He has played a variety of major roles in the region, as well as with theatres around the country. Some favorites include Torvald in A Doll’s House, Part 2, Dr. Dysart in Equus, Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, Bruce in Fun Home and Jacob Marley some 15 times in the Pittsburgh CLO’s annual telling of A Christmas Carol.
A veteran of many films, commercials, and voice-overs, look for Daniel Krell playing Mr. McFeely opposite Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers in the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
Dan also happens to be married to one of our favorite StoryBeat guests, the extraordinarily gifted Daina Griffith.
WEBSITE:
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STEVE CUDEN INTERVIEWS ACTOR DANIEL KRELL
ANNOUNCER:
This is StoryBeat: Storytellers on Storytelling, an exploration into how master storytellers and artists develop and build brilliant stories and works of art that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators of all kinds find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.
Steve Cuden:
Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Center for Media Innovation on the campus of Point Park University in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If you like this podcast, please take a moment to give us a rating or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to. Your support helps us bring more great StoryBeat episodes to you.
Well, my guest today, Daniel Krell, is a professional actor whose home base is right here in Pittsburgh, recently named the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Performer of the Year for 2019. Dan is a familiar face on the stage and screen, including 30 productions at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, the most of any actor; 35 plus productions at the Pittsburgh CLO, City Theater, Quantum Theater, Front Porch Theatricals, and many more.
He’s played a variety of major roles in the region, as well as with theaters around the country. Some favorites include Torvald in A Doll’s House, Part Two, Dr. Dysart in Equus, Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Tweltfth Night, Bruce in Fun Home, and Jacob Marley in some 15 seasons with the Pittsburgh CLO’s annual telling of A Christmas Carol.
A veteran of many films, commercials, and voice-overs, look for Dan playing Mr. McFeely opposite Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers in the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Dan also happens to be married to one of my favorite StoryBeat guests, and one of my favorite people, the extraordinarily gifted Daina Griffith. So for all those reasons and many more, it’s a great pleasure for me to welcome the tremendously talented Daniel Krell to StoryBeat today. Dan, welcome to the show.
Daniel Krell:
Oh shucks. Thank you very much.
Steve Cuden:
It’s great to have you here. So tell us a little bit about your history. Where did this all begin for you? When did you start to think in your life, hey, I might like to be a performer?
Daniel Krell:
Well, it is a little embarrassing, but it is the truth. In high school, I had a crush on a girl, and she said, “I’m auditioning for the play. You should too.” And I thought, “Oh yes, I definitely should. I’ve always wanted to do that.” I didn’t know what it was, of course. So I did audition and I got cast in the play, and she then ended up not even doing it. She wasn’t able to do it or something. I couldn’t remember.
Steve Cuden:
But you did.
Daniel Krell:
So there I was in the play, something I didn’t even want to in the first place. And I did it and just kind of thought, “Wow, this is something. This is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
Steve Cuden:
And there were other girls there, too.
Daniel Krell:
Oh, there were lots of other girls. That’s true.
Steve Cuden:
Yeah, it tends to attract people that look good, by the way.
Daniel Krell:
And myself, too, so it balances out.
Steve Cuden:
Exactly. So from there you had that spark, that’s what happened?
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. Once I started to do it, I guess even then I understood that there is a sort of craft to it and something I could put my focus into. Up until then, I really had no direction that I… Nothing decided that I wanted to do. It’s not like, since I was a kid, I wanted to be an actor or anything else.
Steve Cuden:
But you realized way back then that it actually required a certain skill set and a certain amount of effort, and it wasn’t just a free form thing.
Daniel Krell:
Yes, indeed.
Steve Cuden:
And you had to work at it.
Daniel Krell:
Yes, you had to work at it. But I enjoyed the work so much, that I would be able to dive into it wholeheartedly and do the work, which is necessary. But I enjoyed the work so much that it made it…
Steve Cuden:
I like to say that, once it’s under your skin, it’s the worst kind of drug imaginable. It just doesn’t go away. Same for you, yeah?
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, absolutely.
Steve Cuden:
You’re stuck with it. Sometimes people will say, as you’re maybe not in the beginning making much money or having much success, as you’re learning your way through, in that beginning phase, people are saying, “Why are you doing this? Why don’t you become an insurance broker or whatever?” And you can’t.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, I say that to myself still. I say, “Why don’t I do something else?” And I can’t, I guess.
Steve Cuden:
And you say that because it’s hard to do. It’s not simple, so you don’t know where next year is going to be.
Daniel Krell:
Oh, yes. I mean, the life path is so impossibly difficult. I can’t even explain it. People always say, “Acting? Oh, I could be an actor. Watch, I can cry.” And then they somehow twinkle their nose and get tears in their eyes and they think, okay, that’s acting.
Daniel Krell:
Or even, “I can make up a story or I can…” And they think that’s… But we always say that, I mean, it’s a common phrase that acting is the thing that you get to do. So that’s not your job. Acting is not your job, that’s your reward. That’s what you get.
Steve Cuden:
I love that. That’s great.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. All of the other things that you have to deal with in order to get to do that scene, or that couple of moments in that scene even, it’s amazing what all you do just for that.
Steve Cuden:
And did you go to school for it? Did you train?
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, I went to a performing arts high school, and then four years of undergrad at Point Park.
Steve Cuden:
Oh, you’re a Point Park graduate. I guess I didn’t realize that.
Daniel Krell:
Well, back in the day.
Steve Cuden:
Back in the day, yes. But before they were a nationally known theater school, or were they pretty well-known then?
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. I mean-
Steve Cuden:
They were starting to be well-know?
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, I would think so.
Steve Cuden:
Because they’re now seriously recognized. I know we have a little a school up the road called Carnegie Mellon that tends to attract a lot of attention. But Point Park has a huge number of people that have gone out into the world and have been very successful.
Daniel Krell:
I think it’s the same then. It’s been a consistently pretty good… Well, I mean, every program and every theater company, every anything has waxes and wanes.
Steve Cuden:
Of course, but there was a time in the very beginning of Point Park’s theater school when it was not known.
Daniel Krell:
I would imagine, if it’s in the beginning.
Steve Cuden:
It took a while.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, of course.
Steve Cuden:
And of course, being here in Pittsburgh, it’s a little more isolated than say if you were in New York or L.A.
Daniel Krell:
Yes.
Steve Cuden:
All right. So at what point, after your training, did you start to think yourself, or was it during your training that you thought yourself, “You know what? I’m actually really good at this.” When did you feel confident in yourself? Yesterday?
Daniel Krell:
Sure. That’s going to happen at some point. I don’t know. So then from my four years of undergrad, I went on to three years in grad school, got my masters.
Steve Cuden:
Here at Point Park as well?
Daniel Krell:
No, University of North Carolina. It was what they call a PATP, Professional Actor Training Program. So you get trained in how to be a professional actor. There’s no theater history, you don’t write papers and thesis. So they also was with a LORT professional league of repertory theaters, a professional theater company.
Daniel Krell:
So you had your training during the day, and then you performed in this professional equity company at night. So I knew that I wanted to go on and get more training after my four years of undergrad and the three years of grad school directly into there. So that helps give me some confidence that at least I have been told the information, and hopefully I retain some of it.
Steve Cuden:
Well, the fact that you’ve continued to work on a reasonably regular basis for all these years is probably an indication that you have some kind of ability.
Daniel Krell:
I guess so. But I do also think that, for me it’s one of those clichés of it’s not up for me to decide that. I just do what I love and it’s up to other people whether they like it or not.
Steve Cuden:
I admire the fact that you live with humility and that you are… Well, truthfully, you’re going into every single production, not knowing what the outcome will be.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, absolutely.
Steve Cuden:
You can’t guess it in advance.
Daniel Krell:
They say you’re only as good as your current project, or as I’ve heard, you’re only as good as your next project. But I would even say you’re only as good as the project that you haven’t booked yet. So you’re good enough to be in the one that you’re in and you’re good enough to book the one that you have coming up, but the one that you don’t have after that, the next one that you don’t… You’re only as good as that. So you have to just keep…
Steve Cuden:
So if you came at it with arrogance, like this is mine, I’m going to take this role, everybody’s going to get out of my way, you’ll probably lose that in a heartbeat.
Daniel Krell:
Well, you’d be surprised. I mean, that’s one of the frustrating, the thing that I was talking about, acting is the thing that you get to do, and then you have to deal with a lot of stuff, and some of the stuff is a lot of injustice. That goes both ways. I mean, I get things where I think, “Wow, this guy would have been really good in that,” and I get the job, and it’s for some reason that’s beyond my control and his.
Steve Cuden:
But those are the odd and wonderful and mysterious things about the business, where you don’t know why people get certain roles. I had the great, good fortune a few years ago to interview Brian Cranston on stage here in front of our students. And what he said was, because he had been a journeyman actor for years and years and years before he became well known.
Steve Cuden:
He had done 25 years or so before anybody knew who he was. And one of the things he said is that in the beginning, he was really angry when he didn’t book a role. And he’d say, “That should be my role.” And then he realized after a while, if he didn’t get the role, it wasn’t his to have. And then when he got the role, it was his to have.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. I mean, everybody has their way of looking at it that works for them. A lot of it for me is I actually never got in it to be well-known.
Steve Cuden:
You just love doing what you’re doing.
Daniel Krell:
I love doing what I’m doing. I moved to New York after grad school, because when you finish grad school, you move to New York. It’s almost like that’s the rule, and I followed the rule and I moved to New York and I stayed there for a while and I hated New York city. But I’ve always wanted to be an actor. I’ve always wanted to act.
Daniel Krell:
And I remember I spent a summer out in L.A. between semesters in grad school, and I didn’t take a resume, I didn’t do anything. I just waited tables to actually get away from theater for a little bit, take a breather, because I was in grad school, which was very intense. And I went out there and met some people and one guy came out there and he said, “I’m going to give it five years.”
Daniel Krell:
He said, “I want to be an actor.” He said, “I’m going to give it five years, and if I’m not a star in five years, then I just go back and do whatever I’m going to do.” And I think, “So you don’t want to be an actor.”
Steve Cuden:
You want to be a star.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, you don’t want to be an actor. It wouldn’t matter if it was acting that you did become rich and famous, you want to be rich and famous. So it has nothing to do with acting.
Steve Cuden:
Right. Well, I think there are, as I’ve told you, I lived for a long time in Los Angeles and there are those two distinct categories of people out there, and then there’s variations on those themes.
Daniel Krell:
This gray area in between.
Steve Cuden:
Absolutely. But huge numbers of people go to Los Angeles or New York to become rich and famous, and they don’t have any intention of doing the work to get there. And they aren’t really interested in the work to get there, they’re interested in being famous and rich.
Daniel Krell:
Right. I enjoy the work, the process, the rehearsals.
Steve Cuden:
I think that makes you a superior performer.
Daniel Krell:
Once again, that’s-
Steve Cuden:
There’s that humility.
Daniel Krell:
That’s up to the beekeeper, the bee holder.
Steve Cuden:
Of course, because you’re just doing what you do. You can’t be the judge as well.
Daniel Krell:
Yes. Right.
Steve Cuden:
I think that’s really true, but you can sit and watch other people work as an audience member and make a decision.
Daniel Krell:
And be judgy.
Steve Cuden:
And be judgy, sure. Yeah. And I’m assuming you do. I assume you sit back and go, “That was really good, and that wasn’t so good.”
Daniel Krell:
Yes, exactly, in both accounts. As matter of fact, it’s hard for me. I enjoy TV and movies that are not fictional, that are documentaries.
Steve Cuden:
Based on reality?
Daniel Krell:
Or nature shows, travel shows, science shows, those kinds of things, because I’m not watching an actor play a role. As soon as I start watching an actor play a role, I’m the actor watching the actor play a role. I’m watching, “Oh, that’s a good choice. That was a really nice choice,” Or, “He missed that. There was something better there.”
Daniel Krell:
Or, “Who does this guy know? How did he get the audition?” Like, while the movie or the play or whatever is going on, I’m watching and I’m thinking, “Where was the audition for it? Did they have to meet? Did they read?” And I’m thinking all of these things, instead of watching the story.
Steve Cuden:
You’re actually seeing how all the threads are being made into the cloth, as opposed to enjoying the cloth.
Daniel Krell:
Right.
Steve Cuden:
And that can become a problem, I guess?
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. Well, it’s like people who have perfect pitch. I don’t have perfect pitch. But they say if they go into a music audition and the piano is not exactly in tune, it drives them… They can’t sing along because it’s not exactly on pitch.
Steve Cuden:
It’s screwing them up.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. So I’m lucky I don’t have perfect pitch.
Steve Cuden:
But I’ve heard you sing, and you sing fairly well.
Daniel Krell:
I’m not a singer. I don’t read music. I don’t play an instrument. I’m not a musician. When I do musicals, I came into it through acting, because it’s three disciplines: the singing, dance, and acting, and I came into it through acting. But I can, apparently, sing well enough to get hired for it.
Steve Cuden:
Well, sure. I saw you last year in Fun Home. You were terrific.
Daniel Krell:
Oh, thank you. I just kind of act through the music, which is, I guess, what it’s all about.
Steve Cuden:
Well, you are way better as a singer than Rex Harrison, and he had a pretty good career at it.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, right. Well, of course, if you’re Rex Harrison, you can say, “You know what? I’m just going to talk while you play in the background.”
Steve Cuden:
And that’s exactly what he would do. He would talk his way through it very charmingly, and that was enough for him. So I guess it is what it is. All right. So you’re mainly a stage actor, even though you do film work. You’re not really a film actor as what you’re focused on.
Daniel Krell:
It’s not what I ever set out to do. I do it when it comes along, kind of thing.
Steve Cuden:
So, in other words, because you’re not in Los Angeles, that helps you be not a film actor.
Daniel Krell:
Yes.
Steve Cuden:
I think if you lived in L.A., you would be forced to focus on that more, because that’s the nature of that beast out there.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. I kind of wondered, if somebody wants to be a stage actor, they move to L.A., it just seems kind of counterintuitive to me.
Steve Cuden:
All right. So you’re reasonably in demand. When you’re not doing a show, what do you do to keep yourself in shape and disciplined? What is your in-between gig way to live? How do you do it?
Daniel Krell:
Well, I’m fortunate enough to make my living as a full-time actor. I don’t have a day job, a survival job. I don’t teach. So I have a business called My Little Acting Career, but it takes constant process. Getting resumes, getting your head shots photocopied from Copies at Carson. You have to go pick them up on the South side.
Daniel Krell:
That’s your daily chore, and you’re always… Because of what I do, some weeks of contract, that contract ends and then I have to get the next one. So you always have to be ahead. You have to be months or a year or something ahead of schedule with a theater company announces their season. You look at what’s there and you play the numbers game of how many guys in it and age, all those things.
Daniel Krell:
And you read the plays and you look at this. And some other company, somebody that you’ve never worked for is asking for monologues and you have to find the appropriate monologue. There’s just constant work. So what I do in between, again, is that all the things that I have to do so that I get to do the acting.
Steve Cuden:
Sure. Is part of that physical? Are you a workout person?
Daniel Krell:
I’m not a workout person. I like being outside, though. I do backpacking. I do a lot of backpacking.
Steve Cuden:
Hiking?
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, hiking, that kind of thing.
Steve Cuden:
So you’re not a gym rat, like some actors are?
Daniel Krell:
I know people are, and I bet you, I probably should be. I bet you it would benefit my career, but then that’s not who I am, I guess.
Steve Cuden:
Well, you have to be what you have to be.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. If they want a gym bunny, then they’re going to hire a gym bunny, and if they don’t, then I’m over here.
Steve Cuden:
Right. Well, here’s the thing, and I think the listeners should pay close attention to what Dan just said, which is that you treat your business as a business-
Daniel Krell:
The business end of it, yeah.
Steve Cuden:
-As opposed to it’s just an art and I’m an artist. A lot of artists or people that are in the arts go into it and have no clue what to do with the business end of it. And it is still a business, assuming you want to make any money at it. If you want to make it an avocation, then you can just take a day job and do it at night somewhere.
Daniel Krell:
Well, then now there are some people I know that they only want to play the roles that they want to play, and they only want to play them at the theaters they want to play, or the take the film gig that they want, which is totally fine, if that’s how you want to do it.
Steve Cuden:
If they can survive that, sure.
Daniel Krell:
Well, yeah. But then they’ll be a bank teller or something.
Steve Cuden:
They take a day job.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Steve Cuden:
Not at all.
Daniel Krell:
It’s just I went the opposite way, where I let all of that kind of fall out beneath me, and standing on the edge of the cliff have decided I’m just going to be a full time actor and jump and hope that there is some footing there where I land next time.
Steve Cuden:
Well, we’re back to the confidence thing. You have enough confidence in you and your abilities and what you do that you feel like you can do that.
Daniel Krell:
Well, confidence or ignorance, I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense to do what I do.
Steve Cuden:
Look, I was freelance. I’ve been teaching for a few years, but this is the longest job I’ve ever had, is being a teacher. I was a freelance writer in Los Angeles for 30 years. I understand the notion of being freelance and not knowing where the next job is, or knowing I’ve got two jobs ahead of me, but I don’t know where the one after that is, because almost none of the work that we do as writers in the business or as actors or as producers or directors and so on, almost none of those jobs are long-term.
Steve Cuden:
And even if they are what you would call long-term, it may only be, if you’re on a TV series for five years, it’s going to end at some point. So you have the understanding that your jobs will be short term, that you always have to be hunting the next one. And it’s a bit of a race to make sure that you sort of stay fed.
Daniel Krell:
It’s a bit of a race. Boy, that’s an understatement. It’s a marathon length sprint.
Steve Cuden:
Correct. That’s a good way to say it.
Daniel Krell:
It’s just constant sprinting. It doesn’t stop.
Steve Cuden:
And the old military phrase, hurry up and wait, applies all the time, right?
Daniel Krell:
Yeah.
Steve Cuden:
And you have to constantly be paying attention to what’s going on in the world. Like you say, you have to know what the seasons of the shows are.
Daniel Krell:
Well, there’s another cliché of luck is being ready when opportunity knocks.
Steve Cuden:
That’s right.
Daniel Krell:
Being ready to open the door when opportunity knocks.
Steve Cuden:
Well, and Thomas Jefferson also said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.’ I mean, that’s part of it, is being prepared. It favors the prepared mind, that’s another one. Luck favors the prepared mind, which is what you’re saying. You’re good to go, probably at any time. For instance, if I called you tomorrow and said, “Dan, we’re in production on a movie in Pittsburgh. An actor fell out and I need you to come in tomorrow,” and assuming you weren’t booked somewhere else, you would be prepared to go.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, absolutely.
Steve Cuden:
I mean, that’s what a professional does.
Daniel Krell:
Right. Yeah. I mean, I don’t have to say, well, I’ll see if I can get off work that day. So that’s a good thing. People are always so amazed or something that I can make my living only as an actor.
Steve Cuden:
It’s awesome.
Daniel Krell:
It is very awesome. But then there’s the other side of that, is that means that I have to make my living only as an actor. So it’s double-edged.
Steve Cuden:
But if you can look at it the other way too, that a salesman only makes their living by selling things, so you have to keep selling. You can’t sit back. So I think that that’s the career you’ve chosen. You work at it like it’s a professional business, which is what it is. Some people don’t think of the arts as being professional business. That was my point earlier, is that sometimes people go… We have students at school here at Point park that think that it’s just an art form. They don’t ever have to worry about the business.
Daniel Krell:
I know a lot of people who early on think, “I can just be artistic,” and just whatever that means to them, just being artistic.
Steve Cuden:
Well, good luck.
Daniel Krell:
Which means appreciating things and realizing thoughts, which is true. But that’s part of the acting, the joy. In my case, acting, the joy I get from it. But yeah, there’s a lot of business.
Steve Cuden:
All right. So how frequently does it happen, where you’re in one show and preparing for the next?
Daniel Krell:
Every time, in some form or another.
Steve Cuden:
So I’m curious about how you come about this, the process of your performing in one show, you know when this show ends you’re going to be either already in rehearsal on the next show or jumping into rehearsal in the next one. What do you do? How do you keep everything square and straight in your head? Is it easy to do? Is it hard to do? Do you have a technique or trick for it?
Daniel Krell:
Because of every situation, and it’s one of the joys of being a freelance actor, is that you never know what’s coming up next, which is a joy, but it’s also the terror of it. You never know what’s coming next, and that’s because every situation is different. Every production is different. The demands of the role are different, the length of the contract is different.
Daniel Krell:
Everything is different. So it changes. It depends on what it is that I need to prepare and what it is that I’m doing at the time, because those two things will never line up the same. So there’s no technique, there’s nothing to do, except you put as much focus on the thing that you’re doing right now. And then with any time outside of that, you think about the next thing.
Steve Cuden:
So part of the job that you do is to memorize things, you memorize lines and blocking and other things like that. He going, “Yes, a lot of it.”
Daniel Krell:
I do, boy.
Steve Cuden:
All right. Let’s say you’ve got a huge role on a show. Of course, there are no small parts, there are only small actors.
Daniel Krell:
Well, no, no. There are no small parts, only small paychecks. I heard that once and I thought, “I’m stealing that one.”
Steve Cuden:
All right. So you’re in a show and you’ve got a substantial role and you’ve got a lot of things you got to keep in your head square, because you’re going to perform it every night for a period of time, and along comes another large role that you have to start preparing for it. Do you ever get confused? Is it pretty well compartmentalized?
Daniel Krell:
I can only speak for myself, but pretty well compartmentalized.
Steve Cuden:
So you have no particular trick for keeping them straight?
Daniel Krell:
No. It’s just, if you have done your homework and you have prepared for the thing you are doing, then when you’re doing that thing, you will do that thing. So you will not stray into something else because you have put your focus and energy into the thing that you’re working on right then. You have done all your prep, all your homework and everything, rehearsals and research and anything have you so you will be able to concentrate on that thing.
Steve Cuden:
A significant time after you’ve completed a role, do you still remember all the lines or do they go away?
Daniel Krell:
They stay for a little bit and then they go away-
Steve Cuden:
They fade away.
Daniel Krell:
-Because you have to make room for the next thing.
Steve Cuden:
Have you ever done a show and three, four, five, ten years later, gone back and done that same show again?
Daniel Krell:
I have.
Steve Cuden:
Did it come back to you right away?
Daniel Krell:
Surprisingly not. I have thought that like, oh, I did this for eight weeks-
Steve Cuden:
It should be easy.
Daniel Krell:
It should be easy. And then you realize that you can never step in the same river twice.
Steve Cuden:
That’s true. Different actors you’re working with, different staging?
Daniel Krell:
And you’re very different.
Steve Cuden:
And you’ve made room for the other lines all those years so they’ve kind of gone away. I’m always amazed, sometimes you bump into clips on YouTube and so on of people like Peter O’Toole, these phenomenal major famous actors, and he’ll be talking to somebody and he’ll just start spouting out lines from Shakespeare. And it’s like, he’ll go on and on for a while, and you go, how does he remember all that? So somehow he’s got that capacity.
Daniel Krell:
There are certain things that’ll stay with you. And sometimes you find that a decade later, there’s a line from a play, and it’s not the line like, oh, the crux of the plot. It’s just some random thing that just tweaked in your little brain and it stays there.
Steve Cuden:
Well, it doesn’t happen often for me, but every once in a blue moon, somebody will come up to me and ask me about a show a TV show I’ve written, and they’ll say that line, blah, blah, blah. I have no idea what they’re talking about it. I wrote it. It happened in 30 seconds on a piece of paper and off it went to somebody else and I never thought about it again. And they remember it because it had some meaning.
Daniel Krell:
Some resonance, yeah.
Steve Cuden:
And I’m sure you have that occasionally too, where somebody remembers something you did and comes up and tells you about it.
Daniel Krell:
Well, I’ve had people say, “I love that moment where you…” And I say, “No, no, no. Don’t tell me.” If it’s in a production that I’m still running, they’ll say, “I love that moment where you…” And I stop, don’t. Because then the next time I go to do it, it’ll be like, oh, wait, here comes that moment that that person was talking about. And that’s what I’m thinking about instead of the moment that I’m supposed to be doing while I’m in the performance.
Steve Cuden:
Right. Instead of being in the moment-
Daniel Krell:
Instead of being in that moment that they said was so good, I would be out of it, thinking about them, talking about that moment.
Steve Cuden:
Sure. That’s a good segue into being an actor on stage. This notion of being in the moment, which in theory, every time you’re doing the performance, you’re doing it as if it’s the first time you’re going through it. You know all the lines, you know where you’re going to move, you know what the other people are going to say, and yet the magic trick of it is that you make every attempt to make it look like this is the first time you’ve ever said these words. How does that work for you? I don’t know. You tell me. I imagine you don’t really know.
Daniel Krell:
I don’t. That’s the thing, it’s not a science. There’s no formula. You can’t just say…
Steve Cuden:
But before you go on, do you think yourself everything’s gone and now I’m just going to go out and be pure. Do you have any of those processes?
Daniel Krell:
Yes, it’s called rehearsal. It’s called preparation. I can’t stress that enough. That it’s not about what you do the 30 seconds before you walk out on stage or before they yell action. It’s not about that. It’s about the prep that you’ve done when you got the script six months ago and you started working on it.
Daniel Krell:
You started thinking about it, about deep into it, into things that are not concrete, about the thoughts and the themes and the emotional content and all these things. And you’ve explored all of that and just the logistics of timeframes and relationships, literal relationships with people like she’s my great aunt, what does that mean?
Daniel Krell:
So all of those things are so much more important than just the three seconds before you walk out. Because if you’ve done all your work, when you walk out, you are in that world that you have been working on and you know what that world is.
Steve Cuden:
And there’s a comfort level in having that knowledge, because you don’t want to go out and not know that world. Right. That would be a problem.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. And I also say that it’s like… It’s really hard to describe. It’s like an actor has to have, while they’re in performance, two parallel lines of thought: one is the characters and one is the actors. And as they go along, they can’t intersect. And your job is to kind of keep them apart and yet keep track of both of them.
Daniel Krell:
So you have to think this is the character and this is me, knowing that I have to pull the butter knife out of the drawer on this line, on this word, because the woman playing my mother says, “Oh, use the other butter knife.” So I have to know, Dan has to know that I have to get that on this particular word. But the character isn’t thinking, “I have to get this on the particular word.” He’s thinking about what he’s thinking about while he’s getting a butter knife out.
Steve Cuden:
That’s from the Tennessee Williams show, The Butter Knife.
Daniel Krell:
The Butter Knife, yeah. That’s such a good way. Nobody does it anymore. But it’s really difficult to have those two lines of thought running parallel to each other, without letting them intersect, but keeping track of both of them.
Steve Cuden:
All right. So in a similar vein, but slightly different. Let’s say you’re in a show for eight weeks. How do you keep things fresh?
Daniel Krell:
Again, the preparation.
Steve Cuden:
Just the preparation?
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. So, in this case, and specific to what you’re talking about, how do you keep it fresh?
Steve Cuden:
How do you come on every night after seven weeks of doing it and having it be new again?
Daniel Krell:
A lot of it is the preparation. So if it means something to you emotionally, it will trigger something in you emotionally. When the mother says, “Use the other butter knife.” Of course, I’m making all this up right now. It drives you crazy that she’s going to nag you, even about which butter knife to use.
Daniel Krell:
So if you find in you that kind of feeling of like leave me alone, and it could be in any situation, but it’s the same basic human feeling of leave me alone. If you find it in you, then it triggers something in you that’s honest. And so every time she says, “Use the other butter knife,” it drives you crazy.
Steve Cuden:
I think you just said a really good word, that I don’t hear people say very often, and that stored honesty. The performance has to be honest. I don’t hear that word acquainted in acting all that often, but that’s what it is. It’s not just in the moment and reacting the way that it happens as it’s happening, but there’s an honesty to it. And I think that you can see an actor who’s not being honest. You can see it in a heartbeat. It’s a little harder to see a lack of honesty in an actor who’s in the moment.
Daniel Krell:
Yes. Well, again, it’s those two parallel things. It’s honesty with the technique. You can have someone who’s an honest actor and then you put them in a heightened scenario, even though the speech is heightened, the situations are heightened or it’s a stylistic piece. And they can be as honest as they want, but if they don’t understand how to adapt that to the piece and the situation, then you’re going to be missing something, even with that honesty.
Steve Cuden:
All right. Let’s talk about how you get there in the first place. We’ve talked about auditioning a little tiny bit. Do you have any particular philosophies about auditioning? How do you approach auditioning?
Daniel Krell:
There are several things. So many things in our lives, just as regular people, you need to keep hearing-
Steve Cuden:
What makes you think that listeners are regular.
Daniel Krell:
If anyone’s listening to you and I, I don’t think they’re regular people.
Steve Cuden:
Thank God.
Daniel Krell:
But we always need to hear things again and again. We need to be reminded. It’s not like your mother says, “Say thank you,” once. You need to remind yourself all the time to do certain things, to be a better person and all these things. And I think with something like auditioning, there are certain things and it’s good that you cycle through them all the time and you remind yourself.
Daniel Krell:
I just heard one recently that I’ve heard before, but I heard it recently, and so it kind of triggered again. I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s right. Keep that in mind.” And the thing was somebody said that auditions, they think of it as this may be the last time I get to play this role. That’s true.
Daniel Krell:
You go into an audition and yes, you have this thing about you’re trying to get the gig and you’re trying to work in the parameters of what the directors and producers are looking for, but you’re also doing it because you love to do it. So you think about like, when I’m reading these sides, this script, I get to act and I get to act.
Daniel Krell:
And I get to act this role that’s right in front of me right now, and I may not get this gig, so this may be the last chance I have to have fun and explore this role and do my actorly thing that I enjoy. And that was just something I heard recently.
Steve Cuden:
This is not the first time I’ve heard someone say that they approach auditioning as an opportunity to act, period. That the audition itself as an opportunity to act.
Daniel Krell:
That’s exactly it.
Steve Cuden:
And whether the outcome of that is booking a gig or not is irrelevant. I think that’s a fantastic philosophy.
Daniel Krell:
That’s really healthy. Now, again, it’s easy to lose that. It’s really easy to lose that.
Steve Cuden:
Because you focus on, I need the money, I need the gig, I need whatever.
Daniel Krell:
I need the money and they’re judging me over there, they don’t like what I’m doing, or maybe they like this, I should do more of this, and all of those things get in the way.
Steve Cuden:
And there are probably times where it’s you really want to work with these people and you feel a little more attachment to that particular experience. So if you can dismiss it and just be better off, right? I think that’s a very interesting and good philosophy to have. Look, you’ve appeared in any number of comedies and dramas and various things. Yes?
Daniel Krell:
I guess so. Yeah.
Steve Cuden:
You’ve been fortunate to have a range to your-
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. I mean, I kind of have done-
Steve Cuden:
You’re not the comedy guy. You’re not the drama guy.
Daniel Krell:
Right. I’m not just a Shakespearian actor. I do Shakespeare.
Steve Cuden:
Right. If I said to you right now, “Dan, you’re only going to be able to do one thing for the rest of your career.” Would you have a preference?
Daniel Krell:
No. And that’s not a, “No, no, I love it all.”
Steve Cuden:
Folks, that was acting.
Daniel Krell:
I’ll be here all the week. I think why I do the variety that I do is because I love the variety that I do. There are people that are much better at comedy than I am, much better in Shakespeare than I am. There are singers who can sing so much better than me, who can be edgier and more contemporary. But my thing is, I love to be in that show and this comedy, like that contemporary, that period piece and that stylized pieced, all of it. So if I would choose one thing, it would be the variety.
Steve Cuden:
And as I say, you’ve been fortunate. You’ve done a lot of various things. You’re not stuck in one.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. I mean, it’s funny to that I’ve done like Gilbert and Sullivan. Training for that, as an actor, I didn’t study musical theater. I had never planned on doing musical theater.
Steve Cuden:
Did you do musical theater when you were in school?
Daniel Krell:
So we did Working, which is based on Studs Turkel, and you couldn’t get more actorly. I mean, it is a musical written for people who play characters and can sing.
Steve Cuden:
It’s not a singer’s show.
Daniel Krell:
It’s not a singer’s show.
Steve Cuden:
It’s really not. Some shows are very much singer’s shows.
Daniel Krell:
Yes, very much.
Steve Cuden:
That’s not one of them.
Daniel Krell:
No, not at all.
Steve Cuden:
That’s really more for characters.
Daniel Krell:
That’s for characters, right. So I did musicals. Now, in grad school, there was no musicals, it was all Shakespeare and Chekhov and Sam Shepard and Ibsen and that.
Steve Cuden:
All right. Obviously, as you prepare a role, you go through whatever your preparations or whatever your study is on the text and how you look at how you’re going to memorize lines, how you’re going to approach the thought on the role. Do you approach comedy and drama differently or are they the same thing?
Daniel Krell:
I actually cracked myself up. I’ve come up with this for comedy, you invest in the truth of the character first. You invest in the truth of the character, you find out what the characters needs are and you pursue them relentlessly and from the heart and with truth and et cetera. And then once you do that, you go back and find out where you make the funny faces. So you do approach them the same way, with the truth and the honesty and et cetera. And then you can kind of tweak it a little bit, if necessary. Or if not, then don’t.
Steve Cuden:
I think it’s very difficult to play the comedy. You have to play the character.
Daniel Krell:
Yes, you have to play. There’s an old story, I can’t even remember who it was. They’re on stage. Well, of course, all these stories, they’re all famous old British actors, right?
Steve Cuden:
Of course.
Daniel Krell:
What else would they be? The man asked for a cup of tea and he got a huge stop-the-show laugh, for whatever the setup was, who knows? So the thing is he asked for a cup of tea and that huge bring-down-the-house-laughter. And it stopped happening after a while, and he turned to the scene actress and said, “What is it? I would say may I please have a cup of tea? And they would just roared with laughter. Now they don’t anymore.” And she said, “Well, you used to ask for a cup of tea, now you ask for a laugh.”
Steve Cuden:
Oh, that’s crazy.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. So you have to play the scene.
Steve Cuden:
You got to be the character.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, you got to stay in there.
Steve Cuden:
Now, unless you’re a famous comic actor. So I imagine, I didn’t see it, but I would have loved to have seen when Steve Martin and Robin Williams were in Waiting for Godot, and they played it for comedy. They played the comedy. I mean, Godot is a vaudeville show, but they were probably playing for the laughs. They were playing head-on for the laughs, because they know that shtick for themselves. But most people, most actors cannot do that. They’ve got to play the character, not for the comedy. So does that differ from your prep for drama or is it the same thing?
Daniel Krell:
As I think we’ve sort of touched on a little bit, there are… Well, we talked about celebrities and actors. But there are also two different camps and there are actors and there are performers. The performers is not a slight, that’s a skill set. I think I tend to be more of an actor. I like to get the script in advance. I like to look it over.
Daniel Krell:
I like to work with the director and talk about things, have a tech rehearsal, go out and do the thing that we’ve rehearsed and you say your lines and I say mine. I’m pretty square that way. But some performers are like, they look over the thing, they’re like, “All right, move out of the way. Here comes.” And they just go out and they do it, which is stunning. I mean, the skill set is-
Steve Cuden:
In fact, they’re worse if they do over rehearse.
Daniel Krell:
Yes. Right. So it works differently, I would imagine for different people, how to approach it. I mean, they are consummate performers.
Steve Cuden:
But for you, drama… I think what I’m hearing is you’re going to approach a role as a role, and if it happens to be in a comedy, you’re still going to approach the role as a role. If it’s a drama, you’re still going to approach that role as a role, and there’s no special difference in the way that you approach the technique of acting that role.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. I mean, you are aware that it’s a comedy and that this is meant to be funny. But what you do is you say that… The human folly is what’s funny, I guess. So you have the character who asks for this cup of tea instead of whatever that set up is. Instead of saying, “Oh my God, the house is on fire,” he says, “May I have a cup of tea?” So you have to play him asking for a cup of tea instead of… I mean, you realize that it’s written to be funny.
Steve Cuden:
So we have to cover, for a moment, working with celebrities, because you have recently worked with a big one.
Daniel Krell:
Oh yes.
Steve Cuden:
Mr. Hanks.
Daniel Krell:
Tom Hanks. That’s right. I was like, “Wait, who?” Tom something.
Steve Cuden:
Yeah. Mr. Hanks. All right. So you played Mr. McFeely, who’s an iconic character from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Now, David Newell, who has been Mr. McFeely for 50 years has been a guest on this show. And David, I think of as a friend. He’s a great guy. Did you get together with David and talk to him about it? Did you just study the heck out of the show or what did you do?
Daniel Krell:
Studying the heck out of the show, and also we played phone tag several times. We actually talked on the phone and tried to get together. So we did talk on the phone a little bit, but really it was more to set up a time to like get together, And he canceled and I canceled, then we moved this around and we changed it to then and we never actually got to sit down together.
Steve Cuden:
So what did you do? Did you watch the show a lot?
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, watched the show a lot. But also I kind of did a lot of my memory of it, watching it as a kid, or actually watching the show. So a lot of the physical mannerisms and et cetera, I got from watching the tapes.
Steve Cuden:
Just knowing it.
Daniel Krell:
Well, no. The physical mannerisms and et cetera, I got from actually watching tape. But the essence of it, the heart of it or the something, I actually pulled that more from my memory of what that show was, so the deeper aspects of it. I mean, the heart, the joy, the et cetera.
Steve Cuden:
All right. So now you get cast in this part and you know you’re going to be playing with one of the great superstars of our day, Tom Hanks. And do you then come to that in any different way than you would with any other actor?
Daniel Krell:
You know, ignorance is bliss, and I’m pretty blissful. Well, I think a lot of it is, as I said before, I tend to watch documentaries and travel shows. I mean, not like only things that educate me, travel shows rather than movies, so I hadn’t seen a lot of his movies.
Steve Cuden:
Seriously?
Daniel Krell:
I mean, as many as he’s done. And also, I have worked with a couple of people who are whatever that-
Steve Cuden:
That has a celebrity.
Daniel Krell:
-And you realize that-
Steve Cuden:
They’re just people.
Daniel Krell:
They put the pants one at a time. But then also knowing that I was going to work with this guy, Tom Hanks, who-
Steve Cuden:
And also playing a very famous character named Mr. Rogers.
Daniel Krell:
Right. Knowing that you’re going to work with Tom Hanks and not somebody who has a reputation as the opposite of Tom Hanks.
Steve Cuden:
Sure. He has the most pristine reputation of any actor.
Daniel Krell:
And well-deserved.
Steve Cuden:
The nicest guy, yeah?
Daniel Krell:
The nicest guy in the world. I mean, it was so great. That’s what I want to be, that I came away from this experience. That’s what I want to be. I want to be that guy, not that rich, famous actor. I mean, look, I’ll take the rich part, but I’ll leave the famous part behind. But he was so great.
Steve Cuden:
All right. So I could ask you this about all the actors you’ve ever worked with, but I’ll ask you about him in particular. Did you take anything away from him and what he did? Aside from the being the good human that he is, I mean in terms of being an actor, did he do anything that you went, wow, he’s doing that. I’m going to steal how he does that?
Daniel Krell:
Well, not as far as acting technique, except for the things that we already kind of know with the difference between stage and film. You have the thought in film. You have the thought and the camera and the microphone picks up the things. With stage, you have the thought and then you have to get it out to the last row.
Steve Cuden:
You have to exaggerate it a little bit.
Daniel Krell:
So it’s theatrical. So there’s different techniques in there. So to watch him and how he just had the thought and he was talking to you, who was just four feet away from him. And on stage when somebody is four feet away from you, the people that are so many yards away from have to be able to hear you. So I watched that and just how he did that, but that’s nothing new. But the thing that I did take away from it was Murray, the director, would give him direction and you would see him take that direction, listen to what she said, process it, shake his head, yes, understand what she means and do the best that he could to incorporate that into the performance.
Steve Cuden:
Fascinating.
Daniel Krell:
I mean, if he wanted to, he could turn around and say, “No.”
Steve Cuden:
Sure. And lot’s of actors do. Lots of famous stars do.
Daniel Krell:
Yes.
Steve Cuden:
Anyway, they’re going to do it the way they’re going to do it.
Daniel Krell:
They’re going to do it the way they do it.
Steve Cuden:
And by the way, that gets amplified hugely on a television series, where the actor is playing that part over and over and over again for years, and then a new director comes on and the actor knows better than the director. But in this case, she’s done all of her prep, I assume, on Mr. Rogers. And the one thing I’ve seen numerous clips of him talking about doing the role and that the thing that she kept saying to him is, “Go slower.”
Daniel Krell:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yes.
Steve Cuden:
Because he’s a pretty fast talker.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, he’s quick. He likes to move the conversation along, just because he likes to converse and connect. But yeah, that was a big thing.
Steve Cuden:
So you have learned over time, which I think is a huge thing for actors who go between TV and film, is that you have already alluded to it, that there is a difference in the way that you deliver the performance, because on film it’s a lot less outward. And that for theater, it must be more outward in order to reach the last row. You did more theater before you ever got to film. Did you have trouble in the beginning with cameras, or did you have to learn those techniques?
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. I guess as long as you realize what the difference is, then it’s okay to do it. And it’s kind of fun and kind of interesting too, to be able to let go of that theatricality and just have the thoughts and just play the truth. I find film and television a little tedious in its process.
Steve Cuden:
Well, that’s a very good question, which is when you’re on a television set or a movie set, you’re going to wait and wait and wait and then you have a few minutes to perform and then you go off and you wait and wait and wait. Do you have to really rethink the way that you go that marathon where you have to suddenly rethink the way that you operate?
Daniel Krell:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Do you mean as opposed to in theater?
Steve Cuden:
In theater where you’re working on a show from beginning to end and you’re working and working and working and working. It doesn’t stop really, unless you’re off stage for any period. But on a movie, you might shoot for 15 minutes, then they’ll break and go to a whole other setup, and that may take four hours. So there’s a psychological downtime that you have to overcome, but yet stay in that energy level. Is there anything you do for that?
Daniel Krell:
I mean, I hate to sound like a broken record, but preparation, so that when you hear the word action and you turn and you look at Tom Hanks, you are McFeely and he is Mr. Rogers. So if you’ve done all that work ahead of time, then you are able to jump into it again over and over again.
Steve Cuden:
Do you have any particular tricks for preserving your energy?
Daniel Krell:
No, not tricks. Just preserve your energy. I mean, just take it easy and stay loose, though. I mean, everyone is different, of course. I mean, that’s the big thing.
Steve Cuden:
Well, we’re talking to you about you.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. I have easy peasy conversation so I don’t stiffen up or kind of get sleepy or something. I converse, but I’m not bouncing all over the place, jumping around, hugging people.
Steve Cuden:
Well, some actors are known for going off to their trailer or wherever, to a corner, and not talking to anybody. And there are other actors who are more effusive and more outgoing and it just depends upon your particular way of approaching things.
Daniel Krell:
That’s exactly right.
Steve Cuden:
And yours it sounds like you just like to keep it nice and light.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. I mean, I will not run to my trailer, but I would find a corner and not-
Steve Cuden:
Keep your thoughts to yourself somewhat, as opposed to being a big…
Daniel Krell:
Right. But not be like, “Don’t talk to me. I am in character.” There’s no don’t interfere with my preparation.
Steve Cuden:
You imagine that someone like Robin Williams, bless his soul, that someone like him on a set he was probably bouncing around the whole time. He probably never stopped. That he was just a Roman candle that was lit all the time.
Daniel Krell:
And that’s him. That his-
Steve Cuden:
And then there are people, like you heard about Daniel-Day Lewis, and he’s never not the character at any time on or off set. I mean, people were talking about Lincoln, where they never talked to anyone but Mr. Lincoln until the movie was finished shooting, like a wrap. Yeah. I find all that very interesting. I don’t know if you find that interesting at all. I do.
Daniel Krell:
I do. I find it interesting. But again, it can be that vastly different for different people.
Steve Cuden:
We’re coming toward the end of our session here, but do you have any particular differences in the way that you first approached working with directors that you now do differently? How do you work with directors? What is it you want from a director? How do you like to approach a director or how do you want them to approach you?
Daniel Krell:
Like most things for me, I guess it’s about balance, and that includes me and that includes the director. The balance between myself coming in with ideas, but not being rigid in those ideas. So not coming in blank slate, like I haven’t thought about this at all and I don’t know anything and I have no idea what-
Steve Cuden:
You have some ideas about how you want to play the part.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, exactly. And especially the director, I guess, because they have to have big picture in mind. I have to take care of my scenes and my dialogue and my et cetera, but they have to take care of the whole big picture. So they really have to kind of come in with ideas, obviously. But then the best directors I think are the ones that are able to talk to their actors. And it’s a collaborative art form/business. It’s collaborative.
Steve Cuden:
No question.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. So you have to be able to work with directors and directors have to be able to work with actors.
Steve Cuden:
No names. Have you worked with directors who were not good at directing actors?
Daniel Krell:
Yes.
Steve Cuden:
And what do you do? what do you do for self-preservation?
Daniel Krell:
As best you can. Yeah. Well, I mean, I’ve had the extremes. I’ve had directors who know how high your pinky fingers should sit when you make this gesture on this syllable of this word. I mean, really. And then other ones that are like, just kind of here’s the script and kind of just go ahead and let’s see what happens.
Daniel Krell:
And you’re kind of lost without any help from… Because no matter what you’re doing, it’s observed differently from outside eyes, from the audience. So what you want is the director to be that audience, watching what you’re doing, to see what comes through.
Steve Cuden:
I’m going to jump to a conclusion that you’re not a fan of line readings. You don’t want a director read lines for you.
Daniel Krell:
No.
Steve Cuden:
But have you ever been in a case where you just couldn’t figure it out together and they finally gave you the reading they wanted?
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. I mean, it’s funny because you see some actors, it’s kind of funny where they’re like… I mean, they are struggling with it. They don’t get this. They don’t understand why. So then they’ll say, with a laugh, “Could you give me a line reading?” With a laugh. And then sometimes they do and they’re like, “Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, I see. I see.” But then others, they’re never… You can…
Steve Cuden:
Again, this is a guess on my part, because you and I’ve never actually worked together. I’m going to guess that when you come in, it’s not a ton of direction for you. You know what you’re doing. Mostly it’s blocking, that you need to know where they want you to go and how you pick up whatever and hand off whatever and all that blocking. But then I’m going to guess that you’re not overly directed, that you probably come in and have it down fairly well most of the time.
Daniel Krell:
Well, I have ideas, plural, I think, not my idea. I have ideas and thoughts about it. And I love working with a director. I love a director who you stand there and you talk about what’s going on in the scene and they throw out ideas to you and you bounce them back with your take on them and you go back and forth and you’re in agreement and you collaborate and make it the best it can be, as opposed to, “Here’s my idea, and then now here’s my idea. What do you do from…”
Steve Cuden:
And let’s butt heads.
Daniel Krell:
Yes, exactly. Or something less, that it’s not even a combatitive, but where it’s just…
Steve Cuden:
I think what you’re saying, correct me if I’m wrong, is that the ideal is where it’s a true collaboration. It’s a partnership and that you’re both taking each other’s and plusing that.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. And you’ll work with the best directors who know how to talk to their actors, who know how to get what they want out of the actor, which is also what the actor wants. So you both want what is best for the production.
Steve Cuden:
And ideally, a director should be the person with the overall vision, who sees the whole thing.
Daniel Krell:
I am agreeing with that, yeah.
Steve Cuden:
So that it can’t be Dan comes in with a vision of what the show should be, which differs from the director’s opinion or vision, and that suddenly Dan pushes his vision on the director.
Daniel Krell:
Right. And unfortunately, bad actors, you get that. You get bad actors who come in and they say, “This is how I do it. This is my character. I’m playing this role.” But they’re not thinking about the big picture of the piece itself, the overarching…
Steve Cuden:
You’ve had this incredible experience, where you’ve done numerous iterations of A Christmas Carol, with different actors playing Scrooge, because they keep bringing in different stars or celebrities or great actors to play it. I assume that you’ve had to adjust somewhat for every one of them.
Daniel Krell:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. But also, I got to adjust. I mean, rather than just not adjusting and having it be the same, and this is how I say my line and I don’t care how you say your line, then that’s again, that collaboration. With this new Scrooge that comes in and I’m playing Jacob Marley opposite, you get to talk to a new fresh bunch of ideas from that new actor who’s not done it before.
Steve Cuden:
Do you find that helpful?
Daniel Krell:
I love it.
Steve Cuden:
I had the great good fortune to have Patrick Paige sit right in that chair. Patrick was just fantastic. And his wife, Paige was on the show prior to that, and she sat in on that same session, so I had her on twice. That was a lot of fun. I enjoyed, because I saw him do that. So I’ve seen you several times do it. And I thought he was a lot of fun doing that.
Daniel Krell:
Absolutely.
Steve Cuden:
All right. So you’ve been in this business for some time now. In all of your experiences, can you share with us a story that’s funny, quirky, offbeat, weird, or just plain hilarious? Something.
Daniel Krell:
Just plain hilarious.
Steve Cuden:
There are those.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, sure. Well, it’s funny. I guess the things that are the most recent are the ones that carry so much weight in their funniness to me. But it was just in December doing A Christmas Carol, as actors do in December. Not unusual. And I played Jacob Marley and spoiler alert, I fly in the thing and they… So they put me in a harness and…
Steve Cuden:
Do you talk like this?
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, boy. And it’s lots of fun, let me tell you. And so I’m wearing the harness and then they hook me up to a cable and I fly out. But the harness, the strap going across the front, around the upper belly, I guess it was a little loose or something. It wasn’t quite tight enough. Now, it wasn’t unsafe, at all.
Daniel Krell:
So it usually rides above the belt line of the pants that I’m wearing as Marley’s ghost. But it was loose, so it slid down underneath in the pants on the belt line. So then I sit down to talk to Scrooge in one part of the scene, and as I sit down, the snaps in front of my pants, all four of them went. And their snaps, not buttons, because I have to do a fast change out of it, so they can’t be like really good solid. It has to be something that could be undone very quickly. So it’s never been a problem before. But with this-
Steve Cuden:
These are the snaps that look like buttons?
Daniel Krell:
Yes, exactly. They look like buttons, but they’re actually rigged as snaps. But with that big harness piece falling down in, it snapped these buttons so I had to do the rest of the scene with my legs spread and my knees bent and squatted down. And every now and then, I’m trying to… And Marley, in this scene, is warning Scrooge to change his ways or he’ll end up like Marley, a ghost in chains and doom to wander throughout eternity and all of these horrible things. It’s supposed to be dramatic.
Steve Cuden:
Perfectly the Keynesian.
Daniel Krell:
Yes, and then here I am walking around, trying to pull up my pants for the whole rest of the scene, and I have these ghost gloves on, they’ve covered my hands in them and their little snaps. And I kept trying to, every now and then, gesture with one hand and snap my… But I couldn’t even pull the pants together because the harness was inside them.
Daniel Krell:
I spent the rest of the scene walking around, squatted with my legs open.
Steve Cuden:
Did anybody laugh?
Daniel Krell:
I mean, not on stage.
Steve Cuden:
The other actors who got it.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah. I don’t know because there’s so much going on, because it’s the special effects with this ghost. I have these chains on and these long coats and the frayed edges and all of these weird behaviors because he’s a ghost, I don’t know that anyone in the audience ever caught it, because I kept them up. They never went past my knees.
Steve Cuden:
Did anybody come to you after and say, “That new way that you walk was fantastic.”
Daniel Krell:
You were really connected in that scene.
Steve Cuden:
You’ve given us a whole new way of looking at Marley. I think those are the things that people remember from their careers, those offbeat, weird things that happen. That’s why I asked the question.
Daniel Krell:
Live theater. I say people see car races, they go watch them so they can watch the car wrecks. They’re always hoping that a car wrecks.
Steve Cuden:
Why do you think people go to hockey? Because people get in fights.
Daniel Krell:
Yeah, the fights. People go to live theater to look for somebody to mess up.
Steve Cuden:
Well, it’s the lions in the arena. People want to see this crazy stuff happen. And of course, The Carol Burnett Show between Conway and Harvey Korman.
Daniel Krell:
Yes, they did that. I mean, they milked all of that stuff.
Steve Cuden:
Of course, they did. They allowed that to happen.
Daniel Krell:
That was great.
Steve Cuden:
That was really great memorable stuff. All right, last question for you. For someone who’s either starting out in the business or maybe somebody who’s in a little bit but trying to get to another level, do you have a good solid piece of advice or a tip for them?
Daniel Krell:
Well, they’re not my original things, but they’re things I’ve heard and things I’ve really kind of latched on to. There’s two of them. And my favorite, we do some talk backs with young people after a show or for some outreach or community involvement or something. You get a lot of kids, who put up their hands and, “I want to be an actor. What should I do?”
Daniel Krell:
And my favorite response, it wasn’t mine, but that I heard was, “Learn everything you can,” which I thought was so smart, such a smart answer to that. Rather than move to New York, get an agent, it was learn everything you can, because it’s true. It’s absolutely true. You can use anything that you learn, history, geography. Learn about religion, even if you’re not religious. Learn about the history of it and learn climate. Anything that you learn can be applied.
Steve Cuden:
Well, that’s so valuable, because you as an actor may play any number of roles in which you require having that knowledge.
Daniel Krell:
That it.
Steve Cuden:
Same thing for a writer and director and a producer, to know everything that you can, not just about the craft of being in theater or film, but everything about everything.
Daniel Krell:
Yes. I mean, learn the facts of geography, but then it’s even bigger picture. You become more aware, just generally aware of the world around you, which then you can really apply that as well.
Steve Cuden:
It certainly makes you a a better informed person.
Daniel Krell:
See, that’s another thing. A lot of actors, a lot of kids, okay, if they’re starting out, there’s a good amount actually that won’t actually continue on with a full fledged career as an actor.
Steve Cuden:
It’s challenging.
Daniel Krell:
It’s so challenging, that a lot of… But then what that does is then you have this thing that you have learned to learn everything you can, that you can carry it into whatever you do.
Steve Cuden:
Absolutely. Well, that is extremely valuable advice. I think that’s valuable advice for anybody, whether they’re in the entertainment industry or not, but I think super important for people in the entertainment industry, because a lot of people go into it with no other thought of doing anything, and this gives you an opportunity to explore the world.
Steve Cuden:
So I thank you. Daniel, this has been fantastic. Well, we’ve been at it an hour and eight minutes, believe it or not.
Daniel Krell:
Nice.
Steve Cuden:
And so I really thank you for coming into the studio today. It’s been terrific.
Daniel Krell:
Well, thank you. That’s great.
Steve Cuden:
And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you liked this podcast, please take a moment to give us a comment, rating or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to. Your support helps us bring more great episodes to you. This podcast would not have been possible without the generous support of the Center for Media Innovation on the campus of Point Park University. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden, and may all your stories be unforgettable.
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