You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI A M six forty.
You are the best, or I would not have selected you. Our mission could prevent another nine to eleven foreign players planning with your noble level of that here.
In Los Angeles, nobody can know what we're working on.
We've done if you want a couple of months. Yeah, in Bob, you almost shot me here, but I didn't. I thought it looked really good. Really no, right, we're working to stop the weapon of mass destruction. They were just here. I got one mistake. We are dead showtime. Okay, No, you care about me? No, it's very sweet. They don't play the bubo question. We I'll play this however you want to play it? What the consequences?
I Am six forty is Later with mo Kelly alive everywhere on the iHeartRadio app and YouTube. An LAPD officer joins a secret task force to investigate a suspicious murder, but uncovers a sinister plot that requires a team to unite and save millions like right here in La Merrick MacArthur can be seen right now in the hit new Prime video series Countdown as Da Grayson Vowwell, but you may also know him from the CW series All American
from Netflix's Unstable opposite Rob Low. Countdown's first three episodes are now available, with episode four dropping tomorrow. Is my pleasure to welcome Merrick MacArthur to the show right now, sir.
How you doing this evening? Great? Great? Really have pleasure to be here, Monk.
I have to tell you because whenever I run into someone from Detroit, there's this almost like this secret handshake where they ask, like, what high school did you go to? Okay, I'm not from Detroit, but my mother's family's from Detroit and she went to cast Tech. She's watching right now on YouTube. Great, So what why high school did you go to?
Detroit? I went to cast Tech?
Oh, of one of the best science schools in America.
Yes, and now a prominent football school. Is that right? I did not know that. Yeah, oh yeah, they're producing them in cast Tech.
I got to ask, though, because given you your math and science inclination, you came from a household of not one, but two Detroit police officers.
What was that like growing up? So? What strict? They were already strict, but then making them cops? It was just they ain't set a lot of great values to me, being honest, good, hardworking police officers in town. So they were known. They graduated the same night at the police Academy and at the time they got in amongst a wave of new black police officers in Detroit after the riots had happened, you know, maybe a decade before that.
They came in and they were part of this new wave of let's really have the police represent more of the community. And yeah, they they they applied at the same time and they graduated the academy of I think they were the first married couple to ever graduate the
academy together. Aren't there rules against that? They never worked in the same precinct Okay, yeah, they never They never worked together in it, and they were they were always separate, separate, you know, separate groups SEFN precincts all the time.
What type of wisdom, what type of advice were they imparting to you? Do you have any siblings?
I do, Yeah, I have three sisters, and they're all younger. I'm the oldest. My father was a very strong, you know, masculine, blue collar type of guy, so he always instilled those masculine you know protective instincts in me about my family, it's particularly my sisters. And what about your mother? Given have sisters, three sisters. I think my mother was stronger will than my father.
So who was the who was who wielded the hand of discipline?
As all they both were, they were both a very well coordinated disciplinary parent group. They had it together. They had together.
I set that up because you went to CAST Tech and you go on to college I believe it was the University of Michigan. Yes, and then you go to work as an engineer and you're working on space satellites as an electrical design engineer after you graduated college.
Did I get all that right? That's right, that's right.
I'm waiting for how the hell does you don't see the logical progressions? It is scientifically sensible way through the scientific method.
It's obvious. Next step is to be a struggling actor for three or four years after the age of thirty. After the after the age of thirty, after it, I didn't know anything. So I studied engineering and electronics in high school at CASTS and at cast it also had a really strong creative arts program, dance, acting. All this stuff was there, so I kind of got into the theater stuff when I was at CAST and I loved it.
I loved it, but I also knew that I had a strong propensity from math, and I just you know, and you know, my parents, my family. It's like, hey, you know, Detroit, you get a job. You know, you have a steady job. There was no risk involved in a thinking about a job, so acting was out. I thought it was fine, blah gah. But later, like after I became an engineer and being so regimented with everything, I just felt like I'd never want to go through life and wonder what if But you were an engineer
in California? Right? Yes, where were you working? If you're allowed to tell us? The original was a company called Space Electronics, and then it went to a company called Maxwell Technologies, and we designed computer systems for South Lights. I feel inadequate. So I was a design engineer for this building computer systems that were specifically designed to survive the space environment.
I say all that to say, and I want to hear about your background. Of course I've read up on it, but I wanted other people to hear it because you seem like you would come from this very regimented, segmented, directed background, which doesn't allow for the realm of creativity and free expression to grow. Yes, you might have taken some acting in theater in high school, but what was it always pulling at you along the way, like, look, I have this.
Itch I just need to scratch. It was because the first inkling I had was in elementary school. Actually went to a place called Quarters Elementary which is no longer there, and one class, the teacher had all of us come up one by one and do what I now know to be an improv Skit just individual come up and just say anything. And I was petrified because I was always shy and a bookworming kid. And I get up
there and it just something happened. It just clicked. The class is going nuts laughing at whatever I was doing. I was like, you know, putting. I was on a phone call with someone's something I just made up on the spot, and that gave me the knowledge that, hey, I have something else. It's not just the books for me.
There's something else there. And so when I got the cast, it continued on and I knew I had this love for it, but I didn't pursue it because the risk factor, And you know, when you grew up in Detroit, you're being a black manatory you don't there's the risk factor. You need to have something that's going to be more for sure.
Well I understand that, and maybe that was the function of my mother and her Detroit roots, because the whole idea. I went to Georgetown University and then I wanted to work in the in the music industry, and they're like, what the what you trying to do?
What? Yeah, the uncertainty of entertainment.
But when you came to California, was it ever in the back of your mind that I'm in quote unquote La. Why do I just maybe send up some smoke signals and see what type of response I get?
Yeah, that kind of happened a little bit because I was in San Diego, which isn't the big LA market, but they were filming some TV shows in San Diego at the time, and I was like, you know, maybe you know, see you know, and I got a big response. I got an agent right away. I met a couple actors. They are like, yeah, Mick, you could you could really
study and improve and grow in this. And so I started, you know, dipping, going further and further into the pool, so to speak, and then I got an Asian la and you know, you know, it doesn't happen that easily, you know that, right, I That's not usually how it got I heard, you know, it told me to say that was it was easy. I mean, maybe it's maybe me finding out and realizing this is something that I could really do that I felt like I really had a shot at might have been sort of easy for
me to figure out about myself. But I think the row was hard, you know, from from the beginning for me because I, you know, you you learning. I didn't know anything about the business at all at all. I knew, were you taking acting classes? I hadn't started that yet. I didn't start until you had an agent before you started acting classes. I did not. Well, it was kind of at the same time, okay, yeah, it was kind
oft the same time. I was. I had a friend that was an actor and they knew some agents, and like the first acting class I did, they did a showcase and the agent games, yes, I definitely want to sign Merek for my agency. So that was kind of the first showcase. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, it doesn't happen like that. Well, I feel like in a pool as small as San Diego maybe, but yeah, I get that, that's okay. I hadn't thought of that before.
But then outside of looking in you know, I know you're not an overnight sensation, but there's some things which happened starting later in the game, in your thirties, it's easier for people to pass you over.
Again, I didn't know about the business well and to know that would be a major factor. And looking back, people are like, wow, you started when because aidents stop signing people at twenty five. Oh yeah, so I and I guess maybe that sort of helping with that. I didn't know that I was supposed to not make it after I started thirty, but I did. I felt like I wanted to go forward to something I truly love, and that's what really kept me moving throughout this whole journey.
My guest right now in studio is Merk MacArthur. He is playing da Grayson Valwell on the new Prime video series Countdown.
Three episodes are available right now. Episode four drops tomorrow.
More with Merrick MacArthur in Just a Moment It's later with mo Kelly k if I Am six forty Live everywhere on YouTube and the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
K IF I Am six forty. This is Later with Mo Kelly.
We're live on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and the iHeartRadio app. I'm right now in the middle of conversation with actor Merreck MacArthur. We're talking about the new Prime video series Countdown, and he stars as Da Grayson Vowwell. If three episodes are already available, you need to go check it out. It's really good, full of action and adventure from all
around the world. It's a lot of intrigue. You don't know who to trust, you don't know who to believe, you don't know who's a good guy or a bad guy. And Marck MacArthur, I'm still trying to figure you out.
I'm the DA of Los Angeles.
Oh so being the DA of Los Angeles means you're a good guy. Let's not talk about real life.
Wait wait, hit a second, it's a fun show man.
I got to ask, though, did the law enforcement aspect of your family in any way influence your character?
Sure? Sure, but also the political of their politicians in Detroit when I was growing up, and I'll talk about Coleman Young. Hey, you know what Home and y'all alone? That was the man the years years, Yes, yes, years. So yeah, I kind of model a bit off of off of that. But I think in general my career, I feel like, I'm not sure how, but I play detective cop a lot. And I was with I was
on Curby Enthusiasm. I was talking to JB. Smooth, who hangs out in Neutral all the time, and we're talking and I was like, so, what are you think of my pulling off? Is? Oh, man, you look like a cop? You know JB's talk. I was like, freeze, all man, you definitely like a cop. So, uh yeah, I just it's something that just comes across from me. I'm not sure if it's my parents or just I don't know. Well, let me take a quote from you to better explain that. You said.
Acting isn't all pretending you're someone else. Acting is finding the parts of the character that are are authentically you. Acting isn't lying, it's telling the truth, Oh, Kelly, doing the research.
Yes, yes, yes, that's why I asked the question.
You know, are you pulling from somewhere where obviously you are pulling from somewhere which is informing da Grayson Falwell.
Yes, yes, I think like you said, it's something that's truthful within you, and so I look at the circumstances where we are in this story. But I'm also working with the actual person, which in a lot of cases in the series is Eric Daine, who you know, he's just this steely FBI chief and he doesn't want to give anything of what he's thinking at all. And so that was like something I took as a personal chance because I'm trying to get in with him, you know,
and that was a thing. And Eric himself is a legend on TV, yes, and I'm brand new that he's writing. Don't know me from Adam, And so when I'm up there acting in the first time, at least the first scenes we did, it was really that it was that feeling of I want this. I want Eric to know that I'm good, that I'm with him, and that was something I was honest within me that I put into the performance. Let's talk about countdown.
We played some of the trailer at the beginning of our conversation, and we know that there is an undercover agent who was killed in broad daylight. I'm just telling you a little bit of the first episode. And then there is this task force which is brought together, this interdepartmental task force. You got some FBI people, you have an LAPD contingent who've all been brought together to figure out what happened. And then in trying to figure out
what happened, there a whole nother story unfurls. Yes, take it from there, as far as we don't want to give everything away.
Sure, sure, there there just seems to be a lot more going on than initially suspected by the team. But it turns out that you know, Ery Dane might have known. We're not sure if you knew he might have known. We're not sure about that. But yeah, there's a lot more going on. It affects a lot more important people. And uh yeah, we're we're on the ride. I mean that first episode, you're on the right.
To ride on the right and they don't tell like it starts off in a prison, but you I don't know what's going on, and you're they drop hints. It's like, oh, this person is not who they're presenting themselves to us. And I think that's a recurring theme. Eric Dane is someone who fills up the screen. He's he's eminently watchable. You see him in a thousand things, and every time you see him, you're just focused in on him. He commands,
he has that screen presence. But I'm not so sure about him his character in this.
That he's on the up and up. Not only three episodes. Yeah, but you know, yeah, good points, good observations there. Yeah, I'm just saying I trust no one. Yeah, he's got that. It's got the element when you really aren't sure. What aren't sure? I mean, yeah, there's there's certain characters that turn out to be not on the side of good, and this show takes you through finding out who these people are and aren't, and you're gonna have your suspicions and that's just part of this ride that the show
takes you on. Obviously, Jensen Ackles is an actor I enjoy.
I saw him more recently as Soldier Boy in The Boys, and it's like you recognize him. It's like, oh, yeah, I remember him from the Boys. And he has a lot of ry, dry humor. You know, he says all the inappropriate things and it makes it fun. I say that to say how much improv is going on?
Oh, A fair amount, Okay, I mean I didn't shoot really any scenes with but I talked to him and seeing what he's saying about the show. Fair amount and it's funny too. About the show is when I finally was able to tell people I'm on this show. Usually I'm like, hey, getting the congratulations on that show. This time, everybody's like, Jensen Ackles.
That was it.
It was like Jensen Ackles exclamating boy x mex boy question mark. That was the response. He is the star of the show and he carries it very well. He leads this crew, this cast, and he's he's just a great guy all around. I met him on Steff for the first time and he couldn't be more generous.
What is what are some of the fun parts of doing a series like this that people like me and everyone else who's never done a TV show would want to know the.
Fun parts about? You mean, actually, this work, but.
At the same time, you probably have some fun in doing it. Is it something that you have a freedom to make that part your own on some level or is it something.
Else you do you do? I mean, Derek hass is a showrunner, and he's from you know, the Chicago Mad Chicago Pago Fire. Maybe that's why I liked this because I love all the Chicago series. Yeah, so he from the start gave me a lot of freedom to kind of make it my own. Very few notes, if anything, it was like, you know, blocking notes or you know, don't wear the jacket here or something, but the acting notes. No, it was he's he gives you a lot of freedom to that fun. A lot of the guys did. A
lot of the guys did a lot of stuff. A fair amount was not scripted. Scripted, but yeah, I'm sure I changed up a few things too, and they were fine. I added some things, they were fine, Okay, Yeah, Yeah, it's it's it's one of the experiences as an actor where you love because you can truly create and creating your own thing and bringing your true self into something and it still it still tells the story the right way. My guest in studio right now is actor Merick MacArthur.
We're talking about Countdown, the hit series, which is available right now on Prime Video. Three episodes have dropped. Episode number four drops is at midnight. I know it's tomorrow, it's midnight. It's midnight, so I'll have something to watch as soon as I get home tonight and before I forget. I know, people are know more about you now than before when we started. But how can they get in touch with you? How can they reach out with you? How can they go on this journey with you?
Oh, I'm on social media. I'm on Instagram at the real Marck MacArthur and so on Instagram on Facebook also. I mean that's kind of you know, family, close friends, but I'm certainly you know, put things out there as well, and Blue Sky as well.
All right, Yeah, we'll have more in just a moment. Kaf I Am six forty It's Later with mo Kelly. We're live everywhere on YouTube, Instagram and the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Kf I AM six forty It's Later with mo Kelly Live on YouTube, Instagram and the iHeartRadio app. At my guest and studio is Marck MacArthur. We've been talking about the new Prime video show. It's really good. Countdown and three episodes have been released. Episode four. We've been going back and forth and so like midnight is about nine pm, which is midnight on the East Coast.
But it'll be available by tomorrow.
Yes, so watch the first three episodes if you have it already, and then you'll be ready for episode four.
But your backstory is just fascinating to me.
Not only did you arrive at this point later in life, not only do you have some common roots with me?
What is this this I'll say this. I don't want to call it an obsession, but this fascination with kung fu? Oh really, so you should know this. And Detroit growing up when I was a little shoot, my cousins and I we would take the bus to the Fox Theater which is downtown Detroit. You have to tell me. And they had like a yeah, yes, I had three pictures. But you could be there all day. You bought you paid a dollar, you could be there all day watching
comft movies if you wanted to. And so they had like the Shaw Brothers movies and uh, you know you Uh, it's been a thing. And I think maybe since I was a little kid, because at the time, when I was a little kid, my dad took me to see uh. I think it was Game of Death and Game of it had been released all three, Yeah, but I think
it had been released already. But it was a thing where every year they would re show, like Game of Death or whatever, the End of the Dragon in the theater in Detroit, and there would be a line around the block every year. Every year. Everyone it was like a thing to do to go see the Bruce Lee movie. So from then I was hooked. So when I got to be a little bit older and my cousin, I'd go to the Fox Theater and watch comfu movies. That
was it. It was like it was interesting and it looked cool, and uh, it was like fighting, so cool fighting. So I always wanted to study kung fu since I was a little kid, but there were no kung fu schools in Detroit when I was growing out. But you eventually found your with When I eventually found I moved to San Diego and there's a couple of kung fu schools down there, one in particular that I went to, and uh it was It's Shaolin Green Dragon kung Fu.
And I started studying again as an old man, but over you know, in my twenty somethings that you know.
It's a beautiful thing, and I I want to live my life in a way that when all of a sudden done, I want to be able to say that I don't have any what ifs, I wonder what if or I wish I would have. I can say I've done it, may not have even liked it, but I can say that I've done it, I've experienced it, I've pushed myself to it.
And martial arts has always been one of those things for me. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh, you know, there's a beauty to it, elegance, it's entertaining, but it's also it's a it's a it's a life along to me as well as I learned as I studied it. So yeah, I agree with you. I was. It's been a favorite life. So that means we need to get a role for you in which you're a detective or fight white, you know the show we get on the Phone. Yes, okay, so.
That's that's a part of your wish list. As far as what possibly you would want to do in the future, I would I would love to star in a major production in a Marshall in some sense. Yeah, that I would.
I think for me my demeanor, it would be a surprise that I knew come from. If you one of those guys, Oh shoot, this dude knows come.
Well, can't you like just go up to the director and say, hey, you know, is there any way that you could just write in like a little choreography, kung fu choreography where maybe Eric Dane comes here and he tries to make a move with me and I kick him in his face or something.
Yeah, let me see how that was. Let me see. I mean Eric's Eric's are pretty savvy, dude. I wouldn't I wouldn't doubt he has the moves already, but it wasn't in the vein of the show for me to do that. You've got you know, people like Uli and Yante, those guys, and and and Jessica Camancho and uh, well they can get down. Oh yeah, yeah, I agree. I mean they they they know how to do it. So but my character, I'm more of a I'm a I'm a politician.
I use my my.
Words, my your wills of persuasion. Yeah, before we get out of here, we close out this conversation.
I know you can't give away where the totality of the countdown storyline goes.
Has there been any discussion of renewal. At this point, there's been discussed. It's been discussed as to whether or not there will be a season two. Absolutely, I'm sure that Eric is down and and Derek Coss is down, so and everyone else is down. I'm sure to do the season two.
I know it could be hard, though, because you put all the work into this season, and I know this is more just emblematic of the landscape of streaming or even broadcast television where tomorrow's not promised in a creative sense. And you know, I know when I watch a series, I get emotionally attached to not only the characters, but also the show, the storyline. You talk about the Chicago shows,
I'm emostally attached to all of them. But I've also been lucky enough like all the other fans to know that there's another season.
There are plenty of seasons.
And do you here's the question, do you, as an actor get emotionally attached to the characters or is it are they disposable to you? It's like, oh, it's just a job, move on to the next world.
Oh no, No, I'm attached to the characters, yeah, because when they're part of me, like really that's how acting works. That you're giving. You're putting yourself into this, so you can't really let it go. And if something that's been moving you throughout the performance, whether it's on screen or on stage, you take it with you. There's plays I've done, yeah,
decade ago, that I still take with me. So you, I mean, you could probably try to push it aside, you know, but there are things you're going to take with you, and that's one of the beautiful things about being an actor. That's one of the things that she will take with you.
But I want you to leave something here because I know someone is listening right now who's either at the beginning of his or her career or maybe a little bit later in their life, and thought about this as a career as you did.
What would you recommend to him, her, they, them, whoever. I think I always say to remember that this is a journey and don't expect to come in, you know, making a big splash where you're like the next Will Smith all of a sudden. I think you gotta love acting first. If this is what you want to do, love that first, Know you love that first, and then know that you're going to have to persevere to have,
you know, any kind of commercial success with it. But as long as you have that love the acting, you'll have the you'll have the motivation to keep going because you're going to need that. You're gonna need that. And also know the business. Acting schools are fantastic, fantastic, fantastic, but very if you teach you the business and the business is something different, it is something different, and you
got to know that going in. You want to know that as soon as you can, rather because that will help you knowing how the business works.
Do you have one more question? Do you still have pinch me moments? I can say this, even though I've done this for many, many years. I get a kick out of oh that's me on the radio, or if I hear a commercial I've done, or if I see something which may be replayed from a political commentary I've done. I still have these pinch me moments, whereas like I'm living the dream and I'm self aware that I'm in the middle of living the dream.
Do you have those moments? Oh? Absolutely, I think the first time I saw myself on the big screen pinched me. And even recently when my publicistm manager, my wife and I went to the premiere and they just flashed me on the screen. I was like, Oh, that's me, and it was.
It was.
It's one of those things, you know, and that's part of the love of it, you know.
Maric MacArthur, I could speak to you all night, but I know you got other stuff to do, and I know that you have other work to do. Probably go home so you can watch yourself an episode.
Four which I am in, which I am in. Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's been, you know, so nice to be invited out here to talk to you. And I know you've had great guests on here before, and I'm happy to be included in that history with your show. Whenever you want to come back, if you have something that you're working on, you are, Oh I do here, I do. Okay.
That means we don't have to make it happen, right, Yeah, we could do that. Yeah, he is Mark MacArthur. I have a pleasure speaking with him. The show is obviously countdown. It's available right now on Prime Video. Three episodes are available. Episode four is coming up. Let's say it just in a few hours, you know.
Bye. Bye tomorrow. It'll be there for you. Yes, midnight on the West coast. We're confirmed. Yes, we're sure. We're pretty sure. Oh okay, all right, good good see you, Sue, my friend, Thank you so much.
It's letter with Mokelly Kiff. I am six forty. We live everywhere the iHeartRadio app A s
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