BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. _ Inspiration comes from odd sources. For actor Allen Leech, who played the Irish chauffeur who worked his way into the family on "Downton Abbey," inspiration rose from what he calls "the depths of hell."
After graduating with a master's degree in theater and drama, Leech was doing OK. He made a couple of movies and landed some theater work, and thought he'd really scored when he was cast in HBO's "Rome." But afterward he didn't snag another acting job for two years.
"I didn't want to quit, but I wanted to make it easier," he says in his lilting Irish brogue. "I worked in bars and restaurants. I became that old adage: 'I'm an actor.' 'Oh, yeah, in what restaurant?' I wasn't good at it. It was a means to an end," he says.
Another of his odd jobs involved menial labor. "I worked a high-powered jet to get rid of foliage in drains. My brother at the time ran a company. So I'd clear out sewers and things. I did it for one winter and thought, 'This is possibly the worst thing in the world.' I wasn't badly paid, but it's because you're going into the depths of hell. It was bad," he shakes his head.
Those kinds of jobs only fortified Leech's resolve to be an actor, he says. "It certainly made me more determined NOT to have to do it. It gave me a greater appreciation of what is the real world. My brother, who is CEO of a company, whenever I go into his office, I think it's the most depressing place in the world. I describe it as 'where dreams go to die.' He obviously disagrees, as many people would.
"The same people say, 'I could never be an actor.' I could never do what my brother does or my sister. My younger brother is a pro golfer so I say to my parents after they got the first two through business school and great jobs, they're like, 'You want to be an actor? You want to play golf? See you later.' You wear them down," he laughs.
After "Downton Abbey," things proved a lot easier, says Leech. In fact, he's co-starring on WGN America's eight-part thriller, "Bellevue," premiering Tuesday. Leech plays the on-again-off-again ex of the detective (Anna Paquin) who's assigned to solve two illusive mysteries in a small Canadian town.
Leech, 36, admits he's always been a bit of a rebel, even as a kid. "I was 8 years of age going around a corner on my brother's bike. I wasn't supposed to be on that bike and wasn't supposed to be going around that corner. I'd done it eight times and I remember thinking, 'I'm going to do it one more time and it'll be the last time.' I did that and I was fine. Then I said, 'I'm going to do it one more time.' And I went around the corner and a car hit me, slammed me into a wall and shattered both my legs," he recalls.
"Only because I was on my brother's bike, and higher up, if I'd been on my bike and lower I would've been squished. I'll never forget my mom's face because she ran up and found me on the ground. And I also did a very silly thing. If you ever get hit by a car don't try to stand up. I tried to run away and my foot ended up beside my knee."
Leech was hospitalized for eight months recovering. But the experience provided a valuable lesson, he says. "What I learned from it is to go with your gut. I knew I shouldn't have done it the 10th time. The ninth time was OK, but I was pushing the boundaries."
Another time in drama class he and his still-best friend _ Leech was his best man and is godfather to his friend's child _ decided to push the boundaries again when they recited lines from a Jean Genet play while sticking 28 nails into the tongue of a cow.
"We were taken into classes and told to calm it down. Apparently bringing agricultural products such as bovine tongues into classes could be considered unacceptable," he smiles.
The Dublin county-born actor is still surprised by the tsunami that resulted from the popularity of PBS' "Downton Abbey." "The opportunity it's afforded me! I went to the White House and met the Obamas. That was pretty cool. I sat in Windsor Castle and they're lovely moments. But for me, it's when people come up and say, 'I watched that religiously with my mom.' It's brought generations together. Or someone will say, 'My daughter, we always kept those episodes.' Those are the moments I love. And I love that in the U.S. people will dodge traffic to tell you how much they loved the show. And in the UK, they'll do the same thing. They'll dodge traffic to tell you they didn't watch it."
SIMMONS PLAYS HIMSELF
If there's one thing actors love besides playing a part, it's playing two. And J.K. Simmons gets to do just that in Starz's new series, "Counterpart." Simmons portrays himself and another self in a parallel world in the series. "There were certainly technical challenges that not only I faced but then whoever else had the misfortune of being in those scenes with us faced," he says.
" ... There were scenes involving both of me sometimes just one-on-one and sometimes with other actors. And we ended up trying a variety of sort of technical ways to make that work, and some of them were more intrusive into the process of acting that I and most actors have become accustomed to over the years. And some of them were more seamless. And at the end of the day, we ended up with a method that was pretty much like most acting, just playing the scenes with another actor who would then, unfortunately, be erased from everything and replaced by another version of me. So it was a process and a learning curve, as indeed life itself is."
NETWORK RE-EXAMINES WACO STANDOFF
The new Paramount Network will kick off with a six-part drama series, "Waco," based on the real-life standoff between the ATF, the FBI and cult leader David Koresh near Waco, Texas, back in 1992.
Gary Noesner was the lead FBI negotiator in the proceedings. He says the first thing they're taught as negotiators is self-control. "So in any tough situation, you can expect the person you're dealing with, negotiating with, to probably be riding a roller-coaster of high emotion and anger, frustration. Not only does self-control apply to the negotiators, but it applies to decision makers," he says.
"I used to tell people I couldn't get David Koresh and my on scene-commander to act reasonable at the same time. And that was the primary impediment. When David Koresh would renege on a promise, he would say one thing and do something else. As a negotiator, I'm accustomed to that. I expect that as part of the process. I don't overreact to it, and I get back to the task at hand. At Waco, our on-scene commander and the tactical commander took those behaviors in a very negative way. In essence, they lost their self-control to look at it objectively. And then they would take actions that would then only ratchet up things with David. So it was a very complex tragedy," says Noesner. The show premieres Wednesday.
DARK THRILLER UNFOLDS ON TNT
TNT's adaptation of the book, "The Alienist," begins this week starring Daniel Bruhl ("Inglourious Basterds"). "I always love the darkness," he says. "Even when I was a teen-ager, I read Edgar Allan Poe and Jekyll and Hyde and Sherlock Holmes and whatnot. So reading this book, it reminded me of being a teen-ager again. I read this book almost with a torchlight under the blanket. And I was so fascinated by it, about the richness of the material ... But it's not only that. It was a history lesson for me as in the history of New York at the time, probably the most fascinating city in the world, the exploding melting pot _ a history lesson about corruption, about politics, still incredibly current," he says.
