I Am all In.
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Everybody, Scott Patterson, I Am all In Podcast one eleven productions, iHeart Radio, iHeart Podcast, iHeartMedia. One on one interview with John A. Kippellis. John played the role of orientation leader for one episode in two thousand and five in Fight Face Season six, episode two. As the orientation Leader, his bio is quite extensive. He's best known for his portrayals of Janitor Carl Red in The Breakfast Club and Detective Donald Shank in Forever Night. And alumnus of Second City, Chicago.
John theatrical work spans eight years from Second City's touring Company seventy eight to eighty two to six reviews as a member of the famed Resident Company eighty two to eighty six, and finally Second Citi's critically claimed returned to Off Broadway in Orwell That Ends Well in the former Village Gate in New York City. His appearances in three John Hughes film Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, and Weird Science earned him fame in the eighties as a character actor.
He's at over two hundred film and TV appearances and worked on television shows such as Miami Vice as a corup public Defender, Desperate Housewife, Queer's Folk, The X File, Seinfeld, Home Improvement, Dead Like Me, e R, Boston Legal. The list of the films he appears includes of Shape of Water, Legally, Blonde rocksand Nothing in Common, The Boost, Internal Affairs. I give you, John Cappellis, how are you? Nice to meet you?
Nice to meet you too, Thanks for coming on. I'm very very excited because you work your first your first gigs was maybe your first gig was working with Michael Mann.
Yeah, way back when. It was for a brief moment.
In Thief, one of my He's one of my favorite directors. It's one of my favorite movies.
I've got a wonderful movie coming out now right and which I guess I'm going to go to the screening soon. Have you seen it? Have you seen the new film? No is? What is Oh Ferrari? No?
I haven't seen it. I have not seen it, but I know there's going to be a heat too. It's like a prequel, so all very exciting stuff.
But listen, let's he's a pretty dynamic guy, and obviously you know, with Miami Vice and a lot of stuff. I mean, I'm glad to see him doing something, you know, in twenty twenty three. Right, he's kind of I guess, part of the older guard now right.
Right, right, Yeah, he's but he's still you know, intense and demanding and.
Nacious. He's a he's a he's a I think he's a a legendary filmmaker. I think he's you know, I think he's pretty darn good. You know, for sure, for sure that he doesn't need my affirmation. But you know, I, you know, I glanced off him. I you know, I honestly don't know whether he'd remember me, but I certainly
remember him. You know, these guys work with a lot of people, right, sure, sure, but not to say I mean, my my experience on Thief was not that it was pre memorable in that it was a beginning thing for me. I didn't do really much. I'm sort of barely in the film. But my my real experience, not necessarily with him, although with his his company was Miami Vice per season, right, right, I did. I did an episode in Miami of course.
Yeah, exciting series. It really took over television. It was kind of the series on TV when don't we?
Yeah, you know, and it was that you know, MTV cops sort of right, you know, slash thing. Right.
So when we watched fight Face and saw you playing the orientation leader, we we couldn't wait to have you on.
Uh.
Were you aware of the series before you were cast in that role?
Oh? Yeah, oh you were of Gilmore Girls, yes? Oh yeah, Oh. I think I think the show was, you know, especially the first season was such a splash, right, and you know, I also really loved, you know, the performances in it. I mean, for me, there was a yeah, I mean I was aware of it as that. But you know, nowadays, honestly, with Netflix and all a lot of the ubiquity of stuff, I'm not aware of everything. So it's it's not surprising to not be something right.
Right, right, right, for sure. But so you were aware of it, and I guess they contacted you the straight offer and it was did you know did they tell you that it was an homage to the breakfast club character at all or anything that you would have ever done.
No, there was a hint of that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean they were I think that it was there in the writing, so I think that, you know, the subtlety of that was not lost on me.
Right, So you got to work with Alexus. I think that's the only Gilmour actor you got to work with.
Right.
You were in two scenes with Alexis tell us her and it.
Was it was kind of you know, obviously not an intimate setting, right, Yeah, it was fun. I mean we shot it, I believe over Warner Brothers, right, right, you tell me because all the not that they all become the same room, but I remember it being Warner Brothers, and yeah, I mean it was. It was a pretty quick in and out for me. I wasn't you know, a huge you know, I think I was only in
for a day plus. But they were really nice, and you know, of course, you know the producers, you know, they're just sitting there watching and being really attentive and right giving their notes when they could.
How'd you get started in your acting career.
I did a play in high school. I did Guys and Dolls when I was in grade ten as we say in Canada, or tenth grade as basically in the United States. I grew up in London, Ontario, and yeah, and then you know it's I got bitten by the proverbial theater bug. And it's really true. I mean, when you when it happens to you, you sort of succumb And I sort of went for a few years thinking I was going to be something else. I went to university and college and thought I was going to be
an English professor. And then at one point I sort of came out of the closet my friends and family I wanted to be an actor, and a lot of people I remember when I first told my friends, I was around seventeen or then. They all I was we were playing baseball. I said, you know, I think I want to be an actor, and they all, I'll never forget this. Four or five of them fell on the green grass and laughed on their backs. So, you know, to all the kids and people missing out there, nobody
ever wants you to do this thing. You know, it's your own singular thing, you know, and everybody will always laugh at you. And indeed, you know, it was kind of laughable at the beginning, right, But you know, everybody, you know, unless you're really connected in show business, when you say you want to do something, you know, the kid at the age of whatever seven rate says I
want to be an actor. Well, you know, all their friends and family throw up their hands and go, well, you know, what are we going to do?
Very true, Very true. It is a common experience.
But but you know, the Back to the Gilmore Girls, I mean, the the the there was a kineticism on the set which I really liked.
And there are very very few times when you're working in a film or TV show when when you really get that. And I sort of want to mention that, because there's an energy when you work on shows that are particularly successful and also really really well written in people that you know, I don't know how to say it. It's kind of like, well, I do know how to say.
It's kind of like being being in the center of a very very quiet room where you know that there are a lot of people paying attention, and that's basically a film set, right right, right.
Interesting, that's an interesting observation.
My you know again, my memory of it was that was that I'm blanking on her name, the producer of her.
Amy Amy, because she's a good friend of a friend of mine and I always want to call her by my friend's wife's name, which.
Is a strange sort of fluidian thing. But Amy Amy is you know one of those people that doesn't let a fly go by her eye without you know, noticing what color jacket it has. You know, she's very, very attentive to detail. And the thing you realize around being really about being around really creative people is they have
a remarkable eye for detail. It's almost like being with a to take the fly analogy to turn it around, it's like being with an insect that has this amazing ability to see everything.
Mm hmm.
So there, you know, nothing goes unnoticed. Sorry, go ahead, and in a similar vibe, let's say to working my experience with working with John Hughes or something, or even Guermo del Toro. I mean, when you're working with people that are sort of at the top of the game, pretty offing good, right.
So you have so many TV and film credits, it's it took a while to get through the entire list.
Me too, just reading them.
Is the breakfast club uh more often the role you get recognized for.
You know, it's funny, it depends on the and I'm not being facetious, but it depends on how I look, or the day of the week, whatever, how I look more than anything. I mean sometimes if I've been if my hair is longer, if I'm maybe heavier, you know, putting on a roll for Raging Bull or something. People recognize me from Seinfeld too, the sniffing to either Seinfeld or the Breakfast Club or some John Hughes variant, which I'm lucky, you know, I'm I'm happy to be recognized.
There are actors I have met and ones that I have known totally escapes an me. What's going on in their heads when they get recognized. They get angry. It's like, really, my dad, I say that quite often. My dad had a small clothing store. And whenever I'm recognized, which is fairly frequently or infrequently whatever, you know, not to but you know, it happens. I they're immediately they're in my store, right, you know, they're all of a sudden, you're a customer
in my clothing store. And like, you know, I have no reason not to be nice to people that all of a sudden, you know, I saw you in something. It's like that. But again, there are other performers that I behave otherwise and it's a total head scratch to me why they do that. But that is not my m O. That's not how I'm wired. But it's most often I think Breakfast Club or I don't know. I mean, you know, there are lots of people that have never
seen the movie. You know, you meet there are fourteen, fifteen year olds, ten year olds, you know, twenty five year olds, thirty year olds that you know, that's an old movie to them.
Man, right, what do you remember about filming that movie? And I was over forty years ago, what do you remember filming that?
I remember a lot about that film because it was a seminal experience and it was, you know, one of the very first I had just done. I done miamif ice don't think I had even done.
Myne No, I don't think.
So.
You did Thief, and I think Breakfast Club right after that.
Yeah, and I had done a small, unremarkable turn in Tutsie and right, well that's a whole different story, right, that was not in the credits, and I protested that beginning you they Dustin and Billy Dot it was. I think Breakfast Club was was was rememorable because I was replacing an actor and they had been in there for a long time, and I had done a film before that with John sixteen Candles, and he had told me before that, oh, you're going to do the Breakfast Club.
I mean, I got this part in this movie. And then I saw in the trade papers that they were doing the movie and I went, oh, well, I guess that ship has sailed. And then literally the next day after I saw it in the papers, they I got a call up saying that they've changed their mind with regards to Rick Moranis, who was playing the part, and
was that right? Yeah, he had been cast and they shot for several days and Rick wanted to play the character as a Russian guy with thick accent and lots of gold teeth and big lot of keys between his legs, and John said, well, you know, actually the character was, you know, went to the school, and that's not the way we see it. So they really, you know, had a party of the waves, and that was fortuitous for me.
And I've never met nor talked to Rick Moranis about this, so you know, he's had a wonderful career and he's a great actor. So I was happy to pick up the crumbs. And I had been in New York working at the Village Gate and was second City at the time, So flew back into Chicago and shot for whatever eight days, five days, eight days and the Vectors Club, and it was a little bit like showing up. Yeah, you know, coming into a classroom in the middle of a semester
and he knows one another. It's like I'm the new kid. But a lot of my I mean a lot of my career is like that. You know, I show up on a TV show and then you know, I did Justified and they've shot five seasons and you know, I'm coming on as a guest so's you're always kind of an interloper when you're a guest actor.
Mm hmm.
Kind of get used to that. And you know, similar with Gilmore Girls. You know, you come in and as I only get to work with one of the main characters, and right, you know, you know, and I've worked on when I did suits, you know I did, and I've done a lot of That's kind of been my I want, I hate to say my career because I've done other stuff, but it's been a lot of my television career has been guest appearances on a lot of.
Yeah, I saw you have a lot of one episode you got a forty eight episode there on what was that You were on the series for a while. Oh, you were play the detective.
Right right right?
Forty eight episodes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was well, you know, that was the sort of thing you know forever Night. I credit you know a lot of things. It was really really a good experience in a lot of ways. And also I credit with it getting comfortable in front of a camera, you know, hitherto I mean when you talk about Thief and when I think about TOUTSI and those early experiences, even Miami Vice, when I worked on that, I didn't really really wasn't too savvy with what the camera was.
So if the camera was over my shoulder and it's shooting the person in front of me, you know where the computer is or where you are. If I tilt my head a little bit, then I'm blocking. So you have to be aware of the lens they've got and what they're shooting out tight they are and all that stuff. And on Miami Vice, I had a little experience where Don Johnson got a little bit ticked off at me because he thought I was messing with this close up when in fact I had no idea what the lens was.
Did you ever think that those movies that John Hughes films would blow up the way they have.
You know, it's funny. I mean to answer this in the long lens. When my dad, when I first told my dad I was going to be an actor, my dad was kind of you know, he was a good guy who was intelligent, and he had he had a bit of a futuristic view. He said, you know, John, not a bad choice because there's going to be more room for there's going to be more room for entertainment in the future, leisure time, I thought, you know, and
he was right. So my hope in the early eighties, you know, cable was burgeoning, and my thought when I did the movie is like, god, I hope they show this on cable. You know. That was my immediate Like they hope that you know, there's this new thing called cable. It was nineteen eighty three, Like, I just hope that shit they show this on you know, cable TV, and maybe you know, they'll show the movie there as well
as in the movie themes. But to answer your question, whenever anybody, you know, and I was twenty seven when I did The Breakfast Club twenty whatever, you know, you always think, God, I hope that this is going to be, you know, a member forever. And as Woody Allen I read recently said, you know, nothing's going to be remembered forever.
You know. That's so as much as I thought this is going to do well after sixteen Candles with John Hughes, I thought, yeah, you know, this guy's got some juice in this biss you know, and there was a vibe around him that, you know, things were happening, so thought, but I had no real idea my experience when I first saw the movie, The Breakfast Club was in a
suburban theater in Chicago with an audience. There's a beautiful theater, a huge theater filled with teenagers, and I sat in the middle of that and I went, Holy shit, is this is It was like being in the middle of a wave, right, It's sort of like a Holy Moly. And that's when I thought, Wow, this movie's got some power.
Little did I know, and you know, the movie's got issues in terms of, you know, there are some things with it that that are not perfect, but you know, teenage years are not perfect, and slutshaming and all that stuff will continue to go on regardless of people thinking it's incorrect, which it is. But you know, behavior will not stop. Bad behavior will not stop, or marginal behavior. So you know what happens with me with the movie is that it happened to me when you know a
lot of my friends had kids they were younger. Now it's happening to me with my friends grandkids. Is you know, some kid will be born and it'll blubber till the age of three or four, and then I'll I'll know it till the age of nine or ten, and all of a sudden, my friend will pull me said, Hey, my son Jeff just turned thirteen and saw The Breakfast Club and now wants to speak to you, like, all of a sudden, I haven't been on the map for
fourteen years. With my friends kids and then all of a sudden, you know, they go, I just saw this movie, you know, John, you know, and that's when the movie sort of all of a sudden, I go, wow, you know, it's kind of a coming at age thing. And I know this is a long answer for you, but you know, when I grew up in the sixties, the movies for
teenagers were shit for the most part. I mean, there was Disney stuff and all the stuff that was like, you know, supposed to speak to you, like generational stuff. There's this movie Wild in the Streets. It was they talked down. They were written by old guys in la that had no idea how to talk to teenagers. And that was John Hughes's appeal because John Hughes basically said,
he one of my analogies. He was kind of like the hip Arlie Brown and that, you know, the adults were all and he was just talking to yeah, teenagers for better for worse.
Interesting. What are you working on now?
Boom boom? Interesting, I've managed to I'm working on the soap opera. I just finished a round, right. I saw that days of our lives have been playing this Greek character named Constantine. I came on, did one episode last year. Then John John Aniston sadly died and they decided to bring my character back and make him a real thing and an experience. And it's probably coming to an end soon.
It's a lot of work and a lot of page a lot of pages per day.
Well, I mean, I'm glad you're you know, you know it's I never condescended the work. It's a soap, right, so it's got it's its own meat him. But man, oh man, it has been challenging, and a lot of the actors on the show are quick to tell me. You know, there are a lot of actors that have come in here and just run kicking and screaming and can't do it. So I'm just happy that I can do it.
All right, So we're going to do something called rapid fire.
You ready, I'm here?
Does it doesn't mean you have to answer these questions quickly that we just call it rapid fire. Don't ask me why you can tell your time? How do you like your coffee?
It's a bit strong, but I kind of like it.
Are you team Logan, Team Jess or team Dean? If you know what that means?
Logan Paul.
Logan on the show?
Because I had kids that liked Logan Paul many years ago and I found it, I would say team Logan.
Yeah. Uh, who's your favorite Gilmore Girls couple? Luke and Laureli are Emily and Richard, Luke and Laura? Would you rather work with Michelle or Kirk?
Well, Michelle, what.
Would you order at Luke's Diner?
Uh? Now, this is the one where I'm like you know, I grew up in Greek restaurants. Good choice.
Would you rather hang out with Paris or Lane Lane, Harvard or Yale? Or drop out and live in a poolhouse?
Well, I'm I'm my brother went to Harvard and Yale? Mm hmm, nor what was it? What is it? Or drop out and live in a poolhouse?
Right, because that's what Rory did?
Yeah? Yeah, No, No, I don't I want to. I don't approve it. I dropped out once many years and as an adult. Now now, okay, I have to.
Read, so Harvard gets the nod?
Okay?
Would you rather attend daar event with Emily or a town meeting with Taylor?
Oh, I'd rather go to a dar event. I'd want to check that out. Okay, that would be all right. I'd have to be muzzled. I agree. I agree.
I've been in those town hall meetings. They're hot, sweaty places that take all data.
Shoot.
Gilmore Girls characters, gill More Girl characters that you would want as a roommate.
Do I really have to choose? You do?
John? Yes? You too?
You must of all of them?
Just one, just one, Laura, okay, something in your life you are all in on what something in your life you are all in on? Parkins back to the scene where Luke says he's all in with Laurel I with the relationship. I'm in. I'm all in, hence the name of the podcast.
So what are you all in?
It sounds like if you want to live with Laurel I, then you're all in on Laurel I too, and we have a common goal.
Yeah, I think I'm all in on that. But yeah, let's leave it at that, because that's that's that's just straining my Okay, it's what time is. It's ten o'clock in the morning here, Okay, I'm gonnagund.
And what am I doing to you so early? That's funny, John, It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time.
Bye, dot.
Hey, everybody to forget.
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