Name to the Face: Exclusive Interview with actor Matthew Jayson Cwern

Television landscapes are made up of so much more than A-list actors. The large worlds within a show are often masterfully created by a multitude of working actors that most audiences who regularly tune in would recognize, but might not be able to name. In an effort to rectify that, TVMaze is starting an interview series to help viewers put a name to the face. I was fortunate enough to kick things off with an exclusive interview with actor Matthew Jayson Cwern. You may have seen him on Fox’s hit drama 9-1-1, Amazon’s Transparent, CBS’ Criminal Minds or NCIS. Wherever you recognize him from, believe me when I tell you he has had and continues to lead a fascinating life that brings so much to each role he plays. Matthew gives us a glimpse behind the curtain with a charming mix of humility, humour, and generosity that might just make him a household name after all.

TVM: What drew you to acting and when did you know you wanted to make a go at a career in it?

MJC: I was drawn to acting as young as 5, but not in the traditional sense. My father used to take me to the movies a lot- he’s a major cinephile. We’d see the The Hunt for the Red October, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Total Recall... some of them went over my head I was so young, but it was the father-son bonding experience that really was special to me. I think in some ways I realized if I could work on movie screens, my father would be proud. It was after watching The Running Man I realized I wanted to be some sort of action star. I wanted to be like the Arnold Schwarzenegger ass-kicking hero that saved the girl at the end. I didn’t really make any sort of attempt to make a career at it until I was a lot older.

When I was in high school I had terrible stage fright. Even though I wanted desperately to be in the school plays, I was an awkward kid, I was nervous, and I didn’t see myself being on stage in front of so many people judging me. I was taking an acting class- I went to a good high school that offered acting classes-and my teacher, Alan Lehrman, encouraged me to join the school play. They were doing a production of The Crucible, and I got a small role in it. He said something really nice to me-I think he recognized that acting was good for me. I got in a lot of trouble as a teen. Maybe he saw that acting grounded me in some way -but he said whatever my plans were for college, I should consider taking an acting class. So when I started going to Nassau Community College, I decided to sign up for one. My teacher there was very complimentary as well. Teachers never said a lot of nice things to me. I felt like most of them hated me. So I really took what Alan and my college teacher Mr. Einenkle said to heart.

After that acting class in college, I started taking classes in the city. I got a copy of Backstage magazine and started researching where to start. I was about 20 at the time.

TVM: You were an EMT in another life. You recently played a fireman on Fox’s hit show 9-1-1 opposite Jennifer Love Hewitt. Did your experience on that job help inform that, or any other of your roles?

MJC: It did. The character I played wasn’t engaged in the act of saving lives in the episode, we were really just having a conversation, but the idea was that I was a firefighter who worked at the 9-1-1 call center and I was the liaison between the 9-1-1 call center and the LAFD. My experience as an EMT has helped me with a lot of roles over the years. A lot of my early roles were playing EMT’s and paramedics on soaps. All My Children, one of my first credits, hired me on because of my real EMT experience. On soaps they don’t have the time to train anybody- they have to shoot an episode every day- so if they can find an actor that already knows how to use a stretcher, is familiar with the medical lingo, it just saves them a lot of time. Sometimes I would even act as the medical consultant.

In terms of 9-1-1, the episode was about an earthquake that had hit the city of Los Angeles and I have to tell Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character when she asks if I know any of the men in a certain unit made it out of a specific building okay. One of those men is her brother, which is why she is so concerned. When I answer, I say that ‘some of our men are still missing. Aftershock caused another collapse’. During the audition when I said that line I was back at Shea stadium during 9/11 and having my friend in the fire department Tommy Sager call me to let me know that our friend, our brother firefighter Jonathan Ielpi, was missing. We didn’t know that he was deceased, we didn’t know where he was, we found out later he had died that day, but I remember when I got the call receiving the news that he was under the rubble. I remembered how I felt. Exactly. So, when I went into the audition I called back where I was mentally that day. I was talking to an actor in the waiting room and before it was my turn, I told him that I needed to take a minute. He understood. I needed the minute to go back. I really do think it helped with my audition, helped book the job. The lines may have been about trapped firefighters during an earthquake but in my mind I was Tommy delivering that call to me.

Casting didn’t know I was in the fire department. It doesn’t say so on my resume. I want people to know when they hire me they’re hiring an actor and not just some EMT who happened to get into acting on the side.

TVM: Do you have any rituals when getting into character or is the process different for you with every role?

MJC: I don’t really have any rituals or any specific things I need to do before auditions. If anything, I just need to take a moment to go there emotionally. That could involve thinking certain thoughts, or images, or talking to myself like a nutcase. I don’t really do any more than that. I don’t really do a lot of the breathing exercises or the stretches or the hanging upside down from the ceiling or whatever weird things actors need to do. I just go there.

Sometimes I don’t really have to do anything other than just show up and be myself and say the words, just have a conversation. Robert Duvall says he just learns his lines and then it’s all talking and listening from there. Just talking and listening. I just do that and try not to get in my head and a great way to avoid that for me is to not going over the top with pre-audition rituals and stuff.

TVM: Congratulations on being accepted as a member of the Television Academy! What does it mean to you to count yourself as a member?

MJC: Thank you very much. It’s cool! You know, to get into the Television Academy you had to have worked at least eight jobs as a principal in television over four years. And honestly, that’s not that easy to do. It seems easy, right? It’s just two T.V. jobs a year. But T.V. is so hard. You gotta be in the union, you gotta find an agent or a manager, then you gotta be one of three thousand actors that get submitted for the role, then you gotta be one of the twenty that get selected to come and audition, then you gotta be one of the five who gets called back, and then you gotta be one of the two to be pinned, which means you’re in their top choice, then you gotta be the one to book it and then you gotta hope that they don’t cut your role. I mean, the odds are so not in your favour to work in television. So it’s an honor to be a part of a membership like that. And then to have a say in the Emmy’s? To decide which performers, directors, writers, producers were worthy of such recognition is a real privilege. I’m really excited to dive in.

TVM: What was the job that got you your SAG card?

MJC: It was one line on All My Children. I mentioned I started doing EMT roles on soaps, but before I played an EMT I played a very low-profile bad guy on an episode of All My Children where one of the main characters was giving me some job to do and I just had to say ‘Shouldn’t be a problem, I’m on it.’

That was 2003 or so, SAG and AFTRA were different unions and if you were in AFTRA for one year and you had a speaking role then you were able to join SAG. So I had joined AFTRA because I was working in soaps a lot, I was doing a lot of background work, and then Bob Lambert, casting director, gave me a line, and with that one line, gave me the ability to join SAG.

TVM: What has been your favorite co-star role to date?

MJC: It’s tough because there have been a lot, but probably 9-1-1. I don’t usually get to play good guys like that. I usually play the bad guy, the seedy guy, the guy with the gun, the asshole. But I really got to play a likeable character that you were rooting for. It was great working with Jennifer Love Hewitt. Everyone on set calls her “Love”, by the way. And for good reason, she’s very, very, very lovely, and very sweet.

When I finished filming that day I got back in my trailer, sat on the couch and just cried. It was an emotional day for me, because of where I had to go mentally but also, there was the fact that I had just worked with Jennifer Love Hewitt. I mean, when I was in high school she was one of the biggest stars in America. If you had told 1998 high school loser me that I’d be sharing a screen with her, I would’ve laughed in your face. Everybody would have. It was a small role but one I’m never going to forget.

There was also an episode of Scorpion where I played a mercenary that had to fight Robert Patrick’s character. At one point, we were in our fighting stance, I was staring dead into his eyes and he was staring into mine. Our noses were almost touching and we both looked like we just wanted to kill each other. And I did. In that moment, I wanted to kill this guy. He was getting in the way of my assassination mission and I never fail at my missions. Well, at one point, right before the camera started rolling, I broke. I was Matt again for a brief second and in my head said “HOLY FUCK I’M FIGHTING THE T1000!” That was a real trip.

TVM: Who has been your favorite “name” actor to work with?

MJC: Well, I just mentioned how much I loved working with Jennifer Love Hewitt, so possibly her, but I gotta mention Mark Harmon, who is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever worked with. I had a very small co-star role on NCIS and he was just so gracious. That show has been on 15, 16 seasons now, and one of the reasons is because of him. He leads from the top down and he really treats it like a family and every single person that comes on set is welcomed into that family. He even has his dogs there on set and, you know, I love dogs. He also connected me with a director he thought I’d get along with because this director was former FDNY. Mark was like, ‘Ah, you don’t know this guy? You should know this guy.’ and he gave me his contact information and told me to contact him and he’ll set us up. And he did. The director and I had breakfast a few weeks later and he gave me some great advice.

Joe Montegna was also super nice. I didn’t work with him on Criminal Minds when I was working on that show, but he was there when I was filming and we spoke for a while. I recently worked with Peter Gerrety and Margo Martindale on Sneaky Pete and they are two of the sweetest people I have ever met. They were singing to me in between takes.

Honestly, most of the people I’ve worked with are super nice. I think it’s a true testament to Hollywood and why some people become successful and why others don’t. I think a lot of the people that have made it in Hollywood made it because, yeah sure they’re talented and the camera likes ‘em, all the technical stuff, but also just the fact that they’re really, really nice people. There are plenty of great actors out there that aren’t pleasant, can be nasty, and eventually they get that reputation and no one wants to work with them again. I’ve been really fortunate, I haven’t really worked with anybody like that. I mean I’ve worked with people that may have not been the chattiest, but I’ve never really dealt with anyone who was just outright rude.

TVM: What is your dream role? Are there any current shows you’d love to work on and why?

MJC: Oh my god, I want to play a doctor on Grey’s Anatomy! I’ve played so many guys with guns and I love all that, but a doctor would really be fun. My parents are both doctors. Playing a doctor on T.V. is the closest I will ever come to being one and I would be okay with that. I love the medical world so that would be fun.

I would also love to work on This is Us or A Million Little Things. They show that no one is perfect. Everyone has stuff that they are dealing with no matter how perfect their lives seem on the outside. I think, for years television created characters with these picture-perfect fantasy lives and I love how so many of the characters in both these shows are so deeply flawed.

TVM: Social media plays a big part in actors’ lives. Many use it as a promotional tool, but while a lot of actors embellish their lives to make it seem more glamorous than it might actually be, you’ve used it with great humour to expose the realities of the #actorslife. Do you think it’s important to give glimpses behind the curtain?

MJC: I think everybody is going to give you a different answer. For me, yes absolutely, that’s why I do it. I do it because I feel better. Just the way a comedian deals with their issues on stage with their audience, I kind of deal with my own issues with my social media audience. It’s like therapy for me: it helps me cope. I have a lot of insecurities about myself and my career even though I do work a lot. I’m aware that I work more than most actors. I probably work more than 95% of the acting population. People tell me that all the time. But knowing that is never going to make me feel better. Those feelings are always going to be there and it helps to laugh at it and make others laugh at it. It’s very cathartic.

I also noticed actors would make their lives out to be so much better than they actually were and it just felt fake and I didn’t want to be fake. I wanted to be real with people. I wanted people to know that the actors life is so much more than being on a set and hanging out with celebrities all day. Those days on set are usually few and far between and there’s so much heartache, rejection, a certain amount of loneliness. You know, being an actor can be very isolating.

I feel like your friends and family that aren’t in the business aren’t ever going to get it. It’s not their fault. How could they? To them you’re not really a success unless you’re an A-list celebrity. When they see just how hard I had to work to get a two-line co-star, I think they understand the business a little bit better and they understand that what I’m doing is very, very hard. And other actors who read my posts open up to me a lot. I’m really surprised sometimes. These are actors that I assumed were happy and thriving and doing great things with their careers and then they’ll open up to me about their insecurities. They know that I get it and that I’m not gonna judge. I guess I’m like a sounding board for other actors that are going through the same thing. They just don’t realize other people are going through the same thing, too. And when they read my stuff they’re like, ‘Oh, okay, he is struggling just as much as any of us.’

TVM: Speaking of the struggle, what advice would you give to your fellow actors who may be struggling?

MJC: Well, first off, I’ve been there and I still struggle all the time. When one job ends I get the title of “out of work actor” until the next job comes. So, I’m going to steal from Philip Seymour Hoffman who said that ‘Actors that are new to LA should be acting in everything all the time.’ Student films, unpaid theatre, web series, whatever it is, you should be acting all the time. The more chances you get to act are more people that can see your work. These people can go on to become producers, maybe they know directors, maybe they know casting directors, agents, managers. Every single time you get a chance to work, you gotta do your best work.

I think class is one of the most important things actors can do for themselves. I’m in class every week and the only reason I stop taking class is if I’m shooting something or if I’m in a play. Try to get in class with working actors who challenge you and you can learn from. If you are in class with working actors and you work hard each week, do great work, they will eventually respect your work and become a fan. Then they’re likely to give you referrals to their agents when you need one. I’m much more likely to give a referral to someone I know from class than someone on Facebook whose like ‘hey, I see you’re working a lot. Is there any way you can refer me to your agent’.

I think you always have to be challenging yourself and always looking for ways you can grow your craft. I started learning Shakespeare a few years ago for no other reason than it was challenging, terrifying and extremely difficult. If you can do Shakespeare, you can do anything on screen.

TVM: What can our audiences catch you in next?

MJC: You can catch me next in season 3 of Sneaky Pete!

TVM: Any last words?

MJC: Don’t let acting be the only thing that defines you. Its important to have other interests and have other things to fall back on. You don’t want your mood to be entirely dependent on the state of your career. Trust me on that ;)