Fred Weller Gets Frisked (And Likes It)

Uhm brella. Which means uh I nearly just jumped to the ground. Which means without glasses. Right, okay. But, you know, everything in German sounds far more severe. He could have been saying, "Would you like some tea?"

Yeah. And you still jump for cover. He wouldn't have.

Yeah. He's an actor from plain sight. I'm Oliver here at the Young Hollywood Studio with Fred Weller. How are you?

I'm good. Thanks for stopping in.

Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Yeah, fairly busy, um, wrapping up In Plain Sight. The fifth season final. Wow. Then you're even busier. Thanks for stopping in.

Well, it's Yeah, that's right. I'll give you a hug. It's so much of a thing.

Let's do it. Come on, come on. Oh, yeah. That's a manly hug there. You see that? You did mention I'm not afraid of that.

Yeah. Too many people are afraid of that.

Yeah. We're We're fine with it. Wow, that was good in a way and it felt weirdly good. You don't feel like we have to talk about sports now or anything.

No. No. None of the usual homophobics crud. None of that.

Yeah. Let's move on. Okay. Let's have some beer now. Slam the Fiji. We're men.

Yes. Men, Vikings, warriors, meat. If you'd let me and Aunt babysit once in a while. Leave Nora with you, too. Couldn't be in better hands. Abe, the detective who effectively raised three younger siblings. And I'm a marshall from a family of Marshall? Marshall. Final season. It's heartbreaking. Yes. Yes. The culmination of five years of uh romantic frustration and uh and a and you know, busting bad guys. Right.

How does that feel when something that long ends?

Well, I know how it feels when a relationship ends that long. You feel like that? Yeah. It feels like that. No. Like I don't know why people keep asking me, is it bittersweet? I guess when I have my next job, it'll be bittersweet. Now it's just bitter. Right, okay. It's pretty much just It's sad because I really love the job. I love working with Mary McCormick and we goof around a lot and we uh waste a lot of time cracking up. Hey, chief boss, you good? Yeah, just these pantyhose, chief. You were just telling me a quite an interesting story about you and the airports. You play this game where you

Well, it's a It's a proclivity of mine. I like to be frisked. Uh I enjoy the process of being frisked. It has to do with uh loneliness. I've been married for a while. Maybe there's not as much touch as there used to be. And so I find that uh if you go to the airport and you just kind of do this a lot, you know, you're going to wind up having some human contact.

But you did tell me about your moment in Berlin. Which is a great

I was going in We were going to uh Berlin through East Germany. And I was with my younger brother. And I was just trying to freak him out. So and I had some sunglasses on. And so as we went through the customs and I gave the East German official my passport, I started doing this. And my brother kinda went, "Stop it!" like that. And it really I'm sorry about that. Wow. Sorry. Was that? I know. You know what? It surprises a lot of people but I actually I I take very little steroids actually. This is mostly mostly

You've got them guns up.

Uh In any case, the East German guy didn't like it. He took it amiss. And he yelled at me in German. What he said, Which sounds a lot worse yelling in any other language. I went, "Oh, umbrellar!" Which means, uh I nearly just jumped to the ground. Which means without glasses. Right. Okay. But, you know, everything in German sounds far more severe. He could have been saying, "Would you like some tea?"

Yeah. And you still jump for cover. He wouldn't have. Yeah. Um, it's still would have been scary. He's an actor from plain sight. You're doing the right thing, Eddie. And who knows, maybe a step toward a country you once loved enough to die for. Whoa! Eddie! Eddie! You have worked a lot as an actor, like an extreme lot of working in. You do a lot of theater as well. What do you prefer? Theater or TV or film? What's Is there any preference?

I love doing plays. Um, you know, I we just moved from New York. We just moved out here in September. After we moved, we found out the show was was ending. Right. So, always the way. You know. And it'll be. Uh, but we think we'll stay. Right.

Uh, we like it here. It's also good to be here if you're if you're now on the lookout for your new job. Not that you're on the lookout. I'm sure you've got them flowing in.

Well, that's No, that's true. I would like to uh to be out here where there's more uh TV and film. But the theater suffers out here. Yeah. In the theater, I'm going to just take a break from the theater for a while.

What's the biggest difference, would you say? L. A. New York.

Oh, I thought you meant theater and television. Well, that's money. Probably be the biggest. Most substantial difference. But you get that in the immediate satisfaction at the end.

Did that sound like you were in theater again?

Yeah, that I thought for a second I was. You kinda had a whole flashback. Oh. No. Oh. No. Bravo. No. I don't do that.

You're back.

I don't I don't yell my own bravos like that unless it's

Do you take a little bow at the end?

One of them. That was a headbutt. In the theater? Yeah. Afterwards. You always Yeah, you take a bow. I mean, you have to take a bow. But how big do you go? Because I've noticed there's a big varia There's variation. It's that or it can be

The important thing is to try to seem modest while still manipulating the audience into applauding as long as possible. So it has to be a kind of a this, but it still takes a little bit longer than necessary. So that way you don't seem arrogant, but they still have to kinda keep going. And you keep coming back. Do you do that? Where they go out the curtain and then you come back. To the point your hands are

I think I've got, you know, blisters on my hands. I'm going, "Yeah, you You want to try to manipulate them into But not longer than Here's what you want to avoid. You want to avoid um you're still on stage while they've stopped clapping. You don't want to be walking off. So once you've finished bowing, you pretty much want to scurry a little bit. But in a you know, as masculine a way as possible.

Great advice for actors out there doing theater. Yeah. Scurry. But

Scurry. But in a way that does not Is not shameful. Right.

Fred, it's been an absolute pleasure. Um In Plain Sight, fifth season. You've got to watch it.