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Interview: Banshee's Geno Segers!
Today to celebrate the series finale of Cinemax’s hit show Banshee, we have the honor of talking with Geno Segers who played the big bad guy, Chayton Littlestone! For those that haven’t yet caught up on last season of Banshee there may be some slight spoilers ahead, proceed at your own risk!
How did you land the role of Chayton Littlestone on Banshee?
It’s funny, they sent me on an audition. My agent at the time was pushing me really hard with this particular casting director and I had just gotten off of a DisneyXD show called Pair of Kings. Now, there was quite a bit of apprehension of me being able to play such a violent, visceral character as a result of my past experiences. So it was a bit of a push and stretch for them but when I was able to send in my audition tape they ended up saying they wanted to see how I would do with some extra coaching and direction, so we did that. Then they started to show me concepts of what the character might look like and they sent me this drawing of Chayton with the tattoos all over his body. I thought “I don’t have any tattoos, so how are they going to give me all the tattoos I needed?” They ended up getting this guy was a tattoo artist and they put them on like temporary tattoos, they put a glue on your arm, then the tattoo, then they wet it and peel off the sheet and you’ve got tattoos! Now I don’t have any tattoos, not one. My whole take on that is people that have tattoos clearly didn’t get enough bumps, scratches, and bruises by accident. Not that they didn’t get A bump, scratch, or bruise, they just didn’t get enough of them. You know I got too many of them by accident to then go out and put more marks on my body, I just don’t do it.
Yeah, I don’t have any tattoos myself either.
Exactly. As a kid growing up every weekend I had a new scratch or bump. So I wasn’t going to do that deliberately. You know? Now originally they (Banshee producers) asked me if I could change my voice, crazy right? Because to them my voice sounded kind of fake.
Fake?
So I said no problem. I can do breathy (he says in a breathy voice), it’s no big deal to me. I do voice over work all the time and I had no problem changing my voice. In my mind the breathy voice is what landed me the job, right? So I get to the set and OC (Ole Christian Madsen) is talking about the character and were discussing how he feels and where he’s coming from, we never talk about how he sounds, we never mention that, so we get on the set and it’s the first time you see Chayton. Then I come out and say my lines in this breathy voice, I get through the whole scene and OC comes up to me and says, “That’s really good, that’s really good. But what happened to your voice?” I say “What do you mean?” He goes “You changed your voice. Why’d you change your voice?” I told him that’s how I did it in the audition. He said, “No, no. Use your voice, use your real voice. Because you’re going to come in and everyone else will talking and then you come in with your voice and say Just Chayton, and it’s gonna be great.” So I told him ok great! No problem! So I do what he says and said the lines and when I saw the playback it was really good. It was perfect. But originally Chayton wasn’t supposed to sound like me, he was supposed to sound like this tough guy (he says in a mock gangster voice).
I gotta say though, that scene when you first debut on the show, when we first see Chayton, I was hoping he would be around for a while.
Yeah, we thought he was going to be dead in three episodes. I mean if you notice no bad guy comes to Banshee and lives more than two episodes. No one. I mean even the albino, he was two episodes and that’s it. They felt like they missed the boat with the albino, and thanks to the albino, they let Chayton stay around longer. It just made sense for that world. I was happy for it and I thank Joe Gatt all the time for creating such a good bad guy that they wanted another one.
Yeah, you two were probably the best bad guys they had on the show.
People say that all the time.
Because of that I didn’t want them to kill off Chayton right away since the bad guys never made it very long. So when everything went down at the end of last season with Chayton’s death it was a memorable way to go out.
Yeah there’s a lot of Fanshees that compare Chayton Littlestone’s death to that of Gus Fring from Breaking Bad mostly because half our heads are missing also the relief of Chayton dying because of what he had done to Siobhan, what he had done to Hood, and what he had done to Banshee in general. Chayton started out in a good place, he started out with an honorable motive, but when they killed his brother, the only person he trusted and the only person he loved, that was it for him and he decide that his time was up. It wasn’t about getting back the land anymore it was about what he could take and stark raving revenge.
We loved the character of Chayton so much that we based a character in a comic book that we’re working on off of you.
That’s cool man! Thanks! You know Scalped is on the table.
I was actually going to get to that too because not to long ago I did a Casting Call where I cast actors who I think should play the characters, and I had you in there. It got a lot of traction among Native American sites for my useage of all Native actors for the parts, since I feel that’s how shows and movies should be cast. The lack of ethnic casting for ethnic roles bugs me so much.
That’s very common man. If that bugs you let me ask you this, does it bug you that they have English people playing Americans?
Sometimes.
Now the only issue I have with that is that you would never get an American to play English. You would never get an American to play Polynesian. You would never get an American to play a New Zealander. You’d never get an American to play an Australian. Yet it’s so common place to get Australians and Canadians to play Americans. In fact, Jesse Owens, one America’s most celebrated heroes is played by a Canadian. Now they would never let an American play Ben Johnson. But they will let a Canadian play one of our most celebrated heroes of our culture, and they let an Englishman play one of the most prolific civil right leaders of all time, Martin Luther King Jr. I kind of got a problem with that.
The one that’s catching the most flak right now is Scarlett Johansson cast as Motoko Kusanagi, a Japanese character.
Come one man, that’s wrong, that’s just wrong. I don’t care how you look at it, it’s wrong. And furthermore I have an ever bigger problem with them allowing Egyptians to be played by people from England.
Yeah, Gods of Egypt was horrible.
What is that!? They all had english accents!
That’s why when I do my Casting Calls I try to find the best actors that are actually the nationality of the characters they would be playing. So when I did Scalped I went researched all the Native American actors I could find for the roles. I knew we wanted to have you in the show for certain, but it was finding the right role.
That’s tricky, because I can’t play Dash, the lead. Dash is a wiry, bald, slim guy, you know?
Yeah, for Dash we picked Adam Beach.
That’s a great choice. Now the only one I figured I could play would be the gay bodyguard, Shunka.
That’s exactly who we cast you as!
I’d have to let my hair grown and if I’m going true to the character in the comic book I’d either have to wear a wig or let my hair grow. I’m fine with either one. I spoke with the guy who’s writing it, he was a writer on Banshee, so there is some real possibilities there to play Shunka. I know that he has a big arc where he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s gay from his boss since they would most likely cast him out for it. It’s a real internal struggle he has to deal with and I think I could make that work. I’ve got my fingers crossed it to happen.
Back to Banshee, what did you like most about working on the show?
I think it was the interaction between the directors and the cast. I thought they didn’t leave us in the lurch in a lot of ways. If there was something they wanted or something that they expected from the characters they were on it. In that process, working with Loni (Peristere), Greg (Yaitanes), and OC, all those guys really left the door open for you to express yourself, and if you went down the wrong road for a beat they would say “Hey, that’s great idea but we want something more for this character later on so he has to be in a certain line.” I think that’s probably indicative of the success of Banshee because the directors and producers were so involved in each character’s arc, where they wanted it to go, how it was connected to other characters, and how it all played into the bigger picture. So I think my favorite part about working on the show was just that, the interaction between the directors and the cast. Antony Starr was really good about that too. When we had fight scenes every punch meant something. Every punch has an effect, each time get hit I’m a little bit slower, each time he gets hit or cut he’s a little bit weaker, it was just a really good team effort and I really appreciate Antony for that.
Have you continued to watch the show even though you’re no longer on it?
Oh yeah! I’m a fan, I’m a Fanshee for life. I love where it’s going. It’s honed in a lot more and been focused a lot on the character development. It really shows where Hood has been, what he’s done, and how he’s dealing with it.
I recently watch a movie with you in it, you didn’t have any lines in it whatsoever, just a lot of grunting…
Bone Tomahawk!
How was it working on that movie?
Honestly, at first I didn’t want to do it because I’m a package deal. I’m a look, a presence, a sound, I need to be able to speak. But I thought about it and I had an opportunity to be Jason Voorhees, Jaws, Michael Myers, silent killers. I had the opportunity to be the lead antagonist in a film with Kurt Russell. I deal the fatal blow to Kurt’s character. Kurt, of course, cuts my head off and while I’m sitting in the audience for a screening the whole theatre cheered at the beheading of my character, Boar Tusk, I consider that a great accolade. It meant that the job had been done, I gave them a villain they wanted to see die. I was really excited about it and really happy I did it. I got the chance to work with some really cool people, Matthew Fox, Patrick Wilson, Richard Jenkins, David Arquette, and Sid Haig. Kurt Russell though will forever be the dude’s dude to me. He’s probably the coolest dude I’ve met. We were shooting some wide shots and Kurt was telling them “Come on man, how many wide shots do you need? You got a two shot here, you got one there, we’re done, let’s go!” Calling these guys out. The DP (director of photography) was trying to decide with the director what angle they wanted and Kurt was like “Come on let’s get this done.” And it wasn’t even about him, it was about the crew, he would say “Let’s get this done, these guys are tired. It’s 2am.” That’s Kurt.
How tough was it to get the makeup right for the character?
Oh man, that took a minute. I got some behind the scenes shots of me getting ready in that makeup. I’ll tell you what, getting that cold mud being slapped on my body in the cold desert, it was hard man. It was hard for me because they wanted somebody big but not a bodybuilder. Big but not fat. Muscular but not a bodybuilder. They wanted me to gain weight for Boar Tusk, I needed to lean down for Chayton, gain weight for Boar Tusk, and originally I got bigger for Chayton. My body was going up and down and finally I said “Hey look, you get what you get.” Now if I feel the role is going to be better for someone that’s smaller and leaner then I’ll take that upon myself, but man, I don’t think I could violently go through these changes constantly.
With your background with The Lion King musical, do you see yourself ever getting back into that type of work?
I’m currently at a festival now with a show called, The Breakout: A Rock Opera. It could be a very interesting series because of the dynamics. There’s a black male lead and a white female lead, and they are in love with each other. It’s a story about a kid coming to a new school, but there’s singing throughout. It’s kind of like Glee, High School Musical, but there’s a twist in there. It’s great and I think that that market is expanding, with the TV musicals. My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Empire, where they’re singing and whatnot. We’re hoping to get it on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, or any of the available media platforms or networks.
I saw that you were working on something called the Secret Closet as well.
Ah! The Secret Closet is something that’s still in the pre-production stage. I’m working with the executive producer and were hoping to get that started soon.
Do you consider yourself nerdy or geeky for anything?
Absolutely! My stuff is more history. Particularly, indigenous peoples history. I tend to read about migrations, how people got certain places, why people look the way they look, why most southern Italians tend to have darker features, why Polynesians tend to look Asian, you know. How did the Aborigines of Australia get to be one with nature? I could go on, and on, and on about indigenous people. I’m a geek when it comes to that. I can out talk most people in that subject.
What do you do in your down time?
Not much. Spend time with my girlfriend and making her happy. I try to train regularly, maybe 3-4 times a week. I try really hard to keep my training up, but the older I get the harder it gets. I used to do 60 pushups, 4 sets of 60, now I have a hard time getting that first set of 60! You just gotta stay at it. Joint fitness and joint health is very important. I try to think of it in range of motion as opposed to just getting big. Being flexible. That’s where I’m headed now, I don’t really want to be big anymore. I used to have this magic number of 300 pounds. Anything under 300 I was okay with, now I’m moving it to 260. If it means losing a little muscle I’m good with that.
I agree, I think it’s more being fit than anything else.
Exactly. If it hurts man, stop. (Laughs)
Now aside from the possibility of Scalped, would you consider joining the Marvel or DC movie universes?
You know, I was really cut when I didn’t get an opportunity to even read for a certain role. I was upset. I wasn’t like i read for it and they said not thank you, I didn’t even get a chance. When I saw who got the role I kind of understood. The guys a great actor and it’s no slam on him, he’s going to do a wonderful job. I just had my feeling all up in there. I just wanted to read for the character because he was one of the first characters I envisioned myself playing because there are so few characters I could play. I’m hoping that they’ll at least consider me for other roles that I can at least read for. I’m hoping that at some point the character becomes available again because I’d love to take a crack at him. Also with all of the CGI and voice filters they have now a natural bass voice isn’t as in demand as it used to be. They can get actors to play a role not normally suited for them. I mean take Oscar Isaac, he’s playing Apocalypse. He’s a great actor, he’s going to do a great job, but a role that is perfect for Oscar I would never be considered for. But I don’t think that Apocalypse is perfect for him, I just don’t think it. Now again, that’s no slam on Oscar Isaac, I think he’s great and I know he’s going to do a great job. Look at the Nina Simone movie. Zoe Saldana is playing Nina Simone, which to me is bad casting, BUT, I think she’s going to do a wonderful job. I mean they put dark makeup on her, made her nose bigger, make her lips bigger, I mean come on, she’s a beautiful girl, her be beautiful. If you want her to play the role let her play the role as herself don’t docter her up. Casting could have picked Viola Davis, she could have walked into the room, no makeup, put the head wrap on, and would have killed it. But in this business you never know who they’re picking, why they’re picking them, what the politics are behind it, and all the bullshit. It’s all to the detriment of the product, because people will pick with their wallets. Yes we’re going to go see this movie or no we don’t agree and we’re not going to go see this movie. Bottom line, I’m going to go see another movie with white people playing Egyptians, I’m just not. I mean it’s 2016, surely we should be okay with casting people who at the very least look Egyptian. Let’s take a step further, that we’re accurate to the Egyptians at that time. How about this, we’re doing a period piece on England, but we cast nothing but Chinese people in the movie. You wouldn’t go watch it.
That’s fair enough.
I mean if it’s a show like Game of Thrones which is full of English people playing those types of roles I’ll watch it all day long. And my favorite show, The Walking Dead, has a ton of English actors playing American characters. I love that show but it gets hard for me to watch. If they called me tomorrow and said “Hey we want you to audition for the show”, I would. I’d do it, I won’t lie.
Yeah, going back to the Scarlett Johansson being cast in Ghost in The Shell, I read articles with people saying Hollywood did it because there are no bankable Japanese actresses, I thought they were crazy.
What!? Seriously?
Yes. One of the best actresses who I thought would be perfect for the role was Rinko Kikuchi from Pacific Rim. She would have been perfect.
Yes! She was awesome! I don’t get it either bro, but it’s not Scarlett’s fault, she just doing her job. Casting needs to wake up. The excuse that people will only want to see it because Scarlett’s in it it BS. I think people will want to see it because it’s a good story. That’s how I feel about it.
Lastly, where can people follow you?
Go to www.genosegers.com, that will give you links to my Facebook Fan Page, Twitter, and Instagram. You can follow me on WhoSay. @genosegers is my handle everywhere.
Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today!
Thank you man, it was fun! Peace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2J0i5qBeSs
