The Tick Star Griffin Newman Opens Up About His First Big Break as an Unlikely Action Hero Variety. When I first became friends with Griffin Newman, he was an actor whose biggest screen credit was the guy Kevin Costner spills coffee on in Draft Day and I was a freelancer with no idea if Id ever get a full time job. Since then, things have improved for both of us, and with Newmans new series The Tick debuting on Amazon, Im in the unprecedented position of recusing myself from a review. My colleague Maureen Ryan will be covering it instead. Buy ThunderCats Original Series The Complete First Season, Volume 1 Read 2236 Movies TV Reviews Amazon. Season 8 Episode 20 Supernatural Things. Rudimentals brand new album We The Generation is out now on iTunes http Amazon httpsmarturl. WeTheGenerationAmzn. Professor Peter Childs Pro Vice Chancellor Research and Scholarship Tel 01 Ext 2241 Email p. Watch the latest Featured Videos on CBSNews. View more videos on CBS News, featuring the latest indepth coverage from our news team. With that caveat, I thought it might be fun to chat with my friend about how much his life has changed, and how jumping from being a fan to having fans is a unique transition. I talked with Newman about his upcoming role starring as Arthur Everest in The Tick a role that has already generated fan enthusiasm and now that hes making rent, his most fervent desire an action figure of himself. So I watched the first four episodes of The Tick. And my first thought was, Wow, Arthur is a lot like GriffinYeah. He is very similar. Watch Arthur Newman Online' title='Watch Arthur Newman Online' />Griffin Newman talks about his upcoming role as Arthur Everest in The Tick, heroes, auditions, and making it. Watch free Kids Movies and Shows online at Popcornflix Kids. Featuring full length Family Films TV Shows. Directed by Dante Ariola. With Colin Firth, Emily Blunt, Anne Heche, Sterling Beaumon. A story of a man who fakes his own death and assumes a new identity in order to. There were all these parallels, between Arthur trying to become a superhero and with me trying to become an actor who could play a superhero. You know That amount of self doubt, and the amount of criticism from people around you. That thing that everyone always quotes the definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results you can argue that point until the end of time. Its a little blankety for my taste. But thats what show business is, you keep on doing the same thing over and over again hoping its going to work sometime especially when youre struggling to make your mark to convince anyone to let you do anything. Thats what it is. Youre going for audition, after audition, after audition, and its like a bunch of blind dates that dont go anywhere. You have to be insane. You have to be somewhat delusional to keep doing it, because everything around you is telling you to stop and thats even if youre wildly successful. Theres just a certain amount you have to swim through. Im a neurotic, small, fragile person, and so most of my life has been, or most of my career since I dropped out of college nine years ago and started auditioning most of what I get to audition for are characters who are the butt of the joke in one way or another. HVlHOqBHGwTdg4XUG7AfzTjc.jpg' alt='Watch Arthur Newman Online' title='Watch Arthur Newman Online' />Playing a lot of people who are there to prop up the lead, or allow them to dunk successfully, and maybe you get a bit of vindication at the end. I would always, growing up, get so angry when I felt like I saw a character like that in a movie where I felt like the actor was making fun of them, too. I feel like that happens a lot, and I think it sometimes happens from a place of ego. Well Im cooler than this guy is. So I need to play more of a dork. What became my north star, was like OK, I know what I look like. I know what I sound like. Im not delusional. I want to work, but what Id like to do what would make me happy is if I was able to take those parts and dimensionalize them a little more than I think other people do sometimes. I dont know if I can do it. I dont know if Im going to do it well. I dont know if anyone will let me have the chance. But that was always that very specific ambition of mine. And what Id been used to hearing, for most of the last decade, is OK, that was good, but you have to make it a little funny, a little like its a sitcom. I read this script. I was a fan of the previous versions, but Arthur had always been a little more of a comic relief character a character I found very funny, but was always an archetype, in the same way that the Tick was. Then I read this, and it has this whole backstory, this whole examination of psychology. And I went like, oh I know how to play that. But I know whats going to happen. Im going to go in there and theyre going to go, Lighter, a little lighter. Remember its a comedy, remember its a comedy. I had that moment where I went like, Should I just be strategicShould I just play it the way they probably want to see itThe industry can be egocentric. It can make you focus on yourself instead of on the narrative. Very much so. As a child I just watched stuff and I would go, like Why is that bad Why didnt they just make it good Or see people who have these super inflated heads and go, How does that happenIs he just a jerk Then you step into the industry and its scary because you see those paths immediately. Theyre like water slides. You take one step and youre gone, youre down it. So I went like, No, Im going to do my thing. I did my thing. And everyone went, Oh. Then Ben Hedlund, creator and showrunner reached out. We met and talked just about all the stuff that were talking about right now. Hes a very philosophical guy, whos equally interested in the macro and the micro. He loves thinking of the large implications and he loves focusing in on the little details. And we just talked about comedy. He said, I need this to be a guy that the audience is very worried about, but really rooting for. So he cant be the butt of the joke. He has to be funny and there are jokes that he has to sell and there are jokes around him but they cant feel like theyre selling out the integrity of this guy. I said to him, Look, I know how to do that. I dont know if I can do everything else the show requires. I dont know if I can work the number of hours you need me to work without passing out from exhaustion But I know thats the one that I spend a lot of time thinking about. Whatever Arthur was struggling against in his world was always very close to whatever I was struggling against trying to do this part right trying to do right by this character and right by the history of this character, and hopefully do something a little different with it. For a while your most well known role was as the guy Kevin Costner spilled coffee on in Draft Day. I guess there was also a small role on Vinyl, and later an arc on Search Party. But for a while, Draft Day was kind of it. Its quite a journey. Everyone saw that performance and went, This guy is going to be a superhero. What an obvious stepping stone. The Tick is such a weird superhero story. Theres a line the Tick says at some point mano a monomyth I had to write it down because it made me laugh so much. At times it feels like a fever dream. Watch bad guys always die watch. Subscribe to the fmoviesub.