If actor Neil Patrick Harris is serious about holding onto his “hardest working man in show business” moniker, he might want to watch out for Mike O’Malley. For when O’Malley isn’t making audiences reach for the kleenex box in his Emmy Nominated turn as Kurt’s understanding father Burt Hummel on the hit fox show GLEE, he’s part of the hilariously twisted writer’s room responsible for the hit Showtime’s series SHAMELESS and starring in his potential Fox midseason comedy FAMILY ALBUM. But just how does he do it? Well, we recently had the pleasure of chatting with the actor to find out just that.
When you were first handed the script for GLEE, did you ever imagine that it would turn into the worldwide phenomenon that it has?
Mike O’Malley: Well I didn’t audition for it, they just called me up and asked me to do it which was kind of a cool thing. I knew about the show, I had an awareness of it because my sister Kerry — who is a Broadway actress and starred in the showtime series BROTHERHOOD — tested for the part of Terri. But also I knew Ryan [Murphy] and Brad [Falchuk] because I had shot PRETTY/HANDSOME which is a pilot they had done for FX a year earlier. Anyways we don’t have to talk about a show nobody has seen, but Ryan has always been a very brave writer and sure enough being involved with that, I had a great experience with him and so he called me up to read this part [Burt Hummel]. I did, and at first I thought I could see where this is going, and then of course it went some place I didn’t see where it was going. [Read more…]