Jesse Metcalfe on "Dallas", Oscar Parties, & the Art of the Dramatic Pause

But sometimes you're like, can you pass me some toilet paper underneath? That's like a Seinfeld episode. Can you spare a square? Did you ever see that one?

square.

But with guys, you you you were talking about Oscars. Somehow we got into the subject of your girls, but like, you know, I would think like if I saw somebody famous at an Oscar party and I was a dude, I'd follow them into the girls so I could, you know, survey situation. Right. You're like, no, next next subject.

Yeah, no, when when guys are in the bathroom, I mean, we don't, we don't even communicate. We're like, uh, There's no peripheral. There's no eye contact, nothing, you know. If you brush up against somebody in the bathroom, you're like, oh, sorry, man. You know. And there's definitely, I think this is this was a curve of your enthusiasm. You don't do the handshake in the bathroom.

Absolutely not.

It's just like, I don't know you, you don't know me. I fist bump or something.

So let's talk Oscars. So you you went to some parties.

I did. I went to the In Style viewing party. I watched the.

So you watched the Oscars with entire show there. with your fellow celebrities.

Yeah, there was uh, there was some really cool cool people there actually. We kind of fell into a nice, a nice group.

And were you rowdy? Or like, are you trying to be cuz I would wonder if like we spent the entire night outside.

I mean, typically at the In Style Oscar viewing party it it was at Boa the last two years and they they had cigarettes there. They had cigarettes at every table and you could smoke inside. It was awesome. All right. This year

The one night in the year.

The smokers got cordoned off to this like outside cold corner. So all you're rebels at at Riva Bella. So all the rebels were outside in the corner. I mean not rebels because, you know, I mean I'm sober, so I was drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes the entire show, which is a good time to me.

For your fellow, who are you going to out? Who are your fellow smokers? Who are you sitting there with?

Obviously, everyone knows, you know, my my girlfriend smokes like a chimney. She's got to work on that. But uh, you know, we were hanging out with Shilo Fernandez and uh, he had a good buddy there. His name was Heath. And uh, he kept us in cigarettes for the night. Very generous of him. So thank you.

So that's why your voice is extra throaty today. It's extra like, you know, this is just natural. It's just it's just the way it is. Who would you? Cuz I know I was going to ask you. Women always have girl crushes. Like when we tweet and we text each other our friends, it's always like, oh, Lupita looked so beautiful, or whoever. Do you have a man crush? Is there anybody last night that you were like, oh, he's the man, like he's the the bomb. I was going to say the But.

Oh, well, I mean, Yeah, there's a lot of guys that are uh, that are really awesome, you know. I mean, obviously, Matthew McConaughey is just on the top of his game right now. I mean, there's no there's no doubt about that. He's on he's on the top of the world, really. All right, all right, all right, is becoming a catchphrase. I mean, could you imagine him, you know, walking that carpet or sitting there during the award show? He's nominated for best actor in a in a picture that's nominated for best picture. They usually go hand in hand. He has the the new episode of his new show True Detective, you know, coming on that night, which is like the best TV show I've ever seen in my life. Next to Dallas, of course. You know, yeah.

Next to Dallas.

You know, so I mean there's a lot of guys that are uh I really admire that we're there. I mean, obviously, you know, from a style perspective, Brad Pitt, you know, I mean, he's the man, right? Yeah. You know, he's got the hair, he's got the suit, he's got the he's got the gorgeous wife, he's got the beautiful family, so.

Speaking of gorgeous, your girlfriend. I have to say, she was on my top three best dressed. It's nice that you show her off, you know, Instagram and all that. It's nice.

I love to show her off.

That you do that. She's my best accessory. Aw! Did she buy you your shoes?

My girl bought me these shoes.

Really? I was going to say Danna Lynn for getting you the for because you got her the job. You can't be afraid to wear uh snake skin. We can't let Jesse go without showing off those shoes.

It'd be a lot cooler if like, you know, I I killed this anaconda and made these shoes myself, but I didn't.

You want to know that was such a cowboy movie. You were just like, No one has ever done that on the Young Hollywood table. Talk about embracing your inner cowboy. So, I know there's your opening scene this season. Season three, uh, chopping some wood. You seem to me because the last time we talked was season one, bulkier than than you have been in the past, like meaning more muscles.

Okay. Okay. I'll uh, I'll take that. I think I'm roughly the same size.

Then ever. Do you? Yeah. Is it just like they CGI?

It might be the shirt. That was like a double X, that was like a double X small. A men's.

The men's double X small always makes a man feel bigger.

Exactly.

But can the shirt be too tight? Because I feel like some guys do that, but then they just look smaller. I don't know.

It really depends on the person. If you do like, you know, 200 push-ups and then put on a double X small, you're probably looking pretty good. Funny story about that wood chopping scene though.

Oh, do tell.

Well, you know, anytime you do anything that has any remote element of danger on a television show, it's like a giant production. Get the stunt coordinator or the stunt supervisor, get the producer. We all have to have a meeting. To go over if Jesse Metcalf can chop this wood. You know, because it's, you know, it's very, very technical stuff. But the funny, the ironic thing about it is that not a single person in our production knew actually how to chop wood.

How to chop wood?

And I, you know, basically I grew up doing a lot of landscaping type stuff because my step father had a landscaping business, you know. And my stepfather's like 6'2", you know, 270, burly guy. And I used to chop wood. You know, I used to have to chop and stack wood as one of my chores. You know, so I I knew how to do it. So, but I get to this meeting to see if I can chop this wood. And they have a pile of green wood, you know, not seasoned wood. Green green wood. Green wood is just a if you just cut down a tree. And the the wood inside is it's still green. It's still it's fresh meat exactly. It's still it's still alive. All I can think of. You know, okay. And and they gave me an axe. Right? So if you like swing an axe into some green wood, it just gets stuck in the wood. I mean, Hercules can split that wood. It has to be seasoned. It has to sit outside for like a year before you can split the wood and then burn it. I don't know if you didn't know that either, exactly. So there's a lot of.

I did not. I've chopped some wood in my day, so.

There's a lot of people that don't know that. So, needless to say, like three meetings later, they finally got it right. They went and got me a splitting mall, they got some seasoned wood. I chopped the wood, and there you go, you know, we shot the scene. And it worked. Yeah. But it was a bit of an ordeal.

Okay, and before you go, I want to sort of put you on the spot. Not really, that's not bad, but I want you to teach me how to do the dramatic pause. At the end of a scene, there's always that moment where the camera lingers a little bit too long. And things just simmer and you don't know if they're plotting against you or loving you. I was doing it right there. That was it. That was it. You want to you want to play out a scene?

Yeah.

All right. So I've been thinking about this for a long time and uh I think this interview is over.

Don't tell me that it's over.

It's over. It can't be over. What are we doing? You need to stop. I was I was getting into it. What are you talking about? I was fully I was like, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me in my life. At uh, on that note, thank you for coming in.

Ah, no problem. Great to see you.

Yeah, great to see you too.