Eric Hunicutt - Part 3 - 2/14/07
JF: What brought you to Los Angeles?
EH: [laughs] Two things. One, a girl. My girlfriend of over four years now and I decided that it was probably time for her to be out here. Also, I had this feeling that if I didn’t do it then, I wasn’t going to do it. I needed a reason and that was a good enough reason.
I’ve tried to talk myself out of wanting to be an actor for a living on several occasions. I’ve joked to myself that ‘I’ll be fine if I just have a good day job and am able to perform on the side and do all that.’ At some point I realized I was trying to convince myself of that and that actually wasn’t the case. I think if I had stayed in Chicago another couple years I probably wouldn’t have left. It became that time where the break was as clean as it was going to be. I didn’t want to stay in Chicago and be frustrated by it. I wanted to leave loving it and missing it, and have it be hard to leave, rather than having it hard to ever come back. So, a lot of things went into it. It sucked leaving, but it was probably one of the better decisions I’ve made in retrospect.
JF: So, what was it like moving to Los Angeles?
EH: [laughs] So scary. Jesus, it was so scary. For the first two months, I was convinced I made a terrible mistake, because I was just so unsatisfied. I wasn’t really playing. I got to start with a new team Harold team when I got here. I hadn’t started over with a team in four years, that was weird and hard. I didn’t know anybody personally. There’s a difference between here and Chicago that I don’t know that I can articulate, but it just feels different. So, it’s tough, but it’s gotten slowly better. It’s just over a year. It’s definitely been good for me in terms of making me grow as a performer, making me play in different ways, and with different people. Certainly getting to teach has helped that.
JF: What made you start enjoying Los Angeles more than you did?
EH: I think I got tired of being miserable. My girl friend certainly got tired of me being miserable. Also, it made it a lot easier, because I knew that my first year in Chicago sucked. I figured that I had done it before. I’d done it once, and it turned out great. I think that’s what I was supposed to learn [from that year in Chicago]: ‘just shut up and be patient.’
Certainly having [IO West], a place to play and hang out, and having a lot of familiar faces, was absolutely crucial. I really only was unhappy being here, unhappy being a relative term, because certainly there are people with a lot more to be unhappy about than me, but my happiness was only short-term. Because I got to play a little bit. I got to meet people through the theater. It got better a lot faster.
JF: What have some of your main improv or artistic experiences since you’ve been in Los Angeles? And what have been the most satisfying?
EH: My new Harold team I like. I like them a lot. They’re really cool. They’re a totally different team than The Reckoning, which is cool. It’s been nice to learn to play different. It felt like that exercise where you play like somebody else on the team. It felt like that for the year we’ve been together. I’m getting into a different role, which is good for me. In general, it’s been nice to hopefully be a good example of all the stuff that I learned, be honest, play it real, play the scene, play characters that are grounded, and bring that, if you like, Chicago-style to the work here. I feel like the slow play is something that I enjoy and people enjoy watching, and enjoy playing. So, it’s nice to find a way to make that part of the community here, not that it wasn’t [before], but the more the merrier.
JF: Have you noticed any other differences between the Chicago improv community and the Los Angeles improv community, besides just the size and variety?
EH: Yeah, there’s definitely a different feel here. I’m trying to think of exactly how to describe it. I think it’s less generational here. In Chicago, you can kind of pinpoint where people came up and who they played with and all that stuff. It’s sort of like ‘oh, that generation of people,’ or ‘that generation of people.’ I think it’s a mix of people who are learning now or who have come from other places, New York, Toronto, wherever, it’s just a greater mix. It makes for different energy styles. And people get on stage faster here. So, that’s interesting. As part of our training program, people do student shows starting level 4, whereas in Chicago you have to wait until you’re done and in 5B. It just makes for a different thing.
Also, everybody’s got so much other stuff going on. Everybody’s either writing their pilot or screen play or auditioning their ass off, or not doing any of that but is still in the L.A. world of actors and all that crap. You still have your improv celebrities, your improv rock stars, but it’s hard to have those in a city where you have huge movie stars constantly around you. It just makes for a better environment, neither better, nor worst, it’s just different.
JF: What are some things that you like to see in improv?
EH: Hmm, I like people having a good time. I know that’s a cop out answer, but I love watching people who are enjoying what they’re doing, whether that means cracking each other up or reading each other and looking like they would rather be nowhere else.
In terms of content, I really like group work and seeing good games and openings. That’s probably The Reckoning influence. I like to see an opening get applause in a Harold show. I like it when the audience likes that kind of thing. I like watching women play, because it’s such a boys club sometimes.
I love watching strong female performers get up there and do their thing and not try and out ‘guy’ the guys and even so really play. There’s something about being a female improviser that I’ll never know. I’ll never know what that’s like. I like watching anyone who doesn’t think like me, anyone who doesn’t play like me. People have things that come out of their mouths where I’m like ‘I never would have thought of that.’ That’s fascinating to me. And I feel that happens a lot with women on stage. They bring a whole other set of experiences and perspectives to the stage. I tend to really like watching strong female improvisers.
JF: Have you watched all female groups before?
EH: Yeah, and I like them. I think I probably like them less than coed groups. But I also like coed teams way better I like 8 white guys in ties. I don’t need to see eight twenty-two year old white guys. I did that for years. I would rather watch people who are a bit wider in scope in experience and variety.
JF: What in your opinion what makes a good team?
EH: People who make the group [bigger than] itself, make the piece the most important player on stage. People who like to make each other laugh, or who like to make each other take risks. I can’t stand groups who have people, like that example before, who come off-stage and are upset because the scene they wanted to do somehow didn’t happen. There’s no room for that I think. There’s no room for acting like Sergeants and our work is so precious or valuable. We’re making shit up. It can be important to you, but don’t act like you’re saving lives.
JF: To you, what is ‘the game’ and how important is it to your own improv?
EH: How I choose to think of it is a pattern that heightens and clarifies the relationship of the characters. From a less academic way, it’s something that happens in a scene that helps me better understand what the scene is about and what the characters in the scene are about. It’s something that you can do again either in the same way or in an expanded way that will have the same result: clarify here’s what we’re up to, here’s who’s these people are, here’s how this person’s point of view functions.
It plays a huge role in my improv. I think it’s played more of a role recently than it did before, because I think I’ve become more relaxed about attacking it, rather than worrying about whether I had the right one, whether or not I was heightening it right.
JF: In your opinion, what makes a good improv coach or a teacher?
EH: Someone who’s not afraid to give you notes, first of all. Someone who has enough respect for the performers to say ‘this is what you’re doing to make your life hard on stage. This is how you could do it in a more clear and effective way.’ I think someone who can find different ways to make illustrate or discuss what’s going on. You have to be able to tailor it to the performer. You have to be able to say ‘ok, this person is not getting this idea the way that I got it. So, I need to find a way to describe it, or illustrate it through an exercise, or find an example that will make sense to them.’
I think that’s the job of a teacher or coach, to recognize something and find a way to impress it upon the people you’re coaching or teaching. It’s not just saying ‘here’s what it is!’ That’s not good enough. That’s observer, not a teacher.
JF: To you, what makes a good initiation? And how do you find you initiate typically?
EH: Something with something behind it, and that’s a very vague way to say that. Something has to be going on, whether it’s just a name and that name has something behind it, that’s great. It needs to do something for the who, what, where. It needs to have some element of that in it, even if it’s just an attitude, even if it’s just a look. If that look is loaded, it’s fine.
I also think it needs to leave room for the other person to bring their own thing. I think an initiation that lays everything out on somebody else is effective, but uninspired. We can do a scene where the space station is about to crash, all the air running out and ‘oh, no, all the monkeys are loose,’ but it doesn’t give me much to do other than play with those ideas. I would rather have a scene where those details develop and the relationship first. I like being able to build the top of the scene with somebody rather than just being told what’s going on, and directed as to how to react or what to think.
As far as me personally, it depends on the group. I think for a long time I went to objects really early. I went to the environment really quickly. I like to touch stuff, space work, all that stuff. I think that was a go-to for a long time, but I started realizing that I wasn’t as connected to the other players at the top of the scene as I wanted to be. I think now at some point in every initiation I try to look at the other person and make eye-contact. Whether I’m doing that while trying to establish something about my character, trying to establish something about my where, I think the thing that I have to have now is some sort of connection with my scene partner or scene partners.
JF: So, it sounds like you can go in there with very little of an idea.
EH: Yeah, I think I’ve come to trust myself and the people I play with enough to have it not all fleshed out, because I’ve had some great things happen when I come on with just an attitude, just a mood, just an idea of the where. Everything else gets built between me and the other people. I think that’s more fun for me.
JF: How do you get into characters?
EH: A lot of it is physically, I think. I’m a body person. That’s a Susan Messing thing right there. Changing where the energy is. A lot of times the voice to me comes from focusing on the body. Maybe they have a bum leg or something like that. That gives a filter. That gives a point of view for me, a lot of times. Or hearing something come out in terms of an opinion, realizing ‘ok, I’m the kind of person who thinks that. I’m the kind of person who does not think they can physically go outside the house. So what does that mean?’ Then from there let that take over. But at some point it’s physical. That can be vocal as well. That can be a voice or an accent or something like that.
JF: How do you prepare yourself before a show?
EH: I’m completely OCD about one thing which is my shoes. They have to be tied exactly the same as each other. The way I counter this is that I have a lot flip flop shoes that I wear to shows. If I’m wearing normal shoes, they have to be really, really similar or it drives me nuts. It’s definitely not the most important thing, but it’s all-consuming when it’s not right.
It depends. Some nights I like to watch the group before. Some times I don’t. Some times I like to stretch. Other than the shoes thing, there’s nothing that I absolutely have to do. I like to have some sort of time with the people I’m playing with.
JF: Where would you like improv go in the future artistically and commercially?
EH: Artistically, I would love it to get longer. I’d be interested in doing that. I’d like to see two act stuff, like Play in Chicago. I’d like to see it be treated like theater, where you go see a show and it’s about something. I like any show that could be held up against a written work and hold it’s own.
Commercially, I don’t know. The more people see stuff on television the more they’re probably going to want to see it live, or at least I’d like to think so. I don’t necessarily think that’s a detriment, but I’d hate to think that, I don’t want to throw stones, I’d hate to think that some of the televised improv is the only improv people would ever see. I don’t know commercially. The business end of it is pretty uninteresting to me. I’d like people to employ me, but other than that my interest in where it goes as a commodity is pretty nil.
I would like to see more theaters in smaller cities. I think that’s cool. It’s a great thing to have in a town that’s medium-sized to small. If by some chance it hadn’t been in my town, I never would have found it. I think the more live theater there is in towns that aren’t necessarily theater towns the better.
JF: Do you have anything you’d like to say to the improv community that we didn’t get out?
EH: Um, thanks. [laughs] No, seriously. Thanks to everybody that I’ve played with and thanks to everybody who continues to give me opportunities to do new stuff. Look me up when you’re in L.A. I guess. Come play at IO. Nothing sweeping I guess other than I’m very honored to be part of this world and this art, this community. I think it’s incredible. I’m a big fan.
EH: [laughs] Two things. One, a girl. My girlfriend of over four years now and I decided that it was probably time for her to be out here. Also, I had this feeling that if I didn’t do it then, I wasn’t going to do it. I needed a reason and that was a good enough reason.
I’ve tried to talk myself out of wanting to be an actor for a living on several occasions. I’ve joked to myself that ‘I’ll be fine if I just have a good day job and am able to perform on the side and do all that.’ At some point I realized I was trying to convince myself of that and that actually wasn’t the case. I think if I had stayed in Chicago another couple years I probably wouldn’t have left. It became that time where the break was as clean as it was going to be. I didn’t want to stay in Chicago and be frustrated by it. I wanted to leave loving it and missing it, and have it be hard to leave, rather than having it hard to ever come back. So, a lot of things went into it. It sucked leaving, but it was probably one of the better decisions I’ve made in retrospect.
JF: So, what was it like moving to Los Angeles?
EH: [laughs] So scary. Jesus, it was so scary. For the first two months, I was convinced I made a terrible mistake, because I was just so unsatisfied. I wasn’t really playing. I got to start with a new team Harold team when I got here. I hadn’t started over with a team in four years, that was weird and hard. I didn’t know anybody personally. There’s a difference between here and Chicago that I don’t know that I can articulate, but it just feels different. So, it’s tough, but it’s gotten slowly better. It’s just over a year. It’s definitely been good for me in terms of making me grow as a performer, making me play in different ways, and with different people. Certainly getting to teach has helped that.
JF: What made you start enjoying Los Angeles more than you did?
EH: I think I got tired of being miserable. My girl friend certainly got tired of me being miserable. Also, it made it a lot easier, because I knew that my first year in Chicago sucked. I figured that I had done it before. I’d done it once, and it turned out great. I think that’s what I was supposed to learn [from that year in Chicago]: ‘just shut up and be patient.’
Certainly having [IO West], a place to play and hang out, and having a lot of familiar faces, was absolutely crucial. I really only was unhappy being here, unhappy being a relative term, because certainly there are people with a lot more to be unhappy about than me, but my happiness was only short-term. Because I got to play a little bit. I got to meet people through the theater. It got better a lot faster.
JF: What have some of your main improv or artistic experiences since you’ve been in Los Angeles? And what have been the most satisfying?
EH: My new Harold team I like. I like them a lot. They’re really cool. They’re a totally different team than The Reckoning, which is cool. It’s been nice to learn to play different. It felt like that exercise where you play like somebody else on the team. It felt like that for the year we’ve been together. I’m getting into a different role, which is good for me. In general, it’s been nice to hopefully be a good example of all the stuff that I learned, be honest, play it real, play the scene, play characters that are grounded, and bring that, if you like, Chicago-style to the work here. I feel like the slow play is something that I enjoy and people enjoy watching, and enjoy playing. So, it’s nice to find a way to make that part of the community here, not that it wasn’t [before], but the more the merrier.
JF: Have you noticed any other differences between the Chicago improv community and the Los Angeles improv community, besides just the size and variety?
EH: Yeah, there’s definitely a different feel here. I’m trying to think of exactly how to describe it. I think it’s less generational here. In Chicago, you can kind of pinpoint where people came up and who they played with and all that stuff. It’s sort of like ‘oh, that generation of people,’ or ‘that generation of people.’ I think it’s a mix of people who are learning now or who have come from other places, New York, Toronto, wherever, it’s just a greater mix. It makes for different energy styles. And people get on stage faster here. So, that’s interesting. As part of our training program, people do student shows starting level 4, whereas in Chicago you have to wait until you’re done and in 5B. It just makes for a different thing.
Also, everybody’s got so much other stuff going on. Everybody’s either writing their pilot or screen play or auditioning their ass off, or not doing any of that but is still in the L.A. world of actors and all that crap. You still have your improv celebrities, your improv rock stars, but it’s hard to have those in a city where you have huge movie stars constantly around you. It just makes for a better environment, neither better, nor worst, it’s just different.
JF: What are some things that you like to see in improv?
EH: Hmm, I like people having a good time. I know that’s a cop out answer, but I love watching people who are enjoying what they’re doing, whether that means cracking each other up or reading each other and looking like they would rather be nowhere else.
In terms of content, I really like group work and seeing good games and openings. That’s probably The Reckoning influence. I like to see an opening get applause in a Harold show. I like it when the audience likes that kind of thing. I like watching women play, because it’s such a boys club sometimes.
I love watching strong female performers get up there and do their thing and not try and out ‘guy’ the guys and even so really play. There’s something about being a female improviser that I’ll never know. I’ll never know what that’s like. I like watching anyone who doesn’t think like me, anyone who doesn’t play like me. People have things that come out of their mouths where I’m like ‘I never would have thought of that.’ That’s fascinating to me. And I feel that happens a lot with women on stage. They bring a whole other set of experiences and perspectives to the stage. I tend to really like watching strong female improvisers.
JF: Have you watched all female groups before?
EH: Yeah, and I like them. I think I probably like them less than coed groups. But I also like coed teams way better I like 8 white guys in ties. I don’t need to see eight twenty-two year old white guys. I did that for years. I would rather watch people who are a bit wider in scope in experience and variety.
JF: What in your opinion what makes a good team?
EH: People who make the group [bigger than] itself, make the piece the most important player on stage. People who like to make each other laugh, or who like to make each other take risks. I can’t stand groups who have people, like that example before, who come off-stage and are upset because the scene they wanted to do somehow didn’t happen. There’s no room for that I think. There’s no room for acting like Sergeants and our work is so precious or valuable. We’re making shit up. It can be important to you, but don’t act like you’re saving lives.
JF: To you, what is ‘the game’ and how important is it to your own improv?
EH: How I choose to think of it is a pattern that heightens and clarifies the relationship of the characters. From a less academic way, it’s something that happens in a scene that helps me better understand what the scene is about and what the characters in the scene are about. It’s something that you can do again either in the same way or in an expanded way that will have the same result: clarify here’s what we’re up to, here’s who’s these people are, here’s how this person’s point of view functions.
It plays a huge role in my improv. I think it’s played more of a role recently than it did before, because I think I’ve become more relaxed about attacking it, rather than worrying about whether I had the right one, whether or not I was heightening it right.
JF: In your opinion, what makes a good improv coach or a teacher?
EH: Someone who’s not afraid to give you notes, first of all. Someone who has enough respect for the performers to say ‘this is what you’re doing to make your life hard on stage. This is how you could do it in a more clear and effective way.’ I think someone who can find different ways to make illustrate or discuss what’s going on. You have to be able to tailor it to the performer. You have to be able to say ‘ok, this person is not getting this idea the way that I got it. So, I need to find a way to describe it, or illustrate it through an exercise, or find an example that will make sense to them.’
I think that’s the job of a teacher or coach, to recognize something and find a way to impress it upon the people you’re coaching or teaching. It’s not just saying ‘here’s what it is!’ That’s not good enough. That’s observer, not a teacher.
JF: To you, what makes a good initiation? And how do you find you initiate typically?
EH: Something with something behind it, and that’s a very vague way to say that. Something has to be going on, whether it’s just a name and that name has something behind it, that’s great. It needs to do something for the who, what, where. It needs to have some element of that in it, even if it’s just an attitude, even if it’s just a look. If that look is loaded, it’s fine.
I also think it needs to leave room for the other person to bring their own thing. I think an initiation that lays everything out on somebody else is effective, but uninspired. We can do a scene where the space station is about to crash, all the air running out and ‘oh, no, all the monkeys are loose,’ but it doesn’t give me much to do other than play with those ideas. I would rather have a scene where those details develop and the relationship first. I like being able to build the top of the scene with somebody rather than just being told what’s going on, and directed as to how to react or what to think.
As far as me personally, it depends on the group. I think for a long time I went to objects really early. I went to the environment really quickly. I like to touch stuff, space work, all that stuff. I think that was a go-to for a long time, but I started realizing that I wasn’t as connected to the other players at the top of the scene as I wanted to be. I think now at some point in every initiation I try to look at the other person and make eye-contact. Whether I’m doing that while trying to establish something about my character, trying to establish something about my where, I think the thing that I have to have now is some sort of connection with my scene partner or scene partners.
JF: So, it sounds like you can go in there with very little of an idea.
EH: Yeah, I think I’ve come to trust myself and the people I play with enough to have it not all fleshed out, because I’ve had some great things happen when I come on with just an attitude, just a mood, just an idea of the where. Everything else gets built between me and the other people. I think that’s more fun for me.
JF: How do you get into characters?
EH: A lot of it is physically, I think. I’m a body person. That’s a Susan Messing thing right there. Changing where the energy is. A lot of times the voice to me comes from focusing on the body. Maybe they have a bum leg or something like that. That gives a filter. That gives a point of view for me, a lot of times. Or hearing something come out in terms of an opinion, realizing ‘ok, I’m the kind of person who thinks that. I’m the kind of person who does not think they can physically go outside the house. So what does that mean?’ Then from there let that take over. But at some point it’s physical. That can be vocal as well. That can be a voice or an accent or something like that.
JF: How do you prepare yourself before a show?
EH: I’m completely OCD about one thing which is my shoes. They have to be tied exactly the same as each other. The way I counter this is that I have a lot flip flop shoes that I wear to shows. If I’m wearing normal shoes, they have to be really, really similar or it drives me nuts. It’s definitely not the most important thing, but it’s all-consuming when it’s not right.
It depends. Some nights I like to watch the group before. Some times I don’t. Some times I like to stretch. Other than the shoes thing, there’s nothing that I absolutely have to do. I like to have some sort of time with the people I’m playing with.
JF: Where would you like improv go in the future artistically and commercially?
EH: Artistically, I would love it to get longer. I’d be interested in doing that. I’d like to see two act stuff, like Play in Chicago. I’d like to see it be treated like theater, where you go see a show and it’s about something. I like any show that could be held up against a written work and hold it’s own.
Commercially, I don’t know. The more people see stuff on television the more they’re probably going to want to see it live, or at least I’d like to think so. I don’t necessarily think that’s a detriment, but I’d hate to think that, I don’t want to throw stones, I’d hate to think that some of the televised improv is the only improv people would ever see. I don’t know commercially. The business end of it is pretty uninteresting to me. I’d like people to employ me, but other than that my interest in where it goes as a commodity is pretty nil.
I would like to see more theaters in smaller cities. I think that’s cool. It’s a great thing to have in a town that’s medium-sized to small. If by some chance it hadn’t been in my town, I never would have found it. I think the more live theater there is in towns that aren’t necessarily theater towns the better.
JF: Do you have anything you’d like to say to the improv community that we didn’t get out?
EH: Um, thanks. [laughs] No, seriously. Thanks to everybody that I’ve played with and thanks to everybody who continues to give me opportunities to do new stuff. Look me up when you’re in L.A. I guess. Come play at IO. Nothing sweeping I guess other than I’m very honored to be part of this world and this art, this community. I think it’s incredible. I’m a big fan.
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