Kelly AuCoin is currently playing Andy Roeser on Clipped, FX on Hulu’s drama about the Donald Sterling Los Angeles Clipper scandal also starring Laurence Fishburne, Ed O’Neill, Jacki Weaver and Cleopatra Coleman. He is most well known as a series regular on Showtime’s Billions as ‘Dollar’ Bill Stern and his recent recurring TV roles include Scott Gordon on HULU’s The Girl from Plainville, Pastor Tim on FX’s The Americans, Hercules Mulligan on AMC’s TURN and Gary Stamper on House of Cards. His film credits include, among others, The Good House, False Positive, The Post, The Wizard of Lies, Julie & Julia and The Kingdom. Theatre credits include Octavius Caesar in Julius Caesar on Broadway opposite Denzel Washington, The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway, and the first national touring company of Copenhagen. (Photo by Kai York.)
Three Great Things is Talkhouse’s series in which artists tell us about three things they absolutely love. To mark the current FX/Hulu series Clipped, starring Laurence Fishburne, Ed O’Neill, Jacki Weaver, Kelly AuCoin and Cleopatra Coleman, fan-favorite actor AuCoin shared some of the things that are most special to him in life. — N.D.
The Portland Trail Blazers
In the mid ’70s, when I was very young, my dad was elected to Congress and we moved from small-town Oregon to Washington, D.C. It was a very different vibe than I was used to. Before we left Oregon, my dad – who was an Oregon all-state player in high school – had taught me how to play basketball in the backyard and we started watching the Portland Trailblazers on TV. When the Trailblazers won the championship about a year and a half after we moved to D.C., it felt like the team was reaching across the country and telling me, Everything is going to be OK, kid.
When you’re young, if your team wins a dramatic way, it really forges your fandom in fire. I remember getting teased about being a fan of this team that was down 0-2 in the championship to Dr. J and his team of stars. Nobody knew the names of the players on the Trailblazers and very few of the kids in D.C. even knew where Portland was, let alone Oregon. When the team came back and won four straight, all of a sudden, I was a mini celebrity. And the Trailblazers represented home to me. It represented the bond my dad and I had, and still have to this day. We still text about games, even though the team hasn’t sniffed a championship since then. The funny thing is, the following year, the Washington Bullets, my adopted East Coast team, won the NBA championship, and so at that age, I was convinced, “Oh, so this is what happens? You like teams and they win championships? This is going to be great.” But no NBA team I’ve ever rooted for has won a championship since!
In my office, I have a basketball and a copy of Sports Illustrated, both signed by the late Bill Walton, who was the leader of the Trailblazers team that brought us our only championship. Walton once came to see a play that I was in at the La Jolla Playhouse. It was a political play about the United States’ involvement in Afghanistan, and he was always a political guy. My wife happened to be in the audience that night, so she texted me, Get out here now. He was seven foot, and I still have this image of her trying to slow him down, essentially playing defense against Bill Walton, saying, “Wait, you just saw him on stage. He loves you. You don’t understand. Slow down!” So I got to meet him, and it really harkened back to that wonderfully innocent time when I thought all my heroes were going to win all the time. I was glad I met him, and his passing a few months ago was a sad loss. He was a unique individual.
Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin
I first picked up Winter’s Tale because it has a great cover, showing a magical horse flying over a very cold, wintry Manhattan. And I have always had a fascination (and sometimes an obsession) with New York City, long before I ever moved here. In the ’70s, when we lived in D.C., my parents used to take us up to New York to see plays. Everything about the city seemed magical, especially the theater marquees and the flashing neon signs in Times Square. I was starting to formulate the idea that I wanted to be an actor. I didn’t know what that meant, didn’t know what that would look like, didn’t know anybody who was an actor or even making a life in the arts. I didn’t know anybody who lived in New York!
When my wife and I were living together in Los Angeles and planning on moving to New York, I happened to see Winter’s Tale. I bought a copy after reading the back cover, which said, “Vault into the cold, clear air across a frozen, fabulous time of love and laughter with Peter Lake, master thief, and his flying white horse …” I was like, OK, I’m hooked. It’s definitely magical realism and there are supernatural things that happen in the book, but they’re tossed into this gritty layer that you don’t usually find in a fantasy book. I read it about six months before I came here and at the time it represented a crystallization of the fantasies I had about New York. Something about the energy and the magic really appealed to me. When I moved to New York, it turned out there were no flying horses, but we still liked it!
Not long after 9/11, when we’d been living in New York for a long time, I came back to Winter’s Tale, and the book hit me completely differently. I noticed the grit and the brutality more. I was older and maybe a more careful reader then, but the book was no less magical to me, and in some ways more so. It almost felt like a balm, telling me, “Yes, this is what we go through, this is what happened. And look at the beauty and the magic that’s still here.” In the wake of 9/11, I gifted the book to a lot of New Yorkers, because it felt necessary, and because it meant so much to me.
Reel Inn Malibu
When I was in L.A. for the Clipped premiere recently, my wife and I made a point of going to the Reel Inn in Malibu, which is a great fish shack right across Pacific Coast Highway from the ocean. There’s a great beach there and it really is a shack. You stand in line, you pass a counter where all the fish are, and you choose fresh, beautiful fish that just makes your mouth water. You can get it grilled, sauteed or blackened. You get a couple of sides. It has the most amazing coleslaw I’ve ever had in my life, and you can also get rice, potatoes, or half and half. And then you eat at these long family-style picnic tables. It’s just so simple. And it’s miraculously good. Delicious.
It’s a place I always go back to and somewhere I am very nostalgic for, as it was one of the very first restaurants I went to with my wife when we first moved to L.A. There is something special about the feel of it, including the outdoor seating. It’s in Malibu Hills, which always reminds me of M*A*S*H, because that’s where the show was actually filmed. After eating, you dodge cars to cross PCH and stroll on the beach and have a little constitutional to work off your meal, or wade into the water. During our wedding week, we had a beach day where 30 of us descended on the Reel Inn and took up a quarter of the place. It was a magical weekend and when I go there, I remember those feelings.
Another time, I took my parents there when they were visiting mw. One of the tables by the window had a glass cover with tons of business cards underneath it. I was not going anywhere as an actor – I hadn’t had a single job – but I had business cards made up with my headshot on them. My dad, who had asked for one of my business cards, took it and slid it underneath the glass on the table. I never did get a call from him putting that card under the table, but I thought it was a very sweet gesture when things were going poorly for me. The place really was a respite from all the failure I was feeling.
I never tweet or post about the Reel Inn. I tell friends, but it’s far enough away from L.A. that it’s a pain in the ass for people to get there, unless they live in Malibu. It feels like one of the least “Hollywood” restaurants in L.A., and I love that.
