- 15 hours ago
"For me to be part of it, as an upcoming actor, it’s a real privilege and an honor to be part of such a thing," Burnet told THR. "I hope the audiences really respond to it and see it separate to how the original was."
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00:04I'm Oliver Trevina, in studio with The Hollywood Reporter, joined by my fellow Brit and good friend Guy Burnett.
00:09Yes. How are you?
00:10I'm well. How are you?
00:11Good mate.
00:12Two Brits.
00:13This feels too professional for us.
00:14It's way too professional, way too English. You know, we're both illegal immigrants sat here.
00:19This is true. Thank you for pointing that out, Guy.
00:21The Hollywood Reporter.
00:22I think we might need subtitles for this interview.
00:24Yeah, probably between us and me.
00:25When he gets going, when he gets going.
00:27That's right.
00:28Exciting times though.
00:30We were just talking about this the other day and now we're going to do it again, but Counterpart.
00:33What a great show.
00:34Yes, it is great.
00:35It's wonderful.
00:37It's actually cool to be involved and be able to talk about something that I'm genuinely into and I'm a
00:46fan of the show itself.
00:47Right, right.
00:48Which sometimes you might be doing something that you would have to promote or you have to talk about and
00:53you're like,
00:55you know, it's great, it's good, but you know, a bit inside I'm thinking, I don't know, it's so much.
00:59Which is why you're here, because you're proud of it.
01:00I'm very proud of it.
01:02It's a wonderful show and I hope, you know, people give it a chance and give it time because it's
01:07something that needs to breathe and it's really something that should be watched.
01:10It's great television.
01:12It is great.
01:13That's a good plan.
01:13I keep looking over here.
01:15He loves his audience.
01:16He loves his audience more than me.
01:19Me and you love the audience more than you love me.
01:21We do.
01:21Not that he loves the audience more than anyone.
01:23No, I love you more.
01:24Thank you, mate.
01:24I was fishing for that.
01:26But it's on Starz, so you know, you can push it a little bit further.
01:28Oh, okay.
01:29So you want me to push your Starz?
01:30Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:30No, I mean the actual storylines and stuff is great as opposed to other things you've done where it's very
01:36controlled.
01:37Yes, I know what you're suggesting here, that I can get naked often.
01:40You can get naked often.
01:41Yes, I can.
01:41Perhaps not as much as, you know, Skinamax or one of those shows, you know, networks, but I do actually
01:49get naked in this show.
01:52Which episode is that?
01:53I think that will be in episode six or...
01:57No, actually it's in episode five, I think.
02:00I don't know, I'm confused.
02:01The whole thing is confusing, to be honest with you.
02:03Okay.
02:03But I do get naked at some point, so perhaps if you want to skip that episode, I completely understand.
02:09Yes.
02:10You say the show is confusing.
02:12Yeah.
02:13There's two J.K. Simmons.
02:15That makes it very confusing to start with.
02:17Well, there's actually two of you in that world as well.
02:20There's basically parallel worlds going on.
02:23Yes.
02:23But my favourite part is just the fact that there's two J.K. Simmons.
02:27One of the best, you know, out there.
02:29Yes.
02:30There's double J.K. Simmons.
02:32You get to enjoy, you know, two sides of J.K.
02:34I think the brilliant part of it is what J.K. himself brings to it.
02:39J.K. Simmons plays these two guys from worlds which, I don't want to say are running parallel, because they
02:46start off running parallel and perhaps, you know, they turn into more alternative worlds.
02:52But they're slightly different.
02:54And the way J.K. plays it is so subtle.
02:57He doesn't, you know, it's not like, you know, an actor coming in to, you know, I'm playing two different
03:03characters, so I'm going to play them entirely different.
03:04I'm going to showboat.
03:05You know, he doesn't, he just does it so subtly, but you know at every point that you, which version
03:11of J.K. you're looking at.
03:14Right, right.
03:15Yeah, which is brilliant.
03:16And it's, you know, something that I, you know, I look up to him an enormous amount.
03:19But it must be amazing to share the screen as well, yeah.
03:22It's incredible, man.
03:23You know, I've been lucky to do that on a few occasions.
03:28You know, a lot of actors that I've really looked up to over the years or grown up watching and
03:33wanting to emulate or to take something from in some kind of way, learn.
03:38And I've had, I've been lucky enough to just have the front seat, front row seat to seeing these guys
03:43work.
03:44And J.K. is like, he's just like this animal inside, but he holds it still.
03:50It's incredible.
03:51I'm lucky.
03:51I'm very lucky too.
03:53And, you know, Claude is going to have quite the journey, but you just mentioned on the way in here
03:57to Season 2.
03:58Season 2 is happening.
03:59It's going to happen.
03:59Season 2 is happening.
04:01So that's exciting.
04:01Yeah, it's incredibly exciting.
04:02You can't, well, I can't give away too much about what happened.
04:06You can hear.
04:06You can tell us everything.
04:07I can tell you everything?
04:08Everything.
04:08No one might.
04:09Okay, so here's what happens.
04:10The whole show, I'm going to break it down.
04:12What's the story like?
04:12To be honest with you, if I actually understood what was happening in the show, I'd perhaps be able to,
04:16you know, tell you what's going on.
04:18But half the time, I don't know what's going on.
04:19Actually, this is a true story.
04:20When I got the part of Claude, they gave me, they give you the scripts, and they also give you
04:27a kind of user's manual as to what is happening, which is this kind of Bible that is maybe 200
04:34pages long, trying to break down what the show is about, where your character fits in, where the other character
04:42fits in.
04:42And, you know, and it's incredibly complex, but the way they execute it, you know, Justin Marks, the guy who
04:50wrote it, manages to make it relatively kind of simple exposition for the audience.
04:57Right, right.
04:57Fancy words.
04:58There you go, it was good.
05:00You rehearsed that one.
05:00I did.
05:00I was working on that for ages.
05:04Moving on from Counterpart, something very different, but the recent Pitch Perfect 3 as well.
05:09Yes, yes.
05:09Pitch Perfect 3 and this whole franchise and now you're part of it.
05:12Yeah, man, a massive franchise, you know, a female-driven franchise, which is wonderful and I think there should be
05:21a lot more of those and it's just, you know, I'm incredibly gracious with it.
05:27I'm humbled and honored to, you know, be part of it and, you know, there's like, you know, I think
05:31it's eight or ten, you know, women here and they're so lovely and they all get on and the atmosphere
05:38on set is brilliant and they're very welcoming to me,
05:41even though I wasn't in the first two, you know.
05:45Right, right.
05:45So, you know, it's just an amazing experience, something that was something I won't ever forget and a different part
05:50for me.
05:51Normally I'm the antagonist, normally I'm playing these kind of dark characters in Pitch Perfect.
05:56I get to just, I guess, be myself to an extent, have a bit of fun, you know.
06:01There you go.
06:02That's always nice.
06:03It's always nice.
06:03It depends if I'm a nice person.
06:05Well, you are.
06:06I'll say that.
06:06I'll say that.
06:07Thanks, Oliver.
06:07And move on before you change your mind.
06:09Yes.
06:09And you are obviously keeping busy.
06:11Right.
06:12Electric Dreams on Amazon.
06:13Yes.
06:14That's out or coming out.
06:16It's out now.
06:17It's an anthology.
06:17It's kind of a weird setup.
06:18Every episode, it's its own one, similar to the way Black Mirror is set up.
06:23And my episode is with Terence Howard and Anna Paquin.
06:27Right.
06:29Again, incredibly complex premise based on the short stories of Philip K. Dick.
06:35Ronald Moore wrote this, directed by Jeffrey Rayner, who I worked with on The Affair a year ago.
06:41And I play a guy in two, you know, a guy from the future and the same character, you know,
06:47in the present day.
06:49So, yeah, that's cool.
06:52The episode I'm in is called Real Life, I think it is.
06:54I think it's episode five or six.
06:55Got it.
06:55Got it.
06:56You like these difficult, complex things.
06:58Don't you?
06:58No, it's not that I like it.
07:00I go in the room and they go, oh yeah, look at him.
07:02He's a mess.
07:03Yes.
07:03He can play this well.
07:05There's a lot to him.
07:06He's very complicated, this man.
07:07This is going to be very easy for him.
07:08He can walk straight into it.
07:09Yeah, yeah, yeah.
07:10What about Jacob's Ladder?
07:12Another project.
07:13Jacob's Ladder.
07:13That's right.
07:14Remake.
07:16You know, I dread to say remake.
07:18You know, they've used the same title.
07:20It has a similar premise, but they've gone in a slightly different direction.
07:25I'm actually really excited.
07:27You know, listen, Jacob's Ladder I think is, you know, top ten for a lot of people, films.
07:33And so, to some people it might be sacrilege to do it.
07:37Some people are going to like it.
07:38Some people are not going to like it as much.
07:41But I'm really excited to see what they've done with it.
07:43The guy who directed it, David M. Rosenthal, he's a genius.
07:48He's brilliant, this guy.
07:49And for me to be part of it, it's kind of like an upcoming actor.
07:55You know, it's a real privilege and an honour to be part of such a thing.
08:00And I hope the audiences really respond to it and, you know, see it separate to how the original was.
08:07Right, right.
08:07Yeah.
08:08Juggling a lot.
08:09How do you find that?
08:09Yeah.
08:10It's fine.
08:11I'm a little bit lost.
08:12It's alright going from character to character when you jump in from like, how is that?
08:15That's a good question.
08:17Well, there's been times over the last, look, put it this way.
08:21There was many years where I just didn't do anything.
08:24As you know, Oliver and I used to play football together for many years because we had a lot of
08:28time on our hands.
08:29Right, right.
08:30I didn't, I was busy.
08:31No, no, no.
08:31He would pop in now and again.
08:33But me, I was there every day.
08:36But no, listen, now that it's, you know, I'm wearing these different projects, I'm full of gratitude for it.
08:45I'm very happy to do it.
08:46And if I'm doing two characters in one go, I'm happy to do that.
08:50I'm happy to fly at the same time, which I did.
08:52I would, when I was doing Electric Dreams, I'd fly from there to Berlin to shoot Counterpart,
08:57from Berlin to Atlanta to shoot Pitch Perfect 3, all completely different characters.
09:02And what I would have to do is I'd use that plane time, the long journeys, to just reset my
09:08mind, go over everything,
09:10and just try and figure out, you know, who I was becoming, what I was coming back to, what I
09:16was going to do.
09:17Those poor people on the plane.
09:18Do you want to apologise in case anyone's watching for your behaviour on the plane?
09:21I'm so, so sorry.
09:21I would get drunk quite often and behave, misbehave on the aeroplane, depending on the character that I was.
09:27I was playing, you know, when I was coming back to do the Electric Dreams one, I really apologise to
09:33the person sitting right next to me.
09:34There you go, there you go.
09:36So, talking about all these projects, you think you take it back to like Mordecai and Johnny Depp.
09:40Oh yeah.
09:40And now, you know, Ray Donovan and Liv Schreiber and Ian McShane.
09:43Yeah, yeah, look at you.
09:44And now, you know, JK Simmons.
09:47Yeah.
09:47Who haven't you worked with?
09:49One person that you'd love to, right now, if you could write your future.
09:52Yeah.
09:54Well, he's retired, apparently, but Daniel Day-Lewis would be my dream.
09:59But, you know, he's retired.
10:00I think, for me personally, you know, the Pacino's, the De Niro's, these people that I looked up to.
10:06I think of everyone, the guy that I looked up to the most growing up was this French actor, Vincent
10:13Cassell.
10:14He was the reason I wanted to be an actor.
10:17He was, and I wished to emulate him.
10:21I wished to look up to him and I would love to do something with him.
10:24I mean, I can name you a bunch of names.
10:26Sam Rockwell was a buddy of my life.
10:28That guy, he is the guy I want to, you know, try and do something even close to the way,
10:34you know, the work that he's doing.
10:36He's incredible.
10:36He's amazing.
10:37He's just the coolest guy too.
10:39But directors are really the people that I look to and I go, wow, I want to work with that
10:44director.
10:45I want to work with that director.
10:46Actors, man, it's a privilege and it's, you know, whoever, like, even if it's someone unknown, I always find there's
10:52something that you learn.
10:53Something that they bring to it.
10:55But directors like Paul Thomas Anderson would be a dream, you know.
11:00God, I can name you like thousands right now.
11:03I have a whole list on my list.
11:04You have your list.
11:04On your vision board.
11:05On your vision board at home.
11:06I have a full list on my personal board.
11:08Thanks.
11:08Thanks a lot for embarrassing me.
11:09Talking about just touching base on it because, you know, from England to Hollywood, you've been here a while now.
11:14And obviously we see there's a lot of people that come here and leave if things aren't working out.
11:18But you've kind of, you know, you've stuck it out.
11:21You've gone through it all.
11:22Yeah, you've stuck it out.
11:22You mentioned the time when you wasn't working.
11:24What would you say the key to that is?
11:26Like just sticking through it?
11:27Yeah.
11:27I like that you, because it's, you know, I think that, and I'm very honest when I answer this.
11:32I'm not like one that goes, well, you know, I did this and I did this job and I, no.
11:35It's, you know, the reality is, it is tough.
11:37It is difficult.
11:38You know, leaving the UK, having done little bits and bobs there and then trying to find something new, trying
11:46to fulfill your ambitions and your dreams just like any, you know, young actor, you know.
11:51And I came to New York originally and I was in New York for a few years.
11:57I did theatre.
11:57I did rep theatre.
11:59I reset.
12:00I did everything from scratch after the work I'd done in England and I needed to reset myself.
12:05I built up again from rep theatre to off Broadway to little parts on Broadway, which then got me to
12:13Los Angeles.
12:14And then again, maybe like a couple of years, just trying to find my feet, doing different jobs, you know.
12:20And, but it's sticking it out.
12:22It's finding a way to do that.
12:24As long as I can eat, as long as I can pay my rent, which at times is hard, you
12:28stick to it.
12:29You know, I believe that if there's something, if you have something to give, people will see it eventually.
12:34And, and, and it will begin to, there'll begin to be momentum at some point.
12:39That's, that's my honest answer.
12:41You know.
12:41That's good advice.
12:42Thanks, man.
12:43We're going to wrap it up with THR's top five.
12:47Five quick questions.
12:48What's that mean?
12:48Five quick questions.
12:49Oh, okay.
12:50Gosh.
12:51All right.
12:51Favorite movie soundtrack.
12:53Oh, wow.
12:54That's so great.
12:55Man.
12:56Just quickly, Amelie.
12:58Movie.
12:58Yeah.
12:59Movie you loved as a kid that you wish you were in.
13:04Banana Man.
13:05Banana Man.
13:06It's a TV show.
13:07No one's going to know what that is.
13:09It's an English TV show.
13:10It's so good.
13:11It could be.
13:12Let's make it into a movie.
13:13Hold on, hold on.
13:14Super Ted, was that a TV show?
13:16That was a TV show too.
13:17Hold on then.
13:17I don't know.
13:18E.T.
13:19Or like.
13:19Yeah, of course, man.
13:21There you go.
13:21Oh, Goonies.
13:23Goonies.
13:23Man, I can't.
13:24I'd just like to be.
13:25No.
13:25Too many.
13:26One word to describe your journey as an actor so far.
13:33Perseverance.
13:34That's good.
13:36Hollywood crush, past or present?
13:38Man, I've got a girlfriend.
13:39I've got to say, you know.
13:41Oh, well.
13:41It could be someone from the past.
13:43It's not that there was a breakup.
13:44It's fine.
13:45Nora, my girlfriend, is wonderful.
13:46But, you know, she knows that I have a little bit of a crush.
13:48We joke about this on, you know, J-Lo.
13:52I wasn't expecting that.
13:54I wasn't expecting that.
13:54But in old school, like, you know, Jean Tierney is like my, oh my gosh, I loved her.
14:00Alright, get back in your seat.
14:01Alright, yeah.
14:01Calm down.
14:02I uncrossed my legs.
14:03It's just a question.
14:04We don't make dreams happen.
14:06Favourite quote.
14:07Do you have a favourite quote to wrap this up?
14:08Yeah, well, it's, listen, I'm going to misquote it.
14:11It's fine.
14:12Give it a go.
14:13It's a quote that I kind of began to live by at some point and I've completely misquoted,
14:17but it's along these lines.
14:18Deliver this to camera and we're going to wrap it up.
14:20Alright, instant camera.
14:21Um, okay.
14:22Do not hurry anything.
14:25Anything good will never get away from you.
14:28Guy Burnett.
14:31Counterpart on Starz.
14:32Yeah, watch it.
14:33Well, don't.
14:35You have to come explore.
14:38Yeah, watch it.
14:39This isn't the first place and what does she get to find out?
14:40He's been there with some of the fast eggs.
14:40You
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