James Wolk

0:00Hey, this is James Wolk and you're watching MSN Exclusives. Hey, Mark. I'm back. Hahaha. You ready to get serious? This is gonna get serious. I'm gonna bend somebody. I got him on the rope. He's in there again. Come on, bring it, Gumbi. You got knocked out by a girl. So this is gonna be like the runaway hit of the year, man. This is the big one. This is exciting. Yeah? Is it? How come? I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. How come? You know, I haven't done a broadcast comedy in this regard before.

0:46So for me, it's thrilling to be working with this group of people with this material. It takes place in the Ad world, again, for you. Yes. I just saw you become a very like goody-two-shoes, Bob Benson, very happy dude. Yes, he is a very happy guy. He's a very happy guy. How does this Ad world compare to that? This Ad world is, it's in 2013. We're in Chicago. So it's modern. And it takes place at this high-profile, powerful agency in Chicago with a lot of huge clients coming in in our pilot episode. Kelly Clarkson comes in, we try to get her to do a jingle, hilarity ensues. I wanna change my image. So I'll do your commercial, but I wanna sing about sex. Ooh.

1:31We are so fine with that. Perfect. You sing with her too, don't you? I do sing with her. Very deep voice, very baritone. Yeah, that's my voice. Is it? Okay, you sing with your train singer? I did some shower singing. I didn't know I had that deep baritone in me, but it came out for the show. Did the director tell you to go deep? Did you go deep out of that? We actually, when we shot that, it was kind of like just go, we went to a music studio and I didn't really know what I was gonna do. And I opened my mouth and that came out. It's very low. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's very low, it's a very low voice. Kind of sexy. How does a David E. Kelly script compared to a Matthew Weiner script?

2:16David E. Kelly is incredible. I mean, two totally different writers, two prolific writers and creators. This script, the crazy ones, the pilot script, it has so much heart to it and also has so much comedy in it. I mean, he balances that beautifully. He's really incredible. Do you have more? I hear on Mad Men, it's very like, you gotta say the word this way. It's than not then and that kind of thing. Yes. Do you have a little more leeway with something like this? Yes, on Mad Men, you really adhere to the words. I mean, you really, you don't stray at all. I mean, if it says the, you say the, I mean, that's out of respect for the amazing writers and the kind of the ship that they run there. And on the crazy ones, the writing is just as incredible, but there's a lot of encouragement to improv and go off the lines and come back to the lines and it's a really loose,

3:06fun environment, which is, I think, the perfect ground for comedy. There's a boss. Secret sauce. I'm trying to drive through the loving. Booty shake, booty shake, booty shake, booty shake. You didn't give me enough. Catch a packet. Oh my God, that's so hard. Is Robin Williams able to stay on the lines? Or is he just go off and you're just sitting there laughing? Can Robin Williams improv? I don't even know that he does that. From what I'm told, yeah. Yeah, I guess I heard that he does that. You know, he, I mean, he's incredible. He can fly off in a million directions, but he's also, as his body of work shows, this incredible dramatic actor. So he can turn on a dime.

3:51I mean, in the show, the heart of the show lies between him and Sarah Michelle Geller. They play father and daughter, Sydney and Simon Roberts. And what he does so beautifully, I think, as an actor is he can go from a ten-term moment to comedy from one to a hundred and just a split second. How are you sitting there on set with that? It's amazing to watch. It's amazing to be a part of it. You must be part of it. Yeah, I think, you know, it's an amazing thing to be around. I've always thought that, you know, it doesn't get much better than him, so to be working with him is a dream come true. Is that what drew you to the script or was there something about Zack that you identified with? Yeah, you know, it's a combination of things. The character of Zack Cropper is a great character and one that I haven't been able to play before. He's a, like a real lathario and fanciese himself, a ladies man and is incredibly cocky and in a funny way. Zack slips around and hears things.

4:36He may have even slept with somebody here in this room. Show of hands, who here slept with Zack? And then you couple that great character with the auspices of the show and who created it and David Ekely, Robin Williams, we had an amazing cast. It just was kind of a dream part. Kelly Clarkson's talking about seeing where you and Robin got to riff with each other. Yeah. What's that like? Can you, was it hard to keep up? Yeah, the scene with it, Robin and I, we had two scenes where we were able to just kind of riff off each other. The second scene was, we just trusted each other because we had already done it before. But the first night that we riffed, you know, it was a big scene. We're pitching Kelly and coming over and doing an ad for us and we just started going and it's kind of like music. It's like singing a song and you kind of get your rhythm and you kind of get your pace and

5:24we just kind of took off together and it was, I think I came up for air like four hours later and kind of did like a holy shit moment. Thursday's at nine. Thursday's at nine. Look at me. I love doing that. Isn't she beautiful? Give your mother's eyes. Dad. Do that thing that reminds me of her. Please, just once, it's so cute. I'm leaving you. That's it. That's her. Feel like I'm back in court. Take half. Lauren, do not encourage him. What? We still got it. You handsome son of a bitch. Who's got the light bulb now, my man?