DETROIT — Paul Walter Hauser auditioned for the role of a suspected serial killer in "Black Bird" over Zoom from his parents' basement in Saginaw.
The "Cruella" star was home for the holidays in December 2020 when he received a call to audition for the part of Larry Hall, who is in jail for murder but whose sentencing is coming up for appeal. Taron Egerton ("Rocketman") plays a smooth talking convict who gets transferred to Hall's prison to try to elicit a confession out of him that will keep him locked away and will hopefully lead to the discovery of more of his victims' bodies.
Hauser let everyone in the house know he was headed downstairs for an important call, and that their quiet would be appreciated. "I just cordoned myself off and popped off the audition," says Hauser, on a Zoom call last week during the "Black Bird" junket in Los Angeles. "I had really rehearsed it ad nauseam, so I I knew I had it down."
He did, and Hauser got the part in the limited series, which was inspired by true events and premieres Friday on Apple TV+. Hauser's character is a creepy Civil War reenactor with bushy burnsides — not sideburns, but burnsides — and a quiet, eerie demeanor. He is suspected of killing more than a dozen girls.
It's the latest big role for the 35-year-old Hauser, who was born and raised in Saginaw. He broke out in 2017's "I, Tonya" and has since worked with Spike Lee ("BlacKkKlansman," "Da 5 Bloods"), Clint Eastwood ("Richard Jewell") and others, carving out a niche for himself playing a string of lovable losers, this latest role being much darker and less lovable than the rest. Off-screen he's known for his colorful personality and his love of professional wrestling.
We talked to Hauser about "Black Bird," which filmed in New Orleans in spring 2021 and paired him briefly with the late Ray Liotta, and his career to date. What follows are excerpts from that conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Q: How's it going, Paul? I almost didn't recognize you without your burnsides.
A: Yeah, it's nice to have shed that voice, that wig, that jumpsuit and those mutton chops.
Q: Were those your mutton chops? Did you grow those suckers out?
A: Oh no, I'm not that committed. We slapped those on with some glue and some gel and all that goofy stuff. It was a real feat every morning, I think it took about 90 minutes to get the Larry Hall look.
Q: Was that the first time that you've had that much makeup in a role that you've been playing?
A: Definitely, yeah, I've never gotten to play like one of the X-Men or something where you're in the makeup chair for four hours. There were a couple looks I had in "Cruella" that took awhile. But this for me, 90 minutes to two hours in the morning, that was quite a bit. It was fun, and it also helps you act — you know, you feel like you're not looking at yourself in the mirror.
Q: Were you able to spend some time with Ray Liotta while you were on set?
A: I did get to shoot with Ray for like half a day, and I got to kick it with him a little bit and ask him questions about "Goodfellas" and "Field of Dreams." It was was pretty cool.
Q: I know you're a fan of movies and you make your fandom known to people. How did you approach him? Did you break the ice with a "Goodfellas" line, or did you just walk right up to him and be like, "hey man, I'm a fan?"
A: Just pretty straightforward and direct. And he was giving, he was willing to talk about that kind of stuff, he wasn't annoyed by it. He also was trying to rack his brain, 'cause I forgot, for him, he's in his 60s and I'm asking him about something he shot 35 years ago. I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, but I'm asking him about something he did 35 years ago. But he was fun to hang out with and very generous with his time and I think he knew how me and Taron and all the other actors felt about him as having this kind of this legendary, emeritus status when he walks on set.
Q: Do you remember the first Ray Liotta performance that you saw?
A: Yeah it had to be "Field of Dreams" when I was probably like 5 or 6 years old, and then I I remember seeing "Corrina, Corrina," the movie he did with Whoopi Goldberg, in theaters. And as I got older I was a huge fan of him in "Goodfellas," "Cop Land," "The Place Beyond the Pines" and "Narc." I mean, you just always believed what he was doing, especially when he played a tough guy. But when I met him, he didn't feel like a tough guy. He felt like me and Taron, like a sweet little softy.
Q: After working with him, how did you take the news of his passing?
A: I was on the set of "The Afterparty," with Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, Ken Jeong and this really great cast. It's a comedy and we're all having fun, we're cracking up. And then between takes I turned my phone off airplane mode and I saw the news alert that Ray died, and I cried a little bit. And I was trying not to get too emotional, but I gave a speech to the cast and crew and I just said, you know, you never know when you're going to go, and I hope you all know how much I love you. It was a nice moment, but you know I am very, very emotional, and I haven't really had that where I've worked with an actor that died. That's kind of a new thing for me. I just feel very lucky that I got to meet him and work with him.
Q: What was it like for you to play this really dark role?
A: I think I underestimated how long and tiring it would be. And you know, it was a rough role. Some days it was really fun and you're like, wow, I have this dialogue, I have Taron as a scene partner, we have this awesome tonality in the cosmic gumbo between true crime and a character-driven psychological story. But it was also exhausting, through hurricanes and COVID, and I ended up getting sober in the middle of the shoot. It was a lot, and I was grateful to be done when we were done.
Q: How did you adjust your movements and your body language to playing this monster?
A: It's all about intentionality. My character is either comfortable with himself and believes that he can kind of move about the cabin freely with the things he says and does, or he feels judged by someone else and he has to put on that performance and kind of do that dance with his eyes. And maybe it's faux humility, or faux fear, or injecting some sort of what he deems to be powerful and his eyes bug out. But to be honest, that's not really a serial killer thing, that's kind of a human thing. We make unconscious adjustments all the time pending who walks in the room, you know? So I was just playing that piece of kind of an icky universal humanity.
Q: Fall will mark five years on "I, Tonya." It's been a pretty wild five years for you, how's the ride been so far?
A: It's been a good ride. I did a repeat business with Craig Gillespie on "Cruella" and repeat business with Spike Lee on "Da Five Bloods," and I've met some really terrific people and had some great experiences. I think the next five years, I would love to work with other great filmmakers: I greatly admire people like Jordan Peele, James Mangold, Joseph Kosinski, Barry Jenkins. I mean there's a ton of directors I would love to work with, everybody from Debra Granik to give me one line in Tarantino's last film, whatever. I just I want to work with great storytellers, and at the end of the day, I feel I've gotten to, whether it's doing a sketch with Tim Robinson or being in a Spike Lee movie. Those are pretty different things, and that variance and variety matters to me, too.
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'BLACK BIRD'
Rating: TV-MA
How to watch: Premieres Friday on Apple TV+
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