“You know I had this Faith that getting shot and surviving meant that there was a God. It was Grace that told me how naive I was and that all it meant was that shit happens. Sometimes we get lucky.
…There’s gotta be a God. ‘Cause there’s a devil. I think you are the fucking devil.” [Mason Young, “Ozark”, season 1]
After watching “Ozark” last summer and “Seven Seconds” a couple of months ago, there is a thing that sticks in your mind. That thing is the interpretations of the actors that are in them and such well-written stories. And one thing sticks particularly with you or, better, one person, that we can find in both series: Michael Mosley. In one case he plays Joe ‘Fish’ Rinaldi (“Seven Seconds”) a tough detective investigating on the death of a black boy, and the peaceful (for now) Pastor Mason Young in “Ozark.”
You are maybe more used to see him in comedies, since he has been on many and acted in so many loved and famous TV series that cracked us up (“Scrubs” is only one of the examples). So, having the opportunity to sit down and talk with him was a real deal, we’re just big fans. We just finished watching the two Netflix series and we couldn’t wait to know more about everything: emotions, sensations, the casts and his preparation for the roles.
And, with the upcoming return of “Ozark” for its second season (he just finished filming it) we wanted to know it all.
We met him in Los Angeles and he is a fun and charming guy, with a cabin in Joshua Tree and a thing for chewing-gum (yes, just like Fish).
We were intrigued by Mason. We adored Joe Rinaldi. We loved Micheal.
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How did it all start? How did you discover your passion for acting?
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Oh wow! That’s a long way back! Me and my cousin Brian, when we were kids, my grandparents had a farm, from Iowa, and there is not a lot to do in Iowa, so we would made this little radio play, like in a cassette recorder, and we played different characters. I remember this is when I found the imagination, kind of pretending to be different people. He was in the local community theatre and said, “why don’t you come and audition for a play?”. So I went there and I auditioned for “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing,” I was in sixth grade, and I got the lead, as first thing I ever did. I was terrified. As the process went on and we finally had the opening night and “Oh this is it!”. This is why you are not as good in football. This is maybe the thing that you should focus on.
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What is the most important aspect for you when you are about to tell a story, throughout a character?
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I think it has to be playful, to me it’s always about play and pretend; it’s like being a kid, or better said, I get to be a kid all the time, I get paid to make believe. It has to be based on playfulness.
“I think it has to be playful, to me it’s always about play and pretend.”
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“Seven Seconds” is such an intense show. How did you manage to explore all the feelings of Joe “Fish” Rinaldi and how did you prepare to play him?
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I met with homicide detectives in Los Angeles, Jersey City and New York Manhattan, and these guys are just badasses, they deal with stuff every day that we never wanna deal with, but they do it every day and they don’t wring their hands about it, they keep it cool. There is somebody’s son laying on the ground and there is a mother there that wants to know what happened. They are really kind of important people. And they do bust each other’s balls and tell a lot of jokes and stuff all the time like that, they do have a gallows humor because of how intense their work is and they have to wipe their feet at the door, sort to speak.
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Fish has a lot of specific ticks and ways of moving. Was it all on the page or did you try to improvise?
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Veena [Sud] wouldn’t let us improvise too much. Other shows I’ve done, like comedies, are always open to that because in comedies what is funny floats. So there is a lot of playing around between the lines, but Veena didn’t want too much of it and it makes sense because it’s a very specific kind of serialize thriller almost. So, no, there wasn’t a lot of improvisation, but I’ve always thought that Fish is kind of a goober, he’s kind of goofy and a little awkward, so I’ve always liked to find places where he kind of explore, or turn inward, he’s reactionary.
“I’ve always thought that Fish is kind of a goober, he’s kind of goofy and a little awkward…”
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“Seven Seconds” explores such important society’s matters, of which the world should know more about. What was your first reaction when reading the script?
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It was really intense. And it was kind of letting myself towards a conversation that I think Americans have been having for a long time now, way before we had phones to film it. Race in this Country is so complicated, so just kind of activating that conversation I thought was gonna be a very interesting challenge.
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I think it’s also brave, there is courage in telling the story.
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You know, I didn’t see this story before. It is interesting and we were very careful and respectful towards the story and the people. Because there are mothers out there that have buried their sons and you can’t dramatize this. This was kind of scary at the time and we didn’t want to fuck it up.
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There are so many so many intense scenes. I am a fan of the show, and the most beautiful thing was that every scene and every character made you feel what they were feeling: I felt the fear of Nadine, I felt the sense of guilt of the police. And you have so many intense scenes, for example when you discover about Nadine. How do you recover, as Michael, when you have to shoot some very intense scene?
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I think recovering is easy, because getting there is kind of the hard part. But when they call “cut” and we got it, you actually have just gone through the emotional thing, so for me it’s very easy to kind of shake it off. And it’s actually kind of important to do it, go get a cup of coffee, go laugh, go tell a joke. After you have done it, you kind of feel better, like some personal therapy.
“This was kind of scary at the time and we didn’t want to fuck it up.”
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How was the mood on set?
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It was actually pretty light. When they called “action,” that’s when we did all our intense stuff. And when they called “cut,” that is when we used to joke and bust each other balls a little bit, because we had to. It was so intense all the time; they would have been 4 long months if we lived in that space all the time, so we just saved them for “actions.”
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Speaking now about “Ozark,” your character again has one of the most intense scene, the one with the baby in the water. I was so scared!
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Yes, when I read the script I was like “They want me to do… what?”
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When you lifted him, it was great.
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Is it a spoiler at this point? No, if you haven’t seen it, that’s your fault! Yes, that was an intense scene. There is a boat in the water with a huge crane camera, and so if the weather is not right, then it’s not safe. There is a bunch of crew on there. So we went out there to shoot it once and the weather is bad. So we went out a second time, and I have a baby in my hands and I don’t want to drop a baby in the water. I was scared!
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How was approaching your character, Pastor Mason Young, in “Ozark”?
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Bethany [Anne Lind] played my wife in the show, and the first scene we did I looked across and she was just so simple, doing barely anything, just talking, and I just looked at her and just thought “that’s all I’m gonna do, I’m gonna do what she is doing.” Because I think with the confidence in someone’s spirituality, and I think he was confident in his own spirituality, there is nothing to prove, I think he was just very simple on that piece. While Fish is this fucking bone China closet and he’s gonna tip anything over in any moment, Mason was peaceful, in his heart he thought he knew everything.
“While Fish is this fucking bone China closet and he’s gonna tip anything over in any moment, Mason was peaceful, in his heart he thought he knew everything.”
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And how was working with Jason Bateman, who was also directed the series?
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He was great. He is really just a great boss. Because we are doing all this intense stuff, like shooting people and almost drowning babies, all this crazy creepy and intense stuff, and then they call “cut” and he would tell a joke. He doesn’t live in it, he doesn’t live in that intensity, he is able to turn it on and off rather effortlessly and I really admire the guy, he’s a standup guy, he’s really like the guy that you see on TV. That is who he is, always, he’s charming and funny.
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Can you tell us something about your character in season two?
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No! (laugh) There is more fun this way.
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Is there any actor/actress or director you would love to work with?
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Oh, all of them! Anyone. I can’t think of anybody specific, don’t make me choose!
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In your career as an actor, what was the project in which you felt the most free on acting?
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I really liked doing “Sirens.” It is an American comedy that Denis Leary and Bob Fisher produced. And on that show, me and my friends Kevin Bigley and Kevin Daniels were just three guys in an ambulance, and we were just f**k around all day, it was so much fun, and they would just let the cameras roll, there would be one on all three of us, and there were two cameras striped to the side to get everything. So we were recording everything all the time and we were just playing around and trying to crack each other up. It was like robbery that I did get paid for that job, it was just so much fun! So I guess that was a sense of freedom. Comedy is like pinball, you’re just bouncing everything off, while drama is lot more meticulous and measured.
“Comedy is like pinball, you’re just bouncing everything off, while drama is lot more meticulous and measured.”
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What’s the last series you have binge-watched?
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“The Crown” is so good! Those two, Claire Foy and Matt Smith, they are just so good. And Matt Smith is like a rock star, he cracks me up! When he is like “I’m going away for a long weekend” and she says “it’s Wednesday” and he is like, “Oh well…” Those two are hilarious, and she can do so much with so little. She is just so lovely.
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Your favorite movie of the moment?
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“Black Panther” was really great! And I watched “The Big Sleep” on a plane the other day, with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall; those two were like magic together. My favorite movie of all time is “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, directed by Mike Nichols. I think they were married at the time. It was Mike Nichols’s first movie, but that’s my favorite.
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Your Epic fail on the job.
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I had an epic fail when I was shooting “Scrubs.” In season 9 I am supposed to be this Med student and we get this pages and at the end of the day we were shooting this scene. And they added a line and I didn’t notice. And John C. McGinley’s character asks me “which are the three layers of the stomach?” and it’s the Epithelium, the Lamina Propria, the Muscularis mucosa (you guys can type that down, have fun looking that up), and it’s all I had to say. And I had a look at it and I hadn’t memorized it, and I just couldn’t remember, and it’s Latin, those lines do not mean anything to me and I couldn’t say it. And there were 50 extras staring at me and I know they all are “this asshole doesn’t have his line memorized” so I set there forever trying to spit that stuff out, take after take after take. Now I remember it and won’t forget!
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Your Happy place.
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I have a cabin in Joshua Tree, a little bit of an acreage, just a small cabin out there, right next to the park, 8015 acres of park. So I go out there, play the guitar and light a fire. It’s really nice!
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The Superpower you would love to have.
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Have you ever heard of “If you could fly or disappear, which one would you pick?” it’s like a psychological study? If you ask anybody “if you could fly or be invisible, which one would you pick?” it kind of says something about people. Which one would you pick?
I would fly…
That’s the right answer! Because if you said invisible, you are kind of a creep. Be careful, if you ask people this question and the answer is “invisible,” just walk away.
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What’s your dream project?
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I’ve optioned this book (“Brother’s Blood”) about a famous murder that happened in my hometown in 1975. This guy, Jerry Mark, is on his motorcycle, (this is what he is convicted of, he maintains he’s innocent) in California, drives 3 days straight to his brother’s farm in Iowa and kill his brother and his brother’s family, gets on his motorcycle and goes home. He says he didn’t do it, but he is in jail, I’ve been talking to him, we have been talking and writing. It’s really weird, with a quadruple homicide, becoming friend with him I guess, I don’t know. I am working on that and I’d love to do that and play that character. I’ve been working with my writing partner Jeremy Davidson, he plays James Connelly in “Seven Seconds.” So hopefully it will come to fruition someday and I can play that part.
Photos and video by Johnny Carrano.
Grooming by Michelle Harvey at Opus Beauty using Kevin Murphy and CHANEL Palette Essentielle.
He comes across as a really down to earth guy and i loved his character in seven seconds! oh and he is gorgeous!
He comes across as down to earth and was brilliant in seven seconds and he is gorgeous in this shoot ..