Dead Boy Detectives actor Michael Beach admitted that being a part of the upcoming Netflix series "scared him."
The show follows two teen ghosts, Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine, who choose not to enter the Afterlife. Instead, they stuck around on Earth where they help to solve supernatural crimes.
Sometimes, that includes getting help from Michael Beach’s Tragic Mick, a walrus stuck in a human body who runs a magic shop.
Michael Beach on Playing Tragic Mick in Dead Boy Detectives
In an exclusive interview with The Direct’s Russ Milheim, Dead Boy Detective star Michael Beach, who plays Tdon in the series, talked about what drew him to the show in the first place.
The actor admitted the show was "completely different from what [he] usually [does]" which was "something that scared [him]:"
"Well, for me, what was very interesting about it is that it's something completely different from what I usually do. So, it was something that scared me but excited me at the same time. And I think when you can be excited about something as an actor and particularly scared about it, I think it's something that we should jump into, you know, sometimes you get a little too comfortable. And so I like to be a little uncomfortable sometimes. And that the 'Dead Boy Detectives', definitely not my wheelhouse."
Beach’s character is known as Tragic Mick, someone who is actually a walrus stuck in a human body. But how does one even approach a role such as that?
"I started looking at videos of walruses on the beach," the actor explained, which "really helped:"
"It's funny because I don't normally do that much research. But for this, I said, Well, let me start with the physical. So I went on YouTube and started looking at videos of walruses on the beach, you know, on docks and stuff like that. Their movement and their voice... and believe it or not, it really helped me get into the area that I thought would be good to play a man who used to be a walrus."
As for how often fans will see him in the series, Beach teased how he "pop[s] up throughout:"
"I pop up throughout. Yeah, I mean, not a ton, but whenever the Dead Boys need mystical help with potions and stuff like that, they come to my shop to get that stuff because Mick has taken about 200 years looking for sources and ways in which they could help him get back to becoming a walrus so that he could return to the sea which is where he wants to be. And so his shop is full of trinkets and spells and potions. And so whenever anyone needs something like that, they visit me, Tragic Mick."
He then pivoted to the look of his character, which he called "pretty fantastic," also pointing out how it was "part of the physicalness that helped [him]:"
"I did have a little makeup help, which was interesting. His look is pretty fantastic when we came up with it or they came up with it. And I was like, 'Yeah!' And again, that was a part of the physicalness that helped me find out who this guy was."
When asked what part of his time on the show was the most memorable, he noted "hanging out with the kids," aka the leading cast, was at the top of the list.
"For me, it was really hanging out with the kids... Well, to me, they're kids; they're younger than my children, but the leads, you know, George [Rexstrew] and Jaden [Revri], particularly Yuyu [Kitamura], and it was a lot of fun to be around that kind of energy and around these young actors who are really just starting their careers, and to remember what that was like, and that feeling, and to be able to start to experience that with them. That was a lot of fun. "
Beach continued, explaining how he recalls spending as much time on set as he could in order to socialize with other cast and crew:
"Because we spent a lot of time talking, waiting for setups, and stuff like that, we kind of hung out in the same area. So I really appreciated that because a lot of times you just go back to your trailer, and you wait, and you hang out. And I prefer being on set and getting involved in some conversation. And so I got to know them in a way that I wouldn't have if I had been in my trailer."
But would the actor be up for more Dead Boy Detective if the series got more episodes? "Oh, absolutely," Beach declared:
"Oh absolutely. Definitely. I had a ball. I was frightened, but I had a ball."
The full interview can be seen below:
Dead Boy Detectives hits Netflix on April 25.
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