Exclusive Interview with Blood & Oil’s Scott Michael Foster
Scott Michael Foster first found his way into many of our hearts playing Cappie on ABC Family’s Greek. In the years since he has continued to delight us with roles on Once Upon A Time, Californication, and Halt and Catch Fire, among many others. Most recently he captivated audiences as Leo Hendrie on Chasing Life and this Sunday he’ll be portraying Wick Briggs on ABC’s new drama Blood & Oil.
Talk Nerdy With Us had the pleasure of chatting with Scott about his new role and filming in Utah. Keep reading to find out what he had to say!
April and Leo got married and then he died! When did you find out Leo would be leaving Chasing Life?
“I talked with (Patrick) Sean Smith who was running the show before we started shooting the season. We left off last year with him proposing and April saying yes, so we knew that there were going to be some new storylines to explore with all of that. Tying the knot, doing the episode where we actually got married it was a long time coming. You kind of knew it was going to happen. We were ready for them to be married. We were excited to shoot it, and I think it did change the storyline for them. It opened up new things. Obviously, the fans didn’t expect things to turn sour so quickly.
At the beginning of season 2, when we decided to shoot that season 1 finale that he proposed in, I don’t think they knew exactly what was going to happen. I’m sure they had an idea, but no details. We had quite a bit of time off, so when we came back to start shooting season 2, we got sat down and told what was going on.”
What was it like reuniting with Amber?
“It was great. Amber Stevens and I have known each other for years. The thing about the people from Greek is that we’re all staying so busy, which is nice, but it’s hard for us to get together and catch up a lot of times. It was almost like a forced reunion for us. It’s like there was no excuse. If I was out of town, she was out to town. We were both on the same stage, shooting the same show, so we got to actually catch up. It was definitely nice because I hadn’t seen her in a while.”
Did playing a character with cancer changed the way you live your life at all?
“Yeah. With the content of the show it becomes clearer and clearer how nothing is certain and you have to definitely live your life to the fullest every day. I know it sounds cliché, but it’s true. Until you are face-to-face with an issue like that you may not realize that you should live every day as if it’s your last. Like Leo says. It’s definitely changed my perspective on the matter.”
What was your audition process like for Blood & Oil?
“Man, it was a bit crazy. There were a few different shows that I was up for. I just went in and read for this, and they offered the role to me that day. I kind of had to make a choice about these other shows and I just felt strongly about this Blood & Oil. I passed on the other ones and decided to do this one. I’m glad I did because this one has got such a great cast pulled together.
Everybody involved is extremely talented. Even the drama, personally everyone’s pretty drama free, which is good for a set, so it turned out to be quite a good experience. We were shooting in beautiful parts of Utah. I just couldn’t say enough about the experience. I’m glad I made the decision to go with the show.”
It does have a powerhouse cast, with Don Johnson and Chace Crawford. What is it like working with that cast?
“It’s fantastic. Everyone is extremely professional, extremely talented and extremely beautiful. After I sat down at the first table read I thought I was the ugliest person at the table (laughs). Everyone is so goddamn gorgeous. You know, I’ve been working on my self-esteem a little bit being surrounded by all these supermodels, but I get through the day. (laughs). Our scripts are turning out really well, we’ve got a lot to offer, so I’m hoping that America likes it as well.”
What can you tell us about Wick Briggs?
“Wick is the troubled, spoiled, rich kid. He’s the son of Don Johnson’s character, Hap Briggs. He’s entitled and thinks he’s the heir to the throne of the Briggs oil dynasty. When things don’t really go his way he gets upset and takes a darker path that may or may not get him and his family in trouble.”
Do you have more fun playing the villain or bad guy versus the good guy?
“No, but I think it’s more interesting. I don’t want to say it’s easy, because no character I’ve played has been easy, but there’s actually more fun roles to play than these dark, brooding, emotional characters who have a lot of pain and suffering going on. Going to work is a little more emotionally taxing playing the bad guy or emotionally unstable characters than it was playing someone like Leo or Cappie from Greek.
They were always fun loving and always had a smile on their face. It’s a lot easier to do to those things than having to deal with a lot of deep, dark emotions.”
Blood & Oil is filming on location. Do you enjoy filming on location more than set?
“Here’s the thing, on location, like here in Park City we’re shooting a lot outdoors and we’re really capitalizing on the landscape here. It’s beautiful on the mountains. In the wintertime it’s going to be blanketed in snow and we’re just going to have really striking locations for the show. I always think it ends up looking better.
As far as for our mental health, being on stage is a bit better because we don’t have to worry about the weather or the elements. We don’t have to worry about nights, shooting from 6:00 pm to 6:00 am because we’re trying to shoot darkness. It’s better for our mental health for sure, but I think for the quality of the show it’s better to actually shoot on location.”
Is there a state or a city that you would love to shoot a show in?
“Well there’s two thoughts to that. One thought is I’d love to shoot in LA so I could live in my own house (laughs) and be in the city that I consider my home . Where all my friends live and everything. That’s sort of a selfish reason. Places like Park City, Vancouver and Hawaii, are gorgeous locales that are really big for the production value of the show. Obviously, at the end of the day what’s important is we want people to really like the show and find it striking and fun to watch. It’s less about what I want and more about what I think people want, as far as what they want in a show.”
Does filming on location make the cast closer? Since you guys are in your own little world and stuck there with each other?
“Yeah. We’re all here on location. None of us live here in Park City. We do now, but none of us are from here. There’s a sense of community with the cast and crew that I don’t think you necessarily get when you shoot in Los Angeles. When you’re out here everyone’s new to the city, so you all kind of stick together. Yeah, it definitely brings everybody closer.”
You’re a Dubsmash pro, but has there been one that you were like really excited to do and it just didn’t work out, so you didn’t share it?
“(laughs). Yeah. There was one that Jacob Zachar, who played Rusty on Greek, he’s obviously a great friend of mine, he did one from Happy Gilmore and we think it’s funny, but we start to get a little snooty about what we post. We’re like, oh I don’t know if this is worth social media, it may just stay between friends. Maybe I’ll most it one day, but I didn’t think it was necessarily good enough. That’s how snobby we’re getting with our Dubsmash.”
What’s your favorite musical?
“My favorite musical, it’s probably an obscure one that no one’s heard of, it’s called The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown. I don’t know if anybody watched Bloodlines this year, but one of the brothers, he was played by Norbert Leo Butz, was in it on Broadway in 2002. I remember seeing that. It was my first trip to New York, I was like 16 or something. We saw that musical and I just thought it was the best thing! I still know it all by heart to this day.”
Besides Blood & Oil, is there anything else that you’re currently working on or just finished working on?
“No. This is kind of taking up a lot of my time. I’m always writing and doing things like that, and trying to get things that I want to create out there, but as of now it’s just taking up all of my time.”
What are the chances of a Greek reunion happening? Maybe a movie or something?
“I know we’d all love to, but I don’t know anything about it happening or not. There were whispers of something about that happening, about a year ago, but nothing’s ever come to fruition. We haven’t gotten a call about it, so I don’t know. If they’re working on it they’re keeping it from us. (laughs).”
This is my last question, so thank you again so much for doing this, but because we are from Talk Nerdy With Us, what do you “nerd” out about?
“So many things. Currently, I’m nerding over Star Wars. I’m really excited about the new Star Wars movie. I’m just petitioning anybody involved to let me be an extra in a Star Wars movie. They’re making like 20 of them, so I want one. That’s all I want, just to be in one. It’s not too much to ask, is it?. (laughs).”
New episodes of Blood & Oil air Sundays at 9/8c on ABC.