It is always a treat to have the opportunity to bring a second interview of a colossal talent to my readers, and Jaime Callica is just that. His year has been one filled with unbelievable roles and immeasurable success, and this young man’s star continues to rise. Recently, he and I chatted about his amazing career, including recent and upcoming works as well as his outlook on the business and life in general.

RH: You are now the second person to have a second interview with me.

JC: Nice!

So, Wayward Pines season two ended. It was great to get to see you on that. I think we all would have liked to have seen you a little bit more on that.

It’s one of those–not “beggars aren’t choosers”–but one of those–“some is better than none.” The fact that originally it was supposed to be one episode with the possibility to recur, and then it turned into two episodes is really something. On the second episode, I was supposed to die. They planned to kill my character off. And then they changed their minds. And then Simeon was given a profession. We established that in the sixth episode where you saw him at the school. I was in epsidoes one, six, eight, nine, and ten. In a couple of the episodes, I had a bunch of dialogue that was cut. Although I cannot say definitively how much, they do shoot more than what is needed for each episode–maybe even in excess of two hours–and then they have to squeeze that into forty minutes with commercial breaks. It happens quite a bit that they cut lines of dialogue out in editing. But I was super happy and blessed that I got to live.

I always knew when it was the day for Wayward Pines and that you were going to be on it because your fans would tweet like crazy. You have such phenomenal fans! I know you know that.

They’re so great. I mean they’re so great. Prior to Wayward, I gained a pretty big following after Almost Human and The 100. They followed, but they weren’t the most active. They weren’t always the most engaged. And Wayward was definitely that show where–and I’ve always been pretty good or I try to be pretty good with responding and retweeting and favoriting and doing all the things–but they were really active. Asking questions. They were like, “Man, we’re watching till we catch your character. We don’t care if you’re there for one minute.”  And I saw that a lot with Wayward. And I really, really love it and appreciate it.

I happened to book a commercial during the time Wayward was airing, and on one of the days of shooting, it was on a Wednesday night. I don’t know if you remember the tweet, but I literally–I do have two phones. One I use for talking, texting, and communicating, and the other one I call my work phone where it has my email, my social media, etc.–and I was literally on this rooftop shooting this thing, and I’m on my other phone, watching Wayward Pines so I could still live tweet with the fans. And then there was the time I just did come back from Toronto where it had been Caravan time, and I was at this party with my friends, and I literally would step away for a few minutes time to watch that episode on the east coast feed to tweet a bit, then by the west coast feed, I was back home so I could sit and watch it and do it. Yeah, they’re great. So I love jumping on and tweeting.

I think that was very much appreciated ’cause I know not all the actors can live tweet. It was great to see all the tweets coming ’cause you and Tom Stevens and a couple of others that you could count on to live tweet regularly, and I think that helped a lot. 

Like, Kacey {Rohl} would be on there tweeting, even if she wasn’t necessarily responding to every tweet at her, she was still tweeting with the show. Mark Friedman is the executive producer, showrunner, and writer of many of the episodes. And on my second or third episode, he actually took a photo of me during a scene and then came to me and said, “Hey, be sure you give me your email so I can send that to you ’cause I know you’ll use this.” And I thought that was really cool ’cause there was a culture for years of no photos on set, and then to have the executive producer of the show–’cause you still would take pictures on set and people would repost some of the stuff, but you’re still almost kind of nervous to tweet or do anything in case you’re not really supposed to. So to have him say that was like, “All right, cool.”  It confirmed that I knew it was safe to post these pictures from the set. That gave me the permission to go really hard and tweet and have fun with it with the fans.

I know we’re all hoping that season three happens.

Yeah, you never know with FOX. FOX is so great, and they do everything so big. I’ve been to ADR when you go into the studio and record a portion of your lines. They’re tapped in a video chat. They’re hearing and seeing what you’re doing live. I’ve never had that with any other network. Every other network I’ve worked for, there’s someone else directing the sessions, and you go in and do it, and it’s cool, based on what the person in charge told you. With FOX, it’s like, “No, no, we’re gonna be there. We’ll be watching. We’re gonna be talking in your headphones.” But on the flip side of that, they’re so fine-tuned that if it doesn’t hit the exact numbers they want–whatever their barometer is–it’s business. “Oh, no, the show’s canceled. We’re gonna have the shows on the air that are going to be the best for us or not.” And you even saw that with Almost Human. Almost Human was doing six to eight million viewers a week. It was a pretty costly show. For example, even if their profit was–I’m using hypothetical numbers–one million dollars. For them to produce the show, they wanted to make 1.1 million. But if they only made the million, they would be like, “Yeah, we’re canceling it.” It doesn’t matter that it was still profiting them. They would be like, “It was too expensive for us to make.” You might think with CW or NBC or other networks if the viewership was like that, we’d be back a hundred percent. With FOX they’re like, “No, we’ll wait another couple of months and see.” {laughs} But it’s great. I love FOX.

Oh definitely. I think Wayward Pines was the first FOX show I had watched in I don’t know how many years. I think I took a break from network shows, but now I’m getting back into watching them. I was really impressed. It was always shocking to me for people to say, “Oh, we don’t like Wayward Pines.”  I’d be thinking, “What? Are you watching the same show as me?” The writers for that show are phenomenal!

Yeah, they really are. Like there was no fat. You couldn’t take a single word out of a lot of the lines. It was written so lean. It had just what it needed. And then the actors executed to perfection. It was different from season one. They made a conscious decision. It was going to be young. We’re gonna have young leaders, a lot of students. You never saw a lot of that in season one. But they had a definite purpose, even if they were writing as the season was going on, the writers knew, “This is right where we’re going. We’re moving the story this way.” It wasn’t, “Oh, let’s see how the public reacts to …”  It was written most efficiently, and then they hoped the fans liked it. With a lot of shows, they’ll write and see what happens. It’s almost like a knee jerk. You’ll feel the story go a different way like, “They just changed something.” It wasn’t working for them so they changed something. But with Wayward, they knew how they wanted to end it, and they just sat there with four writers and got it there.

I’m so glad we’re talking about this. I don’t think I’d even thought about that, but now that you mention it, that makes perfect sense. We’ll just all hope that season three happens. 

I would hope that my acting would make sure that my character comes back, but these days, social media plays such a role. And that’s another reason I’m so happy that my following is the way it is with me ’cause they see that stuff, and it helps. I’m hoping that between the social media stuff and my acting that we see a season three and that Simeon’s character grows in a larger capacity. That’s the hope.

Then I saw that you had gotten that role on The Romeo Section, but the upsetting thing for me is that it’s not available in my country.

They’ve been reairing season one episodes on CTV. But you’ll find it online on some streaming service. Like Motive is one I shot earlier in the year. That was actually the first booking of the year back in January, and that will be airing on August 30th here in Canada. And I’m really excited for that. But Motive is one that got picked up on the USA Network. So they aired the last three seasons over the past six months back to back to back. It’s still a little bit behind us, but quickly catching up. But The Romeo Section is still only on Canadian TV. But you can definitely find it online.

And you’re not the only one I’ve interviewed where this happens. The actor will mention a show which sounds good, and I look it up, and it’s Canadian, and I can’t get it. {laughs} But of course, the same thing happens with you guys. There are things only available in the U.S. that you can’t get in Canada.

Yeah, you guys have a ton of networks that we just don’t have access to. But we’re about a tenth of the population of the U.S., so naturally, there’s less channels as well. Certain shows like Suits which I believe you get on USA, we get it on like Showtime or some premium channel like that. So if you don’t have a package that includes the American channels, you’re out of luck. We have to wait for Netflix to catch up so we can stream it. One of my favorite shows right now, Power, with Omari Hardwick and 50 Cent, we can’t get that. There’s not a channel that shows that. So everybody that knows and watches Power, we gotta go online and try to find it, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

With The Romeo Section, how many episodes are you going to be in?

Six of ten. It’s a very different role. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever done. So to do two is fantastic. To get called for a third–I’m blessed. But six is the number that they told me originally.

With that show, I know one of the crew members. The cinematographer, Brendan Uegama.

Yeah, he’s the DOP.

I know him because I interviewed his wife Nicole G. Leier.

Yeah, Nicole who played my fiancee on The Bridge.  I had been friends with Nicole for a long time. I had heard about this Brendan for years. So when I went to film my first episode of The Romeo Section, I walked in and saw him. It was crazy. We’re like Facebook friends and are connected, but we finally met.  He’s great. He sure knows what he’s doing.

When does season two of Romeo start airing?

October 5th. It airs on Wednesdays too, so it’s like “Jaime Callica Wednesdays.” {laughs}

I know that you were in The Perfect Pickup. I remember you said that you got to go see it. 

Yes, it was the private press and industry screening.  The producers are still banging out the details for its release and distribution. It may not have the reach of Deadpool that was seen in four thousand cinemas. They already have a distribution deal for Asia and Europe. I think they are just still working on the North American things.

It seems like that always happens. They can get distribution everywhere else, but North America always seems to take the longest.

It’s funny ’cause even like The Secret Millionaire, another movie I shot this year. It’s with Lighthouse Pictures. I don’t know if you saw the Tony Braxton biopic on Lifetime. Lighthouse produced that one as well along with a myriad of other films as well. When I was wrapping on Millionaire, I asked the director, Michael Scott, a really cool dude, and he said they would try to find out something in LA, and if he heard something, he’d let me know. And they are still trying to figure out about showing that one. I’m pumped to see that one.  The Perfect Pickup was a comedy, and I was playing the nerd–a very different role for me. And the movie is funny. Where with The Secret Millionaire, my characer is really funny. I am the comedy relief in it. My character Jared.  So I was quite nervous because if I ran flat, the movie would run flat. If your character is the only character that’s going to be funny in a film, there’s some real pressure. So I’m actually nervous to watch it, but I’m excited to see it. I tried to get my mannerisms for my character down perfectly. How would Jared play it? I had to tie into the lines and say it how Jared would say it. So I’m excited to see how Jared looks on TV ’cause we haven’t seen that yet.

It seems like you have done so many different roles. I don’t think any of your roles are alike. 

Yeah, I was saying that to someone recently. If we exclude the commercials, I have eighteen or nineteen acting credits to date, and I’ve really picked up like ten of those over the last year. So I’m happy. I’ve only been acting about four, four and a half years. A lot of my acting buddies who either have been doing it longer and/or they have more credits than me, you’ll look at their credits and see cop, cop number one, sergeant, security guard, and cool, you’ve got like thirty-two credits of almost the same role. That was one thing, as I look at the body of work, I’m enjoying the fact that they’re so different than one another.

From Simeon, who was given a profession even if he was only a husband. You see me play the nerd in The Perfect Pickup. You see me play the Southern soul food chef in The Bridge 1 and 2. You see me play nondescript things like “The Kissing Couple” or various dancers in various roles. Cop in Almost Human. I guess that’s only two. I’ve done cop and like sergeant in The 100 and Almost Human. But those are the only duplicates. Recently I almost booked a role on The Magicians. on SyFy. And although I didn’t get it, whoever got that, good for you buddy. But that was going to be very different again. And I was really excited to maybe get that one for the sheer factor of how different it was. And with Romeo Section, it is the most different character I have ever played. And it’s so different that when you watch it, you might not even know it’s me. You might watch it and then think, “How come I didn’t see Jaime?”  And I’m only going to say to you this character….that’s me. It’s crazy. So I’m really pumped about that one too.

It’s great to see you booking such diverse roles, even though you haven’t been in the business long. I know lots of actors do book bit roles here and there–not to put those down–

Definitely!

Everyone has to pay their dues, and everyone gets into the business differently. When you’re first starting out, you might be willing to take just about anything. But I think it’s great that you have not been typecast. 

So am I. Being typecast is not for me. I feel like I would miss out on this thing we call acting. We’re doing it to entertain the viewer, but if we didn’t love the art of entertaining period, then we’re in the wrong business. So to do one thing forever…it’s much like why A-list actors and B-list actors will make their money in film and television, and then instead of taking those two or three months off, they’re in New York doing theater. Getting back to feeling the audience. Doing Hamlet and Shakespearean plays. Doing the classic works just to get back to the core of acting. I can’t imagine where I’d be if I only played one character all the time. Even when I watch certain comedic actors, and it’s publicly known that they’re always playing the same character ’cause that’s what they do well. Sometimes I wonder, “Do they wish they could break out of that? Do they wish they could do more, or are they very happy there?” But for me, that wouldn’t be enough. Not saying I need to play a ballerina one day and a murderer the next, but through my year, if I book six shows, I want at least two or three of them to feel different.

Not too long ago, a casting director wanted to see me for a role–a small to medium role, one episode, about two or three scenes–and my agent’s advice to me was to not take the role. And I was like, “Is that gonna make us look like a princess to turn it down?” And he’s like, “Oh, you turn things down every day, buddy.” And I say if I can’t trust my agent, who can I trust? And with some people, it comes to a point in their career where they don’t want to do really small roles any more.  When you start, you’re a novice. And now that you’re moving up to intermediate, you might only want to be tackling guest star or lead or maybe small recurring. Even like what Wayward Pines was. Small capacity. Recur over five episodes. At least you’re there regularly. You’re still getting to act.

Are there any other upcoming roles that you can mention?

Let’s see. We said Motive, Wayward, Secret Millionaire, Perfect Pickup, Romeo Section–I gotta send a shout out to Chris Haddock, the creator, executive producer, writer, director and showrunner of The Romeo Section–you don’t often see that altogether in one person. It’s crazy! You might see a writer that’s also a producer. In fact, that often happens. But this guy is legendary. I had never heard of him before I got the role on Romeo Section, but he created DaVinci’s Inquest. He’s been in the business forever. When I auditioned and then I got a callback the next day–which is more like a cast session. I went to the production office and came up the elevator, and he was like, “Jaime, I got your tapes. They look really good.” And then we sat down and talked for about twenty minutes about stuff. Some stuff with the character. Some stuff with the show. How he likes to run it. Then we did the reading, and after the reading, he was talking about this director that he knew before he ever directed actors–he was this renowned director from like the 70’s.  He asked him, “What’s the secret of writing and directing the actors?”  And the answer was, “Attitude.” He said, “I didn’t know if that meant how I write their attitude or if it was my attitude while I’m writing or if it’s the attitude of the actors, but I very quickly realized that if you can work with an actor–the actors you want to work with are the ones who can capture you. They’re listening to you.” And he said, “That attitude is the person I want to work with.” And he just sat there, and this man is like wisdom. The second I booked it, it was crazy. I was like the last person to learn of this Chris Haddock person. Everybody knows him. My first episode with Chris especially was such a delight working with him. David Frazee directed my very first episode. I had worked with him on an episode of Motive previously, so it was great to work with him again.

I did shoot a pilot called Imaginary Mary during pilot season. It got picked up, so it’s gonna be on ABC. We’re seeing the commercials on TV for it now. So I’m in the pilot for that show.

Are you considering ever writing something yourself?

A buddy of mine recently said, “Hey, I wanna do something with you,” and he pitched this idea. He’s a great actor, and he’s one of the more prominent acting coaches in the city as well.  I don’t want to do the same thing that’s been done so many times before. So I’m excited to start working on and conceptualizing that and creating something with him. But with me, I’m still more on the focus of acting right now. Producing is such a beast in of itself. I don’t want to be sitting there trying to find crew members and all that stuff. I’m not interested in the creation from that standpoint yet. To write a bit–yes. But I think the first thing that I write will be the character I want to play the most which is a character like me. I don’t know if that’s normal. Does every actor say that? Without sounding pompous, there are so many levels. I want the character to be me. How close he is to his mom. He’s an athlete, loves dance, loves Michael Jackson. How I write everything about this guy, I want him to be like me. He’s nice, but “I’m not giving you any money bro, but I’ll buy you something to eat.” I want to play this role, and I don’t see my getting a character that’s close to it from auditioning. So I think I’m gonna have to create it. If it could be like a biography or a biopic. We’re not doing a Jaime Callica film. Just a character like me. It could be me in a zombie apocalypse. I just want the character to be like me. Like when Will Smith did Fresh Prince of Bel Air, that was just Will saying the words out loud. But it was him. That’s what I want it to feel like. That will be a thing in the future. Not just yet. I still want to keep it focused on my acting. And keep getting better at my acting. And at some point I’ll get a lock on that ’cause I still have work to do. But I think that writing will be the next thing.

And you’re not alone in that. Most actors at some point want to start writing. They want to create a character that’s one they want to play, and it usually is like them.   And a lot of times, actors want to write so they can have more creative control over the content they want to create and not depend on others who might cut their lines or their parts out of the final work.  (pause) I wanted to tell you that what you posted on Facebook a few weeks back about saying that it’s okay to know what you’re strengths are and to talk about them was really cool. And then everyone who responded, you were having them respond back with–

–something that you love about yourself. It’s funny. Michael Jackson and Oprah and others have a ton of quotes that float around. And that’s gonna be mine. There’s a huge difference between being confident and cocky. And that’s not even what the discussion is. Loving the thing about yourself doesn’t make you cocky, conceited, doesn’t make you arrogant, doesn’t make you vain. It doesn’t make you any of the pejorative adjectives. You’re allowed to love yourself. You’re supposed to love yourself. You’re allowed to love that thing–whatever it is. You could have really pretty hands, so love your hands. You could be a great cook. You’re a champion plumber. You’re a dope actor. You’re a great writer. Whatever it is, love that and love it loudly because whoever created the word vain was an insecure person. And don’t let that person stifle your greatness. I’ve always erred on the side of what people might say about me. I’m not cocky if I say I’m the fastest runner on the track if I really am the fastest runner on the track. No, I’m telling you a fact. You just don’t want to hear it. Now, yes, you have to be tactful. You don’t want to go around saying, “I’m the fastest runner on the track,” in the wrong situations or to the wrong people. If you love that thing about you, love that thing loudly. I remember in a moment–I don’t even know why–I was just sitting there and I wrote that. I didn’t have to change a single word. I literally wrote it in like one sitting. And that’ll be my thing.

That and some people ask me sometimes what I would tell a young actor. And the other thing sounds kind of negative, but it’s really intended to help them make a decision. If you love anything else like you love acting, do that instead of acting. If you love doing hair and acting, do hair. If you’re a nurse as well as an actor, be a nurse. Acting is not a game where you can split your love. You’ve gotta love it one hundred percent. If you allow cracks in your glass, that crack is gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger with every audition that you don’t book. Every single time you’re on hold or pinned (the role is between you and one or two others) and you don’t get it, you wanna die. And it’s dumb because there’ll always be more.

For example, I almost booked The Magicians, and I was the only person they brought in for this session–I didn’t know it till later. So now it’s hard ’cause if you don’t book that, it’s gonna mean that you sucked. I mean, you can’t book it when they brought nobody else in? That’s the casting director having a huge amount of faith in you to bring you in alone. And then I got put on hold, but I got an email the next day telling me they decided to go another route. Which told me they must have also had a session in LA, and somebody in LA booked it. Which is okay, but you get that close. And that’s happened to me about three other times this year. And even if I’m having an epic year, it ruined my two or three days. I was sad for like two days. Even knowing I was about to jump on a plane and go to Toronto, knowing I was gonna come back from Toronto and go on The Romeo Section. You gotta be so strong. Your soul has to be, “I so love this thing.”  Or you can’t do it. It sounds really harsh. If you love anything else, do that. So between that and my new “Whatever it is you love about yourself…” Those two things are gonna be my two quotes.

I had this audition the other day. It went really, really well. I did it exactly as I wanted to do it. The plan for that evening was to watch my Bachelerotte addiction. And then I was gonna hang out with friends. We were gonna watch a movie. And I was gonna go to bed whenever I felt like it and sleep late the next morning. And lo and behold, within an hour of walking through my door, what did I get? The audition material for the next day! And in an instant, it was like, “Okay, I was gonna relax. I was gonna work out. All that’s gone. I gotta start learning my lines. ” But at that point, I couldn’t bail on my friends who were coming to hang out ’cause they were on their way. Luckily, it was only like four pages so I could hang for a few hours and still learn the lines. But then I went right back to doing it before bed. Woke up, ran the lines, and went off to the audition. Even when you think you’re gonna have a couple of hours to yourself, in an instant that could be gone.

Sometimes, I have to be reminded why I do this. I might get grumpy and down, but my mom is usually the one to remind me, “You chose this! I wasn’t the mean mom who made you do this. You chose it for yourself.” And I know that, but sometimes I just have to hear it.

Well, you’ve got a good support system. Of course you have your mom.

Yeah, I’ve got my mom, and I’m already good with that. Anyone else I have is just extra icing upon the icing upon the icing. It’s nice to have that love around, you know?

Recently on Facebook, I said: You know, I work really, really hard to make my mom and my friends proud. But this whole entertainment thing is cool. If you can turn on your TV every week and see your friend or your acquaintance or a colleague on TV–I mean that’s one in seven billion people on the planet doing that. That’s cool. When my friends and family are proud, it motivates me to work harder. Getting those calls, tweets, Facebook posts or whatever motivates me to do ten more pushups. I’m about to be in the best shape of my life right now. I was looking at an old picture and I was skinny but not defined. And you know it’s easy to look one way when you’re skinny. Fast-forward ten years and I’m about to be in the best shape. You guys are literally making me better. I crave a Krispy Kreme doughnut, but then I say an extra prayer or read one of the posts. Not to say if I didn’t have this positive support that I wouldn’t be succeeding. I’d find it within myself. But knowing that it’s there and if I post something someone will say, “Dude you’re killin’ it.” “You’re makin’ us proud in Toronto.” “You’re makin’ us proud in Vancouver.” “You’re makin’ us proud in Trinidad.” I got some people who are proud of me so I got to set this doughnut down and go do some pushups.

It’s so cool to talk to you now. I was so impressed with you last time, but you have grown since I last talked to you.

Thank you.

Jaime Callica Credit: Copyright 2015 Crown Media United States, LLC/Photographer: Duane Prentice

You’re still a delight to talk to.

We gotta put in the calendar every six months we do this.

Right, right! 

I will keep booking the work, and I will give you material to write. And by the way, for our Hallmark fans, they were in serious talks not too long ago about adapting The Bridge into a TV show. If that happens, that would be fantastic. I would love to play Luther. I’d be a series regular.  I can go and play as that character with that amazing cast. Faith {Ford} is one of the people I met a year ago or so, and she’s already in my top fifteen humans. She is great. Being in scenes with her and Ted {McGinley}, they are such pros. They’re not little divas. The work has to get done. The details have to get done. You can tell that they’re seasoned from a different school, from a different day. I don’t call them old. They didn’t get  into this to be famous. They didn’t even have Twitter, and we were like–you’ve got to get twitter. So I love those guys.

While it is completely true that I fiercely follow and support a number of people in the industry, Jaime is one of those special people with whom I just feel at home and connected. He is so easy to talk to, incredibly genuine, and markedly humble. But then the talent he displays on a regular basis is rather mind-blowing. I would call Jaime an actor of “A-list talent with Z-list humility.” In other words, Jaime has the kind of abilities that will one day, probably land him in the big leagues of Hollywood–yes, he is of that caliber, and if you don’t believe me, watch his work. But he always puts others first. He accepts compliments with gratitude and often deflects those self-same compliments towards the other person. He is fully cognizant of the capabilities with which God has gifted him, but he continues to be a good steward of those outstanding gifts. I am reminded of an ancient parable in which the master has entrusted talents to his three servants, and when he comes back from his long trip, he checks in with those three servants to see how diligently they have managed those talents. Sadly, it is the third servant who foolishly has buried that talent he was given, but the other two have doubled what was allotted to them. Interestingly enough, the master seizes the talent from that simple-minded servant and bequeaths it to the one who possesses more talents than any other. Why? Because the master knows that he can trust that servant with an extensive amount of talents. And you know something? That’s Jaime. He is that one who never ceases to be grateful for what he has been endowed, and for that reason, he lives that old proverb that says, “To whom much is given, much is required.” Incessantly, Jaime will go the extra mile, no matter the blood, sweat, and tears he has to invest. Jaime never wastes time, and I am so exhilarated to see what the future is going to be like for this exceptional young man. Be sure that you watch him tonight in Canada as the series finale of Motive airs on CTV (it should air within a few weeks here in the U.S. so watch for the updates). Let’s anticipate together all the various roles that are upcoming for him. Furthermore, I implore you to follow Jaime at all the links below because you will be hard pressed to find anyone with the profundity of talent, the intensity of kindness, and the magnitude of appreciation as this tremendous human being!

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