about Kevin
Extract from Joe-Cast Interview with Kevin
JC: In this transmission I have my interview with Kevin Sorbo; after playing the demigod Hercules and Starship Captain Dylan Hunt, not to mention a memorable guest star role on The Middleman as Guy Goddard, this weekend Kevin stars in the SyFy original film Lightning Strikes that airs Saturday September 12th at 9o’clock, although check your local listings for exact times. In Lightning Strikes Kevin plays a small town sheriff so, you know, a little bit less of a really heroic than his other roles, but nevertheless he still rises to the challenge that he faces in the movie, so definitely check out the movie, and here’s my interview with Kevin;
JC: Ok
KS: OK … three little ….are sound asleep;
JC: Excellent ….
KS: Well, we’re busy packing, going crazy right now; I’m actually leaving Friday morning for Mykonos, I’m shooting a movie there for 3 weeks, so…
JC: Oh wow;
KS: …kinda going crazy getting some last things done here before I take off; my family’s flying out as well to..ah..a place out in Long Island to visit some friends;
JC: Everybody gets to leave (laughing);
KS: Yeah, so its just kinda crazy right now.
JC: Ok, well these have gotta be the fun days actually…..( be dad for a while, huh?)
KS: It is fun actually, it is; we live kind of 35 miles out of LA and its kind of a drag sometimes when I take meetings coz the drive is … the drive in traffic in LA is just so horrible. Are you in LA?
JC: No, actually I’m up the coast in Portland, Oregon;
KS: Oh yeah, Portland, ok;
JC: Yeah, yeah;
KS: I’ve been there quite a few times; Peter Jacobson,.. pro-golfer, and he’s had a thing called the Fred Myer Challenge up there for many years, and I’ve played in that quite a few times;
JC: Oh yeah …okay…
KS: Yeah…
JC: So, Lightning Strikes comes on this weekend;
KS: Lightning Strikes (very deep voice)
JC: (laughing) I actually, I just watched that this week and I found it interesting that you play…..basically you play just, you know, a regular guy, you don’t really do that too often;
KS: (laughing) No, that’s true;
JC: (laughing)…and you…
KS: I haven’t even seen it yet. I hope the special effects are good and they look decent;
JC: …………..the lightning definitely looks believable, so……………..
KS: Cool;
JC: Yes……………..
KS: How about the creature…
JC: ………..that was good as well… you know, it’s a weekend syfy movie, lets put it that way, and you know what, those are sometimes better you know than the 100million dollar……
KS: You know what, I gotta tell you something, I’ve been….you know I love going to movies like most people do; I’ve been to these big budget movies and big movie star names and I look at some of these action sequences and fight scenes….I go, you know on Hercules, we put together better fights on a, you know, 8, 9, or 10 day shooting schedule than they did in their 6 months of shooting;
JC: Oh yeah..
KS: And our fights looked more real, more entertaining and we shot them, you know in 4 hours, because that’s all we could shoot ‘em in because that’s what we were given…but then again, you know we had some of the great, you know, I mean the camera guys we had, we had Peter McCaffrey for all 7 years, and Peter McCaffrey’s like the No.1 steadycam operator in the world right now down in New Zealand, and he’s done like the last 2 James Bond Movies and Mission Impossibles, and he’s an amazing…, and..but I look at what we did, and the budget we shot on …I feel the same way, and am just amazed, and I go “that’s a major motion picture, are you kidding me?”
JC: (laughing) Exactly; You know on the SyFy Channel movies too, to me always seemed like there were actors cast to kinda play like you used to in the backyard as a kid, I mean …do something different, go out and have fun.
KS: No question, that’s exactly what it is and …they cut down the shooting schedules on these things all the time too, which is very frustrating, and we, .. this movie was supposed to shoot earlier in the year, ..we shot it in November last year in Sofia, Bulgaria, and it kinda doubles Sofia, Bulgaria for the Midwest of America (both laughing) …. It’s a pumpkin festival, and we haven’t got enough kids out there, you know coz we’re working nights so… and I’m sure you could tell.. it was like 15degrees below zero; we were freezing our butts off on this set; (both laughing)…..it was just brutal, so I’m curious to see how its gonna turn out;
JC: I’ll hopefully get this out before it airs, so for people who haven’t seen it, what can you tell us about it and your character;
KS: Well, I play..ah..I play the Sheriff of the town, you know, I just play this guy, that sort of, kind of thrust into it, sort of like in the way of a Walking Tall situation; you know he’s a guy that really didn’t want to have to take the job but he had to come back to help take..you know.. raise his boy, and..umm..he was always gone, so you always have the strange sort of family thing going on, which they seem to like in all these movies..(laughing), they didn’t want to pick the happy family, so…
JC: Right..
KS: And there’s this phenomenon, this creature that comes along, and randomly picks out ……at certain periods of time; my little town gets picked on and people start getting struck by lightning and taken off in pretty horrific ways and, you know whats kind of fun about it, coz they did sort of throw the comedy element in it, you know the Mayor of the town…there was this little comedic element, to have this goofball guy in there that is so over the top with everything, and everyone rolls their eyes at his character, and you got the potential love interest in there too, you gotta have that, but kinda glad they didn’t play up on that and I’m glad they didn’t sorta finish with that, sort of left it hanging for the audience to figure out whats gonna happen between the two people;
JC: Right…now, looking over your career, Hercules, Andromeda, and a lot of your other roles you seem to have picked things that really fall into kind of the all ages category, that any age could watch, haven’t done anything too scary or adult, is that something you look for in projects?
KS: Yeah, for the most part, no question; I started my own production company about almost a year ago, picked the worst time to do it in an economic crunch, where everybody’s getting killed, I’ve got amazing products, .. projects that should be being shot right now; I mean if it was three years ago or any other time before whats happening now, you know, they’d all be on the air; I’ve got three television series, all of them are perfect for my next tv series, everybody loves them, everybody’s on to them, but everybody calls back and no-one wants to to anything right now, but everyone from the networks to the cable stations…I’ve got a project right now that’s a darker better 24, and we’ve got Jon Cassar on board who wants to direct it, and he gave the look to 24 for the last six years, and John Voight wants to come on board, and myself, and everybody’s still saying no; it’s a weird market out there right now (laughing); but we’re gonna make it, we’re gonna make one of these things, but its…its just tough, but I’ve got one project that is definitely against type for me that has been offered to me right now, they’re just trying to raise the last few 100,000 dollars, and it is dark; he’s an evil dark character and you know, I think that’s just part of my other side that just wants to sort of come out and play for a while, in an area, sort of, in the vein of..umm.. of The Joker, you know, in the last Batman with Heath Ledger, where you just get a chance to just sort of be something that’s just so different from what you normally play, and I look at that, and you know, I kinda…I grew up wanting to be entertained and you look at the top 100 grossing movies of all time and I guarantee the majority of them are family, comedy, whatever, they’re a combination of those things that are lighter fair so to speak, instead of the deep dark world that somebody like, ah, Sean ..Penn..whats his name?... Penn?..
JC: Yes, Sean Penn….
KS: Yes, I was just trying to think of his brother for a second…Sean Penley… you look at everything he directed, everything…. the world is dark and gloomy for this guy, you know (laughing)…
JC: Yeah really….
KS: …he just had such a pathetic viewpoint of the world, so, (both laughing)….I do hope…its nice to have hope, its nice to think there is something better and bigger out there, and I especially…nowadays people want to be entertained, people want to have a chance to laugh and escape, I think that’s why the Harry Potters and all these kind of movies do so well, you know…
JC: Oh yeah…but…(overlap of conversation)
KS: …well, I was just gonna say….I just think I gravitate to that hero role because I think all of us wish we could do what my characters are able to do, I mean, I hope if I walked round the corner, like in Hercules, and saw 12 guys beating up on a couple of old people, what I would do, you know, in that situation; I mean I had a buddy of mine who jumped out of the car to help some guy that was getting beat up, and he almost ended up getting killed….
JC: wow…
KS: ..and that’s why I think a lot of people go “do I wanna get involved in that”, so, its kinda sad in a way, that’s why I think, you look at movies like the old Charles Bronson one’s ‘Death Wish’, we kinda go, you know what, good on ya, you know (both laughing)…..I like the series ‘Dexter’, I really do, I mean he’s a psychopath but he kills even sicker people than himself…
JC: Right;
KS: ..and you know, I know people, we all get up in arms about well you know people have rights, and I go “really?”; you know, until your daughter gets raped or until somebody in your family gets killed, I think you would change your mind pretty quickly, about what you would want to happen to that person who violated your family; you know what I mean?
JC: Yeah, absolutely;
KS: And we forget to put that shoe on the other foot sometimes; people that jump in and get on CNN and Fox and all that sort of stuff, well that person had a right, “really? that person? really? he raped 14 girls, really he had that right?” Okay, I don’t know about that, you know, so there you go, I think that’s why I gravitate to roles where I can be the guy that takes out all these bad people because deep down we all have those fantasies, even as kids, you know, go, yeah man, take out the bad guy….. gravitate to.. (overlap of conversation)
JC: I have to say too that people think Kevin Sorbo….thats sort of what we think and expect, that you’re gonna come in, know what to do and you get it done….
KS: Well, I’ve got more of those coming out, trust me, I’ve got like six movies coming out in the next eight months so…
JC: Excellent….
KS: ……I get to play that but he’s more of a bumbling fool; its called Tales of an Ancient Empire and we’ve got Val Kilmer, we’ve got Christopher Lambert, and it’s a fifteenth century sword and sorcerer with vampires and all that kind of stuff; all my character cares about is making sure I get paid, you know (both laughing), so…..when the guy’s just got killed, I’m going, I look at the group, they’re all like sort of mourning the loss of this person, and I’m like, in three seconds, ‘so we split it five ways now right?’ (both laughing)…I’m just makin’ sure…just making sure we’re all on the same page here.
JC: Excellent;
KS: And he’s a little bit of a drunkard, bit of a womaniser, its sort of fun.. (laughing);
JC: You got to do that bit on The Middleman with Guy Goddard..
KS: Oh that was fun..
JC: That was a pretty fantastic scene there……I was actually at the Stargate Universe Party at Comicon, and I was trying to get over to you to say something about it, but I didn’t get the chance to, but….
KS: Oh you should have said, hey that was a fun party;
JC: Oh yeah, it was pretty exceptional, as a rule…it was a whole lot better than I thought it was gonna be, it was something else;
KS: That was my first Comicon ever; I’ve been invited every year since ’94, and every year I’ve been working and I couldn’t go, and I was finally able to go, and I got to sit next to Leonard Nimoy and just sign autographs all day one day, it was fun;
JC: What did you think of Comicon – that thing is huge now;
KS: Well you know, I have nothing to compare it to in terms of what it was before, but I mean people tell me what its turned into over like the last six years (laughing), and obviously its just turned into this big showcase, actually its turned into sort of a Sundance Film Festival in a way…
JC: Oh yeah…
KS: And , you know, Hollywood really uses it now to, you know, sort of take a temperature of what their movies may or may not do, so its interesting; I mean, I’ll go again; I had a blast; I kinda wish I could’ve gone during the Hercules years to see what it was like during the 90s. I’m sure it was a little more mellow, and it stuck pretty much more with the comic books back then, but its all over the map now;
JC:…..project……panel…..just be insane
KS: No, I wish I could’ve been there during those times, I was always disappointed you know, I was in New Zealand every year for seven years, and every year my hiatus was never over Comicon unfortunately;
JC: I know several people that are going to be pretty …..at me unless I ask you before we’re done, is there any talk, any rumours, any hints at all of doing any kind of new Hercules project;
KS: You know, I know Universal is doing a movie, they’re doing a feature film with Geoff Berg, who did Hancock, and some of those Friday Night Live and stuff…
JC: Oh right….
KS: Umm, I told my agent, I said you guys had better track this closely, because if they don’t ask me to make some kind of cameo, I mean I think it would be interesting to age………I’m too old to play Hercules now, but I’m too young to play Zeus, but I said you can age me up….
JC: Right..
KS: ..to play Zeus or something; would be kinda cool to play the father of the character that I played for seven years, you know, umm, I was always shocked that as big as that show was,.. I mean shoot..we passed Baywatch as the most watched show in the world in the last half of the nineties you know; to me not to take advantage of that to make a motion picture like they did with X-Files and stuff like that, especially Hercules, I mean, yeah, come on, it didn’t make sense to me that they never did that, I thought it was…..how odd…that the only explanation I could have during my seven years there, they had 3 different complete shifts of teams in front that took over Universal; first it was Sid Sheinberg, then it was Robson out of Siegrams, then it was (Barry) Biller; |I mean they kept changing, they got new people in there now; I mean, every time they fire somebody and they bring out, you know, they sweep out the entire house and bring out new people, they want their own projects, they don’t want to go with the (old) projects, so, but I think they finally realised, you know, we should do Hercules, you know, but hell, its ten years old now, so…I’m too old to beat myself…I’m still in shape, but I don’t wanna get as big as I was then, I put on 20 more pounds, and at my age now, don’t think so (both laughing)…too much work, and I don’t take steroids so…
JC: There you go….Well I’m sure all Hercules fans and your fans too will know a lot of these things…speaking of you appearing in the movie, a lot of those things happen coz there’s just this outcry on the internet, and……….
KS: Put it out there…………(make) an outcry..
JC: Oh yeah, I’ll start a campaign man, that’d be awesome;
KS: I know they’re doing it… I don’t know when…but I know that it’s been a project that’s been in development for at least six months now;
JC: Cool. Alright, well that is everything I’ve got for you for right now;
KS: Right…
JC: I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today;
KS: No worries,… and… yeah, if you need more questions let us know;
JC: Ok thanks a lot, and we’ll be looking out for you on the tv;
KS: Great, thanks a lot, I appreciate it;
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Transcription of free speech: Lindsey/Edith (who apologise for any errors)