Art commissions open.
Thirst Blog - when I'm in the mood for it. Homoerotic content. NSFW, 18+. Not a spoiler-free zone. Chernobyl/Valoris, Tetris/Alexenk. Don't tag/anon ask me about threesomes/orgies/bdsm stuff plz.
“I remember talking to my manager—I was actually at the gym, working out in my rainbow headband and tank top.
I went to the interview and pulled up in my dad’s 1971 red Volvo station wagon with Def Leppard playing in the car. I walked into the room, and there was a whole world of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Johnnies, and everybody seemed to be in character. I came from the commercial acting world, and that’s a little different, where everybody’s friendly. This was the more serious “thespian” world, so everybody was in character. I thought, “I’m just going to go sit in the car because nobody’s talking to me.
And then they pulled me into the room and I read for John. I think I grabbed the guy’s shirt and then I left, and I didn’t expect to get a callback. Then a few weeks later I was back in there.
So I was a little nervous, and I remember throwing this flying sidekick. Pat Johnson [a martial arts choreographer who played the film’s referee] had this big pad up next to Ralph Macchio’s head, and it was a really sloppy kick. The air went out of the room. Pat looked at me and said, “Focus. You can do this.” I went back and did another flying sidekick, and this one was perfect somehow. My heel actually went through the pad and punctured a hole in the drywall, so all the drywall kind of came down, and there was all this dust from behind the pad. Pat removed the pad, and there was a hole in the wall—it was almost like it was planned that way. Before the drywall cleared, everybody was out of the room. I guess I proved myself or something. That was the moment when I thought, “I’m actually going to get to play this character.
At the very end, Johnny has his light bulb go off when Kreese tells him to sweep the leg and he looks into his eyes, and suddenly something’s not right in Dodge. And he loses, and then hands Daniel the trophy and says, “You’re all right.” The core of Johnny—and why I really connected with him—is I’m the polar opposite of Johnny. In real life, I’m the guy at the end handing him the trophy right now.
‘Sweep the leg’ is a metaphor for my life. I’m doing my own thing, minding my own business, and the world is outside playing The Karate Kid, blasting it at my door, and I have to rise up and meet that head-on.
I’m actually a second green, which is one below red and then black. My training in martial arts was kind of a crash course in how to look like a black belt. I know the moves of a black belt—my kicks, and my stretches, and my punches and all that. I would spar at black-belt level, but you have to go through a whole bunch of classes in forms and disciplines to actually earn your black belt. So I got a second green belt. It’s a J.C. Penney’s, $4.99.
After the film there was a rumor—because I lived in the Valley where the film took place—that there was some karate gang looking for me. But I think that was just a rumor.
I was actually doing The Equalizer with Edward Woodward in New York when I got Back To School. I remember talking to Edward Woodward, this beautiful English actor who just passed away last year. When I got the offer for Back To School, I told him, “This will be the third bad guy I play.” He said, “There’s three reasons you take a role. One, the script is so good you’d do it for free. Two, the money’s right. Or three, it’s people you want to work with.”
I actually tried to have more fun with Chas (”Back to School”), because I thought, “I’m going to be funny now. I really don’t want to just play a jerk.” So I actually put on a funny walk and I had a scarf a bunch of times. I made him way more funny than he actually turned out in the film. They cut out most of my funny. In fact, the director pulled me aside one day and said, “We need you to be more like the guy you did in The Karate Kid. You’re coming off too likable and funny.” And I was thinking, “Well, that’s kind of my plan.” But at the end of day Chas is Chas, and he gets the leg cramp, and he’s a little wuss.
AVC: By the way, your hair in Back To School was truly glorious.
WZ: Thank you. Yes, I worked very hard on that.
AVC: Did you really? Like taking prenatal vitamins or something?
WZ: [Laughs.] No, I don’t know why, though, but I started growing my hair around that time, and I just decided to go with it. It would be the Farrah Fawcett feather if I could have pulled it off.
The whole thing was a party. We shot it in Madison, Wisconsin in a college town. Really, the movie lived when we were filming and even when we weren’t filming. We were out at the bars and the frat parties after shooting every day. That whole time was kind of like going to college without having to study.
I had fun with Robert Downey. We’d jam in his hotel room. He’d play his keyboard and I’d play my guitar, and we’d sit and watch movies and try to figure why Christopher Walken was so genius.
All of my bad-guy characters, I picture them as having no dad and no structure. I just kind of played that in subtext a little bit.
The Greatest American Hero. I get a part in that, and it turns out they’re actually filming the scene that I’m in at my high school, in the drama department. They had to shut down Guys And Dolls to do The Greatest American Hero. So that was the best part of that: I had a trailer out in the parking lot at my old high school. We got to walk to the set past my old acting teacher, who was not the most supportive acting coach. That was fun. And I played a geek in it! I play a geek who created a science fair project that’s winning awards or something.
The Equalizer was just a really cool show. And with an actor like Edward Woodward, you can’t really not look good, because he’s so great that he brings you to his level. I really enjoyed being on that show, because I got to work with some really seasoned, old-school actors, who were really established. Just their attitude, how they approached their work, how they treated people on the set—it was really great. It was really like my acting school.
During the fourth season, they were grooming me from being his estranged son—this violin and bass player—to become like his dad by the end of the fourth season. In my last episode, I went on my first mission and escaped the Bulgarian embassy and had this big breakout thing. They were kind of grooming me for a spin-off, from what I understood. But it never went another season to establish that, so my last episode was having my first encounter with vigilantism, and then walking down the street with Shirley Knight, who played my mom, and Edward Woodward, all of us headed into the sunset in slow motion. It faded out, and that was the end of my Equalizer days.
AVC: So you could have been Son Of The Equalizer?
WZ: Yeah, there was talk about that on the set. I think CBS was playing around with that idea, but they didn’t have time to establish it. I think they were starting to steer the ship that way, and then Edward had to pull out of the last season, because of his health. So it never had time to take root.
AVC: Did you get to talk to Ann-Margret very much? Seems like she would have a lot of good stories.
WZ: I did. I actually got to kiss Ann-Margret, which was amazing—just a little smooch when she pulled off into the sunset with C. Thomas Howell. She was a sweetheart.
I produced my short film [Most] that was nominated for an Oscar. Most of those films that I shot in Eastern Europe were after I ended up moving there for a few years and scouted all over Eastern Europe. I ended up writing a film and traveling all over and casting it and crewing it up and ended up turning it into a festival-winning film, and it ended up at the Academy Awards, which was what my whole goal was—not so much in the acting but in the filmmaking.
AVC: (Hot Tub Time Machine) is also one of the first comedies you’ve done since the ’80s. Is that something you’d like to get back into?
WZ: Oh, yeah. I’m actually more of a comedic actor. I’m actually more funny than I am anywhere near a villain.
elenatria said:
@dream-beyond-the-fantasy me tooo I have a few questions that no one has ever asked before. Maybe make a post with your questions so I can reblog with mine, someone might see them and ask him for us. 😛
dream-beyond-the-fantasy said:
@elenatria Yes! They always ask the same damn questions! It annoys me. Why can’t they think of new things to ask him? There are so many questions I would like to ask him that none of the interviewers ask.
elenatria said:
@dream-beyond-the-fantasy I see, thanks for telling me, it seems people keep asking him the same questions over and over again, nobody digs deep enough to make him, you know, *talk*.
dream-beyond-the-fantasy said:
@elenatria Yes, I do think it is the most elaborate Billy interview. It is the only one that I’ve found that talks about his other roles. And like you, this interview made me want to check out his more obscure films.
elenatria said:
@cutesynamehere it was that particular interview that had me searching for his super obscure stuff on youtube and there’s still roles I can’t get my hands on, like his two episodes on E/R.
elenatria said:
@outforawalkbitkah lol cool, he said he spent a lot of time in Bulgaria filming movies (yeah, THOSE movies… :-P ) and then he got the idea for Most but I’m not so sure. There’s a lot we don’t know about him, he’s so private.
outforawalkbitkah said:
@elenatria ok I guess you were right about Most, I must have gotten wires crossed.
elenatria said:
@dream-beyond-the-fantasy do you think this is the most elaborate Billy interview out there? Because he mentions some trivia and stuff about his roles that we’ve never read before.