00:00Your social media fans seem very curious about your hair routine.
00:03So we have to ask, is there actually a secret or is it just good genetics?
00:09Woke up like this.
00:10Hi, I'm Patrick Ball and I'm going to take 10 with Deadline.
00:22Hey.
00:23Hey.
00:24Thought you'd left already.
00:25On my way out.
00:26Hey, I'm sorry that I didn't find the time today to have that conversation.
00:31Yeah, that's all right.
00:32Seems like you didn't really want to.
00:34I didn't.
00:36Did you?
00:39Uh, yeah, actually.
00:43Look, I'm doing the work.
00:46I'm, I've been sober 186 days.
00:48I'm going to meetings.
00:49I'm taking the drug tests.
00:50That's good.
00:51And you're still riding me.
00:53What would have happened if I'd paralyzed that guy?
00:57I don't know.
00:58What would have happened if I hadn't been here today?
01:00You'd still be questioning yourself.
01:01Now you know you can do it.
01:03You're welcome.
01:03Oh, so that, that's how you teach now?
01:05Sometimes.
01:06Dr. Frank Langdon has become such a fan favorite of The Pit.
01:10What was your first impression of him when you read the script?
01:13And how has that changed since you played him?
01:17Well, when I first read the script, Langdon was described to me as sort of the upbeat, fun time doctor
01:23who everybody loved, which was sort of my, my sort of first way in.
01:28And then I think he was described as the golden boy or heir apparent to Robbie's ER.
01:37And then as we got further into the callback process, that's whenever the addiction part of his character came up
01:46for the first time.
01:47That was sort of when it really started clicking to me that this, this was something that was maybe meant
01:53for me.
01:53And then it became a really fun time over the course of season one and into season two about figuring
01:59out how to fulfill both of those archetypes and demands of the script.
02:04How to be the golden boy, but also how to humanize that and complicate that and realize that that person
02:11too can be struggling and can be grappling with some demons that may not be readily apparent.
02:18I want to say I'm sorry for being an asshole on your first day.
02:23Okay.
02:27Hey, I'm sorry.
02:28I just, I don't buy it.
02:30Everyone thinks you're just an addict who went to rehab and you've convinced everyone here that you've changed and you're
02:35owning up to your mistakes and they welcome you back with open arms because you're still the golden boy and
02:39I think it's bullshit.
02:42I'm genuinely sorry.
02:44And I can promise you I have faced my fair share of punishment for what I did.
02:48You fucking stole drugs from the hospital.
02:50Only three people here actually know that.
02:52Have you told anyone else what you did?
02:53Fans have become deeply invested in Langdon's journey.
02:57Has there been a reaction from viewers that really surprised or moved you?
03:03It's really special.
03:05Every time I talk to somebody, I just got done doing a play in New York where we had pit
03:11fans that came out and had sort of come in from all over and decided to spend two hours of
03:17their vacation with us.
03:18And they would come up to me afterwards and they would talk to me about, hey, my brother is an
03:24addict and I've watched him struggle for years and years and years.
03:27And your portrayal of just how complicated those early months and years of recovery can be meant a lot to
03:38me and my family.
03:39And so those are the sort of reactions that that really mean a lot.
03:44And then we have, you know, a lot less serious and more fun sort of reactions all the time.
03:50I think somebody came to the stage door and gave me a fan made T-shirt with just a bunch
03:56of cutouts of my face and the word MILF over the chest, which then clarified underneath that it stood for
04:04Man I Love Frank, which I love.
04:09I love. Didn't expect it, though.
04:13Okay. You spent years auditioning before landing the pit.
04:17Looking back now, what's one piece of advice you'd give your younger self during those years?
04:23Oh, man, that's a great question.
04:28I think don't lose hope.
04:31I think there were quite a few points along the way where hope really wavered.
04:37And so I would just tell maybe younger me to just trust the timing of your life and what is
04:44meant for you will find you.
04:45You don't have to force it.
04:46You don't have to chase it.
04:48Know that the universe will send you what is meant for you and maybe drink less.
04:56If you could swap characters with anyone else on the pit for one episode, who would you choose and why?
05:04Oh, man, I don't I don't think I could swap with anybody because I think everybody does such a great
05:10job.
05:10But I'm so jealous of the Princess and Perla twosome.
05:15I think they they are just they're so funny, the duo of them.
05:19And so I I don't think I could replace either one of them.
05:23But if they were looking for a third, I would like to apply for that job.
05:27OK, you're shooting season three right now.
05:29Can you hint at what we might see next from Langdon in the show in general?
05:34No, I cannot.
05:38Because I don't know.
05:41What's one thing people would be surprised to learn about you that has nothing to do with acting?
05:48I don't know. See, the thing about me is I'm kind of a blabbermouth.
05:51And so I just tell people kind of everything.
05:54Well, one thing that I want to clarify right now is I am 5'11 in three quarters.
05:59Every once in a while, I will get updates from Wikipedia that I will go from being six foot one
06:06to being five foot six and back.
06:08And so that is something that should be clarified.
06:11I'm five foot eleven and three quarters.
06:14Your social media fans seem very curious about your hair routine.
06:18So we have to ask, is there actually a secret or is it just good genetics?
06:23Woke up like this.
06:25What's a favorite funny behind the scenes memory from set?
06:30Yeah, we have a lot.
06:31We had a great plot going all of season two.
06:34I would walk into my dressing room and every day I would find a new picture of Noah Wiley taped
06:42to my dressing room wall.
06:44And so there became this growing sort of Noah Wiley shrine in my dressing room.
06:50And I had no idea where this was coming from, but I was too scared to say anything.
06:53And so I just sort of rolled with it.
06:56And then it became a little bit of a whodunit.
07:00And we finally did get to the bottom of things.
07:03And it was Becca, the head of our base camp.
07:06And I'll just leave it at that.
07:08But that was an ongoing plot for a while.
07:11So if you weren't an actor, what career do you honestly think you'd have ended up in?
07:17I can't do anything else.
07:19So I'm really glad this worked out.
07:23I tried to do a bunch of other things.
07:25I've had about a million day jobs.
07:28I've done a lot of things and I've done a lot of things poorly.
07:30I went down to North Carolina to help my parents fix up their house so that they could sell it.
07:36And while I was there, I needed to make money because I still needed to pay rent up in New
07:41Haven.
07:41And so I went on Craigslist and I found these two young guys.
07:45They had bought this horse trailer and they'd converted it into a mobile axe throwing unit that they drove and
07:52parked outside of breweries.
07:54My job was to corral a bunch of drunk people into throwing sharp axes around until the early hours of
08:04the morning.
08:05And that is how I paid rent.
08:08If anybody is hiring for that, I can throw an axe.
08:11What are you currently obsessed with?
08:13A TV show, podcast, book, or music that you'd recommend to everyone?
08:19I just finished watching Widow's Bay.
08:22I love it.
08:23I think it is so much fun.
08:24I mean, it's so great.
08:26I've never seen a show strike that exact chord before.
08:29It is both scary and I'm genuinely scared and on the edge of my seat.
08:35And also, it's really funny and charming.
08:37It's got this sort of like, if The Shining and Parks and Rec sort of had a baby, it would
08:43be this show.
08:44And it's just like a really bizarre thing to recommend to people because that mashup doesn't really make sense.
08:49But it really works and I'm obsessed.
08:52Thanks for watching Take 10 with Deadline.
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