Jonathan Tropper

I, I know.

Yeah, I get this, I get this very nice email out of nowhere, a guy, guy pulling on his connections to a previous guest, Jonathan Tropper, whose work we love, and he's like, "Hey, you wanna check out..." I'm like, "Oh, okay, sure." "Check out my show.

Uh, I'd love to go on the show.

I'd love..." I'm like, "Great, great, great." He's like, "Yeah, it's Crystal Lake." I'm like, "Oh, fucking hell."

And I'm curious, what is your experience on programs like Banshees and Warriors and all your guest work throughout television that felt has taught you as an actor and prepared you to play a role as momentously?

Oh, well, you know, a lot of my career has been working on shows created by Jonathan Tropper.

And I think that one of the greatest gifts that's given me is that our long relationship has created space for a kind of growth that isn't always a given.

because our mutual trust, he's given me such trust in his productions and he's learned, I think, how best to leverage some of the things I can do natively and how to help me grow some of the things that are weaker in me, but also given me room to expand in writing and agency with story, etc.

Well, I hope you also reap the rewards because you are also playing in the series.

And it's such a stark comparison to your friends and neighbors, which have been a shooter for the series since day one.

You mentioned Jonathan Tropper.

I would be remiss if I didn't bring up, you know, Barney's involvement in the series.

It's, you know, history doesn't re- repeat, but it rhymes, where these, these problems continue through the generations, and Lee is at the center of the, the spiritual and philosophical questions.

And you know, uh, it, it seemed like for a while Jonathan Tropper, the guy who runs all of those other shows I mentioned, loves Hoon Lee, and the rest of the business had not quite figured it out, but-

Yes.

Sh-

Exactly.

They needed someone to help expand the universe, which brings Jonathan Tropper into the picture.

Jonathan Tropper.

Now, this is an interesting choice to me.

Tropper was a novelist originally, but in the TV world he was best known as the co-creator of a show called Banshee.

Uh, it feels like a cheap tribute act in a dive bar.

Right.

So how did Jonathan Tropper and the creative team avoid making Warrior just a giant Bruce Lee tribute act? How did they make it their own television show while still honoring those colored pencil underlines from 1971?

And then Greg and I met on that show, but then had five episodes together where we really got to know each other.

And, um, so funny enough though, Greg and Jonathan Tropper, the showrunner, um, writer of Lucky, they go way back.

And so Greg came on and then he and I just got paired up together.

It just happened to be that we got paired up together again and it was so nice and it was so lovely to be able to like sh- be, um, in these locations that were so different than Presumed Innocent.