Paul Anthony Kelly and Patrick Ball in The Pitt and playing sexy men
This interview is part of Variety and CNN’s Actors on Actors series. Watch the full video interview now on CNN.com/Watch (or in the CNN app) and on Variety’s YouTube channel starting at 11:59 PM ET.
Paul Anthony Kelly takes on his very first professional acting role in ‘Love Story’, where he takes on the role of John F. Kennedy Jr. in his doomed romance with Carolyn Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon). Meanwhile, Patrick Ball’s character in “The Pitt,” Dr. Frank Langdon, who has become a much-discussed figure given his Season 2 return from rehab and his attempt at redemption after stealing hospital narcotics in the first season. (At the end of the season, Langdon urges Noah Wyle’s Dr. Robby, his former opponent, to seek help.) After years of searching for the right role, Kelly and Ball have both landed in the right place: JFK Jr. and dr. Langdon were among the defining heartthrobs of the TV season.
Paul Anthony Kelly: Let’s start with it. I heard it took you a while to break into the industry. You used to be a theater actor, right?
Patrick Bal: I did theater almost exclusively for fifteen years, traveling around the country, doing regional theater and learning how to tell a story with an audience. It wasn’t until about a year and a half ago, when “The Pitt” came out, that I got my first turn on television.
Kelly: What was that like for you when you got it?
Ball: It was a series of panic attacks for a while. The first time you walk onto the Warner Bros. lot – they have little plaques on the side of each soundstage that tell you all the historical things that were filmed on that set. I walk onto the set and see that “On the Waterfront” and “Giant” were shot here.
Kelly: Cool.
Ball: It took about three weeks before I could breathe. And then, as I’m sure you know, after three weeks it just becomes the place where you work. We have this in common: this is your first big moonshot moment. And it took you a while.
Kelly: Pretty much the same timeline: It was 13 years of auditioning: a lot of no’s, some close stuff, but never really locking it down. I thought about giving up and then this opportunity came along.
Ball: What were those 13 years like?
Kelly: Lots of auditions, lots of silence. I always knew this was what I wanted to do. I knew if I kept at it, something would happen eventually. But after about thirteen years you think, “Maybe this isn’t for me.”
Ball: And the first thing that fell into place was playing a Kennedy. I don’t even know where to start. How did you prepare for this role?
Kelly: From the moment I was hired, I had three weeks to prepare, which wasn’t much time. But Ryan Murphy and his team took all the thinking away. Once they hired me, they got me a dialect coach because I’m Canadian. I have a completely different speech pattern than John F. Kennedy Jr.. I had to learn everything about him: the way he moves, the way he talks, the way he walks. [They hired] an acting coach, a physical trainer, because I needed to get a little bigger. John was a very active man. He was always running, always cycling, skating, playing sports.
Ball: That is quite a task for you.
Kelly: Yes, big stretch. But to find his voice, he narrates his father’s book, “Profiles in Courage.” So I listened to that almost religiously. Every morning when I woke up, I would sit on the treadmill and listen to it, in the shower or whatever. I listened to it in between takes, just to get into his rhythm, flow and speech patterns. And the way he moved: I was a model before, so I have pretty good control over my body. I was watching old clips of “Entertainment Tonight.” And he’s left-handed. So I was left-handed for six months.
Ball: Did you learn to write with your left hand?
Kelly: I did everything with my left hand. It’s not that good, but I can do it.
Ball: Can you eat with your left hand?
Kelly: Cook with my left hand, eat with my left hand, shake hands with people with my left hand. All the football stuff was all left-handed. But it was so cool to put the blinders on and focus a thousand percent on one thing. I had never had the experience of bringing an idea to life; I just wanted him to be a regular guy.
Mary Ellen Matthews for Variation
Ball: A lot of the show is about fame and this guy who wants to believe he’s a regular guy. I was surprised that you filmed all this before you became famous. Now that the show is over, do you find it harder to be a regular guy?
Kelly: Where I live, I can just be at home and regularly. We are in the Pacific Northwest. It’s just my wife and our new child – she’s just four months old. It’s nice to be able to focus on the family.
Ball: You have undergone many changes at once.
Kelly: My family is my rock in this whole crazy whirlwind.
Was there something for Dr. Langdon which allowed you to delve more into your character?
Ball: Season 1, there was very little opportunity for editorial input at the costume level, because we’re all in trouble every day. One of the few options for detail we have is what shoes we wear. Season 1 I wore these sneakers with a super curved heel, made for people who are on their feet all day. The heel was bent in such a way that it gave me a clown-like gait. It felt like a completely different way of walking than my daily life. But after eight months of clocking in at “The Pitt” on the same soundstage, under the same fluorescent lighting, with the entire season lasting one day, you really enter this alternate reality of “Groundhog’s Day.”
Kelly: There aren’t many set changes.
Ball: It’s 99% on that same set. Noah has talked about this – you don’t realize it, until you wrap yourself up in it and get out and go away for a few weeks, you’re like, “Wow, I’ve been so depressed. I’ve been a hot mess for the last eight months and didn’t even realize it.” And I had a bracelet that my child had made for me. I thought, “I think Langdon was going to get a little gift from his kids. My kid made me a bracelet.” It became this emblem of this man who tried to hold on to a sense of whimsy despite his circumstances. And then you come back in season 2 and that father bracelet has been replaced by this recovery bracelet that is wooden and stark and much more traditionally masculine. And there’s a sense that Landon may have lost his quirkiness in the course of this recovery process. Anyone who has gone through recovery, that is a fear. If I give up my crutch, will I…
Kelly: Be the same.
Ball: Will I be the same? Will people still think I’m funny? Will they find me interesting? And that can be a real fear, that you are going to lose an integral part of yourself if you give up these habits. And that was something I talked about all the way down to the bracelet [executive producer] John Wells and our costume designer.
I’m very excited to give a third act to this story because I don’t think for a second that seeking help is giving up your joy. I think the sense of joy you can have during the healing process of recovery is far more profound and far more fulfilling than anything you have yet experienced. So I’m really excited about the next chapter of this story.
Mary Ellen Matthews for Variation
Kelly: What was your process like in embodying recovery – and the humility Langdon goes through on his first day back?
Ball: In season 1 you have a Langdon who is very confident and moves very quickly. And that excerpt shows, by necessity, that he has six patients in need at any given time. And it is also a pace determined by the fact that he outsmarts his own shadow and carries many secrets with him. And coming back into Season 2, knowing that he’s been dealing with that shadow for the last ten months, and not having to pay attention to all the fires that you have to deal with in the Pitt – I was very interested in setting a different pace coming in, and then seeing how the Pitt’s pace creeps into the entire season, coming to a head in the last few episodes.
Kelly: Your show’s finale — Baby Jane Doe, Dr. Robby. What do you think happens there?
Ball: We don’t get any information. So now that I’ve seen the finale and loved it, I’m left hanging on the same cliff as everyone else. I have no idea what’s happening to Baby Jane Doe. Does Robby adopt baby Jane Doe? That would go against much of the advice he has given Whitaker [Gerran Howell] early in the year.
Kelly: However, does he take his own advice? He rides a motorcycle as a doctor without a helmet.
Ball: He doesn’t make a habit of following his own advice.
Kelly: What is it like working with Noah Wyle? It’s so fun for him to have been on ‘ER’, the quintessential ’90s show, and now ‘The Pitt’.
Ball: He is an incredible mentor – I would say quarterback, but he is more of a player-coach. In season 1, he was the guy surrounded by a bunch of us who were brand new to this. I came across season 1 and didn’t know how to read a call sheet. And he has been so patient and so generous, giving us all advice and guidance during this incredible moment – and he has also wonderfully left space for us to each make our own journey and create it in our own way, which is a sign of a wise and generous leader. What was it like working with Sarah Pidgeon?
Kelly: Working with Sarah is incredible. From the moment we met, there was instant chemistry. We understood the assignment, we had each other’s backs and we went in every day, it was either fall in love with each other or fall out of love with each other. But after every take it’s a high five. The entire ensemble consisted of people I had looked up to for a long time. We have a good group chat.
Ball: Are you going on a cast holiday?
Kelly: That would be nice; I don’t think it will happen.
Ball: Everyone is scattered at this point and you are now in dad mode.
Kelly: Your parents are both in the medical field, right?
Ball: My mother is a lifelong ER nurse. My father is a lifelong paramedic.
Kelly: What are their thoughts on the show?
Ball: They love it. I happened to be at my parents’ house when I was asked to come to LA and do the screen test, and I got to read through part of the pilot episode with them. The first thing they said was, “Oh, this medicine works. This is real medicine.” And they haven’t always felt that way: in hospital dramas, the demands of entertainment often take precedence over the authenticity of medicine.
Kelly: There’s a lot of speculation online – fan ideas, conspiracy theories. Do you ever see the memes about the show?
Ball: It’s been a journey for me. When season 1 came out, there was a lot of temptation to join in. People are paying attention for the first time and they all have spin-off theories: I want to join in and have fun. And as that public outcry continued to grow, it became intense. I realized the need for boundaries, putting up walls and maintaining privacy. It can be really scary there.
Kelly: Everyone has an opinion, and sometimes it’s better not to know those things.
Ball: “Love Story” has also had an incredible vocal fandom. Playing two iconic characters: they now created this entire moment. Every man who walks through Brooklyn thinks he sees JFK Jr. is.
Kelly: When we started filming, we did a screen test to see the colors; that footage was released and there was a bit of backlash over it. But that was kind of a good thing because it then showed how much people care about these two individuals. It tightened the grip on us to get it right.
Ball: People are completely into it. I am one of them.
Prop styling and art direction: Shawn Patrick Anderson/Acme Studios; Prop Styling Assistant: Joseph Bell
