I mean that was and when we're talking about like preparation, I think there's a lot of work that actors can do ahead of time, but so much happens on the floor on the day, and I feel like that's that is what occurred.
Yeah, you always have to be ready for Yeah, but whatever feels right in that and hopefully you have enough of a track record with the character and the people that you're you're creating with that that there is a there is a part of the equation that is instinct, got gut. You can't just rely on it. I've seen people who just rely on their gut and a lot of time sitting on the toilet.
While we were talking about jazz and music, right, the show is frosted tips, frosted tips yep, which in case Rossif doesn't know because because he doesn't know anything, No, he knows lots, but he doesn't do you know what frosted? Do you know what they're in reference to.
It's it's when the edge the tips of your hair are a different color from the rest of Yes, very yes.
And we're talking about a period of time of like boy bands and that kind of music where they were very.
Popular and they all had frosted tips.
I don't know, but some of them did. I think Lance did I was going to ask you what I see.
Yeah, I sort of, I sort of have Well, it's just great.
Great, Yes, I think they've just become little yeah, yeah, yeah, no, But I was going to.
Ask very sweetly told me this morning that ever since she saw me last when we did finish this TV show, that I've gone a little bit more.
Great, you've been through a bit, yes, yeah, you've had You've had a few months. But I was going to ask you a light question about music. Yeah, and what you like to listen to.
What I like to listen to.
Now, well, you know, let's let's take you back.
Okay, taking me back.
Let's take you back to the nineties, the nineties.
Well, the nineties. I was a little Canadian boy in France, yeap, and I listened to a lot of the Seattle bands I did, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I listened to a lot of Eric Clampton too.
Okay, what no, I'm just okay.
And I listened to a lot of jazz too, because I had to study so much. It was the only music that was kind of unpredictable enough that it would keep me awake and there was no singing, so it wouldn't distract me. From my studies.
You listened to jazz so that the variations and the music would allow you to stay awake to study because I had.
To study like three four hours every night. The French are cruel in that way.
Yes, the French have a very much to steal.
Your childhood away by hitting your head with school books. That was my childhood, okay, with that progressive sound of the books hitting the top of my head. There was a background jazz lovely. Yeah, and you make music, I do. Oh wow, what a segue it was.
It was a segue.
Yeah, Actually, you're not bad at this.
I don't know. I think I am bad at it. But that's fine. So have you made music recently? What's going on?
It's been a while I did music. This happened too in college. My one of my friends dared me to sing. We were in the company of what I remember to be two attractive young women.
Of course, that seems about right, and he.
Said, why don't you sing? He picked up a guitar and dared me to sing. And I was writing a bunch of short stories at the time, and I just sang one of my stories and it was that. That was a I remember that being a big eye opener in my life, where it's like looking at yourself in the mirror and you see something that you just a truth that you just never had before. And so I did. I pursued it, but I was I wasn't an actor then, and I didn't understand that words can be written down
and made to be different. All the time, I had stories I wanted to sing, but I didn't write them down because I thought they'd always be the same, that they'd be void of life as a result.
So I was an improviser, right, So you didn't write them down because you didn't want to deaden the stories.
There you go.
Okay.
So I would deal with all these uh, these musicians who I was in New York at the time, and they they would they would come it was what was it, craigslist cilist, look at me? Yeah, thanks, lest Yeah, I put up ads and they they would reach out to this this guy me and they'd come over and they'd play some music and I'd sing and they say, man, that's great, it's really great. Okay, and now we got
to write some stuff down. I said, No, I don't write anything down, I said, But and so anyway, so that was that then it didn't go anywhere, but until I became an actor, And that was the big lesson for me before I understood that that's what I'd be doing with my life, was that the words of a writer can be written in stone, and your job is to breathe life into it and to them. And so
that's when I started writing. And I've written a bunch of songs that was a very therapeutic for me, maybe too therapeutic, and so I didn't.
The professional songs of emotional songs.
Yes, yes, yes, yeah, but yeah, it's something that I'm going to do again. Okay, Yes, my mother's instructions.
Your mother's instruction.
Yes, I'm going to listen to my mother.
Now, have you not listened to your mother?
No, I've listened to my mother, But I'm going to listen to her.
Fully, fully listen to her.
Yes, okay, because she's been writing about pretty much everything, for example, oh gosh, where to begin? Yeah? Yes, no, but I will yes, no, that's that's been I've been saying that a lot lately.
I actually yes, yes, no, no.
Yes, yes, no, no, yeah, but I'm going to sing, I'm going to write, I'm going to do a lot of things great, and hopefully I get to keep acting with you.
Yes, if everyone watches our television show again, if you let us, then we'll be allowed to do it again, and.
Then it'll be better the second time.
It'll be much better. It's always better the second season.
Yes, of course we learn bear with us.
Please, Yeah, it won't have to it's not it's not like that.
It's going to be fun for them. No, it's a lovely, lovely, lovely show. Yes, it's a it's a murderous hugs.
That's exactly what it is. Yeah, yeah, a murderous huge yes.
Yeah, that people can pack of suspense. I don't know. I'll stop now.
Your son THEO was on set with us, Yes he was, Yes, yes, Can you tell us a bit about his experience and what it was like for you to have him on set with you.
I grew up going to sets here and there. My mother spared us from being, you know, set kids. But it was quite a mystery to THEO what his mom and dad did for a living. He knew that we were actors, he knew that his granddad was was a famous actor, and but but yeah, he was really taken by all the crew members who really invited him to try different things. He worked behind the camera and hung out with the sound guys and watched his work.
He graded us, He graded us on our work.
That's right. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. His idea was that, I said, I was number one on the call. She But his idea is to add to the call sheet a grade for your work from the previous day, and that if you had a failing grade for two consecutive days, you were no longer invited to come work. Some very strict it was a scorecard. Yeah, yeah, anyway, there's something to be said about that. Yes, but but yeah, I don't know if my son will well be an actor.
He jokes that he wants to be an agent like his uncle, because he likes to make deals, make deals. He had a lemonade stand this summer. Yeah, and he he made the money from the squeeze lemons that he paid for with recycled soda cans. So, I mean, I think he's got a few.
Yeah, he's I mean, at eight, he's got some good ideas. Yeah, he's moving along. Indeed, Well, what else shall we talk about?
Why don't we talk about you?
Why? Well, why not there's nothing to talk about me about.
Why do you do this show, this show.
The one frosted tips.
I don't know.
I don't know why I'm doing this show. You mean the show?
Yes, our show, our show.
Yeah, I mean I did it in large part because it was shooting near my home, and because I knew Tina and Kim, who were producers on the show, and I worked with Ian Weir when I was seventeen years old. He wrote the first show I ever was a part of. So it was a choice I made in part because it was full circle, and in part because it was convenient, and I happened to really like the character and I thought I could do something different with her than I
had done with other characters. Really happy that I did the show.
What's she like your character? Because I do. I love an Ador as a participant and as a as a future viewer.
But yeah, I mean, she's a passionate community member. She's a librarian, she has visions for her town. She is pretty straightforward. She doesn't adhere to convention. She has lived her life the way that she wants to live her life, very much, not caring about the judgment of others. And she has carved a path that is incredibly unique to her, and she carries that with her. So when her and
Carl meet, she brings that. She brings her full life experience and her unwillingness to bend too much, which I think is fun between them.
Yeah.
Yeah, So that's it. That's all we're asking about me.
No, I can keep going.
No, No, it's fine. We can talk about other things. What else shall we talk about? Oh? You and me? Yes, both worked on c W shows at the same time. Yes, in the studios, right next to each other. You worked on Rain, I worked on Beauty and the Beast. Do you have any recollections of your working on that show?
I do. I remember wearing a lot of attempting to do anyway, as you can tell by if you're still listening to me, I speak a little funny, and they wanted me to do a British accent, and the accent that came out of me was I don't think it was British. I think it belonged in the middle of the ocean.
Well that's mid Atlantic. There you go is technically fine.
So there you go. I was that's my memory of it. But I never met you.
No, not that we know of. We probably ate in the same cafeteria.
Probably probably.
Okay, I'm going I'm going back to the accent, so rossef and I have a joke that his accent is from Atlantica, a made up.
Land, well made up, made up for you. Oh yeah, it's my It's this very small island in the middle of the ocean, the middle of the Atlantic, with a.
With There were two residents.
Residents, yes, John Malcovich and myself.
Okay, can you tell the story?
Quickly abandoned me when I was six years old. By the age of eight, I was a very good swimmer and made myself made my way to a cruise ship set for New York. And I've been looking for John Malcovitch ever since.
And on that note, thank you Lance for letting us I don't know take over your show and talk about I don't know lots of interesting things. Yes, and please tune in and watch our show September twenty fourth, Murder in a Small Town on Fox.
Please do much love, Hey, thanks for listening.
Follow us on Instagram at Frosted Tips with Lance and Michael Turchinard and at Lance Bass for all your pop culture needs and make sure to write a review and leave us five stars six if you can see you next time,