Back on the TV beat after a long, long absence for one reason only. I happen to be a massive fan of the Showtime series "Shameless," which happens to be running its second-season finale this weekend. This celebration of Chicago natives the Gallaghers (and based on a long-running UK series of the same name), "Shameless" features a wealth of bad behavior from each and ever member of the family, including the smartest and most devious of the bunch, eldest brother Philip Gallagher, or "Lip," played by relative newcomer Jeremy Allen White, who has been doing spots on television series and indie movies for about seven years.
I think I first saw White in the creepy Internet-themed drama AFTERSCHOOL and a couple years later in the barely released Joel Schumacher work TWELVE. He's got a couple of films slated to be released later this year, including the mystery THE TIME BEING and the Farrelly Brothers-produced comedy anthology MOVIE 43, and he's slated to shoot the based-on-a-true-story SHOPLIFTERS OF THE WORLD during his "Shameless" hiatus, a film about four friends whose world is rocked when they find out The Smiths have broken up.
But it's strictly based on his work on "Shameless" that made me want to sit down with White when he was in Chicago a few weeks ago, during a particularly bad cold spell. So if you aren't a fan of the show, this interview might not mean much to you. If you are, however, please enjoy my talk with a great actor, Jeremy Allen White…
Capone: Enjoying the weather? What am I talking about? The whole first season was set in the winter. You’ve been here in the winter before, right?
Jeremy Allen White: Yes. The second time we came to Chicago to finish up the first season I guess it was almost about exactly a year ago when I guess you guys had that huge blizzard last year, and we actually shut down for a day. Then I think there were some poor guys for continuity shoveling snow off the Gallagher porch. I think you guys got like seven or eight inches then that time.
Capone: Oh it was way more than that.
JAW: Was it more?
Capone: It showed for about 36 hours.
JAW: It shut everything down, that’s right.
Capone: It shut Lakeshore Drive down.
JAW: We were staying at the James Hotel and were like the only people there. [Laughs]
Capone: Just a few weeks before the first season started, [executive producer] Wells was here promoting his film that he directed, COMPANY MEN, but we talked a lot about the show and I was really excited to see it, because I was familiar with the British show and I was curious about the fact that they were shooting here at a time when there was a lot of stuff being shot here. And I watch the show. I just watched Sunday’s episode last night, so I’m caught up.
JAW: Oh cool.
Capone: Introducing Lousie Fletcher into the mix was a nice touch.
JAW: Yeah, she’s great.
Capone: When you first got a sense of just how ghastly the Gallaghers could get or the people around them could get, was there ever a time when you just kind of went, “Wow, I’m not sure I can sustain this level of depravity.”
JAW: You know, I don’t think so. I think it’s really brave of the writers and John; we’re really testing the audience and seeing when people are going to stop watching.
[Both Laugh]
JAW: Do you know what I mean?
Capone: You’re daring them to keep going.
JAW: It is. It’s like a push and pull, and with television today, especially on Showtime and HBO, the most popular shows follow these sort of antiheroes. Michael C. Hall is a serial killer in "Dexter," Tony Soprano is a terrible person. There’s something that audiences really enjoy about this, because everyone has that dark side that they don’t really feel like showing, and I feel like they can live a little vicariously through these characters and through us and get some pleasure out of it. I think we're doing a service. I think we're really helping people out. If there’s anything that I would have thought twice about, but I still thought was very interesting was just I think it was episode three maybe. You said you watched one through six for this season? Or just six.
Capone: No, I’m all caught up with what was aired.
JAW: Okay, so episode three. I think it was three when Bill [William H. Macy] pretty much killed that woman.
Capone: That was a totally new level.
JAW: Which was the furthest we’ve gone I think and that was the only moment where I was like “Ehh, I don’t know.” But actually written, it was much worse. He actually slept with her after she was dead in the script.
[Both Laugh]
JAW: So really we are being careful, and they didn’t go as far as they had originally planned, so they are still watching themselves.
Capone: Do you remember the first time that you read a script and were genuinely taken aback by something?
JAW: Yeah, that was a lot. Otherwise for my character, it remains pretty fun--and I’m not going to say innocent, but there is kind of a boyish playfulness about the trouble that Lip gets into, which I really enjoy doing. But now I guess in just the last episode on Sunday Lip really wanted Karen to ask about the abortion. What I really have trouble with playing Lip is not really how ridiculous it is, but it’s really that relationship with him and Karen that I have a hard time dealing with. I’ve never been incredibly appalled, but I had a very difficult time for example in the end of the first season after Karen has slept with Frank, I had a very hard time wrapping my head around forgiving Karen and so quickly. Not necessarily forgiving, but remember there’s that scene on the roof at the end?
Capone: That's a great scene.
JAW: I talked with the director, and we figured it out, but it takes some time to work that out and think why, and what it really comes down to is Lip’s empathy, and also Karen and Lip are a very similar breed of animal. I think they have to look out for one another and I think at the end of the day, Lip is taking that into consideration, and that’s what made him able to forgive her in the way that he could. Obviously, I still think Lip’s upset about the whole thing--you couldn’t not be--but I think that he kind of met her halfway with being able to support her. It’s been very hard for her and it’s very hard for Lip this season, and the stuff I’ve had a hard time with personally has been Lip coming back and back for more with Karen.
Capone: He was always good at compartmentalizing the relationships in his life, but with her, he has become this pure emotional creature, and it’s clearly a new thing for him. But it’s age appropriate too, which you forget, because you think of him as much older because he’s sort of a father figure too.
JAW: And he's so smart. Yeah, that’s true, which is nice. I remember one of our directors who directs a lot of the episodes, he’s directed more than anyone else I think, his name is Mark Mylod and he also did the first four episodes of the English series actually. That’s something he’s always spoken to me about. He would say, “Jeremy, you do a good job playing Lip, and he is very smart and very mature, but we really have to work on finding those moments where he’s still a kid. He’s still a kid and he doesn’t have control of every situation even though he’s very, very bright and responsible taking care of his family. We really need to find those moments where he’s still allowed to get very upset and feel out of control.” And that’s what I’ve been working on a lot this season, really finding those moments where Lip can lose control and not think as rationally as he has been able to in the past.
Capone: Let’s just start from the beginning. How did you got involved with the show? I assume there was an audition.
JAW: Sure. I’m from New York and I was living in New York and auditioned out of New York several times. I went on tape about three or four times, and then it was very much like any other kind of screen test. They flew me out to L.A., and at the time I was reading for both Ian and Lip, so I would go into the rooms and I would stay in the room for two auditions. They would bring two kids in, and I would read Lip with one and Ian with the other. I was reading Lip and Ian in New York and in L.A. up until the Showtime screen test, at which point they said, “You’re going to be Lip.”
But there were actually no Ians reading at the screen test, but a very good friend of mine who is an actor, Ezra Miller, he was in L.A. reading as well and he really wanted to play Lip, and I was really interested in Ian at the time and so that was our plan, we were going to both book the show. He was going to be Lip, I was going to be Ian and then they kept Ezra and I in the room for a very long time and switched us around a bunch of times until they wanted him for Ian, which he didn’t. He didn’t want to play Ian and so I screen tested for Showtime as Lip, got that, and then I read with a lot of Ians, and eventually we found Cameron [Monaghan] who is really, really great. I went and read with a bunch of Ians in John Levy’s office at Warner Brothers and then eventually at Showtime.
Capone: The relationship between those two brothers is fascinating, and again at least where we are on the show right now, it has broken down, which is really upsetting to Lip.
JAW: Well it’s difficult, you know? If Lip has anything going for him other than how smart he is, which he refuses to really indulge himself in that and go to school or anything like that, what he really has is his brother and his older sister, and those relationships are so strained this season, and I think Lip is incredibly lost without that and he’s never had that before. I think him and his brother have kind of always been there for each other even if it has been hard to listen to each other, eventually they always have.
In the first episode there’s a very similar discussion that Lip has with Ian about Kash [Ian's convenience store boss] and how that’s not right and he’s also finding out he’s gay. Lip is a little more stubborn I think and it’s very hard, he really cares for Karen and he can’t seem to shake it. He’s not able to think straight when it comes to her and he won’t listen to anyone. It’s really putting a strain on his family life.
Capone: You can’t help but wonder how successful Lip would be if he applied that brain to more conventional avenues like school or work. I sound like a parent.
JAW: [Laughs] Other than selling drugs or something like that, yeah.
Capone: He sells drugs out of an ice cream truck and takes other people's SATs for money. But I always got a sense that in an environment outside of the family, he wouldn't function as well. I think he’d be really lost outside of that.
JAW: It’s true. He’s not likely to go to school any time soon, because he’s probably very afraid of the “real world.” I think he’s very comfortable in his environment, and that’s where he really thrives, home and in this neighborhood and people know him and they know how smart he is, and also there’s no one to really compete with. He’s definitely the brightest, and I think that that’s really frightening to Lip to go out to the real world to try to get a real job or go to a school with other kids. I think that would really take him out of his element, and he’s not really comfortable with that idea yet, and I don’t know when he will be.
Capone: When you finally did get the role, did you do any kind of prep work to be in the situation like that family wise?
JAW: I went to a few Al-Anon meetings in New York, which were pretty interesting. I’ve never been around a family like the Gallaghers, so I heard some stories. But really it’s on the page. I really didn’t have to look too far. The show is really, really well written and character driven, and the writers write for the actors. They're very involved with us, and it’s really on the page. There’s not too much research that’s necessary. It’s great when we do go shoot and come here to Chicago, and we shoot on the south side it is great to just be in the neighborhood and walk around and get to know the people that live there, but I don’t think that would directly affect any of our work or preparation, but it certainly couldn’t hurt.
Capone: When you came back to shoot second season scenes, was it a different experience, other than it being warmer? Do people start to know what’s going on in those neighborhoods and say, “Hey, I saw the first season.”
JAW: It’s really great. I mean first of all it was so cold during the first season that people weren’t coming out very much, but we came back and we shot the second time it was August, so all of the kids were out of school, families were out on their porches, and it’s amazing how these people have really responded. You never want to go to a neighborhood and do something there and have those people really hate what you’re doing, and these people don’t. They really appreciate it. They enjoy it, and even some of the kids work security there and help out with craft service, and everyone gets involved and are always very excited when we come around.
Capone: Cool. In addition to using your brain this season, this seems like a very physical season for you, because you’re breaking shit or beating people up or getting beaten up. The first time we saw you this season, it was like bare-knuckle boxing.
JAW: I was getting hit, yeah. There’s a lot of self-mutilation going on, especially so in episode five. I think Lip just doesn’t know what to do with himself, and he’s really angry with himself and he’s punishing himself, and I guess there must be some release there. There’s the scene in five where he gets beat up by that guy he mouths off to for almost no reason, and then he goes under the L tracks and takes a seat, and in the weirdest way when I read it and I was working on it, it’s like a breath of fresh air, you’re alone and something else has happened to take your mind off everything else, and I found something incredible peaceful about that moment with Lip just sitting under the L and having a cigarette. I found it to be nice actually. He’s looking for some kind of escape and he’s not looking the right way.
Capone: I love that it took Lip about five second to start to manipulate Karen when she starts showing signs of being unhappy about the man she's married. Is that where we're headed now that he’s weaseling his way back in?
JAW: You’ll find she's almost impossible to be kept happy for any amount of time by anyone, and I think she’s fed up with Jody, and Lip is happy to be in her life again for a while. Then obviously other things happen, but I think he’s pleased to help her get rid of Jody and be involved in her life again.
Capone: You get a fair amount of scenes from week to week with two great Chicago actors, William H. Macy and Joan Cusack. Tell me what you’ve learned from them.
JAW: It’s kind of amazing. It’s intimidating to work with each of them, because they are so very in it all the time and you look at them and sometimes you just want to keep watching rather than act. You get stuck. You can really tell when an actor is trained and able and with such ease they can go into their role; there isn’t much preparation time. They don’t need the set to be quiet. They don’t need any of that. You yell “action” and they slide into it, and I’m working very hard to try and get to that same place, because often times I might need a moment and I feel okay with that being young and starting out, but I definitely want to try to get to the place where I can have that same amount of ease slipping in and out of character.
Bill has given all of us some advice, which is really “Learn your lines.” It sounds stupid, but you’d be so surprised at how many actors will come to work, whether it be film or television, and in the dress rehearsal they'll have their sides in their hands and they’ll be working it out. The great thing about John Wells’ television shows are he never allows sides on any of his sets, so you actually don’t have the choice of coming in without knowing your lines, you have to or else you wont be able to get the day done.
It just leaves more time to play. It leaves more time to explore, to try new things. You don’t have to wait on another actor or wait on yourself to get that one take that can be used. You can really explore and try different things and give the editors a bit of variety and have them enjoy themselves a bit more with messing around. But yeah, I just learn a lot watching them. They are just great to watch.
Capone: Besides your character, are there other characters on the show that you feel the most invested in?
JAW: Yeah, I think Debbie.
Capone: She’s definitely come into her own this year.
JAW: She is, and it’s so hard. She means so well and so do all of the Gallaghers, but Lip will do some shady things while Debbie is really just very good. She’s a very good person all around. She doesn’t let much affect her. She still loves her dad in the strangest way, which is very admirable, you know? She doesn’t want to lose him, and while everyone else kind of turn their back, she doesn’t want to lose that father figure and it’s very sad, but it’s also very admirable and loyal, and you have to appreciate that, but yeah it’s definitely hard to see what she is going through this season. I really connect with that little one.
Capone: What is it about Lip that you like the least?
JAW: I mean I enjoy playing him. In some sense, it’s when he obviously loses control a bit, because it’s exciting to explore, but really it’s difficult when people are that smart, which Lip is, I think they have a very hard time controlling relationships and emotions. They can’t really separate and that’s something that I think Lip has to learn how to handle. He really doesn’t know how to handle the relationship he has with Karen. His IQ is through the charts, but when it comes to him being in a relationship, he’s acting like a 12-year-old boy and really just doesn’t know how to handle himself in those situations and is something that Lip is going to have to figure out, if he wants to be able to move on from the neighborhood, if he wants to be able to separate himself from his dad. There are a lot of patterns that are coming up with Frank and Lip, and I’ve said before that I think Lip is beginning to kind of mimic some things that Frank has done.
Capone: Despite the fact that he’s said on at least one occasion that refuses to be his dad.
JAW: Right. Exactly, but you know those father-son relationships are so difficult in that way. You really can’t choose what you get.
Capone: I always feel like if somebody has to say that, it’s probably not true.
JAW: Exactly, if it has to be said. But as much of a buffoon as Frank is and as much of a drunk as he is, I think when he was Lip’s age, he was probably very similar. For some reason, I think he's still very smart, Frank. He has his opinions. It’s very Shakespearean almost, some of his monologues. He’s very funny but he’s got points, and I think that Frank could have been a lot like Lip when he was young, and I think Lip is trying his best to avoid becoming like Frank, but at the same time, some things are inevitable and you can’t help what you get from your dad.
Capone: Do you give much thought to where Lip’s going to be after you’re done with him?
JAW: I don’t know. I secretly hope… not secretly anymore, [Laughs] but I secretly hope that Lip will stay. I don’t know what it is and I know a lot of the audience and fans really want him to go to school and go to college, but one of my favorite things about Lip is his loyalty to his family and his loyalty to the neighborhood that he comes from. He really likes these people. He thinks they are good people. They're working class, blue color, and I think they are a good quality of people, and I think Lip agrees. I think he wants to be one of them. He could go off and make a lot of money, but at the end of the day I think he wants to raise a family there, but I think what he wants that’s different is he wants to raise his family differently than Frank. I think if he had kids, he would want to raise them right. He'd want to stay with whoever he decided to settle down with, but I don’t know. I hope he stays.
Capone: The label “dysfunctional” has been put on this family from the first episode, but watching them, they're about the most functional family I know. They're a well-oiled machine, especially in a crisis situation.
JAW: They are. I think they’ve been trained. Not that many families have had the same kind of crisis that the Gallaghers have, so they’ve gotten very used to it and they know how to handle themselves in those kinds of situations. But you’re right. It’s kind of a beautiful thing how they can all come together and not only come together, but they can kind of forget the problems that they might have had with each other for a while for the greater good. They're very much about the greater good and really figuring it out, and everything else can wait for the greater good of the family, which is very commendable and a great trait that I think all of the Gallaghers have, even Frank at times.
Capone: Can you give us any sense of what’s going to happen with Lip and the family in the big picture as the season wraps up?
JAW: It’s tough, I’m trying to think. I haven’t been watching the season this year, so I’m trying to think what happened so far.
Capone: Well we just introduced the grandmother, and Karen got married. Those are two big things.
JAW: Yeah, Louise Fletcher will be around for a while longer playing Grammy and it’s really great. Her and Bill get some really great stuff together. For the next two episodes, pretty much all of their scenes are together and they're separate and they really have their own story, which is really exciting. Lip and Karen forge some kind of new unhealthy relationship that lasts for a while, but obviously as most relationships that all the Gallaghers have, it falls apart. Ian and Lip’s struggle, I think there’s a lot of jealousy and animosity there that Lip really could go off and do whatever he wanted, and I think that Ian and Fiona are very confused and troubled with the fact that Lip refuses to really do anything with this gift that he’s been given, and that causes a lot of strain on their relationships, and that only builds.
Lip actually will leave the home for a while this season. There’s really an explosion of things around episode eight or nine where things with Lip and the family really hit a wall. I’m trying to be careful of what I should and shouldn’t. Steve and Fiona’s relationship begins to mend, and you can see the possibility of them being together once again. But there’s a lot of arguing in the rest of the season.
[Both Laugh]
JAW: Even the family, who we’ve kind of always counted on to get along, with Frank aside, they are without each other, which is very interesting and I hope people respond well. Despite the despicable things that some of the Gallaghers can do at times, I think the reason people watch is because of that bond that the family has and they really enjoy seeing that, and it really does get shattered a bit in these next few episodes of this season, and so I’m curious to see how people are going to respond to it.
Capone: So what else do you have going on? I saw a couple of film credits that looked like they were coming up.
JAW: Yeah, I mean it’s all independent films, so it’s subject to change, but I got a few movies for this hiatus, which I’m very excited about, one of which a friend of mine is directing. It’s called THE TIME BEING and is with Frank Langella and Wes Bentley, and I just did like a day on that. Hopefully a film I’m really excited about that I think I can get done depending when we come back for the third season is this film called SHOPLIFTERS OF THE WORLD, which is about the band The Smiths and when they broke up.
The film follows these four kids in Denver the night they break up, and they're kind of out partying and mourning their breakup and then one of their friends who’s father owns a record store, he takes his father’s unloaded gun and goes to a local radio station and holds up the DJ and makes him play The Smiths for 24 hours. That would be the character that I hope I can play, and they’ve got a good cast together. James Frecheville from ANIMAL KINGDOM is going to do it, and I think I’m the only American cast right now. [Laughs] It’s all Australians and English. I’m trying to remember his name, but the boy in LOVE ACTUALLY, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, is doing it and then this girl that’s in "Downton Abbey," Jessica [Brown Findlay] it.s in i I haven’t met them all yet, I’ve just seen there was something released about it. So I’m very excited about that. Then there’s one other one that I’m going to film in Texas in March for about a month, so I’ve been trying to keep busy during the hiatus.
Capone: You have a role in MOVIE 43 as well?
JAW: Yeah, I did that a long time ago though.
Capone: I don’t know what the hang up there is.
JAW: I actually saw the footage for the first time about a month ago.
Capone: Which segment are you in?
JAW: With Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber. Yeah, I did that after the pilot, so it’s been a very long time coming, but what the trouble was is it’s pretty much a bunch of shorts put together and they were having trouble finding a narrative story to tell to loop them all together. They had one and they got rid of it and they tested it and then they’ve been filming another one, so I think that’s the hang up with what’s happening, but I saw some footage and I think it’s going to release pretty soon.
Capone: It sounds great. I’ve talked to a lot of actors and a lot of directors that have pieces in it.
JAW: Everyone is in it. It’s crazy.
Capone: Jeremy, thank you so much for taking the time to talk. It was great to meet you.
JAW: Absolutely, it was very nice to meet you. Thanks.
