by “Aussie Dave” Lobato, Tanya Lobato and Jayden Leggett, Reporters

Mitch Pileggi. Anyone familiar with The X-Files, Sons Of Anarchy, Stargate Atlantis or Supernatural should be familiar with this name. In preparation for Melbourne’s Oz Comic-Con held on June 30 and July 1, ComicsOnline’s Jayden Leggett, “Aussie Dave” and Tanya Lobato were blessed with the opportunity to have an interview with Mitch, who just so happens to be a really friendly guy.

ComicsOnline: With regards to Darby in Sons of Anarchy, what is it like having to play a hardcore racist?

Mitch Pileggi: It was very difficult at first. The first season especially was a little tough because of some of the language that I had to use. It was a little uncomfortable, you know? They kind of lightened up on it for the second season. It was a little scary, because you don’t know how the character is going to be perceived and sometimes people have a hard time defining that line between acting and reality, you know what I’m saying?

That distinction between people being able to differentiate between your character and you personally was going to be our next question.

Yeah well it all worked out, there were never any problems but it was hard doing interviews about it because I was kind of weary about what I should say, you offend one group of people or you’re going to offend the other group of people, you know? So it was interesting. I haven’t done it for a couple of seasons though, I think I did the first three or four and then I haven’t been back because my schedule hasn’t allowed me to.

With your character in Sons of Anarchy and going back to Skinner in The X-Files (at least in the earlier X-Files episodes) you seem to play these rather shady characters with ulterior motives, with you becoming a good guy in X-Files but in Sons of Anarchy you are very much somebody who the audience is always wondering exactly what your motives are. How do you go about playing these roles?

Well just with any character I play I just try to bring as much reality as I possibly can, and bring it from my life experience. I have had quite a bit of experience in my life… but I just try to bring as much reality to what I’m doing as I possibly can and I try to watch and research behaviours and what’s going on (especially with Darby) with that type of lifestyle. I think Darby was pretty much playing at being a skinhead, playing at being a racist, playing at being a Neo-Nazi, but I don’t think his heart was in it.

That’s how we felt about his character, he was just a really well-played character . He’d make you hate him and then question him, it was really good!

Well thank you, I appreciate that. A lot of times I didn’t know where they were going with the character and because there are so many cast members on that show that they have to service, and Darby wasn’t one of the principle characters that they really had to focus on, sometimes the story lines were just kind of… I didn’t really know what was happening, I just had to play it as best as I could. And a lot of times they didn’t know if I was going to be available to work on the show because I wasn’t committed to them because I wasn’t a series regular and I was doing a lot of other stuff, so they didn’t know a lot of the times I was going to be available, so that probably played into how they wrote the character and how much they wrote for the character.

We think it works in your favour because whenever you’re not on the screen the audience are sort of left thinking “What is he up to now, how is he going to screw with the Sons of Anarchy next?”, which leaves it very open for you to come back in whenever you want.

Yeah well at some point, I’m not sure, but I don’t know if they’ve killed him or not. I don’t know if there’s been any reference to him being knocked off.

Yes it definitely seems very deliberately left open.

I think so, at some point maybe they’ll find a purpose for him to come back. Did you ever watch (this is kind of an obscure reference) but did you ever watch Leave It To Beaver? It’s a really old show, and one of the characters on it, Eddie Haskell, he was like this punk who’s always just causing trouble and I always felt that Darby was kind of like this Eddie Haskell character, just kind of being a jerk and just trying to cause trouble, you know? And one of the last episodes I did with the older gentleman at the bar, where you can kind of tell he’s reminiscing of how he used to train him at one point when he was younger, and the guy was Jewish, and now Darby’s walking around with swastika’s all over his body, and so there was a point where I was doing one of these scenes and I thought “You know what, I think probably his heart really isn’t in this”. And there was this one episode with Rollins where he says something about “You don’t deserve to wear that swastika” and it was almost like a play thing for him, like “Yeah I’m gonna be a tough guy so I’m gonna get a swastika”. The way I looked at Darby was he was kind of a loser who was maybe trying to find a place for himself”. But I had a good time working with it and the guys with the show were all great, and I wish I had been cast as one of the Sons of Anarchy members. Just so I would get to ride a motorcycle and nothing else!

Well it’s a fantastically played character and it’s definitely an addictive show to watch.

It’s a really good show, the writing is great and the acting… Katey Sagal is just phenomenal, she blows me away. They’re all really good.

What is your favourite genre, you’ve obviously played a whole range of characters but which genre do you enjoy to do the most?

I’ve done so much sci-fi stuff, that seems to be the backbone of my career, and I enjoy it because I’ve always been a huge fan of sci-fi and I’ve always been a huge fan of fantasy, so for me it’s fun to be able to play that stuff. So for me it would probably be sci-fi, I really enjoy it. It’s been fun.

Have you had much time to familiarise yourself with Melbourne yet?

I just walked around a little bit, and I’m still a little bit jet lagged so I took a nap, but I haven’t been able to see a lot of it yet. I just ran into Jason Momoa and some of those guys are going out so I was like “Maybe I’ll join you guys later if I can find you”. That’s the trick. It’s great because I’m getting to run into a lot of people that I worked with that I haven’t seen for a long time like Jason and Corin Nemec, so it’s pretty cool. And then I get to go to London after this so I’ll be doing that one with, I think Gilian’s doing it, and Nicholas Lea is going to be there, so there will be a lot of people there that I’ve worked with on different stuff too so it’s kind of cool.

Would you consider yourself a regular of the convention scene?

I haven’t been for a long time, I did one in London in October last year and then I’ve done one in London two years before that, so this is probably the third one I have done in the last 20 years. When I was doing The X-Files I did a lot of them for the first couple of years, then I didn’t do them for a long time but now it’s kind of tugging at me to get back out and talk to the fans. You know, the one that I did in London I really enjoyed so I’m glad that I’m getting back out and doing them.

Hopefully we put on a good show for you!

I think it’s going to be great, I’m really looking forward to it, it’s going to be a good group of people, so it’s going to be fun.

You sound very busy, are you able to let us know about some of the current work that you are involved with at the moment?

Right now I’ve done the first season of Dallas, they’ve brought the old series of Dallas back, so I recurred on Dallas for the first season and if it goes on to a second season, which it’s been doing really well in the ratings, they’ve asked me to join the cast as a series regular so if it goes onto another season I’ll be moving down to Dallas and doing that, which for me is a lot of fun because I came out to L.A from Texas and one of the first jobs that I ever had as an actor was working as an extra on Dallas thirty years ago, so it’s pretty much come full circle. I’m working with Linda Gray as Sue Ellen and Patrick Duffy as Bobby Ewing, and I haven’t worked with Larry Hagman yet but I’m looking forward to that so it’s pretty exciting. And they’ve given me a great character to play, he’s a bad guy, surprised?

Shocking! You should take it as a compliment because you do it so well.

Well I enjoy it and I got away from playing the bad guys for a long time and I played Skinner, and I mean he was a tough guy and he was a hard ass but he was on the right side of things. So it’s a lot of fun to be able to go back and get it out of my system, I can be a nice guy when I get home, where my wife appreciates it!

You’ve done a bit of voice acting for shows like The Batman, is that right?

It’s been about four or five years since I played Commissioner Gordon, that was a lot of fun and boy what a great job, just standing in front of a microphone. You don’t have to shave, it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, and plus they were bringing in a lot of wonderful actors that I’ve been watching for years and years to work on the show. So I was getting to stand in the same room with some of these people and do this role, and Adam West was there, it was a lot of fun!

Would you jump at the chance to participate in any more voice acting roles?

I would in a second, it’s so easy! Like I said, it’s so much fun and if I had the opportunity I’d do it it in a second. I want to do the voices that people don’t recognise, I want to do the crazy voices.

Thanks for talking with us Mitch its been great.

Thank you.

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