I finally have a bit of a breather and some time to get back to posting Sci-Fi Blasts From The Past. Again, these are interviews that previously appeared in print only and never on-line. Today, the talented, gregarious and always-engaging Adam Baldwin talks about playing Chad Shelten in the short-lived ABC series Day Break. Enjoy!
The phrase “having a bad day” takes on an entirely new meaning in the upcoming ABC series Day Break. When Detective Brett Hopper is framed for the murder of Assistant District Attorney Alberto Garza, he goes on the run, and in doing so discovers that the lives of those he cares about most are also in danger. Hopper then wakes up and relives the same day over and over again. In order to break this cycle, he must find out who framed him and piece together the mystery surrounding Garza’s death. Among those caught up with him in this recurring day from hell is Chad Shelten, played by Adam Baldwin.
“In the pilot episode of Day Break we first meet my character of Shelten while he’s interviewing Hopper [Taye Diggs] about a situation involving him and his partner that’s a bit shady,” explains Baldwin. “While that’s going on, Hopper is accused of killing the assistant DA, and Chad is basically giving him crap for that.
“So my character is introduced as kind of a wise guy, but there’s more to him than that. Chad is an internal affairs investigator for the LAPD [Los Angeles Police Department], and he’s also Hopper’s ex-partner as well as Hopper’s girlfriend Rita Shelten’s [Moon Bloodgood] ex-husband. We’re painting him as a guy who graduated from Notre Dame and whose hobbies include things such as scientific theories of quantum mechanics. Chad is someone who very much plays by the book. He’s logical and practical, but he’s got a bit of an ego that sometimes gets in the way.”
It was earlier this year while making the rounds for pilot season in Los Angeles that Baldwin first became aware of Day Break. He received the script, liked the Chad Shelten character and decided to audition. “I just went in and did my thing,” says the actor. “I met with the producers, read a couple of scenes and they seemed to like what I did. Following that I had a callback where I read for the studio and the network, which in this case is Touchstone and ABC. They both responded positively and subsequently offered me the job.
“One of the things I found especially interesting is the research we did prior to filming the pilot,” continues Baldwin. “We had the opportunity to meet with several representatives from the LAPD such as detectives, sergeants and internal affairs people. In doing so, I learnt that with this type of job you have two career tracks. Everyone basically starts out together in boot camp at the police academy, and after graduating you go out on the street in uniform. Then after a few years you decide whether you’re going to veer off into training where you become a sergeant in the field, or take more of a promotional track that allows you to climb higher up the ladder into supervisory roles. With the latter you’re less tactical and more of a bureaucrat.
“My character of Chad is more on the bureaucrat track, whereas Taye Diggs’ character is focused on the tactical one. As an internal affairs agent, Chad investigates cops when they break the rules, so his and Hopper’s relationship can occasionally be adversarial. Conversely, they’re both trying to catch the bad guys and keep the system going. Sometimes the rules are bent out of necessity. Ideally, if you want to catch a criminal and it’s just a matter of bending one stupid rule in order to get him, well, OK. So there are definitely shades of gray in their profession, even though you have the black and white of the law on the page, do you see what I mean? So it’s up to internal affairs to look at each individual case and decide, ‘Do I have to bust him [this officer] down for this, even though he got his man, or can I let him off this time,’ It’s a fascinating moral struggle to play.”
Having previously been a regular on TV shows, the filming of Day Break is very much routine for Baldwin, but no less demanding. “The challenge of a TV series, at least as far as I’m concerned, is maintaining a positive attitude as well as outlook,” notes the actor. “By that I mean over time in the production of a TV show you run out of time. Early on you get scripts ahead of time and have days, sometimes weeks, to prep for the scenes you’ll be shooting for the first episode or two.
“Once you get into the run of a show, the schedule becomes tighter and tighter. When that starts to happen, you have to make sure to keep playing the positive and not indicate any anger, panic desperation, etc. That’s the trap that some actors can sometimes fall into if they don’t have enough prep time or if they haven’t had the years, hopefully, of confidence building that allows you to play that positive. Bottom line, what you have to do is buckle down and tell yourself, Right, this is my job,’ and just face things head-on.”
Among Sci-Fi fans, Baldwin is probably best known as Jayne Cobb in Joss Whedon’s short-lived but critically-acclaimed TV series Firefly. The actor recently reprised the role in the feature film Serenity. His other genre work includes guest-spots on Stargate SG-1, The Outer Limits and VR.5 as well as recurring roles on The Visitor, The X-Files and Angel, in which Baldwin played Marcus Hamilton.
“Angel was a real blessing and I’m extremely grateful to Joss for that,” says the actor. “Firefly was cancelled right before Christmas of 2002 and then 2003 turned out to be a tough one for me work-wise. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a pilot, so it was a bit of a scramble for the whole year, but you scrape by. When Angel came along it was like, ‘Great, some really good work,’ and that allowed me to then have a few weeks off to train before starting Serenity.
“I absolutely loved playing the Marcus character on Angel. Joss originally described him to me as a well-dressed, well-spoken Jayne Cobb, and I thought, ‘OK, cool. I’ll shave, put on a nice suit, and off I go.’ Again, the way that Marcus was written, I could have fallen into the trap of playing him as negative and a jerk. However, I think Josh trusted me to approach the part with a positive attitude and bring to Marcus that kind of wry little smile where he’s like, ‘Yes, I’m killing you now, but I’m doing you a favor, ha, ha, ha.’” So that was a blast.”
Born and raised in Chicago, Baldwin took an acting class in fifth grade but back then never saw it as a viable profession. “I actually fell into it [acting] during the summer of ‘79,” he says. “That’s when the production company for the movie My Bodyguard came to town and ‘found me.’ Then along came a small part in Ordinary People, and that’s when I thought, ‘Oh, God, now I have to really learn how to act.’ So I moved to New York to study for a while, failed, went broke, then I was cast in a couple of little movies here and there, and I’ve been plugging away for the past couple of decades. Acting has been very good to me, and I feel very lucky to still be in the game.”
Steve Eramo
Comments