Mr. Monk and the Buried Treasure

Marquette Title

In the August 17th episode of Monk, Mr. Monk and the Buried Treasure, Sean Marquette will play Ridley a friend of Dr. Kroger's son, Troy.

Sean's been in the business most of his life and got his start on the daytime drama All My Children with a four year stint as Jamie Martin. He's also a successful voiceover artist and he recently wrapped shooting on the film American Son. He also appears in the soon to be released films Resurrection Mary and The Beautiful Ordinary.

I talked to Sean last week and he was happy to answer questions. He did so at length, but unfortunately um... a technical glitch wiped out the first half of the interview.

What I could remember, a few days after speaking with him, is below, but not verbatim until right about here. Sorry, Sean.

How did you get the role on Monk? What was the audition process like?

I went in to audition. It was at Paramount on Melrose. There were a few auditions. They liked me. They laughed.

Why do you think they chose you?

I tried to make it real, like I was really hitting on someone. Other auditioners may have over done it. Too over the top. I don’t know for sure. You never know.

If you knew that auditions would be pretty easy, right?

That’s right.

What’s the character’s name?

Ridley.

And he’s friend of Troy’s, right?

Right. Ridley and the other guy is Pez.

Great names.

Yeah.

How did you prepare to play him?

Ridley hits on Natalie

There wasn’t a lot of preparation necessary. You’ve got the lines. You’ve got time. You’ve got a few days of filming. A week.

What did you think of the character? He’s a little younger than you, right?

Right I’m nineteen. He’s supposed to be 17.

Ridley hits on Natalie again

Many of your scenes were with Traylor Howard, as the young man attracted to an older woman? Was that easy to play or difficult?

I just played him with a lot of confidence. You know he has to be confident hitting on an F.B.I. agent.

It wasn’t difficult: Traylor’s reactions made it easy to work off of.

Did you work with the entire cast?

I worked with Traylor, Cody [McMains], Jareb [Dauplaise] and Tony Shalhoub.

What was your impression of Tony Shalhoub?

What was my impression of Tony Shalhoub? Brilliant. He knows the character so well. And he’s also the executive producer. So he’s involved with the writers and director. He’s the perfect lead. He never makes a mistake.

Never?

I’m sure he’s not perfect, but I never saw any mistakes.

Who was the director of the episode? What was he like to work with?

Sam Weisman. [Pause]

What was his style? How was he to work with for an actor?

Monk has a certain style and he did that. There were things of his own he might have liked to do, but Monk has a certain look, a certain style that directors conform to.

Director Sam Weisman

Where were your scenes shot?

Paramount Studios and several locations in the Valley.

Did you watch the show before you got the role?

I don’t watch any TV series regularly, but I’d seen the show. It has great writing and acting and, you know, a good reputation. Not like a silly sitcom.

The kind of show actors want to be on?

Oh yeah, people want to work with Tony. He has like what? Three Emmy awards? They’ve got a rep.

How is working on Monk different than working on a Soap or in commercials or doing voiceover? Which do you enjoy most and why?

With voiceover you have freedom, but if you get it wrong they’ll let you know, you know. The men and women behind the microphone will let you know if you’re doing it right or not, but other than that you’ve got complete personal freedom to do whatever kind of voices you want. You can make it wacky or kooky or serious as you want voiceovers. Commercials are, you know, that’s just like TV. You come in and do your lines. You do your job. If it’s funny, it’s funny. If it’s sad, it’s sad and then you go home, you know.

Right. What’s your favorite part of acting? What makes you want to do it?

What’s my favorite part of acting? You know, I really appreciate when people laugh. I really like making people laugh. I don’t know. It’s a good feeling. It’s a feeling I don’t get doing anything else. So if I do something funny and everybody on set is getting a good chuckle out of it and everybody at home is getting a good chuckle out of it that makes me pretty happy. I think my favorite part about acting is making people laugh. That’s my favorite part.

All right, what’s your least favorite part?

Least favorite part? I will say my least favorite part would be traveling. I’d say traveling. Sometimes it gets really lonely and I really start to miss home. It’s part of the job. I don’t complain about it, but if I had to pick a least favorite part it would be the traveling. Most people would think, oh wow, you get to travel. Everything’s taken care of and it’s great, you know. I don’t really necessarily appreciate the travel. It’s not like I’m going on vacation. You travel somewhere to work and you get like maybe a Saturday off and you’re alone and nobody wants to do anything alone. So traveling can get pretty hectic.

So you’re sort of a homebody?

I am definitely a homebody. That’s probably actually my problem. My friends love to go out and everybody always wants me to go out, but I very much enjoy home, you know. I am a homebody, I like staying inside and enjoying my little safeness and security here in my nest.

Can you give me a little information about your acting background?

My acting background is just, you know, I grew up with it. When I was about four or five years old I got started in print work. I don’t know exactly how it started. I just know that my mom was the one pushing for it and we lived in…. Where did we live at the time? We lived in New Jersey at the time I believe, and she would take us through the Lincoln tunnel over to New York.

She would take us to and from places and we’d do print work which evolved into a couple of commercials. Then I did All My Children when I was about five or six or something.

I did that for about four years, doing other miscellaneous things in between.

Then my older brother had been coming out to LA for pilot season and he was doing really well, so we just decided to make the move to L.A.. We moved out here to California when I was like 10 or 11 and I’ve been here ever since.

Five or six year old
Sean Marquette

I just kind of grew up with going to auditions and studying lines and acting and becoming a character. As I got older it got a little bit more serious. There was a time when I was about 16 where it went from being just something I was used to and just something I grew up with to something that was important to me, something that I really realized was a career and an art and something I wanted to do personally. Based on those coming of age years I really realized the gift that was given to me and the abilities that I had. You know, the fortune blessed upon me so that I could be in this business. Since then I’ve just been doing everything and anything I can. You know any kind of job that comes my way I do it.

What’s the one thing you’d most like to do that you haven’t done yet?

The one thing I’d like most to do that I haven’t done? I want to blow some stuff up, man. I think it would be awesome to blow some stuff up. You know, I think if was able to, not necessarily shoot a gun on camera, but maybe like push a red remote and watch something blow up. That would be pretty cool, although I did do that, but I wasn’t the one who technically blew the stuff up. That’s something I would like to do.

Okay.

If I wasn’t even in the scene…. Maybe if one of the prop guys would just give me the button to blow the shit up you know. I want to blow some stuff up.

Okay. Good luck with that.

That would be something. I think it would be awesome. I don’t know if anybody would disagree with that.

What’s next up for you?

What’s next? You know I just came off doing a movie called American Son. Another movie called Resurrection Mary that I just did, just premiered. Another movie I did before that, which I did a long time ago, just premiered called The Beautiful Ordinary. I’ve been doing Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. It’s a show on Cartoon Network. I do that like every other Monday.

And Monk’s coming out, that’s pretty much it for now. I’m still auditioning, still working and hopefully we’ll have something even newer coming out. So far I got a list of things coming out, so I’m not too worried about it.

I think I’ve gone through all my questions. Anything you’d like to add?

The only thing I’d like to add is thank you so much for having me interview, I really appreciate it. It’s cool that I get to do this.

I think probably more and more often you’ll get to.

You know, when you’re a guest star you don’t get too much recognition. You know being on The Monk Fun Page is pretty cool.

(It’s the first time anybody has ever said that… and that is cool.)

Thank you very much for having me.

10 or 11 year old
Sean Marquette

Dauplaise Title

Jareb Dauplaise also guest stars in the August 17th episode of Monk, "Mr. Monk and the Buried Treasure" as Pez, Troy Kroger's other friend. Pez isn't the sharpest tool in the drawer. Jareb on the other hand is a very, very smart and loquacious young actor who is now making his mark in films.

When I spoke with him he was in New Orleans in the midst of filming Hunting and Fishing, a comedy also featuring Deidrich Bader (Chance Singer, "Mr. Monk and the Naked Man.") As soon as filming wraps, Jareb jets off to Spain and Greece to film the Nia Vardalos film My Life in Ruins.

He told me all about his Monk experience.

How did you get the role on Monk?

I booked the role on Monk by just getting a regular audition. Going into the lot and I just went in the back and auditioned for the casting director. They said the producer would come in later and I should, "Just hang tight." The producers and director came in later. I just gave a normal audition and turned in a kind of crazy looking headshot. Luckily, I did have common ground on the resume. I just did a film called Drillbit Taylor and the director of Monk had worked with the director of Drillbit Taylor. So it was actually a great audition.

What do you think they saw in you that made them choose you?

You know it’s kind of like sports, which might be hard to explain, but it’s kind of like sometimes you just feel it and sometimes it’s not as great as you would want it to be. When I went into the room for the call backs with the director it was amazing. The director was in a great mood and he had so much energy and he was just laughing the whole time I was in there. It just really fed me the energy I needed to bring the performance to the level that they were looking for. Actually a couple of times during the audition the director was laughing so hard that we had to stop and start again, because it threw me off at first.

That was a good sign though, right?

Actually it was a really good one. We were just standing there laughing and just really carrying on. It felt great. It was one of those auditions that when I left I was like, I really hope I get this, but if not I know that I clicked with them. You know what I mean?

So did you have to do anything to prepare to play the role once you got it?

Well, the role is pretty much an 18-year-old skater, which is something that I’m sort of familiar with. Unfortunately, he’s a little light-headed and doesn’t always get the jokes. For some reason I do very well at that character. I hope it’s not real life. I don’t think it’s real life, that it’s like that.

For some reason I just always end up that whenever I get the big guy, the air-headed gentleman, I’m always able to bring that to the table, if that makes sense.

Well, isn’t it a saying that you have to be smart to play dumb?

I hope so, because in that case I’m really, really smart, because I play really, really dumb.

So did you have to learn to skateboard or is that something you already knew?

Well, originally they asked me if I could skate, which of course as an actor the answer’s always, “Yes.” No matter what you’re asked. So I kind of went in there saying I could. I had skated before, but between me and you [and all the fans who read this] it was a long time ago.

Then in the neighborhood when I came home, when I found that I’d booked it, they called to say, “Do you feel comfortable skating?” I said, “Yeah,” because I was hoping that they meant as far as standing on a piece of wood and pushing my foot and rolling down the street. I can do that. I can not get in the air or do anything cool by any means… except for fall.

So luckily my next door neighbor had a skate board and I went to his house and said, “Hey, can I please borrow your skateboard. It would help me out a lot. I got the role on Monk and I really don’t want to get recast. I’d really like to be able to do it all myself as well."

He let me borrow it and as soon as I stood on it I realized that I could not skate. The second I put one foot on it the board shot forward and I had to chase it down the street. So right then and there I was like, oh, no, this is going to be a long day. Luckily I was able to get to set and then they said, “Hey we do not need you to skate. We are just going to have you stand here and hold the skateboard.” I said, “I can definitely do that.”

That was pretty easy then?

Yes, God was definitely on my side that day.

So you worked with Tony Shalhoub and Traylor Howard and Cody [McMains] and Sean [Marquette], right?

Yes. It was my first time working with an actor who has the depth of Tony Shalhoub. I mean you’re talking about a three time Emmy Award winner, two time SAG Actor Award winner. Standing opposite a guy that has credits like that, it’s amazing. Tony has a huge theater background which is something that I came from as well.

I’m still trying to find that transition to where I can make that move from theater to TV and film, because I’m used to a lot of big movements and really not being so subtle about things.

A lot of time on set working with Tony Shalhoub was amazing. I mean the things that you learn in eight days just standing next to Tony Shalhoub is twice the education I got in two years of college, of acting school. I mean he was just really on top of everything. He told me about all his times at Oxnard and all his times in theater and working with the biggest playwrights of our lifetime and what it was like to be in all the shows and be in all the films. I actually asked him, I said, “Hey, Tony, do you know anyone who’s a legit acting coach? Is there anyone that you would recommend me to?” And he sent me to Jamie Donnelly who coaches him.

Wow!

I got the phone call from her saying, “I don’t take everyone. I’m private. I’m very selective with who I take, but Tony Shalhoub raved about you.” Hearing that was jaw dropping. Tony Shalhoub, once again three time Emmy Award winning actor, two time SAG actor, you know, nominated again this year for best actor in a series, he said I was good? Yes! Thank God.

So it was definitely cool and I was able to take some acting lessons with Jamie Donnelly and I actually got to go over to Tony Shalhoub’s home a time or two and it was just an amazing experience.

Traylor [Howard] was amazing. Traylor’s cool. Traylor’s from Florida as well. We’re both from the same state, relatively close by. It’s nice working with a working actress who’s made it kind of from your hometown, your home state, and you’re able to be able to feed off of that a little bit. So that was definitely neat.

Cool. Where are you from in Florida?

I’m from a small town called Melbourne, Florida.

Pez and Natalie

Melbourne? That’s near Orlando?

Yeah, it’s right on the Atlantic. So it’s right by the beach. We were really born pretty much right on the beach. Yeah, right there, small town. Traylor’s from Gainesville, I believe. She was telling me and I know her Dad’s a huge Gator’s fan and she’s not. So we talked a lot about football, Of course, she just had her baby which is awesome being able to see what it’s like for a mother, just kind of see what they go through see the things that they do on set.

What was it like working on Monk compared to other shows that you’ve done?

Working on Monk compared to other shows? Actually, it’s a huge difference for me, because working on Monk at that time was one of the biggest things I’ve booked to be honest with you. I did Entourage, but that was for just a very few days. That was a great experience. A much younger crowd and a lot of more.... not too much art with it, I guess you would say.

You know what, working on Monk was as professional as it gets. I would definitely say that. Tony Shalhoub is someone that you probably aspire to be as an actor, you know.

You hope that you can have half the success as Tony and to work with someone who really knows what it’s like to be on both sides of the fence. And to be on a studio set and eight days that was a long time for me. It was great to be able to get to know the cast and the crew and to learn people’s names, and really become close with everybody. I felt really lucky with that.

So they’re a very friendly crew?

Oh wow, yeah, they’re very friendly. Sometimes you go on certain sets and you feel a little awkward about being there. You’re a little nervous to say things because, you’re afraid you might step on their toes, but they really let you bring up ideas and they’re not afraid to let you try them. Like if you have some action idea, “Can I try doing this as opposed to this?" or "Can we just try doing one thing like this?" You know, a couple ideas. They’re more than happy to hear you out and if they’re great or good, then they’ll go with it.

The only thing real different about it I would say is that I’ve never worked with the executive producer being the lead actor. So sometimes if there were some takes the director would have one view, Tony Shalhoub would have another view and me being brand new in the middle of it on the set. The director was like "Yeah, pick up the cup and drink it in this scene and say this" and he’d walk away. Tony Shalhoub would say, “Hey, just do it the same way you did.” You kind of don’t know what to do. You’re kind of looking around like ummm… oh, boy.

So who did you listen to?

I listened to Tony. I’d look at him and I’d think about it…. Have you seen the episode yet?

I have actually. I went on a set visit and I watched it with Tony. He laughed at you so much.

Good. So it's pretty good?

It’s an excellent episode.

Good. Good. And I hope you’re not saying that just because this is being recorded. I definitely hope.... You know I can’t wait for Friday. I’m afraid I’m going to miss it now.

I’m out here in New Orleans. I actually booked my first lead role in a film for Fox. I can’t believe this has happened and I’m just as ecstatic as can be and just kind of out here doing this right now. And they're like, “Yeah Friday your episode’s airing.” Of course, I’m staying in a hotel so they don’t have TiVo. They don’t have any kind of recording deals.

But do they have the USA Network?

You know what, that I don’t even know, but I’m sure someone does…. I’m going to try to be really slick and drop the line at production tomorrow and hope that someone goes, “You know what, let’s get him a DVR and record his episode.”

I would say overall the whole Monk experience is absolutely amazing. They invited me to come back and hang out on set and say hi sometime, which was great. I got to go in for the voiceover work and Tony was there.