I recently got the opportunity to interview actor Eddie McClintock. He was funny, engaging, candid, and more than willing to answer my questions. He even asked me several things about myself and promised to stop by my vendor's table at the show. Here's the Dallas Comic Con preview that I wrote, based on the interview:
Eddie McClintock isn’t a Secret Service Agent or an ex-military man—he
just plays one on TV.
“I was never a United States Marine, I’ve never carried a ray gun,”
he said. “I’ve never saved the world, although I’d like to think that I have a
few times.”
As the heroic, but humorous Pete Lattimer, McClintock stars in the
SyFy series Warehouse 13, a show
about a secretive location in South Dakota that houses supernatural artifacts.
McClintock, along with such celebrities as Richard Dreyfus (Jaws), Peter Weller (RoboCop), Lee Majors (The Six Million Dollar Man) and Lindsay
Wagner (The Bionic Woman), will
appear at the Dallas Comic Con: Sci-Fi & Comic Expo, taking place at the
Irving Convention Center Feb. 8 and 9. For a fee, the celebs will sign
autographs and pose for pictures.
Convention participate in a costume contest, attend
various panels, meet and greet professional writers and artists and purchase such
memorabilia as trading cards, action figures, T-shirts, original art and, of
course, comic books. A frequent sight on the convention circuit, McClintock collects comics
(Silver Age Marvel in particular) and enjoys talking with fans, so he gets a
kick out of attending sci-fi shows. He’s especially excited to attend the
Dallas/Irving event, where he’ll get the chance to interact with one of his
childhood heroes.
“Richard Dreyfuss for me is like the Holy Grail,” he said. “Jaws is one of my favorite movies of all
time, so to meet Richard Dreyfuss will be really cool. I showed Jaws for the
first time to my eight-year-old son just the other day—he loved it!”
Born in North Canton, Ohio on May 27, 1967, McClintock is married
and has two kids. His wife is from Corpus Christi, and he lived for a brief
time in Austin and Houston. A job as an insurance salesman prompted a move to
California.
“Fresh out of college, my uncle gave me a job selling corporate
insurance,” he said. “That’s how I got to Los Angeles.”
Fortunately, that job didn’t quite work out.
“My uncle fired me after seven months,” McClintock said, laughing.
“It was a little dicey there for a while, but now everything’s cool—my uncle
does all my insurance.”
McClintock has appeared on such shows as Bones, Desperate Housewives,
Sex and the City, Felicity and Stark Raving Mad (where he starred as a regular alongside Tony
Shalhoub and Neil Patrick Harris), but Pete Lattimer was his breakout role.
“Pete has given me a career,” he said. “I have 61,000 followers on
Twitter because of Pete Lattimer.”
When auditioning for the role, McClintock, an actor with leading-man
looks and a great sense of humor, brought his own personality into play.
Instead of portraying a dour, by-the-numbers government employee, he wanted to
have some fun.
“I always try to find some humor in a part, so I went in and read
with that in mind,” he said. “For me, the easiest way to show up to work is to
just be yourself. I don’t want to have to play a character 14 hours a day, five
days a week for nine months a year.”
McClintock brought an extra layer of substance to the role as well,
suggesting to showrunner Jack Kenny that Lattimer, like himself, should have a
past marred by alcohol abuse.
He said, “It was interesting when we talked about Pete being sober,
because you go, ‘Here’s this guy, he’s kind of goofy, and then he says I’m an
alcoholic, and I’m 13 years sober, and you go, ‘Oh, there’s depth here.’ That’s
one of the great things about Warehouse
13 to me is Jack kept putting that kind of pathos into the show.”
The ex-Marine angle was also McClintock’s idea.
“I think it’s important to acknowledge the people who sacrifice
their lives and their families for our country,” he said.
Despite favorable reviews and solid ratings, Warehouse 13 was cancelled in 2013, meaning the already-filmed fifth
season airing sometime later this year will be the last. Obviously, McClintock
was saddened to see the series come to an end, but he assures fans that the
show is going out on a high note.
“The fifth season has
some of the best episodes we’ve ever done,” he said. “Lots of strong emotion—what
we’re playing onscreen we’re actually feeling emotionally because the show is
ending.”
