Bryan Batt: “Good old Sal, we love him”
After seeing Wee Small Hours, Roberta was the one who pointed out that now was the perfect time to follow-up with my earlier interview with Bryan Batt. This episode was so crucial for Salvatore Romano that we just had to talk. Fortunately, Bryan said yes right away.
Bryan is generous with his time. He was flying from New Orleans to New York on Saturday, October 10, and we spoke while he was in the car from the airport to his New York hotel. Then when he arrived at the hotel, he invited me to call back in a few minutes after he had time to check in. I felt kind of bad for him; flying can be so exhausting, and he’s been on a whirlwind, but despite that, he remained focused on our conversation and was so forthcoming, and of course great fun to talk with.
Following are some of my favorite highlights from the interview, and then the full (long!) transcript will be in a separate post.
About Don’s reaction in Wee Small Hours and some back story on Out of Town:
Bryan Batt: Originally, years ago, when Matt told me about [Out of Town]…he had told me at my makeup test for the pilot. He told me, “You know, what’s going to eventually happen is, you’re going to go on this trip with Don, and he’s going to have something with a stewardess, and you’re going to have something with either the pilot or somebody. Something’s going to happen. And it’s not going to matter to him.” And then I think what happened was, that was back in 2006. I think as the characters developed and as the situation developed…something had to happen because of what Don saw in that window. There had to be some repercussion from that down the line.
(more…)
