Reid Scott (‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’) on delivering an ’emotional payload’ with the final lines of the series [Exclusive Video Interview]

“He was a very easy guy to love because he was very ambitious, but clearly very talented,” says Reid Scott of his character Gordon Ford on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” After guest starring in a few episodes in Season 4, the actor returned as the fictional late night host for the fifth and final season of the Amazon comedy as a main cast member. Gordon is central to one of the major storylines of Season 5, and Scott relished the opportunity to dive further into the precise dialogue of Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino. “They are just my kind of weird,” admits the actor, “I think I really enjoy working with people that are just a little outside the box, off the beaten path.” Watch the exclusive video interview above.

There was a learning curve for Scott when it came to mastering the rapid-fire pacing of the “Maisel” set. “Getting up to speed with how letter-perfect the Palladino’s demand their dialogue to be, I will say I was rusty from ‘Veep’ where we were encouraged to be like, let it be messy, just mess it up,” he explains. Scott portrayed Dan Eagan on that political farce for seven seasons, and improvisation was encouraged. By contrast, “Maisel” is a highly planned environment where there is no room to play around with dialogue. “It brought me back to something, just a way of working that I hadn’t done in years and it felt like a play,” he reveals, expressing his unexpected love for the process. “It was exhilarating all the time…And now I can’t imagine working any other way.”

SEE Tony Shalhoub video interview: ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’

Scott put this precision-style acting to the test in several “one-ers” which have become synonymous with the filming style of “Maisel.” Those would be the long scenes captured in one continuous take, usually with the camera following the characters across a highly choreographed path through the set. “Everyone’s working in concert together and there’s this delicate dance that everyone’s doing, from the crew on down,” describes Scott. He believes the intensity of those scenes just feeds his performance. “Once we got a few under the belt, I was hooked,” he confesses, “It’s so energizing. And I mean I was completely exhausted by the end of it, but man, once you get one, you realize it’s like it’s addictive.”

The actor also fed his performance with some hands-on research into the world of late night talk show hosts. Scott watched plenty of videos from the likes of Johnny Carson and Jack Paar, but the biggest source of inspiration was courtesy of Stephen Colbert. The current host of “The Late Show” was a fan of “Veep” and agreed to meet Scott on Zoom to walk him through the ins and outs of the talk show world.

SEE Marin Hinkle video interview: ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’

On-camera demeanor was easily picked up in video clips, but Scott probed deeper, finding interest in how a person transitions from the role of host to the person they are behind the scenes. “You’re running the business of this late night show, which is very often the tent pole for any network. So there’s a lot of pressure to make these things work,” says Scott. As viewers see in his performance as Gordon Ford, the face America watches every night is not the same one that greets those in his personal life. “There’s not that many people that have had that job and they are iconic positions ,” notes Scott, “So I really wanted to get it right.”

Scott was on hand as a central figure in the final day of shooting, where Miriam (Rachel Brosnahan) takes over the last four minutes of the Gordon Ford Show with a stand-up set that ultimately makes her famous. Scott has the distinction of being the one to give Miriam her stage name, which aligns with the title of the series. But the lines didn’t come easy. “It was emotional for sure…I was honored to be a part of that last moment, but nervous,” he admits. He used the emotion of saying goodbye to the show, with the entire cast present, as extra fuel for his performance. After a few takes that wound up a bit too teary, Scott managed to combine the sentimentality with Gordon’s tough guy persona. “You really want to deliver the emotional payload that it deserves after five seasons of this incredible show,” he says, “To deliver those last lines, it was an honor.”

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