Mike O'Malley looks back at his successes and failures

[TMC]

https://www.avclub.com/mike-o-malley...the-1847495539

Yes, Dear (2000-2006)—“Jimmy Hughes”
My Own Worst Enemy (2008)—“Raymond Carter”
Snowpiercer (2020-present)—“Sam Roche”

AVC: It’s interesting that you bring that up, because you’ve done a lot of roles where you’re dressed as sort of an everyman, or—from what I can tell from Getty Images—like Mike O’Malley the person. In short, you’ve worn a lot of baseball caps. How often do you have input into that sort of stuff or is it just that it seems like what the character would wear?

MO: Well, I mean I would say that in Yes, Dear that was just a choice. He’s sort of an all-American guy, dad, flannel shirt, T-shirt, baseball cap. At this point now they even call that kind of baseball cap that I wore on that show a “dad cap.”

I would say the two most high profile roles that I’ve done were Burt Hummel on Glee and Jimmy on Yes, Dear, and I had a baseball cap for both of those things. I had some input on Yes, Dear, but I didn’t have any input on Burt Hummel. That was just how they wanted me to dress.

After Yes, Dear I was on My Own Worst Enemy with Christian Slater. I didn’t wear a hat in that show. I don’t wear a hat on Snowpiercer. And then sometimes in Glee they wouldn’t. But you know, I would just have to say a lot of it came from Yes, Dear. In the end we did 122 episodes of that show, and I always had a hat on.

In Snowpiercer, I’ve got this crazy pointy beard that I have no input on and looks ridiculous. Obviously in Heels and in the third season of Snowpiercer, which we just finished filming, the beard almost looks like I’m the Unabomber, which is a dated reference. My family hated it. They would joke to me when I finally shaved, they’d say “Wow, you look 10 years younger” And I’m like, “Wow. So I finally look my age?” and they said, “No, you look 65 with the beard.”

The thing about being an actor that most showrunners understand is that you want the actor to be comfortable on screen so they’re not thinking about their appearance or worried about how they look. And so that’s what I think about. I like to be comfortable when I’m doing things. In life, I dress very casually. And I think if that’s the vibe of what I’m doing in the show, I want to be casual.

Justified is another show where I didn’t wear a hat. They wanted him to be a little bit more menacing and they dressed him like a guy who thought he was dressing cool. But it wasn’t cool. I was wearing a Members Only jacket. It’s the kind of thing like “Oh, my gosh, this guy thinks he looks good, but he really doesn’t. He looks terrible.” I think that amounts to something about the character, too.

[Samme]

I've only seen him on Yes, Dear and the baseball cap fit the character and him. I was always impressed that it was clear they all worked hard and had pride in that show. And it was a very good show. I liked it a lot. It deserved much more credit than it got. I'd still watch it if was on.

[Chocolate Moose]

He's funny. I'd love to see him again.