Hi Jon! What do you have planned for the holidays?
I'm going to the Dominican Republic and during the hiatus, I'll be working on a music project -- a kind of urban pop album. I'm also working on some music for ABC to possibly use for Castle. They asked me to do something for the show. I'm also building a recording studio. I'm making moves.
You said that ABC asked you to write something for Castle. How does that work? Did they assign you an episode or a scene to score?
No, it doesn't really work like that. Basically, they want a song that would be used as more of a promotional tool for the show I think than something that we could place in an episode. We'll see. They are giving me free reign to write and produce the song and see if it works with what their original idea was.
Do you still consider acting your first priority above music?
Absolutely. I'll always be an actor first. I grew up doing musical theater so music and acting, to me, have always gone hand in hand. I'm going to be an actor first because it's my career but music will always be a part of me.
It seems like the holy grail for any actor with musical ability these days is to guest star on Glee. Do you have any strategy for getting on the show?
Yeah I do! I want to be on that show badly but the production schedule is basically the same as ours so I don't know if I'd be able to get away from Castle to do that. I've definitely asked my representation to please get me a guest spot on Glee though.
Have you put any thought into what character you'd like to play?
I think I'd like to play the young substitute teacher who comes in and maybe one of the girls has a crush on him. I would then have to let her down with a song. I know that the actresses who play these teenagers are actually grown women and adults so I wouldn't be opposed to filming some kind of fantasy or dream sequence with the teacher either. [Laughs]
Is there one cast member you have in mind?
No. All of those girls are hot!
I find it so fascinating that you studied musical theater for eight years, joined the Air Force and then came back to acting. How did that happen?
I didn't grow up with a lot of money and means to go to a great college. I wasn't a scholar so I didn't get a full ride anywhere. I did go to college for a year before I went into the military and got -- sometimes I say that I got kicked out but I didn't get kicked out. I was asked to not come back the fall semester.
Because of your grades?
No, it was a disciplinary rule that I broke but yeah, they let me finish the spring semester. At that point though, I didn't know how I was going to finish school. The military was offering to pay for 25 percent of any state college university so I signed up for four years in the military and finished my three years of college. I was actually going to study musical theater in the military because you can study whatever you want as long as you find time to go to school. It ended up taking eight years to finish college because I got deployed and went overseas. I will say that if I hadn't joined the military, I don't think I would have the career I have now. It gave me the discipline and the initiative I needed to get out here. It was one of the best experiences I've ever had in my life.
Did you end up majoring in musical theater while you were there?
Yeah, there's a lot of leeway in the military to do extracurricular things. And guys in the military would come out to watch me dance around the stage in tights. Then the next day I'd be holding an assault rifle. So it's pretty crazy to balance those two worlds but I majored in musical theater and then as soon as I got out, I moved to Hollywood.
Did you encounter any adversity as a musical theater major in the military?
No, not at all. The thing about the Air Force or any branch of the military is that all of us were plucked away from our homes and our comfort zones and our families. So there was a solidarity in the military, a brotherhood. So the nerdier, the weaker guys -- even though everyone has to be pretty strong to be in the military -- we were all brothers. There are always those odd circumstances where someone gets bullied but for the most part, all of those guys are my brothers and I think they think the same way of me. The loudest applause I got onstage at that time was always from my military brothers.
Every working TV actor always talks about what a joy and blessing it is to be on a TV series but what can you tell me honestly about working on Castle? There have to be some downsides.
Oh jeez. There are really no downsides. I've guest starred on other shows and there are some just nasty people that work on other shows. It really is such a joy to work on my show though. It's one big party. It's like a family reunion every day. We're all excited to see each other and be together. I'm trying to think of something bad I can say. Sometimes the air conditioning doesn't work?
That's all you've got?
There's no drama! There are lots of practical jokes that always go right. No one gets in trouble. No one's gotten hurt on the show. No one's gotten fired.
I don't believe that.
No, no one's gotten hurt or fired on the show. It's funny. When we did the pilot, we kind of all gathered around, the cast and producers, and said, "This is fun. We're having a good time doing this. Let's keep this going. If the show gets picked up, let's establish a No A**holes Policy." From that moment on, we've stuck to that.
I will say that during the first season, there was one director that came in. We were shooting a scene with a lot of background artists who had a very important cue timing-wise and they got it wrong probably three times in a row, by no fault of their own. It was just a really hard cue to make. But the director was getting frustrated and yelled out loud in front of everyone and it sounded like it was directed at them. As soon as it happened, I went up to the director and said, "Hey, I don't know if you heard but we've got a No A**holes policy. And what you did was, I'm not even going to say borderline, it was leaning towards an a**hole move. We don't do that here. We don't talk to people we work with like that."
He went back onto set and apologized out loud to those two guys and he's one of our best directors now. He's one of the top three directors in terms of how many episodes we've made. So he's been adhering to the No A**hole policy since that incident. That's the only time that I can think of something going wrong.
So you're pretty much the No A**hole policy enforcer.
I will call myself that but I think pretty much every single person on our show should call themselves that because what if I'm not there and Nathan [Fillion] has to bounce someone. He has to be ready.
I heard that your character has a big episode coming up.
There is an episode coming up that is informative about my character and maybe another character on the show. It's right after the holidays.
We also saw the pictures of Beckett and Castle finally kissing on set. That episode is supposed to air in January. Do you think that Beckett and Castle consummating their relationship will be a bad move for the series?
I think that if they just hook up and it's strictly a hook-up, I don't think it's a huge deal. If it becomes a relationship, I think that it could become something that's not so good for the show. But I think hook-ups are good things!